by Lisette Allaire » Mon Jul 31, 2023 11:20 am
Lisette lets out a little snort. "When I first tried wine, I thought it tasted like vinegar. I shuddered so hard I almost bent double, like I sucked on a lemon. And coffee tasted like dirt. In a way, it still does, but you learn to pick up an appreciation for when the barista's made an effort, when it's, you know, smoother than pica." At Ashlie's order, she raises a single eyebrow and quirks a one-sided smile. "What the fuck is a 'French Toast'?"
The conversation moves on, and Lisette finds herself perpetually amazed by Ashlie's outlook. She finds out that Ashlie has been in a physical body for a very short time - in fact, has been cognisant for a very short time, relatively speaking. Only a few years. Most of her maturity stems from an early life spent running at a clock speed of a couple hundred billion cycles a second, developing, self-reflecting, iterating on herself at a speed a human simply could not do, something that Ashlie assures her is impressive if one is a very different kind of nerd to Lisette. Lisette, for her part, simply allows herself to be convinced that yes, it is legal for Ashlie to be drinking here, and yes, Ashlie is essentially an adult. She comes off as a bit older than Lisette, actually; just kind of a shut-in.
Lisette is good at detecting the shifting moods when alcohol is involved. Very specifically, she's good at telling how other people are feeling, and viewing her. She sees the alcohol hit Ashlie's system a scarce few minutes after Ashlie is aware of it, sees her relax a little, watches her perfect posture dissolve into the normal slightly slumped posture of an average person. Still, she's fucking perfect. It's the kind of casual, professional envy that Lisette takes from a much older career, one revolving around being the prettiest girl in the room and leveraging that for professional advantage. If someone in the room was hotter, Lisette needed to find a place under herself to put that person. She shakes off that instinct - this is her boss, not a person she wants to be in the habit of undermining, and the impulse is misplaced for the situation anyway. Lisette is good at keeping her impulses under control while drunk. Better than when sober, actually, because she's far more deliberately careful.
Lisette lets her eyes wander over Ashlie with casual interest while she's enjoying new experiences, finding mild novelty in watching a fully-grown adult sample and experience all these new things. She's used to the concept of alcohol being old and tired, just the same social lubricant, so it's funny watching Ashlie feel her faculties dim, her senses dull, and finally her inhibitions melt away. "Yes," Lisette assures her, "floatiness is normal. You lose a little bit of coordination, a lot of your inhibitions, then it all spirals down as the evening goes on. There's a reason people tend to serve alcohol at important dinners - it gets everyone talking. They call it 'social lubricant' for a reason." Ashlie's laugh is improper, uncontrolled, and would have been unattractive if she was anything less than physically perfect. Instead, it's just endearing, like everything else about her, if one can look past the mechanical neatness of her mannerisms.
"Brainwave patterns?! You nerd!" Lisette laughs freely and easily. "Maybe it's possible that you would handle walking the line better than a normal, human drunk. It'd be funny to watch you try, actually." She sees Ashlie's impulses shift again, and is suddenly aware that Ashlie is trying, as casually as possible, to pay very close attention to Lisette's bare shoulders, the curve of her throat, the gentle swell of her chest under the elegant cling of the dress. It's like watching a teenager - surely Ashlie has a fully-developed aesthetic sense, or everything she said and did would be a lot less perfect, but now she seems to actually feel the human impulses attached to that aesthetic sense. Lisette, for not the first time, has the feeling of being desired. But somehow, it doesn't quite translate into an uncomfortable leer.
"Thank you," she says, in a genuinely responsive tone. "I got it in a boutique in Prague. You look pretty immaculate, too." I'm not going to fuck my brand-new boss. Even though I probably could. But she could have some fun here, mess with Ashlie's head in a cute, harmless way that can be politely written off the morning after, from separate bedrooms.
Lisette rests her chin on a couple of fingers, looking Ashlie very closely in the eyes, intense but not searching - just taking in the view. "You practiced that compliment in your head before you said it, didn't you?" another easy laugh - we're all friends here. "I find that after a little while, it's less about finding it easier to do things and more about finding it harder to stop. I've ended up in more strange matchups than I remember. It's fun. It's actually pretty easy to tell how people end up as alcoholics." Lisette leaves the meaning of the phrase 'matchup' vague. Arguably, she herself was a functional alcoholic - she could definitely do a three-martini lunch and carry on the work day afterwards. "You don't seem like that, though. I think this would most likely just be a fun little way to get you to cut loose. Which, by the way, I am going to get you to do. You have to freak out and fuck up on the way to being a normal, well-adjusted person." She works a perfect nail over the ribbon tied around her throat. In a way, it feels like drawing a bow across the strings of a violin - Ashlie being the violin in question. "You must really feel sorry, taking me to a place like this. This is the kind of place people takes dates." She quirks a little expression of mock-distrust. "You'd tell me in advance if you were taking me on a date, wouldn't you?" A gentle push, harmless really, into the informal. Any... inappropriate actions or impulses Ashlie takes from it are her own thing.