Hartan Expanding Ch. 03

The last field was the Epkey rating for us as a couple. We'd covered IEPCI-7 ratings ('intellectual / emotional / personality compatibility index') in sex class; it was cool to see them in real life.

Looking through an algo's list was kind of surreal, and I wondered if some coding guru just gave up and made matches based on shoe size. Really, I didn't know lots of the names of the first 100 or so listed people but lots of their faces were familiar.

Too soon, the class period ended and I had to get to my next one, which was always quite fast-moving, followed by lunch.

Sitting down at a table in the warehouse space they had us in, I was going to open up the app again, but found my lunch table spontaneously fill up the rest of the way with girls that I vaguely recognized. We all chatted about various things, like Antarctica and Mali, and what was happening in Japan.

One girl, Nina, had a housemate that was Japanese. She'd said that boats had carried fleeing Japanese people to Okinawa first, filling up the tiny island, and then many boats arrived to take them to all other points. The thing was, the Hartan ship had turned north and flattened Hokkaido, then went north to Kamchatka, using a bunch of time to wipe out uninhabited islands.

The explanation was it the pattern had started on the mainland and continued at sea. Mostly indecipherable, sometimes small sections of Hartan paths were predictable. Maddeningly, these guesses were only right about 20% of the time.

The UNCHC on Okinawa, meanwhile, had put everyone through various tests before sending specific people to specific places. Young women, or people with exceptional skills or scientific knowledge-bases, headed to suburban or urban US destinations. Most open slots were in Australia, Canada, or of all places, Costa Rica, who would take everyone who was willing to work with laser drills.

The rumor was that laser drills could make you sterile if you used them too much, the problem being they had power supplies that leaked x-rays from the high energy electron guns. It was low level enough to not kill you, but you'd give up having kids to be safe in the mines. The debate at the table was over how you could get through the emotional loss of never having kids if it meant surviving yourself, and if the ethical imperative to save everyone around you would override your own sense of self-preservation and maternal instinct.

The 'feeling maternal' debate hadn't previously been a common topic; I was asked my position, as a guy.

I wondered aloud if guys were headed into that kind of a hellhole situation, maybe they'd be allowed to contribute sperm to a sperm bank in case things ever got better. Mindy, a friends of Nina's, said that if the guys could save off sperm for later, then it was their responsibility to do that and cut more holes to save people in.

They looked at me as if to get confirmation that I would sacrifice my ability to have kids in order to save many other people. I said, "I could easily say yes now, but I think, facing a deep dark hole and probable cancer, I'm not going to make that call. I can't second guess anybody on that one. It's an emotional thing, it's not just an even trade or a simple thing. Self-sacrifice is easier said than done, I think. I'm not doing that here. I don't know if I'm that strong. I might be, but I might not be."

Nina picked this up, and said, well, she didn't know either, but that she hated the idea that if she was in a mine, she'd probably never get to run outside again, and she loved running in the trees, fast, alone, and away from people.

This struck me as an interesting idea, if she was going to go offworld, whether she'd be able to do that, and she said, sure, if she was on Mars, they had set up an indoor track to run on, or she could run outside with a proper suit on. Mindy talked about liking doing volleyball, or gymnastics, and that there would always be space for stuff like that even if the gravity was a lot less, because there were always strength and stamina moves.

This conversation degenerated into a 'My sport is better than your sport' motif and luckily, the lunch end bell sounded. Remembering quickly, I set my device to capture all the IDs of my lunch companions so I could look them up later.

Alissa, in biochem, greeted me as I sat down later, and had a congratulatory tone. "So, you signed into 18Club and looked around, I see."

I raised an eyebrow, "You know these things?"

"I'm alerted when you do significant things. It's a precaution, since you only have one handler and you're so new. I was happy to see you didn't dive into the deep-dark quickly; it can be tempting."

"Huh?"

"There are ways to get info on people, as a guy, that girls aren't allowed to get, and even though I know that you have access to it, it still kind of freaks me out a little."

"Like?"

"If you don't know yet, I'm not going to tell you. Ask me next week. In the meantime, I also was encouraged," she smiled at me and nodded appreciatively, "You didn't immediately counterreport." Seeing my confusion she continued, "The lunch line thing. The temptation, you must have seen the button to 'add statement' to the incident?"

"Sure, but I figured it was 2 years ago and nobody cares."

"Right thing to do, wrong reason. People do care. You have additional file entries that you're not allowed to see but I am, and they show you did some really kind things later, in relation to that incident, which were noticed."

I thought for a minute. I remembered finding out about her dad at some point, and having some kind of a side conversation with her, and a hug or something. Then, we got interrupted and I didn't see her for a long time. Come to think about it, I don't think I'd seen her since then. I decided not to bring it up with Alissa. When people disappeared, you usually didn't ask too many questions.

"No response to that, Kevin?" She looked at me, wondering what I'd say.

"I'm not sure I remember enough to discuss anything." I ducked the question, obviously, and she dropped it. Getting out her lab notebook, we continued the chem lab work.

In our workout, I felt tense and added some yoga moves in between weight sets, but even that didn't cut it, so I put the treadmill to 'intervals' mode, high-incline/high-speed. I wasn't the only one; most of the people around me were working harder, from stair climbers to gymnastics strength moves like L-sits, planks, etc. I knew, just being a guy, I had more testosterone and could build muscle mass faster than the girls around me doing this stuff. It didn't matter.

After that, I went over to the mats where people were doing isometrics. I joined in and did some L-sits, Chinese push-ups (handstand-headstand-handstand), one-legged squats, and some other stuff like that - I wanted to get a good workout. I recognized some of the people around me from when I'd briefly tried doing pole vault.

The pole vault team, both guys and girls, generally consisted of a large group of people who could climb rope upside down faster than I could right side up.

After workout, I hit the showers quickly and on my way out passed a fellow runner friend of mine, and asked him on a whim (since I knew he was older) where a good place to take a girl out on a date was. His reply was, "Take some pencils and paper to a park. Sketch things. Share the pics. It's a cheap date. Nowhere to go anyway, might as well."

He had a point, so I set a reminder for 3 weeks past the first night with Maria to do that very thing.

At dinner, some other girls joined me, and I generally figured out I wasn't going to be eating alone again unless I took my meals somewhere else. I didn't know them much, either, but they wanted to know me, and practicing my ability to have a cogent conversation while talking with beautiful girls was always a worthy activity.

Last class was history, and in the middle of researching and summarizing the Iliad's deliberate overuse of minor-character deaths, I realized the teacher had left the room. It wasn't that unusual, but in this case, she came back with 3 Japanese-looking girls, all very much younger, about 5 or 6. All looked so utterly worn out they were stumble-walking. Showing them in, she said, "Anyone speak Japanese?"

A girl in the back said 'hai' (yes), and went up to the front. The teacher told her, 'Translate', then said to the class, "These 3 are new here. They just lost just about everything. They're wearing everything they own. The City Manager asked me to see if anyone could volunteer to host them, just for tonight. They'll be assigned quarters in the morning, but we have so many people coming in right now there's no room in temp quarters."

The teacher turned to the kids and waited for the translation, then said, "Are you kids related?"

The question was met by them looking at each other and saying, "No. We met last night on the train." They looked up at her. She asked their names and got them.

I knew mom had shown up with some that morning, and I also knew that dad would have volunteered already.

Across the class, I saw the girl I'd met at lunch, Mindy, raise her hand and said, "We have floor space. Dad's office downstairs has a carpet, that'd probably work. I can't promise longer, though, it's up to my mom and dad."

The teacher said, "Just one, or all 3?"

Mindy smiled, gathered her bag and coat, and said, "All three is fine." Walking up to them, she had the girl translate instructions, "You'll sleep at our house tonight. Just for tonight. Things will be better tomorrow. Follow me closely." The look of relief on the little girl's faces was amazing to see, despite the grime and long dirty hair obscuring the view.

No girl in our school had hair longer than about 8 or 10 cm. As they walked out, I realized that's the last time those girls would have long hair in a very, very long time. It made me wonder why they even had it to begin with, how could they ever have kept it clean.

Mindy left with them, and the teacher dismissed us early, saying we all probably had new housemates, there were a lot of refugees in town today. We packed and left, each of us unsure what was waiting at home, if quarters would be even more cramped than before.

== Chapter: Rearrangements ==

Maria and I got home to find that not only did we now have the 4 new people I'd seen that morning, but also had 2 more that mom had taken during the day. That made 23 people in a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house. Granted, the basement was unfinished, dry and mostly warm, but we didn't have sleeping bags, mattresses, or anything to help the new folks with.

The introductions were made as we all came in from school, and each person said their name and age. Mom took a permanent marker and started writing on the front of the refrigerator. She wrote her name and birth year, then dad's, then my sister's and mine, and kept going, filling up most of the freezer door. We didn't have any food in there, and it was unplugged, but it was a useful surface, and a reminder that once upon a time the kitchen had been useful.

Mom brought out a piece of paper, then, and said, "Bed Reassignment." On it, she'd named rooms for people, and that included 5 people in my room. Mom looked at Maria and me and said, softly, "Sorry, honey, Maria, privacy is hard to justify in the face of a hard floor and an empty bed."

We nodded, resigned to it, and went in to get changed. Not everyone spoke English yet, but a memory name-game in the living room solved that, even for the little ones.

Maria and I had put our coats and packs in our room, and when we went back there after the game, we found that the demographics of the room were different. Instead of two people in the bed below us, there were three.

Everyone was getting ready for bed, and the bathroom was busy. A long time ago, Dad had built an emergency latrine in the backyard, when the power outages had gotten bad. It consisted of a trench about a foot deep, and a 4x4 wood railroad tie held up on either end with a cinder block. Fast, he said, but efficient. A set of plywood panels leaned up between two barrels on 3 sides (plus the shed for a 4th wall) made it 'private', even if there was space for multiple simultaneous users.

I didn't enjoy going out there to poop, but there weren't any other options. Peeing was easy, everyone was allowed to sit on (or aim from) the side of the bathtub for that. But, for poop, it was the very-busy toilet or going outside.

Using the hose to wash off the railroad tie 'seat' was a chore someone did regularly, though I didn't use the latrine often enough to keep track of that.

The bathroom line was long, so we brushed teeth in the kitchen sink and headed for bed, early again. Water barely came out of the kitchen sink faucet. I figured we'd hit a limit on water usage, and all of the new people needed to get clean.

The other beds were full already, and I climbed in mine, glad to have a place to sleep in the new arrangement, it bothered me that I was going to be missing out on Maria and all the sorts of things we'd been doing.

Propping myself up on one arm, about to turn off my dim bunk-light, looked over at Maria. "Hey."

"Hey."

"You should know, Kev, I have plans for tonight."

I thought about that. I knew what that meant. Sex. More than that, First Sex. First Sex Ever. EVER. Sex. SEX! "Uh, I think I'm just about perfectly 100% yes, okay, sure, no problem, in agreement with that idea."

Maria looked at me sideways slightly, still smiling, "Maybe also for a lot of nights, for a few weeks. After that, things will have to change."

I glanced around me, "Can you say that out loud? Who is 18Club here?"

She snorted a bit, "Everyone in this room is 18Club. Your mom couldn't very well put some 7 year olds in here and have them watch us pounding away, could she?"

"I think there's a lot of one-room houses in the world, that there always have been, and that modern ideas of keeping things secret is probably a new invention, comparatively."

"Yeah, probably right, but not here, thankfully. Stat those girls. They're 18 and the other 19. One is fresh from Japan, the other has been here a while. Under me, she just turned 22, but doesn't speak English so she'll have remedial language classes, all ages at once at school. I think she's figuring it out, they all are. By this time tomorrow, everyone will know what's what, in reasonable detail."

"So... we're clear for tonight?"

"Sure. We can do whatever. We're supposed to. They'll have to get used to it eventually. Ohira is listening right now, her eyes were open a second ago. There's no secrets here."

We talked about the arrangements some more. The double bed idea would lead to (for them) someone sleeping on the crack between mattresses. We decided to separate the beds, so there were 4 sleeping areas.

I thought it would be easier said than done, but the bolts came out quickly without tools. They were just finger-tight. All of us helped, pushing the beds against opposite walls again.

After she did, she explained to Ohira (who spoke English the best) that each person was going to get a bed, and that 2 in a bunk wasn't needed anymore. Maria also explained that we were boyfriend-girlfriend handler-handle, and that the cost of sleeping in the room with us was some occasional sex noise.

Some rapid-fire Japanese ensued, and some obviously startled words that translated to 'oh my god' and 'in the same room' and 'now?', more or less. Ohira explained to her bedmate Sahko, who got up and gave me a hug and then they both bowed at us, followed quickly by a hug.

Consuella got the gist of this, too, though her English was more broken. Maria switched to rapid-fire Spanish, which turned into rapid-excited-happy Spanish, including some hugs and some 'Dios Mia!' exclamations, too.

Everyone settled into bed, Maria turned to me and said in clear English, loud enough for everyone to hear, "That bunk is now our bunk together, to share. Let's get up there and have some really good Sex, right now."

My eyes got a little big, and I made a shocked face that was half-seriously shocked, but then I hammed it up and pretended surprise. "Shocked! I'm shocked, I tell you, to learn that this is the kind of thing that might be happening! Wow!"

Consuella had just enough English to laugh, and both Ohira and Sahko were giggling a little, too. My voice, tone, and pantomime fake-overreaction was funny without needing translation.

Maria walked to the ladder, but before she ascended, she told me to grab the towel behind me. "And, lose the clothes." She stripped off her shirt and underwear, and looked at me. The over-bunk light was still on, and people would see me naked. I had a bit of a stiffie already, in anticipation of things, but I guessed it didn't matter too much. I shrugged, handed her the towel, and pulled off my t-shirt and underwear, too. The tent pole became just the pole.

After she got up the ladder and I was climbing, I said, being silly, "Oh, and, please be gentle? I'm fragile and easily frightened."

Everyone in the room laughed (after translation), some more quietly than others.

== Chapter: First Time ==

Under the covers with Maria, settling in, she turned out the bunk light, and we heard covers shifting. I doubted anyone would be getting to sleep very soon -- certainly not me. Maria put her arms around me and started kissing me, somewhat passionately. Our tongues danced in my mouth and then hers for a while, as my hands roamed her body, pressing in on the small of her back and pulling her towards me, then on top of me.

Maria grunted into my mouth as her legs scooted over my cock and it settled in between us, pressed up against her abdomen. She shifted upwards so she was straddling my abdomen, and leaned up, pushing a breast into my mouth. She gave instructions, 'round-under inward, long fat slow', which I followed. At the same time, my other hand had reached underneath to rub up the back of her thigh and try to reach her sex from behind.

As my fingers rubbed along her slit, I felt moisture already, and made an Mmmm sound, which she echoed back at me. Taking both hands, I grabbed her butt and squeezed both ass cheeks, pulling them apart, then rubbing my fingers down, I pushed along her labia until I grazed her clit, just barely. I was trying to do with my fingers what I'd done with my tongue the previous night, but it didn't directly translate.

Maria sat up, pushing the covers back, and moved up my body, arranging her legs so she was sitting on my face but looking down at me.

The view up her body was great!

Mostly I was stuck underneath her mons at the top of her cleft, getting my jaw open and tongue moving, setting her up and starting with the same sorts of things I'd tried before.

Given her shifting and the meager light, I couldn't quite get good views of her face, but when I did tilt my head up, she was mostly leaning on the wall and breathing hard with her eyes closed.

This, I understood!

She asked, in whispered instructions, for some slight changes, and I was happy to comply since if she told me what to do, YES, I could do that.

Her moans went from barely-audible to plainly obvious, and then, suddenly, I could tell she was there, so I sucked in and licked right on her clit. She groaned deeply and shook, holding the wall for support.

Her low volume was kind of impressive, actually, given how hard her body shook.

After the convulsions died down a bit, I started licking again - which surprised her but she didn't move away and I was happy to keep going.

It wasn't long before I got her to the same place as before, just for a more extended orgasm than the first one, complete with echoes of shaking-pause-shaking-pause as some kind of waves of pleasure went though her.

It absolutely kicked ass!