I can see he feels a little disappointed that I haven’t just jumped into the boxes like a kid on Christmas, but I don’t want to lie about my feelings.

He sits down across from me with the table of jewelry between us and opens the first box. It’s a stunning necklace with large glittery stones that look like diamonds but violet colored. I reach out my hand and touch the necklace.

“This was in your family?”

“It is yours now.”

“I think it will collect dust here. Don’t you have a sister or someone who could wear it?”

“All my female relatives are deceased. It’s for you, as is all of this. Wife, I have chosen you, and you are worthy of this jewelry, even if it collects dust on the ship.”

I touch the tattoo on my left cheek by habit, and he grabs my hand away and then puts his hand under my chin so that I’m looking him in the eyes, “You are not a volunteer anymore. That’s a battle scar like any other officer, and you shouldn’t be ashamed of it.”

Then without saying anything more, he takes the necklace out of the box and puts it on me. The jewels feel cold against my bare skin. But he looks at me appreciatively, “It never looked so perfect. My mother would be proud such a strong female was wearing it now. And she would not have cared that you came here as a volunteer, then a servant, or that you were an alien. She would say, ‘the stronger the character, the better the wife.’”

I put my hands on the glittery stones and go into the wardrobe to look at my reflection in the mirror. My Commander follows me in and stands behind me. I pull the black robe off my shoulders to get a better look at the necklace. He’s right. It’s stunning. I’ve never seen anything like it. And it seems to brighten my eyes. I move closer to the mirror, and I actually think the necklace is casting some kind of filter onto my face to make me look nicer than I am.

Before I can ask the question, my Commander says, “It’s like a light that makes your appearance seem more vibrant. All the jewelry has it, and they all work together so that they all do something different to make your appearance more attractive if you wear the bracelets with the necklaces and so forth.” When I give him a look of disbelief, he asks, “Did you think that rich females were just born more beautiful than poorer ones?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen any females from the Home Planet except on the farm,” I answer, looking at my reflection again. Then I spend the next hour trying on the jewelry in front of the mirror to see how each piece changes my appearance. I find the technology amazing. “But where will I wear these things? Surely not around your quarters.”