The next day was Sunday the 1st of May. Neither Candy or Heather had gotten out of bed before at least noon for months. When Trebor's persistent voice finally jolted them awake, shortly after dawn, they were less than eager to rise and shine. Compounding this discomfort was the itchy, nervous feeling that accompanies withdrawal from cocaine. Their grumbling voices were rude and resentful until they came fully aware and conscious of their situation. Even then they could not immediately bring themselves to assume the ingratiating roles they had so carefully contrived the previous evening.

Although he didn't comment on it, they could tell by Trebor's expressions and inflectionless voice that he was not happy with their immature grumpiness. In fact, there was unmistakable displeasure in his voice as he asked them if they would "please" get up and make some breakfast.

"I've got some things to do, but I'll be back in half an hour," he announced, and left them to consider how to repair the atmosphere and their images.

At an altitude of 7000 feet above sea level in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, it is cold in the early mornings, even in May. The girls shivered as they climbed out of bed from under a warm quilt, each wearing one of Trebor's shirts for nightgowns.

Heather tried a joke while they dressed in the kind of clothing worn by the other women in the community. "Nothing like pissing your new husband off the first morning, huh?"

"Not funny," Candy responded. "For all practical purposes, he is our husband."

"Yeah, well, just once I wish he'd smile."

"He did, at everybody outside last night."

"Seems like everyone loves him and he loves all of them. It's just us he's cold to," Heather observed.

"Um, well, now who is being negative?"

"Okay, you're right, let's make old stone face smile."

They divided up chores, one making the bed, the other starting a fire in the stove. Trips to the outhouse were considerably less scary in the daylight.

"God, I'd like a shower," Candy moaned.

"Well, I guess we can heat water in the tea kettle, pour it in one of the dishpans and take a sponge bath. I'll wash your back if you wash mine."

"Better than nothing. I'm sure our 'husband' doesn't like stinky women." Candy's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"This is all just too weird," Heather mused. "We never heard of this guy until yesterday and here we are, kidnapped, about to be sex slaves or some damn thing, and we're joking about a murderer being our husband."

At breakfast Trebor was again courteous but standoffish. At least he had information to communicate.

"Anna, our nurse - in practice, our doctor - will be by in a little while. She will give you each a complete medical checkup. "I'll be gone for awhile. Later we will go shopping so you can pick up things to spruce this place up and make it functional. After that there will be a Blot and May Day festival. You may want to get gussied up for that. It's up to you."

Anna turned out to be an attractive redhead in her late thirties. The few freckles on her nose and cheeks only made her Irish features more alluring. She was also quite obviously pregnant. As many women as the girls had seen yesterday with babies in the making, they figured there was no lack of sex in the community.

Anna's bedside manner, so to speak, was easy going and congenial. The girls felt free to speak and to ask questions about their medical exams and about the community. They found out that with the latest medical science their blood tests should be analyzed in a few hours.

In response to questions about their sex lives, they admitted to taking specialized antibiotics as a preventative measure, along with anti-viral drugs. "Just in case," they said, implying that they had had sexual partners they weren't sure of. Anna was not judgmental, although she did say, "No more cocaine" after viewing their nasal passages.

A Blot, Anna told them, was a religious ceremony, usually held outdoors. She told them such ceremonies were held to mark changing seasons and to honor noble ancestors. They also found out that Mathewsville was named after an Aryan hero named Robert Mathews who had been murdered, burned alive, by the United States government decades earlier.

The nurse departed, taking blood samples with her. The girls finished washing breakfast dishes while waiting for their Lord and Master, as Candy dubbed Trebor, to return. Two hours passed and still no Trebor. "Let's go for a walk," Heather suggested.

Outside they almost immediately met a young girl about thirteen or so who introduced herself as Freta who offered to show them around. Heather told Freta that Trebor was late and was supposed to take them shopping.

"Oh, he's always getting waylaid with Kinsland business," Freta replied.

Freta took them to a larger building that served as a library, a school and a meeting hall. She also introduced them to several women from the community, and they saw the interiors of their homes. Compared to the austere, barren space in Trebor's abode, they looked almost civilized.

Trebor finally returned, driving a nearly new one-ton truck. Kinslanders figured that when possible they could just as well steal the best. "Ready to go shopping?" he asked. Curious, and concealing a who-gives-a-damn attitude, they pretended enthusiasm.

As they eased down the crude road, Trebor announced that he had just talked to Anna, the nurse.

"And?" Candy queried.

"And you're both 'keepers'." Trebor seemed in a happy mood. Of course, the girls didn't know it was because negative results would have been fatal for them.

Shortly they were back in the bombed-out village at the base of the mountain. "About half the homes and stores are rubble," Trebor advised. "The remainder are often filled with useful household items. Pick out whatever you need or want for our place." Neither girl missed the our, but despite themselves they enjoyed this novel way of shopping.

Dishes, chairs, storage chests, a couch, mirrors, a bathtub and other acquisitions soon had the truck overflowing and Trebor called a halt to the spree, saying they could return another day if necessary.

At their new home, the girls put energy and creativity into making it a less austere environment, figuring to make the best of their situation. Before they were finished, Trebor interrupted, suggesting they get ready for the evening Blot and festival. That prompted the kind of questions that could be expected, like what would happen and what to wear.

"May Day is a fertility celebration. Most of the women dress a little risque, strutting their stuff, so to speak," Trebor explained. He added, "Of course, nothing like a couple gals from Sid's Palace."

Neither girl yet knew that Eric and Trebor had seen their performance at the Porn Palace. "Did you see us there?" Candy asked.

"Yup."

"And you still chose us for mates?"

"I decided that was the last time you two would show your goodies to Skraelings." Trebor's explanation was accompanied by a disarming smile.

"Skraelings?" Heather made the word a question.

"Non-White people," he replied.

"Oh, so it wasn't because we turned you on, or that you wanted to make love to us." Candy sounded a wee bit deflated, as though she couldn't believe anyone didn't find her irresistible. She and Heather were already curious as to why Trebor had so far never taken advantage of their captivity. Most men would have been feeling them up the first chance they got.

"Oh, you were both erotic as hell, but like I said before, sex and love are two different things. Although it's nice when they go together."

"Alright, so what should we wear to this festival?" Heather asked.

"You've got boxes of clothes you just 'shopped for'. I'm sure there is something in there. Last May Day there were split skirts, mini-skirts, bare midriffs, low cut blouses, you name it. You won't have time to do any sewing and be creative like most of the ladies, but you'll do fine."

It's peculiar how new realities are created in the human mind, Trebor mused as the girls tried on clothing behind a pair of hanging sheets that served as a temporary partition. They were acting with modesty totally opposite to their brazen flaunting of conventional norms that he had seen so recently.

Shortly they presented themselves in loose skirts reaching to inches above the knees and tight knit tube tops that hugged their trim torsos. They asked if this 'would do'.

"Good choice for square dancing," Trebor said. Both girls had heard of square dancing but neither had tried it. In System territory, all the various dances common to White folk a century earlier were either discouraged or banned as "racist".

Outside at the festival they found several tables filled with food cooked especially for the occasion. As women inevitably do, both Heather and Candy sized up other women. Their home-sewn costumes were indeed clever and alluring. Being custom designed, they emphasized each woman's best attributes or those most appealing to her mate. While retaining a certain demure modesty, yet each proclaimed pride in femaleness.

Children outnumbered adults at a ratio of two or three to one, and they were the best behaved kids the girls had ever seen, even though their energy level and curiosity seemed boundless.

The entire community formed a circle at the request of a man they heard was a Gothi. The Gothi held a curious object in one hand. It was covered with strange characters.

"What is that and what's on it?" Candy asked. She stood on one side of Trebor.

"It's a ceremonial Thor's Hammer, and those are runes," he whispered back.

Remembering that she had to be as 'good' or better than Candy, and determined to appear interested, Heather asked, "What are runes?"

"Long story. I'll explain later. For now just repeat what the Gothi says when other people do."

After the ceremony there was music. Several fiddles, an accordion and a harmonica made up the "band". What the musicians lacked in polish, they made up for in enthusiasm. Then a bunch of older children formed a circle around the May Pole, each with a streamer in his or her hand. They began to skip, dance and run around the pole, creating intricate patterns with the streamers in time to the music. Now the girls wanted to know what was represented.

"This is a fertility festival. The pole represents an erect male phallus, which fertilizes the female just as the sun does to the earth."

"What a 'phallus', a cock?" Heather asked.

"Of course, you dummy," Candy mocked.

"Who you callin' a dummy?" Heather challenged.

"That will be enough of that!" Trebor warned. Chastened but resentful, they quit their bickering, but competition was enjoined.

The feast began and it dawned on the girls that they were the only ones who hadn't brought food. Trebor assured them it was okay, that he had made a contribution for their family. Again, the inclusive word was noted.

"What did you bring?" Heather asked, knowing nothing had been cooked in the cabin.

"Well, after Eric got his half there was still about a hundred thousand dollars of Sid Cohen's money left, so I gave half to the community," Trebor replied.

"Fifty thousand of our money," Candy gasped. Realizing what she had just said, she corrected herself, "I mean, your money." Trebor grinned, the warmest expression he had yet showered on either girl, and said, "Yeah, it was our money, but we won't be broke for a long time."

"I guess not, seeing as there's no place to spend it" was Heather's pertinent observation.

"Oh, you can always send money with someone going to a treaty town."

"A treaty town?"

"Yeah. By the System's laws, no one is allowed to trade with a Kinslander, but in practice, human nature and greed are the rule. There are towns along the borders of Kinsland where if one has the cash, he can buy anything. We call them treaty towns."

There was an abundance of a home-made beverage at the festival that the girls discovered was called mead. Trebor told them it was made with fermented honey. They took mugs of mead with them, after eating, as the crowd of perhaps 300 people broke up into random groups, except for the musicians and a bunch of folk who congregated around a large platform.

"Come on, let's dance." Trebor gave each girl a gentle push in the small of their backs. It was the first time he had touched either one of them. They noted the possessive nature of the gesture.

The dancing began with a group of experts, eager to show their skills. The girls wore knee length full skirts allowing flashing glimpses of lithe bare legs as they pranced and promenaded to the dance master's calls. As they watched, Trebor spotted a young man named Ragnar whose seventeenth birthday had been the day previous. "Excuse me a minute," he said to the girls, and went to speak to Ragnar.

The girls watched Trebor in earnest conversation with the young man, and then Trebor returned with Ragnar in tow.

"They will have a beginners' dance next. and Ragnar has agreed to be a partner for one of you, okay?" Naturally they agreed, but then it became a problem of how to pair off. Ragnar, with a graciousness that belied his youth averred that he could not choose between two such beautiful girls.

"Well, it seems a little callous, but I guess its coin tossing time." Trebor had solved the problem. "Heads you get Candy and tails you get Heather." It came up tails.

Heather thought to herself, that Candy bitch will have Trebor eating out of her hand. But then she heard Trebor say, "Fine, we can switch partners each dance." He's not playing favorites, Candy thought to herself.

Trebor had seldom seen a woman who didn't pick up dancing quickly and his new mates were no exception. Furthermore, like virtually all women, they could not resist enjoying the music and movement.

The evening passed in what seemed like minutes. "That was fun," Heather avowed as they strolled back to their cabin, the emphasis on the past tense surprising even herself.

"It was, wasn't it," Candy seconded.

"You two looked good," Trebor complimented them like an afterthought, "and sexier than Sid ever saw you."

The girls thought to themselves; strange he should say that, considering he saw us performing stark naked.

At home, as soon as the adrenaline from the dancing wore off, the girls found they were dead tired. They had been up since the crack of dawn, which was a new experience. Then there was the physical exertion of "shopping", moving furniture, and finally the festival.

Trebor told them he would hook up some kind of drain for the bathtub in the morning and laid out other plans. Meanwhile, the girls made up the two small beds they had acquired earlier for themselves. It wasn't until they were half asleep that either one realized they hadn't thought of cocaine all day.