Still With the Long Overdue Things...

[vesper_verde]

Things post-wedding had been going well. Husband and wife had no left the mansion for a few days after the wedding. By the time they were willing to visit around São Paulo, Marcelo kept their days busy. But not so busy their nights at home weren't busy either.

After sending off information to Brooke about the Symkarian group to hire as security for the New York reception, Marcelo went looking for his casual, not extremely well-tailored clothing. He needed to take Stephanie to visit his aunt. While she had been briefly at the Brazilian wedding reception to congratulate the couple, he knew she expected a visit.

The chauffeur would arrive soon to drive them to outside of the favela his aunt lived in. They would have to walk in to the slum. A standard precaution Marcelo had taken.

Now, he just needed to find his pants...

Comments

[pyroprincess]

Stephanie had been warned about this, so she'd packed some less than astonishing clothes. She probably still looked a little better-off than the average inhabitant of a favela, but she was in simple enough clothes- tanktop and jeans, with simple sneakers and no jewelry, save for their wedding rings. Brooke would probably have had a heart attack seeing her dressed thusly, but the last thing Stephanie wanted was to ruin this visit with some sort of fight.

"I'm just about ready." She told Marcelo, as she finished doing her makeup and hair. Favela or no, she knew Brazilians took a lot of pride in their appearance. It was one thing to dress down, but to look intentionally shabby seemed like a bit of an insult to the people there.

[vesper_verde]

Ah! His pants were behind that chair. He had no idea how they got there. He pulled them on and made they weren't too wrinkled.

He remembered to take his cellphone off his wrist and put it into his pocket. Marcelo turned around to see how his wife looked.

It was amazing how easily his mind had put Stephanie in that category, too. Almost amazing as she looked even dressing down. He sauntered up behind her.

"So, it's true. You're never not sexy. Good thing we spent some of the morning in bed. I'd get ideas that would make us late."

[pyroprincess]

No doubt during last night's activities. Fortunately, they hadn't been ripped off of him.

"Later." Stephanie replied with a smirk. "We don't want to keep your aunt waiting." She did turn around though and give him a kiss. "Anything else I should know before we go?"

He looked just as good dressed down, but they had other things to do this morning.

[vesper_verde]

"Definitely later." He waggled his eyebrows a little. When she turned around to kiss him, he thought his dastardly plan of just walking up behind her had worked flawlessly.

He slipped his arms loosely around her waist. "I think we've covered it. She's a very proud woman. She lives in a favela by choice. She doesn't accept help from the rich, which includes me and my father. She will be sizing you up on how good a wife you'll be. And she's the last living link to my mother."

His maternal grandparents had died a few years ago. He nodded toward the front of the house. "Car will be here soon. Providing traffic doesn't get terrible."

[pyroprincess]

"It's a date." She grinned at him a little saucily.

"I can get that. The pride." Stephanie nodded. She wasn't sure that she'd take it quite that far in that particular way, but there was something to be said about a woman who was proud of who she was. "Oh dear. She'll probably despise me. I don't know how much of a good wife I really am. Hopefully there won't be an exam on my housewife skills."

She was teasing, honestly, but she was also a little nervous. This was a woman that meant a lot to Marcelo. "It's Sao. I'm pretty sure the traffic's always terrible."

She kind of liked that it was crazy and fast-paced, though. It reminded her of home.

[vesper_verde]

He chuckled. Not like either of them were lacking in sexual attention that they had to make a date for it. Though it was always something to look forward to.

"Well, if you suddenly turn into a wilting flower stepping into her home, she might. Just be yourself. She'll have to accept you and the choice I made in marrying you." He tightened his loose hold on her to give Stephanie a hug. "You'll be fine."

He gave her a quick peck on the cheek. "Very true. That's why I told the driver to show up early. We have time for traffic as we head to Paraisópolis."

[pyroprincess]

"Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty?" Stephanie couldn't help replying with a faint smile. It'd been one of the songs that she'd been given on a huge mix that Kayla had compiled for her when she was sick.

"I'm not a wilting flower." Stephanie replied. Once upon a time, maybe she would've been, but that felt like a different person. She'd been through far too much real trouble in her life to be worried about meeting a person who was probably a wonderful person.

[vesper_verde]

He blinked at his wife and then chuckled again. "Different place. Not much grass and the prettiest girl there will be holding my hand."

There was a ring from the security system that the gate to the driveway was opening. "Driver's here. You ready?"

[pyroprincess]

"See, I don't ignore every song I ever listen to." Stephanie replied with a smirk and then gave him another quick kiss. "You're sweet. I've seen enough of Brazil to know I've got some stiff competition here."

"I'm ready." Stephanie replied confidently.

[vesper_verde]

"Just the ones I pick out, I see." He grinned. If she was allowed to tease, so was he. Her lack of... musical experience and preference was something he'd been trying to remedy for awhile. To mixed results as far as he knew.

"If we're talking about competition to make me stiff, you win. Hands down, lips soft," he said it with as straight a face as possible as they headed to the front steps to get into the car.

[pyroprincess]

"Careful, Marcelo." Stephanie replied with a smirk. "Or I might end up molesting you in this car. Wouldn't make a good impression for your aunt."

Music was not something that she'd had a lot of experience with when she was younger, and it was not something she'd generally mustered a lot of enthusiasm about now. She certainly enjoyed it in the background sometimes, but she much preferred other things.

[vesper_verde]

"Well, if she wasn't in the car, she wouldn't have to know. But the driver would possibly get a show he wasn't expecting. You might make him jealous." They got to the stairs just as the car stopped in front of the mansion to pick them up. Marcelo waved for the driver to stay up front as he went down to open the door for his wife.

[ngm_adults]

After Marcelo disappeared and started making noises in the small area that would be her kitchen, Emanuela turned around and looked Stephanie over. She eyed the tank top.

"Hmm. Breasts are larger than I figured, but I can let that out a bit," she noted to herself. She gestured for Stephanie to step closer.

"Not a commission, no. You can drop the jeans once the dress is on." Though the seamstress was used to women in their underwear hanging out in her shop. She turned back to the dress form to get the work in progress off of it. She deftly managed to not stick herself with any of the pins holding parts together.

[pyroprincess]

Absurdly, disastrously, she was tempted to say something about how much Marcelo appreciated those. But this was business, shop talk. She figured Emanuela would realize that as soon as she got that thing on.

That was a lot of pins. It was a good thing Marcelo wasn't attempting that, or he'd end up stuck in about half a dozen places. When the dress was ready to flip on, she took off her jeans and then slipped the dress over. It seemed odd to do so after the dress was on.

A little adjustment in the chest would probably be a good thing. Otherwise, it fit quite nicely, and ... was really more her style than the jeans were after all. Much more so.

[ngm_adults]

She stood back once the dress was on Stephanie. Her eyes narrowed a bit to see how it fit and where adjustments needed to be made. She stepped forward to make sure the dress hung on Stephanie's curves how it should. She adjusted the how the fabric was pinned accordingly.

"Not bad for only one brief meeting. This color looks good on you." She stepped back again. She held a finger up and spun it in a circle. "Turn around slowly."

[pyroprincess]

Stephanie did as she was told, turning around slowly. Part of her wished that Marcelo was in the room, because she knew he'd appreciate that a lot.

"... oh." She hadn't been thinking of that. She laughed. "Thank you." Stephanie said sincerely, hoping that she hadn't made some horrible mistake and that this actually was a gift.

[ngm_adults]

She frowned slightly. The hem was uneven in the back.

"Backside," she said as she grabbed some pins.

"Tchelo," she called through the screen. "Clean ones are on the upper left."

She shook her head and grinned as her nephew made sounds of discovery. "Sometimes, I wonder about that boy. Particularly in a kitchen."

[pyroprincess]

Stephanie couldn't help but laugh at that. She wasn't sure if it was proper to point out that, honestly, the poor boy didn't get much kitchen practice at home. Neither did she. She turned around as commanded, with less fear about the pins than a lot of people might have had. She didn't doubt Emanuela's skill, but she had additional advantages.

"He's rather handy at home, actually." Which was true, in a way. Marcelo had a lot of skills. It just so happened they didn't involve the kitchen so much.

[ngm_adults]

"Good at moving furniture, is he?" Emanuela chuckled softly at the dismissive noise that came from her kitchen.

She crouched down to adjust the pins on the hem. Her fingers moved quickly.

"So, what do you do, Stephanie?" The question qas purposefully wide open. There was some calculation there to see exactly how it would be answered.

[pyroprincess]

"Very." Though of course, she was actually better at it than he was. Much better. But that was a revelation that could do without necessarily being dropped right now. "He's a very strong man."

"I'm going to school, business, at Columbia University. Right now I'm, in a manner of speaking, between jobs, on the business side of things." She wasn't going to give any more detail about that, because it was painful and awkward. "I fund and manage a homeless shelter in the city, and I'm getting contracts lined up to expand it into a community centre. I own a restaurant with a friend of mine. We're hoping to get it to Michelin-starred status by the end of next year.

I don't do well with peace and quiet." She laughed. "I need to keep busy."

[ngm_miscellaneous]

Just as the seamstress was finishing up with the hem, the shop door flew open. The bell above it rang hard once when it opened and again when it slammed shut. Leaning on against the wooden door was a pregnant woman quivering in fear. Her face was bloodied and bruised.

"Ms. Alencar! Ms. Alencar, I-help. Please? Beto... he's... he's angry and high."

[vesper_verde]

Marcelo reappeared from behind the room-dividing screens with an armload of tepid drinks. He glanced at the woman at the door and looked to his aunt.

[pyroprincess]

Stephanie heard the commotion as the hem was finishing up and frowned slightly, immediately tensing up in a way suggesting that her natural response was fight rather than flight, though she didn't charge in. That would've raised questions that didn't necessarily need to be raised, and besides, there was a lovely dress that might be ruined.

She looked over to Marcelo and to his aunt. They'd know better what to do, most likely.

[pyroprincess]

"The less she knows about my vocabulary, the better, I think. Though it is impressively multilingual." She tended to mix Spanish and English liberally, and sometimes threw a few words of Portuguese she'd learned into the mix.

She smirked at him. "I could have said a few things about yours too, though you have this tendency to go nonverbal sometimes."

[vesper_verde]

"She didn't give me the 'this woman needs to speak better' look, so of the non-passionate language, I'm sure she approves." He saw some movement out of the corner of his eye as they exited the alley. He did not pay it much attention at the moment.

He gave her a bland look. Or as bland as he could manage. "Querida, when tapping into an animalistically primal action, words just won't do."