Kaylee’s Lament

Part Two

Wash and Kaylee stood in the foyer of the Belladonna House – at least Wash was standing up for the both of them. Kaylee swayed in the nonexistent breeze, one hand wrapped around the pilot’s arm to anchor herself. Wash looked as uncomfortable as a man who is happily married to a cold-blooded killer could be in a whorehouse. But he was also a professional.

There were certain duties that one had to one’s crewmates while in port. It was basic, unwritten space law, as old as rocket fuel, stuff you learned in flight school or picked up through your skin your freshman cruise: You never failed to buy a round when your turn came up. You never failed to loan up to fifty credits when a crewmate came up short, no questions asked. No matter who threw the first punch, you backed a crewmate up -- even if you were the only two in the bar. If a mate needed bailing out, you did it even if it meant hocking something or breaking a date.

And when a crewmate needed to get laid – and there was no doubt in his mind that Kaylee needed it, bad – you did what you could.

It was common decency.

Wash occasionally felt a twinge of guilt at the fact that he, Zoe, and Inara were the only ones aboard with a bona fide shipboard sex life – and it really didn’t count for Inara. But then he thought about Zoie naked and didn’t give a (rat’s ass) about what the others thought. The last few years with Zoe made this the best cruise he had ever landed, even with the constant danger, petty bickering and abject poverty. Despite a sneaking suspicion that his lady wife might not approve of his actions, he knew where his duty lie.

The Belladonna had never been grand, but the madam of the establishment had done a credible job giving the non-descript building a shabbily opulent interior. It looked, Wash thought, what Inara’s shuttle might look like on a really restricted budget. Plush pillows, overstuffed chairs with thin upholstery, faded oil paintings done, no doubt, by talented local amateurs, some elegant