Chapter 6

It was one in the afternoon, the sun was shining and the weather was a beautiful 30 degrees Celsius, everywhere he looked were beautiful women in bikinis and one-piece bathing suits, everyone out on the party deck had a drink in hand and seemed to be having a good time. He wondered if they had all gotten sufficient sleep before boarding at four in the morning, or maybe they were just staying awake because of the alcohol and the loud hip hop playing from the DJ booth?

It wasn't long before he had finished his second drink and wandered over to the outside bar for a refill where he met Mercedes, who remembered him from the morning and gave him a smile and a nod, he wandered over beside her.

"Come here often?" He said, trying to be funny while stealing Eddy's line.

"No, this is my first time!" She replied, not getting his joke.

"Where are your friends?"

"They went to sleep, we boarded the ship right after finishing work" she said.

"Oh, you all work together? As back-up dancers?" he said, another joke. She laughed politely.

"We are dancers!" she exclaimed.

"Like ballet dancers?" He thought they might be too curvy for ballet dancers, but it was the first dance-related job he could think of. She laughed again, this time genuine.

"No, we're dancers... For money." she smiled, it took him a while before he got the message and then found himself staring at her body imagining her at work. She laughed again and he snapped out of it, embarrassed, he laughed it off.

"It's a good living! Pays well, right?"Joe said, desperately trying to keep the conversation rolling.

"It does!" She finished what looked like her fifth drink and then yawned. "Think I'm going to get some sleep too, you should find us later, we'll be on the dance floor tonight! Dance-off!"

"Dance off!" he repeated. Before she could get away he asked her: "My friend Eddy, have you seen him?" She pointed towards the pool. Before he could say thanks she had disappeared into the crowd.

When Joe found Eddy he was talking to two party girls at the poolside (he was shirtless), they were taking shots when Joe walked over which earned him a shot too. Eddy introduced Joe to Tasha and whatever her friends name was.

They were good looking girls but nowhere near the level of Mercedes or Caroline, and definitely nowhere near the level of Eddy's blonde mysterious dream girl who Joe couldn't stop thinking about the most. Eddy was touching Tasha's leg and they were getting closer and closer, it wouldn't be long before the two were off to the room Joe thought, he was starting to feel the buzz of the alcohol after the shot, and decided he would ask Eddy.

"Did you find her?"

"Find who?" asked Eddy.

"The girl, the blonde." both girls Eddy was talking to had blonde hair. Joe went on, "The one who gave you the tickets."

"No sign of her. I looked everywhere, I saw that Spanish girl by the pool not long ago." Tasha and her friend were not amusing talk of other women in front of them and Tasha pulled on Eddy's arm.

"Let's go, show me your room." She said, half slurred. Eddy was about the same level of drunk and accepted the duty of showing her his room.

Eddy mentioned Tasha's friends name again and told Joe to "have fun," before leaving with Tasha under his arm. Joe still didn't remember her name or care to pretend he had any interest.

"So do you party?" The girl asked.

"What do you mean?" he asked. She made a gesture for nose candy, Joe shook his head, he didn't like drugs, they always had a dissatisfactory effect on him. She shrugged.

"Do you want to have sex?" she asked while feeling Joe's Pecs.

"No, I'm good thanks." he tried to say in the most polite way possible, upon hearing his answer she casually got up and walked over to a group of dancing guys and started making out with the first one who danced with her. She was attractive, but Joe could get a girl like her at any point in time, he didn't want a girl on his level he wanted a goddess, a queen of beauty, Aphrodite. If he were to hook up he thought, it would be with someone not from his world. He didn't know, of course, how on the nose this thought was.

He made his way toward the edge of the party deck and stood overlooking the first deck where the mysterious blonde had been standing this morning looking down at him. Her blue eyes flashed in his mind's eye, her red dress, her hair blowing in the wind, she was looking at him this morning, he was sure of it.

Then at that moment he felt eyes on him again, he turned and scanned the crowd of party and dancing, no one was paying attention to him.

He looked passed the crowd and realized the true scale of the cruise ship, there were still 3 decks above the party deck. The deck above didn't have a balcony overlook it was just dark tinted glass, what was most probably the concert hall, he remembered from the map. Then there was a deck above that which had people on it, except they were in suits and fine clothes which was definitely the V.I.P. level and there was another level yet above that which was too high to see what was going on.

Upon bringing his attention back down, he stopped at the tinted glass and saw a figure he thought was looking right at him. His skin crawled, the figure wasn't moving, that confirmed it, he was being watched! Joe finished his drink, not taking an eye off of the figure unmoved.

He wanted to let the figure know, he knew it was staring at him he thought. Then he imagined it was the woman, the one who had spied him this morning, the blonde in the red dress, a woman who was always on a higher level, literally and figuratively, the one who he couldn't stop thinking about above all others.