This is a series of stories that are a sort of sequel to two text-adventure games. Each installment is a complete story on its own, but for a full understanding, the reader may want to start with Chapter 1.
This installment is again a fairly vanilla bridge between meatier stories.
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"Listen, Larry," I said to one of my smaller but quite reliable clients as we sat in his office, "next time I come in to see you, let's do it at the end of the day. We can go have a drink somewhere and go over our performance for you in a more comfortable seat than this damned thing." Larry liked to joke that the chairs provided in his office were medieval instrument of torture. They really weren't. They were just shit chairs.
"Sounds great," he replied enthusiastically. Larry didn't control a lot of business, so nobody who called on him spent a lot of money entertaining him, including me. I just thought that he deserved a couple of drinks... and I didn't want to sit in his chairs any more. "There's a fancy cocktail bar out in the western 'burbs a friend told me about. Mind going there?"
My budget for customers like Larry was more like beer and wings at BW3 than fancy craft cocktails, but I told him I'd check it out.
I promptly forgot about checking out the bar and by the time I remembered, a week or so later, I had forgotten the name of it. I pulled up the maps website on my egregiously large-screened office computer and started searching the area where I thought it was, which was out near where I lived. As I scrolled around, clicking on pins, something caught my eye as I transitioned from one commercial area to another. There was a huge, blank, nearly rectangular-shaped area with nothing in it. No roads, houses, or businesses. Nothing. I switched to satellite view and stared. It looked like a farm. I lunged for my drawer and grabbed a ruler. I measured the space, compared it to the scale of the map and did a quick calculation. It was a big ass farm, covering almost 800 acres, including the tree line that completely surrounded it.
And it was right there, smack in between two of the nicer suburbs on the western side of the city!
This was hugely important to me, because I had been planning for months, trying to find a way to build a country club in that area, which had lots of money, and no golf. The hiccup had been that I would have to put together at least 500-600 acres for a top course, club facilities, and enough housing plots to make it work financially. I had begun to despair that there was that much contiguous land left available anywhere closer than 15 miles beyond the city's perimeter interstate, yet here was nearly eight hundred acres in a near rectangle, with a natural stream cutting across the northeast corner, and it was barely three miles from the interstate, and less than a mile from the US highway that served as the main artery into the city.
Please Lord, let the owner be open to selling! Had there been any crop failures or droughts lately that I missed in the news? There was no information on the map, or online anywhere, that said word one about this farm. Damn.
I printed out a screenshot of the farm for future research and went back to finding the bar Larry wanted to go to. I found it pretty quickly. It was in an old commercial downtown of a village that had been completely absorbed by the city's expansion who knew how long ago. It was not very far from where I lived, and I resolved to check it out on my way home that evening.
I found Two Creeks Lounge to be in a former store-front bank. I could tell it was a bank long ago because the limestone facade still said "Two Creeks State Bank" in huge, slightly eroded letters. When was the last time you heard of a state bank, rather than federal? Since I usually leave work early on Wednesdays, I arrived just minutes after the place opened, and I was the first customer through the door, it seemed.
The seating in what had once been the bank lobby was all deep, leather armchairs around low tables. Booths lined both walls. The ceiling was almost ridiculously high, as if to add an air of grandiosity to this one time small town bank. The bar seemed converted from the old teller counter, was wide, and looked to be of very sturdy mahogany. Behind, the back wall was counter to ceiling shelves, filled with a very impressive collection of bottles. To the left was the old vault, with its door still intact and appearing to be functional. It stood wide open, and you could see inside to even more racks of liquid inventory. Soft jazz played at a low volume.
I mentally filed this place away as a good choice to bring lots of clients besides Larry, and probably for a date as well, given the right woman.
I shrugged off the deservedness of the place and strode over to the bar, easing onto a wide and very comfortable stool. As I did so, a bartender appeared from inside the vault, carrying a box of liquor. She started when she saw me and hastily moved to set the box down where she was going to need it. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you come in," she said apologetically, and I waved it off, replying that I had literally just walked in. "I'm Sheila," she went on, sliding a glass of water in front of me, along with a small, detailed cocktail menu. "I'll let you look over the menu while I get this box put away. Just wave if you have questions, or are ready to order," she went on briskly, before turning to swiftly restock the well and some lower shelves with bottles from the box.
I scanned the menu, but as is my wont, my attention was mostly on Sheila as she worked. She was dressed hipster bartender style in loose black slacks and a white tuxedo shirt with no tie. Old-time garters around her upper arms held her rolled up sleeves well clear of her wrists and any stray liquids. There was a large tattoo of something visible on her right forearm. She was quite trim, thin really, and the loose but fitted cut of her trousers showed little promise for any curves. Her tuxedo blouse was unbuttoned down far enough to show some cleavage, but said cleavage looked like it was trying a bit too hard. It looked squished, betraying a lot of work by a pushup bra.
Overall, I decided Sheila was pleasant enough looking, but not attractive to me, and I set my full attention to the cocktail menu. A few of the offerings looked interesting, but most were more elaborate than I felt necessary. Before I could order, a second bartender entered, still tying her small apron around her waist. She thanked Sheila for setting up, but then issued a number of directives for things that still needed to be done. Sheila pointed me out and then slid off to the back. It was clear who was the boss.
The Boss observed that I was still perusing the menu, waved at me, and busied herself with shifting around the way Sheila had set up things. This woman was an entirely different kettle of fish. Like Sheila, she was dressed in similar old-time bartender style, but the details of both the clothes and the wearer were dramatically different. Her black pants were loose and flowy below the knee and no where else, showing off a round, sleek, and enticing ass, generous hips, and long legs. Her white shirt was, like her co-worker/subordinate's, unbuttoned to the cleavage display point, but she also wore a tightly buttoned black vest that helped frame that display. The ample size, depth, and separation of what she was showing made it clear that the swell on her chest was all flesh, no push-up underwear. The vest's buttons and the apron conspired to show off that her waist was quite narrow as well. Her hair was curly and black, and framed her rather plain but pleasant features well.
