"Daphne!" Roz fought her way forward, holding her drink aloft to avoid the elbows and shoulders crowding in around her. "Daphne!"
"What?" Daphne finally turned towards Roz's voice, sloshing some of her own drink onto her hand as she did so. "Oh, no-"
"Have you seen Lilith?" The bar burst into applause as the latest singer took a bow and relinquished the karaoke machine. Roz flinched at the noise, and Daphne looked around, bewildered.
"That's awfully loud," she muttered, taking a sip of her drink and wincing as it burned down her throat.
"Daphne! Do you know where Lilith is?" Daphne shook her head.
"I thought she was with you." A small, sober corner of Roz's mind had been screaming since the second she had lost sight of Lilith, and was now presenting pictures of her dead in a ditch or kidnapped by a serial killer. Who knew what copious amounts of alcohol could do to a slight woman like Lilith, especially one who definitely didn't indulge often? Roz never should have let her out of her sight in a crowded place like this.
But all that made it through the rest of Roz's thoroughly marinated brain and out her mouth was a frustrated puff.
"No, I lost track of her after her seventh shot of tequila!" Music had started, something loud and bouncy to fill in until some brave soul approached the karaoke machine again.
"You let her have tequila?" Daphne said, and Roz winced at her accusatory tone. "You know how she gets when she drinks that stuff! Where did you last see her?"
"On the other end of the bar," Roz answered, edging closer and shouting over the music. "But now I don't know." She'd never forgive herself if something happened, and Frasier would certainly kill both her and Daphne, right after firing the two of them.
Roz wasn't listening to the music anymore, she didn't notice when it changed again, beginning a new song. "Do you think-Daphne-"
"Woah." Daphne wasn't looking at her, her mouth had dropped open and her grip on her glass had slackened as she stared up at the stage. "Found her."
"What are you-" Roz's jaw dropped when, through the teeming horde of dancing bodies, she saw what Daphne's height had allowed her to spot easily. "Wow. I didn't know she could-" What Lilith was doing wasn't really dancing, but it wasn't normal movement, either. "-do...that."
Hair flowing down her shoulders and hips swaying in a mesmerizing rhythm, Lilith sauntered up and down the stage, singing about Lola getting what Lola wanted and conquering the souls of men. She'd lost her jacket somewhere, her tight skirt and the sheer fabric of her dark blue shirt did very little to hide her slender figure.
Singing, Roz could handle, and maybe even dancing, but this...this was performing. Lilith wasn't just singing about being Lola, whoever that was, she was Lola, a wide-eyed seductress enticing every man in the bar to come nearer and try his luck.
Lilith's hand skimmed down the front of her shirt, and then her shirt was gone, thrown into the crowd and grabbed at by at least six men, who promptly got in a fistfight over it. Daphne swore and dropped her drink as Roz recovered from her near heart attack, rubbing her chest and examining Lilith from head to toe to reassure herself that she was still, technically, fully clothed, if her black tank top counted as clothing.
"Oh, my clothes!" Lilith squealed, sounding delighted. She shimmied a little, showing off her alabaster shoulders. Her skin seemed to be glowing in contrast to her black tank top and skirt. The men hooted their approval, and Lilith grinned wickedly. "You like my ruffles?"
The song continued, and Lilith's audience pressed in closer to the stage, shoving each other out of the way. Now Lilith was dancing, utilizing curves Roz had never noticed under all the long skirts and high collars.
"Do you think we should stop her?" she yelled to Daphne.
"She's not really doing anything wrong," Daphne answered, sounding uncertain. "But she'd never do anything like this if she were sober."
"That's what I was thinking." But neither of them moved as Lilith approached the conclusion of her song, now allowing some of the better-looking men in the audience to climb onstage and clumsily twirl her around.
Alarm flickered through Roz's drunken haze, reminding her that many intoxicated men plus one beautiful woman did not equal anything good. But Lilith appeared to be handling them admirably; whenever any man got too close she was gone, moved on to the next. It was almost like she wasn't drunk, the only hint was a great enhancement of a lisp Roz hadn't registered anytime before, and, of course, this whole performance itself.
Roz had often sensed there were sides of Lilith she never saw, that maybe no one ever saw, but seducing a barful of men with a sexy showtune was beyond anything she had ever imagined. It was like Lilith had become her alter ego, abandoning the strict, dignified persona Roz was used to and revealing the deviant within.
And beside the revelation that there was a deviant within at all, there was also the fact that Lilith was an amazing performer. She was exactly with the music as it began to draw to a close, engaging her audience to the last second and pulling off a sexy, stalking movement across the stage that Roz would never have attempted even completely sober.
"Give in," Lilith sang, a smirk curling on her lips, and the lights went dark. The audience burst into a mixture of applause and rowdy demands for Lilith's return.
"I'm gonna go find her," Roz said to Daphne, who was doing some applauding and demanding herself. "Definitely time to go home," Roz muttered as she forced herself into the crowd and started wading towards the stage.
Roz grabbed Lilith's purse and rustled through for her keys. She didn't want to ring the doorbell, the kids were probably in bed by now. It didn't occur to her to knock.
"Lilith, where are your keys?" she grunted, leaning Lilith against the wall.
"Que?"
"Your keys, I can't find them-" The door rattled and swung open.
"Good evening, Roz." Roz blinked, her weary brain struggling to connect her senses to her reasoning.
"Frasier?" He raised his eyebrows and leaned out the door, blinking when he saw Lilith lounging against the wall.
"Yes, Roz, this is my apartment." Lilith perked up at his voice, eyes roving up and down the hall before they landed on him. "Lilith?"
"Oooh, Lola likes this one," she said with a giggle. She stumbled forward and Frasier lunged forward to catch her.
"Lilith, where is your jacket?" He squinted in the darkness. "And your shirt?" Lilith giggled again, plucking at his navy bathrobe.
"She lost them in her performance," Roz said, shoving Lilith's purse into his hands. "Bye."
"Her-" Frasier gasped, and Roz cringed. "You let her have tequila, didn't you?" There was that accusatory tone again.
"Only seven shots." Frasier's eyes widened, he looked down at Lilith with an expression close to fear. "She was having so much fun, I didn't want to ask her to stop."
Indeed, Lilith had been having plenty of fun telling Roz in great detail exactly what Frasier did to her in bed, which had seemed fascinating at the time. But now that her metabolism was doing its job, Roz had become fairly certain it would be difficult to look Frasier in the eye again for a long time.
"'Fun' is one thing-but seven shots! Do you know what happens when she has more than ten?"
"Well, she didn't have more than ten!" Roz argued. "It was just-" She paused, suddenly intrigued. "Wait, what does happen when she has more than ten?" Frasier's mouth snapped shut. Still giggling, Lilith stroked his face in an attempt to make him look down at her, but he grabbed her wrist and held her hand against his chest.
"Oh, come on, Frasier!" Roz demanded, hands on her hips. "Now you have to tell me." Frasier grimaced and looked down at Lilith, who was trying to sneak her hand out of his grip and into his bathrobe.
"Regrettable things," he said shortly, and reached for the door. "Goodnight, Roz."
"No, Frasier-" Roz leaned her whole weight against the door to keep him from closing it. "I have spent the last forty-five minutes trying to corral your wife into a taxi-with no help from Daphne, by the way-I practically had to drag her out of there, she kept slipping away like a vampiric snake-the least you could do is tell me embarrassing drunk stories about her!" Frasier frowned, then mechanically stopped Lilith from smoothing away the creases in his forehead.
"I'm not quite following your logic," he said, but Roz lowered her head and glowered at him, and he gulped.
"Well, if you must know-" He lowered his voice, glancing behind him into the apartment. "-after her bachelorette party, she almost eloped with a male stripper." Roz's mouth dropped open, her hold on the door slackened. "Goodnight now." He slammed the door in her face, taking advantage of her momentary shock.
"Frasier!" There was no response, and Roz huffed and crossed her arms. She turned to storm away, but halted at a thump from inside Frasier and Lilith's apartment.
"Lilith, please get off the table-" Roz heard a squeal and Frasier gasped. All that came after that was giggling, and Frasier sighing, "This is why you shouldn't drink tequila."