I knew that she was warming to him. “So,” Abe suddenly said, “are we going to address the elephant in the room then?” Trish smiled again but...I just looked down at my half empty coffee cup. “W...what usually happens at this stage?” Trish asked him. Abe shrugged his shoulders, “There’s nothing set in stone,” he told her. “We can just talk or you can jump on my body and ravish me if you prefer.” He added with a huge grin. Trish giggled. I just sat nervous and silent. “We are new to this,”. ”“Okay,” he said after thinking a few seconds, “I suppose we’ll have to come up with a slightly different way. During a crisis, on a scale of 1 to 10, how loyal to me would you judge the First Officer to be?”“Under what conditions?” she hedged.“Uh, what difference does that make?”“Suppose his decision would result in one of you dying while the other lived?”“Oh, crap. I meant nothing like that. Of course, he would consider his own life more important than ... mine,” he said while wondering if. "I love you too," she replied.Paul decided to tell his parents about the call."No surprises then," said Alex. "Your open invitation is over. How narrowminded can people get?" But the option with Alicia is a possibility? That seems to be the mainoption," said Laura."But what if they find out? They might get curious," said Paul."There are ways, Paula," said Laura. "Discuss it with Alicia tomorrow."As the day drew on, Paul knew that his latest period of time as Paula wascoming to an end. He once. ” She grinned. “And feel free to scream. I want Thrak to know I dominated his little cunt.”“He’ll kill you,” I swallowed, staring at the cane.She laughed and then pushed me towards the cane. I stumbled and fell on my knees. The pitching deck threw off my balance as I tried to stand again. She kept laughing, savoring it as I crawled to get her cane.“I am going to enjoy making you howl,” she laughed. “This is what you’ve earned by marching in here little—”The door burst open and Thrak.