I didn’t have a whole lot of experience dating as an adult. In the sandbox that kind of thing usually involved livestock, and back in the states I was more of a pick ‘em up in a bar kind of guy. I’ve got the kind of abrasive personality that means long term relationships were few and far between for me, and I was a little awkward at first. Debbie pointed out the triangle of sticks hanging in front of a building that indicated they served food and I picked a short wide building with plenty of windows I thought looked kind of cheerful.

There wasn’t a menu or anything, I handed the girl at the door 200XP tokens and she led us into a room lit by those purple lights. We were seated in a couple of log benches that kind of made a booth around a small table covered with a cheap plastic tablecloth. The lady came back a second later with two glasses and a bottle of wine with no label. She sat them on the table and told us both that the empty bottle, glasses and flatware all remained with the restaurant. When we agreed she left again and came back with two plates of spaghetti and half a loaf of dry flaky bread. I thought the bread was amazing and told Debbie so.

“Ahhh, he finally speaks. I thought asking you out had struck you dumb.”

“Is that what this is? I gotta be honest with you here, Debbie. I’m terrible at this kind of thing.”

“Oh you’re impotent. They make a pill for that you know?”

“What? That’s not what I was saying. . .”

“Relax, Jack. I was just yanking your chain. Look, you seem to be a straight forward kind of guy, can I level with you here?”

“Lord, yes, that would be a relief.”

“We’re both adults and I don’t have the patience to beat around the bush. I’m interested in you, Jack, romantically, and I’m pretty sure you feel the same way about me. What I’m not interested in is playing games about it. I outgrew that shit with my ex-husband. You’re good looking, competent, and seem like a genuinely nice guy inside even though you have a tendency to come across as a bit of an asshole. I’m bossy, opinionated, and have zero patience most of the time, but from the looks I’ve caught from you definitely your type, physically anyway. There’s a limited number of people available for the foreseeable future, and if you haven’t noticed they’re already starting to pair off. What I want to know from you is if you’re looking for a relationship, and if so what kind?”

I took another bite of my spaghetti so I wouldn’t have to answer right away and when I finished chewing I took a drink of the wine to clear my throat. It was terrible and my face twisted up in a grimace.

“That stuff is foul.”

“I didn’t think it was all that bad. A little acidic maybe.”

“Ugh, I’d rather have had a warm flat beer.” I shuddered at her and then cleared my throat. “What do you mean about what kind of a relationship?”

“Am I talking about penpals? C’mon, Jack, cards on the table remember? You looking for someone to marry, a serious relationship, dating, just fuck buddies? If this is more than just a single date I want to know what we expect going into this.”

“Shit I didn’t even know this was a date until about 10 minutes ago, Debbie. If we’re going out I guess all I expect is we have a good time and see what develops. Maybe by the end of the night you won’t be able to stand my ass or you’ll make one too many impotence jokes and I’ll run off crying. Maybe we fall in love Disney style and live happily ever after. I got no damn clue, so how bout we just get to know each other and find out. Maybe repeat this conversation after we know each other better.”

“So you’re saying you want to just take it slow and see what develops?”

I agreed with that, so that’s what we did. The restaurant seemed to fill up after a while and from her body language I’m pretty sure the lady that ran the place wasn’t too happy with how long we were taking to clear her table. Since I wasn’t planning on leaving a tip I figured she could get used to being unhappy early. Debbie and I talked about everything and nothing. She told me stories about things she’d seen waitressing and growing up in Indiana. I talked about life in Oklahoma and a couple of funny stories from boot camp. We both liked country music although I was more into the outlaw Jamey Johnson type stuff while she liked the poppier sounding modern stuff. Debbie had plans to build a greenhouse and grow coffee and oranges when we got back to the keep, and I ended up offering to go halvsies on the project. I told her about the livestock I’d gotten for John and she told me goat’s milk wouldn’t be that bad in her eventual coffee and wondered about the possibility of making cheese. I didn’t think I had the right kind of goats for milch goats, but I didn’t know so I just shrugged at her. After a while I looked out the window and realized we were getting close to losing the light.

“Shit, Debbie. We got to go pick up the leather stuff we traded for earlier. If you’re still wanting to leave tonight we have to go now.”

“I might miss out on the new shoes you bought me? Hell, yes, let’s get moving.” She giggled a little when she said it and I realized Debbie had ended up drinking a hell of a lot more of the wine than she probably should have. I didn’t say anything but I put out an arm to steady her as we hurried to the door. She slid the arm over her shoulder and tucked in next to me while we walked. She was short enough to fit and not cause an awkward gait, and it was kind of nice so I didn’t draw away. We walked like that to Kim’s place, and I let out a sigh of relief when I saw that those two big doors were still hanging open.

I led Debbie inside and called out, “Hey, boy scout, we’re here.”

He came in from a back room, wiping his mouth with a genuine cloth napkin as he walked. “Cutting it to the last minute weren’t you, Jack. Trying to give us plenty of time to finish as much stuff as possible I suppose.”

I gestured to the half sloshed woman on my arm and shook my head. “I was otherwise occupied, man. Sorry if it put you out.”

He waived off my apology and sighed. “No, it's fine. I live right behind the shop. It actually doesn’t hurt me to stay open a little late. Neither of the leather dresses is finished, they take longer but everything else is done.”

“Holy shit. How many people you got working in your little sweatshop back there?”

“Hah, just Evan and Haley, you met them before remember? It’s the XP shop, Jack. We bought a tool that hand stiches two pieces of leather together faster than a sewing machine can. Most of the work is just clamping the pieces together in the right place to feed them into the machine. There’s a reason nobody competes with us in leather goods.”

I no longer felt like I’d given him a screwing by trading the bacon for all of that stuff, and I wondered how bad he’d taken advantage of me. I shrugged it off and nodded at him. “Is that our stuff over there?”

“Yep, help yourself. I’m heading back in to finish my dinner. Mind shutting the door behind you when you leave?”

I told him I didn’t and Debbie and I walked over to check out our new leather goods. Debbie squealed like she was in pain and I thought she’d stepped on a nail or something until I realized she was just excited about the heels. They were shiny and a hell of a lot taller than I remembered seeing in the display, and Debbie immediately dropped down to sit on the ground and try them on. The position made her dress ride up in interesting ways and I looked away trying to be a gentleman. I dug through and found the leather pants I ordered. They were well tanned and plenty soft so they ought to be comfortable, and there were thick patches sewn over the knees to reinforce them. A button fly with wooden buttons that looked kind of shitty, but they would be easy enough to replace if I needed to. Debbie pulled herself to her feet by grabbing the edge of the table and stood up on her new heels.

I was pretty sure she was hammered at this point, and I didn’t know how safe it was to have her in heels that high in this condition so I moved closer with my hands up in case I had to catch her. She spun around in a pirouette and then did a little catwalk strut to the center of the room and back. There was quite a bit of sway to her walk and I wasn’t sure if it was alcohol or the heels. When she got back she grinned at me.

“I’m pretty sure these are the sluttiest shoes I have ever owned, Jack. I fucking love them.”

“Uh, that’s good I guess.”

“They don’t really go with this dress though, so I’m going to save them for a special occasion.” She flopped back down to the floor and repeated the shoe swap and I went back to the table to check quality on the rest of the stuff. None of it was worth writing home about, but it was all in decent shape and I was happy with it. Debbie was back up now, running her hand down the leather of my new pants.

“These are pretty cool. Try them on.”

“No can do. I’m commando.”

“What?”

“Behind enemy lines with no support? I’m not wearing any underwear.”

She shrugged. “So, it’s not like you haven’t seen the full monte remember?”

I grinned at her. “Oh, I definitely remember.”

She tossed the pants at me and crossed her arms. “Then it’s only fair. Try ‘em on, Jack.”

I sighed but I didn’t really have much in the way of body modesty left after years of living in barracks. I toed off my boots and started to take off my pants. Debbie started humming, boom chick a bow wow and cat calling me with stuff like, take it off until I hit her with a dirty look. She mimed zipping her lips and I went back to it, but now I was a little self conscious. I tried on the leather pants though, and they fit pretty well from just telling him my sizes. Kim hadn’t measured me or anything. They were a little snug up top when I tried a couple of lunges, but they didn’t restrict my movements any. My blue jeans were in such bad shape I left them off and kept the leather pants on. When I bent down to pick up the jeans Debbie smacked me on the ass and I shot upright and took a half dozen quick steps forward in reaction. When I looked back at her she giggled and said, “Nice pants.”

“Allright, Drunkee McGee, we need to pack all this shit up and get back to the others. I don’t want to end up having to hold your hair when this goes south.”

She wound a fist in the hair on each side of her head and pulled it out tight. “You sure about that?” Then she burst out laughing at the look on my face. Apparently Debbie was having a good time even though I wasn’t sure I was. My messenger bag was full but Debbie had offloaded her fanny pack into her wagon, so she ended up carrying all of the leather stuff our group had bought. We started out arm and arm again, but separated when we got to the edge of the village. I wanted my hands free in case we ran into something in the woods. Debbie had her bow back out, but I wasn’t sure how accurate she’d be in her state.

We had travelled about halfway to the water when Debbie stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Hold up a minute, Jack. I’ve got to answer the call of nature.”

I told her I’d keep an eye out but turned my back as she walked into the tree line. It was an awkward situation trying to keep an ear out for the click of crabadillos but not hear the rush of liquid as she relieved herself behind a tree. Debbie didn’t seem to mind as she kept up a constant stream of chatter. “Oh God, that feels better. I miss the real world. The worst thing about this place is having to pee in the damn woods. You probably don’t appreciate that, Jack, but as a woman I assure you it’s true.” Her voice paused, and then, “I really don’t feel very good.” an even shorter pause and then the sounds of retching came from the woods and I wondered if I should go in and try and help her or stay back and let her have privacy. It only lasted a couple of seconds and she started talking again before I had decided. “Ugh, I hate that. I don’t know what was in that wine, but it was a hell of a lot stronger than anything I’ve ever had back home.” She came back from around the tree, trying to straighten her hair and didn’t quite meet my eyes. “I think I’m still a little drunk but the walk has seemed to burn some of it off. This is definitely not what I had planned for the evening.”

I couldn’t help but grin at her misery. “Got a little bit of that 3 2 flue do you?”

“What?”

“Sorry, Oklahoma expression. We’ll try it again sometime without the wine, or the everclear and grape juice, whatever the hell that shit was.”

She reached over and squeezed my arm and smiled at me. “Sounds like a plan. Let’s go meet up with the others shall we? We were supposed to move a little ways upriver before we camped for the night, but now I think it took us long enough so maybe we’ll have to stay here.”

I nodded at her and took off up the trail. When we got to the end, Hunter came out of the little guard hut and waved at us, but I wasn’t paying that close attention to it. I was focused on the water's edge where everyone’s boat but mine had disappeared.

“What the hell? You guys left without us? We’re not that late.”

“Relax, dude. We might ditch you but we wouldn’t have left without the boss lady. Right, Debbie?”

Debbie and Hunter exchanged high fives and I seriously considered my odds of successfully chunking them both in the river. There weren’t nearly enough pirannha in this part to be truly dangerous were there? Hunter derailed my thoughts of revenge to explain.

“After the talk of war baboons and such we didn’t want to camp here, but we didn’t want to leave without you guys either. We pretty much just crossed the river and set up camp on the other side. You can see the glow from their campfire if you look over there.”

I squinted and followed his pointed finger before I realized he was right. Hunter said goodbye to the guy he’d been hanging out with in the guard hut, and the three of us loaded up in my boat and crossed the river to our camp. The plan was to call it an early night and head back to the keep at the first sign of dawn in the morning.