"That's right honey. I mean, 'milady'" he added with another bow and stuffy accent.
"Quite a nice...amount of mousse you're using. Makes you want to call me 'milady' and nothing else."
"I'm not wearing that much mousse," he lied.
"Oh, sorry. I meant..." Marilyn had to stop and think for a second. Mike was the stereotypical pretty-boy of the group, and measured so much of himself around the genetic luck he was blessed with. It wasn't uncommon to receive praise for is whole look from interested women, or certain neutral parts of him from women feigning not being interested sometimes. It was a little annoying, but moreso cute to see the waitress in-front of them search for the right complementary word she wanted to use.
"Oh! Right, dummy" she tried to whisper verbally kicking herself, but it was still audible enough to make all three men chuckle. "Nice hair is what I meant. Sorry for being a little scatterbrained. Careful, it may be catching."
A light bulb went off in Mike's head, almost chiding himself for not realizing what she was trying to say. "Of course she meant the hair," he told himself. Complimenting his hair to him was just a wrung below complimenting his face, which translated to "want to fuck?" in his mind. He would've levied his way to sweet-talking Marilyn, except thoughts that could've levied such talk actually did scatter in his head. Words he wanted to use evaded him, and he looked as confused as Marilyn had.
She smiled at him. "I'm sorry. Guess it really was catching. No need to pull your hair out over it or anything, you'll remember it, just like your time on stage too."
Some of the words he wanted to use came up, but were pushed aside as memories of actually being on-stage came back to him. "Must be that sloshed if I forgot that." The end came up to him first, and he remembered coming up from what felt like an absent daydream. He adjusted his hair out of habit, and believed the clapping and jeers from the ladies in the audience were directed at his coveted follicle crown.
Standing nearby was the show-woman, a hypnotist or something. Called herself Berta, a memorable name just for how simple it was, with no exaggerated moniker before it. It was also a name he'd only seen or heard of heavy, unattractive women bearing it, and she was closer to stick-figure skinny, with a beauty worthy of a pity-fuck if he was in the mood. Her outfit didn't do her any favors in that department, dressed very casually in blue-jean jacket, a blouse underneath, and tight jeans covered by black knee-high boots. Waving to the crowd as if she was the one receiving praise showed confidence, which was enough of a turn-on though. She had a way of moving, subtly, lacking any veneer suggestive of her appearance being just a show. She barely looked like she was moving at all from Mike's vantage point, but her the swinging silver watch moving back and forth suggested otherwise. Settling on the watch itself unlocked more, stranger memories to recall. Vaguely remembering Craig was also on-stage next to him. They both started out as trying not to laugh at what Berta was proposing to them on stage, crazy ideas for them to put their minds toward, that made the audience freely laugh. Out of the corner of his eye, Craig seemed less humored by it, which surprised Mike. He wasn't upset by what he was hearing. Craig's friend swore he seemed more content than anything.
Berta eventually caught his attention moving past his seated self, bringing out the silver watch for the first time, but intently looking at someone else. Weirdly insulting, yet not, was how she talked to the person about a watch swinging and how he would just lock his attention on it, only the watch swung in-front of Mike. The blow to his ego of not being the center of a woman's attention softened as he reasoned she was taunting him with talking about something he couldn't see, something Mike could as she spoke of "loving how the watch just moves before you with the grace of a dancer. Seamless, calculated motions, made for you to follow, unable to measure how good it feels to watch the watch. The muscle control needed to draw your attention is as uncomplicated as the flick of my wrist. The smallest motion creates an arc of a dance that is small and almost rapid, or wide and slow, and you follow regardless of where it leads you."
Mike's wondering of how the other man could possibly envision the watch when it was in his face faded with every change in the arc Berta described. In his mind's eye, he imagined what Berta's watch-swinging hand would look like as it controlled the watch's movement. Her wrist barely moving synced with the muscles of his neck adapting to the watch's arc. The faded reflection of himself on the silver surface matched how his awake self felt. Confusion fused with fascination, waiting for Berta to make sense of it all.
"It doesn't matter if the watch is visible to you. It doesn't matter if it's invisible to you. It exists. It swings. It is something you follow, like my words. You can't see them, can't tell me what color they are or the font they might take, but you know they're there, you know they have your attention, and you like what you're hearing so far."
She had such a casual, matter-of-fact way of speaking, in a consistent low tone that borderline droned on, but every syllable spoken had something nice-sounding to it that made the words she spoke still relevant, at least to some part of him.
"And it's perfectly okay if you find your mind wandering a little while I have your attention. Sometimes people will wander to recent things they've heard. Like hearing about what my words might look like or feel like if tangible. Maybe your imagination has some ideas, conjuring a soft, silvery substance, wisping like a stream of smoke around you, pleasing to the skin upon contact..."
Mike had to shake himself back to reality, something past his eyes focusing on a silver swinging watch shifted to his eyes that saw Marilyn happily covering her hand, holding back an laugh lacking context. He found he'd been out of it for a minute, though it felt like it was longer, just in time to notice everyone was walking away from him. Craig being the first to head into the bathroom, dragging his friends in with him, hearing genuine laughter as they headed in.
The three stepped into a turquoise-colored, heavily-patterned room. The structure was standard for the average men's room, but it looked to them like the club owner let their decorator go ham and over-decorate, even on the walls of the stalls and everywhere except the mirrors. They were surprised the patterns didn't overwhelm their eyes as they came in, especially Craig as he was an interior designer himself. Despite a sense of overkill, there was still something professionally commendable about it. Even in a liquored haze, he could appreciate the aesthetic composite, like fine art. The lighting was perfectly low and spaced out well, as to not shine and exacerbate how many patterns there were. The patterns themselves were a wavy combination of lighter and darker shades of turquoise, blending into something cohesive. The more he paid attention to it, the more it looked clean and distinct enough to be drawn on the wall instead of wallpapered.
Mike and Yancey felt the same in a way they couldn't describe, noticing familiar patters as they used the facilities. Unfocused eyes got lost searching for whatever shapes their minds could decipher. Yancey had it the easiest as he was able to sit down in his stall while his older brother and friend had to keep themselves awake and upright at the urinals. After relieving himself, being enclosed in wall-to-wall patterns overtook Yancey. His subconscious felt like he was trapped inside a box-shaped puzzle, and had to discover its secret before he could escape. Escape of any kind seemed like a novel concept as parts of his body loved how still he could stay and just enjoy the bliss of the puzzle. One pattern bleeding into another, over and over, ever on the verge of solving the puzzle. Unconsciously, his eyes unfocused as they felt like they were catching onto something, only to be interrupted by a loud sound.
"Don't fall asleep in there, Nancy-boy," his brother pounded on the door.
"Yeah, still need a ride h-hey, wash those hands first."
"Don't keep us waiting sis'."
Yancey heard the faucets run, and the sound of water splashing on someone's face, followed by nothing but the interrupted flow of the water for several minutes. No footsteps, no creaking door swinging open or closing; just that faucet running for a few minutes. It soon turned into white noise as his eyes refocused on the pattern, and unfocused to clearly see another dimension amongst the patterns, like words trapped between fancy shapes, words encouraging feelings already prevailing his sleepy self.
"Feels good," he thought he saw.
