duplicitymemes | TDM #4 ( revised )

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TDM #4 ( revised )

« « « TEST DRIVE MEME » » »

« « « HERE WE ARE AGAIN

It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. Yet, solace is found in the lies we tell each other, comforted by the peace of knowing that we're not alone in our depravity, and once on this path, sin itself becomes the lesser of two evils masked in a cloud of normalcy.

This is how Duplicity has functioned since the beginning. The divide of power and social standing is overt in that Dominants influence the decisions made both publicly and privately while Submissives cater to the rules presented to them. It is the way of Duplicity to assign random designations at birth with no leeway in altering what has been given. Climate in the Up is far stricter than that of the Down; violating outlined personas for a Dominant or Submissive while in full view of others is punished by degree of infraction. In the Down, many tend to turn a blind eye to these sorts of offenses.

To counteract the discovery of the Deceit Gene – a natural "negative" response to all stimuli – the L.I.E.S. program was founded. The program had been designed to introduce new subjects to the current environment and test for the Deceit Gene through immersion in Duplicity's standing society. Sexual impulses and encounters increase the chances of detecting the gene within these individuals. Participants are typically released from L.I.E.S. after a year; however, results have remained unsatisfactory and testing still continues.

You’re here! Finally! Welcome to Duplicity.

After choosing a door and stepping through to the other side, the first thing that greets you are the enthusiastic faces of people in medical scrubs and pristine lab coats. Their enthusiasm translates to eagerness as they strip you of your clothes to perform a thorough examination—you will be healed, bathed, and given a paper gown to wear until your items can be processed and delivered to your residence later in the evening. You are also given a device that accesses the network as well as the time and location of orientation.

If you enter Duplicity into the Up, congratulations! You’re a Dominant, which means you are immediately picked up by a limo after processing and taken to your highrise. Here, it is two Dominants per floor with separate apartments. If you enter Duplicity into the Down, congratulations! You’re a Submissive, which means you are directed towards public transportation with the address of the motel you’ll be living in. Here, it is two Submissives per room with a shared common space for all rooms.

Enjoy your free time until orientation! Participation is mandatory by all new and old arrivals.

Oh, and one more thing. It's fucking cold. Better bundle up.

» » » LIES TRAVEL IN COMPANY

After stepping through the door and participating in orientation, LIERS are assembled together in the Up for a tour of Duplicity in its entirety. Seats are in pairs and randomly assigned to Dominants and Submissives alike. Traveling from Fiddler's Square, the train journeys through various parts of the Up, showcasing society and examples of lifestyle. Along the way, frequent stops are made; a variety of passengers can be seen exiting and entering the doors. A Dominant with a kneeling Submissive takes a seat near the front of the train at one stop. A small group of Submissives board and sit closer to the LIERS at another, all seemingly content in their roles. As the tour continues through the Up, the train passes close to the Market and White Wall Bridge and zips by North Park before heading into the Down and bypassing Red Wall Bridge and South Park.

The train makes a "final" stop at Riddler's Square, where inhabitants of the Down are instructed to return to their temporary housing. Those who live in the Up are permitted to stay on the train and revisit the same locations while returning.

« « « END IN THE DISCORD

While the societal climate between Dominants and Submissives remains somewhat neutral throughout Duplicity, there has been the occasional whisper of defiance and call for equality. Yet, demonstrations and visible proof of this unhappiness spreads faster by word of mouth on a day exactly when you need it most.

Welcome to Autonomy, a "traveling" nightclub that is never in the same place twice. People wanting to attend only learn of its lucrative location and password hours before it opens for business. Tonight, I choose the third door will get you inside and into the temporary freedom club Autonomy has to offer. In this circle, there are no assigned designations and no consequences for taking a role that isn't the one given by society. So, a Dominant may become the Submissive they've always wanted to be—or vice versa. Dominants and Submissives alike are able to mingle without repercussion and be themselves. Food, drinks, and private areas for more intimate – or if your preference is sexual – encounters are provided. Donations are accepted at any point during the night to further Autonomy's attempts of spreading the fulfillment that comes from being untitled.

On the night you choose to visit, Autonomy is holding a random lottery for temporary connections. When entering, you have the choice of submitting your name into this drawing to be paired with someone else in the club regardless of designation. A short while later, a message will pop up on your device with the name and information of your partner, and whether or not you choose to meet them is purely at your discretion. Having more than one connection isn't completely unusual either.

» » » TABLE IT FOR LATER

Gratification of being a successful Dominant or Submissive isn't necessarily simple. Learning curves are to be made, and mistakes will happen. Led by a Dominant and Submissive couple – Miriam and Victoria, who have been paired for twenty-two years – a monthly meeting for unattached Dominants and Submissives is held in the conference room of Morning Wood motel in the Down. The meeting starts a few minutes after nine and has no designated end time. The couple introduce themselves and explain the purpose of the meeting: learn the proper method for a new kink and possibly find your perfect partner. The space is intimate and well-stocked with refreshments.

To begin, Victoria, while blindfolded, balances on her hands and knees with her back perfectly level. Her partner, when ready, places various items on the level surface–a full cup, a plate. The Submissive is meant to hold the items until the Dominant believes she's reached her limit. The exercise is one of trust and understanding. The demonstration is a short one, followed by Miriam removing the blindfold and soothing her Submissive. The words are whispered low and with care, clearly a method that is specific to this couple. The process is concluded with the pair handing out workups, videos, and answering questions. Anyone wishing to practice Purposeful Submission can do so in the open room with a random volunteer, aided by the couple, or can find someone to take to one of the rented rooms. Sex may follow any scene but is not necessarily included. Experimenting with unattached Dominants and Submissives allows for new relationships to form.

« « « MOD & OOC NOTES

Please read carefully.

On each Test Drive Meme, there will be a section noting character roles based on birthdays; these will vary each TDM. On an IC level, character will still have gone through the doors but assignments OOCly are still randomized. When applying, there is a section of the application that denotes whether the character chose "left" or "right". When participating on the TDM, there will be a third option. Players may link either a top level or a thread (five or more comments from their character) from the TDM and title the link as "Door Pass". This means that the player is choosing to take the designation that they were randomly assigned on the TDM, rather than taking the designation of a door. If the player decides to select a door rather than use the pass, then they are trying their luck; they may get the same designation they had on the TDM or the opposite. Once the application is submitted, players can't change their choice.

To assign roles to characters for this TDM, use the following guide. All characters who have blue eyes or one blue eye and another color are Submissives. All characters who have brown eyes or one brown eye and another color are Dominants. Characters with any other color eyes are Dominants. To use this TDM as a door pass please link this on your app and place whether it is Dominant or Submissive.

Please remember to mark any necessary content, and have fun!!

» » » MAIN NAVIGATION « « «

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[ Asra gasped at the turnabout by Julian, and slapped the back of his hand on one of Julian's knees, ]

They was important notes, why did you just use your own parchment, and the side of your hand smeared ink-- [ And then he cast his voice lower, lifting the same hand as if to shield their conversation from Getty, ] -- and he LIKES the flowers, don't let him convince you otherwise--

[ Getty interrupted the conversation before it could go any further by loudly clearing his throat and slapping a hand on the bartop, ]

Round one! Nothing below the belt, I want a clean game. Lookin' at you, Asra.

[ It only made the magician laugh, and he hummed in thought for just a moment before spreading the fingers of both hands. ]

Alright! Here goes:

I once got reprimanded by a magical kettle; My hair used to be dark like my father's but turned white in a failed spell when I was still starting out; Aaaand... when I was a kid, I would catch a lot of crabs on the beach but not let anyone take or cook them because I was convinced they were my friends.

[He lets out a feigned yelp as Asra's hand comes down hard across his knee, makes a big show of rubbing it, and he already has a retort ready on the tip of his tongue, just waiting for Asra to pause. But then Getty interrupts, and Julian turns to the task at hand with easy readiness-- he's ready for his next drink, even if the plan here is to avoid drinking so much he folds.

And so he listens with intent as Asra reels off his turn, brows furrowed in concentration, and it reminds him again that there are still so many things about Asra that he doesn't know. Whether that's through his own selfish negligence or Asra's enigmatic disposition (or the anger he felt towards him, the bitterness over his failures), he isn't sure. And dwelling on it won't help him now, either, so--]

Well, that thing about the magical kettle sounds so ridiculous that it almost seems like you want me to choose it. But kettles can't talk, not even magic could do that, surely.

[He runs a hand back through his auburn curls, shakes his head a moment later when they bounce back over his face again. Difficult. They thing about his hair also sounds suspect to him, but ultimately--]

Look, I refuse to believe that kettle thing could be true. Let's go with that.

Ahhh, well... [ Sighs Asra, leaning his head back, raking a tawny hand through his hair, exposing the column of his throat for a moment before shaking his head. But something about the hard shine in his eyes when he straightens is as good as a knife-glint of a smirk, wickedly sharp, exulting in his own victory even though he's so straight-faced that someone who didn't know him so well might have been strung along for the act, ]

I guess you really can't help being wrong all the time!

[ That's where he breaks, right there, laughing and touching two fingertips to the rim of a shot in Julian's row to slide it toward the taller man. ]

Drink up, doctor! Kettles like that do exist; my parents had one. It yelled at me after I... yelled at it to boil faster.

My mother had the same hair color I do, by the way; but long, and straight, like... like moonlight stretched along a perfectly-still lake.

[Asra puts on his little show, but it's there in him already, the steely-glint in his dream-coloured eyes and Julian is already frowning before the pronouncement is even made, ignores the litter shivershudder in some quiet part of him that whispers traitorously of how he likes that look, how he'd like it to be turned his way more often. Instead he clicks his tongue, mutters a mild curse under his breath and reaches to pluck his shot from the bar with only marginal reluctance.]

I should have known, you put that one in there to throw me off. You knew I wouldn't believe it.

[And it comes with that snippet of information, something he hadn't known before, some small part of Asra's past that he'd never thought to ask after. He folds it away inside of himself now though, won't forget it.]

I knew I should have said the hair.

[Though there's no point lamenting it now, is there? A little theatrical sigh, and then he's knocking back his shot with one quick and practiced movement, winces only slightly at the strength of the liquor as he swallows it down, feels it warming him from the inside out.]

So does that make it my turn? Or do you go again, because I uh, messed up a bit.

That's the point of the game! Hide the lie in plain sight.

[ He winked and laughed, drummed his tawny fingertips on the bartop, clearly delighted, and then waved to indicate Julian. ]

It's your turn! We always trade, no matter who wins a round. Equal opportunity, that way. Go ahead, give me your best!

[And once again, perhaps its the drink or his own bone-deep exhaustion or the lack of food or all of the above, perhaps it's just his own weak heart, but his lips quirk in an involuntary smile at the sound of the magician's laughter, and he lets whatever small irritation he felt slide. He knows how to be a good sport, besides. Still doesn't think Asra could drink him under the table.]

All right, all right, let me see...

[And he taps his fingers against the bar in rhythmic order as he thinks it through, mutters quietly to himself, clearly trying hard.]

I once got stranded on a desert island for three days with nothing but coconuts and warm beer for sustenance until a passing ship was good enough to rescue me. In Prakra I was kicked off my medical studies for seducing my mentor's wife, and when we were children sometimes Pasha used to put a sheet over her head and dress up as a ghost to try and frighten me.

There you are, then. Have at it.

[And he leans back with a grin to await the magician's response.]

[ The small melody Julian tapped out... Asra listened to it keenly, eyes drifting from Julian's face to his long-fingered hand and back again. His brows quirked, and he flexed the fingers of his own hand, on the bartop-- took up the same melody, in almost-perfect time, the moment Julian's fingers stopped.

One game, half-hidden, beneath another.

His hand fell still, but it was a pregnant pause, expecting Julian to pick up where he'd left off, and he hummed thoughtfully. ]

I don't see you as the sort of man who'd seduce your mentor's wife. You're too... sweet, to knowingly be a homewrecker. Unless it was an unhappy marriage, maybe.

Or you didn't know she was his wife! Oh, that's just the sort of problematic situation you'd get tangled into, isn't it?

Stranded on a desert island, I believe offhand. That... seems like something you'd somehow do. Go ashore with some men, get distracted looking at something, miss the call to leave? Hmmm... [ He tapped his fingers on his chin, eyes squinting as he looked at Julian, as if trying to assess him. ]

Pasha with a sheet over her head is also something I believe. She's tricky, seems like she'd have an appreciation for a good prank, and especially a prank over you. And she loves your attention, she'd do anything to get it...

I'm going to go with the wife! It's the only one that seems least likely of the three..? That's the lie!

[It's unconscious, when he does it. The pause between those tiny rhythmic sounds left empty for just the length of a heartbeat before Julian's long fingers pick it up once again, though his countenance remains something unreadable, giving absolutely nothing away. He's had some practice perfecting that poker face.

And it's just as well, because so much of what Asra says is enough to make things turn over in him, and it takes every ounce of self-restraint he has not to shift in his seat and look entirely flustered until after the magician has made his guess. Once he has, however--

--colour spreads from the tips of his ears to the bridge of his nose, all those softly prodding comments finally catching up with him, Asra thinking him too kind to be a deliberate seducer of wives, but foolish enough to get entangled in such a situation (entirely true, all of it), the incident on the desert island happening almost exactly as Asra describes, and the comment about Pasha...

He does shift in his seat now, and whilst his tone is entirely indignant, he fails to pull it off.]

Look! I could be a...a...well all right, no I couldn't. Not deliberately.

[He runs a hand back through his hair, looks away.]

That round goes to you, then.

[ Asra pushed the second shot forward to Julian; but his smile was tempered soft, and he drew his hand back, taking the small tapped melody back, fingers spread like a pianist, the noises small and half-muffled by the curl of his palm. ]

Despite all your faults, you're... not cruel. Somehow, despite everything, you aren't. You'll want to suggest that your proclivities mean you couldn't be, too busy wanting other people to be cruel to you instead, but it'd be a lie, and I'll stop you.

I'm cruel. And more than a little petty. Beasts of a kind, they can sense it in each other, I think, that awful and... and blighted sort of kinship. And I'll stop you a second time, before you try to insist that I'm not: we both know it. You don't need to protect me from it or assuage my feelings about my own... self.

I need to see it. I can't... be better, if I don't see it.

[ He smiled a little lopsidedly and gave a toss of his curls, ] I'm going to stop having the conversation for both of us now, and ask for the story about getting stranded! How long were you there, what did you do while drunk, how on earth did your poor pale self survive?

[Asra slides the shot across the bar's slick surface and Julian lifts it between two long fingers, takes it up, knocks it back...almost chokes on it. Because Asra's talking, and of course he means to step in and deny and contradict and argue his own point, interject with his self-derision and the bleak thoughts he has about himself. His lips part around his response when the magician cuts him off at the pass, quiet words like a blade across his tongue.

Asra keeps going, and again, as predicted, the words are there and ready in him, to deny it, to assuage Asra's assumed guilt, to say something that will make him feel better to take all blame onto himself because yes he'd known Asra to be cruel and petty both, but surely it was Julian's behaviour that has dragged those small but deep and jagged cruelties from him. His own lack of understanding and his need and his inability to be anything anyone would want to be around for long, his stark ugly failings on so many levels. But again, Asra stops him, his lips part and then close again around the sound and he winds up sitting there quiet and at a loss and altogether confused over what has just happened.

It's...a shock. To hear it. All of it.

The feelings in him, they're big raw things.

He's not sure whether he agrees or not, with any of it. Needs a moment to think it through and digest perhaps when things aren't starting to feel just a touch blurry around the edges from lack of sleep and food and the beginnings of too much strong liquor.

The sudden shift in the conversation wrongfoots him, leaves him vaguely unbalanced, and for just a moment he says nothing at all, the words still ready in him, the ones Asra had tried to cut away but--

--but.]

I uh, well, what I mean is...

[He clears his throat. Takes a breath. Onetwo]

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not entirely useless, you know. I've spent enough time with pirates and other kinds of sailors, not to mention growing up by the beach with Pasha as a child, to know a thing or two about building shelters. There were palm trees and a little other vegetation, and I was able to put something together to keep the worst of the sun off me. I was there for three days, I and spent most of it drunk, singing sea shanties to passing gulls and lamenting my terrible fate until that ship came along and saved me. I was quite delirious by the time they found me, but look, here I am, alive to tell the tale.

[He flashes his very best debonair smile. And the rest of what he'd wanted to say-- it can wait.]

[ Asra closed his eyes, as Julian continued to speak, as if to envision it-- ]

Gulls... if there were gulls around even so small an island, you must not have been more than a day from shore...

[ Cracks his eyes open to see that smile, and the corners of his eyes crinkle as his own smile flashes-- briefly and helplessly-- wider. He looked away, at his own untouched line of soldiers. ]

You collect stories like no one else. Have you ever thought of writing them? Er.. [ his smile crimped, suppressing a soft laugh, ]

Dictating, so that someone else can write it?

It wasn't far off that, no. If only I'd known in which direction to swim...though truth be told I'm not sure I'd have made it even then. But what's this, then? Casting aspersions on my immaculate handwriting, are we? I'm hurt.

[And he is hurt, in big and small ways, but not by this. And those hurts feel softened in this moment, here in this utter hole of a bar, in this city an indefinable distance away from the one he knows. So he laughs, its edges made blurry by the creep and slide of alcohol in his blood, a good warm sound.]

And ah, well no. I haven't. Do you think anyone would read them, if I did?

[ Asra's expression went sly again, and he opened his mouth, an easy jibe ready-- and then closed his mouth again, tilting his head as he looked at Julian, mouth pulling into a more thoughtful expression.

He answered honestly, saying only, ]

I would.

[He sees it there, that sly feline look, a look he knows right down to the dark quiet parts of himself that echo of three years ago and he's braced already for something sharp and knifey, something that will cut. Something he'll accept as his due because that's what he does even when he finds cutting words of his own to slip back in return only to think of later and berate himself for but--

--but. Instead there are only those two words and he blinks once, twice. It isn't what he'd been expecting, and so he winds up stumbling blindly over his own words.]

Oh. Well, um. Maybe sometime. I'd think about it. Perhaps.

[He clears his throat and casts his glance away, towards the array of little glasses laid neat across the bar.]

It's your turn, I believe. Or perhaps you've given up?

Oh, you've such a fearsome lead on me, however will I regain my lost ground?

[ He deadpanned it, eyes glittering with mirth, watching Julian's eyes, saying nothing for a moment. ]

Alright. Three from my stay here:

I've got more time than I would normally, so I decided to take up learning an instrument and an unfamiliar style of dance.

I tried to poke my nose around the area where demonstrations are done, for newcomers, and wound up behind the stage, and got mistaken for a performer.

One of the first things I did when I realized it wouldn't be easy to leave was make a list, of all the unfamiliar and foreign places to get food! I've been working my way further down the list, every week.

Look, the show isn't over until the certain falls. [Or one of them falls...] I could still beat you, yet.

[And he says it with an incorrigible smile that he uses to settle himself, to push away the feelings that are still there in him, which have been there all along but which he knows he shouldn't feel. So instead there's this, and he listens to Asra's options. Thick eyebrows pulling together as he thinks it over because this one is harder-- really, any of these could be true.]

Let me see. You'd probably enjoy learning something new. And trying new food sounds...well, they're both things I could easily picture you doing.

[And there's something in his face at that, a vague shadow-- it isn't as though he hasn't pictured what Asra might be doing over the days and weeks and months and years since everything became too dark and ugly to hold on to. As if to chase the thought away, he shakes his head. Perhaps he's clearing away the effects of the alcohol, and nothing more than that.]

The second sounds more like the kind of thing that would ah, that would happen to me...so I'll go with that one. That's the lie.

[Even if a not-insignificant part of him actually wants to be wrong this time, so he can have a teasing retort saved up for some other day, should Asra try to do the same over his own escapades.]

[ Asra... beamed. He looked almost transcendantly happy, bright as a sunset over water, as he plucked up the first in his row of drinks... and tossed it back, sliding the empty glass over with Julian's.. with a faint cough and a whole-body shiver as he made a face at the bitter taste. ]

You're right. The first day... I was just a wreck. I can't tell you how heartening it is, to see you in a better state.

But it got... easier. And some things really aren't bad at all: the food, for one, there's so much of it, and so many different mind-boggling kinds, and flavors like you wouldn't believe! We'll have to go out again, just so I can show you some of the best.

[And its a smile that does something to him, tugs at his heart and lights him up and suffuses him with a bright burst of warmth because he likes to please, he does, it makes him feel for one small moment that perhaps he can be worth something. A faltering, stumbling feeling that never, ever lasts, but one that breaks over him briefly now like the cresting of a wave.

The words though, they sink into him like small stones, lines of worry that cross his forehead because the magician says he was just a wreck, and Julian can imagine it, too. The set up here, Asra's position in it-- this isn't for someone like him.

Unlike me, he thinks, can't help but think, because being cast low, being hurt and used, these are things he knows. Things he knows and wants and believes deep down he needs.]

I...I'm glad it got easier. I...

[His fingers flex, like he wants to reach out for Asra then, wants to touch him but--

--but. This is a strange kind of night, everything is so different, but all the more because of this he doesn't know what will bend, and what will break. So he smiles the wide curve of his smile, all bravado and swagger.]

And of course I'm fine, you know me. I can withstand almost anything.

[Almost, almost]

But, um. We could. If you wanted to. Do this again.

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TDM #4 ( revised )

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