I'll play along.

You play along, speaking as loudly as possible without sounding too realistic. “I’ve wanted to do this ever since I saw you.”

Mandy grins, looking back at you. “I was thinking the same thing! Contractors are sooo hot! So manly and muscular! Take it off! Off!!”

There’s a moment and nothing at all, and you both sit on a chair about 6 feet away. And then, just as you’re getting comfortable, Mandy lets out a pitched moan. “Oooh, yeah! Baby! God, look at the cock!” She avoids contact with you, and she continues to give loud praise. However, all she’s doing is cleaning her nails.

You fold your legs over each other and cross your arms, leaning back into your chair. “Bend over for me, right over this chair.”

“Like this?” She purrs, her lips going into a loose grin as she rolls her tongue with her words. “Rip my stockings if you want~!”

You look around the room, wondering if you could grab something to tear, but you don’t, so you mimic the notion that you are. “Oh, Mandy! Look at this perfect ass!”

Mandy laughs, and you think it’s a real one. Now she’s looking at you. “Oooh, yeah! You like that ass??”

“I like your ass.”

It's another laugh, but it’s out of humor. She’s not acting. She claps her hands together and gasps. “Again!” Mandy repeats the clapping. To you, it seems like Mandy’s a little too much fun performing this, and you wonder how much of a dirty girl she is. You curse loudly to make sure the audience that is (allegedly) behind the door hears it. “You dirty girl!”

Mandy lifts an eyebrow, apparently unimpressed with your response, but does her part. “Only for… Contractors like you…?” She says she's unsure what she’d say if this were real. Maybe she isn’t that horny or needy after all.

There’s a loud series of moans, gasps, and more curses. And then, at the climax of your voice-act session of lust, you both scream and growl in pleasure, mimicking the sounds of an orgasm. If this was real, neither of you lasted very long, and hopefully, her suspected peeping Tom is cucked enough. You stand up to leave, but she grabs your wrist with a long reach and pulls you down, shaking her head. “Stay here a little awhile. We can chat,” she whispers to you and then considers. “Pillow talk.”

You sit back down, but now beside her. She looks at you. Her gaze is gentle. “I don’t bite.”

“Well, what do you want to talk about?” You say, your voice barely above a whisper.

“You,” she says as if she’s offended and has to explain what she’s curious about. “How’d you end up in this line of work? You don’t seem the type.”

“It’s a long story. One I haven’t told very many people.”

Mandy leans in, her elbows on her knees. “How many people have asked?”

In reality, it was an unspoken rule for even other contractors not to ask how you ended up as a contractor. It was also known that the best contractors were born out of necessity, not because of desire. “Thought it sounded like fun,” you say after a moment. “Took a gig that brought me out of my stomping grounds, and eventually found myself out here… far, far home.”

“And has it been?” Mandy. “Fun, I mean. I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of things and have stories you can share that are light-hearted and humorous.”

There’s another pause as you consider all the things you’ve done. There wasn’t as much joy or humor in your experience as a contractor. Sex and drink to forget a lot of the things you’ve done. Most funny moments were probably captured when you were too drunk to remember. The good stuff you could recall was tainted by the experience that came before it… Arabella and the twins… Delilah and Tiny’s Tavern… Scarlet and the shit storm that’s surely around the next corner… However, the foundation of regret and background turmoil will forever remain with Grace Eleanor Tiffin.

“There’s not a lot, Mandy. Honestly, as much as I’d like to lie, there haven’t been many times of genuine, long-lasting happiness… Just pauses and vacations during whatever mind-numbing experience you can put yourself through.”

She studies you, the expression no longer gentle but now tainted with concern and a type of sadness you’re familiar with. “Are you OK?”

“Of course,” you chuckle, shaking your head slightly.

“Hopefully, my little prank offered you some kind of pause then,” she chuckled, further defusing the serious turn, ending the solemn mood between the two of you. “When do you have to do business again?”

Shrugging, you check your watch. “About three hours when our noon patrol returns.”

Mandy extends a handout and shakes it. “Thanks for helping me. I’m glad to have met someone willing to do this preteen attempt at a joke.”

“I’m sure Fawkes learned his lesson. You stand up and help her join you. “Do you need me to stick around until you change to ensure he doesn’t return?”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Mandy’s smile flashes with amusement. “Thanks.”

The rest of your wait time is spent alone out front. You found a spot overlooking the Mojave and rested there with your thoughts. The happiness you got from your spin-off sidequest to waste time with Mandy is already gone. You reflected here, gathering your nerve and steeling yourself for the possible outcomes of your lone patrol. A sense of a greater peace came to you as you resorted to isolation, and your last hour turned into the last few minutes. When the time finally came to meet Scarlet and Half-Gob, you could tell that something was on their minds.

A half-circle formed as you, Scarlet, and Half-Gob gathered. Scarlet wiped her forehead, which was dotted with sweat. “They’re out there,” she says with no introduction whatsoever. “Half-Gob and I ran into a forward patrol with about a dozen guys and got into a brief scuffle in the rocks before they ran off.”

“Didn’t try to talk them?”

“Fuck,” Scarlet laughed, regarding you and then Half-Gob. “Did we talk, Half-Gob?”

Half-Gob was dripping, too. Her expression hard and unforgiving. “No, we didn’t. They didn’t give me a chance because they fired first as soon as they saw me.”

Scarlet gestures at Half-Gob with a dramatic motion. “We didn’t try to talk to their guys, so who can blame them?”

“Kill any?”

“Probably. Too busy suppressing and retreating to confirm anything, though. That was about two hours ago. We spent a fair amount of energy covering our tracks, but it doesn’t take a genius to realize where we came from,” Scarlet sighed. “I can muster the others. We’ve had Hard Print and No Slack doing the work we didn’t want to do, but-”

You cut in. “I’ll go alone. I’ll be fine.”

Half-Gob opens her mouth to say something but decides otherwise. You address her. “We’re having a meeting, so speak.”

“I don’t think it’s wise for you to go alone, regardless of your track record and intentions. If you’re captured, we’ll be forced to dispatch a team out after you, and then all of our hands will be on deck for something much, much serious,” Half-Gob looks at Scarlet. “Let me take No Slack and Hard Print out then, and I’ll run a flanking patrol to cover Warren. We can use him as bait to see if that entices anyone out.”

Scarlet grimaces. “I don’t think they’ll be able to keep up with you. They’re past their prime, and I haven’t exactly checked how useful they are.”

“I’ll give you a report then.”

“Now you’re putting yourself in danger,” you interject, but Half-Gob doesn’t listen. “Half-Gob, I can handle myself. I won’t stick my head in any dangerous place, alright? Besides, even if I get a firefight, it’ll be so dark and quiet that you’ll be able to spot out from whatever spot the Circus’s guards are. Then you can go out and save my ass if need be.”

She looks at you and then at Scarlet. “Send me out.”

Scarlet looks at you. “Warren, it’s not that I don’t trust you to do this alone. I just don’t think it is smart to dispatch a lone member out against a force that is still relatively unknown.”

“It’s a mistake,” you whisper so only you and the half-circle can hear it. “I have got a gut feeling, alright? Trust me on this. I need to go out there alone.”