Who: Beryl, and THAT kind of customer.
When: A few months into work at the bar.
What: Beryl gonna destroy a boy.

Sure, working in a tabletop club meant they didn't always get the best people as customers. Usually it was people out for a thrill or to leer in a place where they wouldn't get smacked, money was money as long as no one got too bad.

Luckily given their 'seedy, supernatural' nature people didn't push when they got banned or the like. No point dragging them to court, and no one wanted to really piss off the employees. It left a lot of policing poor behavior up to those who encountered it. For some that meant the hungrier dancers floored them under desire (lovely incubus on staff), or the few shifters got toothy and snapped at a person...

...for others that meant their wall of a bouncer calmly picked them up and walked off with them.

Beryl really hadn't an issue with anyone up to now. Sure, more than a few getting cut off but when a six foot black woman with more muscle than curve said no people tended to listen. Enter 'Johnny'. One of those pretentious white boys who thought inherited money was the same as earning it paired with being a 'trend setter'. Sadly he didn't wear Korean pop styles as well as he could, leaving him looking like a rumpled, cheap seat more than some slick smooth talker. She liked the double pierced ear though, with a diamond stud in each and a dripping chain between.

It was about the only tasteful thing about the boy.

His taste in drink was equally shitty. She was refraining from ruining the good beer with Red Bull and vodka, but she was really tempted to charge him for the higher shelf shit. Fighting her moral serving code made her miss the first part of whatever he was babbling but "pardon?"

"I said," he smirked, leaning on the bar, "what flavor are you?"

The fuck? "Flavor?"

"Yeah, the dancers tonight are for shit but you, you're exotic."

Exotic her ass. "Last I heard most humanoids taste like pork, if you're into that shit." Oh she knew he wanted to find out she was some kind of Ivory Coast siren or something but fuck that.

"Oh don't be like baby, I'm the best tipper in here!" he smarmed, finishing his drink in one, apparently 'manly' swallow. "Besides, not like you can say no in a place like this."

"No." hah, no lightning from heaven, looked like he was wrong.

He grimaced at that, reaching forward to grab her breast, fingers hooking in the mesh of her shirt like he thought himself a fucking eagle or something, "bullshit. Just be a good girl and admit you like it."

She glanced down at that hand, instant rage warring with amusement in her mind. Rage that he'd dare, amusement that he thought his little playdoh grip was at all enticing. "You have two seconds to back that shit up boy."

Like the idiot he was, well, he double down, pinching her nipple specifically, rolling it harshly between his fingers, "no one says no to me bitch. Especially not sub-breeds like you."

Right, she'd warned him. Lani practiced dancing these days, she practiced both kick boxing AND mixed martial arts. Girl had to have hobbies, and the right cross to the chin was beautiful, snapping his head around so hard that he lost his balance and his head bounced off the bar. Being the kind person she was, she used a harsh fistful of hair to KEEP his face where it belonged, and there was a resounding THUNK in the brief silence between song sets that indicated a paring knife had been slammed in that brief space between the man's ear and the chain on that earring set.

Heh, spot on. She'd been half hoping she missed and carved his ear but hey. "Your momma teach you to act like this?"

"YOU CRAY BITCH WHAT..."

"I ASKED," she snarled, wiggling that knife, "your momma teach you this? And hey, this little baby is a paring knife. Tiny thing really, you don't want to see what bar tools I fucking slam through you next you clear?"

The man yelped, trying to edge away from the knife, but that grip preventing it. "NO! No Jesus no what the fuck?!"

"Right, your daddy then? That shit tends to start early...tell you what, why don't you put your phone here on the bar?"

"What? You're robbing me?"

"PHONE." Being firm with people helped in these cases yes.

"OKAY!" he whimpered, fishing it from his pants to lay on the counter.

She released the knife, leaving it pinned, to poke the screen live, "smile Buttercup." Fcace ID was fun. Even more fun was finding the contact labeled 'Mom' at one a.m.

"Johnothan, do you know what TIME it is?! Are you okay?!"

"Mom..."

Beryl shushed him by rotating his face to the bar, making that pinned piercing pull tightly against the knife, "Hello Momma Johnathan, my name is Beryl, I'm a bartender. Your boy here engaged in some incredibly bad behavior. He says you didn't teach him to grab my chest, I'm just making sure his daddy didn't either."

"HE WHAT?!"

Beryl grinned, "he's been throwing his weight around at the bar here saying no one here would dare say no to him. Decided that playing grabby hands and nipple pinch was a good way to negate when I said exactly that."

"JOHNATHAN LEWIS FERRIGREEN!"

"In light of his behavior I'm declaring him unfit to drive. If he apologizes to me I'll be nice and let him sit outside while he waits on a ride, but a responsible adult will have to come in to retrieve his keys and phone from me at the bar."

"We'll both be there," the woman noted grimly. "Where?"

"Hoof and Horn, located at ninth and Cherry."

"JOHNATHAN!"

She really hoped the boy was going to get cut off yes. "So, apologizing or going to kiss my bar until then?"

"You're going to regret this bitch, you really think they'll take your word over mine when I sue your ass? Leading me on..."

Huh, well, she hadn't hung up the phone, but it wasn't like telling him that was useful right now! "We have full video and audio cameras here boy, people like to take advantage when they can and frankly we get tired of it. If you want to see me in court I'll look forward to court date. I promise I cut a better figure in a suit than you do." And the boss would have her back.

Much less the witnesses.

Hell Lani was kissing the shit out of a woman Beryl KNEW was a lawyer so...

"I'm fucking sorry you asked for that shit," he growled.

"Guess you stay put."

"LET ME THE FUCK UP."

"I'll be surprised if you figure out apologies before your parents get here. Hey bar, due to my sudden lack of mobility, half off drinks I can make with anything in arm's reach!" she called out. Humiliation plus half off guaranteed a sales boom at the bar, and besides she couldn't reach the top shelf while leaning on fuck-boy's head. Win win for sales.

Hell, it was shaping up to be a good night, and she'd tend her bruised hand (from the knife handle punching into hardened oak), and bruised tit later. "Someone get me a shirt that doesn't smell like this guy's hand!"