Ask? Nothing. Demand!

“I’m here for my apology!” No SP, because it wasn’t a question...

“Oh, I assumed you’d already apologized,” I said, with a mockingly confused look at Diamond, who assumed a similar expression and shared a glance with me as her hand touched my cloth-covered-cock under the table.

“Not to give one, to get one!” her voice started to rise again and so did I and her voice dropped back to its normal register, so I sat down again.

“From me? Whatever for.”

“You ruined my night!”

“How?” I asked, honestly confused.

“You laughed at me!”

“That was a favor,” I said.

“WHAT?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Sit down,” I ordered, waving at the seat opposite mine. “You too, Andre,” I wouldn’t usually have given him orders in front of outsiders, but I could phrase it as a request and make it more likely she’d obey and frankly, I was starting to think she had a thing for ‘daddies’ in the abstract rather than literal sense and that should help plant the fact that I was the patriarch of this household...which I guess was true.

They both sat, winning me another +3 SP (Chloe: +40). This girl was easy. Quite possible in more sense than one, though given the way she partied, I’d want to make sure she was tested before touching her.

“If you want to talk, let’s eat some of the delicious food Diamond prepared and discuss like civilized people,” I said, more to give another order than because I cared.

Chloe took a bite and sneered, but under my glare remained mostly polite as we ate a little bit, but her impatience exploded out of her, even as I got a +2 SP (Chloe: +42). Probably, it was so little because she obeyed for so little time. “What the fuck do you mean, you did me a favor? Don’t you know who my father is? No one—”

“Obviously, I know who your father is, we were literally talking when I laughed at you.”

“My father’s a very important man! You obviously don’t understand. No surprise. You’re just a security guard, I’ve gotten dozens like you fired!” That was an attempt to get under my skin and almost worked. I’d dealt with a few like her when I was working security between GCPD and Arkham. But not many, the places I was working were way too low grade for the rich, even when slumming. But everywhere had it’s hierarchy and we had our own local royalty who’d complained when their kids got caught shoplifting.

I hid my annoyance easily. “See, that’s a good example of what I’m talking about. There’s two ways to take your behavior. In one you’re a silly girl who doesn’t know what she’s talking about and that’s funny.”

“I AM NOT—”

I slammed my fist down on the table so hard every dish on the table jumped, as did everyone at the table. My hand was sore, but what most interested me was the uniform reactions that had received, all three of them looking at me with lust veiled with various emotions, fear on Andre’s face, amusement on Diamond’s, pride on Chloe’s.

“The second is that you are deliberately insulting me.”

“OMG, duh! No wonder you’re still a security guard, even though you’re like 30! It took you this long to figure it out?” Her voice was taking on mocking, loud tones.

I rose slowly. Her voice dropped back down to normal tones, but I leaned on the side of the table, looming over her. “What you fail to realize is that the appropriate response to insults is culturally dependent.”

“Of course I get that! I went to—”

I lowered a hand towards her face and she froze, but I only pressed a finger to her lips. “Shhh. Don’t speak,” I ordered. She shut up, trembling against my finger and breathing quickly. +5 SP (Chloe: +47).

“For your...class of people, the appropriate response is to either ignore it, or make a witty rejoinder. For mine, the appropriate response is physical. A child only gets laughed at, but a man gets punched and a woman...well, either her male defender gets punched, or she gets bent over and...disciplined.”

That was bullshit. Most of it, but especially that last part. Folks split between, ‘hit them just like a man’ and ‘laugh just like a child’ and also, of course everyone knew how to fucking code switch, those who couldn’t ended up in jail. And even more, that wasn’t my culture at all. It was one I’d grown up around and knew, but it wasn’t mine. But it got her panting slightly as she quivered under my touch.

“There was no one there who could have stopped me,” that was a straight up lie, even putting aside the Kanes, I might back myself against any individual person there (if not the guards/drivers who weren’t allowed into the party, but outnumbered a hundred to one, that wouldn’t have mattered. Though maybe Intimidating Presence would have balanced the scales? But she didn’t know about that and so shouldn’t have believed it.

But standing her in Diamond’s dining room, at their table as neither intervened as I stood over the arrogant teenage bitch and dominated her with a single finger, it was perhaps less unbelievable than it should have been. “Now, say thank you,” I whispered.