Page 22 of Smoke After Hours

Jade was barely in the room for thirty seconds before she started cursing under her breath and left, only to return with a man who I learned was Evander’s cousin, Alessandro.

“Dro, what the fuck is this shit?” Jade asked, stepping into the room to prompt the sounds and cutting on a main light switch on the wall that I hadn’t known was there.

“What do you mean?” Alessandro asked, leaning against the wall with a smirk on his face. “You told me I could create a Sky High Room for the Puff Pleasure Party to revel in getting high off weed and sex.”

“No,” she stated, walking to him and pointing a manicured finger in his face. “What I asked you was to get one of your many tattooing cousins who are talented in graphic design and ask them to create a one-of-a-kind experience for tonight. In what damn world did you interpret what I asked for as having a damn Australian encourage people to fuck in a room full of clouds and crocodiles?”

Alessandro lifted an eyebrow, his expression indifferent. “Art is subjective, and you’ve been married to a Crowne too long to see the beauty in exotic expressions of ecosexuality that some of us singles divulge in.”

“What the hell is ecosexuality?” I asked Bentley, keeping my voice low.

She shrugged. “Beats me, but maybe crocodiles are involved.”

“Dro, I wanted people to feel like they were high while fucking, not your radical version of loving Mother Nature.”

“I’m gonna stop you right there before you offend me,” he advised, frowning. “Ecosexualists can indulge in sexual and non-sexual relationships with the Earth. Mother Nature is a lover and she’s weeping every damn day from what humans are doing to her. You can’t be afraid to engage in a physical affair with the environment, when the environment welcomes us with roots wide open.”

What the fuck?Bentley and I shared a perplexed look as the shit just kept on getting weirder.

“Dro, are you high right now?” Jade asked, her eyes tense. “You betta not be.”

On cue, Alessandro removed a vape pen from his pocket and drew the smoke into his mouth, holding it for a few seconds before releasing it into the air, his voice throaty when he admitted, “High than a muthafucka and muthafuckin’ highhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” He coughed on the last syllable.

Jade ran her fingers through her hair in frustration, grunting. While visibly taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself. Security finally showed up, but Jade sent them away and told them she had it handled. Besides, I had her back if anything popped off for real.

“Bruh, I don’t know what the hell is going on with you lately,” Jade stated. “But I need the badass tattoo artist who all women of Lush want to fuck. Not the dendrophilic who gets sexually aroused by trees.”

“Don’t blame the trees, Jadey Jade.” He drew vapor into his mouth, his eyes twinkling with hilarity. “Sis, I’m a lover man. I love er’thang. Trees. Crocodiles. Clouds. The color green. I thought this was the Puff Pleasure Party?” He waved his vapepen in the air. “I’m puffin’ on some strong shit, and I plan on getting pleasured later with some ladies who are willing to pay me and Evander a busload of money to tattoo them, then give them a reason to leave their husbands.”

“Oh hell nah.” Jade shook her head, waving her hands in the air. “I specifically told all you damn Hoodsnotto get high tonight. You ain’t fuckin’ nobody like this.”

“Chill, sis.” Alessandro waved his hands low to the ground. “We know Lush needs to get paid first. I got you. How about the lounge gets the whole yellow bus, and Evander and I will split a few rows? Like, you can get the friendly bus driver, too, but I want the nerdy teacher in the front seat wearing those thick ass glasses because glasses can be sexy as fuck.”

Jade looked from me and Bentley, then back to Alessandra before she spat, “Nigga what?”

“Nigga who?” he repeated, speaking to the beat of Jay Z’s song as he repeated, “Nigga what. Nigga who. Nigga what. Nigga who.”

“Not who,” Jade interrupted, stepping to Alessandro. “You, nigga. I’m gonna kill you for setting up the room like this, and for getting high after I specifically told you not to touch the shit tonight. And you must have been getting high all fuckin’ week because I just landed today and there’s no way you created this room without any other influence.”

“You know what though, Jade,” Bentley interjected, stepping between Jade and Alessandro. “Maybe there are some members here tonight who would love this space. There’s an angle here that you can work, you just haven’t discovered what that is yet.”

For a second, Jade seemed slightly less aggravated as she contemplated Bentley’s words. Yet, Alessandro rose from the wall and fucked it all up, muttering, “If you think this shit is dope, wait until you see what I did with the room next door.”

Jade’s mouth dropped as she rushed out of the Sky High Room and into the one next door, Bentley and I right on her tail. Because call me crazy, but I wanted to see the shit too.

“What in the actual fuck is this?” Jade yelled, getting the attention of a few people who were making out in the hallway. “Dro, are those pigs?”

“Yeahhhh boiiii,” he chanted.

“And wings?” Jade asked.

“Fo’ sho’.” Alessandro started jumping up and down. “And get this. The flying pigs are different shades of purple. Go ahead and ask the room if pigs can fly and see how goddamn talented the voiceover actor is. I found his ass speaking verses on the train a few weeks back.”

Jade looked dumbfounded, but I wanted to know, so I asked the room if pigs could fly, earning me a death glare from Jade, which was quickly ignored when all of us got distracted by Prince’s voice coming through the speaker.

“Yes, pigs can fly and so can you,” Prince’s copycat voiced. “Go ahead and fly yourselves into the moon and stars as you allow yourself to sexually float to another planet like you’re a pig that’s gotten its first pair of wings. Go ahead, little purple. Fly away, pig, fly away.”

Alessandro clapped his hands, and two waterfalls in opposite corners of the room splashed water into the air as they played Prince’s hit, “Purple Rain.” When Alessandro started swaying to the beat as the water hit his body while singing along, Jade lost it again, sending them right back into arguing. Or more like, Jade was arguing and Alessandro was on another planet entirely.

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