Ris
She hadn’t plannedon returning to the nudist resort.
After all, the first trip she’d taken with her friends at the start of the summer had yielded the exact results she’d hoped for. She’d gone back to Cambric Creek having crossed several lines off her bucket list, with a trove of only slightly embellished stories of her experiences at the bonfire orgy to covertly tell Dynah over their lunch breaks, and she was more than satisfied to allow time and distance to color the experience with rosier hues than it had actually comprised.Time to find someone real,she’d told herself in the weeks and months afterward,someone interesting and fun.
"I play the market," her date explained with a cocky smile, leaning over the small table, several inches into her own space, "I guess you could say I’m a bit of a stock jockey." Ris pulled back, unable to keep her nose from wrinkling at the smell of the wheat beer his breath carried. "And it never ends, let me tell you. I have to be plugged in morning, noon, and night, twenty-four seven. I probably shouldn’t even have my phone put away now, but I promised myself I’d get one night to focus on me . . . and my beautiful companion, of course."
She was meant to be impressed, she understood. Impressed and fawning, but unfortunately for her date, understanding did not equal acquiescence. His particular brand of braggadocio may have been attractive to other women, but, alas, he wasn’t out with one of them. The gastropub was bustling and busy that night, buzzing with the voices of the after-work crowd spilling into the dinner crowd, and she was glad for the press of bodies and distractions, for the elf across the table wasn’t giving her much to work with.
"That doesn’t sound like it leaves room for much else. What about hobbies?"
She didn’t bother holding in her huff of irritation when he laughed as if she’d told a fantastically funny joke. She had perfected the art of fitting in over the years; of being pretty, popular Ris, chameleon-like in her ability to slip into whatever role was required of her, but these days she found herself less and less inclined to be anyone but herself.And we’re not impressed. She rarely matched the criteria most elves her age were looking for, and it had been a surprise when she had with this one. She’d tried to be positive when the evening started, but her optimism, as well as her drink, had just about run out.
"Who has time for that?" he laughed. "I can take up coin collecting when I get to my jubilee. Until then,makingcoin is more important." If he noticed she didn’t join in as he chuckled again at his own words, he didn’t let on, draining the drink in front of him and glancing down to the glittering watch face on his wrist. "I was thinking we could head over to the Pickled Pig. Better crowd than this place."
He glanced around swiftly, raising a hand to catch the attention of the server, and Ris patted her lips with her cocktail napkin before slipping her wrist through the strap of her clutch, more than content to call it an early night. Gildersnood & Ives had become the girls’ preferred happy hour spot over the last few months, always bustling, always packed with the office dwellers of the commerce parkways and employees of the local businesses, the same people who were her neighbors and friends. The crowd at Gildersnood was good enough for her, and if it wasn’t for her date, that meant she wasn’t either. Besides, Ris reminded herself, she’d somehow managed to get a large splotch of ink on the sleeve of one of her work dresses, glad she’d noticed it before tossing it into the wash the previous morning. She’d set it aside for a spot treatment she’d not yet done, plus there was a documentary she’d borrowed from the local library and a new video up from a yoga studio she supported on Benefactoring.All preferable options to this date.
"I think we should probably call it a night, actually." A slender troll arrived at their table, familiar and harried-looking, and Ris gave her a broad smile. "Put mine on my tab, Ruby. Zeig will close it out at the end of the night."
There was a bit of a breeze that night, a sign of the waning summer, and she was glad it would only be a quick dash across the street to the municipal lot where her car was parked.
"Do you want to follow me? I’m over in Lindë Terrace, on the other side of Oldetowne. I valeted, where are you parked?"
She turned up in confusion at his words, unsure of why he thought she’d be following him anywhere. "I’m not sure what—like I said, I think we should call it a night. It was great meeting you, though! Good luck with making that coin, right?"
The elf’s smooth brow furrowed, and his sapphire eyes narrowed, nose wrinkling.
"Wait, that’s . . . that’s it? We’re not going to — you’re just leaving?!"
She raised an eyebrow, glad for the presence of the ogre at her back, a security guard she knew well. "Yes? Look, you’re a nice guy, but I don’t think we really have anything in common. It was nice meeting—"
"Your profile said you weren’t looking for a relationship," he interrupted, a scowl marring his handsome features. "And now you’re just leaving? You shouldn’t be wasting people’s time like this."
She stepped back, her mouth dropping open in shock.What a fucking prick."And what? You thought that meant a sure thing? My profile didn’t say ‘adventurous 34f, DTF’, but if you interpreted it that way, that’s your problem, not mine." She glared, ears heating in outrage. "I take it back, it wasn’t that great meeting you, actually. Try spending some of that coin on buying yourself an actual personality." The chill in the air was bracing as she strode across the street, exchanging a knowing nod with the ogre before crossing the street in front of him, gratified to see the way he glowered at the elf she left on the sidewalk, confident that she could cross to her car and exit the vicinity without worry that he might follow. One more bad date from the app, one more reason to delete it from her phone altogether.Jokes on him, she thought sardonically, pulling through town.Youmighthave been down to fuck, if he’d actually been interesting.
She hadn’t planned on returning to the nudist resort . . . but then Dynah's relationship with the arrogant Dragonborn had fizzled. It had been Dynah's idea to come back to the orc resort, Dynah who'd whined about missing out the first time, Dynah who'd insisted she wanted to be the filling in her own orc orgy sandwich. Even though she hadn’t felt a pressing need to go back and repeat her experience of the first trip, the lack of luck on the dating app was enough to make Ris restless, and Dynah’s whining pleas were wearing her down.
Restlessness was only a part of the problem, she contemplated, a symptom of a larger cause. Ris felt as if she were stuck in place, like she was spinning in mud, sinking a bit further with every day, every week that passed . . . but worse than desperately wanting something just out of her reach, she didn’tknowwhat she wanted, a far worse affliction, she’d determined. She had a job she liked well enough, one that kept her comfortable that she was able to leave at the office each day, and one that supported her love of museum and theater visits . . . but she tired of making said visits alone. She didn’t want a husband, she barely wanted a boyfriend. Despite her community’s obsession with babies, she had no desire to have children. She was selfish and settled and entirely unwilling to give up her freedom and quirks — but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be nice to have someone to spend time with.A friend with benefits. Someone you’ll have things in common with. Someone good in bed who will go with you to the art museum and actually have fun. A friend with benefits who won’t decide they want to get married after a month, that’s what you need. Funny. Articulate. Well-hung would be a plus.
She felt better, she’d decided, articulating exactly what it was she was looking for. She still had no idea how to find such a partner, but putting her wish out into the universe was the first step in manifesting it, wasn’t it? She gave the ideal FWB a considerable amount of thought, wrote down a list of personality traits and hobbies and non-negotiables, feeling like a child writing her list of wishes to burn at the solstice oracle fire, taking her yoga mat to the roof of her condo to breathe out her wants to the sunrise, stretching into her salutation, feeling as if she were taking up the reins of control for the first time in months.Months? Years?One last wild weekend of debauchery felt like a fitting way to close out the past year of discontented ennui, she decided jovially.
The resort had been, unsurprisingly, booked solid when Dynah had pled her case, the late-summer festivities too great a draw and the balmy nights too licentious a setting at the nudist resort for other sight-seers to resist. The end of the season was the best they could do, a full five months after the first trip she’d taken with Lurielle and Silva. It hadn’t felt like that long a span, but she’d determined that time passed differently on the other side of thirty. Already she could feel her existence starting to slow, the milestones celebrated by her peers at work seeming somewhat trivial, nearly half a year passing in what felt like a handful of weeks. She wondered what seventy-five would feel like and if two hundred would be upon her before she could blink; if this restlessness would still live in her bones, like grains of sand, chafing just beneath the skin.
Reservations were made, bags were packed, and orc-sized condoms were purchased.
And then Dynah, flippy-floppy, wishy-washy Dynah, met some oily-voiced kitsune through the stupid app and canceled at the last minute — again."I really think he’s the one! I know I’ve said that before, but this time is different, I know it!"It had been so unsurprising, she’d hardly been angry. It wasn’t the first time Dynah had broken plans the instant some guy sniffed in her direction and it likely wouldn’t be the last, she thought tiredly. It was a condition of being her friend, and Ris had begun thinking of it as a medical affliction Dynah simply couldn’t control.
In any case, Lurielle had been furious on her behalf, and that had been enough.
"Are you fucking kidding me? She’s doing this again?!" Lurielle’s face scrunched across the breakroom table, shaking her head in disgust. "What iswrongwith her? How many times are we going to let her do this? Are you able to get your money back for the room?"
She shrugged, helping herself to one of Lurielle’s veggie crisps. "She was raised to think that her self-worth is based on male attention and fucking of course I can’t get the money back. Seventy-two-hour cancellation policy, same as last time. It’s not her fault. I mean, itisher fault, but . . . you know. Peak Dynah. Soooo, whatcha doing this weekend? Big plans with Mr. Perfect or do you wanna play wingwoman?"
"I can’t," Lurielle sighed. "He has a mudball match on Saturday afternoon and Sunday we’re picking up landscaping stuff before the weather turns. I don’t like the idea of you going back there alone, what if something happens? I can’t believe Dynah. I don’t understand how you’re not raging."
"What are we raging over? Ooo, is it the cider thief? I have some choice words if you caught them." Silva appeared in the doorway, prim and perfect in an a-line dress several shades darker than her lavender skin, topped by a snug, coral-hued cardigan with dainty pearl buttons.
Ris snorted as their younger co-worker pulled her apple cider jug from the fridge, carefully pouring several glugs into her half-full water bottle. Silva had been cheerfully hauling a half-gallon jug back and forth every day since the local farms began advertising the fresh-pressed beverage with a bevy of roadside signs. In the beginning, she’d been leaving it in the communal refrigerator, until the day she’d come in to find the empty jug sitting on the countertop, drained down to the last drop. They had witnessed her smooth lavender skin darken, the tips of her ears turning purple in anger as tiny, indistinct yips and squeaks came from her throat like an adorably furious bunny, her movements tight and jerky, stabbing her salad in the same way, Ris assumed, that she might drive her fork into the ribs of the unknown juice thief, were they to materialize before the table. Since then, her precious apple cider commuted with her, cut with water several times a day at the break room counter.
