nmyworld

Ral lifted his hand out of the freezing water. His hand wasn’t pruned. Everyone else’s hand were pruned after just a few minutes.

“Ah, gods, boy,” said the shivering man across from him, “how do you take this shit?”

The man slid out of the cold, curling into a ball next to the side. His accomplice draped a robe over the shivering loser’s naked body while shaking his head at the sheer stupidity of this contest.

“So when can I expect my payment?” asked Ral. He didn’t mean to brag, but it just came out like that.

“Shut up, Ral,” said the accomplice, “he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t lose a digit over this.” The man helped the still-shivering loser off the floor, but had to pick him up due to his full body cramps.

Talos bent down, patting Ral on the head. “Hey,” he said, “he’s the wanker who challenged him, now pay up or I’ll off one of your digits.”

The man juggled his friend’s now-easing body, reached deep into his pocket and tossed a photograph into the water.

“Ey’!” yelled Talos, “ca-”

But before he could finish, Ral saved the photograph from getting soaked in the icy water.

The photograph was clearly homemade. Grainy features, two red eyes, and worn edges stuck out to Ral. He was never interested in sex, so the naked woman in the middle of photograph didn’t stand out as odd to him. Since he could remember, Ral just viewed women as people rather than an opposite sex and sex as something he really never wanted to do. But Talos…

“Fuckin’ hell! She’s got great tits!”

He snatched the photograph from Ral’s hand just before he could focus on the woman’s breasts.

After a long session involving Talos sending the photograph around to each onlooker, they began to disperse into their respective sleeping quarters. Bad things happened to those caught in the halls of the capital ship late at night with no escort; especially to those with nudie pictures.

Nudey pictures had taken on a kind of currency to the men of the Yarbale ever since the captain restricted any kind of pornographic material (deeming them a “distraction”). There were only around nine or ten left on board since the full ship bunk sweep, as only the sick bastards who had their favorite pictures on them kept them. “Bunny Money,” as the men called it, could buy you lots of favors - or just give you something more to go on than memories over five months old.

Ral slowly stood up from his freezing bath and draped his robe around his body.

A hand patted his shoulder.

“Let’s go, Ral,” said Talos, “one more’s all we need and I - well, hopefully - we’ll have Corporal in no time. Can’t wait until I get my own squad.”

Raleigh didn’t care. This was all just passing the time until he could get back to normalcy.