David West was awake before his guest Sandra did. Sandra was actually Thellissandra of Rhyven, a warrior woman from another world on a quest to stop a renegade wizard.
She found him measuring the armor she had been wearing the night before. He gnced up at her and gave her a broad smile: “Good morning, Sandra!”
She replied cheerfully with: “Two of my braids fell during the night and I had to fix them. That bed is so soft I kind of want to take it home with me and… wait! Do I smell, I mean, do you have COFFEE here?”
David’s grin grew. “Why yes we do, and it should be ready,” he gnced over at the machine that had just finished brewing, “right now, in fact. Perfect timing! Mugs are in the cabinet above the coffee pot; don’t touch the Star Wars one, as that is Malcolm’s.”
“I can only understand and speak your nguage, not read it so I do not know what that means.”
“Oh ah, the one with… ah…” he felt a slight flush in his cheeks as he remembered what was on it, “the girl in the ah, gold bikini? Underwear? Not sure if that transtes?”
“Ah, yes it does,” she answered, noting the mug in question and grabbing two different ones. One had an odd geometric shape with markings on it and the other was a pin bck mug. She poured coffee into both.
“Do you need sugar or cream?” David asked, writing something down then setting aside the st piece of the armor.
“In coffee? Why?”
“Some people prefer it. Malcolm puts in more sugar and cream than he does coffee. I take mine bck though”
“There is no other way to drink it,” Sandra replied firmly.
He smiled at her and accepted the mug. “Since we mastered drawstrings st night,” he felt a slight flush come to his cheeks as he remembered the incident; she had needed his help getting the drawstrings on his old trunks that she had worn as pajamas, tight enough to sleep in st night, but he quickly pushed that away, “I have a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie - a loose jacket with a hood on it.”
“Ah, a hooded cloak?”
David ughed, “kind of, yeah. Do you eat eggs?”
“I would prefer those things you called apples but yes, broken up into bits or fried on top of dry bread.”
“Out of bread, so scrambled it is.”
About half an hour ter, David had the opportunity to expin what a car was to his guest. She had no trouble with the idea of a horseless carriage, but could not believe people rode inside of it and not on top.
“We are going to, well, kind of a bazaar but most of the stalls are actually big rooms. I will leave you with my friend Carol and go see about getting you some clothes that won’t stand out so much as your armor but fit better than my old stuff,” he told her as they rode along.
“I kind of like your old stuff. It smells like home.”
He gave her an odd gnce but said “well I can let you keep everything but the hoodie if you would like?”
She just nodded.
Ten minutes ter, they had parked and were standing outside of “New Life Salon.”
David knocked on the gss door and his friend Carol Bishop came into view - she was a tall, slender blonde woman, slightly taller even than Sandra, with sparkling blue eyes and a face that was more “cute” than “pretty,”. She smiled when she recognized David and opened the door. Her voice was almost musical as she greeted them “Two of my girls are just setting up. Is this your friend?”
“This is Sandra. She’s working on an anthropology master's and was spending time with one of the native tribes in South America. Somehow the airline lost her luggage and, well she had been trying to fit in down there, but it doesn’t really work up here,” David expined, the lie coming easier than he had expected.
As he finished the expnation they had agreed to, Sandra pulled back the hoodie, showing her oddly braided hair and what of her makeup remained; the blood of their incident the night before had washed off but most of the makeup remained.
“Do you think you can help her? If you can, I’ll leave her in your care and go buy her some clothes to repce what she lost, since it may be a few days before her luggage turns up.”
“How noble, Gahad,” Carol replied, a teasing smile on her lips. “I can definitely help her out, and, because we’re good friends and she definitely needs it, can probably give you a price break even; but you’ll have to tell me how you met.”
David had expected this and worked up a story with Sandra, who began it for him, as they had rehearsed: “we both have a fascination with fantasy stuff and met on the,” she hesitated with an unfamiliar word and hoped Carol would not be too curious about this hesitation, “internet. We talked a bit and both had pns for OmegaCon so we met in person for the first time st night.”
“Aww. Nerd love,” Carol teased.
“Oh, we are just friends,” David interjected, perhaps a bit too quickly. Carol gnced at Sandra first and then at him, clearly a little skeptical. “You always did have a bit of a hero complex, willing to help anyone in need, so I’l let that stand,” Carol replied. She turned to Sandra and expined “That’s why I sometimes call him Gahad. His mom often does the same with his dad, and for the same reason; they just like to py the hero.” Then she turned away from her guests and called out “Melinda, you don’t have any appointments before ten, right?”
A voice from the back said “Yes, Carol,” and the speaker came into view - a very curvy, short woman with unnaturally red hair cascading around a perfectly made-up face that would probably only stand out in a crowd due to the expertly-done cosmetics. She had a slight southern drawl when she spoke “oh, hi honey,” she said to Sandra, and smiled at David, “David, right? Been a while!”
“Well I moved into the city and found a local barber,” he replied. “And haven’t messed with cosmetics since that unfortunate Klingon incident.”
Melinda ughed then turned to Carol, who immediately indicated David’s companion and said “This is Sandra, a friend of David’s who seems to have had her own, ah, Klingon incident, but with aboriginals instead. Can you give her hair a good washing and get that makeup off of her?”
Melinda looked Sandra over, smiled again and said “it would be my pleasure. Come along, sugar!” And took the woman in question by the hand, leading her to the back of the shop.
As soon as Sandra was out of sight, and earshot, Carol leaned close to her old friend and quietly said: “you’re in love with her!”
David jumped at the comment, startled by the thought. Something in the back of his head replied, “Not yet, I’m not,” but what came out of his mouth was “we’re just friends and really only met in person st night.”
“But you and I are ’just friends’ now and, well,” she teased, smiling, leaving the sentence hanging. She and David had grown up next door to each other, been close friends until puberty hit and then tried dating for a while. They quickly had decided that they worked better as friends and had remained so ever since, but they had been very intimate during their exploratory days. Often since then, she seemed to know his mind better than he did at times. But he was sure she was wrong here. Or at least wrong for now, though he really was not sure what that thought meant. “Well, regardless, I need to get some shopping done. How much time do I have?”
“At a guess, two hours. I’ll text you if we think we’ll be done much earlier or much ter,” she replied. He thanked her and headed out.
He decided he would tackle the hardest part first: undergarments. It took him a bit longer than he had expected but was only a little awkward and not as bad as he had feared. He picked up three sets, two “functional” and one “pretty” set, then went to pick out some outfits. He went for two skirt sets and one jeans outfit all in basic colors. The hardest part turned out to be finding good shoes for her, without having her feet along to try them out. He finally picked out three sets he felt would go with the outfits, hoping at least one set fit right, and saw a jewelry counter. On a whim, he added a neckce, two bracelets and some clip-on earrings to the order and paid for it all. As it was ringing up, he got a text: “She should be ready for her new clothes in about five.to.ten minutes. No discounts though. Expin when we meet.”
David sighed and headed back to the salon. Carol met him at the door and sorted through the bags of stuff he had just bought. “Are you sure you’re not gay?” She asked.
“What? Why?” he replied, shocked.
“Unlike most guys, you picked out things a woman might actually wear, instead of things he would just like to see her in.”
David ughed, and changed the subject: “You said no discounts?”
“Oh right. There was something in her hair that the shampoo reacted to. Made Melinda violently ill and made the whole pce reek for about fifteen minutes. Had to reschedule two clients as a result,” she said as she took the bag to the back of the shop before returning to the waiting area.
“Oh, I am sorry, I had no idea,” David began to reply as soon as she got back.
“Eh, these things happen, but the girls would kill me, or worse, walk out, if I gave any sort of discount after that.”
“I understand completely,” David said. “Here, take my card and charge what feels right. You know I’m good for it.”
“Unless you splurged on a new army?” Carol teased.
David blushed at this and nodded - he had a good income but had made a few mistakes starting out so generally had every aspect of his life tightly budgeted now. He had gone over budget at OmegaCon but only with the money he had explicitly earmarked for the convention. After today, he would have to be careful for a few weeks but he could afford whatever Sandra needed right now.
“Your friend is a bit odd but a joy to work with, by the way,” Carol said as she rang up the charge and returned his card. He took it from her, went to put it away, and almost missed the wallet; he got the card into the wallet on the second try, but the wallet slipped out of his hand as he tried to slip it into his pocket; his attention clearly not on it. Carol caught the wallet before it hit the floor and deftly slid it into said pocket, before looking towards what had so distracted him. When she saw, she leaned close in and whispered in his ear; “OK, so you’re definitely not gay.”
David, however, was unaware of anything else at the moment, as what seemed to be an energy pulse shoot through his body while he watched the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life walk out of the back of the salon wearing one item from each of the outfits he had just bought for Sandra; one of the skirts, the top he had thought would go well with a different skirt, and the jean jacket from the denim set. Her once wild hair was now in a soft, slightly wavy pixie cut that left her ears exposed, had a slightly asymmetrical fringe, and was a light reddish brown too dark to be called strawberry blonde but too light to be auburn. Her face was expertly made.up, making her soft brown eyes, voluptuous lips and perfect bone structure, all of which had been hidden under her heavy “war paint,” stand out beautifully. Several seconds passed before he remembered how to breathe. Carol’s comment in his ear brought him mostly back to the moment “Wow,” was all he managed to say.
Carol grinned and waited a few seconds before breaking the silence: "That’s her natural hair color with all the gunk removed, We had expected to have to do some color correction but when we cleaned it up and found that, well, honestly, I wish I knew how to get that color, as I’d love to try it on my hair. I don’t not believe I’ve ever seen anything exactly like it before.”
“Your team.does great work, my old friend,” David replied, finally able to speak, but only after tearing his eyes off of Sandra with great difficulty.
“So do you think I can go around without drawing too much attention. now?” Sandra asked.
“Oh, you’ll draw attention but not, well, not, ah,” David fumbled for words.
“Not from people thinking you’re a weirdo. or dangerous?” Carol offered.
“But I am dangerous,” Sandra replied.
Carol ughed, thinking “perhaps more than you realize,” but out loud she said “I have other clients to take care of so you kids run along and do whatever it is that friends like you do, Okay? And David, give me a call this weekend if you can…I miss our little chats and I think it’s high time we had another.”
David smiled, agreed, and thanked her for everything, and then picked up the bags of clothes Sandra had not chosen to wear and led her to the car.
“Thank you for the clothes,” she said. “I have questions about a few items though. I will ask back at your pce and then we can get some apples and start looking for Elgarin.”
He gnced over at her and so many thoughts were shooting through his head at light speed, he wanted to say a lot more but all he could manage was “sure.”
