Chapter 23

Dear Willow,

Should I ask, just whom you were kissing? Even if it was in the context of the musical you were doing it seems to have affected you quite a bit. I think I said it before but I'll say it again; Oliver is not particularly a friend of mine, despite what he says to you. I suggest that you consider whether or not you can get away with saying he assaulted you the next time he approaches you and you attempt to curtail his ability to father future children.

In the family only Marissa and I speak engineer ... But all of the women, including her will make sure to keep me from spending three or four days at a problem. They simply come in and kiss me until my eyes cross... ! Or something comes up and gets between me and my work. Really I don't have a job unless Marissa assigns one to me. That doesn't mean that I don't have important things to do, just that no one except Marissa has any say in what I do. Well the other women in the family do have some influence over my activities, but that is a given as they are family members.

It is very nice that you sent pics of the inside of your tank from so many angles. I do wonder if Major Pervert was aware he was on candid camera. Please tell me that the Confederacy managed to have him shipped to the intake of an industrial replicator? The very minimum he was guilty of was annoying a minor!

So far as pods go; this is how it works, the sponsor is the owner of the pod and everyone in it who is not a sponsor. That last has a couple of caveats, most notably minors who are a protected class. Therefore the sponsor controls who enters and leaves the pod. Thus if you have someone who wants to live an insular life and to keep his concubines isolated from everyone else he allows no one in and no one out. Luckily for me and the other concubines who Marissa picked she doesn't want to be that sort of controlling person. We can come and go at will. However it is wise to have a sponsor as your escort. Simply put there are sponsors who believe that all concubines should be available to them for entertainment... (better read as rape slaves.) Even if I'm going somewhere on ship's business (IE I have a job that takes me out of the pod, like catching rats) I've found it to be very wise to have an escort. The captain is doing her best to have the marines on board encourage the sponsors to treat a concubine moving about the ship as someone with a job to do. It does help that she has the med-tubes run by a concubine and announces that that particular concubine belongs to her and anyone who annoys that concubine will face charges of at least interfering with the operation of the ship. Then they get the lecture that it is well to assume that any concubine in the corridors is on ship's business. As you might guess that keeps all but the idiots in line.

Unfortunately for Mr. Ackermann idiots will be idiots. That means that he keeps acquiring concubines who need good homes. UHG! That sounds like an ad for the SPCA! Mr. Ackermann says that is at least half the problem that humanity faces in the era of the Sa'arm; how to remember that those who have become concubines remain human.

I did finally get a pair of rats. If I'd gotten a female the first try I wouldn't have had such a hard time. But then as all women know men are stupid when it comes to sex. I can be so easily led by my dangler that it is frightening to consider at times!

Holy came by to remind me that the women in my family desire my attention, so I will let you go for now.

Your very overworked brother,

Will