Scarlet Date 2, Part 3: Dungeons and Dinners

Josie

When Josie comes to, she finds herself chained up to Tina’s bondage cross in the recovery room. She struggles against the rig, bending but not quite breaking it. It bounces back like rubber. She growls in irritation.

The bonny bunny bounces up, “Evening, cutie. Looks like I’m not the only screw up now.”

“I will eat you.”

Tina smiles. Josie definitely does not. To emphasize the point, the wolf girl adds, “And not the fun ‘eat you out’ kind of eat. I will literally eat you, Rabbit.”

“Boo! I thought the reversal of fortune would be cute.” Tina unclasps the arm restraints. Josie growls, then bends down to undo the legs. Stepping out, she asks, “How’s Skye?”

“Still sleeping.”

“How was your Green Room visit?”

“Pretty decent, actually. Got to perform on another season’s set. Did some magic, posed with some faeries for Insta-Thot, threw eggs at the Cum Guzzlers recruitment table they had in the staff area. Don’t know if I’ll get the full BP amount, but it was the best contract I’ve had, so far. Maybe the producer bunny is right. This new agent might be the best one I can get.”

Tina: +10 BP

“Insta-Thot? Really?”

“Hey, they made me sign up for it. Ooooh. You should follow me! Or, oh, better yet, join up and we can thot together!”

“Do I look like a...” Josie starts, then pauses. Ugh. I do look like a gym thot. “Nevermind.”

“Ms. Tina, Ms. Josie, can you stop fighting? My everything hurts.”

Tina bounds over to the farmhand and asks, “You okay? My big, bad girlfriend beat you up too much?”

“We fought some sort of depraved ooze creature and lost. Badly. Ms. Josie tried really hard. It was just a bad match.”

From up the stairs, the trio hears, “I could have told you that.” Daphne and Dinah join the party. The fish continues, “Scarlet would like me to join her upstairs. Can the lot of you watch over Dinah tonight? Maybe help her with her date tomorrow?”

“Of course, Ms. Daphne.” Skye volunteers all of us.

“Great, thanks Skye! You’re the best!” Daphne turns around to head up the stairs, “And Dinah, I’ll leave it up to you to let them know what happened to you over the past couple of days. Just promise that you lot don’t do anything stupid until my Beloved can handle it?” With that, the fish is gone.

“So, Dinah, what was the fish going on about?”

“This is going to sound crazy, but I need you to protect me from Indigo.”

Tina snorts, “What’s that dork going to be able to do to you, Dinah? C’mon.”

Then Dinah starts to describe her past few days. And Josie’s blood begins to boil for an entirely different reason.

Scarlet

Francis took losing the spar with a healthy amount of good sportsmanship. He was fighting with one hand tied behind his back as it were, and it was still a nearer thing than Scarlet would have liked. Afterwards, they spent some time driving around his little town, seeing the few sights. She would have liked to see where he would have taken them to dinner across the river, but she already made evening plans with Daphne. They shouldn’t keep her waiting.

The two meet the mermaid at the bottom of the stairs. She looks a little grimmer than normal. Francis notices, too, asking, “<Everything okay, Beloved?>”

“I’m better now that you are here. Just a rough afternoon. I’ll save it for tomorrow, if you don’t mind. We still on, Scarlet?”

“Of course, assuming Francis here is good with his beloved fish joining us upstairs.”

“<You have to ask?>”

Francis starts to bolt upstairs. It takes a moment for Scarlet to realize why. Wow. That is certainly a thing the show did.

Daphne lacks a level of tact, “Wow, Scarlet, you look so pretty in gold like that. Love how shiny your egg sacs are. Why does my Beloved look so... not sure what the right word is.”

“I think we should go. He obviously doesn’t want us to dwell on them.”

“I can’t wait for mine. It’s an important milestone. The moment where you first become one flesh.”

“Well, I hope yours goes better than mine, Daphne.”

“Oh, did you disappoint my Beloved? I heard that the first time is sometimes bad.”

“He disappointed himself. Drop it.”

Saying that last bit firmly enough got the fish to shut her trap. Daphne means well, but doesn’t quite get it. The two head the rest of the way upstairs. The room smells heavenly. Francis, still blushing a little from the embarrassment of the stairwell, has this amazing looking piece of meat ready to be carved.

“<Figured I was in charge of dinner still. Ordered up a... not a singular word for it in Elvish. Rolled up flank steak, pounded extra flat, with cheese and meat and such inside, braised?>”

Did he guess I grew up in an Italian neighborhood in the city? Even so, that is not something I thought he would know about. “Braciole?”

“<Got it in one, Scarlet. Daphne, I want you to try it. If you don’t like it, I’ll get you some fish, okay?>”

He cuts a nice sized slice for each of them, serving the ladies it on top of some pasta and his on top of some dark leafy greens. Daphne makes a gross face at the “poison vegetables” on Francis’ plate. He gives her a look that Scarlet interprets as “I’m not making you eat them.” Then she insists on him sitting on the dining room table throne. Soon enough, everyone starts to dig in.

“Pretty good, Francis, but I’ve had better.”

“<Eh, far south Texas is not exactly know for prosciutto.>”

“Fair enough. Ready for the other serious talk?”

“I said I was saving mine for tomorrow, Scarlet.”

“Not yours, Daph. I had a couple of tougher topics for conversation for our date and we only had one.”

“<Go for it.>”

“Well, it’s been a week and a half. How do you feel your relationships are coming along? As your very unethical therapist, I want to help you foster healthy feelings for the women in your life. What can I do to help?”

“<This week feels like it’s going at a breakneck speed, so I have not had a lot of time to process. Bear with me as I talk my way through it. Who should I start with?>”

“Pick me, Beloved.” Daphne, her face covered in sauce, pipes up.

“<Daph, it feels insane to me, but I love you. I really do. But, I feel like I’m not helping you adjust to being sort of human enough. And sometimes, you insist on me ruling over you in a way I’m not comfortable with, such as sitting in this chair. I guess I need help finding a proper balance.>”

Daphne, for her part, gets up and kisses him on the cheek. He offers her a napkin and she magics the sauce off of both of them. “Sorry. I’m a stubborn one when the ol’ Betta brain acts up. I’ll try harder.” Then, she sits in his lap, dragging her plate over to her new position. Francis looks befuddled.

Need to get him back on track. “Since Daphne started it, maybe go in the order of dates this week?”

“<I love Josie, and, to be honest, I have loved her for months. Sure, she’s blunt. And stubborn. And like a **** of nature sometimes. I worry I’m not strong enough for her. That she needs someone with more emotional surety than I can muster.>”

“<I am falling for Tina. Maybe a little too slowly for the show’s sake. Sometimes she’s a little too ‘mean girls’ with her teasing, but I can certainly use the spontaneity she brings. I wish she thought things through more often. How do I help her with that?>”

“<As for you, Scarlet, I am falling for you, too. I worry that you’ll realize you deserve better than me once your brain is unlocked. Then again, all of you deserve better. To be honest, I don’t have any other notes. I’d like to think that, if circumstances were different, we could have met in real life and eventually fallen into something good.>”

“Different circumstances such as...”

“<Born a woman. Confident enough to approach someone as amazing as you.>”

“Hold those thoughts. The night is still young. Continue.”

“<I feel like I’ve failed Dinah. The one of you that I should have been able to form a good relationship with, and I pushed her away by freaking out at her plan. How do I even make it up to her? It doesn’t help that something’s happened to her over the past couple of days. Daph, were you able to...>”

“Beloved, I want to save the details for tomorrow, but I was able to remove the modified memories. She’s doing better. Not exactly well, but better.”

“<Thank you. Still feel like I’ve done her wrong.>” He pauses, a grimace of pain washing over him, then continues.

“<In an odd way, I feel closest to Skye out of all of you. She is reserved, serious-minded, and always thinking. Maybe overthinking. I’m worried that her world is just so foreign to mine that I’m going to step on a rake with her. I’m also worried that Eilistraee is not what she expects. The Moonlit Dancer is a little bit of a trickster. A good-natured trickster, but a trickster nonetheless.>”

“<And Indigo. I’ve failed her completely. Granted, she didn’t give me much of a chance. But, I’ve failed her. How can I help somebody that doesn’t want anything to do with me? Somebody that doesn’t want anything to do with any of us, as far as I can tell?>”

“Sounds like you struggle with self-doubt. It was a pretty common theme in all of that. As Daphne hinted at, relationships are a two-way street. Both partners need to work at it. And I see places where I need to work on us, too. I meant what I said this afternoon, Francis. I intend for you to shred the remnant of your masculinity tonight. Daph, you did get them, right?

Daphne pops out 2 PP from her inventory. “Yup. That’ll be 22 BP, Scarlet.”

Daphne: -20 BP

“Isn’t it supposed to be 20 BP?”

“But if you bought them from me, I’d get a commission,” Daphne pouts.

Scarlet rolls her eyes. “Fine.”

Scarlet: -22 BP

Daphne: +22 BP

“So, Francis, ready to become a lady?”