start of **WONDERLAND** (part two)
🎉Standing at the bar, Neil saw Saskia return to the hall. She'd been away quite a while, but what did he know about the timings of female toilet-talk? Nonetheless, he was relieved to see her and caught her flick a glance towards him with an added smile. She'd brought about a certain excitability by simply being here, and from the corner of her eye made out him pointing in her direction.
The vast room was now buzzing. Almost everyone that entered the room had no sooner settled at their table, before eyes were searching, anxious for a look at the Queen Bee. It was so venerating to watch them all mesmerized by her. Some even felt that she had tempered him to the point of being less intense in the office. By and large, she would be under surveillance most of the night.
With the bubbles and whisky having well kicked in, Neil stood and scanned his workforce, knowing he would be buggered without them. Loyal, hard workers that rarely caused problems. To whom, at times, he had been disparaging. At Christmas, his generosity folded outwards and diminished his own significance. For one night he was an equal despite, perhaps, him being rigged out in the most expensive suit. Christmas spirit had on him, albeit briefly, the embodiment of altruism. He'd best soak up this one, undiversified night.
Hardly a person that invited Saskia to dance was turned down Neil noticed, as he held her under his almost constant watch. It amused him to see the smirk on the faces of some of the great unwashed. Dancing with the boss's daughter, or rather, the boss's exceptionally-beautiful daughter, was a tick on every scale. It was those whose plus-one Neil didn't know that concerned him. Over the loud music, they would lean in to make small talk in her ear, and for the most part she handled it well, politely thanking them for the dance and heading back to her table. At times he would rip her away from her newly-found friends, for more formal introductions to his own influential ones.
She didn't mind - expected it really. Her only bothersome concern was nose-candy Julia, who dominated the dance floor, and always seemed to have something to say to Neil every time she passed his table on route to widdle and take a fresh line. They exchanged the odd glance in passing, but Saskia never saw Neil leaving the room with her. She wasn't sure how she would feel if he had. Doing her best not to show it, the mouthy cow's ripping toilet outburst still bothered her despite her effort to focus solely on the celebrations.
Alas, the party came to its time-flying, incredulous end with the DJ announcing the last dance - the one where you had to pick your partner carefully; it wouldn't do to festively-offend. On hearing the call, two lads, from different directions, rose to the challenge and meandered through the sea of tables, chairs and fellow last-chancers, trying to get to Saskia, hoping to be that accepted final offer. But a voice behind them cut in.
'Sorry, guys, but I secured this one earlier on.' Neil proffered a hand to his daughter and led her to the dance floor. His skin felt cool and soft, and his grip reassuringly strong.
Every year, on his request, the Christmas night's music ended with a song of his choice; not a festive one, but one that sailed along with him through his life. Him and his sunken sentiment bursting through but once a year. Strangely, its words he could almost dedicate to his lost daughter; as if perhaps it was expecting her presence somewhere down the line.
Putting her hands on his shoulders, his on her waist, they gently swayed in old-style moon dance, exchanging silly smiles and glances over shoulders as the floor crowded with couples squeezing closer together. Leaning to his ear, she asked in a compelled shouty tone:
'So... what's with you and the lady in red? She's had you up dancing a lot.'
Giving a searching peek around him, making sure she and the poor guy she was glued to were swaying out of earshot, he told her, 'That's Julia... she used to work for us. No man refuses her a dance!' He tipped his head in her direction. 'Rottweiler in slingbacks!'
This made Saskia laugh, and Neil grinned back, warming at this. With eyes that lingered on her inviting features, he leaned towards her ear. 'I am so proud of you. You're easily the prettiest woman here tonight.'
She raised her brows and stated quite frankly, 'Well, any Dad would have to say that.'
'No, no. It's nothing to do with the biased-father thing - it just happens to be true.'
'I think someone's had too many Jack Daniel's.'
'Oh, come on. You must have felt a flush from all those eyes on you tonight?'
'That was just everyone wanting a gawp at the boss's daughter.' It was enriching though, feeling like his little emblem.
'The boss's daughter...' he repeated. 'I still can't believe it.'
Staring at him for no more than a few seconds, a diminutive nod was all she mustered before downcast eyes tried uselessly to hide the prickly glimmer in them. Drink induced or not, his words made a bolt straight for her heart.
'Hey?' He stopped and lifted up her chin, wiping the wet from her cheek with his fingertips. 'Awe... come here you soppy thing.' He pulled her forward and rested her head on his chest, with his own head resting down on hers, not giving a shit if mascara stains smudged his shirt. Those long arms folded right round her waist, and a thumb found itself resting on the crisscross side panel of her dress, stroking lightly and comfortingly up and down a window of exposed skin.
It was a divine feeling, an unequivocal need to be ensconcing such a precious belonging, knowing that one day he might be all she's got. It was almost cruel that life had passed so long without her. Under this very dance, he knew there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for her. Closing his eyes, he got lost in the fading moments of the song, singing the words in his head:
♪'The blame I lay on her......Wonderland.♪'
He always believed that in a song you can find the perfect feeling that real life is reluctant to provide, yet here it intensified by having her in his hold.
The keenly awaited load of netted balloons looking down on the pick and mix of could-be lovers, were on the brink of freedom. The latter part of their dance felt strange, majestic even, and as the music stopped and the glorious shower of balloons and foil ribbons fell to a chorus of Christmas cheer, they freed themselves from their clutch and stood inert. For a moment, everything disconnected, until she reached out and gently thumbed the lapels of his jacket as he put his hands lightly on her waist. Foreheads touched, and Saskia looked almost as if she was reluctant to open her eyes. But other couples leaving the floor, popping and kicking a path through the balloons, seemed to jerk her back to the motion-filled here and now.
'You okay?' he asked.
'I need to go the loo...' she announced to his amusement - always seeming to know how to round off perfect moments, she did....
In the sudden full brightness of the swanky room, he watched her trot off, then turned to eye the utter mess that merry celebration could bring. It would take staff hours before their heads were hitting their pillows. Some clean up operation this would be. The reward would come with all the extras the guests abandoned for staff to take home; everything from money and food, to decorations and Secret Santa gifts, stretching this party even further.
That dissonant sound once the music and racket stops - letting you know how pissed you are by the level of its drone - was buzzing loudly in his head. As much as he couldn't be bothered with the farewells, he wasn't at a point where he was too drunk to happily suffer it out. It was mostly 'Merry Xmas' wishes and thank you's, and the occasional male idiot with mistletoe who dared under alcohol to coax a kiss from him, to which he sometimes - cheeks only - happily provided. After twenty minutes, with just a trickle of people around, he realised Saskia hadn't returned. Probably got caught up saying her own goodbye's. Glancing over at the table, he saw her bag wasn't there, so therefore must be with her. He'd give it five minutes and then he'd phone her.
end of **Wonderland** (part two)
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