“Goodnight, Commander,” I say and bow.

“Volunteer 4711,” he says, and my heart leaps as I think he’s remembered. But then he says, “Dismissed.”

I walk out carrying his laundry and wondering if he’s thinking of sending me back to the farm. I know my friend meant well with what she said, but perhaps he wants someone better now, someone Silver. Someone who doesn’t have an accent or who’s still learning about the culture. Someone he doesn’t have to watch masturbate every week because she has some fantasy about being with a Silver way out of her league.

I clean his uniform and then go to bed. I cry a little at the thought of being sent away. I don’t want to go back to the farm. I’ll run away before I go back. As I lie in my little bed, I think about what I might do to avoid it, and I know that if I marry someone, I become my husband’s property in Silver society, which I know also extends to the fleet.

I think about the only other male I know besides the Commander, and that is the officer who’s training me in self-defense, and I frown. I don’t like him, and I know the feeling is mutual. So not him. Otherwise, I don’t know anyone else. Tomorrow, I decide I’ll look around and see if there might be someone here among the servants who might want to marry a Water woman. I don’t want to be sent back to the farm, and I feel like the Commander would have mentioned it if he intended to keep me with him.

The next morning, I wake up with terrible cramps. My period has starting, and every other month it is especially painful. I wipe the sleep out of my eyes and get out of bed slowly. As I go to the toilet, I think to myself, No wonder I was so emotional yesterday. I reflect that the Commander isn’t going to send me back, but it’s more likely he has much more important things on his mind with the meeting with the other fleet coming up soon. I remember his words to me when he sold the other Water people to the Imperials, he told me that he would never sell me. And I assume those are strong words for a pirate. If he didn’t sell me then to the Imperials, there’s no way he’d give me up for free to some lowly farmers.

The Silver have a convenient tab for periods that I insert into my vagina to absorb the blood flow of my shedding uterus and immediately dull the pain of the cramps. It’s one of the best things about living on the Commander’s ship. I only wish it would tell me when I was over-emotional because of my hormones. But it’s always been this way for me, and some months I’m terrible, like yesterday, and I have nonsensical thoughts that seem real until the next day. How many years until menopause? I wonder.