"Really fancy families sometimes take a chaperone sort of approach to their sons so their daughters-in-law can be sure of getting pristine merchandise but I am not an especially classy drow so I don't know many details of that."

Snort.

"And they don't make an exception if the boy just wants to fool around with other boys, either, the idea being that if his future wife's into that she can arrange it herself."

"So they're just never alone around anyone?"

"Family - if you're not prepared to take somebody's word for it she doesn't tolerate incest in her cave, you don't marry her son. Some subcultures think slaves don't count even if other drow boys still do."

"Huh. I'm sort of surprised that there'd a culture that wanted men to be inexperienced but I guess a lot of the same motives must still be there."

Shrug. "If somebody wants experience she can buy the guy and loan him out. It's more customizable, I guess."

"...I don't think that teaches the same thing?" Shrug. 

"What same thing?"

"Uh, I think letting people fool around before marriage teaches different skills than renting them."

"Maybe. Wouldn't know and unless one of you faints am not likely to have an opportunity to investigate." Pause. "Well, unless Fazil faints."

"He's not as uptight in bed."

"You know, someday we're going to get into a fight, and I will have prepared nothing but Silence spells for shutting you up, and we'll die, and you'll deserve it."

"I guess if you faint I'll remember that," Belmarniss tells Hagan.

He pretends to feel dizzy. Fazil slaps him.

"Kinky."

"I'm going to need to get married while everyone I know is off questing in Tian Xia."

"I'll send extremely weird presents that leave your wife with a lot of questions!"

"Oh, like what?"

"Hmmm.... poisons in fancy glass bottles. Cursed jewelry. Not, like, seriously cursed, the kind that makes you incredibly clumsy for three minutes or makes you only able to see invisible things. Pictures of random children that look like him."

"Hopefully he'll find a wife only after leveling enough to cure serious reputational wounds."

"I think Abadar has guidance on this." He closes his eyes and hums to himself. "...money. Abadar says that the spell to cure reputational wounds is just money."

"I shouldn't have told you you're usually funny, it's gone to your head."

"Does that work, in practice - what are the going rates -"

"I mean - people value a lot of things in a spouse, including their reputation and their character and their job prospects and their finances. These trade off to some extent, right, like a rich man of known dreadful character might have as many options as a poor one of sterling character. But they trade off imperfectly, and in general I'd expect that the sort of people who will marry a poor man of good character are more my sort than the ones who'll marry a rich man with a scandalous reputation. Even though I am going to be a rich man. With -" sigh - "something of a mixed reputation."