Chapter 91

Dear Will,

You are becoming more and more like Mom with every letter. You worry about everyone and everything. It's almost funny, but please don't take this in a bad way. It shows that you really care and that you have found something important. You should never let go of the empathy you have for others.

I see from your letters that you are still trapped on your journey to pick up more concubines for Atlantis-at. It almost seems like your Governor Heywood has decided to change the colony from a research station into a breeding one as well. You definitely are going a lot way to find more concubines to add to the colony.

And I can say that the other Civil Service officers you have met have chosen the right boy for the job. You always wanted to protect others and that came out. If you remember all our trips to the park and mall. How many times did some child walk up to you and ask for help finding their parents? I think you got asked more than the security guards did, and that is because the children could somehow sense that you'd do anything to help them. I know it made it easy for Marilyn and I to shop if you were around, we knew that you'd prevent us from being harassed.

I can't really say much about your governor's plans and rules for rape prevention. We don't even have an official Civil Service officer on Wadi, and when I asked about the Civil Service in the district, I was told we have one officer. He's based on Borneo, and from what I hear is actually given a great deal of respect, but he's just one man. Tanya Walker did tell me that he had a couple of concubine assistants. She hinted that the concubines did not actually belong to the Tribune, but were loaned out to help teach classes and calm distraught concubines.

The bigger story about that though came from Erica. While she was riding back to Wadi, one of the crew of the corvette she was on talked about a "Tradition". It's funny, but the way Erica said it you could hear the formal capitalization of the first letter. The story places the source of this Tradition as Ishtar. It's not too complex, but the Captain of the ship swore that if you follow the Tradition, you will have a loving and successful household.

The definition if the Tradition was surprisingly simple:

Love your Concubines

Respect your Concubines

Treat your concubines as human beings rather than possessions

Be the center of your concubines lives not because you command it, but by becoming the one person they love and respect more than any other.

...

That's it, but Erica said that she could see that some of the concubines on the corvette were clearly happy, content and playful, while a couple appeared almost broken. She also noticed that the owners of the "broken" concubines often appeared a bit disgruntled. (what is a gruntle and who would "dis" one. :P )

Sorry. Anyone Erica and I talked about this with Louisa, since she's wiser and far more knowledgeable about relationships. The old woman laughed at us. Not a giggle, but a full throated roar of laughter that caused her to fall out of her chair. When she finally got calmed down she bopped us on the head and pointed out that the rules we had just listed exactly matched how we treated our household. It was why Alexis and Jennifer have been able to start smiling again and why Phoebe beat the odds and got a qualifying score.

I admit I sat there blushing, especially when Bree and Violet ran in to throw their arms around Erica and me. Our two first ladies laughingly agreed with Louisa and pointed out that we don't even think about it. That caused me to laugh, mostly because its true. I love all the ladies, not just Violet and I have worked hard to earn their respect, not because the rules command it, but because I see them as lovers, friends and ... spouses. We'll never formally marry like you did, but we do have a strange multiple person marriage.