And so I'll throw the fight that overnight will lift away

Dakota was doing an excellent job of spreading drama over breakfast. And while Emmy was relieved to hear that she was willing to accommodate her wishes, Carly and Marley were far more hesitant to trust her.

But there was someone on the island who knew that absolutely nothing Dakota said or did should be trusted. Problem was, she wasn’t exactly in a position to be consulted, because she was busy doing her job. You know, to make money. Something Rose would have loved to do, if Dakota allowed her, but Dakota was too busy relishing in her own power over the blonde and playing mind games.

Again, something that Kim could have told everyone, if she were there. But honestly, that was something they should have been well aware of already.

“Haaah… I’ve gotta say… I wish… I could have a quiet morning for once…” Kim grumbled as she carted in boxes of new clothes from the back storeroom. There seemed to be an infinite amount of space back there, which she didn’t doubt; with the strange way this island and shops on it operated, an infinite back room for the infinite stock of clothes and lingerie the contestants could buy only made sense.

Kim wasn’t exactly happy about that fact, for obvious reasons. After all, if they had infinite inventory, why even bother rotating it? Why not just have an infinite showroom so the girls could see every item that they had for sale?

Well, the answer to that was obvious. For convenience. No one wanted to spend an eternity combing through endless displays of outfits (except maybe Vivian) so they only put a handful of their available products out at a time.

…Oh, and because Kim couldn’t be allowed to just sit there bored all day, no, they had to find something for her to do, so it might as well be this.

Of course, all the grumbling and mental complaining Kim was doing as she loaded crates out of the back room carried a note of irony. Fact was, Kim could have had the “quiet morning” she wanted. After all, she could pick her four-hour block of work time to be at any point during the day. She could have relaxed all morning and gone to work in the afternoon if she wanted to!

…But better to get it out of the way now, then take the rest of the day off.

As Kim finished adjusting the new dress on the display mannequin (which looked almost identical to the dress it she had taken off of it earlier) she noted with a slight hint of bitterness that she could have chosen to cut her time in half instead and gone out to market her wares; she still had the upgrade to her transformation, after all.

Why hadn’t gotten more use out of that? Well, because it was hard to know just what her prospective customers would want. Unlike the regular job where she could just wait for people to show up, she’d have to be proactive and try to make sales. And while she didn’t have any issue with that, it was a process that she found to be incredibly tedious.

Simply put- she would really rather not go to all that extra work if she could help it, even if it did cut her time in half. Unless she knew that there was a really good chance she could make a sale. But since there weren’t any big events coming up that she could think of, there wouldn’t be much of a reason to-

Kim paused, remembering something from several days ago that had completely slipped her mind. Wait… didn’t Nick say something about…? …He did!

She started to pace, going over everything again in her mind. Back on her date with Nick, they’d run into Gina. And Nick had made a point to promise her that they’d get time together for a date sometime this round! Kim hadn’t really thought about it since, but now she was wondering what had become of that promise. Nick certainly had meant it- but had he gone through with it?

“I would have noticed Gina getting all dressed up for a date,” she muttered to herself, stroking her chin. She wasn’t that ignorant about this sort of thing. “And now that I think about it, Gina was acting pretty shifty this morning, wasn’t she?”

Not to mention the uncharacteristic move on her part to bring Dakota back to their room, for reasons that still eluded Kim.

…Yes, no matter how she thought about it, it seemed clear to Kim that something was going on with Gina today… was today the day she would be having her date with Nick?

A plan began to form in Kim’s head. If she went out and showed Gina some nice outfits for her date, then the chances of making a sale today would be-

The door swung open and Kim whirled around, a smile instinctively jumping to her face as she turned to see who had come by.

Her eyes bulged in surprise when she saw it was Gina.

“Gi-Gina!” She stammered, shaking her head. “What- uh, what are you doing here?” It was a dumb thing to ask, Kim already knew the answer. But that didn’t mean Gina knew that she knew.

“Hey, uh… hey.” Gina’s response was pretty lame, all things considered. She awkwardly approached her roommate, scratching her cheek.

Kim immediately understood what the punk girl was looking for.

She was looking for her!

Putting a smooth smile onto her lips, she straightened herself up and tried her best to look professional and accommodating. (Well, as professional and accommodating as you can look when you were wearing lacy, see-through black lingerie.)

“…How can I help you?” She clasped her hands together and gave her friend the best saleswoman smile she could muster.

The awkward smile Gina returned was a good sign.

“So, uh… this is gonna sound a little weird,” Gina said, trying her best to play it cool, but Kim could see the uncertainty in her expression. “But, uh… you remember the other day, when you and Nick were on your date together, and we were hanging in the lounge?”

“Yes I do,” Kim said, nodding evenly. She didn’t want to let on that she was aware of what the other girl was getting at.

“…I need a dress,” Gina said bluntly, skipping several steps in her explanation. If Kim hadn’t already put the pieces together, she might have been very lost.

“Of course, we have plenty of dresses,” Kim chirped. “What were you thinking? Something slinky? Seductively appealing?”

Kim had gotten fairly familiar with Gina’s body given how handsy the other woman got in her sleep. So she knew there were plenty of “saucy” outfits that could really get Nick’s heart racing. They were fairly cheap though; Dakota wanted to encourage the girls to look sexy for him.

The way Gina looked when she proposed a sexy dress, though…

“Err… I mean, that’d normally be my style, you’re not wrong,” Gina said with an awkward laugh, playing with her tangled hair. “But, uh… …Okay, look, this is for… a date with Nick. That’s why I’m here so early. I skipped breakfast, you know!”

Kim raised her eyebrow. This didn’t exactly constitute “early” in her book, but the customer was always right so she just gave the other woman a polite nod. “Of course, I understand completely,” she replied with an even smile.

The truth was, she didn’t understand at all. Her foreknowledge that this was a date for Nick was the whole reason she’d suggested those types of dresses in the first place! But that wasn’t what Gina was looking for?

Not sure what else to go on, an awkward silence hung in the air for quite long time as the two girls looked at each other.

A frankly intolerably long silence, for someone in Kim’s line of work.

“…Let’s take a look at what we have in stock,” she said a little loudly, clapping her hands to break the tension. “Perhaps there’s something that will interest you!”

As she escorted Gina to the section of the store that specialized in dresses, she scrutinized her roommate carefully.

Part of being an exceptional saleswoman was knowing which items were catching the customer’s eyes, even when they didn’t say anything about it. And as much as Kim despised the service industry… it took more than just a pretty smile to get to excel in her line of work.

But she was only human. And her perceptions were still colored by her biases and assumptions. So when she saw Gina eyeing up a particularly modest dress, it gave her pause.

Is that really what she’s looking for? Kim wondered. Wait… what did Nick say again?

“I promise, sometime this round, when I get the chance, just you and me, I’ll take you on an actual, romantic date. It’s the least I can do since we haven’t really had any opportunities for that. Don’t worry about the other girls’ schedules, I’ll find the time, I promise.”

Kim’s eyes snapped wide. Suddenly the hesitation in Gina’s face and the apprehension coming off her in waves made perfect sense!

So she’s planning for a romantic date? That’s what she’s shopping for, huh? Wow, well, that’s… not what I would have expected at all, Kim mused, chewing thoughtfully on her lip. I mean… given her situation, I suppose that’s not completely out of the question. But Gina? Really?

Kim remembered how flustered Gina had been at the proposal Nick had made. She never would have thought in a million years that she would go for it; she seemed like the kind of girl who tried to push away any serious emotional connections.

I wonder what’s going on in her head, Kim thought, before putting those wonders aside and focusing on her customer instead.

“What do you think of that one?” She asked, and Gina jumped. She’d been focusing so intently on the dress that she’d almost forgotten Kim was there.

“Err… it… it’s okay,” Gina said, glancing at the velvet red dress. It was very similar to the one Kim had herself. It showed a healthy amount of cleavage and would certainly cling to every curve on the voluptuous woman’s body, Kim reckoned. Even with the boost she’d gotten from Vivian, her own breasts couldn’t hold a candle to Gina’s.

And Gina’s were completely natural! Impressive.

“It… you don’t think it’s a little too revealing?” Gina asked, scratching her cheek.

The hesitation in her voice was actually a little adorable. Kim couldn’t believe that Gina, of all people, a woman who as far as she could tell didn’t sleep in the buff only because taking off her clothes was too much work, was showing concern for her modesty.

“Would you like something less revealing?” Kim prompted, letting the other woman control the pace of their discussion.

Gina paused, biting her lip slightly and then turning back to Kim. She tugged on her sleeve absentmindedly and Kim understood her concern.

“If it’s your tattoos that you’re worried about…” Her voice trailed off as she tried to remember what solutions Gina had enacted before. “…You could always wear your jacket over it,” she said, gesturing to the tight leather doing an excellent job of keeping Gina’s current appearance looking cool and casual as it was.

Gina quickly shook her head. “No, I mean, I love my jacket, but that’s not the problem,” she assured her. “I have a, um, sleeve to cover my tattoos anyway, so a dress like that wouldn’t be an issue or anything… not really…”

“Oh?” Kim raised her eyebrow. “Then do you not like the color? I think you’d look good in red.”

Gina shook her head again. “No, fuck, like… it’s like I said, okay? It’s too revealing!”

“…It’s too revealing,” Kim numbly echoed back, wondering if the whole hotel had gone crazy since her shift started. Was this how she found out that Mary had somehow obtained Dakota’s position as the host and was going around making everybody modest and pure?

Would she even do that at this point? Kim asked herself, shaking those thoughts from her head and getting back to the issue at hand. “So would you like something a little more modest, then?” She inquired.

It looked like Gina was embarrassed to say yes.

“W-well… I mean, I should, right?” She mumbled. “That’s the kind of stuff Nick would like, don’t you think?”

“I think Nick would like you no matter what you’re wearing,” Kim honestly replied. “You saw how I was dressed on my last date with him, right?”

“Well, that was because your boobs were huge,” Gina snickered, relaxing enough to give Kim an amused smirk.

Kim knew that she could probably drop her smile and snark right back at her roommate and Gina probably wouldn’t care. But her boss would ream her out for it, and she didn’t want to deal with that headache. So she said nothing.

That was enough to prompt Gina to speak up again, just to escape the oppressive silence hanging in the air.

“Look, it’s not like it’s that big a deal or anything,” she groaned, scratching her head. “I just… think Nick wants, like, a normal, romantic date. And this thing, it’s fine, but it’s like…”

“It makes you look sexy?” Kim raised her eyebrow.

“It’s too revealing,” Gina replied, shaking her head. “Not in, like, a trashy way, though! In a classy way! Like, something you’d wear to a fancy restaurant or some shit!”

True. It looked like a very alluring evening gown. Kim could easily imagine it running quite a sum if this were a real shop.

“…So you don’t want classy or trashy?” Kim looked curiously at Gina.

“I want something that I can wear on, like… a normal, romantic date! One that would end by lunchtime!” Gina said, her face heating up in spite of her best efforts.

“And sex is off the table?” Kim pressed, at this point less interested in finding Gina a good dress and more curious about the exact specifics of her roommate’s “date” with Nick.

Gina scowled. “…Unfortunately I think so,” she mumbled, slumping her shoulders. “That’s what Carly said, anyway.”

Kim struggled to keep the surprise off of her face. “Carly? What’s she got to do with this?” She asked curiously.

“Well… I kind of went to her before coming here,” Gina explained. “You know how she’s got that transformation, Veteran Experience?”

Kim blinked. “…Yes,” she answered vaguely, vividly remembering going to Carly herself for dating advice once upon a time.

“Well… she asked me if I’ve been using sex, as, like… what did she call it again?” Gina wracked her brain trying to remember the specific wording the other woman had used. “Like, as a shield. To keep from getting overly intimate and serious with Nick. Does that make sense?”

Kim nodded. That made perfect sense, actually. It sounded exactly like Gina.

“So… she said that if I wanted to give Nick the kind of date he was really looking for… that, like, sex and stuff… it should be off the table completely,” Gina explained awkwardly. “That it would just be a purely emotional connection, without trying to seduce him or show off my body or any of that other shit, you know?”

Kim slowly nodded. “Yeah… I think I understand what you’re getting at,” she agreed. “So you want a dress that won’t make him look at your body?”

“I-I guess?” Gina said, feeling a little relieved that Kim actually seemed to be listening to her and taking this seriously.

Gina wasn’t someone who was easily embarrassed. She tended to be the one doing the embarrassing, most of the time.

But admitting her vulnerability like this…

“Embarrassing” wasn’t the right word. “Humiliating” was closer, but that didn’t quite feel like the right fit either.

…No, “completely mortified and ****” was the term that felt closest to what Gina was experiencing right now.

“…How about a burlap sack?” Kim cheekily suggested, earning her a glare from her prospective customer.

“Seriously?” Gina wasn’t in the mood for jokes.

“Hey, just a suggestion,” Kim said, holding up her hands. “I mean… let’s be honest here, Gina, most of the stuff we have here is designed to make you look sexy. And your body isn’t exactly helping out in that regard either.”

Kim remembered Morgana’s date with Nick a few days ago, where she’d been aiming for something similar.

“…I just want something that will look cute, okay!? Something normal!” Gina exclaimed, at the end of her rope at this point.

Kim blinked, surprised by the outburst. Almost as surprised as she was at the flustered expression on the other woman’s face.

“…So you’re serious, then,” she mumbled out. “You’re really trying to have a casual, non-sexual date with him?”

Gina’s face burned. She took a deep breath and let it out. “Is… is that so unbelievable?” She questioned, looking at the other woman sadly. “That I would want a date… under terms like those?”

Kim could have said a lot of things right then. But she didn’t.

Because honestly… she got where Gina was coming from a little too well.

Gina was really trying her best. She was trying to change herself.

Kim could respect that.

So she stopped cracking jokes, and turned into a saleswoman again.

“If I recall, you had a transformation that would have given you all the pretty, modest dresses you could have wanted,” Kim quietly pointed out.

Gina winced. “…That was **** on me,” she replied. “It’s different now.”

Kim nodded. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

“And I don’t want anything in pink!” The punk girl quickly added. “Something modest and cute that’ll make this feel like a real date, but not pink!”

“Right, no pink, gotcha,” Kim said, nodding. Shouldn’t be too hard.

“You’re not gonna laugh?” Gina asked, wincing. Like she was prepared for Kim to make fun of her.

It was a fair concern. Kim had been doing a bit of that, unfortunately.

She shook her head and gave her roommate a sincere smile, different from her plastered-on, fake one.

“Of course I’m not going to laugh,” she assured the other woman, placing a tender hand on Gina’s arm. “I think it’s great that you’re looking to take your relationship with Nick seriously, Gina. Really, I do. And I think he’ll like whatever you pick out to wear.”

Gina let out the breath she was holding and let herself relax. “…Thanks,” she said, giving Kim a smile in return. Kim was actually stunned by how tender and sincere it looked.

Maybe this wasn’t such a crazy idea after all, finding a casual dress for Gina.