Every Man's Fantasy Ch. 15

"You know what's a good way to stay young?" he asked.

"No, what?" Mariotta said.

"To do again what you did when you really were young."

"Of course. What do you propose?"

He indicated his clothes cupboard, a small walk-in affair with its ceiling at a slope due to the second-story eaves (her own wardrobe was bigger than their bedroom).

"It's a bit like the cupboard under the stairs," he said.

Mariotta smiled.

"It's very cramped," she complained.

"That's the point, Darling."

Nathan had undressed down to his shorts and Mariotta had only her suspender belt and knickers to remove. He pulled her up and held her tightly as they kissed and he slipped his fingers into her knickers, finding her as responsive as always.

He gently pulled down her knickers and undid the suspender belt; then he led his beautiful wife into the cupboard and they fucked as forcefully and possessively as they had done fifty years before.

2 Japan

Next morning, Roger tied Danielle's wrists to her ankles, laid her on her front and spanked her until her bum was hot and red. Then he fucked her hard. She wailed delightedly. He did it again at lunchtime.

In the afternoon, Mariotta let the honeymooners join their relatives and friends for a late lunch. Danielle remembered to limp theatrically for her mother's sake but she yelped for real when she sat down. She and Roger shared a guilty smile.

After lunch and long sincere goodbyes (Danielle and Roger were not just going on honeymoon: they were emigrating), family and guests went home and Mariotta sent the young couple back to the lodge. They were too wrapped up in themselves to notice that Mariotta sported a crick in her neck and Nathan nursed a strained back. That morning, Danielle's parents had discovered the reason why cupboard sex is for teenagers.

All too soon the first part of the honeymoon was over. Mariotta released them early so she could spend the morning with Danielle, ostensibly to make sure she had packed everything but really to hold her daughter and kiss her whenever the mood took. Nathan was less demonstrative but just as affected. He held Danielle tightly and kissed her cheeks, damp with tears.

It was a prolonged tearful goodbye but, at last, Roger and Danielle were on their way to the airport. They held hands in the car, silent at first, then laughing together at nothing, just like they had when they were first in love.

At the airport, they checked their messages for the first time since before the wedding. There were hundreds of congratulations to acknowledge. Then Danielle had a good idea. Spurred by the coincidence that Yumi (the girl with whom Ezra had spent his last day on Capella Spaceport) had a Kyoto mailbox address and the head-office of HyperStar Japan, the engineering firm she was visiting, was near Kyoto, she took a chance and sent a message to Yumi, saying who she was and that she and Roger were on their way to Japan.

Missing her brother at her wedding, she thought it might be interesting to meet the last person he spoke to on Capella. Danielle kept her real motive safely hidden from her conscious self, which was that she was deeply worried about Ezra and fearful for his safety. It would be a comfort to talk to anyone who had seen him more recently than she.

It was a two-hour flight by stratoliner to Tokyo and, half-an-hour into the journey, Danielle's communicator buzzed. She read the message twice before showing it to Roger. It was from Hayate Takahashi of Kyoto. It said:

"Danielle Harcourt:

In this time of glorious heat...

Esteemed Madam,

It would be more honour than your humble servant deserves were you to reply to this missive with news positive regarding the whereabouts of your humble servant's beloved daughter, Beautiful, who has been missing beyond a year and two months.

Beautiful's father and mother, brother and sister bow to you and hope you will be moved by our overflowing tears to bestow good news upon your humble servants.

We wish you to enjoy the summer season...

High Bridge Smooth."

"High Bridge Smooth?" queried Roger.

"The idiot messaging program robotically translated the personal names along with the text," Danielle explained. "Look, Yumi's name means 'Beautiful'."

"Are you going to reply now?" he asked.

"I think I should, though I'm not sure what to say."

She read the message again and wrote an answer, saying she was sorry but she had no news of Yumi. She knew only that her brother and Yumi had been on Capella together. Danielle herself had hoped to speak to Yumi.

Fifteen minutes later, Danielle's communicator buzzed again. This time it was an incoming video call. She accepted the link and a young Japanese man's face appeared on the screen.

"Mrs Harcourt?"

"Yes."

"My name is Itsuki Takahashi. You honoured my family with a reply to my father's message."

The young man spoke quickly, in perfect English, with barely an accent.

"I hope you don't mind my intercepting your communication to my father but I have a good reason. Will you allow me to talk to you?"

"Of course."

"My father doesn't know that my sister went to Capella. He believes she's somewhere on Earth. I can't tell him the truth because I'm keeping a secret on her behalf."

"I understand, but what is the secret and do you know where Yumi is?"

"I don't know where she is. I am just as worried as my parents, though I know a little more than them. Please can we meet up and talk? Where are you staying? How long are you staying? Will you be visiting Kyoto?"

"Yes, we're visiting Kyoto. We're staying in Tokyo for three days, then we have a meeting with an engineering firm near Kyoto. We have another day after that before we leave Japan for Capella Spaceport."

"Ah! Can I see you in Kyoto? I can guide you to the best Temples and gardens."

Danielle consulted Roger and they agreed: they would meet Itsuki Takahashi at the Nanzen-ji Temple on the morning of their last day in Kyoto.

Thus resolved, the rest of the flight went quickly and soon they were in the vast Tokyo transport hub, trailing their suitcases and looking bewildered, not knowing what transport to take to their hotel.

There was a large choice: maglev trains, subway trains, levitating ground cars, air-shuttles and moving pavements. The bustle was amazing. People streamed constantly to and from the roadside pickups and train platforms, leaping onto moving walkways or squeezing into lifts to the airport or the subway.

Among the hurrying passengers and staff were robots - Japan's technological speciality - calmly giving directions or acting as porters, speaking hundreds of languages. Roger was about to join a queue to talk to a robot when Danielle grabbed his arm.

"Over here, Darling," she said confidently.

She led him up to a large gallery that opened onto the Tokyo skyline. Below were the maglev train-lines and roads that streamed out to the various districts of the city and beyond. At the edge of the gallery, beyond a row of booths, were launch-pads, where people stood on thick plastic cylinders, got their balance and floated out into the sky. Others floated onto the gallery, skidded to a halt and stepped off their cylinders.

"The air-jellies!" Danielle exclaimed. "We have to try them."

"What are they," Roger asked, hopelessly out-of-date with modern technology.

"Here, I'll show you."

They went to a booth, gave the destination and hired two of the larger cylinders that had room for their luggage. Danielle immediately got on her cylinder and felt the comforting embrace of the air-suit. The cylinder raised six inches off the ground and wobbled a little until she held her arms out to steady it.

"Get on Roger. This is going to be fun!"

"But what is it? What does it do?"

"Step on and I'll explain."

Roger stepped on and immediately felt a slight pressure on his thighs, chest and shoulders, as if soft invisible arms were holding him in place.

"It's an air-jelly. The cylinder levitates and takes you where you want to go and it keeps you in place by microwaves compressing the air around you. Try to move your arm, slowly."

Roger did so. It was like pushing against a soft pillow.

"Now try to move your arm quickly."

Roger found his arm held in place by a firm elastic.

"When we're moving, it's like being trapped in jelly. Very safe but exciting."

"You've done this before, Darling?"

"Never. I've only read about it. ... Now, are we ready to go? Just lean in the direction you want to go. You'll see a green light if you're going in the right direction and a red light if you're not."

Roger leaned gently forward and the cylinder levitated and began moving slowly. There was a ghostly green tinge to the air in front of him. Copying Danielle, he put his arms out about thirty-degrees to correct for a wobble at slow speeds.

They approached the launch-pad, preparing to leap into space on a plastic disc. It was a prospect Roger embraced only for the sake of his thrill-seeking wife.

"Are you sure it's safe, Darling?" he asked, peering tentatively over the rail of the gallery.

"Completely safe. Look at everyone coming in. There's nothing to worry about."

He could see air-jelly riders sporting in front of the gallery. It seemed to be the favoured kind of transport for young people. Boys were flying around at break-neck speed, standing on their hands or doing cartwheels, rushing toward each other and bouncing away at the last moment, grinding to a halt or hanging upside down just for fun.

At the launch pad, the air glowed red in front of them and they stopped to let some riders come in. It was a bunch of school-girls, sitting down on their cylinders, swinging vigorously from side to side before gliding in for a fast landing. They zipped past Roger and landed on the gallery, spinning and giggling. The girls leapt up and hugged each other - all except one, who sat on her cylinder with a flushed face and waved the other girls to help her. They giggled even more as they helped her up and formed a screen around her. She held her hands over the back of her short skirt.

Always the gentleman, Roger turned away, not wanting to add to the girl's embarrassment.

"Poor child," he said, "though I'm not surprised she wet herself."

"It's not that, I think," Danielle said. "Don't you know about girls and swings?"

"What about them?"

"That some girls get their first orgasms from a swing. I certainly did. We had a swing in the local park and, when Ezra was home from one of his trips, I used to make him take me to the park and push me on the swing for ages. He never knew why I liked it so much."

"That is charming and also faintly incestuous."

"Nonsense," Danielle laughed. "You can't have incest with a swing!"

The spot of air in front of them went green.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

"I suppose so."

"You're the one who made me ride in a motorcar, on the ground!"

Danielle emphasised the word 'ground'.

"But that was tried-and-tested ancient technology. This is new-fangled and strange!" he protested.

Danielle laughed at their opposite attitudes toward technology - him conserving the old, she embracing the modern - then she leant sharply forward and glided out over the gallery. Despite his reservations, Roger followed and they were off, floating over the Central Business District of Tokyo, along canyons formed by skyscrapers, expertly steered by the cylinders, tracking sideways to avoid other air-jellies and shuttles on the main routes.

It was evening and the famous lights of Tokyo flashed their bold colours over the towers. Some adverts dripped from the roofs of buildings and down their sides. Others were holographic projections into the air. Still other messages played tag with neighbouring buildings, flashing in sequence or disappearing on one side of the street to be taken up in front of another building on the other side. A glittering ticker-tape ribbon of news headlines and share prices kept pace with the air-shuttles along the highway, blinking as it updated its information from all over the world.

They landed at an air-jelly station on the roof of their ultra-modern hotel and were met by a robot to carry their luggage. The hotel manager booked them in and offered a choice between a robot maid and a human maid. In Tokyo, city of robots, they chose the robot maid.

Robo-geisha (as Roger inaccurately called it) had lifeless eyes and a fixed unsmiling face, but it was helpful, efficient and obeyed immediately. Roger thought its lack of expression was a general limitation of robots. But Danielle, who was generally sympathetic toward robots and computers, called robo-geisha 'she' not 'it'.

Robo-geisha shuffled around the room with dainty steps. It unpacked their bags, put away their clothes, offered to help them wash (which was declined) and, not being needed further, stood silently in the corner of the room, waiting until it could be useful again.

The hotel-manager gave excellent advice on where to eat and what part of the night-life to sample. His advice on site-seeing was skewed toward Danielle's desire to sample as much new technology as she could. Roger, of course, was interested in traditional Japan and historical Tokyo (of which there was little, except Shrines and Temples, that hadn't been rebuilt again and again). Thus they devoted the next three days to having fun in one of the most exciting cities on Earth.

The food was wonderful, as expected. The locals friendly and helpful. Most people spoke English: since Japan was affiliated to the Anglosphere, English was the language of commerce, science and international relations. They had no problem finding the tourist sites they wanted.

One highlight was on the afternoon of the second day, when they took a stroll through Akihabara, the technology district, so Danielle could have a good old geek-fest. The Nakatani Corporation, in a new building off the Boulevard, was more like an exhibition than a shop. Its flashing lights, its pretty greeters welcoming visitors and its promise of amazing new gadgets to play with brought customers by their thousands.

Danielle was at home here and even Roger, never one to take up an invention before it had been embedded in the culture for two-hundred years, was impressed by all the shiny gadgetry.

Holographic projectors beside the sales counters beamed adverts into the space directly in front of each customer. Danielle wiped them away with a wave of her hand as she approached the gaming zone, to immerse herself in the total-immersion computer games, leaving Roger to wander around on his own among the music-players, entertainment centres, communicators, cameras, vast display screens and electro-sporting goods.

None of these really interested him, however. Roger was drawn instead to the far end of the shop, where a troop of girls on a platform danced energetically to thumping pop-music under coloured strobe lighting. Though he didn't much like their style of dancing, which mixed jerky dance moves with ugly exercise moves - and he loathed the music - yet the girls were beautiful. They were athletic, flexible and seemed to be having genuine fun.

Roger watched the dancers for a while, as the crowds milled past. One dancer saw Roger admiring her and gave him a bright smile. When he smiled back she winked, which happened to be when Danielle found him and linked her arm in his.

"Darling," he said, "I know we've not been married long, but I have to leave you for a Japanese dancing girl."

"Oh! Which one?"

"Any of them, though the one nearest us just winked at me."

The same dancer span on a tip-toe, sending her short skirt flying up around her waist.

"Now she's showing me her panties," he added.

"Your problem, Roger, is you're too easily seduced. A big smile and a flash of knicker are enough to win you over."

"Nonsense! I recall we'd been dating at least a month before you showed me your panties."

"Well that's because I was well brought up. ... All right," Danielle kindly acquiesced. "I permit you one honeymoon fling - just so long as it's with a robot."

"A robot! Are these girls robots?"

"Of course. Didn't you know?"

"They're very lifelike."

"Humaniform robots are meant to be lifelike."

"Yes, but robo-geisha looks like a toy."

"I think that's deliberate, to cater for Western tastes. We're not used to perfectly life-like robots. Our robot servants look like vacuum cleaners with arms, not like people."

"Then I change my mind. I'll stick with my very non-robotic wife."

"Really, wouldn't you rather I was a robot? Then you could change my programming whenever you wanted - or replace my parts for better enhancements."

"No. I'd never change a single part of you, ever."

"That's sweet, Roger. ... Of course, I'd replace you with an android in a heart-beat."

Roger wisely ignored that crack.

"So how can you tell they're robots?" he asked.

"The girls must be super-athletes to dance like this for so long; but have you ever seen tits like those on a human athlete?"

The girls had big gravity-defying breasts that wobbled deliciously as they popped and gyrated on the stage.

"You know, I didn't even think of that," he admitted.

"Don't worry. You're a man. You'd have to stop drooling long enough to think."

"Come on," she added, pulling him by the arm. "Let's go upstairs."

"Are the games no good?"

"I couldn't get on them. It was too crowded."

"Pity. What's upstairs?"

"Industrial technology."

They took the lift up three storeys, past the home appliances, medical equipment and domestic transportation, to the top floor, which had trains, aeroplanes, ocean liners, air-shuttles, giant cranes, tunnelling machines, space-rigs and hyperspace beacons - if not the real-life items (because the shop was too small) then perfect scale models and holographic facsimiles.

Immediately in front of them when they stepped out of the lift was some familiar technology. A giant reinforced glass box contained riders on black cylinders who cavorted, gyrated and carelessly threw themselves about, bouncing harmlessly off each other and the walls.

"Air-jellies!" Roger said.

"Nakatani Engineering make them. Technically it's called Microwave Compressed-Air Technology. It has other applications, such as these ..."

Danielle led him beyond the air-jelly chamber to a row of upright cylinders, each about three feet across, reaching from floor to ceiling, with an oval aperture big enough to put an arm in. Forced air hissed around the cylinder, blowing warmly on the toes of those standing nearby. There was a green kettle weight on the floor, marked 'fifty kilograms'. Danielle waited her turn in the queue and then put her arm into a cylinder.

Dye had been added to the air for effect, so the compressed air around her forearm turned into a shimmering purple gauntlet. She grasped the fifty-kilo weight and threw it upward. The weight bounced on the top of the cylinder, thirty-feet above, and fell back. Danielle swiped her hand and caught it on the way down, holding it in an iron grip.

"Amazing," Roger said. "Just compressed air?"

"Go on, you try."

Roger had a go and was even more amazed. The microwave air-glove was instantly responsive to his movement, multiplying his strength dozens, maybe hundreds, of times.

"Can the air-glove be made into an entire suit that would work outside, like the air-jellies?" Roger asked.

"It can in principle, I think," Danielle answered cautiously, "but probably not in practise due to limits on miniaturisation and microwave power. The glove requires a constant supply of air and the air-jellies require external microwave beam-emitters."

"Do you know how they work?"

"Yes, it's simple technology. There are microwave emitters in this cylinder here and on buildings along the air-jelly routes. They beam microwaves that bounce off the skin or off the base-unit of the air-jelly. Where the waves are in phase, they compress the air, making a glove as strong as steel or the soft envelopes of the jellies."