Chapter 624

The Prison Planet

After the Matthews had left, Morales and his wives went back inside their cave, where they stood looking at the partially finished bathroom. Jasmine went over to the kitchen sink and turned the hot water faucet on full before tentatively putting her hand into the strong stream. In only a few seconds, she jerked her hand away while smiling at her sister-wives and husband.

“We have hot water.”

The other two women reached to touch the stream, both with a grin on their faces. “We don’t have a shower yet, but with that large hot water heater, we should have lots of hot water for all of us to shower,” Ashley said with a smile.

Talking about it must have set them off. “Bath,” they both said as one.

“It isn’t bedtime yet...” Morales began, only to be shot down by three determined women. He smiled and added, “Our new tub may not be big enough for all of us at the same time, but our shower wall certainly will be – in a few days.”

In moments, Jasmine was standing in the washtub as her sister-wives poured warm water over her.

“We don’t have to take the bath water outside to dump it, either,” Christine declared. “All we have to do is pour it down the sink.”

Ashley chuckled. “Just listen to us. We took hot water and a shower for granted on Earth – well, when we could pay the bills that is.”

Morales joined in. “Thanks to Jeff, we don’t have any water or power bills.”

When everyone had finished their baths, Jasmine stood running a dryer through her thick hair as Morales said, “Maybe we were a bit quick with the baths. We could have worked on our bathroom for a couple of hours.”

Ashley and Christine were both shaking their heads. “Not me,” both women said as one.

“Yeah,” he sighed, “I’m bushed, too, but we gave it our all today. We’ll get things going tomorrow and hopefully have a nice shower tomorrow night. You know, I think that even Jeff was tired when they left.”

“Yeah,” Jasmine agreed, “you’re probably right. And speaking of tired, Dave and his wives definitely fit that category, too. We owe them a lot. I just wish there were some way to repay them.”

Jasmine spoke up. “I started to mention something about paying them when Diana took me aside and cautioned me not to insult them. They had no intention of charging us because they consider us to be friends. They’re the owners of what Diana described as a large construction company, and they are also Jeff’s Project Managers – whatever that is – yet they volunteered to come here, and do the work themselves, even though they barely know us.”

“Well, I still feel guilty about them working full out for two days when I can’t do anything for them in return,” Morales quietly said.

“Yeah, me too,” Jasmine agreed.

A few minutes later, she noticed her husband looking into the refrigerator. “We need to fix supper,” she commented.

Morales glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t want my wives to cook after all the work the three of you have done today. There’s a big platter of cooked steaks in here, and there should be plenty for all of us and the wolves. I’m going to make a steak sandwich.”

“I’ll feed the chickens if someone will make a sandwich for me,” Ashley offered.

Christine was already putting out plates. “Go, I’ll have your sandwich ready by the time you finish.”

Christine and Jasmine wound up making steak sandwiches for everyone.

Morales played with their breasts while they ate, but by the time they were in bed, his full stomach, coupled with all the hard work, made him fall asleep before he intended.

“I guess we’re just old married couples now, huh?” Jasmine said as she motioned to her snoring husband’s erection.

Ashley and Christine looked at each other before Ashley spoke. “He’s been playing grab ass with us every chance he got all day, and now he goes to sleep. No way,” she said with a giggle as she slipped her mouth over the head of his cock. A couple of sucks, and his eyes flew open.

An hour later, with all the women giggling, they took pity on the mere man and let him sleep.

The next morning Christine woke Morales by holding a cup of coffee near his face. When an eye popped open, she leaned to kiss him. “What I really want to do is crawl back under that sheet with you, but Jasmine has her heart set on taking a shower before we go to bed tonight. Up and at ‘em, Cowboy. You have women to ride and a shower to finish.”

Morales took the offered coffee, and after a quick sip, set the cup down. Christine was a second too slow in realizing what he had in mind – or maybe she wasn’t. She hadn’t bothered to put on pants yet, and her panties were a poor barrier, at best. As soon as he had them out of the way, his tongue contacted her clit, and she forgot about caring.

After a quick breakfast, Morales began moving the boxes of tile, tile cutter, mastic, trowels, levels, spacers and so forth into the bathroom area and arranging them where he thought they would be convenient. The tub was already in the bathroom but was sitting in the middle of the floor waiting for the tile to be up before they would move it into position and complete the plumbing.

“Where is your layout for the walls?” Ashley asked as she and Christine helped move things.

“Layout?”

“Yeah, your chart of how the tile is going to be arranged on the walls.”

“Uh, I thought I would just start here on the bottom left of the shower wall and make sure to keep everything level. I mean, well, the insulation and waterproof barrier are already in and the...”

“Hmmm,” Christine said as she grinned at her husband, not wanting to hurt his feelings. “What are you going to do when you get to the ceiling? Surely we won’t end up without having to cut the tile. Possibly, the top row will need a narrow piece all the way across. That would look awful if it worked out that way.”

“Also,” Ashley asked, “are you going to offset by thirds or halves when you align the tile?”

“Uh, I thought I would offset them by halves...”

Ashley and Christine locked eyes for a moment before Christine went on, “With large tiles such as these, we would suggest offsetting by thirds because it will reduce how much the lippage will show.”

“Lippage?”

“Uh, basically the difference in the tiles caused by warpage, variations in thickness or other inherent problems due to manufacturing. Nothing is perfect, and there are always slight differences in tiles. If you offset them by half, the differences could tend to stand out more. Much of this can be offset by matching tiles before we put them up, and also by using spacers while offsetting by thirds. But first, we need a diagram.”

Christine broke in. “Which means we need some accurate measurements of the walls. Now, what about gap? A sixteenth of an inch okay with you? It better be because that is the size spacers the Hensons left us.”

“What about the notch size in the tile trowel they left us?” Ashley asked Christine as she opened the box containing the tools.

The engineers eventually decided that Morales did an excellent job of cutting the tile, so they elected him as tile cutter.

The grouting was messy, but when the girls were done, no one would have been able to tell their work from that of a professional, although it took longer for them to do it.

Ashley turned to Jasmine, “About that shower...”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve been reading on the grout and mastic boxes – minimum twelve hours, and for a shower, twenty-four. Oh, well, we have plenty of hot water to bathe the way we did last night. I can do without a shower for another day or two.”

They weren’t professionals the way Dave and Evie were, so it was a full three days before they completed the bathroom, but that first shower was worth all the effort. Of course, with the enhancement, Morales’ erection wouldn’t stay down, and they all had crinkly skin before they finally got out of the shower.

As they sat eating supper, Morales motioned to the bathroom. “I suppose if you three are going to live with me for a lifetime, we should seal the rest of our living area.”

Jasmine paused to look around. “Maybe...” she returned while drawing the word out, “but it would be like a house then, and you can’t have chickens inside a house.”

“Hmmm. I’m certainly not going to make them stay outside, particularly in the winter. A pile of dirt for them to cover their poop way over there in their area doesn’t bother me with a dirt floor, but...”

“So? We don’t have to floor our whole living area – just from the kitchen through our bedroom. And we don’t even need to put up a rear wall. We could just leave that open into the rest of the cave. The chickens could still have their dirt floor, and we could have three big rooms – kitchen/living room and a couple of bedrooms. Maybe a bar partway across to divide the kitchen and living room up a bit.

“It would take a lot of work to square up the cave walls before we could put in wooden ones. The entrance isn’t big enough to get equipment in here, so we would have to do all the digging by hand. Lots of work – lots.”

“We have our produce to bring in and preserve before we leave with the Matthews this fall,” Jasmine reminded. “And before you ask, I gave Diana a signed blank check. She said she would bring us pressure canners, canning jars, two-piece canning lids, jar lifter, tongs, colanders, strainers and cheesecloths, big spoons – wooden and stainless – pickling salt, spices, sugar – lots of sugar – and at least two cookbooks for canning in addition to anything else she thought we would need.”

“How did you know about all those things?” Morales asked.

“I have an aunt who canned, and I loved to help her when I was a teenager. Plus, I did some research on our database.”

Morales didn’t look happy. “I know we need all those things if we’re to preserve our food properly, but I hate that you had to use your money, Baby.”

“Why not? As I’ve said over and over, I have a savings account with a substantial figure. I was off-planet so much in the last few years that I could spend very little of my payday, and the General is still paying me. Besides, it isn’t my money; it’s our money – all of us.”

“I still wish I had some way to earn some money. It should be the husband paying the bills...”

Jasmine grabbed her husband and kissed him. “Hush. It’s our money. Remember, we’re a team. Besides, there is no place to buy anything on 2214.”

“Maybe I’ll be able to do something for the Matthews during their trip, and ... they do seem to enjoy themselves when they’re here, whether they are working or not. Maybe, come fall – or even before then – we can take them on that hunt we talked about. It’s not as if we don’t eat what we kill.”

Jasmine smiled at her husband, “I sent several of our best buffalo roasts home with the Hensons, but the Matthews wouldn’t take anything except a few steaks now and then. I think Diana was worried that we might be running low on meat.” Turning fully to Morales, she asked, “I know there aren’t any laws on 2214, but aren’t hunting seasons on Earth established to protect the animal population?”