And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?"

“It’s okay,” Kim said, shoveling a forkful of moo shu pork into her mouth. “You can say it. A Japanese girl getting takeout Chinese food? It’s weird, right?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Nick replied, shaking his head. He was enjoying his own bowl of chow mein himself. “I definitely wouldn’t have thought you’d be into greasy Chinese food now, yes, but not because of your nationality. Because of all the grease! This stuff isn’t the good for you, you know?”

“Oh, telling me I should watch my weight?” Kim raised her eyebrow and batted her eyelashes coquettishly. “That’s a little loaded, Nick. And besides, you haven’t had a bad thing to say about my recent weight gain.”

She gestured to her tight turtleneck, and her expanded breasts.

Nick swallowed a loud mouthful of noodles with a gulp.

“That’s totally different,” he replied, shaking his head. “Breasts aren’t- I mean, they’re…”

His voice trailed off as Kim looked playfully at him and giggled. She shook her head.

“Sorry, doesn’t work that way!” She chirped. “Breasts are, in fact, fatty tissue, so…”

Nick laughed. “Now, I know you didn’t get a job as a doctor. Or a nurse.”

“Fair enough,” Kim admitted. “You need a degree for that one. Still, you know I’m right.”

He couldn’t really deny it.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “But I wasn’t trying to start anything, really. I just meant, that since you’ve been on this health craze, I don’t know, eating greasy Chinese food…”

“That’s what you’re not getting!” Kim groaned, rolling her eyes. “This is Dream Alley, Nick! No consequences, remember? I can eat as much terrible stuff as I want, and I won’t put on any weight at all! It’s a perfect dream!”

Nick couldn’t really say anything back to that. He just looked at her smiling face, full of possibility, and nodded slowly.

That’s right. How do I keep forgetting? Kim lived paycheck to paycheck. She had to support her family. She must have gone without meals a lot of times. More times than she can count, probably. She was struck with awe when she saw the buffet at the hotel, and all those possibilities.

He could remember how much she’d eaten when she’d first gotten here, before she had started focusing on working out with Dani. Since then, her diet had become significantly more modest, and she wasn’t gorging herself anymore.

Even on an island paradise where she could have anything her heart desires, she’s still being mature and responsible. Maintaining healthy eating habits, even in the face of temptation… that’s more than I think I could handle myself, honestly.

As impressed as Nick was, he still felt bad for Kim. But completely in awe of her at the same time.

“What?” Kim shifted awkwardly on the couch, pulling her legs up to cover her chest and blushing. “Why are you looking at me?”

“…You’re amazing, you know that?” Nick said.

Her face turned even redder and a crooked smile stretched across her lips. “Come on… no way. What are you talking about? Don’t be so silly!”

“No, I’m serious!” Nick said, shaking his head. “Just think about it, Kim! Here you are, a girl who’s had to work ever since she was a teenager. In some of the hardest, worst jobs imaginable. But instead of giving up, instead of complaining, you pushed forward with a smile on your face, doing the best job you could, all for the sake of your family.”

Kim felt her heart skip a beat. “Well-”

“And if that wasn’t enough, you get brought to a place like this. Harem Hotel island? Where you’re **** to go through a bunch of challenges and get transformations. Your clothes were taken from you, and you were even **** to work hard at a job. And as irritated as that made you, you just kept persevering. And you’ve only gotten brighter and more energized since you got here. It’s like you keep getting put into difficult situations, and you keep finding a way past it. That’s incredibly impressive… and I really doubt I’d be able to do the same.”

“…It’s not that impressive,” Kim said, shaking her head. “It’s really not!”

Then she gasped, and her breasts started to grow bigger again.

“…Apparently, your transformation doesn’t even let you lie to yourself,” Nick noted with slight amusement.

Kim blinked. And then she gasped. “You jerk!” She smacked him lightly in the arm. “You planned that, didn’t you?! Buttering me up, so when I got all modest-! Ooh, Nick! You’re the worst!”

She puffed up her cheeks in frustration, but the shimmering light in her eyes showed her just how pleased she was by his compliments.

That brought a smile to Nick’s face in turn.

“So what now, then?” She asked quietly, looking up at him. “Since you’re so impressed by me? Or are you just trying to flatter me, to get me to put out for you?”

“Oh?” Nick raised his eyebrow curiously.

“Well… hypothetically saying, of course,” Kim said, clearing her throat. They both knew where this night was headed, and in a way, that just made things even more awkward. It was kind of hard for them to have organic sexual chemistry under circumstances like this.

Nick had his own idea though.

“Can I ask a favor?” He asked.

“I think you just did,” she replied with a smirk. “Yeah, what is it?”

“When we started, I wanted to leave things up to you,” he explained. “This is your perfect date, after all, so you should be able to use Dream Alley however you want, right?”

Kim shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so,” she agreed. “That makes sense. What’s your point though?”

“Well… I was just thinking… what if we, I don’t know, did something else?” Nick asked. “I mean, we’re hardly watching the TV show.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Kim said, glancing at the TV, which was playing some cop procedural she wasn’t all that interested in. One with a hard-headed female lead and a snappy, charming male lead where they would dance around their feelings for one another season after season until finally getting together, promptly driving the show into the mud.

…Nick just assumed that, of course. He hadn’t seen the ending. But he was probably right.

“I guess I’m not much of a TV person,” Kim admitted with a shrug. “I’ve never had the time for it, but it pays to know for sure, right?”

“I’d say so,” Nick agreed.

“So what did you want to do?” Kim asked, eyeing him suspiciously. “Remember, we only have 24 hours here, and we’ve already used a decent chunk of that.”

Part of her wished they could spend the rest of their lives here, with no struggles, no commitments, nothing serious or intense to worry about back home. Just a perpetual fantasy.

But as someone who seldom had days off, Kim understood that what made each minute so precious was the knowledge that you had to go back to work, back to the real world, when the vacation was over and the fantasy had ended.

So in another act of accepting responsibility, she woefully recognized the issue and dismissed it with a long sigh.

She looked into Nick’s eyes, and he looked back at her.

“Don’t worry,” Nick assured her. “It’s a surprise. But I know you’re going to love it.”

Kim was less sure. But she trusted him, no matter what.

If Nick said it would be okay, then she wanted to believe him.

So she nodded, and relinquished the power over Dream Alley to him so he could “surprise” her.

It took Nick a second to imagine what he wanted. But he painted a concrete picture in his mind, and just like that, they were there.

When Kim saw where they were, she nearly fell over.

“Wait, huh?” She looked at Nick in confusion. “But this is just back at the hotel!” She pointed out, looking around at her new surroundings.

Nick nodded. “Not exactly,” he said, surveying the Banquet Hall. “You’re right, this is the Banquet Hall back at the Harem Hotel. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a good place to check out.”

“We can go here whenever, though,” Kim said, clearly a little disappointed by Nick’s decision. “Why’d you want to come here for my surprise?”

“What you said before,” Nick reminded her. “About being able to eat all the Chinese food you wanted since you wouldn’t have to worry about the consequences in the real world? Well, that got me thinking, and so…”

He waved his hand at the table of food.

Kim looked around, confused for a second, and then she gasped.

“Wait, no… you’re kidding!” Her eyes widened like saucers and she shook her head. “No, no way! No way!”

“Yes way,” Nick said with a laugh. “It’s like when we crushed those cars back on the race track. Or when you crashed into the wall without getting hurt. You can get whatever you want to eat, Kim. Whatever food you like! And you can eat as much of it as you want to in here, without having to worry about any consequences! What do you think? Like it a little more now?”

Kim took another look at all the delicacies surrounding her, and she started to drool. Her mind whirled with possibility as she was overwhelmed by the abundance of food in front of her. Stuff she saw every day, but her responsible nature kept her from gorging herself on.

It was enough to drive a woman to tears.

“…German chocolate cake with maraschino cherries!” She loudly declared.

A whole cake appeared in front of her, just like that.

Kim had to stop herself from lunging forward and devouring the whole thing. After all, she was on a date. And as much as she wanted to just unhinge her jaw like a snake and swallow the entire cake in one bite, it wouldn’t do to forgo good dining etiquette just because she was overwhelmed.

So she conjured a knife and fork, and sliced off a piece. Then she crammed it into her mouth and let the blissful flavors knock her over.

“Oh my godsh!” She ranted, smearing chocolate and coconut across her mouth. “Thish ish amashing! Oooh!”

She was practically orgasmic as she shoveled more and more cake into her mouth. Nick watched on with a smile, glad to see she was appreciating the surprise he’d prepared for her. He wanted Kim to have a good time. He wanted her to indulge.

And contrary to her concerns, he didn’t really give a damn about table manners right now. He just wanted Kim to enjoy herself.

The cake was just the beginning. After eating her fill and wiping her mouth, Kim wracked her brain to think about the most sumptuous foods she could imagine. Things she would never eat in real life, because of their price or because they were just THAT bad for her.

Eating a whole cheesecake? Easy.

Drinking an entire gallon of milkshake? Please.

Using caviar as a sandwich spread? Vivian probably ate like that whenever she wanted to.

What about one of those “eat a 72 ounce steak dinner in one hour and you get it for free” challenges?

Kim knocked that out in about three minutes.

“I can’t believe I don’t even feel full!” She patted her stomach, which held a distinct lack of a bulge, even though she probably had consumed her own weight in food by this point. “It’s like I’m eating air!” But air had never tasted this good.

“It’s Dream Alley, like you said,” Nick reminded her, enjoying a steak of his own. As filling as seeing Kim enjoy herself was, there were a few things he wanted to indulge in himself. “You won’t get hungry unless you want to get hungry, and you won’t get full unless you want to get full.”

Kim nodded thoughtfully, appreciating Nick’s explanation. Practically more than he even realized, honestly.

A conspiratorial look crossed her face and she wiggled her eyebrows.

“You know,” she mused, “I just had a great idea…”

“Oh?” Nick looked at her, intrigued and concerned. “What idea would that be?” He asked.

She batted her eyelashes playfully his way, and presented an empty cup.

He looked at it in confusion.

“Okay, so this is going to sound really weird,” Kim said, looking over at the soda machine hanging on the wall. “But have you ever done that thing where you mix every single soda flavor they have together into one drink? At a fast food place?”

“Yeah, swamp water,” Nick said, reminiscing back to his childhood. “That’s like a rite of passage when you’re a kid.”

Kim’s smile dimmed slightly. “Oh… well, I never really had the chance,” she admitted. “It always seemed so wasteful, I mean, getting a soda, instead of water? That was, like, only for special occasions. And as much as I wanted to indulge, I always felt guilty, you know? Because what if I didn’t actually like what I ended up with? It would be a waste of money, and, well…”

“Okay, then we need to get you to the soda machine, like, yesterday,” Nick said, rising from his seat. “Come on! There’s no way I’m letting you miss out on this!”

Kim smiled from ear to ear and the two of them ran over to fill up their cups.

“You know, since this is Dream Alley, we can get whatever flavors we want,” Nick said, scanning the options on the machine. A simple bit of concentration, and the sodas overwrote themselves to be only the flavors he would like. None of that gross “iced tea” shit that belonged on its own damn machine, and not on a soda fountain.

Kim was still grinning as she took squirts of liquid from every nozzle, mixing things together into an unholy concoction of sludgy-colored goop that no-doubt lived up to the name “swamp water”.

And yet, she never looked thirstier.

Hands shaking, Kim brought the straw to her lips, and took a long sip.

Her eyes practically bulged out of her skull.

“No way!” She gasped, nearly dropping the cup. She looked up at Nick in awe. “…This tastes absolutely awful!”

Nick sighed in relief. So he wasn’t the only one. “Yeah, you’re right, it does,” he admitted, making a sour face. “I can’t believe we thought this would be a good idea!”

Kim took another sip, thinking contemplatively. “I can taste a whole bunch of yucky flavors,” she said, smacking her lips together. “Blegh.”

“You having second thoughts?” Even though the drink was disgusting by every metric Nick could define, he couldn’t help but bring it to his lips for another taste.

Kim smiled cheekily and shook her head. “Not for one second!” She replied. “More, please!”

The flavor wasn’t even a factor here. Kim was so lost in the mad rush of the moment that she probably would have drunk from an actual swamp at this point. She drained the cup dry, and was immediately off to go refill it.

“‘Sorry, no free refills’,” she said in an exaggeratedly sarcastic voice as she filled up her cup with a “fzzt” sound. “This time I’m going to get it right! It’s all about the proportions, you see! This time, less of the Dr. Pepper.”

“Also maybe forget the Oreo Coke flavor,” Nick suggested. “That stuff sounds nasty.”

“It’s a limited-edition flavor, Nick!” Kim replied with a snappish tone. “If you don’t try it now, then you might never get the chance! It’s like the McRib!”

“They bring that back every year though,” Nick pointed out.

“But maybe not next time! Geez, it’s like you’ve never worked in the fast food industry before, come on!” Kim rolled her eyes in exasperation. It was like she was dealing with a child!

…Rather ironic, given that she was the one mixing sodas at the soda fountain. But Nick’s hands weren’t clean, either!

Kim took a sip of her newly-minted concoction, and grinned. “Oh yeah, that’s much better!” She offered him the drink. “Want to try?”

Nick was surprised by the offer. He hesitated at first, but then he noticed that Kim’s breasts hadn’t grown, which meant that she wasn’t lying.

It actually must have tasted better!

…Which made sense, since he couldn’t really imagine it tasting worse.

“Uh, sure, I guess so,” he agreed, taking the cup from her and pressing it to his lips.

Shared an Indirect Kiss with the Master! +0 VP!

Kim rolled her eyes. “Come on, seriously, Dakota?”

Nick thought he could hear the host giggling, but he put it out of his mind.

“You’re right, it wasn’t that bad,” he said, handing the cup back to Kim. They were both blushing, but still having a grand time.

“Well, I’ll admit, Nick, this was an amazing choice,” Kim said, taking another sip. She looked around the Banquet Hall, which was still filled with tables covered in food. She licked her lips excitedly. “So many choices… I can barely stop to think!”

“Well, glad to do it,” Nick replied. “But if you wanted to do something else-”

“Nah, not yet,” she shook her head and patted her belly. “I’m nowhere near finished!”

Kim had lived most of her life never being sure when her next meal would come. All her life, she’d taught herself to do the right thing, to deny her urges, her desires, for the sake of her family. For the sake of her health.

But for the first time, there wasn’t any downside. She could eat anything she wanted, and wouldn’t have to feel like she was making a huge mistake.

She summoned a box of donuts, decorated with the craziest things. One was slathered in maple flavoring, covered with strips of bacon, and drizzled with honey. Another was a bizarre mixture of oreos and peanut butter.

All of them looked delicious.

As she shoved donut after donut into her mouth, relishing in the decadent flavors as they burst against her tongue and filled her bottomless stomach, she knew that this would be an experience she would never forget- and one she wouldn’t allow herself to end anytime soon.

There was still so much she wanted to do. So much she wanted to eat!

And only a single day to do it all in.

That settled it. When she got back to the hotel, she would be rededicating herself to working hard. Not just standing behind a counter, no, she was going to actually push her sales onto the girls, even outside business hours. Encourage them to change up their wardrobes, come in, and buy something.

Rose knew how to hustle. She was working hard on those bounty sheets of hers. But the only way Kim had to get some extra BP was from working, so she would earn those commissions. And get enough BP to spend her next night here with Nick, as well.

Whatever they couldn’t finish today, well, there was always next time. She just had to carve out a block of time for when they could actually have sex.

Wouldn’t want to forget about that.