Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 108211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
And Goodie Tight-azz glared at the two of them so fiercely, Andi felt like it was impossible to refuse.
“Well, thank you,” she said, trying to smile. “That’s so kind of you. Er…are we supposed to bring our Manimals too?”
“Of course! They go wherever we go—got to keep an eye on them lest they run wild,” Goodie Tight-azz declared. “I’m bringing Manfred.”
She nodded at the sad older Manimal who was still chained in the corner of the dining room with a small pile of dark brown kibble in a bowl in front of him. Andi wondered if he’d been allowed to leave the spot last night or if he was chained there all the time. It seemed like a very inhumane way to treat a person who had once been sentient—or any creature at all, for that matter.
Andi hoped that Cade would behave during the meeting, but she could only nod dutifully and exchange glances with Flow-da.
“Don’t worry—you girls will still have plenty of time to shop once the meeting is over,” Goodie Tight-azz remarked. “It’s only about four solar hours long. Now come on—dig in while the digeridoo is still hot!”
And she began spooning large helpings of something that looked like chunky blue stew into their bowls.
Four hours? Andi’s heart dropped. She wished the Moon shuttle was here right this minute. Living in a house run by someone like Goodie Tight-azz was beginning to grate on her nerves. It wasn’t nice to feel like she was being cheated and she had no privacy. Not to mention the fact that now she was being forced to go to a four hour meeting she didn’t have any desire to attend!
If it wasn’t for the fact that the ship is broken and there’s no power, I’d go back and stay there, she told herself. But of course, there was also the pack of wild Manimals to think of—she wasn’t anxious to deal with them again either.
No, it seemed like she was stuck with Goodie Tight-azz, at least for this week until the Moon shuttle came.
She would just have to live with it and try to stay on her landlady’s good side.
27
ANDI
The New Order meeting hall or “Haven” was set up a little like a church, Andi thought. It had two rows of benches and a wooden podium up front that could have been used as a pulpit. But before you got to the main hall, you had to go through a kind of line. There were some wooden screens set up and women on either side were handing out strange looking garments.
“Er…what are these?” Andi asked blankly, when a woman shoved one into her hands.
“These are your atonement clothes—don’t worry, we wash them before every meeting,” the woman said briskly. “Just go behind a screen and strip to the waist—then you can put the atonement top on, open to the back.”
This seemed extremely odd to Andi, but since everyone else in the whole meeting hall was putting on the atonement garments, she guessed she would have to do it.
She didn’t like stripping down, even behind the screen. Cade was with her and he was already eyeing her breasts again as she pulled her red wrap dress down to her waist.
“Not right now,” Andi told him as he leaned down to nuzzle her neck. He was walking upright again, rather than all fours. Which was good except when he got an erection—as he had right now—it really stuck out. Andi had seen several of the other women shooting both her and Cade disapproving glances—as if she could help it if he got a hard-on, she thought indignantly!
Possibly, though, they were disapproving of the way he walked upright and didn’t have a collar on. All the other Manimals were on all fours and—with the exception of Hartford, Flow-da’s Manimal—they all had on either choke collars or control collars.
None of them looked very happy to Andi, but she didn’t feel like she could say anything in this crowd. All of the women here had the same grim expression as Goodie Tight-azz—as though they’d all tasted something sour but were too proud to spit it out.
Andi opened the atonement garment and studied how to put it on. It was light blue and resembled a long-sleeved hospital johnny which tied at the back of the neck and then fell open to reveal her bare back. The sleeves were long and loose and the garment itself was short enough that it only fell to her waist.
Despite the woman’s assertion that it had been recently washed, Andi saw some light greenish-brown stains on the pale blue fabric, which was something like cotton. She frowned—should she ask for a new one? But someone was already knocking on the screen, asking if she was finished yet.
With a grimace, she slipped the garment on and tied it at the back of her neck. Then she stepped out with Cade right behind her. Immediately she saw Flow-da and Hartford standing just outside the dressing area and went to meet them.