Dance Party

[Armande]

Armande purposely did not follow the play of her hands. He had sized her up and knew she was a voluptuous beauty, ample of what drew the eye. He did appreciate the female form, after all. And while the eye was nothing to ignore, it was never his master.

It wasn't that he wasn't attracted to her. It was that he would never be a slave to his attraction. Going home alone, even after the company of somebody he deemed beautiful, was never a failure. As he viewed it, one night stands were merely masturbation using another person. There was no difference. His ego needed no such boosting.

So his hook was cast and now he wondered if she was interesting. He thought she might be. That much was obvious.

He pursed his full lips in thought, another sip to burn down his throat. To be sure, he felt a warmth and feeling of relaxation suffuse him. The drink would sit for a while, now, untouched.

"Fascinating. I have heard that New Orleans is almost its own...country. At least distinct. I should like to hear of its differences from the more vulgur image of the United States." That last was accompanied with a flash of a smile at Nik. He always like to tease that Armande was a snob. In truth, he wasn't.  But he did appreciate culture. And restraint. The latter was not always present in that country. Not that he held that against any expatriots of that land.

To answer her question, though, "I am a professor of archeology on loan from Padua. I specialize in Proto Indo European culture and there appear to be a a number of artifacts that indicate they arrived to the Russian steppe far earlier than expected. If so, that could turn our understanding and timetable on its head."

He knew what he said was mostly gibberish to people. And it wasn't his litmus test. Not the facts, anyway. No. It was the intellectual curiosity.

If a person genuinely asked what he was talking about, even if they ultimately didn't care, he already knew they were someone worth knowing.

He liked people who were interested in things he'd never heard of. And those were people who at least tried to know what he liked.