Chapter Five: Settling

A couple of days later I got a chance to talk to the Civil Service concubine, Nikki Holmes. The good news: there was a lot of stuff I could do around the town. The bad news: no buses to drive here. If people didn't want to walk they used transporters for long distance or cycled. It wasn't a complete washout as there were some delivery trucks for moving stuff that was too big or inconvenient for a replicator. She put my name down for that, "With your sponsor's permission," of course. That part still applied -- everything was up to Carlita. They'd relaxed a few of the general rules, like for clothes. The smocks weren't compulsory any more, though you had to keep your collar in view -- no turtle necks. But it was still about what your sponsor allowed.

The other thing Nikki put me down for was helping at school and stuff.

"Most families have a father in the Navy or Marines," she told me. "That means that their fathers are away for months at a time, leaving mostly women behind. We need men around in school and for the after-school activities, so there are some male role models. You're older, so you'd be ideal. A fourteen-year-old male concubine doesn't have the right experience."

"I can't teach anything much," I warned her. A teacher! Me! That would be a sight.

"You won't be a teacher, just an assistant. Be around in lessons and help with sports. The boys especially need to have adult men around as a role model."

Sports I could do, soccer and baseball. I wasn't tall enough for basketball or football. I certainly wasn't going to try football against a Marine team! No sir.

I stopped outside Penny and Elly's pod. No, I wasn't driving a bus no more -- no buses here. I wasn't really driving either, I was pedaling. For small local deliveries like this, we used these rickshaw things with a flatbed in the back instead of seats. A rickshaw pickup if you like. There was a small electric motor to help on the hills, but mostly it was Carlos-powered. What a come-down! Yeah, I preferred my bus.

I got their package off the back and walked to the pod door. It slid open as I got up to it, and I could see Elly waiting inside. "Hello, Carlos. Come on through."

I followed her to the kitchen, where I dumped her package into the recycler. Penny and Elly were in the early arrivals here, so their pod had a swarm of kids around; far too many to learn all their names. I recognized a couple of the older ones from school, but the others were just kids. "Where's Penny today?" I asked.

"Oh, she's running the cake stall this morning."

Penny and Elly baked cakes, which they sold on a stall in the town market. Very good cakes too, properly baked in their oven, not replicated. That was why they needed my delivery. They got the basic ingredients from their replicator and baked each batch of cakes separately, just like the real thing back on Earth.

All those cakes meant that their kitchen replicator was always running out of whatever it used to make flour, raisins, sugar and stuff. A lot of what came out of their replicator ended up in other people's recyclers, so their pod often got low on some replicator ingredients. My job was to deliver top-ups for their replicator to keep it going.

I was the guy who kept people stocked up. Without me, there wouldn't have been any fresh-baked cakes and all the kids in town would have started a revolution -- Alvaro and Tomas certainly would have.

"Is John still on deployment?" He was Penny and Elly's sponsor. Another Marine, like all the sponsors in town.

"Yes, he's due back in five weeks. Penny's due for another baby this time, and I get my nookie. Maybe I'll be able to persuade him to take on a male concubine to keep us both happy while he's away." She grinned at me, "Do you think Carlita will want to make a deal?"

That was an old joke between us. I knew that John let them both visit the town brothel if they needed to while he was away. They kept a few male concubines there to service any women who had the urge, and who had permission of course. Concubines still needed permission for pretty much everything.

"Are you sure just the two of you would be enough to keep me happy? I've got used to more than two with Carlita you know. I might wear the pair of you out."

She laughed, "Hmmm, maybe we'll just have to take that risk." Just then, some kids screaming from the main room interrupted us. Elly went to sort out whatever the problem was, and I took the chance to leave. Chat was nice, but I had other deliveries to make that shift.

Deliveries was one of my jobs. Not like driving a bus, but at least it was something. Better than sitting around the apartment all day, doing nothing.

They did have some big electric trucks for when they wanted big stuff moved. Like the big-ass replicators they used to make the building panels for new apartment blocks. When they finished one block, they moved the replicator a hundred yards -- sorry, meters -- down the road to work on the next block. With the Cube Ships coming by we needed a load of new apartments for all those new families. No pods on a Cube Ship, so they didn't land with their own ready-made apartments. We had to have places ready before they turned up.

They do have big-ass transporters to fit the big-ass replicators, but a replicator can't walk onto a transporter pad the same way a person can. You need to load it on a trailer, and use a truck to haul the trailer. Of course, if you've got it on the trailer and you're only going a short way down the road you don't need to bother with the two transporters. Just haul the thing down the road to where the new apartment block will be.

There wasn't much big hauling to do. No cross-country stuff either. Anything going that far went by transporter, else they flew it. I did a lot more local trips in town than I did trucking.

Next size down from the big trucks was these electric things like overgrown golf-carts. The Brits here call them "delivery-floats" and the name seems to have stuck. The floats were for bigger stuff that wouldn't fit through a kitchen replicator or on a rickshaw. There were larger replicators in the town center, and we used the floats to deliver from there out to people's pods or wherever.

The Civil Service and the colony's governor liked to keep concubines busy doing stuff. I was on deliveries while Lupe had a job working in Cammy's, learning to do nails. I kept Cammy's nail parlor stocked as well, though she didn't need as much extra stuff as Penny and Elly. There's a lot more goes into a batch of cakes than into a set of nails. The nail business was doing well for Cammy. A kitchen replicator could make a set of stick-on nails, but it couldn't do a personalized nail-job or carry on a conversation. Talking to kids all the time got stale pretty quickly. Having someone grown up to talk to was popular, so I think a lot of their customers were there more for the conversation than the nails. That was probably one of Lupe's reasons for working there too. She didn't seem too keen on spending all her time around kids.

Maria and Kim weren't like Lupe, they both wanted to look after kids, so they were working in kindergartens. Kim was shaping up to be a really good mother, and was getting plenty of practice. There was a lot of work with kids because there were a lot of young ones around. Families who'd been here for a few years, like Penny and Elly, could easily have six or eight rug-rats between two mothers.

A lot of us concubines spent a lot of time looking after kids one way or another. Everyone helped with the kids in their own family of course, and most of us spent some time helping with other people's kids as well. I certainly did. For my second job I was helping with sports and things at school. I was also doing some time with the Sutlers in the evenings. Sutlers was something Waller had set up for low CAP estimate kids age eleven and up; a bit like Guides or Scouts but for concubines. Since it was Confederacy, there was a lot more sex-ed and baby care than in the Scouts back on Earth. The kids with good CAP estimates were in a different group, called Pathfinders, but they mostly had Sponsors and high-CAP concubines helping out so I didn't get to work with them. With my score I was helping the Sutlers. Neither Rosamaria or Alvaro had the estimate for Pathfinders either, so they were both in the Sutlers too. I wasn't sure whether they liked having their Papa around or not. It seemed to switch every day or two, some evenings they smiled at me, other evenings they pretended I wasn't there. A bit like back on Earth really.

One thing I discovered about sports was that my upgrade in the med-tube wasn't just skin deep. I was a lot fitter than I'd been before. I could run around a soccer field with the best of them and not get tired or out of breath. I didn't know enough to coach, but I could be a linesman or even referee if there wasn't anyone else to do it. I enjoyed that a lot. Just being able to run and not have to stop after fifty yards was good. I'd forgotten what it was like, and it was nice to get back to it. It wasn't "soccer" here, it was "football"; real football they called "gridiron". In school the History teacher said the first people on Waller were a shipload of Brits, so people use a mix of British and American English –- like 'float' for the electric delivery trucks. Gets confusing sometimes, a "barbie" isn't a doll, it's a barbecue!

I could do some basic baseball coaching; I'd done more baseball than soccer when I was young the first time. At least the Brits didn't insist on cricket for everyone. They had an English team and an Australian team that played a few games. Me, I'd rather have watched paint dry. Play for five days and end up with a draw! Stupid.

Both Maria and Lupe were growing baby bumps by now. Carlita hadn't said the word yet, so me and Kim were still practicing while I was making sure that Maria and Carlita got their fair share as well.

Our biggest problem was Lupe. Being pregnant messed up her hormones and made her horny all the time. She was always visiting Miguel or one of the other neighbors. Once Carlita even let her try out the town brothel to get her pipes cleaned. It wasn't enough though. Just getting fucked didn't do it for her; she didn't want lots of different men, she wanted a few. Really she wanted one in particular -- me. I couldn't do it. She was still my daughter, in spite of all the changes. Actually, that was part of the problem. She hadn't really changed a lot so she still looked almost the same as she had back on Earth, just a bit slimmer. I was the one who'd changed. Lupe was living with this hunky new man who looked like a long-lost young uncle, not much older than herself. I was seeing the same Lupe while she was seeing the new hot-buns Carlos, not her old Papa.

I wanted her to be happy but I wasn't able to forget that she was my little girl. I was down because I couldn't help her. She was unhappy because she was getting sex without enough love. I knew I was being stubborn, and I knew that a lot of guys here were fucking their daughters. But I wasn't them, I was me and I couldn't change that. I couldn't forget she was my little girl.

I was sure Lupe had talked to Maria. She stopped calling me 'Papa' and always said 'Carlos'. That was the kind of advice Maria would have given. Lupe was trying to get Kim in on the act too. Once when I was buried deep in Kim's pussy she started up with, "Oooh yes, Papa! Ram your big hard cock in my..." She stopped as soon as she saw the look I gave her. Kim ain't stupid, so she didn't push things when they weren't wanted. That can't have been Kim's idea, I was sure Lupe had put her up to it.

Things came to a head one day. I'd been stroking Maria's baby bump. I did that a lot 'cause I thought she needed it. We both remembered that time she'd been sure I'd leave her if she had another man's baby. I wasn't happy about it, but I wasn't blaming her either, so I had her sit next to me for a stroke and a cuddle regularly. Obvious? Yes, of course it was -– and I knew she could see right through me. Still, she was sensible enough to accept it the way I meant it. Maria and I had a long enough history that she could work these things out. We weren't legally married any more, but we still had our years together.

As often happened after I'd been with Maria, Lupe sat on my lap and gave me a daughterly kiss. She took my hand and rubbed it over the gentle swelling of her own growing belly. None of that was a problem, she'd done the same before. The problem was her ass. She was wiggling around in my lap, rubbing it all over. Of course it had the effect she'd wanted all along. "Mmmm, Carlos," she purred, "is that a burrito in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?"

I looked at her sadly. It wasn't like she was being subtle about trying to seduce me. She moved my hand up to her teta, looking into my eyes.

"I'm sorry, Lupe..." I started saying.

I didn't get to finish. She jumped off my lap and screamed at me, "You don't love me Papa!" She was so angry she forgot to call me Carlos. She burst into tears and ran to her room. The noise attracted Kim and Maria, who both looked worried. They both already knew about the problem between Lupe and me. Kim followed Lupe to her room, probably to hold her hand (or more) and moan about how stupid men in general were and how I was even worse than the rest. I managed to stand up and led Maria to my room.

As soon as we got there, I cried in Maria's arms. Macho? No, but I cried. My little girl was hurting. I was hurting because she was hurting. And I knew she was hurting because I was being stubborn. I'm good at being stubborn, not always about the right things though. I cried.

Maria held me until I calmed down. "Things can't go on like this, mi amor. You know that," she told me.

"Yeah, I know it. But what do we do?"

"Leave it to me," she said. "I'll fix it. This is family, so it's my job to fix things."

She was right of course, she usually is. And she's always right when it's about family. "OK, you fix it," I told her. I didn't know how she was going to do it but I trusted her to find a way. Actually that wasn't quite right, I did know how she was going to fix it. The solution was obvious to everyone, even to me. All she needed to do was to find a way around my stubbornness. It wouldn't be direct -- that never worked, and Maria knew it never worked. She'd have to find some other way. I relaxed a bit. It wasn't my problem any more. Maria would fix things for us.

Lupe and I both said sorry to each other before our evening meal. We hugged, carefully, and Lupe didn't try anything. She even went back to calling me Papa, which was nice. Maria was smiling, so I guess she'd had a talk with Lupe. After that, everything was less tense and everyone was a lot happier. The problem wasn't solved yet, but we all knew that a solution was coming soon. Maria would work her usual magic and fix everything.

A few days later Maria and Lupe had one of their regular checkups in the town medical center. When she got back, Lupe decided to switch to the pregnant cheerleader look, so she got the replicator to make her a cheerleader outfit in her High School's old colors: blue and gold. The colors were the same but the cut was a lot different. The top was more like a sports-bra, leaving her baby-bump showing. The skirt was very short, even for a cheerleader, with blue panties under. She spent a lot of the time rubbing her baby-bump and flashing those panties. That was fun; better than bare pussy. That saying about half-undressed being sexier than naked was right, it seemed so for me anyway.

That night the schedule had Carlita with Lupe, leaving Kim, Maria and me to do what we wanted. Maria suggested a threesome, Kim agreed and I was in as well. I wasn't going to turn down the chance for that much fun.

After dinner, Carlita wanted me to lick her pussy to get her ready for Lupe, so I did what I was told. By the time me and my hard-on got to Maria's room, the two of them had already started. They were on the bed in a sixty-nine with Kim on top.

Kim lifted her head from the pussy she was licking. "We decided not to wait," she explained as I walked towards the two of them. Maria couldn't say anything with her tongue buried in Kim's coochie. "She's wet and ready, Carlos," Kim told me. "Fuck her now."

I was already hard from licking Carlita, so I climbed on the bed between Maria's thighs. Kim sat up a bit to give me room, keeping her pussy over Maria's mouth. I fingered the hairy pussy in front of me. Kim was right, she was already wet.

"Do her fast and hard," Kim ordered. "She wants it."

I knew my job, so I did as Kim told me. I lined up the head of my dick and slid it steadily into the wet tunnel in front of me. Hearing a muffled moan of encouragement I built up speed. Thanks to Kim's earlier tongue-work she heated up quickly. Her legs came up around my hips to hold me in place while I pounded her. The new me was back to my teenage years so I came just after she did. As I slumped forward, Kim scrambled quickly out of the way.

Lupe! ¡Dios mio! I'd been fucking Lupe! ¡Mi hija!. She was smiling at me, while I was staring slack-jawed at her. Lupe!

"How in hell..." I started to say. I was still mostly off in la-la land.

She kissed me, tasting of Kim. "Thank you, Carlos. That was great."

"But..."

Lupe kissed me again. "Don't worry about it. You were wonderful."

"... you... you've got hair?"

"Yeah. Carlita let me have it done in medical," Lupe explained. "That's why I was wearing those panties before." She smiled at me, "You liked the panties, I could tell."

So that's how they'd done it. The difference between her and Maria was their pussy hair: Maria had some while Lupe didn't. That is, Lupe didn't before today. With Kim sitting on her face, and me thinking Lupe was with Carlita, I'd mistaken her pussy for Maria's.

I saw movement by the door as a smiling Maria came in. She'd arranged everything and I'd walked straight into it. That's me, good old dumb Carlos. Always the last one to find out.

"Again. Now," Maria told me. She was right of course. I'd done it once, without knowing. Now I needed to do it again, this time knowing what I was doing. So I did. I even managed to enjoy it, despite that little voice in the back of my head saying, 'you shouldn't be doing this.' I could see that Lupe enjoyed it as well, three times. Having done it once, even without knowing, I would have been dumb not to do it again. I already knew the solution to Lupe's problem, so I'd half lost the battle even before she and Maria ganged up against me. With Carlita and Kim helping them, there was no way I was going to win against four-to-one odds.

After I'd finished I rolled off Lupe. She smiled, "Thanks, Carlos," kissed me and left hand-in-hand with Kim. Probably going to talk about my performance.

Maria got onto the bed and lay beside me. "How was it?"

"It was better when I thought she was you, mi querida."

"Ha! Flatterer," she laughed. Turning more serious she told me, "You know you'll have to do it again?"

As always, Maria was right. I'd have to do it again. I would do it; I could see that Lupe needed it. When you ain't got a choice, you ain't got a choice.

Just to make sure, Maria put Lupe on my menu for the next few nights: Lupe and me; Lupe, Kim and me; Lupe, Carlita and me -- twice. I enjoyed them all. The last one was the strangest: Lupe, Maria and me. A few months ago, if you told me that I'd be in bed with my wife and my daughter at the same time I'd have dug out Papa's old automatic and blown your cojones off. Life can sure take you to some strange places. I did Maria twice; she deserved it after solving our problem for us. Lupe only got it once, 'cause she'd had more than her fair share in the last few days.

"I'm sorry for taking so long, Lupe," I told my daughter. Actually she was probably another one of my wives now as well. Sometimes the way the Confederacy did things confused me.

"That's all right, Carlos. Having to wait helped a bit."

I looked at her, puzzled. Helped? She'd been climbing the walls more than once, as well as visiting the brothel to get what she needed. How the hell had that all helped?

"I knew it was a big step for you. And it was a big step for me as well," she explained. "I wanted to try everything else first. By the time we ended up together I knew it was you that I wanted. I didn't want to make you do it unless we really needed to. You keeping me waiting helped me sort it all out in my head first."

Maria smiled and nodded. I stayed quiet; I leave that sort of thing for the women to figure out. If Maria and Lupe were both happy with the way things had gone, then I sure wasn't going to rock the boat.

Things settled down after that. I didn't have Lupe very often, but I did sometimes find her in my bed when I was expecting Kim or Maria. Carlita stuck by what she'd promised before we left, so she never actually told me to sleep with Lupe. I think she just let Maria arrange it; Maria hadn't promised me anything like that, and she wanted to see Lupe happy as much as I did.

So, here we are. We've been on Waller now for over nine months, and we're all settled in. Like I said before, life here is good. It ain't perfect but it is good.

Maria and Lupe have had their babies, both boys. Maria has Esteban, named after her father, and Lupe's is Mateo. Lupe quickly picked up being a mother to Mateo and Esteban. She's still not so keen on looking after other people's kids, but when it's family.... She's sort of splitting herself between Mama to the babies, big sister to Alvaro and Rosamaria and wife to me. She still has her job with Cammy, though now she takes Mateo with her. Him and Deval, Cammy's boy, have this small nursery in the corner of the shop which they share with any kids the customers bring in.

Kim is pregnant and showing. It will be a girl, and this week she's going to call her Inez. It'll probably be something else the time she's born. Kim changes her mind about the name every week or two. I just agree with whatever name she's picked, saves arguments.

Carlita is pregnant now as well, though it's too early for her to think about names. She's having twins, one of each. She's posted to a desk job here on Waller for now. Once she's had her kids she'll go away on a proper posting to fight. That'll be five new babies in the family in just over a year. Families here get very big very quickly.

While I'm talking about babies, Dee had a girl. She'd threatened to call her Dee-Dee, but settled on Denise instead. Her tetas are even bigger than before now that they're filled with milk. Miguel has promised to shrink them back to what they were on Earth once she's finished feeding Denise. I think Dee is happy about that. Pilar is pregnant too; another girl. Well, one of the reasons for extracting us to the colonies was to have lots of babies, and we're doing that!

Rosamaria has really taken to Esteban and Mateo in a big way. She knows she'll be a concubine, so she'll spend a lot of her time looking after babies, her own and others. She already does mothering classes in school and at Sutlers -- with live babies. Now she has two in the family to practice on as well.

She's turned thirteen now, and is thinking about who she wants as a sponsor. That's one reason for her interest in babies, the sponsors are told to pick concubines with good mothering scores. They make sure that everyone mixes well in school and there are lots of joint events for Pathfinders and Sutlers, so Rosamaria can meet plenty of likely sponsors before she turns fourteen. Makes sense.

She and her friend Shelly-Ann want to get picked together, so they go around hunting boys as a pair. They have all the patter down, "Look at the genetic diversity you'll be getting with the two of us." That and the very nice pair of tetas Shelley-Ann has grown in the last few months. If her ass turns out anything like her mother's, then that'll be a big draw too. Fourteen-year-old boys can go too much on looks.

We've started making plans for when Rosamaria turns fourteen. A CAP test of course, with a party and dancing for her cuatroceañera. We haven't found a real Mexican band, but Maria did find a priest for the Mass. Father Paul arrived here with two concubines, his former housekeeper and a former nun. The Pope has relaxed a lot of the usual rules off Earth, so Father Paul was taking advantage. Now he works for the Civil Service, not the Pope. Maria discovered him when she asked the AI if there was anywhere she could go for Confession. Even with the Pope cutting back on the rules, confessing helps her. Some of the stuff we do here isn't like what she was brought up with, not by a long shot.

We don't worry too much about Rosamaria. Nearly all the girls seem to find a sponsor, and the ones that don't have a real bad attitude. I see some of them in school and at Sutlers, and you can tell who won't get picked when they hit fourteen. Rosamaria ain't like them at all. She'll have no problem finding a sponsor. That's a big relief for me in another way as well. If she has her own sponsor, then she won't be following Lupe into her Papa's bed. I could probably do it if I had to, but not doing it is a whole lot better. Screwing Lupe is bad enough; doing Rosamaria as well would be worse.

Alvaro is much more of a worry for us. Only a few boys get picked as concubines, 'cause there ain't many women sponsors and only a few guys with big harems who need a backup man. Carlita has agreed to take him on if he can't find anyone else, which is a big relief. A helluva lot better than working in one of the big mines they have up the valley. That's where they put most of the spare male concubines. The spare females go to the brothel, along with a few of the men who work as studs. I know that sounds good, but it ain't as good as you think. In the brothel everyone services both men and women; some of the stuff they have to do really squicks them out.

Esteban and Mateo both have sponsors for fathers so they'll have a better chance than Alvaro of making the grade. Kim's girl is gonna be safe even if she falls short. Like I said about Rosamaria, girls don't have a big problem finding a sponsor if they need one.

Lupe and Carlita have both turned seventeen. Lupe looks it, and Carlita don't. She's a full size Marine now, two meters -- six foot seven old style. She's a good sponsor. She does her Marine stuff and leaves most of running the family to me and Maria. If she wants something done her way, then she tells us and we do it her way. That doesn't happen much now; we've had enough time to get used to each other so everything's settled down. We all know that we're lucky to have a sponsor like Carlita, so we don't do anything to rile her. She's a big reason why things have worked out so well for us.

So, that's our story. Back on the bus, when I said, "yes," to Leona and became a slave, I did it to save my family. I did good there. My family is still together and we've even added Carlita and Kim. Once they've grown we'll have Esteban, Mateo and Kim's girl as well. Lupe, Rosamaria and Alvaro are safe, and they're gonna stay safe as well. Even if Alvaro does end up working in the mines, that's just work. He won't have a wife or kids, but the miners get allowed visits to the brothel -– I've seen them going in there -- so even that ain't so bad. It sure beats being turned into Swarm McNuggets back on Earth.

We've still got Lupe with us, which has its down side when she turns up in my bed, but it's still good to have her around. She knows I ain't so keen on doing her, so she doesn't ask for it too often. Sometimes you gotta do what you have to, not what you want to. That ain't changed; same happened back on Earth sometimes.

I don't think me and Maria are gonna have any more kids together either. We hadn't planned to, we couldn't afford more than the three we had, but that don't matter here -- all the basics are free. It's just that our three are all concubines, and Carlita wants mostly sponsor children. She's talking about using the AIs to find a good genetic match for me so my kids will have a better chance. Maria will only be having kids with sponsors from now on. She'll deal with it. She loves Esteban, now that he's here, and she'll love all the others just as much. I know her, and she's a great mother. That ain't changed. Me being around helps her deal with things. That ain't changed either.

We made the right decision to leave. We're still together as a family. We're safe, we're settled in and life is good. I miss my bus though. If I still had my bus, then life would be close to perfect.