Chapter 546

The Call Girls’ Small Rented House

...”How long before the pizzas are supposed to be here?”

“They said thirty minutes, and that includes baking time. I just chose the closest pizza place according to my phone. They must be just around the corner to bake and deliver pizzas in that length of time.”

“Good. I’m starving.”

Caldwell went into the kitchen to snoop around but was back a couple of minutes later. After glancing at Christine and Ashley to make sure they were still asleep, he turned to Cox and said, “Either they eat out an awful lot, or they’re between a rock and a hard place. There isn’t enough food in the fridge and the pantry to keep a cat alive for a week.”

“Then I’m glad you ordered the two large pizzas.”

Caldwell still stood in the kitchen doorway looking troubled. “If they don’t go with us, I’m going to give them what cash I have in my billfold. Hell, I thought they were supposed to be prostitutes. How can two young women as beautiful as these two are, practically starve if they’re prostitutes?”

With a smile, Cox looked at her partner. “There’s a logical answer to that, and you just explained it. ‘If they’re prostitutes.’ From their reactions when they recognized Morales, they have been missing him – a lot. Want to make a bet on whether they go with us or not?”

Caldwell shook his head in exasperation. “What makes you so sure they will? They’ve just been hired into two great jobs at the same company. Chances are that a few months down the line they’ll be doing very well, indeed. The company they’re working for is a really big engineering outfit with many engineers and probably has a great benefit package to go with nice salaries. No way will those two girls swap a prison planet life for the one they’ll soon have here.”

“Bet?” Cox challenged. “Tell you what; I’ll double whatever you have in your billfold if they back out. How much do you have? Take it out.”

“The money, you mean?” he teased. When she shot him the bird, he laughed and refused to show her what was in his billfold, because that would give away just how much he had been affected by the plight of the two women. With his face turning red, he muttered, “No. I don’t want to bet,” but Cox already knew the man that she slept with had a soft heart.

“Don’t want to show me how much you were going to leave with them, huh.”

“No, I...”

They were interrupted by Ashley awakening with the usual response. “I don’t think this block thing worked with me.”

The two chuckled and Cox assured her that it had. A moment later, they had to do the same thing with Christine.

“Now we can talk freely, but it’s probably still going to be hard to swallow,” Lieutenant Caldwell told them.

“Quit stalling and tell them,” Cox insisted, then deciding to do it herself, she began, “Mr. Morales is on a prison planet and sentenced to life there.” When both girls’ eyes widened in disbelief as they sucked in a breath, Cox went on, “Jasmine Conners is an anthropologist who came to study on twenty-two fourteen – the designation of the prison planet. She’s working on her doctorate but decided to marry and remain on the planet with Morales. And before your chins bounce off the floor, she is the reason we’re here shopping for more wives for Morales.”

That got their undivided attention.

“He’s on another planet?” Charlene repeated, doubt and unbelief showing prominently as she emphasized the word.

“And he’s a prisoner there for life?” Ashley asked, horror in her voice.

Caldwell took over for a moment. “Yes, but you need to hear all of it. One of our Sergeants who is in charge of the videos that you have seen a small portion of, has compiled a video just for the two of you. The part you have seen was a brief introduction to twenty-two fourteen and some of the things that Morales and Jasmine have been involved in and with. We’re going to show you a video of a conversation between Jasmine and Diana Matthews that should give you some insight – quite plainly – about the reason you two are being considered for this. And, by the way, Jasmine took it upon herself to ask the near-microscopic cameras to record the conversation – cameras that she could not even see, although she was certainly aware that they were there. Each camera is operated by a very intelligent AI, and they are, in turn, controlled by another, much more sophisticated AI located outside the cave that Morales and Jasmine live in. Bottom line, we have nothing produced on Earth that even comes close to the technology used in making these recordings.”

There was a knock on the door. With a grin, Caldwell answered and paid for the pizza while Cox told Ashley and Christine that it was pizza they had ordered for lunch. Smiling, the girls got up to refill the water glasses.

The two young women, at first, took only one piece of pizza each, claiming they weren’t very hungry.

The two Lieutenants passed a look, both realizing that the girls were probably planning to save as much of the pizza as they could in order to eat it over the next several days. “Ladies, eat up,” Cox encouraged. “I’m positive the two of you will be going with us when we leave. You can, of course, take the pizza with you on the jet, but there is food aplenty on the plane, too, and ... the Matthews – the family we’re going to visit – are practically famous for their meals.”

“Are we that obvious?” Christine asked, embarrassed.

Cox answered with a question. “Do you like buffalo meat?”

Christine and Ashley passed a glance before Ashley answered for them. “We’ve never had any.”

“Well, other than the expense, I much prefer it to beef. If the two of you decide to stay on twenty-two fourteen with Morales and Jasmine, chances are there will be an abundance of it in your diet, plus deer, antelope, elk and bear, to mention a few – all of them much larger than their Earth counterparts.”

“Whaat?” the two said, stretching out the word, both girls wondering.

“Morales really lives in a cave with that ... woman?” Christine finally got out.

“And that huge animal Morales shot was really a buffalo?” Ashley added.

“Yes, and yes,” Cox answered with a grin. “Well, twenty-two fourteen’s version of one, anyway. But, that ‘woman’ and Morales have been married only a few days, and she’s the reason we’re here. Let’s watch the rest of the video. Chances are that Diana and Jasmine’s conversation will explain why the two of you are being asked to go live with them. I suggest that you prepare yourselves. The conversation is quite blunt, and to be candid, Jasmine seems to be almost desperate.”

As the video played, Ashley and Christine grew very quiet, both realizing that life with Morales and Jasmine would be very different from what the two girls had envisioned for themselves, post-graduation.

Christine squeezed Ashley’s hand as she spoke to the two Lieutenants. Thinking of the buffalo kill, she said, “Neither of us has ever fired a gun of any type, but it seems obvious that learning to shoot would also be required, right?”

“Well,” Cox said, “their weapons are certainly used to procure part of their food, but they are also necessary for survival. There are a number of ferocious beasts on the planet as well. Incidentally, the rifles are a late addition to their weapons. Prior to a few weeks ago, all they had for defense and hunting were compound bows and crossbows.”

The girls glanced at each other and nodded. Neither wondered if the other would give up her job and rush off to be with Morales. They already had many conversations where they speculated about what happened to him. Worried, they had agreed that neither would marry him, since they both couldn’t, but rather, they would both live with him if they got the chance – no matter what. They had also agreed that everything else would be second to that. From the way he treated them, they were certain that he loved them, and they thought he would still want them despite their having been call girls. When he had dropped out of sight, they had worried but were unable to find a trace of him. Over the last couple of months, the girls had decided that they had waited too long and something bad must have happen to him. Now that they had a chance to be with him, they were going to take it, no matter the cost.

When the video finished, Ashley and Christine passed a glance before they stood. Ashley, speaking for both, astonishing Caldwell and making Cox grin, as her prediction was proven to be correct, said, “We assume that you want us to go with you. We’ve already packed most of our things since we were expecting to be evicted. It will only take a few minutes to be ready.”

“Uh, you don’t have any more questions?” Caldwell asked. “I mean, most every new person seems to be interested in the portal...”

The girls glanced at each other again before Christine said, “Oh, we are more than interested in the planet and how to get there, if that’s what you mean, and we have tons of other questions, too, but what we really want is to see Morales. Hopefully his wife, uh, Jasmine, will like and accept us since she obviously wants to share her husband with us, or thinks she does. We shared him before, so we can certainly do that again. Maybe Jasmine will like us and we will try very, very hard to get along with her.”

The girls smiled at each other before Christine continued. “Morales shared us with our ... benefactors, and we could see the hurt when we left to go get ready for a job, but it would have taken an idiot to not see his love for us, too. Hopefully, there will be some of that love left, even though he’s married. But ... we don’t have practical clothing like the two of them were wearing on the vids...”

“I’m sure that the Matthews and/or the General will provide proper clothing and anything else that might be required,” Cox offered.

“Well, it certainly seems that Jasmine is serious about more wives for her husband. I just hope she doesn’t change her mind,” Ashley worried.

Caldwell spoke up, “The first thing on the agenda is a visit with the Matthews. Diana, the lady who was talking with Jasmine on the video, has fifteen sister-wives...”

“Sixteen,” Cox corrected. “Colonel Matthews just married Kei, remember?”

“Uh, yes. Sixteen sister-wives, so Jasmine’s wanting a couple of extra wives for her husband is nothing new to the Matthews. Anyway, we are to deliver the two of you to the Matthews, and they will take it from there. As you can imagine, it’s a rather... unusual family. They own, uh, are friends with ... Oh hell, I don’t know how to explain it other than to say that they have access to a friendly space ship.”

The girls just stared at Caldwell, the word “friendly” orbiting through their minds right behind “space ship.”

“It... she is sentient,” Cox offered.

“Oh,” the girls quietly returned, both wondering if all this could possibly be true, but now almost afraid to ask.

“So, the two of you have definitely decided to go? Remember, this could quite well be a one-way trip to a prison planet where you will live in a cave and be wives to a man who was convicted of some very serious crimes. Life there is hard, and you will have to raise or kill your food – probably some of the time while being stalked by ferocious animals.”

“We had planned totally different lives, of course, but the two of us had already agreed that, given a chance, we would never let Morales go again. If we can be with him, any how, any way, we’ve agreed that we will do it,” Ashley said as Christine nodded beside her.

Caldwell just stared at them while Cox smiled. “Well, get your gear, Ladies,” she prompted with a grin.

“We’ll be back as soon as we gather a few personal things that we haven’t packed yet. We were ready to leave because we were expecting the set-out crew any minute,” Christine said as the two young women hurried out of the room.

“This is just too easy,” Caldwell said as he turned to stare at his partner. “We’ve given them only very basic information, yet they’re ready to go. Dammit, he’s a lifer on another planet, yet, they barely blinked before agreeing. I guess they don’t really understand that they can’t come back if they decide they don’t like it there or don’t like being part of what will basically be a harem.”

“It’s called love, Love,” Cox said before pulling his head down to kiss him.