Just after we left orbit headed for Dighton, word got out that there was going to be a meeting on board. The AI said that anyone in recovery was welco...e to attend. It did not matter whether you were a volunteer, a concubine, or a member of the crew. It said that if you were a concubine that you had to have permission from your volunteer. For most of them it did not really matter because many of the volunteers had taken concubines from the group. There were three more Auroras with us and they. She was standing at the door as they pulled up into the driveway. Marcia had always liked Carrie. They had been working together for about a year before Carrie received a promotion and moved to another store. They talked to each other on the phone and exchanged emails, but didn’t have a lot of time to visit often. Carrie had medium length black hair and intense blue eyes. She was friendly and in Marcia’s opinion, very pretty. Carrie was a little overweight, but that didn’t take away from her. I said “Sorry Lucy, I didn’t hear that anyway, forget he ever said it,” though why I was excusing him I don’t know. Lucy excused herself and went to the ‘ladies’. I left before Vince came back, otherwise I might have hit him. It was only afterwards that I thought about what he had said, and what he might have been referring to, but I didn’t want to dwell on it too much. I kept seeing the hurt on her face; how could he treat any woman like that, especially her! Her most outstanding feature. We hadn't had the talk yet—the one about the future and commitment. I'd been pretty shy about committing to any woman since my college Freshman girlfriend that I thought I'd be with forever left me. Oh, she didn't leave me during our Freshman year. She left me the summer after graduation, exactly two months after our first wedding anniversary. I was shell-shocked at the time and almost missed my first week of graduate school because I hadn't emerged from my funk yet. The reason she was leaving.