Alice (part I)

(Note: all quotes from the song "Alice," by Tom Waits)

“And so a secret kiss/Brings madness with the bliss”
=====Russell stretched his legs out even further, the back of his head planted in the slightly stained tan cushion on the back of the couch, his back stretched across the seat; his legs and butt suspended in mid air, not actually making contact with the couch. His gray eyes wandered across the ceiling as he ran his right hand through the slightly tangled waves of dark brown hair piled on top of his head. A handful of people sat around him in a vague circle, sprawled on the other couch, chairs, and even a couple of them on the ground.
=====“Russell?” A voice to his right impatiently intoned.
=====Russell rolled his head to the right on the cushion to look, and saw Jeremy’s hand extended towards him, a joint wedged between his index and middle fingers, a thin curling trail of smoke dancing in slow motion through the air from its tip.
=====“Just take it man,” Jeremy repeated, shaking his head slightly.
=====Russell carefully extricated it from Jeremy’s fingers, taking care not to drop it. His fingers brought it to his lips, and he inhaled deeply, feeling the tendrils of smoke creep through the folded labyrinths of the walls of his lungs. Straining to hold it in, he could feel his heart pounding to the music from his Darrell’s speakers in every vein in his body, pulsing to the beat of the bass behind the screaming of Jimi’s warbling electric blues riffs. A cloud exploded from his mouth as he coughed, unable to hold it in any longer. He took another small hit after the brief coughing spasm tapered off, and held out the joint to his left as he exhaled. A fuzzy hand reached out in his peripheral vision and took it from his outstretched hand.
=====Russell was rather pleased with his current state of mind—several beers and lung-fulls of pot mingling, wrapping his brain in the a thick wool blanket of hazy detachment; all sensory input muffled, jumbled as it came through the layers of substance-induced insulation. A figure leaned over him in the center of his pixilated field of vision.
=====“Wanna come talk with me Russell?” a female voice emanated from the figure—it was Alice.
=====Russell willed his eyes to focus, and he could see the light reflecting off her dilated pupils, twin pools of jet-clack ink surrounded by the thin line of her deep-green irises.
=====“Sure. You can sit here,” Russell replied, gesturing to the empty seat on the couch next to him.
=====“Alone,” Alice said, extending a hand to help him up.
=====Russell stood up without taking her hand—he didn’t need any help—and followed her out of the room. Beads of sweat formed on his palms, and he could feel the beating of his heart picking up ever-so-slightly. Alice led him to a room down the hall, to her room. She sat down on the edge of her bed, and he sat beside her.
=====Russell became a bit disoriented, thoughts flitting past in his head before he could even process them—what should he do?...should he try to kiss her?...what if he sucked at it?...did she even like him?...what if she freaked out if he tried something?....did she want him to do something?...why was he so bad at knowing what to do with this stuff?...why was he so nervous?...what should he do? He felt he was watching a merry-go-round on crack spin in front of him, trying to focus on each animal as it flew past, but they were going by so fast he couldn’t even focus his eyes on one before it would disappear from his vision, never letting him get even remotely grounded.
=====His head spun faster and faster, until Alice leaned in and kissed him. He was too stunned to kiss her back.
=====She pulled away.
=====“I’m sorry…I thought—” She started.
=====“No…I do…” The words stumbled of his bewildered mouth.
=====“So you do want—”
=====“Yeah.”
=====Alice smiled, and he lost himself as they leaned in and kissed again.