Poor thing!"I gazed hopelessly up, wondering whether to believe her. And then a deepfemale voice broke in on my thoughts."She don't talk, she don't mo...e... I call a thing like that myfurniture."It was one of the two hefty black women. They stood looking down at mespeculatively. "If I had me a little rope. . ." the other one said."Rope?" Jeri appeared, smiling that mischievous smile as always. "Whywe've plenty of rope, Dear. What did you have in mind?"Oh what they had in mind!Before I knew it, I. “I negotiated the deal, I’m responsible for your lives, I stay on the boat.”Down in the shuttle bay, the Engineer directed the emptying of the shuttle, and the installation of the medtube, the one with the Captain. Then the crew crowded in the space that was left. Paula was almost hysterical, even though I explained that this was the only way I saw for her to get back to Amy. As her sponsor, I had Eddie adjust her nanites to deliver anti-anxiety drugs and got her onboard.I watched from the. Amy almost purred like a kitten as Sam's hand softly caressed her."We did not do much studying today," Sam continued, "We talked instead. You, my dear, were the main subject of the conversation. Even you would have blushed in embarrassment at the wonderful things she had to say about you. Even I was blushing and I was only listening. I know it was necessary to punish her for stalking the house cleaning lady and there may be other punishments required in the future. Might I suggest though, that. The fact that she’s a lesbian, that we’re married, that I rarely take a guy to bed ... none of that mattered in the least to Monsieur Gonzales.I wasn’t the only one checking the handsome gent out. Rebecca, with amused interest. Mindy, with some calculation. Pilar ... just curious. Although I haven’t yet learned to read that little girl. Even my mother glanced at Tony from time to time.Vanessa and I helped ourselves, for the third time, to salty country ham on soft, heated, buttermilk biscuits..