Out in the Black Ch. 03

This is a book-length work, so not every chapter will involve sex. If you're just looking for a quick wank, this probably isn't your story.

Thanks for reading!

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Being alone in the captain's office led to me pacing the small space, twitchy and unsure about my next actions. Did I stay and watch? Or did I go back to work? I knew the latter was out - there was no way I was focusing on even the mindless duties I had on the Marzi in my current state. "Fuck it," I muttered, thumbing the lock on the door. Such a simple action and, had Cap bothered to do it, I wouldn't even have been in this situation in the first place.

I sat behind the console and keyed in the code that labeled the current feed as secure. As irritated as I was with the captain, I didn't want him humiliated in front of the XO. Now I was sitting in front of the only display that could receive the feed. The XO probably had better things to do than flip through the camera views, but better safe than sorry was the attitude that had kept my ass flying all these years and I wasn't about to abandon it now.

While I waited for the captain to show, I stuck the cargo hold feed in a corner and took a look at what he'd been watching before. If I ignored that it was me I was looking at, it was pretty hot. Kells was really showing off her assets (pun intended) and I didn't look so bad either. I was looking into the camera and it was pretty clear I was enjoying myself. I guess I could see how a guy could get a little turned on watching. Then again, that was the problem: he had been watching.

My emotions were all tangled up. I was pissed, sure, but I was also embarrassed, both about being seen like that and also because I remembered what I'd been thinking about just then. It was that last part that bugged me the most, much as I hated to admit it.

A flicker of motion caught my eye and I enlarged the camera view so it covered the display once again. Cap glanced at the camera before walking a couple of circuits of the alcove, studying the surrounding crates and looking around their edges, presumably to make sure he was alone. I'd picked that location deliberately, knowing it would be hard to sneak up on someone there, even if they were distracted. But it was still not private. I wanted to see how committed he was to making things right.

Turns out he was fully committed. He had lost his erection while making his way through the ship, and his nerves were clearly doing a number on him, so it took him a bit to get warmed up. He wore the same shit as the rest of us and, similar to about half the crew - including yours truly - he tended to only wear the bottom of his jumpsuit, belting it around his waist and letting the top half hang. Since the black undershirt was sleeveless, this left his arms bare and it would be a lie if I said I hadn't admired them once or twice. My self-imposed rule didn't say nothing about looking, after all.

Cap leaned against crates nearly the same color as our slate jumpsuits and dropped his head back, eyes closed. I wondered what he was thinking about. Was he remembering watching me and Kells or was he just pissed at me for putting him in this situation? Or maybe he wasn't thinking about me at all; I'd seen the kind of people he'd had as dates and there was plenty there to put a man in the mood. After a few moments, his right hand came up and he lifted his shirt so he could kind of rub his palm back and forth over his belly, showing me a bit of his warm brown skin. His left hand slid up and down the outside of his leg. Leaning back into his chair, I yawned and stretched my legs out in front of me. He was gonna hafta do better than that.

As if he'd heard my thought, his left hand started moving across his leg, each pass taking him closer to his dick. Was he teasing me or himself? Not that I'd ever ask. He reached his destination and I could see the bulge growing in his pants. He stayed like that for a bit, slowly rubbing himself through the front of his jumpsuit. It got to me more than I expected and I had to make some minor adjustments, but it was nothing I couldn't handle.

Then he opened his eyes. Cap looked directly at the camera as he unfastened his belt and unzipped his jumpsuit just a little bit more. I took a shuddery breath and realized I'd stopped breathing completely there for a few seconds. Looking away from the screen was not an option; something in the captain's gaze held my eyes. I was starting to maybe understand a bit more about the whole scene I'd walked in on earlier. Knowing he knew I was watching made it even more intense.

The black undershorts were pulled down and the movement dragged my eyes away from his. Again I had to remind myself to keep breathing. I hadn't really gotten a look at what the captain was packing earlier, but somehow I wasn't surprised that his dick was as beautiful as the rest of him. What was unexpected, though, was the complete lack of hair. I could see him from belly button to mid-thigh and it was all completely smooth. Made me feel a bit self-conscious about all my fur, but hell, apparently he thought it was hot. Not that his opinion mattered, of course.

Cap started stroking himself and, after meeting those blue eyes again, I was a goner. Fuck me. There was no fighting it, so I just gave in and started jerking myself. After a bit, I could see his chest moving and tell that he was starting to breathe pretty hard, all the while staring at me through that damn camera, biting his lip. Can't deny it was sexy as hell. I imagined running my tongue across that lip, sucking it gently into my mouth, and then mentally slapped myself. I wasn't about to start wanting this guy: breaking my rule would be bad enough, but doing it with the captain of my ship was just about the worst idea I could imagine. I could look, enjoy this little show, and that was it. We'd be even and things would go back to normal.

Coming back from my little distraction, I noticed that the captain was getting damn close. His head was back and his eyes were half closed, but he was still fucking looking at me, lips parted, the bottom one swollen from the earlier pressure of his teeth. As I watched, he swept his tongue across it. I groaned and my hand sped up. A few seconds later, he stiffened and thrust his hips forward. He had turned his body a bit and his first shot hit one of the crates on the side of the little alcove. The next didn't go quite as far, coming down on the floor near the magnets. Three more in quick succession painted the floor in front of him. I could hear myself gasping as he finished, his hand squeezing his shaft from base to tip and pushing out a last bit to land on the floor at his feet. His thumb brushed across the head, gathering a final few drops. Eyes on the camera, he licked and sucked his thumb clean.

My balls tightened and I felt the dam break. I pushed to my feet at the last second as my orgasm rushed through me. Bracing myself with one hand on top of the display, I shot my load on his screen, then dropped back into the chair and gave myself a minute to catch my breath. Realizing I couldn't see Cap on the screen anymore, I decided it was time to get the hell out. The nanites in my spunk were already doing their work, breaking down the cells and vaporizing the lot so it could be pulled into the enviro system and recycled. It was kind of gross when you thought about it, so I tried not to. The present I'd left for the captain was noticeably shrinking, but I figured there'd still be enough when he got back for him to get the idea. If not, fuck it. Leave him guessing.

It probably broke about a thousand rules, but I decided to take the shortest route to my quarters. That meant going through the captain's room. It only took a second: I slid down the ladder and, two steps later, the door was hissing open and I was walking down the corridor like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. As I slipped into my quarters, I realized I had completely forgotten to address what took me to the captain's office in the first place. The shock of catching him in the act had blown it clear out of my mind. It could wait. Nothing short of a life or death emergency was taking my ass back up there tonight.

Waking up after a shitty night of sleep filled with weird, twisting dreams of chasing and escaping, I lay in my bunk and groaned loudly. I'd thought it would feel balanced, like we each got a show and that was that. Maybe it was because I hadn't talked to him, there hadn't been closure, but everything felt severely out of whack. I needed to see the captain, to discuss the new fuel mix I wanted to try and see if he needed me to do anything specific that day, but facing him was the last thing I wanted to do. I'd never been especially shy, but I'd also never traded jerk-off sessions with my captain before. And I hadn't been lying when I told Kells he was beautiful. It wasn't fair that any person should look so perfect and I hated to admit I found it a bit intimidating.

"Balls," I muttered, forcing myself out of my bunk. I'd go talk to the man, keep it completely professional, and if he couldn't do that, it was on him. He'd get the hint soon enough or, well, I hated to think of leaving the Marzi already, but nothing was making me stay. I knew my skills would be welcome on most any ship, and they'd be needed on most more than they were here. My girl was in spectacular shape and she'd spoiled me just a bit; I did hope Cap would see reason.

I considered breakfast, but those nerves I was pretending I didn't have were making my stomach churn and the idea of adding food to the mix wasn't appealing. Hesitating in front of the door to the captain's office, I debated whether or not to knock. Giving some warning seemed safer, though I couldn't imagine he'd risk getting caught again, but still - I rapped my knuckles against the door, then palmed the panel after he responded.

I stopped just inside the door and, after it closed behind me, I leaned against it with my arms crossed. It was a pretty small room, so staying back didn't put a lot of space between us, but I was hoping the message would be clear.

"Oh, hey," he said casually. "I actually have something interesting for you today." Cap turned his screen so I could see it and opened a report that held a series of scan results. "There's some loose plating in the crawlspace in D quadrant. I've been watching it for a while," he explained, running his finger along a line on the display, "but now it's started to cause some wear on the underlying cables. It's nothing critical, and on an older ship it probably wouldn't even make the list, but since the Marzi hasn't given you much trouble yet, I thought you might feel like checking it out."

It seemed the captain was of a like mind, acting normal and keeping things all about the job. I relaxed a bit, enough to walk over and put a hand on the display, tilting it to better read the data. "Huh," I grunted, noting the uptick in contact points over the past eighteen hours. "Sure, boss." I stepped back and grinned. "Not that I don't appreciate what a good girl our Marzi is, but a bit of variety is nice."

"Just don't say that too loud or she may decide to give you a run for your money." Snorting a laugh, I started to turn toward the door. "And check your messages," the captain added quickly. I tensed again. "Morning ping flagged something for you." Most ships remained in relatively constant contact with the net, checking for news and correspondence regularly throughout the day. Ironically, considering the ever-present surveillance inside the ship, Marzi and her sister ships defaulted to privacy, with only a single passive ping to the communications network in the morning to receive anything that was waiting. Pushing anything out required approval from the captain or XO.

Rumor had it one of the Charisma ships, the Meringue Paradise, ran dark the entire time she was in the black. Her captain was some eccentric filmmaker named Viviendo and the word was he preferred to absorb information "naturally" when he docked somewhere. Of course, in his case, natural meant covering his body with some sort of reactive substance and standing naked in the chaos of the port, filming the way the assault on his senses painted his skin. I'd watched one of his pieces a few cycles back and it had been interesting for a minute or so to see the way the different colors representing sight or smell or whatever changed depending on what was happening around him, but overall I thought he just looked like a dumbass. Guess that's why I wasn't an artist.

"Rusty," Cap said, stopping me again as I reached for the door panel. Shit. I had been so close to getting out of there, but he was going to make shit weird. Smoothing the grimace off my face, I turned and raised an eyebrow in question. Cap stood, bringing him closer to my height, but I still had a good fifteen centimeters on him. I tried using that to my advantage, looming and putting off a don't fuck with me vibe. The captain tucked his thumbs in the pockets of his jumpsuit pants, clearly trying to seem relaxed. "Look, you're an incredible engineer - " An alarm blared in my head and I'm sure my panic was visible on my face. This wasn't at all what I'd expected. Anger threaded through the worry. He had started the whole thing and then he was going to fire me because of it? "Your no bullshit approach is one I appreciate and you're one hell of a fighter," he continued, sounding a little rushed. Maybe he was worried I was going to kick his ass. The thought had occurred to me.

He looked down and wiped his hands on his pants. It took serious willpower to stay still and silent. "You're also quite possibly the sexiest man I've ever met." Fuck me. There it was, getting fucking weird again. "But," he said, and I may have made a noise that sounded a bit like a growl - I just wanted off this ride. "And this is the important part - as hard as it would be to ignore that - and believe me, it's very hard." Okay, so I was still juvenile enough to smirk at that. Didn't mean I wanted to talk about whatever it was the captain had on his mind. "I can and will do so, one-hundred percent," he continued, "if doing otherwise means I lose the rest." I struggled for a bit, trying to parse his convoluted syntax. "What I'm saying is that you're a valued member of this crew and I don't want to fuck that up."

It would have been easier if he'd just said it like that in the first place. "I appreciate that, Cap. Is that it?" I kept my voice neutral, shoving all the chaos in my mind away to be dealt with later. Or, more likely, ignored. When the captain nodded, I tapped two fingers to my forehead in a mock salute and slipped out the door.

Fuck me. My guts felt like they were full of snakes as I made my way through the ship. As much as I joked about being bored on the Marzi because she was in such good condition, I liked my girl and wasn't ready to move on just yet. And when I did, I wanted it to be my choice.

Maybe I should have felt reassured by Cap's last statement, but something odd happened in my belly when I thought of what he'd said. Sure, I kept myself in shape, but there was no way I even made the top fifty men Cap knew, looks-wise. Him calling me the sexiest anything was so much bullshit. But knowing that ain't stopping the little twinge of whatever it was that grew each time I replayed those words in my brain. And for some reason, I couldn't stop them popping up over and over again. That shit right there was why I had my rule in the first place.

Not being a small guy by any measure, the maintenance shafts and crawlspaces in most ships were a tight fit. On a Charisma ship, they weren't even possible. For all the extra space and added comfort in the rest of my girl, the hidden areas had been ignored. Or maybe arrogance was to blame, figuring there'd be no need for fixing on such fancy ships. Most probably, the designers hadn't even thought about it. The types of people who created these boats and those of us who kept them flying weren't exactly of the same social class. With all the extra cabling that ran through the walls to make sure those damn cameras could capture every fucking second, the crawlspaces had been shrunk down until you would need a kid, maybe, or a small adult like the XO to get in there.

Luckily, the problem Cap pointed me to was behind a wall in the cargo hold instead of somewhere that dumping the atmo would be an issue. I shifted my shoulders uncomfortably, feeling the fabric of my jumpsuit pull at my arms. There was a reason I never zipped the thing all the way up. Under a vac suit, though, I couldn't have the extra fabric bunching around my waist. I could have stripped down to my skivvies, but the legs and sleeves of the vac suit weren't designed to go right against the body and I'd seen more than one wrench jockey grimacing in the med bay as the docs regrew skin that been ripped away after freezing to the suit. A bit of tightness across my chest and back was a small price to pay to keep my hide intact.

While I waited in the airlock for the atmosphere to vent, I checked to see who sent me a note. I didn't have no family and hadn't exactly been friends with anyone on my old crew, so my ties outside the Marzi were few and far between. With the list of possible suspects narrowed into the single digits, I wasn't exactly surprised when it turned out to be a message from Kells: one line saying she was glad to have run into me and then her direct contact ID on Luna. With ships, messages passed through a central mailbox before being sent out to their intended recipients. It made both security and resource management easier - at least, that was the way the suits explained it. There were all kinds of theories that went around about how governments or corporations or even aliens were using the system to spy on us, but I didn't much care. Other than the stuff I'd buried long ago, I didn't have nothing to hide.

D-tac IDs were what you'd see on stations or colonies. There, having everything come to one spot first would cause a massive backlog. Those without the resources for private streams still had to deal with the public queue, but anyone who could afford it got their own data dump. The benefit of needing to work in vacuum for this job was that I could hack the comm line in the suit to get around the Marzi's outbound restrictions. I didn't know if Cap was aware of the loophole or not, but I hadn't seen any reason to mention it to him just yet.

Lag time to Luna was just about twenty seconds, so I sent off a contact request as I stepped into the airless room and made my way between the crates of supplies, not really expecting to hear back immediately, but figuring it didn't hurt to try. Less than a minute later, as I was removing the second bolt on the wall panel, my comm light blinked. "Hey, fucker!" Kells said with a smile. "Didn't expect to hear from you so soon. Got Daddy's permission already?" I rolled my eyes and moved on to the third bolt. "What's shakin' on the Marzipan Dream?"

My reply was voice only. The vac suit had a camera in the helmet, but it just showed from the nose up and featured the forehead heavily. Nobody needed to sit there watching that. "In a vac suit - no permission necessary. The reason is that something was literally shaking in the wall, fraying the precious data cables from the cams." I sent the message and grunted with effort as I pulled the panel off and set it aside. I put one booted foot in the crawlspace, straddling the bulkhead, and squatted down to begin the process of removing the problematic section of plating as I waited for a response from Kells.

"Can't have that," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Speaking of Daddy and his cams, did Carolinas give you any shit for taking off with me?"