Venus Ascending Pt. 01

John tore his eyes away from the display and picked up a vegetable stir-fry over some basmati rice grown on Venus. He started looking for an open table, but his eyes kept being pulled back to what passes as normal in Venus. The first table he passed contained four, tall, athletic, blonde women with prominent D or DD cup breasts and flawless skin. He could tell because they were all nude and seemed oblivious to the people around them. Likewise, this display did not seem to garner any special attention from the diners.

The next table was similar, except it was a table of ripped, brawny, muscular men. Two were naked and two wore thongs, but all had an Adonis like body. As John wandered looking for a table, he felt out of place. Being the only one clothed made him feel self-conscious. He thought it odd how everything seemed to be reversed here. Wearing clothes made you the outcast and being nude was the norm. Then he spotted an exception; a strikingly beautiful woman sitting alone dressed in her skimpy workout clothes.

She was one of the seemingly thousands of incredibly, gorgeous women that this place seemed to attract. However, something looked different about her. She didn't have that haughty, "I know I'm beautiful" look that most of the women around here had.

She seemed, for lack of a better term, normal. She was incredibly beautiful, but at the same time seemed like a normal girl next door. Maybe that's why he went over and asked if he could sit at the only available seat. She looked up from her e-reader and lightly nodded her head, permitting him to sit down.

When he looked into her eyes, he saw a sad and lonely spirit. He knew that look. He saw the same look every morning when he looked in the mirror. Despite all the beautiful nudity around him, John thought she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. There was also something indefinable. He couldn't put his finger on it, but there was more here than just physical beauty.

"Hi, my name is John McKinney," he said as he sat in the chair opposite her.

"Lisa," she replied.

"Sorry Lisa, I don't mean to disturb you, but there aren't any other open seats next to incredibly beautiful women," he said hopefully.

Lisa threw her head back and gave a melodious laugh, "If that's your best pickup line John, you really need to work on that."

"Sorry, not really trying any kind of pickup line. I was just trying to defuse an uncomfortable moment. Well, at least it was awkward from my side. I'm not used to talking to someone so beautiful." He responded awkwardly and continued trying to cover his embarrassment. "Even after a couple of months here, I'm just not used to this place. I never felt like an ugly duckling before, but here, I just don't seem to fit in."

John looked down at his food his face turning a little red with embarrassment before saying, "Anyway, sorry to disturb you. I'll just eat quickly and be out of your hair."

John looked up as he felt her soft hand cover his. Her eyes had lost some of her hardness as she said, "Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as one of those snooty models. I know what you mean never having felt like an ugly duckling before, but this place will do it to you."

"I don't know how you can say that! You're one of the most stunning women I've ever seen, and I know guys that would give up their left arm if they could even be seen with you."

Lisa shrugged her shoulders and said, "You see, it's all a matter of perspective. Back on Earth a lot of people considered me beautiful. I always had work as a model, mostly as a bikini, lingerie, or nude model. Because I'm 5'1" I'm too short for clothing, runway, or most of the high paying, modeling jobs. Here it's the same. To get the good paying jobs they have a formula. You have to be between 5'7" and 5'10", blonde, blue eyes, a bubble butt, and a double D bust."

Lisa continued, "Me, on the other hand. I'm 5'1", brunette, green eyes, D bust, and small hips and ass. You see John, I just don't fit the formula."

John had this incredulous look on his face. He was used to being judged by his brain and capabilities, but he also had formulas for hiring his workers. He had just never considered a formula to define beauty. He shook his head back and forth saying, "Well, I guess it's their loss. To me, you are just about the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Everything fits together so perfectly, I wouldn't change a thing."

Lisa gave this room brightening smile and said, "Thank you so much for saying that John. You have no idea what this place does to a girl's ego. I used to get real jobs back on Earth, but here I'm window dressing and eye candy."

John chewed a mouthful of his stir-fry and with a thoughtful look on his face queried, "I'm sorry, but what do you mean by window dressing and eye candy?"

"Well, because I don't fit the formula, I don't get any lead dancer or showgirl jobs, which, by the way, I could do standing on my head. Instead I get the go-go dancer, bondage, or harem slave, or any place they need a half or fully naked girl as a set piece. As you know, the money up here is good, but I could do so much more. This is hell on my ego." She ended with an exasperated sigh.

John looked at her with the incredulous look still on his face and said, "Well, I'm not attracted to Swedish Amazons anyway. To me, you are my ideal look and, like I said, you look perfect to me. Just curious, if you don't fit their formula, how did you get the job?"

Lisa put down her e-reader and seemed to be enjoying talking to John. Her eyes had brightened and her sad, lonely look was gone as she responded. "Well, it was an accident, or maybe a mistake. One of the girls scheduled to come up here broke her leg in a skiing accident, and they needed a replacement, fast. They scanned through modeling agency photos and saw some of my pictures. My portfolio showed that I wasn't afraid of nudity, and even though I wasn't blonde, they thought they could dye my hair. So, with only seeing my pictures, I was invited to come up here sight unseen."

"To be honest, they could make do with almost anything, except my height. Because I'm short and petite I don't fit any of the costumes, and I look different from all the other girls. They want continuity and the same look. Only when I was here did they recognize their mistake. I guess they never read any of my Bio and only looked at my pictures. They offered to give me a severance and turn me around back to Earth, but I guess I really felt the need to get away. I thought I would stick it out for the term of the contract. They have, however, tried to make my life miserable to show me the error of my ways."

John was listening attentively with his fork hovering over his stir-fry. "So I guess when your time is up, you're going back to Earth?"

"Actually, I haven't made up my mind. Most likely, yes, I will go back, but there's nothing really down there for me. My parents are still alive, but I don't have any brothers or sisters and only a couple of friends. Then there's my ex. He was the reason I came up here in the first place. I don't know John. I'm getting paid more here to be eye candy than I was doing legitimate jobs down on Earth."

Lisa suddenly looked up with laughter in her eyes saying, "I haven't talked this much about myself since I came to this beautiful place. Thank you John, I'm enjoying talking." Lisa focused all of her attention on John and with a serious look on her face asked, "What do you do here John?"

"I'm the Liquid Engineering Manager," he responded matter-of-factly.

Lisa gave him a puzzled look not understanding at all what he was saying. John saw the puzzled look and decided to elaborate, "I manage one of the engineering groups that keeps this place running. There are 11 engineering groups that keep everything in space and working; agricultural, structural, electrical, data/communications, power, HVAC, IT, flight engineering, gaseous, solids, and my group, liquid engineering. I guess I'm just one of the cogs that make this place run."

"So you're one of the smart people who makes this place work and keeps us safe in space?" Lisa asked with an admiring gleam in her eyes.

"John, I know you said you had to rush off, but could you stay a while? I would like to hear more about you and what you do. I only have a couple of friends here and no normal friends. To be honest, you're the first person I felt comfortable talking to since I've arrived here," Lisa said with a hint of melancholy in her voice.

John was feeling the same thing and responded, "Truth be told, I don't have any friends here either. So yeah, Lisa, I would enjoy talking with you."

For the next two hours they talked about everything: their jobs, lack of familial support, lack of any kind of life except work, and even the weather... how they miss it in space. They found they had the same, yet diverse tastes in music, and they loved the same authors. They linked their e-readers together, sharing some of the books they enjoyed. They both liked many of the classic science-fiction authors like Heinlein, Niven, or Asimov, but also the more contemporary authors like Everett or Connelly.

They found they both took jobs in Venus after their divorces had left them feeling lonely and adrift. As they talked, the conversations became a little more intimate. They were just starting to get into more intimate and personal stuff when John's push-to-talk radio interrupted.

"John, where the hell are you? We need you here pronto! John... John... Answer me John!"

John picked up his radio and responded, "Yeah, Wes, I'm here. I was just getting some lunch. I'll be there in a couple of minutes."

"Yeah, just hurry!" Wes responded almost out of breath.

"I'm sorry Lisa, but I have to go. I really enjoyed being with you and especially talking to you. I would like to do it again sometime. Would you have any free time for another lunch?"

"I usually eat at this time of day, especially when I'm on the evening shift. John, I would love for you to join me," she responded. In a sudden, almost desperate move, she reached out and grasped John's hand. She gave his hand a light squeeze. Looking down into her face, John noticed she looked flushed. John felt sparks flying through his fingers. He could tell by her flushed cheeks that she felt it too.

Their eyes locked, with everything around them fading into a fog. All that either one noticed was the penetrating gaze of the other. Their stares were full of passionate curiosity, but also fear of being hurt again. They were both startled out of their trance when Wes again called for John over the radio.

John stood and gathered his belongings and trash making ready to leave. Purely by instinct, he leaned over and gave her a quick kiss on her sensuous lips before saying, "See you the same time tomorrow ... I can't wait."

He turned to leave but looked back for one last glance at Lisa. She seemed frozen in her chair not knowing what to make of that innocent, little kiss. Her eyes were following John as if glued to his back. Her tongue peeked between her lips as if savoring his taste. John continued his exit, but stopped and looked back as he opened the door. Lisa was still frozen in her chair, staring vacantly into space with a dreamy, little smile on her face.

Chapter 4

Wes's emergency was not an emergency, and John was pissed that he had pulled him away from Lisa. He had only spent two hours with her, and boy was he smitten. She had reached in with those deep, soulful eyes and grabbed at his damaged heart. Boy, was he easy.

The next day, John arranged his schedule around a 2:30 lunch with Lisa. He sat at their table for half an hour waiting for Lisa to show, but she never did. Afterwards, he was not a nice person to be around. He was grumpy and short-tempered with everyone for the rest of the afternoon. He was mostly mad at himself for being so stupid. Why would such a dazzlingly beautiful woman want to have lunch with a geek engineer? He should have known better, but he definitely felt a connection and thought the look in her face said that she did too. He was convinced now that it was a one-way connection, and he should have known all along. However, hope springs eternally.

His heart and soul been ripped apart with his divorce, and he swore he would never let anyone else hurt him like that. He thought getting away and spending time on Venus would give him time to heal. The work had been good for him and allowed him the isolation he needed to get past the hurt. However, he was just an old, hopeless romantic. All it took was a pretty girl batting her eyelashes at him, and once again he was hoping for someone to fill the void.

Speaking of hope springs eternal, the next day he also took his lunch around 2:30 and waited another 30 minutes hoping Lisa would show. Of course she didn't show, and there was no reason for her to show. John had enjoyed talking with her, thought he felt a connection, and hoped that it could be the start of something. Besides, looking at her wasn't bad either. Anyway, that was done now.

That night he stayed in his office working with the different shifts until 1:00 A.M. It was something he did on occasion, but now his room seemed empty. He hadn't felt lonely before, but lunch with Lisa had made him feel things, which he had tried to hide away. Suddenly he felt very alone and threw himself into his work.

The next day he was cleaning out his email, and as a matter of course, went through his spam folder before dumping it. Lo and behold he found an email from Lisa. It was time stamped several hours after their first lunch. In it she said she needed to reschedule their lunch. She said for the remainder of the week, she was going to have to work the midday shift. This meant that from 2:00 to 10:00 P.M., she would be working as a go-go girl in a disco. She had asked John to write her back with another time that they could get together for lunch.

John sat back in his chair stunned with this turn of events. Just as he thought she had blown him off, she probably thought he did the same thing. He vowed to make it up to her with a walk home after her work ended. John would arrive at the disco somewhere around 9:30 and wait for her to get off. After her shift was over, he hoped they could go for a drink, or maybe a late dinner. At the very least, he wanted her to know he was still interested. He also wanted her to know about the weird timing of the email, and that he hadn't just blown her off.

The rest of the day revolved around keeping up with the thousands of things that can go wrong in a complex place like Venus. Most of the problems on the liquid side are in the sewer system. John has a 10 person "sewer rat" team that crawls through the underbelly of Venus quickly clearing blockages. They have a monitoring system that gives alarms when there is a large pressure differential between two sensors. When that occurs, they assume there is some blockage in between the sensors. This is about 80% of what the "Sewer Rats" do ... clear blockages. John is notified of each one of the blockages and when it is cleared, therefore, the large number of emails.

When Venus started, they were using robots or pigs to clear the blockages. They still use the pigs to clean the lines, but the robots had a hard time distinguishing metallic waste from the metal walls of the pipes. The metallic waste could be anything from old-fashioned razor blades, to aluminum foil, or even gum wrappers.

Besides the metal pipes, Venus also had a lot of lightweight aluminum and PVC piping. Each type of pipe had different uses and different problems with blockages. The robots have a problem with that. Back on the world, they could have just used a heavier gauge pipe and moved on, but in space, they always balanced strength, size, and weight. So the "Sewer Rats" would use robots whenever possible, otherwise, they would have to manually clear any other blockages. The "Sewer Rats" also doubled to fix any clean water breaks in the system. Those rarely happened, but since the system is pressurized, any leak could result in a disastrous loss of precious water.

The closer it got to the time that John would see Lisa, the more problems cropped up. Most of the problems were from the "Sewer Rats" and finally, at 8:30, John called the lead Sewer Rat. He told him that he would be busy, so just send him an email on any problems they encountered and how they handled it. He agreed. John left to get ready to see Lisa. John was nervous about seeing Lisa, and it seemed as though Murphy's Law was conspiring against him. Murphy's Law states that if things can go wrong, they will.

John showed up to the disco promptly at 9:30, got a drink from the bar, and found an empty table relatively close to the stage. He looked around for Lisa and saw her in the left side Go-Go cage. She was wearing an extremely small, florescent green string bikini and matching leg warmers. The bikini's top was so small that it barely covered the aureoles on her breasts. Leaving the majority of her breasts uncovered for everyone, including John, to ogle. The bottom was essentially a thong with a small pouch covering her camel toe and little else.

As Lisa fluidly twisted and turned in the cage, John could tell what a fabulous dancer she was. As he watched her fluidly graceful dance, he could tell she was completely wasted as a Go-Go girl. After a few moments, she spotted John in the crowd and gave a slight nod indicating that she saw him. John waved back at her and motioned for her to come join him when she got a chance. She nodded okay, but something changed in her dance after she saw John.

Lisa felt a little quiver as she saw John sit down at a table and watch her dance. She had felt an immediate attraction as they talked over lunch during the first meeting. However, when he blew off her email she assumed he was just another one of the many males that only wanted one thing from her, sex. Her sultry body and bedroom eyes had been both a curse and a blessing her entire life.

Her beauty opened doors that would otherwise have stayed shut, but men expected her to pay a price if she walked through that door. That was the flip side; all anyone ever saw was a hot body, and almost every man she met wanted her body as a notch on their belt. That's what had disappointed her so about John. Yes, it was obvious from the beginning that he liked what he saw. He was definitely attracted to her spectacular figure, but he also seemed interested in her as a person.

As he came into the club, she felt her heart lurch in her chest, and immediately she was torn. She had not been attracted to anybody like she was to him in a long time, but his non-response to her email left her wondering if he was just another jerk. After her disastrous marriage, she had made a promise to herself that she wouldn't let anyone hurt her ever again. While it was a minor infraction, his rebuff of her email had hurt just a little bit, and that meant she had no use for him.

Lisa smiled to herself as she came to that conclusion. She was going to show him how badly he had fucked up. Lisa knew the power she had, as she shimmied and twisted virtually nude in front of a crowd. She knew what she could do if she took all that erotic control and aimed it at one person. She was determined to show him how badly that aborted email cost him, and what he could never have. Lisa was determined that, by the end of the dance, John was going to be hard as a bar of steel. He would be wishing he could have her.

After their brief exchange, Lisa's dance became much more seductive. Her movements were slower, more sensuous and fluidly erotic. Her eyes never left his, and her lips contained a sumptuous pout. It was as if she was dancing just for John and the rest of the crowd faded away. Her dance was seductive, erotic, and pointed directly at him. Never in his life had he ever been the object of so much seductive provocation.