The following story arc has NO SEX in it. It is the most serious part of this project and meant as character development between opposing members of the crew.
*****
Twenty minutes later, we find the mighty Thor being led through the dining area, wearing no less and no more than a cloth adult diaper and an oversized powder blue baby bonnet. He'd been pretty vocal about his costume, and about the bond-building exercise in general, to his detriment. Each time he made a fuss, five extra minutes were being added to his time. Instead of one hour, his confinement with Braxton was now up to an hour and a half. Angrily, he'd bowed before the tremendous peer pressure, changed into the most demeaning thing he'd ever worn in his life, and allowed himself to be escorted toward the pantry.
Not wishing to add any additional minutes on her behalf, Braxton quickly donned her outfit. The older woman veritably ran into the pantry before anyone could find any faults with her.
Cummings was taking snapshots of both of them, which he was planning on uploading onto the Misfit's public Galactic Web channel. "You sure you don't want to give me a good pose, Thor?"
"Kiss my ass." Thor grumbled.
"Just one picture, with you and Braxton standing together." Cummings persisted. "I'll get Cruz to lower your time by ten minutes, I promise."
"Oh, all right." Thor relented with a great, bearish sigh. He glanced at the older woman standing a few feet inside the pantry. "You okay with that?"
"Yes, I am." Braxton answered. "Cummings, I would much rather you distribute one good pose of us, even if we're standing together and growling at each other, than all those clumsy shots you've been taking. I don't like being caught unprepared."
"I'll tell you what." Cummings said. "Give me one good shot, and I'll let you look through the rest of the pictures before I upload them. I'll delete the ones you don't like, as long as it's not every single one."
Braxton sidled up next to Thor, with one leg lifted up. Thor set his broad arm around her shoulders. She wasn't smiling, not yet, but she was close.
"I got the shot." Cummings said. "I'll show it to you both, once you get out of your solitary confinement." He ambled away. "See you in a buck and a half."
"Hour-twenty!" Thor shouted back.
Mary looked in on them next. "I'll give you both Happy Kisses, if you want them."
"No, Mary." Cruz denied her the chance. "If they have their grievances, they need to air them out like responsible adults. A Happy Kiss would only retard their growth."
"Sorry, guys." Mary shrugged and went away.
"Here is a digital timer for you." Cruz reached in and set the device on the nearest open shelf. "One hour and twenty minutes. If you come out any earlier than that, we're starting your time over from zero. Nobody needs a bathroom break, right?"
A second later, he was gone.
The captain slipped inside next. "Well, I hope this works out for the best. Have fun." He held out his fist and Thor bumped knuckles with him. As with Barbie, Washington had to explain to Braxton what that meant. Although the gray-haired woman was unsure of it, she went ahead and returned the gesture.
The pantry door slid shut and they were left behind.
"I can't believe the captain just bumped knuckles with you." Thor grumbled.
"Is it that important?" Braxton asked. "I fail to see any real significance in touching knuckles with another person."
"He only does it with his crew." Thor revealed. "He hadn't even been bumping knuckles with Barbie until a few days ago, and he's been poking her for over a week."
"The captain considers me to be part of the crew now?"
"It's more than that. He now considers you part of our family."
"Oh." Braxton said, thoughtfully. "A strange kind of family, wouldn't you say, since everybody sleeps with everybody else?"
"You really don't get out much, do you?" Thor asked. "That happens on every single ship where men and women are living in close quarters together. That happens all over the universe. You know, I don't even get why I'm talking to you." The big man turned, and strolled as far from older woman as the narrow space in the pantry allowed. "You just stay where you are until this is over."
Thor pulled a five-gallon drum out from underneath a shelf, and put his broad ass on it. He took one last look at Braxton, who was standing there looking at the timer. This done, the strong man turned himself on his seat so he would face boxes of packaged food instead of her.
"This really sucks." He growled.
Five minutes passed, and Thor found himself reading lists of ingredients to pass the time. After ten minutes, he was tearing open a small box of chocolate chip cookies and gulping down its contents. After twenty, he was tossing the empty box to the floor.
"Do you want to know how I ended up here?" Braxton asked.
"No."
She went on anyway. "Well, Barbie ratted me out first, but you know that already. She managed to call in a few favors and sent an emergency relay that reached Admiral Cocksander direct. The admiral gave me a few hours to leave the ship, and I was put on a shuttle back to Earth. Sometime later, somebody on the Neptune sent him video of when you and your crew were confronting me on my own ship, and of how you'd turned my own rank and file against me. I don't know if the executive branch from the Neptune sent him that video or the security branch."
"Yeah, well you deserved that."
"Maybe I did." Braxton might have agreed. "But when Cocksander got hold of that video, he called me on the shuttle every few hours just to rub it in. He was planning on showing the video in front of his officers, as soon as I arrived back on Earth."
"So what?"
"Well, then the Space Relations came across the Worfs and everything changed." Braxton replied. "The footage from that event got to Earth in a couple of days, instead of the usual week, because people everywhere put it on high priority. I began to get a bunch of new messages from Cocksander. He knew where to send me, he said. He was going to put me on the very ship that had caused me to lose my command. Not only that, but he was going to make sure that I ended up at the ass end of the universe, and these were his words, with the rest of those good for nothing rejects. Space Corps doesn't care if the Space Relations succeeds in its mission or not, as long as its crew stays the hell away from Earth. Not you, not your captain and not me. None of us are wanted back there."
"You're lying."
"Why would I lie?" Braxton questioned. "What is lying going to gain me, your friendship? Huh! They even tried to talk Barbie out of leaving this ship. That simpleton didn't even bother to read the Space Corps administrator's mind, so she didn't know what was really going through his head. Ask Mary. She knows the truth. I saw the look on her face while she was looking at the administrator. Cocksander thinks we're all worthless."
Thor turned around in his chair. "Why would Space Corps do that to us?"
"I have no idea." Braxton replied. "I don't know what you've done in your past or who you've pissed off. All I know is that we were all sent out to the farthest reaches of the universe to die. Space Corps doesn't want any of us going back to Earth, ever."
"That can't be true." Thor said, but judging from the tone of his voice he wasn't one hundred percent sure anymore.
They stayed quiet or the next quarter hour, each dwelling within their own thoughts. Thor looked over, observing that Braxton was leaning against the shelves, still facing the timer, but presently fidgeting with her nails. The Viking reached out for another five-gallon drum. Without saying a word, he pulled it out and slid it across so that Braxton would have something to sit on.
Braxton took the impromptu seat. She said, "Thank you."
At forty minutes in, Thor cleared his throat. "I've served under two captains before I was enlisted by Captain Washington. I was harassed by both of those men. They were a lot like you were when you were in charge of the Neptune. That's part of the reason why I don't like you."
Five minutes later, Braxton replied. "Did you ever consider that maybe I didn't like myself?"
At fifty minutes in, Braxton began talking again. "I made fun of you when you first jogged out of this ship, when it was docked inside the Neptune. You were at the security gate with Coordinator Mulligan. I was watching you through the video camera, and I said some cruel things about you. My second in command was getting a kick out of it because Sessler is a sadistic little fuck. Your Captain Washington was in my office. I was surprised when your captain stood up for you. He said a very strange thing, when my Sessler pushed his two fingers together, to imply that they were two cocks bumping into each other."
"The captain stood up for me, in front of you?" Thor glanced over to look the woman in the face.
"I don't know why Washington said this about you, but he said, I have lain in that man's bunk on occasion."
Thor thought back to that day, when he recalled how Cruz had made everyone lie down on everybody else's bunk for the hell of it. He started laughing. Deep and loud, he filled the pantry with his laughter.
"Was that funny?" Braxton asked.
Thor went on to explain what the crew had done at Cruz's instruction.
She said, "You all are a very bizarre bunch of people."
"That may be so, but they've helped me out a lot." Thor replied. "Every single one of them, except maybe Cummings. All he does is walk around the ship scratching his fat ass and eating everything he can shove into his mouth."
"Then they're all your friends?"
"Not just friends, best friends. They're family."
Braxton looked dejected. "Even my real family wasn't my family. You're lucky to have them."
Thor turned away. The strong man wasn't yet ready to allow a tyrant like Braxton to become part of his inner circle. He didn't want to see her sad any more, either, as he was starting to sympathize with her situation. Damn that Cruz, the Viking thought, as this crazy exercise was starting to make Thor have feelings for Braxton.
He looked at some of the packages at his seated eye level. "You want some cookies?"
"I would love some." Braxton answered. "All I have over here is cooking oil and canned beans."
Thor slid a package over. For the next several minutes the only noises in the pantry were Braxton tearing open the package and munching on the snacks.
A few minutes later, Thor asked, "How much time do we have left?"
"We're at one hour and five minutes."
Fifteen more minutes and it would be all over, Thor thought. "We should be on the satellite by now. I didn't even feel us land."
"Modern conveniences." Braxton uttered. "Would you like me to tell you about the night I spent with Cruz and Mary?"
"Let me guess; you all had a lot of sex that night?"
"Not at first." Braxton disclosed. "They were trying to have sex with each other, while I was standing in between them both. That made me realize how cold I'd become, because of how much time it took for me to want to be a part of it. They opened my eyes to the angry, bitter person I had become."
