IC contact for maskormenace

[devoutish]

You've reached Alfie Solomons. Leave your name and state your business.

Alfie can be reached via the imPort network, or via a home phone and answering machine. He does have a cell phone, but it's not publicly available.

Comments

[devoutish]

And you're a hair's breath from being irritating.

[That's said to Gwen, while he gives the dog a quick pat on the head.]

Picked a Russian name, I see.

[trouvaille]

( there's a bit of tongue-lolling. what a good human.

gwen keeps her finger to herself, but otherwise; undeterred. she mutters endearingly under her breath. )

He's half Russian. And half Hollywood. So Putin Onaritz.

[devoutish]

[Ew, dog saliva. Alfie pulls his hand away before he can get licked.]

I've got a dog at home. Lives in my warehouse.

[trouvaille]

I'd never had pets before. Or spent much time with animals, honestly, until Hasibe got Putin's dad, Huan.

( putin has an alarming amount of tongue, so it may be wise to stay out of immediate range of it. he seems content to amble alongside, in any case. )

A particular sort of dog?

[devoutish]

Smaller than this one. Blond. Mixed breed, I think.

[trouvaille]

( most dogs, in all fairness, are somewhat smaller than putin and huan. it's also fair that gwen has never spent significant time around dogs smaller than that, and knows them mostly from youtube clips that she's been sent by friends drunk and crying late at night.

(the correct time to be watching lots of clips of dogs being dogs.) )

Is he a working dog, or just - company? Or a he, even.

[devoutish]

Yeah, he's a he. He's more company than anything, I suppose. My assistant, my second-hand man - he loves him. He's supposed to be something of a guard dog, but I can't rightly say he'd attack a man for breaking in. Barking, maybe.

[trouvaille]

Putin's a fairly good one. And I get whistled at a lot less when I go running, now.

( yeah, imagine that, with this big baby off the leash and running beside her. )

[devoutish]

Whistled at by men?

[trouvaille]

Women don't usually shout at you in the street, in my experience.

( reflectively; )

In some parts of Manchester. Not the same things.

[devoutish]

Whistling can mean a lot of things. I know what it means in my London, but, well--

[She's from the future. Shit changes in the future.]

[trouvaille]

( she glances sideways at him. )

Yeah, I know what it means, too, ( bone-dry.

some things change; some don't. )

[devoutish]

Whistling to the dog, maybe.

[He gives a come-here whistle.]

[trouvaille]

( putin turns on the spot, like: yo???? my man??? what's up????

gwen, for her part: in her very best impression of east london, which is terrible, eyes comically widened; )

Oi, run that bum over this way -

Like I said. It happens much less with Putin.

[devoutish]

[Gwen, that accent.]

Goodness, are we that impolite to women in the future?

[trouvaille]

( an apology is owed, mostly to danny dyer, who might sometimes sound daft but not nearly as terrible as a posh girl from belgravia trying and violently failing to do his voice. )

But we can vote now, so it's fine, you just get a big boyfriend and he'll make sure everyone does feminism at you.

( social commentary with your girl, the local expert on everything she cares to have an opinion on, probably. )

[devoutish]

"Feminism". You're the second person to bring that up.

[And the first had been Axel Walker, so that had been terrible.]

[trouvaille]

( involuntarily: ) Oh, Jesus.

( that's the sound of someone NOT-IT-ing explaining feminism, for the record. but a moment later; )

It's a political thing, not like...there's no Feminist Party, although that's definitely what I'd call it if I invited a bunch of girls to my house and we planned a murder. It's equal rights for women and all of that. All those women that chained themselves to things about voting, so now in the modern age if I'm a tart in public I don't get Anna Karenina'd over it.

( well, good try. )

[devoutish]

Yeah. We've got that, yeah. But we call it suffrage, see. Different terms, same idea.

[trouvaille]

Yeah, no one calls themselves 'suffragettes' any more. And there's less handcuffing to things, more getting your tits out and saying it's a political act. Which, fine.

( she's thinking of FEMEN, probably. )

Not that it isn't important, or anything, but I'd be a terrible activist.

( mainly due to her incredible disinterest in the lives of people outside of her sphere of influence, frankly. gwen is a clever, observant young woman who can identify and discuss the things she sees, who has suffered the stigma of mental illness and knows what it is to be afraid to speak up; she is also spoiled, selfish, unempathetic and has been permitted a long and coddled adolescence.

mostly, the things she cares about find their way under her skin by impacting her in some way. and the things that don't-- )

I mean, I have no tits.

[devoutish]

[Alfie snorts, half amused and half disbelieving.]

And talking about this sort of thing to a stranger - that's part of it, too?

[trouvaille]

Well - yes, I suppose. I mean, someone could very well go, Gwen, that's inappropriate, please stop talking about your flat chest, everyone has eyes and they don't need to discuss it, but no one under the age of about a hundred and five--

( we'll call that one a slight exaggeration )

--is going to clutch their pearls that hard, I mean, in sort of general conversation. Now, say I went on the record and said it to a journalist, suddenly it's a think piece about how I'm what's wrong with women today, with their tits and their opinions and their inability to shut the fuck up about either.

[devoutish]

But it's not general conversation, is it.

[Or maybe it is in the future. See previous note about the future and weirdness.]

[trouvaille]

( her eyebrows rise, in illustration. )

Isn't it? We're two people having a conversation that's neither completely private nor especially intimate.

( granted, she wouldn't have wanted people overhearing some parts of it earlier, but - )

[devoutish]

Yes, and you're talking about--

[He gives a vague wave of his hand.]]

Fucking strange.