OOM: Concert, part 2

[electro_kinetic]

The stage itself is backed by a huge screen, big enough to nearly be an IMAX presentation, and the orchestra is in front, chairs empty. They're fashionably close to the starting time, because Noriko hates being late, and she didn't want to be too early: tucking her free hand in her coat pocket she walks with Hannibal, trying to keep her heels from clicking too loudly on the floor.

The seats printed on both tickets are quite good, being the center of the closest balcony, where the sound will blend and amplify without too much distortion, and a clear view to both the screen and the plalyers, but before they see any of that, there's the lobby to get through.

"Wow," Nori says, looking up at the starburst lights. "This place is pretty huge."

Comments

[electro_kinetic]

"It's kinda hard for use to use a trough, yeah," she laughs. "But they don't go all the way to the floor or ceiling, nor are they soundproof. Why, have you never been in a ladies' room?"

She finds it hard to imagine he could be that curious about it.

[cook_the_rude]

"Of course not," Hannibal says. "My life never was exciting enough for me to need to."

[electro_kinetic]

"Maybe you should look onto one," she says. "It's not that exciting, but evidently it's titillating for some men. Though I'm not sure why."

[cook_the_rude]

"Not for me," Hannibal says. "I do know women have urethras, after all."

[electro_kinetic]

"I'm pretty sure that's not the part most men are thinking about when they're fantasizing about sex in bathrooms," Noriko says breezily. "Because that's usually where the line of thought goes."

[cook_the_rude]

"There are much more pleasant-smelling places for dalliances," Hannibal says.

[electro_kinetic]

"Oh, I agree with you," Noriko chuckles. "But in fantasy logic doesn't apply."

[cook_the_rude]

"I prefer to fantasise about other things," Hannibal says. "I may have put in too many catheters, during my internship and residency as a doctor."

[electro_kinetic]

"Huh," Noriko says. "So what do you fantasize about?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Define fantasise," Hannibal says.

He has found their row, and starts politely steering her through it.

[electro_kinetic]

"Oh, anything," she says over her shoulder as she walks down the aisle between the seats and the balcony rail. "I'll hear anything. But you were speaking of sexual fantasies."

[cook_the_rude]

"You want me to tell you what I imagine doing with Will Graham?" Hannibal says. "Here?"

[electro_kinetic]

"Well it's not going to shock me if you do," she laughs. "But I know you like women too, if you want to go the safer route."

[cook_the_rude]

"I wouldn't say it's really safer," Hannibal says, smiling.

[electro_kinetic]

"Can you think of anything else to talk about to kill time before the performance starts?" Noriko asks.

[cook_the_rude]

"Books," Hannibal says. "What did you read recently?"

[electro_kinetic]

"The Story of O," she teased, straight face turned towards him.

And then she grins. "I reread Jules Verne."

[cook_the_rude]

"Oh, all that optimism and belief in the possibilities of technology," Hannibal says. "Which one?"

[electro_kinetic]

"Around the World in Eighty Days," she says. The main guy always seemed....weird, though."

[cook_the_rude]

"That's on purpose," Hannibal says. "He's a stereotype of the British Eccentric as continental Europeans imagined them at the time."

[electro_kinetic]

"What, like they'd never gone over there to meet one? It's not like lions at the zoo, they're just people."

[cook_the_rude]

"Well, they knew the British people travelling on the continent, and found them very odd," Hannibal says.

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko shrugs. "The English are weird, but not quite that weird. I mean, it's a little out of the realm of imagination that some rich guy would fire his manservant for bringing him the wrong temperature water."

[cook_the_rude]

"Noriko, you sweet summer child," Hannibal says, "of course they would. If the water was icy cold, or scalding hot, a slave master of ancient Rome might have had the offending manservant flogged to death."

[electro_kinetic]

"Yeah, but it was like two degrees different," she replies. "I mean, that's just too picky, and this comes from someone who has to shave a lot more than half a face."

That white men--or English men in particular--think of themselves as the masters of ancient Rome is not a surprise at all, alas.