Chapter 578

The Retreat

As the wedding plans continued for White and Martin, Jeff, feeling useless, walked out of the living room and a moment later peeked into the kitchen. Unsuccessful there, he stepped back into the hallway. “Computer, where is trooper Tosha Arnold?”

“Trooper Tosha Arnold left the Retreat twenty-seven minutes ago and proceeded to Security Headquarters.”

“Did she say when she would be back?”

There was a slight hesitation while the AI reviewed his files. “I can detect no conversation concerning her return. Should I phone her and ask?”

“No. No,” the Prime absently returned. “That will be all.”

That’s odd. She was supposed to spend the night with us. Darn it. I was going to take her out on the third-floor deck for some alone time under the stars while Diana’s part of the wedding planning was going on. Oh, well, maybe she just had to go back to her place to pick up something. But what would she need for tonight?

“Computer, did Tosha take anything with her?”

“Yes, My Prime. She took her overnight bag with her.”

Why the fuck would she do that? She was supposed to spend ... Somebody must have pissed her off, or else hurt her feelings. I’m gonna have somebody’s ass for sure.

“Computer. Review the last couple of hours of Tosha’s interactions with any and all of us with emphasis on an argument or any derogatory comments that might have hurt Tosha’s feelings. Are you programmed to do that?” he asked after having second thoughts.

“Yes, My Prime. I have an extensive subroutine that covers that area of human interactions; however, I anticipated your request, and I have found nothing that my programming would consider to be an insult, nor did she show any facial expressions that would coincide with that while she was conversing with anyone at the Retreat. She continued to smile while walking down the hall as she left, but once she was outside, her expression changed and seemed to express tension – perhaps a great deal of tension according to my programming.”

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Now, what the fuck happened? Then aloud again, although it was more muttering than coherent speech, “If she didn’t argue with anyone, and she didn’t show tension while talking to anybody, then what? Shit. Women. I will never understand them. Somehow, someway, somebody must have hurt her feelings. But dammit, my women don’t do that kind of shit, and besides, they all like her. If Diana is to be believed, they all find her extremely likeable and want me to marry her. So how did she get her feelings hurt? If that’s what it is.”

While he had been talking to himself, he had gone out the back, gotten into an Escalade – not the one sitting near the back door – and was heading down the driveway.

By the time he had rounded the first two curves at high speed, Security had noticed and was alert.

“Colonel, may I be of assistance?” the Sergeant asked over Jeff’s radio that was buried near his ear.

“Uh, no,” the Prime returned, embarrassed as he realized what must be happening. “Sorry. I just had something on my mind.”

Yeah, you had something on your mind and was unconsciously using your TK to keep from going into the abyss while you took those curves like an idiot, he scolded himself. Chastised, he slowed to something approaching normal. Nevertheless, the short trip to Security Headquarters seemed to take forever.

A few minutes later, he tentatively tapped on Tosha’s door.

In less time than he expected, Tosha snatched the door open, already speaking. “I told you to ... Oh. Oh!” she stammered, “I thought you were ... Uh, please excuse me, Sir. I uh ... I thought you were Evans.” Suddenly, her words cut off and her face became a calm mask. “May I help you, Colonel?”

“Colonel? What the hell is going on, Tosha? And, by the way, may I come in?”

“If you wish, Sir,” she said as she stepped back.

A glance around confirmed what he expected; the place was as neat as it could be.

“Would you like to sit?” she asked while motioning toward the couch. “I have several types of soft drinks or water if you are thirsty,” she said, still with an air of formality.

Jeff hesitated before plopping down on the couch. “I’m fine. I just want to know what’s going on.”

“Sir, there isn’t anything...”

He came back to his feet and started to reach a hand out to touch her. When she instantly backed a step, “Tosha, stop this – please. Who hurt your feelings? I’ll have their ass,” he said as he reached again to take her hand.

“Stop,” she said, overly loud as she snatched her hand away. “You have no right to touch me. I will follow your orders to the letter, but you have no right to touch me.”

Stunned, he just stood there, unable to think of anything to do or say.

“Tosha, Baby, what happened? Please tell me.”

“I am not your baby. I am trooper Tosha Arnold. Please refer to me with the proper vernacular.”

“Or what? Are you going to go to the General and file a complaint against me? I love you, and up until a couple of minutes ago, I thought that you loved me, too. Baby, what the hell happened? If you won’t tell me, there’s no way that I can fix it.”

But Tosha remained standing, her face devoid of any expression at all.

There was a knock on the door that seemed to crash into the tension in the room. With a sigh, Tosha turned and practically stomped toward the door.

“Mrs. Matthews,” Tosha exclaimed as soon as the door was open.

“May I come in, please?”

Tosha wordlessly stepped back as Diana focused on Tosha’s face, sighed, and entered.

“I told you,” she silently mouthed to her husband as Tosha went through her routine, offering Diana a seat and something to drink.

“Jeff, would you please go for a stroll while Tosha and I have a chat? After that, you can come back in and grovel.”

Jeff shot to his feet, not for a second thinking that the grovel part had been a joke – but he still had no idea what had happened. By now, though, he was certain that it was something he had done.

As soon as the door closed behind the Prime, Diana turned to the stone-faced Tosha. “I would love a cup of coffee just now. Could we please make some if you don’t already have it ready?”

Tosha hesitated but remembered that Diana had treated her with respect and as an equal. “The kitchen – what there is of it – is through there,” she said, with a hint of normality beginning to show in her voice.

Without apparent thought, the women went about brewing the coffee in the minuscule kitchenette. As they stood staring at the maker while a stream of hot coffee began to run into the pot, Diana turned toward the young trooper. “Some men and even some women occasionally promise everything, then screw over their partner – sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.” Tosha started to say something, but Diana smiled while motioning for the other to wait as the Clan Queen went on. “The results can vary from mild to murder, I suppose.”

At Tosha’s frown, Diana sighed before continuing. “No one outside our extended family and those involved know what I’m going to tell you. I would appreciate it if you would maintain that.”

Tosha frowned, wondering, but nodded her agreement and got down mugs as Diana poured. When they had their coffee fixed to their taste, the Clan Queen motioned to the table and said, “May we sit? This will take a few minutes.”

“Certainly,” Tosha returned as she pulled out a chair from the table for the Clan Queen, then seated herself.

“Thanks,” Diana returned absently as she gathered her nerve. “A little over a year ago, I had some major problems with an asshole, and because of something that had happened to me a few days before, I was very susceptible to his advances. I almost lost my husband over it, and truth be told, I probably should have.”

Upon hearing Diana’s statement, Tosha stopped her cup a few inches from her mouth for a few seconds before finally taking the sip. “You had an affair?” she whispered. “That’s extremely hard to believe.”

“Unfortunately, it’s true, though.”

“Oh, my. You would be the last person on the face of this Earth that I would ever suspect of that,” Tosha gasped out while forgetting to remain stoic. “I still find it hard to believe.”

“Tosha, you and everyone at the Base have been blocked, and I assume that you know about the Healer, right?”

“Sure,” she returned, her face now showing puzzlement.

“Well, at that time, Little One – we only knew her as the Healer then – knew very little about human beings, let alone about tonic and phasic receptors or the myriad other systems that interact to make up our body and brain, let alone our sexual and pain responses. You see, I had broken an ankle that just would not heal. I’m told that the blood supply where the break was is minimal. In other words, I broke it at the worst possible place – typical of me,” she groused out. “Anyway, my wonderful husband got permission to use one of the General’s jets and its pilot to ferry the Healer and Jeff halfway across the U.S. to heal me.

“It should have gone off without a hitch, and the Healer did a very thorough job, and as it turns out – maybe too thorough. Again, Jeff knew very little about her at the time, other than she was capable of healing truly terrible injuries. But while she was healing my ankle, she ... enhanced a few systems that she thought weren’t operating at top efficiency, but ... at that time, she didn’t realize just how interconnected a human being’s systems actually are. Well, while she enhanced my body, she inadvertently wound up changing some other very delicate systems as well. Systems that did not need that type of enhancing.

“My husband – thinking to enhance Arlene’s health as well – had the Healer enhance her, also. But ... one of the things the Healer inadvertently did was to ramp up both Arlene’s as well as my sexual responses. I mean really ramp them up until we couldn’t control ourselves. Think something like date rape drugs – on steroids. But ... Arlene and I didn’t know about any of this at the time, and neither did Jeff until much, much later.

“Nevertheless, I should have realized that something was wrong and never succumbed to Jack, and it will forever be my shame that I did. Once I allowed him to do it, he began to blackmail both Arlene and me. I almost lost my husband, and I probably should have, but he loved me enough to put what I did behind us. And, he did that before he knew the reason that we succumbed. But I can never forget what I did and the scumbag that I did it with.

“Lest you should think that my husband is a wimp for forgiving me ... Let’s just say that Jack will regret what he did for the rest of his life, and ... that life will be a very short one, indeed, if either Jeff or I ever see him again. Trust me on this; Jack understands that to the marrow of his bones. There is a lot more to the story, but I won’t bore you with it now – maybe at some point in the future. But suffice it to say that my struggle to keep my husband was the impetus for the very beginning of our multiple marriages. But only just the beginning. Those after Arlene were because I wanted those wives for my husband. Never think that they were revenge on his part for what I did. He has continued to balk while I want to add more women. My husband is an Alpha Prime. He must have multiple women in his life, and I, as his Clan Queen, am driven to add more women to his harem.”

“Oh, my,” Tosha whispered.

“Now, that guy out there,” she said while waving vaguely toward the door that Jeff left through, “is a man – a real man – never doubt it. But he, like all men, doesn’t have a clue when it comes to women. Incidentally, should you ever doubt that he is that real man that I talked about, just watch the video of his combat with the previous Colonel, or the video of his rescuing the helicopter pilot. And those are just a small sample – not to mention that he screws us all unconscious every night.”

Tosha started to ask something but stopped.

“That’s right. All of us, every night, and until we all lose consciousness.”

“Now about blame for his not having asked you to marry him. Well, some of that blame needs to come my way. I strongly suspect that my husband has decided that I have become far too ... aggressive when it comes to lining up wives for him, and ... he’s going through a period of ... rebellion, I suppose you could call it.

“One of these days in the not too distant future, we are going to leave Earth on Ship. Our primary purpose will be to search for the race that built Ship’s brain, but ... as I’m sure you’re aware, due to the portal chamber, there are many races out there that are quite similar to the human race. I, and my sister-wives, think that our husband will be much better received if he has many wives. I’m confident that there are women today who would be appalled to think that they are little more than a status symbol for their husbands. But... from what I have learned, that is true of many societies – well, at least a number of the ones that the General’s people have visited through the portal.

“The more wives, and, of course, the prettier they are, the higher the regard for the male. Unfortunately, my husband has begun to resist despite the fact that there are several little kingdoms here on Earth that recognize this and adhere to that principle. Granted that here on Earth it’s usually the oil-rich sheiks in their own little countries, but the idea is the same, nevertheless.

“I might have pushed him a little too hard about marrying more wives, and at an inopportune time for you, but he does love you. I’m willing to bet that you would have made love with him while the two of you were alone in the basement – if it had been left up to you, but he went so far and stopped, no matter how much you wanted to continue. Right?”

At Tosha’s blush and nod, Diana went on. “I hate to admit it, but the night you two went down to the basement together, he screwed us all unconscious – not that that isn’t a usual thing, because he does it every night – but he was very passionate that night, and we received what you should have. Although he has seventeen wives, he still refuses to have full sex with a woman unless she is wearing his ring.”

Although Tosha was blushing furiously, she said, “He gave me more orgasms in the time we were alone in the basement than I’ve had with a man in my whole life, and I am not exaggerating. With a boyfriend, I normally don’t orgasm from vaginal sex unless I help with my fingers. And most times, I just don’t bother,” she said, totally forgetting to be stoic. “He never put himself inside me, but he did most everything else. To be truthful, I can’t seem to get him off my mind. If he can make me orgasm that many times and that forcefully while loving on me, well, I can’t imagine what true sex with him would be like. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to stop thinking about him. And ... it’s not only the sex that I keep thinking about. I catch myself dreaming about him kissing me. I can’t stop thinking about him. I just can’t. But, it’s driving me crazy being around all of you when I can’t have him. I love him more than I once thought possible, and I think he loves me, but I want to be his wife, not just an occasional friend.”