Haunted: A Con Job (F for M - characters)

Started by Eva, July 13, 2018, 11:39:28 PM

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Eva

Frankie stood outside the rusty gate of the antebellum mansion and grinned. Peering through the lowering twilight towards the columns with their peeling paint she noted the weeds that peeked up through the cobbles of the driveway. She smiled to see the way the Cyprus trees had been neglected enough that a car would have a hard time making it down the length of the driveway without bumping the leaves and some of the larger branches. The windows on the front of the house were dark and mostly intact. They caught small bits of the sunset and reflecting it back, turning the red and gold of the sky into something downright malevolent. The Spanish moss that hung from branches, and even one of the derelict balconies, might have been carefully placed for effect. It was perfect, the place was perfect. She was certain she’d hardly have to do a thing to make this work.

In the face of such a great set she felt her exhaustion melting away as excitement and professional confidence took its place. She’d been traveling for the last two days, from bus to bus, uprooted from her temporary home in Chicago by the inquiry at her website that had just been too good to pass up. The timing was perfect, she’d just about worn out her welcome in Chicago, so this call was doubly a blessing. Work and an excuse to flee. She had never been shy about either.

The story laid out in the email had been one that she’d heard over over and over in many iterations that she could marked the story beats of it in her sleep. This one involved a recent inheritance and a family legend of a ghost.  She encouraged the clients to fly to Chicago to meet with her as a way to test their resolve and their funds. Once they were there and had proved they were worth her effort it was an easy enough thing to impress them with her “Gift”. Her “Gift” was the fancy way of saying she had an instinct for reading people and no small talent in telling them what they wanted to hear. It was a skill she’d been honing since she was a young girl whose bi-racial existence had offended the grandfather whose house she’d been ditched in when she was five. She’d never seen her mother again, but that was no small loss. She’d lived through it and didn’t often look back. It made her tough, that was something.

The Braxton’s were impressed by her performance, which made sense as she’d certainly pulled no stops. The Braxton’s blood was so blue the Mrs. looked frozen. They left her office (rent was seriously overdue) certain that she was the one they needed to fix their inconvenient, yet titillating, problem. Fortunately for her the couple had enough money to fly in an expert to deal with it. That the “expert” was an exotic looking woman who played up on her mixed blood and her Voodoo heritage only added to her appeal. Never mind that she had been born in Boston. Never mind that she’d been raised by Irish Catholics and knew nothing of her father’s people. She told them what they wanted to hear and put on the show they expected. They ate it up and hired her on the spot. Even better, they gave her a retainer and funds to fly down in a week later. Ever sensible, Frankie pocketed the funds and taken the bus.

Waiting outside the gate, she looked at her watch and then resumed scratching idly at a bug bite. Her clients were late and she was not pleased. She wanted to get to work and get out of the increasingly buggy evening air.  There was a chorus of insects wailing and the sound was unearthly. Were she staging this moment she’d have said the soundtrack needed to be dialed back a bit. She would have to be careful setting up the scene when she got the time.  Frankie was certain that while she worked the Braxton’s would trot by with their friends so they could see the spectacle of a Ghost-hunter at work. They needed to get their money’s worth, after all.  That was fine, she thought, more contacts for future work, at least until she had to flee and change her name-again.

The sound of tires turning onto the asphalt behind her made her turn and hold up her hand to blot the light. Bright headlights caught her, putting her on display for the couple behind the wheel. She’d carefully chosen her suit which was second-hand yet high-end jacket and skirt combo in a pale lavender that made her large grey eyes seem luminous when they weren’t being burned by too bright headlights. She’d pulled her kinky dark red hair back into a generous bun which showed off her high cheek bones and wide mouth to perfection. She looked exotic but respectable with a careful application of makeup to add the polish such people expected. Sometimes she had to play the gypsy wanderer, but with these two, respectability with a hint of strange was what they wanted and she was more than happy to deliver.

The car slowed and pulled up just past her so that the rear window could roll down with a hum. Mr. Braxton smiled at her from the cool recesses of the car.  He was a red faced man with thin straw-colored hair and watery blue eyes.  He held himself like he was imposing though she rather thought his chin was too weak to ever allow him to be truly imposing. Still, she played along.  She nodded her head deference though she kept her eyes wide and distant as if she was hearing something they were not. It was the little details that set her above the rest.

“Sorry we are late,” he said in his surprisingly pleasant bass drawl. “Traffic was terrible. Have you been waiting long?”

She was silent a long moment, just long enough to begin to be uncomfortable but not long enough to be rude.

“No,” she said softly as if she didn’t want to disturb something. “Not long at all. Just enough to get a sense of things.”

She looked back to the house as if seeing something, but really she was simply appreciating the set-up that was a gift from the heavens. This was going to be a cake-walk!

“Oh good.” Mr. Braxton said and then barked a laugh.

“So there is something…” spoke the frigid looking Mrs. Braxton who leaned past her husband to look towards Frankie.

Frankie turned from the house and gestured towards her luggage, “Shall we?” she said with firmness to her voice.

In a moment the Driver stowed her luggage in the trunk and she was sitting across from the couple. She kept her eyes distant and wide.  She ignored the way Mr. Braxton’s eyes kept slipping to her legs or the way Mrs. Braxton did her best to not see it either. The gate creaked appallingly when the driver pushed it open.  The sound was a wail that cut through the night. Certain of her success, she eased back into the leather seat and began to count all the things she’d do with the money this grift would bring her.  The tires rolled along the uneven cobbles, crushing the weeds that dared to grow where they were not wanted, the vehicle’s progressed watched by the empty malevolent eyes of the house.




Thank you for the time you took to read through my story-start and get to this point.  Usually when I go looking for a new story my priority is really to find a new partner and the story is secondary to that.  However, every once in a while I get a craving for one of the stories that haunt me (see what I did there?). This time I am after both, a story seed and a partner I can write glorious things with.

The basic premise is that a Con-artist bilks people out of money by "banishing" ghosts from haunted houses, contacting the dead, etc. Things change for her when she finds herself in an actual haunted house and is confronted by an angry ghost.  That's where your character will come in. You'll play the ghost who is suddenly confronted by a human who can see him and even interact with him.  What happens after is something we'll come up with together.  I imagine there will be sparks (lord I'm hoping for sparks!) especially if your ghost is from centuries past and is befuddled by the modern world and the modern woman before him who is shamelessly bilking his descendants. My plan is that she will convince him to go into business with her, traveling with her to add authenticity to her cons.  We have potential here for episodic sorts of missions with a variety of supernatural issues.  We could also have fun with more mundane trouble.  In the past iteration of this story we even had a bit of plot centering around breaking the curse that kept him bound to this plane. 

None of what is written above is set in stone. Not even the story start.  It is there as an example of how we could start.  We can adjust and adapt as we plan things out, I was merely going for a touch of ambiance. A change in setting is more than fine. I want you, future partner, to be an equal part of this.  This is not my story that you get to hold a place in, this will be OUR story. It can be humorous or as dark as we want it to be. It can be sexy and tension filled, and hopefully it can be romantic (I am a sucker for romance). Did I mention sparks?  Not just sexual sparks, though those are lovely, but conflicting personalities and sensibilities as well. They will be from different times, after all. Differing views of life and morality and all the conflict that can bring to the table.

So what I am looking for, besides what is listed in my ON/Offs (which you will hopefully have read as soon as you see the handy link I provided) is someone who sees the potential in this story start and who will bring their own ideas and plot movement to the story.  Below is a bit of text stolen from my ON/OFF that highlights what I am after.

Things I need in a Partner and things I will in turn provide.
•   A partner who can move the scene and plot and bring plenty of ideas to the table.
•   A partner who will pick up on my in-text cues and honor my story contributions and will leave me cues to find as well.
•   A partner who focuses more on plot than on smut. I enjoy smut, but I enjoy the build-up and tension even more. I am, and always have been, all about story.   
•   Communication.  Talk to me, let’s work together on the story.
•   I want to play a female character against a male ghost, I do not care what the tag of the person playing the ghost says.
•   Chemistry.  I need writing chemistry with my partner, if the story doesn't crackle and the characters don't clash and connect, we won't either. 

So if you are intrigued and my ON/Off is aligned with your own tastes and needs (please feel free to poke around my active stories, I adore every one of them so you'll see what I like) drop me a PM and we'll see if we are a good match. I really want the story to crackle this time around, so I want to make sure I get the right person for the job. 

Eva

#1
Maybe it's the turn of the seasons, or maybe it's just the right amount of time has passed, but my craving for a ghost story is back. I'm still game for the story as laid down up above, or we could go with a different set-up. I've had a few thoughts on the matter and I have a few elements I want to work in.

A couple of thoughts in no particular order:

  • Rather than play a con artist, I could play someone who simply moves into a haunted house (the price was too good to be true!) and so discovers she can see ghosts (and to some extent interact with them).

  • I know it seems like a lot to ask a partner to play a dead man with limited ability to interact with the world and other people, but I have plans for getting him a body at some point in the RP, regardless of the scenario we start with.

  • If it's a more modern ghost we could have him be a murder victim and work through figuring out who killed him. If it's an older ghost, there could be trouble finding the "anchor" that keeps him there. There's lots to play with and lots to customize.

  • I plan for this to be a love story, with some sexual frustration along the way.

  • I am a sucker for happy endings, but don't mind a little darkness along the way.

  • As an RPer I like to go in to a new story with an idea of how it will end so we have a direction to move in, even if we take our time.

If this sounds appealing to you, check out my on/off, read a few of my posts and see if you'd think we would mesh. If you do, please reach out and we'll chat and see if we can't work something out.