Spider Bight

Chapter Three

Emi wouldn’t let the guys see her costume, either. She grabbed the garment bag, which she’d hidden in a storage locker in the hold, and headed out that afternoon to meet up with her friends. Along with Sophie and Donna, she holed herself up in Donna’s room after they kicked out the men of the K-2. Donna needed help lacing her gorgeous brocade corset, which completed her old-Earth can-can dancer costume. Sophie had gone with an old pirate wench standard.

The other two women gave Emi approving thumbs-up to her short, tight white dress and red fishnet stockings. A push-up bra gave her extra cleavage, exposed by the low buttons of the dress. If she bent over, however, the short skirt would ride up her ass and show her red G-string. A pair of red-and-white platform-heeled boots, and a red-and-white hat, finished the ensemble.

They didn’t know what their men had planned for their costumes. None of the men had told their women about their plans. The women would meet them at the party, which was being held by the head DSMC officer at the base, and surprise each other.

Sophie turned and studied her reflection in the mirror. “I have a feeling I won’t be getting much sleep tonight,” she said with a smile.

Donna grinned. “Hell, I hope I won’t be getting any sleep tonight.”

“I still have a hard time picturing your grunts as lovable,” Emi teased Donna.

“I know. They’re like one of those candies with the hard, crunchy outside and a gooey inside.” Donna blotted her lipstick on a tissue. “Very gooey. Especially when you add heat.” She grinned.

Sophie rose to the bait. “Dare I ask what kind of heat?”

Donna lifted her layers of skirt to reveal she wasn’t wearing any underwear beneath her garter belt. “I like to keep my guys up on their toes.”

“It won’t be their toes that’ll be up,” Emi snarked. “Not when they realize you’re going commando. You’ll be lucky if they don’t pull you into a dark corner and bend you over a table.”

“Maybe that’s my plan.”

They arrived at the party a little later than the time they’d intended to meet their men. Standing in the darkened foyer of the banquet hall where the party was being held, they peered into the main room, trying to find their men.

“Where the heck are they?” Donna muttered.

“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “I’m more concerned about where the bar is.”

“Didn’t you have enough fun the other night?” Emi asked. “I know I, for one, was pretty hungover.”

Sophie grinned. “Yeah, but a wise doctor once prescribed a heaping dose of fun for Halloween parties.”

“What doctor?” Donna asked.

Sophie winked. “Me.” She headed into the crowded hall. Donna and Emi shrugged and followed her. Sophie made her way through the crowds of people with Donna and Emi trailing in her wake before the crowd could close up again and separate them. Emi wasn’t looking forward to getting separated from her girlfriends if she couldn’t find her men.

And so far, she’d seen neither hide nor hair of her men.

Hell, she’d settle for sticking around with the men of the other two crews, just to have familiar faces close by. She knew she wasn’t in any danger, but it was difficult for her to close out all the emotions of the celebrating partygoers, most of them already lubricated by copious amounts of alcohol.

It didn’t help that her bar fight experience in the sim wouldn’t leave her mind, when two unchipped men from another ship nearly raped her.

Just because it turned out not to be a real experience didn’t mean it left her mind.

Sophie found the bar. “Oh, goodie. Open bar.” She turned to Donna and Emi. “Join me?”

Donna grinned. “Hell, yeah. Give me whatever my girlfriend’s having. What about you, Emi?”

Emi sighed. “Make it three.” She couldn’t make out any familiar shapes among the people dancing in the darkened room. She tried to look for Caph’s large form, but many people wore costumes with either large hats or entire heads that added to their height, making that effort futile.

She’d started to turn back toward the bar, where Donna and Sophie were ogling the half-naked bartender dressed as an old Earth gladiator, when someone grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the dance floor, spinning her quickly out of sight amongst the throngs of other dancers. She couldn’t make out a face behind dark, full mask hidden beneath a cowl, but she also knew from her empathic senses it wasn’t one of her men.

Before she could object, the man spoke.

“Emi, it’s me, Rob.”

She relaxed a little and let Rob Elloy lead her around the crowded dance floor. “What’s going on? Where’s Aaron, Caph, and Ford?”

“They’re around here somewhere. I wanted a moment alone with you.”

“Why?”

“I know I said this before in front of your men, but I wanted to talk to you alone.”

“You didn’t have to abduct me from the bar.”

“Please, this is hard enough for me.”

She felt that much from him and shut up so he could talk.

He spoke low and quickly, barely audible above the music and noise of the raucous crowd. “I’m sorry for what happened in the sim. I don’t know why I acted like that. Why we acted like that. But I’m the captain, so I’m ultimately responsible. And I know we hurt your feelings about what we said about your body.”

She tensed. “You’re right. You did.”

“You are a beautiful woman, and your men are very lucky to have you. I’ve discovered a lot in a very short amount of time with Donna. We’re learning how to loosen up and not take ourselves so seriously. And again, I want to thank you for that. If it hadn’t been for you, she wouldn’t have joined the DSMC and we wouldn’t have met her. The three of us never realized how miserable we were, and how self-centered and assholish we’d become over the years. I just wanted you to know you did make a difference for us, even if indirectly. You’re also a damn fine doctor. Look at the way you handled the Aroykin colony mission. And I promise you, if you or the guys ever need backup, we’ll be the first in line volunteering to be there for all of you.”

“Thank you, Rob. I appreciate that. It takes a big man to admit when he screwed up. And I promise you this, if you and your guys ever hurt Donna, there’s no place in this universe you’ll be able to hide from me. Got it?”

He laughed. “Loud and clear. I promise we’d die to make her happy.” He ended their dance, paused, and kissed her hand before bowing and then disappearing into the crowd. Emi hadn’t held a grudge against the men of the Braynow Gaston the way she had against the K-2 crew only because Graymard had admitted to Emi that’d he’d deliberately manipulated their responses in the sim to make it appear they’d made fun of Aaron, Caph, and Ford, when in reality they hadn’t.

The sneaky bastard had stacked the deck to help her want to get to know the Tamora Bight’s crew better in hopes she’d give them more of a chance than other prospects had. In retrospect, Emi wouldn’t complain about the results.

Emi made her way back to the bar where Donna and Sophie had been scanning the crowd. Donna held Emi’s drink as well as her own. “Oh, there you are.” She handed the glass over. “I was about to start on this for you. Where’d you disappear to?”

Emi sipped to give herself time to think. She didn’t want to outright lie to her friend. “Just needed to have a quick word with someone.”

Emi’s men caught up with the women at the bar after Emi was already through her second drink.

She stared at them, wondering if it was the alcohol messing with her mind, or if her men were really dressed like she thought they were.

“Well?” Ford asked. “What do you think?”

“She’s speechless,” Caph said.

She mulled over her possible choices, not wanting to hurt their feelings. “You’re…dressed.”

Aaron smiled, his brown eyes playfully catching hers. “You have no clue, do you?”

“None,” she said with more than a little relief as she worked on her drink.

Aaron was dressed all in silver and carried something that resembled a cane, although the top was a broad blade-looking thing, instead of a curved handle. Ford had donned ragged clothes that looked like they were straight off of a working farm on Earth, and had brownish blades of a grasslike plant hanging out all over.

Caph, at least, she could tell he was dressed up as a lion.

“Ha!” Ford triumphantly crowed. “If we stumped her, we’re sure to win for obscurity. See? Told you.”

“Don’t count your trophies before they’re won,” Aaron lightly warned.

“What are you?” Emi asked.

“Wizard of Oz,” Caph said. “Aaron’s the Tin Man, Ford is the Scarecrow, and I’m the Cowardly Lion.”

It teased something in the far, deep recesses of her brain, but not enough to make any sense. “Okay, but what are you?”

“It was a movie and a book,” Aaron said. “They were characters.”

“Oh. Okay.” Emi shrugged and finished off her drink. “And here we gals opted for sexy.”

“You’re always sexy, babe,” Caph said, making a little growling sound in his throat as he pulled her close for a kiss.

“Mmm. Are you sure this is legal?” she asked.

“What?”

She flicked his mane. “Bestiality.”

He nibbled the side of her neck, melting her. “I’ll be a beast by the time we get back to the TB, all right. You do look hot.”

Ford snatched her from Caph’s arms. “I think I’m in need of some medical attention,” he said, his blue eyes sparkling with mirth. Emi didn’t miss the hard bulge rubbing against her through his costume.

Aaron stepped behind her, his body pressing her against Ford’s. She also felt his erection along the seam of her ass. “Yes,” Aaron murmured in her ear. “I think I’m going to need a very thorough examination by a very conscientious nurse.”

Emi wiggled her butt against both men, making them even harder. “I think that can be arranged, gentlemen.”

“Whoo hoo, looks like Emi’s starting the party early,” Donna teased from behind them.

Emi looked over at her friends, who were now on drink number three. Sophie grinned and held her glass up in a toast.

Rob, Gregor, and Sam appeared from out of the crowd and surrounded Donna, all three of them dressed in dark robes with cowls and masks. Donna let out a playful squeal as one of the three men felt her up.

“What, exactly, are you three dressed as?” Sophie asked.

“The discount rack from the costume store because we waited too long to pick something out,” Rob quipped. “All the good stuff was gone.”

Ford let out a laugh. “Not winning any trophies for that, are you?”

“Hey,” Gregor said, “it means we can get out of here sooner.”

“I’m all for that,” Donna said. “Let’s go dance before this third drink goes to my head and I’m bending over in the middle of the dance floor.”

“Huh?” all three of her men said.

She leaned in and whispered in Rob’s ear.

“Oh. Oh!” He laughed. “We’ll see you all later.” Followed by Sam and Gregor, he led Donna out onto the dance floor.

“What was that about?” Caph asked.

Sophie grinned. “Let’s just say she’s not playing hard to get tonight.”

Sophie’s men showed up, dressed in footballer team outfits. Emi stifled a laugh as all three scientists’ cocks stiffened in their shorts, tenting identically.

“Ahoy, mateys,” Sophie teased, swishing her short skirt as she checked them out. “What have we here?”

“I think you shivered their timbers,” Emi teased.

“I do believe you’re right,” Sophie agreed. Then she grabbed hold of John Tarrence’s cock through the front of his shorts. “Come on, lads. Let’s go dance before ye commence to keelhauling this poor wench.” She led John away by his conveniently provided handle, with Alex Parisi and Jules Green following close behind.

“I think that’s a woman who has her men well in hand,” Aaron mused.

“At least she’s a team player,” Emi helpfully chimed in.

Her men groaned.

“I think they’re going to plunder her booty,” Ford said with a grin.

Everyone looked at Caph.

“I got nothing. Let’s go dance.”