The bartender eventually got busy with other patrons. Strawberry was forced to turn her attention back to us. "We should order another round," she muttered, not sounding all that convincing.
"I think that we've had enough for now," I told her. "You can come back to see your new girlfriend later. Don't we have some shopping to do?"
"Yeah, we better," Cinnamon supported the idea. "We need an excuse for why we've been gone so long. Hopefully this buzz will fade while we're shopping."
"You mean hopefully not!" Strawberry said with a ornery grin as she leaned on my girl's shoulder. I got the distinct impression that she was easy prey for sexual advances while drinking. I needed to keep that in mind. Or possibly be worried, I wasn’t sure.
We had to go up another floor to reach the stores. I expected something like a grand mall from my time. Instead, it closely resembled the markets for buying and selling cargo. There were more variances between the shops, but it was still an order-at-the-counter kind of operation. Over the course of the next two hours, we purchased a lot of goods, but most of them were scheduled for delivery to our ship the next day. The only things that we decided to carry with us were two boxes of pastry-type treats, a bottle of clear liquor that was Strawberry's favorite, and two unusual black robes.
I had this idea that both Aeren and Mixi should get to experience the space station. It would surely blow them away even more than it did me. But there were no women visible in my brief time with severe body modifications. I was worried that the two alien beauties would stand out too much. Thus, the robe idea. It would dramatically reduce their sexiness, maybe even make them look like witches, but I believed that it was worth a try.
"Where have you been?" Honeysuckle asked as soon as we reentered our ship. "We've been worried about you."
"Did you get the confirmation that we sold the cargo?" Cinnamon asked.
"Yes."
"Then you already know where we were." My girl still had a bit of the sauciness about her that developed after her beverage. I was enjoying it on her.
"That came in two hours ago," Honey looked pissed just like we thought she might. I couldn't blame her. It had been weeks since she visited any sort of human civilization. And she had been through a lot in that time. More than the rest of the crew even, considering our adventure in the caves.
"How about the scheduled confirmations from our shopping?" Cinnamon asked. She was doing a great job of explaining why Honey shouldn't have been worried. But it didn't make the beautiful white-haired girl feel any better. I could clearly see that she felt excluded.
"Hey, sexy," I said to her as I put my arm around her. "I missed you."
My forwardness threw her off at first, but then she quickly recovered when I kissed her on the cheek.
"I was thinking that you and I could head back out later to one of those bars," I whispered in her ear. I had her attention then. "Maybe you could show me what station visits are all about."
"Just the two of us?" she replied tentatively, peering into my eyes.
"Yes," I answered. "Unless you want to take Aeren and Mixi with us. I bought them some robes." I held them up for her inspection.
"Those might work," she told me, looking a little deflated. "But we'll be here for a few days, right? They can go out tomorrow while the cargo is being unloaded."
I nuzzled up against her cheek. I could feel the other two girls' eyes on me, but they had to know what I was doing. In part it was for their benefit as well. "You want to spend some time with me alone?"
Honey grinned, but then turned her attention back to the others. "Did you all eat, yet?"
Strawberry told her that we hadn't. She revealed that her plan was to have everyone go out for dinner together.
"Are you sure that we should leave the ship unguarded?"
A discussion ensued about the possible dangers. Accidental exposure of our dragons to outsiders snooping around. Or any of the three alien creatures. Teddy could possibly pass as a pet, until he begins speaking. Then there was also the issue of Sage in the cage.
Cinnamon offered to stay onboard. She wanted to go ahead and get the containers sorted for pick up in the morning. The plan was to move Gako and Dawynda to the forward most cargo hold. I preferred that waited until after Sage had been removed. I didn't want to take a chance on the manipulative bitch talking our dragons into releasing her. Or them devouring her through the bars, which was a possibility since they knew how we felt about her.
Thirty minutes later, Vanilla was ready for her station visit. She had changed out of her white uniform that announced her profession in favor of a dark brown dress. The rest of the crew was as shocked as me to see it on her. None of them had previously been permitted personal clothes.
The garment put her curves on display even more than her uniform. I saw no indication of underwear beneath the thin fabric. The color of the dress went fantastically with her three-tone self-moving hair and her shimmering skin that resembled nylon stockings.
"I've been saving it for a special occasion," she
