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Her dress was wrinkled from being slept in, and there were a few, small, dry stains from his cum leaking out of her and onto the skirt. She didn’t understand why he would care.
But he did. Within minutes, he had redressed her in a dove-grey dress, very loose on top and with a flowy skirt. Trish longed for pants.
“Why are there no pants in the wardrobe?” Trish didn’t know why but she felt more comfortable asking him questions, now. Maybe because he’d already answered a much more important one, and in her favor.
He didn’t seem bothered by this question either. “Soldiers wear pants, even off duty. Civilian women wear skirts. It’s the easiest way to identify them.”
She bit her lip as he took her hand again and led her toward the door.
“Why do civilian women need to be identified?”
“So we know they’re not soldiers.” His tone was blasé, uncaring. He didn’t seem to mind her asking questions, even if his answers were short—and completely uninformative, in this case. Trish got the idea Jordan didn’t do much talking unless someone was asking him questions. Even his small talk atthe meals had mostly consisted of listening to others with an occasional nod or grunt at the appropriate time.
As they walked down the hall, she mulled over his answer. The skirt wasn’t just a way of identifying a civilian woman, she had a feeling; it was a way of claiming them. Still, it might serve several purposes. If the Compound was attacked, the civilians would be immediately identifiable. Easily protected. This was probably why no one had molested her the way she’d seen Alex and Bella being casually groped by the soldiers. Trish’s skirt was protection.
“Are there any male civilians here?”
“A few.”
“How are they identified?”
“They wear skirts.” He looked at her blankly, as if such an answer would be obvious.
She supposed it was. While the Moon tended toward fashions that separated the genders, on Earth there seemed to be a lot of overlap. No one appeared stressed over masculine or feminine, there were just clothes for people.
Startled, Trish realized that made her a part of a group in the Compound, even if she hadn’t met any of them yet. Would she feel more like she belonged with the other civilian men and women than she did with Alex and Bella? Or would she be caught somewhere between civilian and prisoner?
The courtyard Jordan took her to was filled with soldiers.
And two civilians.
Trish saw them immediately.
Skirts really did make them easy to identify.
One of them was the redhaired woman who had been standing outside the showers with food; she was sitting next to a stocky, bald man with a big smile and his arm around her. Across from them was a petite woman, about the same size as Trish, with a short pixie cut of dark blonde hair. She was wearing pants. The large man sitting next to her, with rumpled light brown hair, was wearing a skirt.
She gaped.
Not that she thought a woman couldn’t be a soldier, obviously she didn’t think that—and if she had, an hour in the Wolf’s Compound would have taught her otherwise—but the strangeness of the large man next to the much smaller woman, while he wore the skirt of a civilian and she was obviously a soldier…. On the moon, judgments would have been unkind. Everyone might be having sex with everyone, unlike in Earth’s past when same-sex relationships were considered deviant, but there were still much stronger gender roles on the Moon than there were on Earth. Intellectually she knew that, seeing it was still a shock.
The skirt the other two were wearing were nothing like hers. The woman’s was of a much sturdier fabric and seemed to have wide, thick pleats, as well as pockets and all sorts of strange hoops, from which it looked something might hang. The hem came to about her knees. The man’s skirt was longer, going to mid-calf, and looked like it was made of some kind of soft, light material that stretched. Looking down at her own flowy, short skirt, Trish couldn’t help but sigh.
Clothing on Earth was made in general sizes, rather than tailored as it was on the Moon, but she’d still noticed all the skirts in her wardrobe were on the short side.
As she watched, the civilian man and soldier woman got up, saying goodbyes to the two who were still sitting. Jordan finished his conversation with the soldier who’d stopped him,and then Trish found herself being propelled toward the couple who was still seated.
“Hello again!” the redhead said brightly, a wide smile spreading across her face as Jordan led Trish to sit down where the previous couple had vacated their spots.
“Hi,” Trish said softly, her curiosity overcoming any hesitancy she might have felt.
“This is Chevie and Trix,” Jordan said, waving his hand.
Trish supposed that was his idea of introductions.
Trix giggled. “And you’re Trish! Trish and Trix, that shouldn’t get confusing at all.” She winked as Trish smiled a bit weakly, and her man—Chevie, looked down at her with a fond expression on his face.
“Don’t mind Trix,” he said genially, turning a smile to Trish. “She likes bad jokes.”
