酷视

I took a slow, deliberate sip while fighting off the desire to twist my face.

Still young, I never really had the chance or the opportunity to get used to drinking alcohol. And while I was aware that people rarely drank it for its taste…

"Hon! Look at all those!" Fay called out from over the counter of the bar fitted to the side of the main living area of the penthouse.

It took her only a quick show of mine to catch up on the idea of bartending. And with the use of all the tools and supplies the thoughtful management of this unit provided, she has long surpassed whatever I\'ve taught her.

\'I showed her how you should only add ice to the scotch to drink it with respect or mix it with coke if you couldn\'t care less and just want a fun drink,\' I thought before lazily resting the back of my head against the cushions behind me and looking over at the girl.

By now, Fay already mastered the skill of arranging various elements of the drinks. She shuffled the ice out of a specially drawn freezer into the mixing cup and added just a few drops of thick juice from the freshly squeezed lime before blasting it all with some sort of fizzy drink I didn\'t even recognize.

She gave the mixing cup a solid shake for a few moments. And as if she was a pro-league theatrical muse rather than just a simple girl making a drink, her body didn\'t move a single inch, leaving all the hard work of shaking the cup to just her thin arms alone.

"Hon! Watch now!"

As calm and professional as Fay\'s movements were, her face was absolutely silly. Her eyes brimmed with amusement when she swung the cup open and added a few spoonfuls of some sort of starch before giving it a second round of shaking. Then, she poured the suddenly viscous liquid down a long, beautiful glass.

"The water turned into a slime!" she announced, all happy, throwing the used-up cup to the top of the growing pile of dirty glassware.

As much as she grew to like mixing drinks, the cleaning part clearly wasn\'t her forte.

"It\'s called Jello here," I corrected the girl, only to squint my eyes a little. "Or pudding?" I muttered, not even sure myself.

I\'ve never been to a place with a bartender, so how could I know the intricate lingo of their job? Just adding ice cubes to my drink was nearing the limits of my drink-mixing knowledge! And while I could somehow make do with a solid and relatively simple recipe…

Fay used nothing but her nose and guts to pick the ingredients, somehow knowing how two things she had never tasted before would make for a great drink base!

"Now, we poke!" I nearly jumped when Fay suddenly raised a massive knife that had no right being anywhere near the bar… Only to peek over at me and burst out laughing. "Silly! I\'m not that careless!" she continued to laugh, putting the knife down and grabbing a long, wooden stick instead that she then proceeded to rape the jello in the cup with.

Then and only then, she brought up two different bottles of what was already in the penthouse\'s bar, quickly pouring them into yet another fresh mixing cup before giving it a gentle, toned shake. And when she poured it into the misty jello she made before…

"Woah…" I didn\'t hold back my awed voice when the alcohol flew down into the holes Fay made in the jello, quickly turning the entire thing into a mesmerizing green. What\'s more, there were thousands upon thousands of tiny, white spots, making the entire drink appear like a reflection of a night\'s sky on the surface of a shallow lake.

I was genuinely shocked. But as I looked back to the bar\'s counter where Fay already stacked the fruits of her previous attempts…

\'She is one hell of a hard-working girl, isn\'t she?\' I thought, dragging my eyes across a long line of the drinks she made before.

Fay wasn\'t touched by a random stroke of genius. Her genius allowed her to learn a lot from every attempt she made, allowing her to quickly move from simply adding slices of lime and ice to mixing various brands and even types of alcohol to bring out the hidden qualities of its taste.

First, she started with the basics. Then, for four more drinks, she figured out how to decorate and present the drinks. By the ninth glass, she already started to get creative, using ingredients that I didn\'t even know existed or considered as a potential drink material.

And with her tenth cup just finished, I expected her to line it up with the rest…

But no.

"Phew!" Fay wiped her forehead with the back of her hand with a clear look of satisfaction beaming out of her smile. She then grabbed the glass just by its very top and supported it from below its thick bottom.

"It\'s finally good enough," she whispered lightly, yet thanks to how silent it was in the house, I could perfectly hear her confident words. And with my head still in the weird, twisted position, I could also see how she glanced towards me…. No, somewhere slightly off, just a bit to the side.

Following Fay\'s eyes, I turned my sights to the still half-full glass in my hand.  And without even a second of hesitation, minding not the culture of drinking, I raised the cup to my mouth and gulped all that was left, booze and ice at the same time.

"Fay, dearest, would you be as kind as to treat me to one of those drinks of yours?" This time, rather than pulling my head to the back, I properly shifted around to face the girl with an innocent smile.

"You d-dummy…" Fay, taken aback by my show, failed to act as if she saw nothing. Still, with her cheeks burning, she brought the beautiful glass over, stuffing it with a long, silvery spoon right before passing me the drink.

"Try not to hold it with your hands. Just a little bit of heat is enough to make it start dissolving," she warned before standing aside.

"Let\'s try…" I muttered, already tensing up and relaxing my face to warm its muscles up in preparation for the great show of amazement I was going to give regardless of how the drink would taste.

Ready for the show, I grabbed the spoon and scooped out a considerable bit of the fluffy jello. Yet, as I brought it to my mouth…

I failed to act the way I envisioned I would. Instead, my face froze and my jaws stopped moving in fear of stopping the marvelous show that begun in my mouth.

The fluffy jello felt like a literal cloud, slowly melting away into a soft, mellow taste of some citruses. I could feel the slight burn of the alcohol as its first drops formed and trickled down my throat… But contrary to all my prior experiences, I didn\'t feel even the tiniest bit of the usual discomfort!

I dared not move my jaws or my tongue, too scared of disturbing the intricate effects of Fay\'s creation.

"I\'m lost for words…" I admitted honestly once the cloud of jello in my mouth dissolved completely. I then sharply raised my eyes and looked at the girl. "Fay, dear, I have no idea what you did, but I\'ve never known you could even prepare a drink like that!"

Rather than acting out my amazement, I was now honestly admitting to my awe, staring at the girl as if she was some sort of a god of a barrel incarnate.

"I…" dumbfounded by the level of my amazed, Fay suddenly turned shy and humble. "I-I did my best…" she added in a tiny voice while lowering her eyes to escape my intense gaze.

"I can tell," I spoke out, leaving the drink on the nearby table and standing up to reach for the only thing more delicious than what Fay concocted. After getting my fill of the treat of Fay\'s lips, I pulled back a bit and took a look at her beautiful face.

\'No, stop it,\' my sense of reason finally came back, knocking my mind back on the right track. Because as much as I wanted to just spend the rest of today and then a few more days doing nothing but spoiling Fay to see her smile, see her bashful, see her excited…

After what happened today, there were a few topics we had to discuss.

My eyes darted over to the small package left near the main doors. It was an item that would allow me to fulfill a major prerequisite of having any serious talk on this side of the portal.

"Fay, we should talk about what happened today," I spoke in a low voice, full of remorse.

I wanted nothing more but to grab Fay\'s arm, throw her on the bed, and then let her embrace and cuddle me down to sleep. The perspective of falling asleep while surrounded by her warmth, her smell, softness, presence…

It was something that I had to absolutely preserve! Even if it came at the cost of pushing this peaceful, soul-warming pleasure for later.

"But we will talk in the bedroom," I announced, rising up from the sofa and moving over to where I left the small package, a brand-new device that I bought myself during our recent trip to the town. "After all, I don\'t want to talk when I need to think whether the walls have ears or not."