Camp Zester, USA

Hung next to each shower was a 10-liter metal canister that had the word 'SOAP' deeply embossed into it.

Of course, this description is nowhere near what I was really thinking about as I came into the room. Several of the showers were in use.

I counted 11 other people in the huge room besides Dana and I. All were women, and all were naked. Some were faced towards me, some away from me, but from the view I had, all 11 were Absolutely Fucking Gorgeous.

Wow!!

Trim, fit, athletic-looking, some were pretty muscular and others less so, but who is to complain when confronted by beauty? Not Me!

Most of the ones faced towards us glanced up as we came in, obviously somewhat self-conscious of being naked and having me there. I glanced away from them quickly, up to the ceiling and the pipes, then back over to where we were walking.

My mood was profoundly torn. My stress level was pegged. I was there among these women, and I had to be Ultra Careful. Everything I said, everything I did, where I looked? Everything! But, I also was really looking forward to a shower!

For me, showers were usually about the businesslike efficiency of getting wet, getting soap on and off, and being done. Sometimes, when I was aching from a workout, though, it was particularly nice to luxuriate under the hot water. Then, the act was a sensual one, the grime washing away, lifting off of me, the hot water playing over my body, each new bit of skin feeling beautiful as the stream of water hit it. After a week, I knew it was going to be the languid shower I wanted. Delightful hot water was going to purge all traces of sticky, stinky, almost itchy travel history from my body. Not showering for a week can do that for a person.

But, I had to keep my mind off the women. In my mind's eye, I pictured the room, and counted showerheads. Comparing it to the number of people in habs around me generated a ratio, and then I mentally compared that to counts from my old college dorm hall bathrooms.

It turned out to be roughly equivalent numbers. One showerhead per 7 people for my dorm, one per about 5 here. Math is great for avoiding thinking about things because it's hard to do that and obsess over an image at the same time.

The trouble is, the images sometimes just spring forth (thanks, Etta-brain!). There's no controlling that.

I glanced again, the glance again filling my mind's vision with the unavoidable. They were Amazingly Gorgeous! Oh, My, Fucking, God. Gorgeous. What was I going to do?

Dana and I found two empty cubby holes and stopped in front of them. I said, not looking at her, looking down a bit and pursing my lips, my back to the people in the room, "Right. So, we're here. Time to ... put our towels... Uh, you okay with this? I promise I won't stare."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that she nodded, obviously steeling herself, "Yeah." She took her towel, untucked it from where it was held, near her left boob, and pulled it off, pushing it into the cubby.

I looked very briefly, but that was enough. I unhooked my towel as well from around my waist, and put mine in the one next to hers. She was turning to the showers. I followed.

As I turned around, I saw some people looking at us, then looking away. Not having a choice, I had to look where I was going. I followed Dana, her fabulous muscular ass swaying as she walked ahead of me. It would have been mesmerizing, but she walked up to the nearest shower, on one of the poles. I had thought she was going to go around it, so I was on the opposite side of it, and could only see her knees. I turned on the water and stepped into it. "Oh, ... Wow!" I said, "Water! Hot Water! Wow!"

Dana didn't say anything that I could hear.

I was luxuriated in it, the water playing over my back, my head, my front, I turned around, feeling it flow over me. At one level, with my eyes closed, I was feeling the water, but at another level, the rational part of my brain was self-conscious about the fact that I was naked in a room full of women, and they were probably looking at me.

I stopped turning and started soaping up, the water lifting my entire mood, happiness started bubbling up in me, happiness at the feelings of being clean, happy at being at a job that was going to pay really, really well, happiness at having responsibility for some big unknown important job area, just general happiness.

This happiness was a bit of my undoing.

Mixed in with the experience were the unbidden, unwanted pictures in my head of the soap-lathered beautiful women. Necessarily, I had to intermittently open my eyes. Each time I was greeted by more images of the women around me, naked, dripping, beautiful women, rubbing themselves, washing their hair, their boobs swaying as they moved, their legs slightly apart, some bending over to wash ankles and having their boobs dangle in the process.

I was mostly clean, my hair shampooed (okay, soaped), my body rinsed, but stayed under the water, letting it deeply relax me.

I realized, after a moment, that something wasn't quite right, and, looking down, I realized what it was. The pictures in my head - of the women around me, soap-lathered and beautiful, boobs and bush right there to see -- had had a significant effect. I had a rather sizeable erection, well near full-mast and pointing skyward.

There wasn't any avoiding it. The realization came with some significant almost-panic. At the same time my hindbrain was engaged, my forebrain was trying to contemplate how I could possibly hide it, and, really, while taking a shower, even squatting would do no good, it would be obvious that I was out of the water and then what was I doing there? Right. I was doomed. This would be noticed. This would be teased about. I was going to end up cajoled and pegged as a leering ass, a social reject. More than that, being labeled badly (I knew from school classes with group projects) usually meant getting stuck with the rejects and getting crap grades on group projects.

I needed this to work.

Of course, as all guys know, it's absolutely impossible to decide to not have an erection. It either happens or it doesn't. There's no way to not have one when you don't want it, or to make one happen when you do want it, at least without touching. And, almost all touching is stimulation, which is the Wrong Direction for what I wanted.

Mine was there. Straight, hard, pointed up and out, 45-degrees like when I'm really solid, in front of me -- Erect.

Logically, it made sense. One part of my brain said, "Pretty Girls", it met up with the fact that I'd just been in a shared container where I couldn't stroke off and 'relieve tension', so my autonomic answers didn't start at zero anyway.

I couldn't do anything about it. I was struck by indecision.

If I left early, now, as it seemed like I had to, I'd be deserting Dana. I poked my head around the pole-area thing and saw she was just rinsing the soap out of her hair. Her arms were up, hands going through her scalp, but mostly this meant her boobs were up and swaying. They were huge, at least D cup, high and half-cantaloupe like and pointing optimistically upwards, with large nipples but small diameter areolas. Her bush wasn't trimmed to a shape; mostly it was a big triangle, short enough but definitely not the ornate patterns (or lack of them) that I'd seen glancing around the shower room.

Granted, I wasn't any one to talk about trimming pubic hair. I hadn't cut mine in at least 9 months, since my last girlfriend, and even then I hadn't really made it that much shorter.

My chest hair, too, was a pretty big fur patch, and my underarms could be braided. I didn't worry about it until now. It occurred to me, I'd better do that for myself. I'd have to get some scissors, because I didn't bring any. Suddenly, I realized no one would have any! We'd all come by aircraft, only with carry-on luggage, and the TSA says you can't have scissors. How we were going to have haircuts was an open question. I hoped there was a barber or hairstylist on this base, but that wouldn't fix my manscaping.

I checked downwards again. Thinking about haircuts for a minute hadn't worked. I still had a raging boner, standing straight out from my body, dripping water like the rest of me.

I had to stop this and get out of here before everyone noticed me. I'd soaped body and hair (same stuff, not arguing when my hair hurt from being dirty), so I was ready. I turned off the water and went back over to my towel.

My cock was swaying, side to side, a "pikeman's lance on the parade ground of showers", I thought, oddly. Strange thoughts occurred to me when I was in super-stressful self-conscious situations, and having a mostly-perfect memory, I could analyze ALL of those.

Getting my towel, I faced the wall and dried off a bit. Up beside me came Dana, grabbing her towel, too.

She said, "That wasn't so bad after all. Kind of like..." she stopped, I could tell she was looking at my hard cock. After only a second or two, she said, "... uh, kind of like at the health club." She was talking slower than normal. "...Big shower room. I don't know why I was nervous. Of course, there's a guy here..." she paused again, like she was deciding what to think, how to deal with this event happening. "...like, the guy is you, right, but I know you, though, now, so, it's not so bad. I guess." She went back to drying herself, putting a foot up on a lower level cubby and drying one leg, then the other, then her hair. I was doing the same thing, trying to not watch her as much I as I could. It wasn't working. In a minute or so, we were mostly dried off, and wrapped towels around ourselves.

Mine had a somewhat significant tent pole.

Walking back out, my cock still was semi-hard. I wondered how long it would stay that way.

Dana said, as we came down the ramp and were walking slowly back to the hab, "So... Want to talk about it?" She was obviously smiling, but I could hear some compassion in there, too.

I realized her humor had some basis, and it broke over me. I surprised myself by bursting out laughing, more jovial than I actually felt, "HA! Yeah, well. Not really, what's to say. You all are freaking gorgeous, and I'm the only guy in there, and ... you're naked, and..." I gave up. I couldn't explain.

She laughed too, and we walked back to the hab, talking about other stuff, like the way the bidet part of the toilets had nice warm water. Obviously, she'd found the temp handle before I did.

We got back near the hab, and I said, "Hey, can we stop for a minute?"

"Sure."

I stood there, and leaned up against a cold granite pillar. I had to change the subject. We both knew why we were waiting. I didn't want to go into the hab with the giant tent-pole gracing the front of my towel.

She seemed to understand this conundrum, and said, "So...What do you do in real life?"

"I'm a geologist. I just got my master's. I can tell you everything you'd ever want to know about this rock right here. It's granite. If you start with lava, then it cools, that basalt. If you push basalt underground and melt it again, like at a plate boundary, and it crystalizes as it cools. That's granite. The white is quartz crystals - more or less pure silicon dioxide - and the black is feldspar."

"It makes pretty countertops."

"Yeah, and it's pretty sturdy, but it's a hard rock to try to mine or dig tunnels in. I have no idea how they built this place, it's huge. It's so beyond huge it would have taken them a decade to hollow out a tiny part of this place, just the sections we've seen, never mind the tunnel we took on the way in here."

"Oh." She was listening, but really trying to figure me out, I could see.

I looked down, my boner had subsided, so I said, "Okay. Thanks. Let's go."

She nodded slightly and we walked on.

Other Arrivals

When we got back, we walked in to find another two new habmate arrivals, and introduced ourselves. Amber (5'0", brown hair, blue eyes, VERY buxom) and Kim (tall, 6'1", black hair, thinner, close-in A-cup chest, dark eyes, Hispanic) had walked in almost together. This was a study in contrasts - Amber was short, shy, and buxom, Kim was quite tall, thin, and reasonably outgoing, but with a real take-charge attitude. They were in the front bedroom and Jo was giving a tour. After we said hello and shook hands, we both took our leave quickly.

I closed the back-bedroom door behind us. We both stood there for a minute; I realized we'd have to dress in front of each other.

Dana said, "Listen, I..." She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

I was looking around, trying to figure out if there was a way around this.

She said, "Okay. So, we've seen each other naked now, right? And, we're going to be in the same bedroom for a couple of months at least, right? So, you're going to see me naked, I'm going to see you naked, we're going to have to get over this."

I nodded, and said, "...Yeah. True enough. Uh, I'm sorry if I'm upsetting you."

She looked confused, then laughed, and said, "Wow! Ha, I'm ... not upset by your being naked. I'm... more used to being a private person, I guess. I wasn't ever really nude that much around my boyfriends, either, we just didn't... It was mostly under the covers."

Shrugging, I said, "Oh. Okay. Well, I'm not that shy, but, like, there's this no-fraternization thing, and the no-harassment thing, and I don't want to get in trouble, I need this sort-of-job a LOT, and ... I don't want to mess it up."

Her eyes flared, "I KNOW, right? So, I guess, well, you can relax, then, 'cuz there's no way I'm going to, there's no way I can, report you for being naked in our, your... this bedroom. Really, 'cuz, like, I'm going to be naked, too? Plus, you know, like, the showers, right? I think they must think we have no modesty or anything."

"Yeah." There wasn't arguing with that logic. We were facing each other, not at angles. I was really self-conscious, but then it occurred to me she must be, too. Aligned with each other, we both had our arms crossed, which I realized, so I shifted to scratch my stomach, then my arms dropping to my sides, opening myself up, sort-of, physically. But, it was also an emotional opening up action, I thought. Her arms, likewise, dropped, as she noticed what I was doing. Obviously, we were both thinking about each other's body language, like it was a thing, hanging in the air between us.

She spoke first, again, "So." Her face screwed up a little with a half-squinted questioning eye, "Are you going to go first now, or am I?" She smiled. Really, it was more a combination halfway-smirk and mischievous grin.

"Uh? Same time?"

She was inquiring, then, genuinely wanting to know, "Are you going to look at me?" It seemed like she was encouraging me to say yes.

I decided to be truthful, "I... I might. I'm not going to try to, but... I might look. I don't think I can avoid it here. Can... can I look at you? Like, Look AT you? Then, like, it'll be... fair, I guess, if you look at me, and we'll... not have this thing going on?"

She nodded, considering the idea, "'S'pose so. You look, I look, then we get dressed."

"I'll try not to be creepy." I laughed.

She laughed back, "Uh, ... Okay?"

"On 3."

She counted, "1... 2... ... ... 3." She pulled her towel off, and stood there. I pulled my towel off at the same time, holding it by my side. I looked at her eyes, she looked at mine. I let my eyes drift south, and looked at her neck, arms, then her boobs (oh wow!). My breath sucked in a bit as I beheld her, and I might have said something. Looking down, I was forcing myself to go slowly and take in what I was seeing.

I saw her bush, her athletic build, her strong legs and tight abdomen... she was gorgeous!

Really, that was a profound Truth, a mathematical fact. She was totally, freakin' gorgeous. At the top of her legs, her small mons was mostly hidden by overlong pubic hair that still looked a bit wet.

My eyes returned to her boobs. I stared at them for a minute, then glanced up at her face. There were tears in her eyes, but she was smiling at me. I was concerned all of a sudden, and said, "Uh, did I ... why are you crying?"

She shook her head, "No, not crying. Happy. That's one of the nicest compliments I've ever had."

I was confused. "What?"

"You looked at me. You said, 'wow'. More than that. Your eyes said it, too. That was... a really good compliment."

I shrugged, "Sorry... I mean, thank you, or.. you're welcome, or.. whatever."

We didn't say anything for a couple of seconds. I looked into her eyes, and she into mine.

She started smiling more broadly, and kind of nodded in a chin-thrusting sort of way, "It's nice. Thank you... And, I can say..." she looked down my body slowly, and up again to my eyes, "... You have a pretty nice body yourself. Very athletic. I think we were all working out a lot."

I wanted to look more.

My eyes went down, again, and I stared at Dana's boobs. Her areolae were relatively small, but on the upper part of the breast, 'looking up' so to speak. They were pinkish and slightly puffy, standing proud of the rest of the breast. Small dimples dotted around the nipple, and even some vanishingly tiny blond-ish hairs. The nipples were both very prominent, in the cool air, little nubbins, a small indentation in the left one.

Across the top of her chest, it looked like there was a flush-red, like getting red in the face only on her chest. Being that her breasts were both pretty large, they were firm and round and stood well away from the slight undulations of her ribs below.

Her forearms, by her sides, had the slightest suntan, but breast skin was much brighter white, almost pale.

I could even see a network of blue lines under the skin where veins in the breast spread out. It made me want to feel for a pulse, to hold on to them, to touch the softness of the skin.

I think I licked my lips slightly.

Coming back to myself slightly, I glanced down and saw my cock had again grown, sticking out from my body at more than half mast this time. I looked back up at her, at her eyes. She was watching my face.

She said, "I ... I think we'd better get dressed now."

I took a long deep inhaling breath that caught a little. "Yeah. Probably."

Turning to our open cabinets, we started dressing. In one cubby of mine were new packages of boxer-briefs, so I tore one open and put a pair on. Glancing over, I saw Dana was doing the same thing with some underwear of her own, and then a new package of jogging bras.

The new bra turned out to be somewhat on the small side for her, I couldn't help but notice.

She said, sarcastically, "Great. I'm going to have to see if someone wants to trade." She tugged at the jogbra, trying to get it to fit better. "This isn't a good solution, long term. Still, for tonight, it's better than the dirty clothes I've been in for the past week."

"No doubt," I agreed, before noticing how her boobs were coming out of the top a bit. "On the plus side, it makes your... cleavage look really sweet!?!"

She chuckled, putting on a plain black T-shirt, "Thank you, sure, but I'm not trying to look sweet. I'm trying to be comfortable."

We both unwrapped packages of sweat pants and socks, and then found we had several pairs of 'Crocs' sandal-shoes. I put on a pair, dark blue. "Better than shoes for here, maybe?"

She agreed, 'Crocs aren't my first fashion choice, but around here, probably a good option. Everybody here has them now, so that makes them 'in style' automatically."

Closing our cabinet doors, we walked back towards the door, Dana leading the way, me right behind her. Suddenly, though, right before she opened the door, she stopped and turned around. I almost bumped into her. As she turned to face me, I smelled her hair, like the soap we'd used and nice enough after the shower. I started to back up a bit, but I was off balance. She was nearly my height; her face was right close to mine. She said, in a whisper, her head angled slightly down but her eyes looking deeply into mine, "One more thing." She leaned in and kissed me on my right cheek, softly, kind of slowly, taking a full 2 or 3 seconds to do it. Our faces were touching. I closed my eyes and felt it, and smiled.