In the morning, a sore Larann ordered her husbands to go a get water so that she could wash herself. While they were gone, she took one of the hides and draped it over a beam from the ceiling. She needed to have at least some measure of privacy within the hut.
Just like they said, she now had three marks on her. The outline of a wolf, a tiger, and a snake entwined on her chest and would have been an amazing tattoo.
Her mother had told her that there were three rules to getting a tattoo.
Rule number one was to make sure that you never got a tattoo in place that would stretch too much. The reason was because she knew a friend that had gotten cute dolphins swimming around her belly button. But then she had gotten pregnant, and the dolphins turned to whales and then wrinkly messes full of stretch marks a regret.
The second rule was to never get anyone's name on yourself. Boyfriends and even husbands are never guaranteed to say and it is expensive to remove a tattoo or get a cover up. Memorials and children were allowed though but proceed with caution. You never knew when you'd find out something terrible about them that changed everything.
Then there was rule number three. Always get them in places you can cover up so that if you had a job interview, they wouldn't judge you until they gave you a chance.
"Well, I kept about half the rules." Larran said to herself. That high on her chest, she wasn't breaking rule number one. She may be breaking rule number two since the creatures on her were literally the beasts of her husbands. It seemed like a bit of a loophole though. And the third one was blown out of the water. Not because she couldn't cover it up but because if she did, Ganne wouldn't see it.
The three men also got marks on their necks. The abstract design was the same on all of them and reminded her of a flower.
"We're back!" Shuiss flipped open the door. Larran wished that there was an actual door. The three had shown her what they used for a restroom and having to go while keeping an eye on the door was uncomfortable.
Mura and Sawa entered carrying a large pot of water being careful not to drip any on the floor. Looking around, she wondered what she should do. If she got water on the ground, it would turn into a muddy mess.
It can't be helped today. I'll just have to deal with it for now and come up with something better later without attracting Ganne's attention.
"Did you all clean at the shower?" Sawa nodded.
"We did, though we didn't get our hair wet since we just washed it," he said, flipping his hair back.
"And we brought you some of the fruit, too." Shuiss mentioned, showing her the platter of grapes and some other fruit that should not be around dinosaurs.
"Thank you. I need to clean up. Out of curiosity, where do you keep food normally. I noticed that there was none in the hut?" Hiding behind the curtain she had put up, Larann dipped a scrap of absorbent hide into the water and began to wipe herself down.
"When we moved here, Ganne insisted on having all of us store our resources in a central location and just take what we need each day." Mura told her. Larann peeked her head our from behind the curtain.
"How do you keep track of who contributes to the stores?" she asked.
"What do you mean?" Sawa asked.
"You hunt and bring your meat to be stored so that everyone can have some, right?" Sawa nodded. "Then who else contributes?" Larann could see Sawa thinking about it. "I think a better question is how do you know how much each of you are entitled to? And is someone making sure that everyone puts effort into contributing?"
Larann ducked her head back behind the curtain and continued to clean, making sure to be extra gentle with her intimate areas. She had been pushed to the limit last night and she was still sore.
"Ganne manages that, I guess." Mura said, but she could tell that he there was concern laced in his voice.
As I thought, she thought. After they thnk about it, they may realize that Ganne is contribution a lot less than she is supposed to. They may even realize that they are being given less than their worth. Larann looked around the sparse hut. She wasn't sure what a hut looked like that wasn't poor in this world, but she suspected that Ganne was keeping a lot more than she gave out.
When she finished, Shuiss took the water to dump it, and Mura gave her some new and clean hides to change into. When they came back, she sat with all of them on the pile of hides she was calling a bed.
"I think that I need to go to where you used to live," she told them. The three looked at her with concern.
"Our old home is overrun by the large meat eaters."
"You told me, but from what I know of how they are supposed to behave, they shouldn't be claiming those caves. We need to find out why and what Ganne did to make them stay." Larann looked at her husbands.
"The first step was to keep you safe. Now we need to find out what her game is so that we can take her out of power." They nodded at her.
They decided to go first thing in the morning and spent the rest of the day going over plans including what she should do if things went wrong. As night approached, she wondered what the other women of the city looked like. She hadn't really seen that many up close and they were avoiding newcomers. She knew she would eventually need their help.