Jasper’s eyes had remained trained on one of the small soaps from the sink for near minutes. Something about it… maybe it was the scent of food wafting over from the prawns near him or just the fact that all his senses had been dialed up to twelve, but something about the soap made him think it’d taste fantastic. He jerked up when it seemed like Azra had materialized next to him from out of the blue and opened his mouth to add to the conversation, only to sit there and continuously open his mouth for a handful of seconds. “Water? Why?” He lifted his hand and let the fine tremor in it shake the soap for him. “For this? I think he’s dead already, no water needed.” Jasper sniffed and used the back of his free hand to rub his nose. Fuck. He felt good.
The enclosed space was much, much better than the party that went on outside the door. Jasper felt clearheaded and alive instead of anxious about the entire affair like he had been. His attention came back to the soap once more, lifting it up to his nose to smell it. With how much powder was up his nasal cavity, it was a wonder he could smell anything at all. The potpourri that laid at his feet was evidence he’d been enjoying smelling any and everything in the room a bit too much. “Hey,” he announced suddenly, his voice just barely too loud. “I have an idea. Do you think this,” he lifted the soap for the second time, “is the same as that,” he sharply turned his head to the tray of prawns, “and tastes good, too?”
Hands shoved towards her knocked the twisted hand towel beside her to the floor as she lent away, the drawn out and childlike groan that slipped her lips loudly despite the fact that her own digits curled around Vinny’s hand to tug him a little closer to the counter she lent against. “I almost had it. I literally..— almost had it.” Her one-track mind pinning itself to the quick demolishment of what barely consisted of a scrunched up towel, let alone a swan. The pad of her finger swiping up what little remained of her last line, slipping between her lips to rub into her gums, “Which beach?” She noted with a shockingly calm curiosity as the tip of her nose met the middle of Vinny’s palm. “We’re literally on a boat, we ‘got plenty of water. — She’s cute, who invited her?” The sharp ramblings of details Nic had missed within the folds of her intox as she let go of her roommate’s hand and instead reached out for a strand of Azra’s hair. “Didn’t we make a rule about adopting strays? —- We should get a cat.”
Naturally, it was far easier to be here, than upstairs. The demanding hues of the casanova no doubt tirelessly seeking her out in the crowd for yet another fickle attempt to get her to weave the crowd until she could entwine digits with Judd. All for the sick game he played. This – this she could fall into, and had, much much earlier on than she might have intended. Jasper’s sudden call for attention drew doe hues up to pin expectantly to the soap in his hand, at least, until she followed his line of sight to the tray of prawns. Eyes widened and hands met Jasper’s chest with a quick pitter-patter of fingertips, “Oh my god, the food.”
Vinny dipped and swerved, barely missing Azra’s swinging legs as he came to face her. The prospect grabbed her shoulders, shook them violently, unknowingly, eyes wide. “She is,” he tossed his head back toward Monica to acknowledge her words. “Love her— you don’t know Azra? You gotta’ know Azra.” Just then his arm was slung over the woman’s shoulders as he pulled her off the counter with gusto. And then his supplier spoke; there was too much going on at once. After having disrupted Azra’s natural state and rounding her over to where his roommate stood, her heap of a masterpiece now on the bathroom floor, he found his way over to the last sink embedded in the white-ish, golden counter top. He felt physically on cloud nine. Mentally, well, that was a different story. Like cloud fifteen. A quarter of him felt like he could run a marathon, the next like he was ready to play the best set of his life at this damn party, the third like he could write confessions of undying passion to every companion of his in the bathroom, and lastly, like he was destined to consume an entire bar of seashell shaped soap.
A hearty laugh launched from Vinny as he gripped the counter’s edge, before noting the bar of soap in Jasper’s hand. There was a strange pull to the other’s hand, of all things. It was gripping the soap, after all, and Vinny was sure the scent and flavor would’ve transferred over to the mad scientist’s skin. His saliva made a home on Jasper’s skin when he tested his theory, but he tasted like nothing, really. “People flavored ice cream,” he announced suddenly, like he was remembering a weird episode of a television show or something of the sort. The distant hum and bump of music was heard through the ceiling, or floor, of the yacht. He couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Maybe they’d switched floors while he was distracted. “Man, I’m glad I’m not out there. I didn’t even wanna be here, y’know? Hey— hey Az, how long d’you think we have until someone notices we’re gone?” It was a genuine question, but without the usual paranoia that would accompany the thought of getting caught slacking off on the job.
With both Nic and Vinny reaching out for her, Azra wasn’t sure why she ever thought she’d get to be a spectator, just calmly sitting on the sidelines and preventing anything catastrophic. Every movement seemed large and emboldened instead, as though the three before her were truly brimming with chaos. In the way they’re unpredictable they still don’t seem as potentially harmful to her as to themselves.
“I’m Azra” even as she says it she knows it’s stupid, wont be absorbed. At least when she’s off her perch she can use the distraction of ice-cream Jasper to attempt to pluck the soap from him. Settles it in the nest of Nic’s towel, as she places them back up. “That depends, how long’s the music gonna last without you?”
She can somewhat hear it piping out into the ballroom from above, but it’s dim enough that it might just be the noises of the yacht now. “Can you hear it?”
She’s so busy staring at the wall, as though that will help her hearing, that she isn’t mindful to what’s going on beyond them. Turns around to address Jasper, when it seems like the door moves out of the corner of her eye. “Water for drinking, so you don’t get ..all dried up. Like a prune. Or the ice-cream the astronauts have.”
