by George Olney
Frenchy didn't ask for a translation of the word.
Fuzzy piped up again. "Oh, I forget. Dallas been teaching me. She teach me a lot. She teach me how to say hello in your language. You want I say hello?"
Frenchy was barely over her shock, but nodded. She looked around. Oddly, Dallas seemed to have disappeared.
"Okay," Fuzzy proudly chirped, then, in perfect English, said, "Hello sailor, I can suck a golf ball through a garden hose."
For a change, Fuzzy was speechless. She was completely unable to figure out Frenchy and Grae's reactions to her greeting. Grae was holding his stomach and rolling on the couch howling with laughter. Frenchy, on the other hand, shot up off the couch and headed for the back of the house at full speed, screaming, "D-A-A-L-L-L-L-A-A-S-S!!!"
Then there was Dallas.
Frenchy had always been aware of her friend's wicked sense of humor, but this was one of the few times in their friendship that she found herself having to cope with the devastation it could wreak. Like that little business with Fuzzy, Dallas seemed determined to keep things from getting boring, much to Frenchy's horrified aggravation.
With Grae at the Academy teaching during the day, Dallas tended to wear, or not wear, what she saw fit. The house had a pool out back. Since Galactics regarded swimsuits as obsolete, none of the women had one. Frenchy saw no harm in skinny-dipping, especially since Justa wasn't wearing anything anyway. She just made an iron clad rule that the pool wasn't to be used when Grae was home. Frenchy was pretty sure Grae wouldn't care about the nudity. He might enjoy it, but bare skin was just as much a part of tribal culture as leather. It was just that having him get a gander at her best friend in the altogether made Frenchy uncomfortable. She knew the attitude was unreasonable. Grae had never shown other than esthetic interest in another woman since he took her. Still, Dallas was her best friend and Grae was her husband and that was the way she felt.
Dallas, for her part, recognized Frenchy's attitude. It was too much for her to resist teasing her about it. Ergo...
Frenchy and Grae were sitting, watching the holo-vid in the living room when Dallas strolled into the room. "Hey, look, guys," she said, "Justa and I figured out how to make a swimsuit."
Full of dread, Frenchy looked. Grae also looked, and nodded approvingly. "Looks good on you," he commented.
Frenchy also nodded, reluctantly. Dallas was wearing a very minimal string bikini, but everything seemed to be at least legal for a public beach on Earth. Dallas said, "Justa showed me how to use the house fabricator. It took both of us a day to figure out how to make this, but it sure worked." Then she turned around.
"When are you going to finish it?" Grae asked.
The back of the suit nearly wasn't there. It consisted of three not particularly thick cords. Frenchy had seen more material in a stripper's G-string.
"Darling," Frenchy said through clenched teeth, "Dallas and I have to go have a little girl talk. Won't you excuse us?"
Grae didn't say anything as Frenchy got up and pushed Dallas ahead of her from the room. He only eyed her retreating back speculatively. Then he smiled. Boy, she was fuming. Frenchy normally never used words like "darling" when talking to him. Whatever was fixing to happen between the two friends ought to be interesting. It also wasn't his business. He just hoped it wouldn't be too cataclysmic. With a sigh, he turned back to the program.
Frenchy closed the door of the bedroom behind her and fumed, "Dallas Ashby, just what in the hell do you think you're doing?"
Dallas turned and faced her with a mischievous smile. "Pulling your chain."
Eyeing her friend's furious expression, Dallas sat down on the bed, crossed her legs and waved at her dismissively. "Oh, relax, babe. I wasn't teasing Grae, I was teasing you. I've seen enough men to know that one is completely out of my reach, no matter what I do. If you'd calm down, you'd know that, too."
Frenchy slowly deflated. After a moment, she went over and sat next to Dallas. "Dallas," she said in a slightly plaintive voice, "I do know that. It's just that, well, he's the first guy that ever loved me, and loved me for what I am, not what I look like. But he is human, you know."
Dallas smiled sympathetically. "Human? Boy, don't I know that! Are there more like him where you found that one?"
It was Frenchy's turn to show a grin. "Yup. Whole world of 'em. But this one's special. He's mine.
"Besides," she continued, "I know you were just playing, but those other two children I'm baby-sitting are a whole lot less sure of his non-availability than you are. Justa, for instance, feels she has a perfect right to try him out. And everyone's fair game to Fuzzy!"
Dallas rolled her eyes. "God, yes! I've already told that girl twice I wasn't interested. She didn't mean anything by it, though. I really think that kid's about as innocent as they come."
"Justa isn't," Frenchy shot back.
Dallas nodded. "True. You know, you've never got around to explaining what the story is with her. She told me she's bound to Grae, and that forbids her clothing, but I know you too well to think that's the kind of slavery I was headed for."
Frenchy took a deep breath and sighed. "No, she's not a slave. He possesses her, but it took me a while to understand what that means to the Tribes. That's what originally happened between me and Grae. He dug me out of a tight spot one night. I passed out drunk in his arms in back of a club where I was working, right after he saved me from the club's asshole bouncer. By Tribal Custom, that allowed him to possess me. When I woke up, I was nude and on his ship headed out from Earth. When he told me I was bound to him and forbidden clothing by Custom, well, you can imagine what kind of a go-round that led to."
Dallas nodded with a smile. "I know you. I can just imagine.
"You know," she continued thoughtfully, "that brings up another point. You've changed, Frenchy. The last time I saw you, you were just about washed up and drinking yourself into a hole. You're like a different person now, girl. More alive. Babe, you cleaned up nice, I have to say." She hugged her friend.
Frenchy hugged her back. "Thanks, babe. Actually, Grae's to thank for that. He got me off the bottle. My life with him after that was one long string of action and adventure, as the TV says, and it got to be so much fun I never looked back.
"After a while, it occurred to me that he was sweet on me as a person, not a body. I guess the feeling just grew from there and he felt the same way."
"So he freed you, or whatever?"
Frenchy shook her head. "No, bondage has rules under Custom, and Custom rules the Tribes like the Ten Commandments, only more so. Bondage comes from an old wife stealing custom back in the more primitive days of the Tribes. The guy carries off a girl and she's bound to him. She doesn't have clothes or anything else, either. She has to do what he says, too. On the other hand, the guy has to play by the rules. If he threatens or abuses her, that's considered Cause and she has a perfect right to kill him. Otherwise, she stays bound until honorably unbound or she marries him. To the Tribes, bondage is regarded as sort of like going steady with sex thrown in, no big thing. Galactics twisted bondage to include buying and selling - slavery, in other words. As long as she isn't given Cause, a tribal girl feels she had to go along with it, no matter how bad things get."
Frenchy scowled for a moment. "I hate slavery!"
She took a deep breath. "I don't like bondage, either, but it's part of the Tribal culture and both boys and girls go along with it. That means I do too, but I still don't like it. Its one saving grace is that bondage is nothing like slavery. The girl actually has a lot of rights and the guy has to be attentive to her needs and wants. He'd better be.
"Like I said, Grae dug me out of a hole, so he took possession of me under bondage custom. He eventually decided that bondage was a wrongness for me and he set it up so I was honorably unbound according to Custom. The only way a girl gets out of bondage is by being honorably unbound. If a tribal girl is released any other way, Dallas, she'll kill herself. They consider it dishonorable. Babe, that's the
way they all think, including Grae. That's why he took possession of Justa when we freed her from slavery. There's no way she'd accept just being let go."
Dallas gave her friend a wide-eyed look. "For real!?"
Frenchy nodded solemnly. "You bet. And those people - including women - are deadly serious about it. I had to deal with the problem, myself, once. At any rate, that means we have to get Justa back home and honorably unbound in a way she'll accept. That's the problem with her."
Dallas took a deep breath. "Wow! So you're stuck with her."
"For a while, at least. Oh, it's not all that bad. I just have to keep a firm hold on her. Tribal girls do some goofy things."
Dallas looked thoughtful for a second then changed the subject. "Going back to the way I said you look, I have to say I envy you, babe. We were both getting a little old for stripping. I got out of it by turning a little bad luck into a business that made me rich and was making me richer. But it looks like you got the better deal. You look happy and you have a man that really cares about you. That means a lot. I was serious when I said I was pulling your chain. I know perfectly well Grae would rather have you than any other woman. Nothing any girl can do will change that."
Frenchy blushed. "Thanks."
"So why are you so uptight about him around the girls and me?"
Frenchy found herself caught short. Why was she so uptight? It wasn't as though Grae had never seen a naked woman. "Am I really that bad?"
Dallas nodded ruefully. "Oh, not at first, and I've only been here a few days, but it seems like you're getting worse as time goes on. I realize what you have with him is special, and I respect that, but I don't see the girls as any threat. I'm certainly not any threat. I wouldn't have pulled the swimsuit gag if I thought he would take it seriously, you know."
Frenchy was silently thoughtful for a few seconds. "Well, what I'm going to say may sound strange, coming from me, but I guess I get a little huffy around casual sex. I found that out last year. It's a reaction to the way I used to be when I was stripping. One night stands and grabbing any guy I could when I was drunk. I didn't realize it was coming out, again."
Dallas nodded. "Like a yuppie wife in the Bible Belt."
"Babe, I know those two girls are no threat. I agree with you. Fuzzy's as innocent as a day old chick. Hell, Justa might try something, but she knows I'll whip her butt if she does, and that's language tribal girls understand. Grae doesn't care about either of them."
Frenchy took a deep breath and faced herself squarely, realizing her real reasons. "Dallas, you're my best friend, and you're here by a million to one chance. I wanted you to see us as a happily married couple like back on Earth. Oh, we're very happily married, but this isn't Earth. Things are different, and people behave differently out here.
"If the truth be known," she continued, "when I'm here alone with Grae, neither one of us gets dressed if we don't feel like it. I don't think the girls would have changed that if you hadn't shown up. I guess I just feel uncomfortable doing that around you because I know the culture you and I both came from."
Dallas drew herself up and held out her right hand to Frenchy. "Tell you what, babe. You and your guy go back to living the way you normally do and I promise not to be shocked. Deal?"
They shook hands. "Deal."
Later, both Justa and Fuzzy were awakened to shouts and laughter coming from the pool. When they came out to look, there were Grae, Frenchy, and Dallas playing a highly physical game of water tag. Justa stopped and stared, because nobody was wearing anything and, given Frenchy's lectures, she was mildly shocked. Fuzzy just shucked off her T-shirt and dived in to join the game.
After a few moments, Justa joined them.
Chapter 3
Frenchy and Grae were both over at the Academy when the house announced an unscheduled landing on the pad. Looking up from the bedroom computer terminal where she was exploring her brand new civilization, Dallas decided it was her responsibility to see to whoever it was. Fuzzy pattered by the open door of the bedroom on her way to catch the front door and that got Dallas moving fast. Like Frenchy, Dallas thought the kid was okay, but she certainly wasn't the one to be handling unexpected visitors.
As she rapidly walked down the hall, Dallas didn't see Justa anywhere. Typical of her to ignore anything but whatever she was doing, Dallas decided. The girl just seemed to have a chip on her shoulder about the world in general. Obviously Justa was accustomed to more reverence than she was getting around here.
Fuzzy was almost at the door when Dallas called out, "Fuzzy, dear, hold up. I'll get that."
"Okay," the girl said with astounding brevity, "you get it. I just stand here."
Dallas smiled at her in passing as she touched the door switch. The door slid to one side revealing several large men standing on the stoop. They were wearing Galactic style tunics, hose, robes, and what Dallas assumed were the local style of sun glasses. "Fra Kwaakani?" the one nearest her asked.
Alarm bells started going off in the back of Dallas's mind. Memories of wiseguys just like these hanging around the offices of some of the clubs she'd worked, along with the unfortunate accidents that happened to a few of those same club owners, went zipping through her mind. "I'm sorry, she's not here," she replied, her hand edging towards the door switch.
The lead goon's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. One of those oddly shaped guns materialized in his other fist, its barrel pointed at her nose. "That's just too bad," he rasped.
Dallas took a long look at the gun. In a sinking little voice, she said, "Hooo, boy."
Justa wasn't sulking in her room, ignoring the other two. Well, not really sulking, merely maintaining the proper distance required by her dignity, thank you. First, what she thought was a perfectly normal bondage-taking turned into outright slavery, complete with that slovenly lecher Vandemos. Next, she was saved and honorably taken by Grae, and, oh, she thought dreamily, everyone in the Tribes knew about him! But, in a ghastly twist of fate, Grae turned out to have a wife. Not just any wife, but an oversized blonde goddess that was totally unreasonable about the normal relationship between a bound girl and the man that possessed her. Here she was, beautiful, intelligent, educated, bound to the man of every girl's dreams, and stuck!
Life sucked.
Justa had arrived at that conclusion when she heard a gruff voice shout, "Search the place! Alesos said he wanted all three if we could get them. See if there's anyone else inside."
Immediately, her tribal combat instincts were aroused. For a second, she looked quickly for something that could be made into an improvised weapon, but nothing looked likely. Next best thing was to hide until these invaders, whoever they were, left and Grae returned.
Another swift scan of the room, and she dived for the closet. Quickly and quietly moving blankets to one side, she clambered up onto the top shelf, praying it would hold her. Reaching over, she piled the folded blankets around her so she wasn't immediately visible then froze.
The seminar was a post-course evaluation of the Surveillance Techniques course, but Frenchy found it interesting enough to make regular comments. After all, her input would be used to improve instruction for the next cycle. That having been thought, it was just boring enough that she wanted to be home. Being away from the girls made her nervous. With Dallas in the lead and Fuzzy or Justa in trail, no telling what she was going to find when she got back.
She stopped wondering and started worrying when Grae strode swiftly into the classroom. He held a brief, low voiced consultation with the seminar leader then signaled Frenchy to follow him out. When Grae started down the hall, he was walking swiftly enough to be nearly running and she had to scamper to catch up. As she drew even with him, he said, "Justa called me a few minutes ago. Somebody hit the house and kidnapped Dallas and Fuzzy."
"What! Who?"
"Don't know, but an educated guess tells me that Vandemos's organization is still in business."
"Hell!" Frenchy snarled. "Now how are we going to find the
m?"
Grae smiled thinly. "Remember, that's an Arm safe house we live in and it's not all it seems on the surface. We have copies of all the girls' electronic fields and complete scans of the bastards that took them. We're searching now, and ought to have them pinpointed in a few hours. I've alerted a few instructors that aren't otherwise occupied and we'll have a team put together by that time. Once we do, we go get them back."
Frenchy smiled grimly. "Oh yeah," she nodded. Then followed up in her best imitation of Grae's dry voice, "They seem to have screwed up. Isn't that a shame?"
Frenchy's first thought was the living room was totally untouched. Whoever it was came, got who they wanted, and left after a quick superficial search. A glance at the gun cabinet showed it was still closed and locked, so that was okay.
Her second thought was that Justa was about as cool as a cucumber. Of course, the girl was tribal, but it was still remarkable. Every answer she gave Grae was concise, to the point, and contained as much information as she could give him in answer to his question. "They missed me in the search," she was saying. "As soon as I heard the last one leave I got to a window, but they were taking off. They were in a Sky Flash Mark Seven, dark blue. I didn't catch the registration."
Grae smiled at her and patted her on the shoulder. "Good job. We'll have a few friends here in a little while then we'll see about recovering Dallas and Fuzzy."
Frenchy trotted in back to change. Thankfully the bedroom also appeared normal. Shucking off her jeans and T-shirt, she shoehorned herself into her leathers complete with miaso, working costume for meeting bad guys. Fishing in the closet, she got her throwing ax, Grae's gun belt, and his fighting knife.
Mentally, she was snarling at the thought of slavers once again trying to mess up her life and the killing look was still on her face when she reentered the living room. Tossing his weaponry to Grae, she brusquely asked Justa, "You want in on this?"
The girl nodded. "Yes. They're my friends and now I have Cause."
