The club was filled nearly to the brim, as it often β maybe always β was on such rare evenings. The event had been advertised in the usual manner: private invitations sent discreetly to the residences of those club members for whom the event would hold a particular interest, and more general advertisements placed for weeks prior in the entrance way as well as in appropriate niche publications. On most nights, Infernal was only a typical dance/night club catering to those whose tastes fell in line with the gothic, the industrial, or simply the more alternative. Music would pump from the wall-and-ceiling embedded speakers; the floor would throb with the beat of subwoofers; and the crowd would become a writhing mass of dancing bodies.
On such special nights, the music was kept lower and the dance floor filled with seating for a crowd instructed to be quiet. Silence was hardly expected; respect for the event and its organizers, however, was demanded. A dress code was even put in place on such nights, requiring every patron to be appropriately attired in something more formal β again, in order to better respect the event's organizers, and more specifically its performers. After all, why else would the dance floor be made into seating and why else would a stage be erected save for a performance?
Though the club's lighting remained dim and atmospheric, the stage was at all times visible and well-lit. This night, it had been prepared a centerpiece which was at once tantalizing with its potential uses and nonetheless simple in design: a frame, forming an X and padded with polished leather, set upon a platform which would allow it to rotate between upright and horizontal. Even an hour before the show was to begin, the crowd already murmured with questions as to the frame's use, and both predictions and suspicions as to the answers to those questions. Who would be placed upon it? Who would do the placing? Would this night be made particularly special by Her appearance?
Ten minutes prior to the performance, some answers were provided. A girl familiar to those for whom Infernal was a regular haunt made her way to the stage and faced the crowd, many of whom could only just restrain themselves from gawking β as had been expected. Even in Infernal, after all, it was not every night the crowd would be presented with the familiar gothling β a title she had given herself β clad not in satin or silk, but in latex. The outfit was both a mockery of innocence and a paean to sin, with the shining black of the latex poured over the gothling's frame and left clinging with the jealous possessiveness of a particularly demanding lover. It all began with six inch heels and inch high platforms; fishnet stockings; and a skirt which from the front was a smooth panel ending at mid-thigh (and from behind, was nearly nonexistent save for the straps holding in place at the backs of her thighs, leaving her heart-shaped ass bare). Above that, the mockery was more apparent in its summation of a Catholic schoolgirl's uniform made slutty. Her makeup and hair served only to further the mockery, with the pink-bubblegum of shining lips and dark shadowing as well as her black hair held in pigtails.
It was not until the din of questions and suspicions died down entirely that the girl spoke, and though her voice was girlish and her speech prone to somehow mix London and the ever-questioning lilt of a valley girl, she commanded attention readily. "You have like, ten minutes. Tonight's performers will be out soon or whatever, but you're all probably wondering who they are." The bubblegum-pink of her mouth took a bemused smirk as the crowd nodded and murmured in the affirmative. "Well, you're probably in for a treat or something."
Of course, she knew who the performers were. She knew the answers to all those questions still running through the crowd. Still, she held the answers at bay for a long moment, until the crowd began again to grow restless for answers. Longer still, until at last one of the patrons nearest the stage played his part and made a demand, exasperation filling his voice: "Oh, just tell us, Susi."
Her name given, Susi β the gothling, the schoolgirl, the slut β grinned.
"Lilith. And a guest."