The next morning, I got up and dressed before leaving my quarters to have breakfast at the base Dining Facility. To my surprise, Miss Reason was still outside my quarters, sitting against a porch pillar, asleep. I stopped and looked at her for a moment before deciding that she needed to be woke up. Surely, she wouldn’t want to be seen that way by everyone who might walk by, I thought. I touched her lightly on the shoulder and gently shook her. “Miss Reason, it’s morning,” I said softly.
She opened her eyes and blinked them a few times as she looked up at me before yawning once.
“Good morning. Did you sleep out here all last night?” I asked.
“What do you care if I did?” she asked petulantly.
I replied, “I don’t know what I care. I’m just a little concerned is all. After all, you’re the daughter of an admiral. I thought that maybe you wouldn’t want to be seen like this, sleeping outside a bachelor’s quarters.”
“Perhaps you’re right. What are you doing now?” she asked.
“I’m going to breakfast. You ought to go home and have some breakfast as well and maybe get some more rest before you get up to face the day. A fresh change of clothes would do you good as well,” I suggested.
“Why? Aren’t these revealing enough?” she asked.
I said, “Sure, but they make you look like a prostitute instead of a refined lady.”
She kind of dropped her mouth open for a moment before she decided not to say anything in reply and closed her mouth.
I assisted her to her feet before I walked away to get breakfast. When I left the Dining Facility, she was waiting outside the doorway in an even more outrageously revealing outfit.
She said, “I don’t care if you think I look like a prostitute. I like dressing this way. If you can’t stand it, I’ll start walking around naked.”
I replied, “I don’t think the Shore Patrol would like that. They’d probably arrest you.”
She said, “No, they wouldn’t. They know me and I’ve already done it before.”
It was my turn to be caught with my mouth open for a moment before I replied, “Okay. You probably could get away with walking around naked, but what’s the point in doing it? What does it get you?”
“Attention,” she said. “I want attention. I know that much about myself. I know that much about everyone. It’s no secret. Everyone likes attention. You get it the same way my father gets it. You work hard to be better than anyone else. So, why is it wrong for me to want some attention for myself?”
I said, “I guess there’s nothing wrong with getting attention. Since you know what you’re doing, then I guess you can dress just about anyway you want.”
“I’ve got a hover. You want to spend the day with me?” she asked as she changed the subject quickly.
“Doing what?” I asked. “Going to bed with you?”
She replied, “You don’t have to although I want you. Just kicking around though for the day would be fine if I can’t get you in bed.”
“I see. What do you do when you’re just kicking around?” I asked.
“It depends. You have any particular interests besides swimming, hunting, military battles, getting promoted, and making money?” she asked.
“Sounds like you’ve been doing research on me,” I answered.
She said, “So? You research everyone of your officers and crews. I know. I’ve seen you get their records before.”
“You have?” I said, a little surprised since it had been awhile since I last picked up personnel records.
She replied, “Yes. I even know how Daddy got Captain Bleyer out of the service.”
Out of my own curiosity since I didn’t yet know, I asked, “How?”
She answered, “Daddy stepped in front of a basketball deliberately to get a bruise. Then he confronted the captain with his aide as a witness and told him that he was going to charge the captain with striking a superior officer if he didn’t resign within an hour. Daddy told him that the aide would swear to seeing it happen. Daddy told me the captain gave him the resignation inside of ten minutes and left the base before an hour was up. That’s how.”
I said, “I see. Clever of your father. I appreciate him going to that length.”
She said, “Not as much as he appreciates what you’re doing.”
“Oh? Are you here because he sent you?” I asked. I immediately realized that she wasn’t from the shocked look on her face. “Okay, I’m sorry. I thought that only because of something he said to me in his office once about you. I didn’t mean to insult you by saying that you’re just his present to me. To show you I’m really sorry, I’ll take you up on your offer to just kick around for the day.”
“You will? For the whole day?” she exclaimed.
I replied, “Yes, I will. I try to always keep my word.”
She replied, “Great! Come on! We’ll get my hover and drive around for awhile. I’ll even let you drive since everyone tells me I drive like a banshee out of hell.”
I was about to correct her on the old saying, but decided that I had insulted her enough and didn’t want to wind up owing her anymore apologies. I walked along with her, trying not to notice the stares she received because of the tight shorts she wore that had high leg openings up to the hips on both sides and the blouse that was simply tied at her midriff without any of the buttons in the matching buttonholes. Only the nipples of her breasts weren’t showing and those were quite obvious through the thin fabric of the blouse. She was very tan. So much that I doubted she had any tan lines on her body. If she did, then she would have had to wear something even less than what she was wearing now in order to get them.
We walked across half the base to reach her father’s quarters where her hover was parked. She tossed me the ignition card and we got into it. I placed the card in the ignition and the engine powered up. As soon as it lifted, I put the hover into forward and drove forward a little to see how well it handled. Then I stopped and asked, “Any particular direction?”
She answered, “No. Not yet. Let’s just drive wherever you want to for now. I want to feel the wind and sun on me.”
I went ahead and drove. After awhile, she pointed. I went ahead and drove in the direction she pointed. It wasn’t long before she directed me off the base where the sentry saluted snappily at me as I drove out.
For most of the morning, I kept the hover on the main roads going where Annie pointed. After awhile, we were on the main highway where the speed limit allowed me to really open up on the hover as we flew along. Somewhere along that road, Annie went ahead and untied her blouse to let the wind and sun hit her chest fully as I continued to drive. The blouse fluttered back against the seat beneath her arms as she held them up behind her neck to support her head which she tilted up to catch the wind and sun on it as well. Her long blond hair fluttered and whirled about in the breeze as we went on down the highway. We must have gone on like that for most of an hour before she looked back at the scenery and then pointed at a turnoff.
I slowed down the hover for the turn and followed the secondary road for awhile until she pointed again at another turnoff onto an even less travelled road. I slowed down more as I took the road. Soon it ended beside a lake fed by a waterfall. In the center of the lake was an island.
“Drive over to the island and stop,” she said.