Red Daddy: Ceres Station Pandemic

Privacy was a HUGE deal, and most people didn't give it up easily.

One of the reasons everyone wore standard uniform clothing was that it was deliberately opaque to optical, infrared, UV, and even mid-range light frequencies. The day was when you could scan what someone looked like through their clothes and build a 3-d model of them to have VR fun with. It was seriously an invasion of privacy, but I knew guys that mentioned 'knowing someone' who did it, which is to say, they did it and didn't want it to get around that they did, but they wanted to brag since it was "sexy".

If there was anything true onboard a tight-knit social group like Cerians were, it was that there were no big secrets that lasted long.

We were about to have very few secrets about what we looked like. I looked around and saw the faces all around indicated some measure of terror, though I didn't know for sure if it was the contagion or the prospect of being birthday-suited.

The teacher spoke up first. She said, "Suss-up. I'm level 7, general, no side-bumps." She was average and had no special qualifications like hazardous materials handling or field medic training. "...Anyone level 8 or higher?"

Now, I should mention that in high school classes, the teacher was almost always rated highest and therefore leader. But, by college, everyone had an alarm or lockdown rating that ranked them by competence, and it was all based on who knew the most about station engineering and safety protocols.

During drills (and we hadn't had one yet during sessions of that class), we found out who outranked whom and it was usually a fun surprise.

So far, 80% of classes or more had an uplevel student because I was taking engineering classes and that was part of the curriculum. Professors tended to have lower ones because they specialized in teaching and the subject matter.

All during this I was getting more and more nervous. I had an erection. I'd had one since that morning, and it wasn't going away. I wasn't sure about anyone else, but that was more about me than I wanted to reveal in an entirely different way.

My nervousness was my strong undertone. Things moved along quickly. We found our highest rated was Chohun, a senior in the engineering school. She took charge and had us separate to space ourselves out as much as possible, opposite sides of the classroom by gender, where we started taking off clothes.

Clearly and calmly, she ordered us to remove each garment so we'd go at the same speed, so it was fair, she said. We were to fold them neatly in a pile, also, so we didn't get confused over whose clothing was whose. That would risk someone getting an infected person's undergarments instead of their own.

On one level, I was terrified about several things at the same time. But, General Alarm things don't happen that often, and the circumstance made obeying rules an absolute. It was drilled into us that whatever was suss'up, the leader, we HAD to obey them, and it was a crime not to.

There was a level on which this was amusing, too. Chohun was always very OCD. She'd been the black-and-white good-bad dichotomy type forever, and I'd been in several classes with her so I had a sense of who she was. In a culture that values privacy, we knew a lot about each other, and we always knew who was who because our names were on our jumpsuits anyway. The idea that we'd get someone else's jumpsuit when our name was on it was highly unlikely, and I would have put my shoes and all that on my jumpsuit when I took it off anyway.

I think she was having us be super-neat because she wanted us to focus on something besides the fact that we were about to be fully naked in front of each other.

As we undid our jumpsuits, the sound of Velcro parting filled the room, and little else. I'd seen girls in swimsuits before, and I'd been on dates where I'd done some exploring, but mostly Ceres culture (to newbs) was puritanical.

We had access to lots of porn in our rooms, but in person most of us were pretty circumspect. It was another aspect of a small-town atmosphere that even though Ceres Colony was big, it felt small because we usually stayed pretty near the people we'd known for a long time. People just didn't move that much, and there was some suspicion when people did because it might work out to be some scandal they were trying to avoid.

In close proximity, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. Changing living groups could get you away from a socially awkward event, but news would follow you anyway, and then you'd have to build up goodwill there, too.

The jackets and pants came off, tentatively, witchingly, all at about the same rate. The glances were quick, mostly staring at the floor in front of them, up in an eye-flicker and down again. We all knew what was coming - we were going to have to get naked. Even worse than a doctor or your roommates, this was in front of people we knew.

I'd dated a girl from this class, Evaline, just out to a meal in the commons away from friends, then a shared-video experience in a scheduled-room. She and I got along well, I thought, but she said no after the second date with no further clue as to what I'd done incorrectly. I'd sometimes pondered the why of it, but it didn't seem proper to go up and ask her.

Undressing, I think we were all wondering if we had, or who else had, stripes. I couldn't look at my own back, but no one had mentioned anything, either.

As I got down to underwear, the problem of my erection became impossible to hide. I'd been having them for the past week, more and more, very strong ones. They ached after a while, and the only way to make them go down was to sneak off and stroke out a little relief, sometimes twice in a row, just to get it to drop. If I went too long, they became painful, aching in my testes and lower abdomen.

As a college student, I had more freedom than in high school, and I'd just arrived late for that class because I'd ducked out to a bathroom to stroke it (I even carried lube in my school day-pack). Even more oddly, as I'd been finishing, I'd been getting what I'd term 'giant ropes' of semen. Some even were tinged in parts with the faintest shade of yellow instead of being pure white.

Believe me, when different things happen with your penis, as a guy, you pay attention.

I don't know if all of us were having the problem before that moment, but being in a crowd of rapidly undressing women meant not only was my pecker full-on erect, all the other guys had the same thing going on, too.

I glanced over to Ted, a guy I'd known for a year or two, and my eye caught his, and I flicked my head to indicate we both had the same problem. He grimaced back at me; we had the same problem. Nonverbal, but effective communications.

We were all in underwear, most of the guys facing away from the girls, even though we could have seen things over there. Everyone, by that time, noticed that we all had the same situation.

Keenan, a darker-skinned guy, raised the issue first. "Chohun?"

"Yes?" She turned to face him, standing at the front of the class. She was altogether naked already, standing somewhat formally, straight-backed, shoulders back, head held high. She was 'in-charge' and knew that her words carried the force of law, which puts a limit on things, I thought.

Keenan cleared his throat and tried to look her in the eye, I could see, despite his eyes dropping once or twice. "I don't want to surprise people, so I'd better say something? I have ... a boner."

She considered for a second and said, "I had actually noticed that already. You all - you men - seem to have them... But, it can't be helped. The Provost instructions were very clear. We are all adults now. I trust we can all be adult enough to keep our comments to ourselves, and be compassionate for the people around us. This is especially true since someone here might be infected, and they wouldn't lock us down for having a head cold."

Putting the spin on it being a deadly-serious thing took the 'fun' out of it, but it didn't actually do anything deflation-wise.

All of us in our underwear, staring at the ground, hesitated. Chohun said, "Right then. Get on with it. Last of it, off. All naked. No socks, no underwear, no bras... Fold it neatly."

We were doing that, for sure. It took up time and that meant a delay before having to reveal ourselves.

Benda was the first after Chohun. She had, it turned out, spectacular breasts. The girls went ahead, shedding their clothes, and us guys had to comply, too. The first guy to strip-out was someone I didn't know too well. He shrugged and pulled down his underwear, freeing a prominent but slightly curving-up erection that bounced a little as he maneuvered. I hadn't seen too many other erections in person, if ... any? Probably none, I decided.

"RIGHT. NOW, CIRCLE UP."

We moved to stand in a circle, clearing the chairs out of the way. The girls, bending over to pick up the chairs, some of their breasts dangled a little as they did it. It was almost mesmerizing, but I didn't want to stare too much so I moved some chairs around and tried to mind my own business.

You can bet that I showed no emotion while observing this, none of us did. On the outside, it would have looked like we were perfectly calm and collected.

Once we were done moving the chairs, we were mixed up boy-girl-boy-girl, more or less, standing in a circle.

We looked around at each other.

Of the 25 people in the class, 2 of the 14 girls had stripes on their skin... and 5 of the 11 guys did.

I was not one of them, at least that I knew of, right off. We all turned around to show our backs. Chohun had been typing on a pad, entering our names and red-stripes status.

Mrs. Gloster, our teacher, had been quiet until then, standing in the corner and also stripping with the rest of us, but she was farther away. Chohun called her to come and stand as part of the group. Her breasts were slightly more saggy, but still pretty nice, as breasts go.

My red hair got a fair amount of attention, I think, at least that's what I told myself since I got more stares (I believed) than the other guys. I hadn't trimmed my pubic hair, so it was really bushy, but I wasn't alone. Some of the guys had, some hadn't, and some of the girls had or hadn't, though most of them had trimmed a little.

There was a full range from full-bushy triangle to bare, though the median amount was probably a 3-cm wide by 8 cm long landing strip.

Only one of the girls shaved her legs and armpits, it turned out, an Indian gal named Shree.

We voted together, a show of hands, on who had back-stripes and who didn't, and those that did moved to one side of the room and we went to the other.

Chohun typed this data in and sent off the report, then told us we could get dressed again, but to be prepared for another inspection since they might ask us to do that after some time interval.

We settled down to wait.

After about an hour, one of the girls went over to the almost-never-used 'spot', only barely hidden by a low wall. It wasn't ever used, I didn't think, not in my memory, at least not for anything but practical jokes. The girl went in, pulled down her pants (hidden, but obvious as a motion) and used it as a toilet, facing us but being almost invisible doing so since she was a girl and sitting. This led to several other people using it as well. We couldn't flush because the drain was closed, so Chohun sent in a request to see if we could open the drain to flush.

About 10 minutes after she put in the request, the PA system crackled to life again. It was a woman this time. She said:

"Attention. This is Doctor Kahn. I have some clarifications for you. First, bra marks are NOT red stripes. It is common to have red marks where a bra goes, especially on women who are big-chested. To eliminate this as a possible symptom, all women should remove their bras now, and keep them off for a while, maybe a couple of hours, until any red marks caused by the bra dissipate."

She paused, then continued, "Secondly: To be very clear. All red-mark checks must be done by all those present, hopefully getting a unanimous agreement. This includes the upper thighs, inside and out."

"Third item: Please create and send in a new report where each person lists any other people not immediately present with you, who have shown these red stripes. Note the person's name if known, the date you saw this, and how confident you are - 0 to 100 percent - of any data you are reporting. It's okay if you're unsure, we're trying to figure out if these marks go away or not."

"Fourth and final item: Please note any other unusual health symptoms you've noticed. BE VERY BRIEF, we can't read everyone's reports. Summarize, please. Anything unusual."

"That is all."

Chohun said, "First, let's get down reports about other people. Anyone?"

Some people had seen roommates with stripes. I mentioned seeing my friend playing racquetball, and the date I saw him, at least several days prior. Most of the previous sightings had been in the previous week, but one was almost 2 weeks prior.

She was busy writing for a minute or two, then looked up. I realized I had to tell her. I raised my hand.

Chohun said, "Yes?"

"I have something to report, it's medical. It's also embarrassing, but it's medical, so I'm ... going to."

"Go ahead. We won't laugh." Her glance around the group told me this would be obeyed.

I cleared my throat. "Uh, so, like about a week, maybe 10 ago, I started getting, uh, seriously strong erections? At all the wrong times? I thought it was because I was... well, fantasizing or something, about a sexy dream or ... whatever. But, during the day, it happened, and it got to be painful. At first, I tried to fix it by jumping into a shower and turning the water all the way cold, which is amazingly cold, let me say."

Around the circle, two other guys held up their hands and nodded in agreement.

I said, "I'm sorry, guys, I'm going to admit to something you may not want to agree with. I found... after the 3rd day, this was about a week ago now, that the cold shower didn't work anymore, and I started hurting in my testes and lower abdomen. So, I thought, what the heck, I was overdue, and I ... 'handled' the problem, if you know what ..."

Chohun nodded, serious.

"That helped a lot, and then I could start having some time when I wasn't ... erect. Only about 3 hours, I think, it lasted, so I had to do it again, and again, and eventually I got to where I could sleep for a while. It was a lot easier, too, to go to a restroom spot where I had a stall and do that, versus going all the way back to my room or the gym level and showering."

She nodded, and I realized she'd been typing one-handed with the steno-mode. It was hard to do that -- I respected that she could, I'd never noticed it before, but she usually sat in the rear of the class.

"Is that it?"

"Almost." I had to broach the subject sometime. "Uh... It's been like 2 hours since class started, and before that I had 2 other classes. I... haven't taken care of my problem since this morning, and it's really... starting to hurt. I don't want to be ... "

She interrupted, and said, "I understand, I think we all might. Does anyone else have this problem, too?"

All of the other guys in the room immediately raised their hands.

She muttered, "Egads." Stopping a second from looking around, she went back to typing on her pad. Finally, she looked up and said, "Right. Report sent."

Mrs. Gloster said, "Chohun? If I may?" Getting agreement she continued, looking at me first, then at the others. "You obviously have a medical condition related to this situation. There is no shame here.... In fact, I have to say how much I admire you for speaking up like this, it can't be easy to talk about."

"No, ma'am."

"Very well. So. Chohun, the earliest date that any of this was noticed was, what, 2 weeks ago? I daresay we've all been exposed by now to whatever it is. Certainly you boys have, and Alissa and Danielle. I make skin-to-skin contact with every student here probably daily, when I shake your hands, or hand you a tablet, or ... you know."

I nodded.

"I guess what I'm getting at is... If it gets to be too painful for you boys, if you ... need to ejaculate? That's going to be embarrassing, but... we probably should figure out how to handle that."

Chohun agreed, "Red, what you have is definitely NOT normal. I'm thinking it's related to this thing that's happening. So... how are you now?"

"I hurt now, Chohun. I have to admit... It's not that bad yet, a strong ache? But, if I don't do something in the next hour or so... it's going to get much worse. I've... been this way... before."

Chohun said, "This is going to cause embarrassment to everyone. Do you think that... you can help yourself, with... people around you?"

I thought about it. We were all dressed again, of course, but I didn't know if I could do it around other guys. "I'm not sure if I can. I might get... distracted? At the same time, when the pain gets bad... I don't want that. It REALLY hurts BAD, and that interferes with getting it done." I had been careful to avoid a repeat of the first time the pains came, but once I was in a rhythm with classes it was okay, and I'd kind of settled into a way of operating.

Jaak, next to me, cleared his throat and said, "Uh, do we have anything ... like a lube, or something? I have to be super-careful so I don't get chafed, because I need to ... do it so much. I'm already kind of sore..."

Mrs. Gloster immediately turned to the girls and asked, but no one had any moisturizer with them aside from a small tube of medication for acne. I had a small tube of lube that I kept in my daypack, but it wasn't that big, maybe enough for 3 or 4 more sessions, and certainly not enough for the class.

Turning back to us, Mrs. Gloster said, "Okay then. So, the problem will be chafing... and you all will have this difficulty?"

We nodded, all of us.

"Well. Uh, Okay. So, I have a choice here. I can call for volunteers, but that might, if it's sexually transmitted, endanger you. So, I have to step up here. Uh... "

One of the girls who had stripes, Kayla, spoke up. I recognized her as an upperclassman, a senior in mathematics or data analysis or something. She said, "I volunteer."

That got a lot of heads to turn.

Kayla was very pretty.

She said, "I have these... red stripes? We all... We know that I do. The Provost and the doctor haven't said much, but ... It might mean I'm a dead person walking. We don't know what this disease thing is. But, I'm certainly showing some symptoms. And, you five guys? You all have them, too. So, I can't infect you if you're already infected. And, you're not going to infect me." She sighed, and said with a hopeful but kind of pursed-lips-grim face, "I'll help. I don't know how good I'll be, but I think... I can help."

The other girls were looking at each other and her, and saying encouraging things like, "I'm sure you'll get better" and "You're so brave!" and stuff like that.

Kayla stood up, and said, "Chohun, how do we decide? Who is first?"

Chohun said, "Hold..."

Mrs. Gloster interrupted. She said, "I don't have stripes. I will handle the men who don't."

There was a pause while everyone evaluated that, but, then...

Evaline spoke; she was the girl I'd gone on two dates with recently. She said, "Uh... Mrs. Gloster?" She steeled herself for something and said, clear-eyed staring at Mrs. Gloster, "I ... volunteer to handle... to take care of... Red."

The other girls said, "Oh..." and gasped a little, then a small murmur, and then she, too, got encouragement from the others, acknowledgement of it being a daring thing to do.

Evaline said, "Red and I went on a date about 2 weeks ago. We kissed, then. So, I was probably exposed then, if not since. It won't matter now. If I haven't been exposed, well, I'm not going to make him take the risk of getting exposed by having you help him, Mrs. Gloster, when you're ... helping the others."