The Empty Ship

"But, I feel to be close to you."

"And me, too. But that doesn't mean getting married."

"We had sex."

"No. Don't you remember? We were just touching each other. That's not sex."

"But we touched ... together. Down there."

"That still doesn't count as sex. Not to me."

"Oh. Ok." She looked sad to have to agree with Marsha like she was expecting a better result.

"But look, I care about you." Marsha added.

"And I care about you. Maybe we can be companions."

"Companions? What do you mean by that?"

"Good friends. We are very good friends to help each other like that."

"Yes. And that is our friendship secret. Ok."

"Yes. Our secret."

They finished eating and did as Tom's sign asked them and cleaned up after themselves. Then, when they were finished, they sort of took a moment to think of what they wanted to do next. Marsha looked at Ahoji. Ahoji caught her stare and then she looked over towards the stairs. Marsha smiled from ear to ear and then instantly they both ran to the steps so they could go back up to the bedroom and ... not have sex again.

...

It was a hot day but Tom was sort of noticing it less and less this day. There was a woman in his house. There was a WOMAN in his house. He kept smiling and grinning all day as he did his work. He would love to go in there and talk with her. His sister was just being unneighborly with all her 'she'd not like us' bullshit.

He found himself rushing. He was trying to do things too fast so he could hurry up and get back in the tower and be a good host. Rushing meant he made a few mistakes. Something in him told him to just leave it that way but that wasn't Tom's way. He had to do it right. He had to have it perfect.

Well, maybe perfect was a strong word but it had to be at least up to a certain standard that he'd always set for himself.

No, that wasn't true either. Carlotta had set that standard and imposed it on him when he was little. And then, before he even realized it, Carlotta and Sarah were gone. Tom had been all alone. He was fifteen then and he sort of thought that he could just relax and not do things to the anal level that Carlotta had always yelled at him about. But then all the pigs died and half the crops didn't grow. Sure, half doesn't sound like the situation was hopeless but when he was only growing just enough to begin with, that was a big deal.

Tom had learned the hard way. Carlotta wasn't around to kick his ass anymore so the damn ship was kicking it for her. He remembered being scared and hungry and thinking that he was going to die. Then, right as he was at his lowest point, with nowhere to go but up, he got hurt and could hardly walk due to the pain. He was really fucked then but he got himself in gear, struggled through, and came out stronger and more serious than he'd ever been.

...

There was a sort of battle happening as each girl was trying to be the one who was going to be on top this time. They were kissing each other on the lips as well as on various other places on each other's bodies. But kissing was ok. They told each other that friends kissed all the time. It was ok. It helped ease the almost constant tension in their loins which was only stronger now that there was a male in the near vicinity.

After several blissful minutes of touching each other and kissing each other, it came to pass that Ahoji was the one on top with Marsha on her back and her legs open to the other girl. Ahoji knew what the next step was but she hesitated.

"Come on." Marsha said.

...

Tom had felt like an asshole for the way he'd acted. He remembered yelling at Carlotta that he was not her slave. He used to be so angry and resentful towards her. But in the end, he found himself doing things Carlotta's way nonetheless.

After Carlotta was gone and Tom was by himself days passed and while the computer always knew how many days had passed and what the date was, he almost never did. It never affected him so why would he care? The season never changed. It was hot. It was always hot. And it wasn't a dry heat like a Narranese summer. The moist, humid air clung to his body and made it feel like twice what the actual temperature was. But most days were the same. He didn't do exactly the same thing everyday but in his memory all the many, many days seemed to blend together. But that was how it had to be. That was how you could live and have a life on this ship. And now that he had things going so well and actually got to the point where he had improved on what was left to him, almost as a reward, his sister was returned to him.

...

Marsha wiggled her ass and tried to give Ahoji the hint to go ahead and do it. Come on. The scared girl knew what she wanted. Why wasn't she just giving it to her.

"Please." Marsha finally said.

"You want me to ... lick you?"

"Yes. Please. I'll do you after, I promise."

"Isn't that going too far?"

"It's ok. We're friends, like I said before."

"Friends don't go down on each other. At least not on Shikju.'

"Ugh. I can't believe you're giving me a hard time with this. You know what I'm going through."

"I know but hasn't everything else been enough?"

Marsha sat up and thought for a moment. "Ok, look. Yes and no. I mean, I really appreciate all you've been willing to do with me because we're such great friends and all but I need a little more. Can I please have a little more. PLEASE!"

...

This was going to be good. He was going to make it good. He was going to take care of her. He wasn't going to be like Carlotta had been with him. There was no reason to always have things cut so close or 'geedy geedy' as it was said by the Imperials. He always did a bit extra as insurance for hard times. That was the thing that the old women had never thought of. They were always concerned about today or tomorrow. Once Tom was standing on his own two feet he found that he could see farther than that. He could see out a week, then a month, then years. He was always so focused on where he was going that he hardly ever had time to just enjoy this one day. But it was worth it. He had been able to get one of the factories working and with that he'd been able to get all kinds of wonderful things made. Like an air conditioner. And just think how much more he'd be able to get done once he passed the captain's test.

But all of that was for another day. Just this once, because it was such a special occasion, he was very much concerned about who was in his house. That Imperial girl really was very pretty. Tom had learned some Imperial from Gavako before the ancient Imperial woman died. Tom remembered when he first met her. They told him that her name meant 'little pretty one' but she was definitely not pretty and as the tallest and roundest of the women, she was not little either. Then again, compared to the ship she was a speck of dust. Besides, it was probably a cute name for a baby.

Not that Tom would ever get the chance to have children. He shouldn't assume or even dare hope for that to ever happen. He felt he could be totally up for the challenge. But he wasn't going to have a baby with his sister and he'd only just met that Imperial girl. He couldn't just assume that anything would happen or allow his mind to entertain those kinds of thoughts. She could still just reject him after all.

Ah, but she was so pretty. It would be nice if she were interested. They could take it slow and maybe court for a while. He'd always heard about courting. The Imperials seemed to be obsessed with it or something. He didn't know what the rules were but maybe Ahoji could tell him. Maybe she could even tell him in Imperial and be totally amazed when he understood her. And just think of how much more impressed she'd be once he became the captain. On a day to day level he might still just be the guy chopping wood and plowing fields but when it really mattered, he'd also be the guy who went up to the bridge and ordered the entire ship to do as he commanded. Any girl would have to like that in a guy, right? Sure, he didn't really know if it worked that way but he knew he needed something to get that girl to like him.

...

It suddenly occurred to Marsha right before she hit her orgasm that she really didn't know enough about the girl whose fingers were as deep in Marsha's vagina as they could go. She had no idea exactly what kind of serving that girl did in the Imperial court. Had her hands and fingers been used to clean floors? Toilets? But all of that was in the past, right? That was seven thousand years ago. And besides, she was clean now and that was what mattered. Still, she should probably spend some time getting to know the girl whose tongue was sending Marsha up to the clouds. They should spend some time bonding by listening to music together. If the girl knew how to sew they could alter some of those dresses and things. They should ...

Marsha yanked the sheet off the mattress she was pulling on it so hard. Ahoji wasn't able to keep her tongue in contact with Marsha's pussy, so she sat back and just kept her fingers going while Marsha went through the whole cycle of her climax. The Imperial girl only pulled her hand away when Marsha started bucking her hips too hard. Marsha's own hand went to her cunt to keep her pleasure going but even she herself was unable to do any good while her body convulsed.

They both took a moment. Ahoji laid down next to Marsha to check that she was ok and Marsha responded by holding Ahoji tight. Eventually, Ahoji offered to get Marsha some watter. Marsha shook her head. She wanted something wet on her lips but it wasn't water. The Narranese got her second wind and jumped up on top of the Imperial. Ahoji went to her back and spread eagle for Marsha.

For just a second there was the slightest ember of fear in Marsha. She'd never licked a girl before and she was apprehensive about doing as good a job as Ahoji had just done. But she found her courage and pushed herself down. The first taste was all she needed to convince her that this was going to be ok. It was ok. She was going to be able to do this. Ahoji tasted great and something about corrupting an Imperial girl of all people added an extra punch to it.

After licking for a bit, Marsha started to put a finger into the other girl. That got a very positive reaction and so more fingers were called for. Then Marsha really got into it and she found she actually really enjoyed this so long as Ahoji didn't piss or shit on her.

...

Oh shit. Tom had made another mistake. It was a small one and he could just leave it but no. He had to go fix it. It would only take two minutes but it was another two minutes he wasn't able to go back inside and ... have polite conversation with another human being. Ok, gloves back on, undo the wrong way and redo the right way.

SMACK!

"AAAAH" he screamed in pain. The fucking beam of wood came right down on top of him. Luckily, it had missed his head but it still got his shoulder and back and hurt like a bitch. What the hell? How had that happened? He walked out of the stable and went to the machine that dispensed ice cold water. His hands were shaking when he filled his tin mug and drank. That did nothing for the pain but at least he wasn't thirsty anymore.

Alright. Enough was enough. Even when he was doubling back to fix his fuck ups he was still not paying full attention to what he was doing and now he was hurt. FUCK. He felt defeated. There was no way he was going to go and climb up to the roof of the stable and fix that while he felt like this. But he couldn't just leave that hanging like that with fucking nails exposed. Sanders or Alfie could get themselves hurt on that so it had to be fixed today.

He almost never did this but he started telling himself that there was no shame in getting the robots to do it for him. He knew they had a very limited useful life so he only used them for things that were impossible or extremely impractical for him to do. For instance, he was not going to ride the elevator a kilometer and a half down to one of the storage areas to fetch a box of clothes. He had a functioning robot down there that could get the box and put it on the elevator. Then he could have another robot bring that package to his tower while he got other stuff done. It made sense to make the robots do stuff like that because they were smart enough to do that without him detailing every little step. With anything more difficult it usually took more time to teach the robots what he wanted done then to just do it himself.

He felt a bit humiliated as he watched the robots very slowly do what would probably only take him forty minutes. Instead of being up there and just doing it, he was instructing the robots with a hand monitor. If his sister came out here and saw him like that she might accuse him of playing a video game but this was definitely not fun.

The work was still not complete when the lights went off so Tom turned on all the outside lights. Lights at night attracted those fucking dogs that he hated so much. He hadn't seen one in a good long while but he knew they were still out there because sometimes he could hear them howling and barking.

"Come on. Hurry up you slow piece of shit." Fucking robots took forever doing anything other than just wheeling around.

Waiting. Pain in shoulder. Waiting. Pain in shoulder. Waiting.

"Ouch." he said as a hand slapped him on the arm.

"Oh, please. I didn't hit you that hard." Marsha said. Tom turned to see her with her frazzled hair and her hastily put on clothes.

"That shoulder's injured." Tom said.

"Huh? I'm sorry."

"It's ok. What do you want?"

"Well, we were just wondering why you were still outside."

"I'm almost done. I'll go inside in just a bit to cook dinner. Can you just wait?"

"Well, actually, we already made dinner for you."

"Really?"

"Yes. And I think we did a pretty good job so could you just leave the robots to do their work and come and enjoy it?"

"No. You have to watch over them or they mess up whatever you set them to do. And it's not their work. It's my work. I'm only using them because of my shoulder."

"Is it hurt bad? Are you ok?"

"I'll be fine. It might be sore for a few days but I think I should be fine."

"Oh. So how much longer do you think it'll be?"

"I'd say about five minutes."

Marsha accepted that answer but in reality it was actually more than fifteen minutes before Tom had everything secured and the lights off so he could enter the house. One good thing though was that the robots didn't fuck things up because they were thinking of something else.

...

Ahoji stood by the archway to the kitchen and waited with anticipation. This was so weird for her but everything that had happened since she woke up had been weird. She spent two full days of being hungry while her body constantly tried to pleasure itself. Then her fears that she was the only person alive, and might therefore not live very long herself, were put to rest when people came to rescue her. Now she was in a situation that was really unprecedented for her. But at least that was something that she'd sort of grown accustomed to.

Change, change, change. Her life had seen so many changes happening so fast. But she was still alive and that was the important thing. Right now, that was really the only thing that mattered. Fleeing the Imperial city seemed a long distant memory. All of the rules that were always put on her were now just gone. She'd outlived it all. She was free. She was finally free. Nothing more was expected of her.

Well, not yet. She was somehow sure that this new situation she found herself in was going to have its own set of challenges. That man was used to doing everything on his own but with three people here now that would not be fair. There would need to be a division of labor. She would need to sit with the man and talk so that she could more completely understand what all the various tasks were so she could best know what needed to be done. Imperial society had a high emphasis on trying to anticipate someone else's needs so they never had to ask you to do something.

Ahoji looked over at Marsha as she stood by the front door. Ahoji was a bit confused as to what exactly was going on with her. She and the man clearly knew each other and shared a kind of closeness that signaled that Ahoji was an outsider among them. Their closeness was not just from them both being Narranese. They must have known each other from before leaving Narra. But in this situation, he had spent years building all this up and she'd only just gotten there, just like herself.

And even with all the urges they were having, Marsha still hadn't made a move on the man. Neither had Ahoji but she was sort of thinking that she might want to and soon. Being close with Marsha was nice. She had to admit it was nice. She never would have thought to do any of that kind of stuff before. Even the idea of it would make her nauseously gag before. But here with Marsha she found sex with a girl to be very enjoyable. She was allowing Marsha to continue her mental rejection of the realization of what it was but Ahoji was under no such delusion. They were having sex with each other; at least as much sex as two people can have who can not impregnate the other.

And the sex was pretty good. It wasn't just good enough to keep the spasms away. It was actually really good. For hours that day, she and Marsha had explored each other's bodies and in almost no time at all they'd done just about everything that she imagined two girls could do with each other. However, even as nice as it was, she wanted something different. She didn't mind sucking on nipples but she'd rather be sucking ... a cock. She didn't mind Marsha putting her fingers in her and she even did the same back but what she really wanted was Tom's hard dick to fill her up and leave his semen inside of her. That was a dangerous thought to have since it might be a very bad idea to get pregnant considering the circumstances. But that was what her body was telling her she wanted. And yes, even though Marsha's tongue was so nice and wet and smooth and just felt so amazing on her pussy; somehow she just knew that Tom's tongue would just be so much better. She didn't know how she could know that since she'd never actually been with a man.

But now that things had started with Marsha, were they in a relationship? It was so outside of everything she'd ever learned to just have sex with someone and not be in some kind of relationship. If she went after Tom, would that be cheating on Marsha? Would she be hurting Marsha? Marsha had kept saying that they were only helping each other out but her words and her actions did not match. You don't kiss someone the way Marsha kissed Ahoji without seeing them as a special person in your life.

Loyalty. That was one of the central pillars of her life. It was what she'd been taught to show and expect from others in every situation. It didn't matter that she'd found herself in a situation where she did not have complete control of her surroundings. True loyalty was not just for when you could set things to your liking. True loyalty was shown when you had to accept what you would not choose. Ahoji would be loyal to Marsha no matter her fantasies and she'd been dropping the hint to Marsha that she expected the same from her. Even though the most natural thing would be for one of them to be Tom's wife and have his children, now that she and Marsha were together, she would be loyal to that.

And yet, when faced with a want, or in this case a borderline need, and a rule saying you couldn't have it, the human mind likes to find ways to get what it wants. There was this idea Ahoji was having where she could still be loyal to Marsha and still experience Tom's wonderful manliness at the same time. She wasn't ready to act on it or even mention it but the plan was forming.