Royce's Random Thoughts

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“Night” was an abstract concept at best aboard Darktail Station, as it floated in the void near a convenient nexus of hyperspace navigation points. The docks ran non-stop of course, but all of the Six Races generally were most comfortable with a defined cycle of rest and labor. Which is why everyone outside of the docks tended to follow a ten-twenty pattern, ten hours of work, twenty hours of rest, based on an average of the day-night cycles of the Prime homeworlds.

Given the services that Habebti’s Sophistications offered, it tended to work closer to a twenty-ten pattern, with enough shifts that none of Habebti’s boys and girls had to labor more than ten hours at a time. The nature of their work demanded that they be enthusiastic, not weary. As was her habit, Madame Habebti herself made her usual appearance in the early “evening,” after the doors had been open long enough for a nice grouping of customers to gather.

And there were so many customers these days. The shift from pirate outpost to legitimate shipping port had been rather eventful, but Sophistications had weathered it with patience. Not only had the number of customers increased, their attitudes had mellowed considerably compared to the older, rougher crowd.

So Habebti, dressed in her usual flowing white dress and heavy gold and emerald jewelry, accented by a pair of golden rope belts at her waist, had stepped into Sophistications’ public lounge. She was a striking figure, a Wazagan, with that draconic race’s height of nearly two and a half meters, her toned muscles flexing under a skin composed of thousands of tiny blue scales. Her thick curly hair was dyed green, to match her eyes and the emerald earrings she wore.

The boys and girls working the room all stood, even the ones attending to patrons, to give her a respectful bow as she lay herself on the lounge set on a raised dais at the back of the room. Habebti’s kingdom was small, but she was mistress of all she surveyed, and under her eyes it prospered.

Home late, not hungry, was all it said. 

Angelica was a motorcycle cop. I was used to her coming in late, given her shift hours tended to run long if there was some sort of crisis. But she almost always wanted dinner when she came home. It was part of my job to have it ready for her.

I should explain I guess. After we were married and my dad cut me off (not that I was crying too hard about that) we figured out between her salary and what my mother had left me, we could actually live pretty comfortably even without me holding a job. So to the neighbors I was her house husband. 

Between just Angie and me, I was her slave.