I awoke not having any memory of falling asleep, in a strange place.

It looked like a tube and the end-cap (and some of the side, above me) was open and a pretty young thing said "Good morning, Jeff. How are you feeling?"

This question had me thinking and I quickly did an inventory of all easily checked parts by stretching and feeling myself against the walls of this tank. I noticed that I was very nude and looked up to the girl, there, answering "I seem to be fine. Could you tell me, please, where I am? Nothing here makes sense!"

She smiled. "You've been picked up by the Confederacy and it was a bit of a panic. You may not recall much of the event given the whole madhouse but you were not well and needed to be put in a med tube."

I nodded. OK, I could deal with that. "Did I get a chance to pick my companions?"

She sighed and told me "You'll have to discuss that with the marines who ran the pickup. Sorry, I've not been informed of any details and don't have an A-iphone in my head." She smirked, adding "Not that I'm particularly interested in getting one."

She paused for a moment.

"Let's get you out of the tube. You've been in there for 42 hours so you should be feeling pretty chipper by now."

I nodded and then slid my body out of the tube. I seemed to be in much better physical condition than I remembered having being in some time and this turned out not being difficult for me to do. Once I was standing I looked down at myself and marveled at the lack of wrinkles on my hands which I could finally see without my glasses. Another part of me showed no wrinkles but that was due to inflation, getting me to blush since I was in front of a teen-age girl. "Can I get some clothing? I'm not exactly the kind of person who flashes teen-age girls."

She chuckled. "I'm actually over forty, hon, and, as a former nurse, I've seen enough of 'em. No problem, come with me."

She walked me up to a wall with a little door about waist-high and told me to ask the wall for a ship-board uniform. I did so and a voice spoke up from the wall "Uniform will be ready in 10 seconds."

The situation was so strange I started to hum the theme to "Jeopardy!".

I'd been left alone at the wall and the small door slid up revealing a lightweight coverall and shoes that looked like moccasins.

Let's just say that, even with a body that had been toned up, this fifty-two year-old man was happy to cover up the fact that his cardio-vascular system's power-on-self-test proved that he was in good shape. I have to admit that having a morning erection without feeling a full bladder was, well, reassuring. I turned back to see the Nurse working with another open med-tube just before the largest hand I have ever seen gently landed on my right shoulder.

"Hi, Jeff, I'm Sergeant Blank, Tony Blank."

I looked up and stared.

He chuckled. "I get that stare a lot. Really, my last name is Blank, bee ell ehh enn kay. I refer to the look you just gave me as a 'blank stare'." He chuckled some more. "Now that we got that little bit of trivial humor out of the way, I'm here to drag you to my boss' boss so that we can get you settled down."

I nodded. "Ummmm ... did I manage to pick any companions?"

"Concubines? Actually, no, you didn't. You weren't in any shape to do any picking and choosing before we got you up here. We've got one rejectee who is cooling her heels that you can decide to take-- or not."

Nodding seemed to be my standard response, kind of like how Noah, from Bill Cosby's skits, would say "Riigggghhhhhhttttt". There just wasn't much for me to add so I decided to just "shut up and soldier" despite never having actually been a soldier.

Sergeant Blank led me to an office not far from the medical center I had awakened in. The officer behind the desk stood up and I saw that she was as tall as my guide ... and, except for the chest, about the same size. Her height combined with my 5'6" frame left me with my eyes even with her bosom and her uniform was a lot less ... ummm ... uniform-ish leaving my eyes firmly trapped in her cleavage.

There was that moment that I realized that she could easily smother me to death between them and the thought struck me out of the blue "no wonder some men have a fascination for asphyxiation during sex".

Given the moments and my chuckle it took me more time than I care to admit to before my eyes escaped the bosoms of death and met her eyes. "Sorry, Ma'am, my 'Y' chromosome suddenly kicked in for a bit, there."

She smiled. "I am Marine Lieutenant Commander Colleen Collins." She paused as I reacted. "Yeah, my parents, God rest their souls, had a sense of humor and I think they read 'Catch-22' one time too many, and, since their last name was not Major, decided to have some fun, regardless. In any case, Commander Wallace, we have to figure out what to do with you."

There is no doubt in my mind that she recognized my open-mouthed stare as one of shock and she smirked.

"Yes, Commander Wallace, your naval rank has been set even though admittedly, it is provisional pending successful completion of training. You'll have to spend some time in command school to hone all of the skills needed to manage people in a military environment but your recognized mentoring skills will certainly not hurt you."

I finally nodded. "All right, so what do I do next?"

She grunted. "Your score of 7.1 should have netted you a total of four concubines. You were picked up late in the cycle and we had to leave Earth orbit shortly after we got you so we can't go back for more. Unfortunately, despite having started the trip with a pool of seven extras, we only currently have one ... ummm ... spare. She was traded in for one of the others."

Tony, standing at my left side, snorted. "Six fucking deaths. That's the highest body count I have ever seen on a pickup ship! It kinda puts me off any interest in a burger for days afterwards."

Colleen nodded, a grimace on her face.

I decided to speak up. "So ... what's wrong with the trade-in?"

Tony spoke up "She's a bit, well, feisty. Her original sponsor did not want someone who had any sense of independence. She's a 6.4 so his original command to recycle her was denied by the AIs who feel that, with the right sponsor, she can re-test and get higher than a 6.5."

I nodded. "I still don't see a problem."

Colleen sighed. "As long as she is only a concubine she needs to be submissive to authority." There was a pause. "Her former sponsor called her a shrew."

A voice from the overhead-- an AI, obviously, and it seemed like a real machine playing the role of deus ex machina, speaking up just now-- "Her CAP sub-scores are a surprisingly good match with Commander Jeffrey Wallace. While he cannot be forced to accept Gertrude Kramer he should, at least, be willing to interview her."

"OK," I answered the machine. "And, if I remember correctly, won't I be assigned a pod?"

Again, the machine spoke: "Acknowledged. We do not have a pod for you and could not arrange your transfer to another vessel while you were in medical. You have been assigned quarters with one of the crew."

I did get to meet Trudy and we talked over dinner. She was very laid-back and didn't seem to mind that my eyes explored her body. Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, one prosthetic leg, it seemed strange how well we hit it off. Things got even warmer between us after I had her take a turn in a med-tube for two days and got her leg back along with having her apparent age rolled back fromc "thirty-something" to "almost jailbait".

When I got to meet the officer I was sharing a cabin with she turned out to be a medical officer by the name of McCoy-- which prompted a shared chuckle-- who didn't want to admit her first name was Leona and was still fighting having people call her "Bones". Finding a Leona McCoy made me wonder if all of the people with unusual-- euphonious, suggestive or just plain bizarre-- names had been collected and assigned to the same ship leaving me with a belief that there might be a Jack D. Ripper or Colonel Sanders on-board.

So I established a fairly comfortable relationship with Trudy-- short for Gertrude-- that seemed to be a whole lot more comfortable than the one I'd had with my former wife.

My ex-wife and I had had some difficulties getting along with each other, I believe, due to our desires to avoid confrontations. When you avoid confrontations you tend to not resolve the "little hurts" and so a tendency to get defensive grows. To top this off, the one bit of glue that might have helped, didn't, because neither of us really did trust the other enough to enjoy sex, the one activity that leaves us, as human beings, incredibly vulnerable to emotional and physical injury.

Trust is required for a warm and giving relationship. I could not have described the last couple of years as "warm and giving" and there was a certain degree in relief knowing that it was over. We had still gotten along surprisingly well but, well, at a distance. There had still been plenty of respect between us, but, I feel, it had been based on how much pain we had received from the other.

I'm not sure if respect based upon fear is really worth a lot even if it does have a longer half-life than gratitude.

Trudy, for all the descriptions of her as a shrew, was an interested partner and taught me, over a matter of days, to trust her. She did her best to demonstrate to me that she trusted me to not hurt her, a trust I did my best to deserve.

Both us sharing a cabin with an energetic officer and her concubine taught us a new appreciation for voyeurism along with its reflection, exhibitionism. Trudy's time with her first sponsor had already given her a readiness to cope with seeing a couple going at it ... or being a member of a couple going at it. If anything, she was less anxious about it than I was.

I'll admit that I enjoyed seeing Trudy climax-- whether on my fingers, tongue or dick-- and I felt like more of a success as a man than I had for years. I suspected that my former wife (who, I found, had been snapped up by another sponsor at the same pick-up I was collected by) must have learned to be happy with her sponsor and trust him enough to respond to him. I did hear, indirectly, that her current sponsor didn't have any problems with her. Leona, able to cheat by being a medical officer, told me, after some prompting from me, my former wife didn't end up having much choice.

"Look, Jeff, you know you can edit your concubines, right? And we can turn a sow's purse into a silk ear without breathing heavy, right?"

I nodded.

"Consider what would happen to a woman when her g-spot has been both upsized to something the size of a plum along with expanded enervation. Also consider the same basic trick to the clit, nipples, cervix, anus and throat. Add to that an increase in the number of testosterone receptors in a woman's brain along with an oxytocin spike every time that person reaches climax and you have a body that doesn't give a damn what the brain thinks it's thinking, it just tells the brain to cum and doesn't take any back-talk. You'd be surprised how men-- like Alan, here-- tend to be modified to suit a sponsor."

Leona chuckled seeing my eyes open so wide.

"Your ex's sponsor gave her all of those enhancements. Most sponsors might settle for one or two of these 'little' enhancements. Trudy, here, didn't need any of 'em, having already gotten over some stupid mental conditioning. Your ex is now thoroughly conditioned to enjoy things since, if any attention is given to her body, she can't resist it. I have no idea what she thinks about any of this and really am not supposed to care but she is working out and I don't expect to see her either going out an airlock or dumped into a recycling hopper."

I nodded. "Well, absent such modifications, there wasn't much I could have done for her." I shrugged. "I just hope she's happy, at least." I squeezed Trudy, who squeezed me back.

Leona smiled. "Well, as of her last check-up, she's pregnant and has more than her fair share of endorphins floating around. Lucky for her that she was still fertile even though she was over fifty years old or she couldn't have been picked up."

Trudy, on my lap, chuckled.

Leona looked at her. "Y'know, Trudy, you ovulated three days ago and the blastocyst has already been implanted."

I ended up under Trudy as she kissed my brains out and then, even though it wouldn't make a difference, emptied my seminal vesicles.

During the trip to the training colony I was getting intensive training on ship handling and hyperspatial navigation. I was surprised that my time spent sailing actually applied to anything in space. I also made sure that Trudy could avail herself of most of the training I was given and was pleased when she was taking advantage of it.

We didn't have a replicator at our quarters so we had little choice but to take our meals in the mess or I could eat in the wardroom where our concubines weren't to be. In the wardroom I rubbed shoulders with most of the officers aboard ship and, as I completed training courses, would be rotated into various parts of the ship to ensure that the classes "took".

Mind you, I just immersed myself in the new things I was learning and feeling more than a little bit happy with the new skills. I always have had a steep learning curve and being, as one of my managers had called me, a "jack of all trades and master of more than a few", I seemed to fit in well with the other crew-members of this colonial ship.

So I was in the wardroom having dinner when the discussions made a hard left turn and dropped into what our pick-ups were like. When the question got to me all I could do was say "I missed it. I don't remember anything at all about where I was or what I was doing."

Leona was sitting down the table from me and spoke up "Jeff, you really don't remember?"

I shook my head.

"You were at the dentist's office, your wife drove you ... and you were having a heart attack, right there, with your mouth wide open, just as Marines were getting the show organized. Despite you going into cardiac arrest, we had enough luck in the timing to hustle you onto the ship and had to get your CAP card from your wife."

Everyone looked at her. "You mean?"

"Yes, you went to the dentist's for an extraction."