Stacking boxes of tampons and pads hadn’t been on Poppy’sto-do list for the morning but she was so excited to meet the other brides shedecided it was a good idea to stay busy so she didn’t get too nervous. Hearingthe tone at the med center door, she almost jumped out of her skin and couldn’thelp the disappointment that came over her face when she realized it was justTamin and Rodin.
“Thanks, Poppy. I can see you are thrilled to see us.” Rodinsmiled at her and rolled his eyes. A habit he had picked up from watching herdo it so often.
Feeling bad that she had let her emotions show so clearly,she went up and gave him a hug.
“Where is mine?” Tamin spoke from behind Rodin.
“Well, I can’t forget one of my favorite doctors, now canI?” she teased back.
Both men seemed to have their hands full so she took a box,only to have it snatched from her hands quickly by a scowling Behyr.
“You are not supposed to lift anything heavy.” Setting thebox down on a table close by, he mumbled, “Wheaton will kill us if he finds outyou did that.”
“Oh c’mon now, guys, he’s not that bad.” Crossing her armsover her chest, she pouted for a second. “Plus, that wasn’t even heavy.”
The men all paused and stared at her in disbelief.
“He’s not that bad?” Rodin said, almost choking over thewords.
The men glanced at each other and burst into laughter inunison.
“What’s so funny?” Poppy thought to herself for a moment andcouldn’t come up with a time when Wheaton had tried to restrict her since thebaby news.
“Poppy, the first thing Wheaton did when he found out thatyou were pregnant was give us a list of what was acceptable and not,” Taminsaid while moving more boxes out of her reach.
“And this was after we explained that working herewouldn’t harm you at all. At first, he wanted to keep you in the apartment allday until I explained that it made more sense for you to be here in case therewas an issue and you needed medical attention.” Rodin was smiling now as heexplained. Pointing at her stomach, he smiled and went on, “Don’t even ask mehow many questions he had regarding sexual intercourse and your baby. He wassure that he was going to poke the baby while he was enjoying your—” Obviouslyembarrassed, Rodin had to search for the right word before he settled on,“attentions.”
Poppy was full-on laughing by now at how Wheaton must havebeen freaking out a bit. She had to give him props though. He had never let onthat he was scared something would go wrong since their original scan…or thathe had been worried if sex was okay. Deciding to give him a little extraattention tonight for being so darn cute, she held up her hands.
“Okay, guys, boxes are off-limits. I’ll just go over hereand make sure these gift packs are ready for the millionth time.” Sarcasm wasapparently lost on the warriors because they nodded like that was a good ideaand went back to sorting through the boxes.
“What’s in there, anyway?” Casting a glance back at herfavorite supply closet, she tried to peek into one of the boxes that Rodin hadopened and was digging through.
“We received some more supplies from a shuttle missiontoday. Phaeton Two is close enough for a shuttle to send supplies back andforth and since we have brides aboard and they do not, then we received some oftheir excess.”
“But I thought we were in deep space?” Poppy asked,confused.
Rodin nodded and handed her a couple more bottles of lotionout of his box. “We are. Phaeton Two is heading to Earth and we are heading toour planet. While we are passing the other ship it will be within shuttledistance for a couple of hours.”
“Wait, why are they going to Earth?”
“Part of our agreement is to always have a presence nearEarth.” Seeing that he had confused her even more, he tried to explain, “Partof it is for protection.”
Behyr interrupted Rodin, watching Poppy with one of the moreserious expressions that she had ever seen him have. “We are not the only onesthat exist in space, Poppy. There are dangers that even Earth is unaware of.”
“Earth is safe, right?” Concern for her sister was the firstthing that popped into her head.
“Yes, most other life forms will not openly attack Phaetonwarships or anything that we consider ours…and Earth is something that weconsider ours.” Behyr had never seemed more like a warrior than he did now ashe was speaking. “Many of the other life forms are peaceful and not astechnologically advanced. That or they are in trade.”
Poppy winced when she remembered how Wheaton had had toexplain the Pleasure Sector to her. That had been an uncomfortable conversationall around. Wheaton had become embarrassed explaining about the life forms thatworked in the “skin trade”. Realizing he was talking about visiting space prostituteshadn’t sat well with Poppy either. And then Wheaton had suggested that shemight even like going to the Pleasure Sector when they had a chance. Even goingas far as to say that he had enough credits for her to pay for anything shewanted.
Her immediate reaction had been to jump to the conclusion hewas suggesting a threesome. Her face had showed her disgust and he had laughedat her assumption. At her expression of disbelief, he had quickly told her thatthe port also dealt in spices, jewelry and craft items that they sold in themarketplace. He explained that it would be a nice place for her to pick out agift for her sister if she wanted to find something unique. Grateful he hadn’tbeen suggesting an alien orgy, she agreed that Pixie would flip out if she gota gift from space.
Remembering that conversation, she could admit now that ithad made sense that these men, who lacked any physical outlet, would visit theequivalent of a space whorehouse. She understood
