It was nice to be home. Tux had met me at the Island and let me drive home. Ah, opening the throttle on the car was pure relaxation. I hadnt had a chance to do that in a long time. We got back to Candys. Tonight was a dark night, we had no guests. We have a day like that about once every two weeks. We party, hold staff meetings and bitch and complain during those days, it keep everyone friendly, gives us all a rest from being on stage and frankly, its our decision.
I parked the car on the ex-helipad, and the bubble reformed. Now, Im a True Neutral, not a Fen, and Im not a tech type. How my toys work I really dont know. And youre right, I should. But I have a car and a yacht that fly through space, a bubble around my ship and gravity where it shouldnt be. The life support plants I knew how they worked and they looked very happy in the lounge actually. That was one of the reasons Id been out and about, I was looking for someone to explain all this to me. No luck, not yet anyway. Id put some feelers out, maybe I could drag someone in. Actually, the problem wasnt finding someone; it was finding someone willing to live here. Its a brothel; a whorehouse; den of iniquity. But it was MY brothel, whorehouse and den of iniquity.
Of course, I had originally thought of turning the ship into a Bed and Breakfast type. Even Fens needed a place to relax. I had gotten the bank loan, and the ship and the handwavium specifically for that purpose. And then when I activated the engines for the first time, I was nearly blinded by the bright red light the hull emitted. Well, that changed my mind right then and there. It turns out that whoever had been painting the hull had been watching some rather.risqu movies. Oh well, thats the roll of the dice. My mother still doesnt know, so dont tell her. I dont think shed be able to tell her church friends that her daughter owns the most famous brothel in Fenspace without breaking into tears. Me, Id choke up and laugh my ass off to tell you the truth.
Absinthe was the first one I found. Shed been biomodded at THE convention, or The Con as its started being called. I guess you could say I saved her. Shes a Fen, an original series Star Trek Fan; hence her costume at The Con of the Green Orion Slave Girl. I told her exactly what I was thinking of doing, I gave her every opportunity to say no. A month after saying no, she sent me a message saying yes. Too many people were trying to take advantage of her. At Candys she worked when she wanted. We once had a mini trek con in the lounge and all she had to do was dance. I paid off that bank loan in one night. I figured it would have taken ten years as a B&B.
Corsair and Corona found me. Corsair has brown hair and fancies herself pirate-ish. Corona is blonde and goes for seduction. Both of them like their jobs. And both are very good at their jobs. Its also nice to have some full humans around, some Fen, and most Danes are leery of biomods. Lilac and Lavender are biomods. Both have light purple hair, and very elvin features and before I left they were working on sprouting wings. Not sure how they were going to go about doing that, and probably best that I didnt know. I did worry it would affect their .work performance. But that we would handle when and if the time came.
Nekoh-Chan and Miao, hey, whats a space brothel without nypho cat girls. I want you to know right now that I didnt actively seek out these people, they found me. For the most part anyway. Tux I went looking for. Id heard about him, and I wanted to meet him. I wont go into his situation, but it wasnt a very good one. Suffice it to say that hes my personal person should I ever need one; that whole saving a life thing. Itd really rather not think about it. Im just really glad Corsair is trained as a medic. Spike? Well, Spike just appeared one day on my doorstep. The others insisted he get a trial. Let me just say that both Nekoh-Chan and Miao were left satisfied, which is a pretty difficult thing to do, or so Ive been told.
And they were all there waiting for me in the lounge when I got back from The Island.
Hey Carol! Howd it go? Anything new in the world?
I had to laugh. It was so nice to come home to family. And yeah, we were family. Let me get this message off and then Ill come down and chat. I have some news, some good, some bad, some not really anything. Back in a minute.
I went up to what is called Candys quarters. They look exactly like youd think they look. Whorehouse porch light red satin with antique Louis whatever chairs and settees and a huge bed. Wouldnt they all be surprised that I slept there alone? I would have loved to be able NOT to sleep there, and just use it for public appearances but we didnt have the space. Not until we had our own place, which was hopefully soon. I just needed to make this call.
Hello Hephaestus. This is Candy Apple Reds. Just to let you know our first deposit for the building is in the bank. Let me know when you begin construction. Candy out.
Taking a deep breath I sat back in my chair. The Foundry Hephaestus had agreed to give us a small bargain on our new building. Id just deposited our down payment into their account at the bank on The Island. Now we just had to wait. OK, time to relax. I changed into a pair of sweats and headed back down to the lounge.
Tell us all about it! Miao was always eager to hear anything from elsewhere yet she never wanted to leave, which was fine with me.
Give us the bad news first, that way we have something to look forward to. Spike said as he sat himself down on a settee. I try not to laugh every time I see him do that. A Tolkein type dwarf sitting in a semi-reclined positionthere is just something so. never mind.
They were all gathered around me, sitting in various comfortable positions while I cuddled a sofa cushion. Tux got me a glass of water and stood nearby in case I needed anything else. Here in the ship, on dark nights, he went unmasked. Other times, he concealed his identity. We had no problems with that.
Bad news, I havent found any tech type willing to work here. Not yet anyway. More and more people are coming through The Island and I have someone working on finding one for us. I was blatantly honest that they HAVE to know what we are before they accept the job. And that they wont be required to serve. No luck yet.
There were sounds of disappointment. We could go a little longer without help, but in the next month or two wed need to pull into The Island or Station Stellvia to get things looked at. My philosophy on ship ownership was like my philosophy on car ownership, regular preventative maintenance and oil changes every 5,000km.
You mentioned neutral news when you came in. Go ahead.
Well, I was approached by two different people asking if I was hiring for Candys. The first seemed human; I couldnt recognize her fen or any biomods. She looked a little like LilKim in the Moulin Rouge video; white blonde hair, black/brown skin. I told her shed have to make her way out here and talk to Candy. Although if we do hire someone else I dont know where well put them; were already at max capacity in the staterooms.
Technically, no. Were only nine people down here and you have 18 staterooms, plus 4 more suites. We could easily double our capacity. Corona mentioned.
But that means some of you dont get a private room for off time. I was very hesitant on building the business too fast. I had seen several businesses out here in the Fens go belly up because of explosive growth and mismanagement and I didnt want that for mine.
There was some discussion before Corona spoke again. If itll help us get our own station, I think we can do with a little less privacy. Worse comes to worse, we can double up in the suites and leave all the staterooms for entertainment only. Theyll have to fit in though. Were not adopting anyone else if they dont fit in with us. Agreed came from the others.
Well see if she makes her way here. No decisions until then.
And the other one?
The other one appeared to be a ninja. I wasnt sure if she was from the Village Hidden in the Asteroids, and the middle of a shopping mall is not the place to ask that question, so again, I told her to make her way here. One or both may be spies to figure out which faction were with; they may both be legit. Either way, well deal with it when it happens.
So that leaves only the good news. They all looked at me expectantly.
I had to smile. Hephaestus has received the down payment for the new place. Im waiting to hear back on the timeline. But it looks like everything is a go! There were cheers and the impromptu decision to have a party.
I parked the car on the ex-helipad, and the bubble reformed. Now, Im a True Neutral, not a Fen, and Im not a tech type. How my toys work I really dont know. And youre right, I should. But I have a car and a yacht that fly through space, a bubble around my ship and gravity where it shouldnt be. The life support plants I knew how they worked and they looked very happy in the lounge actually. That was one of the reasons Id been out and about, I was looking for someone to explain all this to me. No luck, not yet anyway. Id put some feelers out, maybe I could drag someone in. Actually, the problem wasnt finding someone; it was finding someone willing to live here. Its a brothel; a whorehouse; den of iniquity. But it was MY brothel, whorehouse and den of iniquity.
Of course, I had originally thought of turning the ship into a Bed and Breakfast type. Even Fens needed a place to relax. I had gotten the bank loan, and the ship and the handwavium specifically for that purpose. And then when I activated the engines for the first time, I was nearly blinded by the bright red light the hull emitted. Well, that changed my mind right then and there. It turns out that whoever had been painting the hull had been watching some rather.risqu movies. Oh well, thats the roll of the dice. My mother still doesnt know, so dont tell her. I dont think shed be able to tell her church friends that her daughter owns the most famous brothel in Fenspace without breaking into tears. Me, Id choke up and laugh my ass off to tell you the truth.
Absinthe was the first one I found. Shed been biomodded at THE convention, or The Con as its started being called. I guess you could say I saved her. Shes a Fen, an original series Star Trek Fan; hence her costume at The Con of the Green Orion Slave Girl. I told her exactly what I was thinking of doing, I gave her every opportunity to say no. A month after saying no, she sent me a message saying yes. Too many people were trying to take advantage of her. At Candys she worked when she wanted. We once had a mini trek con in the lounge and all she had to do was dance. I paid off that bank loan in one night. I figured it would have taken ten years as a B&B.
Corsair and Corona found me. Corsair has brown hair and fancies herself pirate-ish. Corona is blonde and goes for seduction. Both of them like their jobs. And both are very good at their jobs. Its also nice to have some full humans around, some Fen, and most Danes are leery of biomods. Lilac and Lavender are biomods. Both have light purple hair, and very elvin features and before I left they were working on sprouting wings. Not sure how they were going to go about doing that, and probably best that I didnt know. I did worry it would affect their .work performance. But that we would handle when and if the time came.
Nekoh-Chan and Miao, hey, whats a space brothel without nypho cat girls. I want you to know right now that I didnt actively seek out these people, they found me. For the most part anyway. Tux I went looking for. Id heard about him, and I wanted to meet him. I wont go into his situation, but it wasnt a very good one. Suffice it to say that hes my personal person should I ever need one; that whole saving a life thing. Itd really rather not think about it. Im just really glad Corsair is trained as a medic. Spike? Well, Spike just appeared one day on my doorstep. The others insisted he get a trial. Let me just say that both Nekoh-Chan and Miao were left satisfied, which is a pretty difficult thing to do, or so Ive been told.
And they were all there waiting for me in the lounge when I got back from The Island.
Hey Carol! Howd it go? Anything new in the world?
I had to laugh. It was so nice to come home to family. And yeah, we were family. Let me get this message off and then Ill come down and chat. I have some news, some good, some bad, some not really anything. Back in a minute.
I went up to what is called Candys quarters. They look exactly like youd think they look. Whorehouse porch light red satin with antique Louis whatever chairs and settees and a huge bed. Wouldnt they all be surprised that I slept there alone? I would have loved to be able NOT to sleep there, and just use it for public appearances but we didnt have the space. Not until we had our own place, which was hopefully soon. I just needed to make this call.
Hello Hephaestus. This is Candy Apple Reds. Just to let you know our first deposit for the building is in the bank. Let me know when you begin construction. Candy out.
Taking a deep breath I sat back in my chair. The Foundry Hephaestus had agreed to give us a small bargain on our new building. Id just deposited our down payment into their account at the bank on The Island. Now we just had to wait. OK, time to relax. I changed into a pair of sweats and headed back down to the lounge.
Tell us all about it! Miao was always eager to hear anything from elsewhere yet she never wanted to leave, which was fine with me.
Give us the bad news first, that way we have something to look forward to. Spike said as he sat himself down on a settee. I try not to laugh every time I see him do that. A Tolkein type dwarf sitting in a semi-reclined positionthere is just something so. never mind.
They were all gathered around me, sitting in various comfortable positions while I cuddled a sofa cushion. Tux got me a glass of water and stood nearby in case I needed anything else. Here in the ship, on dark nights, he went unmasked. Other times, he concealed his identity. We had no problems with that.
Bad news, I havent found any tech type willing to work here. Not yet anyway. More and more people are coming through The Island and I have someone working on finding one for us. I was blatantly honest that they HAVE to know what we are before they accept the job. And that they wont be required to serve. No luck yet.
There were sounds of disappointment. We could go a little longer without help, but in the next month or two wed need to pull into The Island or Station Stellvia to get things looked at. My philosophy on ship ownership was like my philosophy on car ownership, regular preventative maintenance and oil changes every 5,000km.
You mentioned neutral news when you came in. Go ahead.
Well, I was approached by two different people asking if I was hiring for Candys. The first seemed human; I couldnt recognize her fen or any biomods. She looked a little like LilKim in the Moulin Rouge video; white blonde hair, black/brown skin. I told her shed have to make her way out here and talk to Candy. Although if we do hire someone else I dont know where well put them; were already at max capacity in the staterooms.
Technically, no. Were only nine people down here and you have 18 staterooms, plus 4 more suites. We could easily double our capacity. Corona mentioned.
But that means some of you dont get a private room for off time. I was very hesitant on building the business too fast. I had seen several businesses out here in the Fens go belly up because of explosive growth and mismanagement and I didnt want that for mine.
There was some discussion before Corona spoke again. If itll help us get our own station, I think we can do with a little less privacy. Worse comes to worse, we can double up in the suites and leave all the staterooms for entertainment only. Theyll have to fit in though. Were not adopting anyone else if they dont fit in with us. Agreed came from the others.
Well see if she makes her way here. No decisions until then.
And the other one?
The other one appeared to be a ninja. I wasnt sure if she was from the Village Hidden in the Asteroids, and the middle of a shopping mall is not the place to ask that question, so again, I told her to make her way here. One or both may be spies to figure out which faction were with; they may both be legit. Either way, well deal with it when it happens.
So that leaves only the good news. They all looked at me expectantly.
I had to smile. Hephaestus has received the down payment for the new place. Im waiting to hear back on the timeline. But it looks like everything is a go! There were cheers and the impromptu decision to have a party.