Spirited Away

Amongst the seedier venues of the entertainment district lies a pocket of more prestigious restaurants and bars, referred to by those 'in the loop', as Cabaret Alley. The small inconspicuous neighborhood is home to a number of hospitality businesses, some of which are the inheritors of very colorful histories and traditions. Cabaret Alley is home to such historic restaurants and bars such as 'The Flowerpot', 'The Stage Door', 'The Velvet Pearl', and 'One-Eyed Jacks',  the establishments offer most, if not all, of the delights and amusements one could wish for, including but not limited to, beautiful shows, drinking, and games of chance.

From the outside however the buildings of cabaret alley are the classiest and most discreet of all the entertainment sector, and the clientele it attracts are naturally wealthier and more established members of society. In particular, the operation known as One eyed Jacks tea house run by a Madame Snow White.

Inside a red velvet, plush room, lit by candlelight in front of a intricately carved vanity mirror, Ningyo applied her make-up. The make-up worn by the girls at One-eyed Jacks, was tediously heavy and layered and Ningyo had little experience applying it. She also had difficulty with the green dangling hairpin she was required to wear, but took her time to make sure it passed scuritiny. On the vanity mirror could be seen several small vials of perfumes, cosmetics, and hygiene products and in the reflection of the mirror a red luxury bed, with a soft overlapping, canopied lace dangling from top.

A girl in her twenties opened the sliding paper door and gracefully entered the room. She was dressed in a formal kimono and bore the resemblance of a famous movie star with her slender figure, she could be described as strikingly pretty. "Get away from my vanity you naughty little brat!" said the performer. "you little saburuko think you can get your paws into anything? Get out of here, go, go, get down to the tea room. A table of twelve guests just sat down!"

Ningyo bowed and exited submissively. Her discipline helped her to adopt quickly the refined mannerisms of the humble serving girl. Ningyo pulled up her dress as she descended downstairs onto the main gaming foyer. Having the advantage of a balcony view she was able to take a panoramic look at it's sophisticated opulence. The gaming room seemed designed for enchantment, around a dim perimeter little circular booths with cushions of fine quality, and wonderful draping lampshades, the tops of vinyl booth seating which were lined with thin green neon lights that seemed to glow. Against the walls were large mirrors, nearly reaching the ceiling and reflecting the shimmering subdued lights and large hanging chandeliers over a spinning roulette wheel. In the center was a main gambling table, where several maiko girls sat next to the presumably well connected gentlemen, engrossed in a dice game and their fluorescent colored drinks. A bar lay at the eastern side with a large old saloon-like back and lit hazily from beneath the countertop with an ecru glow. At the booths and tables people could be seen whispering in low tones.

Ningyo noticed that of the different kinds of men that had come into One Eyed Jacks tonight, most seemed to be older than forty and affiliated with some sort of profitable politic or business. Interestingly, in her short time working here, she had even once seen a Konoha Chuunin talking to a young girl in one of the booths who was celebrated for her skills in dancing.

Ningyo made her way into the kitchen picking up a large circular tray of drinks. A male bartender grabbed a ticket from an overhead rotating circular device. "Those are for table six" he said indifferently. Ningyo balanced the larger tray with two hands entering the gaming floor again. She knelt before a pair of gentleman at the table who seemed to be expressing their adoration to multiple giggling, white faced and deep-red lipped women.

"Ah, another angel has come with our drinks" said a man in a suit jacket and shirt with a gold chain around his wrist as he turned to Ningyo "This place is so full of angels, it must be heaven." Ningyo politely and quietly placed their drinks in front of them. "If it were heaven, then they wouldn't allow bawdy men like you" replied one of the girls putting her finger and thumb on the man's unshaven chin and shaking his head. Everyone at the table laughed and Ningyo quietly shuffled away.

On her way back through the kitchen she placed the tray on a rack and a few glasses in an industrial dishwasher. She heard a rap on a service entrance door and stepped outside. Outside in a small alley a lone teenager in black stood leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette. Stopping the service entrance door just barely open with a pebble Ningyo whispered to the figure "Tori, I see you're not wearing your headband." she looked up and around to check for others watching. The figure dragged on his cigarette idly, inhaling pregnantly before speaking. "don't use my name, or say other idle things." he said "You're going to have to earn your keep, and I'm going to keep what you earn." Ningyo frowned "What's wrong, police work doesn't pay enough?" the figure flicked his cigarette into an aluminum trashcan. "Were you listening when I was explaining to you the value of silence? Save the smart-talk and hand over your tips."

Ningyo did as she was told and reached into the folds of her dress giving Tori her earned ryo, he pocketed the money saying "If you spend your time growing up in places like this, you'll never get a nice Uchiha boyfriend, although you probably never would have anyway" before leaping off into the darkness.

Ningyo was informed that a new girl was funneled into One Eyed Jacks every month or so, and the building resembled more of a multi storied manor than a bar, with the upper storied rooms functioning as a sort of hotel. Before opening hours (at nighttime) Madame Snow would inspect a new girl who had been funneled into the tea house. Interview processes were thorough, the fresh candidate would have their measurements taken, be given a working name, and be schooled in the business and generally inspected, Girls travelled often from out of town, but as One-Eyed-Jacks built it's reputation and quality control and demand, often by employing only the talented and most attractive girls, not all aspirants were granted initiation.

Besides the rank and file demimonde of the playhouse, there were various other serving girls (the level at which Ningyo was presumed to be employed). These younger hopeful worked as hosts, at the gaming tables, concierge, servers, cocktail waitresses, and even maids. There was plenty of money even for the maids. Many of the serving girls doted upon their higher-ups, preening, applying cosmetics, braiding their hair and acting in general as their ladies-in-waiting. The honeycomb thus structured it's matriarchy.

Madame Snow (the Queen Bee) was middle aged, but her expertly and lightly applied blush had a glamourizing effect, and it could be seen that she was once very beautiful. She wore the most intricate kimono tied with a red bow and wore pearls about her neck and several rings on her fingers. She smoked from time to time out of an expensive cigarette holder.      

"When the customer enters," lectured Madame Snow to a new girl, as Ningyo took a rag and vinegar to the hardwood floor "He is to be greeted like a prince, and made to feel instantly welcome. He is to be intoxicated with the sense that he has entered a menagerie of caged birds." A short man with glasses and a vest wrapped a measuring tape around the new girl silently "Birds that sing out in the night do better here, than old hens that crow in the home." said Snow. The new girl, perhaps found in some department store, betrayed a look of confusion. "Ah, you have that fresh look my dear" remarked Snow "You should learn to savor it." She laughed, apparently to herself..

Ningyo played with her bucket and mop while she eavesdropping on the situation. The Madame became slightly more serious in her lecture. "When offered a 'gift', in an envelop, it is bad manners to open it in front of the customer. I don't know where you may worked before, but that is forbidden here. Here we use a white glove in dealing with everything." Madame Snow smiled, fingering some dust off of the top of an armoire "There are several elixirs that can be helpful, newt, lotus root, but you must learn to conserve your energy. In this regard you would do well take a page from the actresses." The new recruit still looked puzzled.

Madame Snow moved the girls undergarments aside and the girl gasped reactively. "Also, take my advice and do a little landscaping around the gate." she remarked whimsically as she exited the room.

Ningyo was stuck in a late shift at One-Eyed-Jacks tea house. Most of the customers had travelled upstairs to the hotel proper, but a group of heavy spenders had remained chuckling into the night and getting high on top shelf champagnes. Even the girls they were sitting with were beginning to get tired of their antics, but they kept reimbursing the staff with billfold after billfold, and spending extra gratuity without so much as a consideration. They were high-rollers and this sort of fun was cheap to them.

Unfortunately for Ningyo they were the only table left keeping her here past closing. She scrubbed the luminescent bar dutifully. A tired bartender, with a tan mustache and a sharp black vest with white collared shirt, looked at her sympathetically as he cleaned the inside of a crystal glass with a rag until it sparkled like a light filled diamond. Ningyo put her hand and elbow on the bar as she rapped the fingers of her extended arm in impatience. She stood back up, remembering the full faced, powder white, make-up she was required to wear while working here.

She went back into the kitchen where she placed a couple of empty trays into a large industrial restaurant-sized sink. A worker carried a box of supplies on a dolly. Two male employees, a sushi chef in an apron and a blackjack dealer in a black vest, were peering into a large oblong sports bag on top of the clean kitchen preparation counter.

"We got this much in shipment." said the sushi chef, "It's quality over quantity numnuts, we have to test the product to make sure it's up to snuff." the dealer explained. He flicked out a knife and cut into a plastic bag licking a small amount white powder off of the blade. "Bring it over here!" said the sushi chef as he took the knife from his partner's hand and placed a hit. His eyes rolled backwards in his skinny head as he tasted the substance. "Oh man, that's 100% pure rarified porcelain! We cut this up and we'll double our margin." explained the chef blissfully. "No, wiseguy," said the dealer "The type-a client that rolls through 'Jacks' ain't about to wind up hooked on some low-grade, watered down, vanilla extract, we do everything premium or we don't do it at all. We split the profits and pay our rent to Madame White."

NIngyo scurried out of the kitchen trying to go unnoticed. The floor manager was packing up as the big spenders finally began their victory lap, a long trek upstairs with their arms around the girls and their expensive bottles in their hands. Ningyo didn't know what she had just witnessed but she had an intuition that it could get her in trouble so she tried to banish it from her awareness.