After making out for a good while longer Luna and I just cuddled on the bed, me being her big spoon while we looked out into the ocean. It was weird that I barely felt the ship moving. I’d expected it to roll a lot more than what it was doing now, but then again. It might be better like this so we avoided getting seasick. That would be rather ironic as… being a marine and all that.

Our cuddling only got interrupted by Luna’s stomach starting to grumble. A clear sign it was time for food. And so, food we had, in the ship’s luxurious restaurant. They were serving mostly seafood, the best one could get, although it was rather intimidating. Many of these foods I had never eaten before as they were considered to be for the very rich. Even though I was quite well off because of my function, and discounts on top of that. My upbringing made me turn away from this kind of food most of the time.

As Luna missed the connotation of rich people’s food, she just happily looked around the options. “I don’t know what to pick, Lauren. It all looks and smells delicious.”

“I have no clue myself.” I looked at the chef who was standing on the other side of the counter. Luckily he interpreted my voiceless cry for help completely.

“Why don’t you try this?” He beckoned us over to look at a dish a bit further down the line. “Do you like garlic, butter or a combination of the two?”

“I think we do.” I nodded.

“Then this dish will fit well with you.” He rhymed poetically and pointed at a lobster that was cut in half. Richly covered in buttery and garlicky goodness.

“That does look rather nice.” I nodded.

“Don’t you need to break it open anymore? I read that you had to do that with lobster.” Luna asked.

“Since it’s cut in half you don’t have to anymore.” The chef explained.

“Ah…” Luna sounded somewhat disappointed by that.

But before I could reply the chef had already picked up on it. “If you want to try, you can always take that lobster and I can add some claws to it too so you can try it out as well.”

Luna was immediately pleased with that answer. “That’d be great!”

“And if you want to try even more, don’t fret to ask for more. You can always share a dish as well so you can experience as many tastes as possible.” The chef had really started to sell it now. Everything here was already included into the price of the ship’s ticket, which he knew of course. He just wanted people to experience new tastes. I can really respect that.

In the end he also managed to give us some spicy scampis and a pot of mussels with fries.

We were a bit confused at first how to eat mussels but, as the chef saw us messing around, he came over to our table near the front of the ship, to show us how to eat it. You’d basically take an empty shell of a mussel and use that to scoop out a mussel that was still in its shell. Using it is a bit like a tweezer.

“Is it true that this used to be food for poor people?” Luna asked while the chef was still at our table.

“Yes.” The chef nodded. “But that was a very long time ago. Since then, it has become increasingly more expensive because it has also become a lot harder to find them. But luckily our company can still source them pretty often.”

“Oh.”

“Might I ask what happens with the rest of the food?” I was wondering about that since the buffet was quite big and fish doesn’t really keep long.

“The crew can eat a lot of it. We also freeze some of it in so that we can hand it out to charities when we reach port.”

-Well, at least that’s pretty nice.-

We ate our food with the greatest view of the ship and afterwards decided not to return to the cabin but walk around for a bit. There was a casino on board, a theater, a cinema, holo gaming centers, and much much more, but sadly our trip was too short to really be able to check things out. It was clear however, that even just looking around was a blast for Luna and because of this I was having a great time too.

When we got close to our destination, signaled to us by a message on my holo stick, we got our stuff out of our cabin after freshening up real fast.

The ship would only be docked with the main island hub for a moment before it would sail off again so we were invited to wait for the docking by the exit. To not make us feel unwanted an attendant waited with us to chat with us for a little while longer.

She told us that the next big cruise would sail around the world three times before taking on new passengers and it was about to set sail in the Japanese region.

Apparently doing that trip only took them a couple of weeks.

In any case, with that little factoid we got dropped off at the docking area of the main island hub where we would quickly depart from yet again to go to our own private island. We were only at the bottom of the walkway when the ship we were on departed once more.

“I hope you liked our little boat trip, short as it was.” I already had to swipe away the sweat from my forehead because of the heat. It was going to take me quite a bit to get used to this.

“Yeah, it was fun. And I liked the food too.”

“The food was great, that’s true. I especially liked the garlic dishes.”

“All the dishes had garlic in them, didn’t they?”

“Yep.” I chuckled to which Luna rolled her eyes.

“Ah, if those aren’t my two friends standing over there.” I heard a chipper Eva call out to us. She walked up to us from one of the seats on the side, wearing one of those straw sun hats. And even though the sun was starting to go down already, she was also still wearing her sunglasses.

“Eva!” Luna left her bag with me and went to give Eva a hug midway.

“Ho there.” Eva laughed as she got hugged for just a second.

“It feels so long ago that we saw each other.” Luna replied.

“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?” When you see each other as much as we did on the ship, not having that anymore does feel rather weird.”

I rolled up both of our pieces of luggage and gave my friend a hug as well. “That’s true. But now you won’t get rid of us for at least 9 days.”

“Drat.” She joked.

“Have you already went on to sign us in?”

Eva shook her head. “I’ve actually only arrived here twenty minutes ago. But I saw on my sat-ap that you two were not far away so I decided to wait.”

“Should we get signed up then?” Luna asked. “I really want to see our island!” It’s true that the main hub here wasn’t much to look at. I mean, it’s fancy, clearly, but this was more meant as a pure logistical facility than the actual holiday spots. And while it had some hints of theming, it wouldn’t get close to the ‘real thing’.

“I’m not opposed to that. Can’t wait to sit at the beach with a cocktail in my hand.” Eva nodded. “Maybe even with a tiki torch or two.”

I chuckled and rolled our luggage onwards towards the check-in desk. “Then we should do so.”

The receptionist welcomed us with a friendly smile and had our things in order before I even said hi. She then explained to us how the system worked. At the sides of this building are little piers with private boats that will take you to your personal island. Once you are there, you are allowed to do as you please. Everything was already arranged for us. Our beds were made. Everything had been cleaned and fridges with drinks and snacks had been stored. Whenever we needed anything, we could just easily contact staff by messaging them with our holo sticks. She did say that for some meals they would need to be excused for a maximum of twenty minutes, but all things considered, that wasn’t any wait at all.

She then wished us a nice stay and gave us a complementary gift bag each. There would be even more amenities at our island but apparently management knew who we were and wanted to give us something extra.

As we walked towards our little boat Eva was already going through the bag.

“Oooh.” She said as she took a bottle in her hand.

“What’s that?” Luna asked.

“It’s a very fancy looking skin lotion.” Eva twisted off the cap and gave it a smell. “Smells great too.”

She let my curious girlfriend sniff as well. “Oh, that does smell nice. What do you think it is?”

“Silky smoothness.”

Eva’s comment made both Luna and I chuckle.