Geet knew what had happened. I could sense it from the way she acted towards me. But there was no remorse on her part and little concern for me. That was to be expected - I was an outsider and a sex slave with no rights over what was done to me. I tried ask her about Mara. Was she not concerned that the future son-in-law seemingly enjoyed hurting women?
"It's the proper way," she explained, for the umpteenth time. "Mara will decide. She gives herself to Grad but he must do the right thing. That is why he whips her."
I wondered if the answer was that some women enjoy pain as part of the sex. I guessed that maybe it was true of Geet. She certainly didn't seem to mind the idea of being flogged as part of the play. Soos was quite opposed to it. Maybe Mara was more like her mother and she got turned on by being hurt.
I forgot all that, however, the next day when finally I got some of the best news since landing in that weird, future time.
"She is coming," Geet told me. "The other one. From the other capsule. Permission was given. She will arrive tomorrow and now she belongs to us." Geet added, "She is a bad one." I was left to wonder what that meant.
"But now you will plan to leave us," she went on. I could see the sadness on her face which was very touching. She was happy for me and yet sad at the same time. "Its natural," she concluded. "Back to your real place if you can."
The very next day, Captain Sarah Adamson arrived and I was taken out to the barn to meet her. Midge had already tied her to the mesh. There was a new pecking order. I felt bad for Sarah but was relieved for myself. Like Geet had said, I was almost a part of the family. So I was permitted to sleep inside while Sarah, the outsider, would be left in the barn.
I hardly knew Sarah and we would have to find a way to work as a team. You have to understand, the space program now - or then - is a big organisation with several bases. So, we astronauts don't get to meet all the other crews. I had heard of Sarah Adamson but this was the first time we'd met.
The most important thing was that, at last, I had the chance to de-brief with someone from my own time. More to the point, we had the chance to plan my escape back home.
I was a little shocked when I first saw Sarah. She looked in a bad way. I guessed she'd been treated harshly - maybe even more than me.
"These people are animals," she said to me in a hiss. "How operational is your capsule? We need to get out of here as soon as we can."
I was just so excited to have someone like me to talk to. I told her my capsule was serviceable. We could use it to return home. But astrophysics is not my strong suit and I needed someone to help me work out the flight plan. If only someone could work out how to reverse the trip through time, I was sure my capsule was good enough to get us home.
Then Sarah have me the basic details of what she'd experienced. She and her fellow crew member had left after me in our own time but they had arrived slightly before me in the future. They'd crashed on the other side of the country. Their capsule was damaged beyond repair and her crew mate had been badly injured. He'd been given medical care but perished soon after. It was then that Sarah had discovered how women who are outsiders are treated in that future world.
"I was raped by their men," she told me coldly. "A number of times. At first they just wanted to rape me. When I fought back, they started to whip me every time and then rape me. I fought so hard they finally stopped. But they hardly fed me either."
I understood what had been done to her. I also understood why. As hard as it was for her to accept it, I knew that Sarah had been treated "properly" according to the rules of that future society.
"But at least I'm safe now, with you," she went on.
I wasn't so sure that being with me would be as "safe" as she imagined. I knew how things worked and I thought it very likely that Captain Adamson would be expected to accept the same demands I'd had from Midge. Sarah must have seen the look on my face because she suddenly looked a little frightened.
"You mean, you've been raped as well? The fucking bastards."
I was feeling a little defensive, mainly out of a feeling of loyalty toward Geet. These future people had a very different culture to ours but, in their time, it was the right way.
'The rules are different in this place. In this time," I tried to explain. That was a mistake.
"You mean you gave in?", she said with a look of hatred. "How could you do that? Was it worth it just to sleep inside? I suppose there was more than one. But didn't you fight back? And what about the whippings? I suppose they starved you as well so you gave in to them."
But she could see on my face that it had not been that way for me. I'd found a way to adapt, to survive. Maybe sex was a currency I'd used. The trouble was, as Sarah well knew, these people would take it no matter what. Instead of fighting them, I'd learned to enjoy many aspects of that future world.
And, as I've already admitted, I was more than happy for the obvious benefits that Midge presented.
Sarah looked at me like I was a traitor.
"You let these people have sex with you? How could you?"
I tried to explain what I'd learned. I tried to tell her that the women in that household were our allies and might even help us to escape home. But Sarah was so angry that she didn't want to hear.
I knew Captain Adamson wouldn't want to understand any of what I was telling her. She was just too angry and, maybe, upset from the loss of her crew mate.
"You let them do whatever they want," she said with venom. "And then they give you permission to eat in the house and sleep in the house. I guess you just like being fucked like that."
I wished she could see that it wasn't all bad in that future world. I guess it was loyalty towards my friend, Geet. How could I make Sarah see that what had started as something horrible had ended up being mostly good? I was a sex slave but I had learned to accept the rules of this future society. It wasn't right in my own time but how could I judge these future people? By trying to fit in, I'd had some of the best sex of my life.