Weightless Ecstasy Ch. 05

(Note to readers: This is about a dream for many of us confined to Earth's gravity: Sex in weightlessness. To follow the story, you should read the five chapters in order [you can click on my profile above, or the Stories link, to find them all; they should all be published here in early March 2021]. If your main interest is the sex, you can choose which chapter(s) to read based on who does what to whom. All of the sex is international, and in some cases interracial. This chapter has two sex scenes: Lesbian with American and Ukrainian women, and Gay with LatinX American and Iranian men. Every character is at least 18 Earth years old.

(This happens on a large scientific expedition bound for Mars, between 2050 and -60. Terms and acronyms you need to know are X-PAN Mars Lifter One [XPML1], the spaceship; Exertion and Recreation Volume [ERV], the ship's open space for sex; the International Space Exploration Commission [ISEC], which appointed the academic scientists on the ship; and X-PAN, the private company that owns the ship and employs the crew, some of whom are also scientists. I hope that other terms, like sleepwrap and showersuit, are self-explanatory.)

***

There was never a lull in message traffic among the 27 passengers on X-PAN Mars Lifter One, because they worked on different shifts and set up their sleep periods accordingly. At any given time, there might be chatter related to work, hobbies, politics, the uneasy relationship of X-PAN employees with scientists selected by the International Space Exploration Commission, or sex...with the latter overlapping into some of the former.

Teresa Volpe's main work in this mission would occur when she arrived at Mars, so her shift work on the ship supported research by other passengers, outside her specialty and her main interests. She welcomed putting that work aside at the end of a shift. She often reacted with a quest for diversion that she would have thought excessive if she were on Earth, but seemed justified within a spacecraft surrounded by interplanetary void. Today the quest took her to the personal space of Rukhsana Yarmolov, with whom Teresa's risqué baseline chat had lately risen to the level of a planned tryst.

Teresa cruised along a corridor with her sleepwrap bundled under one arm and two bulbs of tea clipped at the waist of her jumpsuit. As with most of her dealings with her libido, Teresa had to make compromises. She wasn't inclined to do this in her life generally, and she resented doing it for this purpose. To have fun with Rukhsana, Teresa had to join her in a sleepwrap, instead of in the Exertion and Recreation Volume. The ERV was large enough to provide exciting degrees of freedom in the ship's weightless environment, and Teresa especially enjoyed ERV time with her male fuck buddy, Subra Patel. But Teresa also got hot for Rukhsana, so...

The membrane at Rukhsana's perspace was open. Rukhsana smiled as Teresa worked herself and her sleepwrap inside. "Well, if it isn't my favorite dip-a-toe-in bisexual." Rukhsana leaned to get a hand around Teresa's back and kiss her cheek.

"Here's your tea," said Teresa, handing over a bulb. "Start on it before you say something that actually offends me."

Rukhsana tsked. "You're always so prickly. Probably because you'd rather ride a prick."

"The rest of the world has made up its mind about Americans' behavior," said Teresa, getting a forearm through a loop in the bulkhead, to steady herself in the small space. She unclipped her own tea bulb. "I'm just reinforcing your stereotype."

Teresa sipped from the bulb and looked at her sometime lover. Nobody looked good in the ship's standard garb, a beige jumpsuit festooned with pockets, loops, clips, digital devices, and the equally non-alluring XPML1 emblem. Ruhksana's bland face and brown hair weren't much better, but Teresa was turned on by the twinkling eyes, the cynical smirk, and the history they had built up together during months confined on a ship that was still months away from Mars.

Rukhsana said, "Tell me gossip I don't already know."

"X-PAN's next laser burst won't top off the batteries, it'll vaporize the ship and all of us," said Teresa, deadpan. "Hillaird is really angry about the work stoppage." The Chair and CEO of X-PAN wanted sex acts in the ERV to be videoed, to sell to an Earthbound audience that had never experienced weightlessness or, in many cases, sex. The 24-hour halt to scientific work was a protest. Teresa thought it was too weak to be pushback.

"That's very sad," said Rukhsana. "So perhaps my gossip is irrelevant."

"Go ahead anyway, I'm not letting you off the hook."

Rukhsana said, "All right," and then stalled by taking a long sip from her bulb. Teresa was about to declare that she had won their little competition, but Rukhsana said, "Yesterday there was a closed conference with Anissa, Florian, Ian McTavish, and Subramanian Patel." She then smiled at what may have been a reaction from Teresa. "The day before, Anissa and Florian were in the ERV, all alone."

"That's not funny, and it's boring, and it might be true, so I win," said Teresa. She then focused perhaps too much on clipping her empty bulb on a suit loop.

"Aren't you curious?" Rukhsana persisted. "Why would these people need a closed meeting? Why would Florian and Anissa book ERV time for themselves only, when every other time they've encouraged others to join them?"

"Maybe they finally got the drift," Teresa said. "How many times have you had to turn down their 'invitations?'"

Rukhsana set her bulb in a mesh bag on the bulkhead. "I'm on good terms with them. I just don't want to have sex in the ERV." She parted the seal at the top of her suit. "Anissa joins me here now and then, and we always make each other very happy." She got her arms and torso free. "She could provide valuable instruction to, shall we say, a sapphic dilletante."

"I'm sorry to hear that you've faked all your orgasms with me." Teresa said, unfurling her sleepwrap. She had been heating up since the last hour of her shift, and a mere glimpse of Rukhsana's exposed skin made her clench her loins.

Rukhsana shed her underwear before helping Teresa join the two sleepwraps, with cords through grommets and attached to bulkhead loops. Rukhsana's contact with Teresa was neither incidental nor necessary.

With the dual-capacity wrap now ready, Rukhsana hugged Teresa, then said "You know where to find me," then reached back to grab the opening of the wrap, and backflipped inside.

Teresa was suddenly alone, aroused by the press of her lover and now missing it. She kicked at the wrap and snarled, "Sure do, bitch!" Now feeling confined by the jumpsuit she'd barely noticed before, Teresa snatched the seam and yanked it open.

Once Teresa clambered nude into the wrap, Rukhsana swept her into a full body embrace, faces to groins. They hugged hard and tongued deep, ardent and silent.

Swooning over what Rukhsana's mouth was doing, Teresa didn't like the direction of the hands. "Told you before," she said as clearly as a mouthful of mons veneris would allow, "No ass." She enjoyed a light touch there, but Rukhsana didn't settle for light.

"Such a choosy slut," hissed into her labia. "What if I said, 'No tits?'"

"I'd think you were describing me," said Teresa, chuckling.

"Yours are lovely," said Rukhsana, and a hand fondled Teresa's left one. "High and symmetrical. Mine are so loose and droopy. In the ERV, they'd be uncontrolled weapons."

"Every straight man's preferred cause of death." Teresa flexed her spine to press her gut on Rukhsana's bosom. The reaction to this action made Teresa's left shoulder rub roughly against the sleepwrap.

"Idris too." Rukhsana often brought up her brief shipboard fling with a male X-PAN employee who identified as gay, as if to show she was at least as flexible as Teresa.

The conversation lulled as their mouths pursued their task. Soon Teresa heard from Rukhsana the low-pitched "Ooooo" that indicated her increase in pleasure. Teresa was steaming up also, and trying not to lose that feeling as her skin pushed against fabric.

Teresa felt two fingers push past her labia and spread in her growing wetness. This was what Rukhsana knew would get Teresa close to climax, and almost as a reflex, Teresa responded by spreading her lover's labia with her thumbs, and hard-tonguing inward as deep as she could. They almost never built each other up gradually, it was like a race to orgasm, even though they never had trouble getting there.

This was on Teresa's mind through her spasms and howls, and the feel of Rukhsana's jittering gut and hips. Still amped even after her cumming subsided, Teresa rotated to face Rukhsana and clamp her in a whole-body hug and deep kiss.

"I'm always frantic with you," Teresa murmured. "I can never hold back. Maybe I feel guilty about my dyke side, and try to get this over with."

Rukhsana laughed quietly. "Guilty? You were the one making noise! We're in a space three meters across. I try to respect my neighbors. And isn't it good to do this without those cuffs and tethers? I feel free, and secure, at the same time."

Their thighs shifted to bring their vulvas into contact. Interspersed with sweet kisses, Teresa said, "Or maybe my problem is being stuck in this wrap with your hairy armpits."

"Those, and the hairy legs, make me too ugly for porno in the ERV." Rukhsana put her legs around Teresa's, and rubbed their clits together. "But that's so much more responsible. Grooming consumes extra water."

"So does washing hairy skin."

Teresa felt fingers brushing her upper calf. "So smooth. I'm sure you look fabulous in the ERV cams. Does Dr. Patel appreciate that?"

"There's teasing," Teresa muttered, "and then there's chain-yanking. You know how much patience I have for the latter." She stopped grinding.

In their shared semi-darkness, Rukhsana gave Teresa a placid look. "I wonder how much you've thought about how you really feel. Yes, it's wrong to force private people to show off their bodies and their sex acts. I agree with you and Dagmar, and I would join an indefinite work stoppage, to make that point. But I think you prefer sex in the ERV for more than just the freedom. I like that you work at being pretty, but don't you like it even more?"

"I do it because you want a fem," said Teresa, closing to hug and kiss, hoping to get Rukhsana off this subject.

"I'm sure you enjoy being with Subra," Rukhsana persisted, "But do you also think of the ERV as...an amphitheatre? From the overtime minutes you've spent in there, and because of them your willingness to lose privilege points before the kangaroo court, you haven't been in a hurry to get it over with."

"If extra time banging in the ERV means extra time on cleaning details," said Teresa, separating from Rukhsana, "that's two reductions in boring dead time. A win-win." She refused to admit that Rukhsana had it right. Teresa got a rush from being nude in the ERV, she savored the effect of her nudity on an eager lover, she even got a thrill from the thought of someone else entering the ERV and seeing her. That's fantasy, she lectured herself, which must never cross over to reality.

Rukhsana shook her head, smiling. "If you say so. But is it really necessary for those who demand respect to prevent anyone who is willing to show themselves? Like Florian and Anissa?"

"So you think that a couple with a combined age of 172 has already made porno? And that Subra is involved?"

"I believe that the first answer is yes. You may have to find the second answer yourself."

Teresa wanted out, but Rukhsana held her and kissed. Teresa thought of pushing away, roughly if necessary, but she sensed that this wasn't a sex hug, and stayed put.

In a few moments Rukhsana said, "Do you want to be a mother?"

Ahhh, thought Teresa, the unspoken topic of nearly every woman here. "I've given myself time to decide that later. So have you. Can you trust frozen egg storage in Ukraine?"

"Yes, of course. It's not that. It isn't even whether they're reimplanted when they're fertilized. Do you want to give up years of your life to raising them?"

"I don't know." Rather than sending back the same question, Teresa said, "Tell me what you need to say." Her embrace was now that of a friend.

"Part of me wants to be a mother," said Rukhsana with a tremble. "But I can't do that while I do this, and I want this more than anything."

"And you've devoted your life to it," said Teresa, pulling back to face her. "You're the leading authority on the north and south poles of Mars. We all got here because we made ourselves the best in the world in the fields important to this work." She felt a tremble of her own, because she had never said this aloud, or expressed it to anyone else. "And we did it while remaining balanced and functional humans, and not monomaniacs. Just barely, but we did it. So we met ISEC standards to work above Earth."

"Yes," said Ruhksana with a firm voice and expression, but moisture welling on a lower eyelid.

"Even if we never pass along our DNA," Teresa went on, "We'll give our whole species the fruits of our labors. Okay, maybe that phrasing comes too close. But if this means that we got married to space travel, so be it." And then she choked up.

They tightened their embrace and sniffled together. And, for a while, healed together. And then talked casually about raising children on Mars.

***

Even on XPML1, the captain's privilege only extended so far. The ship had the largest human-habitable space of any that ever moved beyond the Earth-Luna nexus, but also the largest number of passengers, plus the scientists' experimental facilities, and enough support systems (including food production) to keep 27 people healthy and busy. Captain Prabawati Guret had to use her personal space for anything truly confidential. Her perspace was the same size as that of every other inhabitant, but had a solid hatch instead of a membrane, and could be converted from the whole ship's air, water, power, and data systems, to units that could recirculate for as much as two hours. Now, with her sleepwrap stowed, she drifted from three tethers and ensured that her headset was encrypted. This conversation must be as private as her dalliances in the ERV, yet everything in it might become public knowledge in a few hours.

The Captain heard and saw her employer, X-PAN Chair and CEO Jessamyn Hillaird. "Here's the text packet for the deal. I'd like to keep putting the hammer down, but the numbers are good enough that I can actually give some ground, and still get what I want. That includes making all the sex-haters down here upset."

Wati waited in silence. The only way to get through a conversation with minutes of light-speed time lag was to listen to all of the other person's talking points, making notes as needed to add to one's own points, then tell the listener those points, and wait some more.

"This way ISEC gets to keep their hands clean," Hillaird went on, "and I'm okay with them owing me a favor. All they have to do is affirm that the performers are occupants of the ship who are not only willing, but eager, to do this, and then just say nothing to confirm when all the fans figure out who they are. And, no, I hardly expect those two to keep their mouths shut, but can you at least stall them until after you get out from behind the sun?"

Wati murmured a note to herself about that.

"Their willingness to take requests is a big selling point, but do I have to emphasize, 'within reason?' I mean, even these two have limits, right? Your action item is to go over all the requests they get, and throw out everything that would damage a human or my ship, or just be too damn weird."

The Captain smirked as she dictated this note, confident that Hillaird didn't know what Wati did in the ERV with Ian McTavish.

"I know as well as anyone that I can't turn the laser off for good. You'll need an extra boost from the laser before, and especially after, back-transit," said Hillaird, letting her impatience show. "The next bozo in middle management who sends me that passive-aggressive memo will get the assignment of making the laser shoot all the way through the sun, with results to my workshell in 72 hours. What do they think I am, anyway? Just because I can run a business doesn't mean I'm science-dumb. Criminy, people, check my degrees and my astrophysics thesis."

The Captain summoned patience, resigned to this exchange taking more time than necessary.

"Anyway, you can tell Patel and McTavish that they'll get a lot of brownie points in their personnel files, and once production starts they'll get paid for part of an extra shift. Maybe there'll be bonuses if this pays off as well as it looks. What they sent me was almost too good. We broke it up into small chunks, so the test-marketing would only give a taste. There are already pledges in hard currency, some from porn addicts who only heard about what we have.

"I like Volpe's offer, but we'll have to work out the details later. Let me know if Stivic and Gudmunson think the text isn't what we agreed on. I'm looking forward to being the Voice of God later on. Over."

The Captain took time to read the English version of the text in detail twice, because this was the ship's current official first language. Then she began sending to Hillaird. "I'm almost certain this text will pass muster, but I'll show it to them in private first anyway. I'm glad to see you so agreeable, Madame Chair, and so casual about the chance to gain a major option on a fusion power system." Wati's smile was slightly bigger than the one that served as her resting face. "Is there anything you'd like Dr. Volpe to know, as a startup to negotiations? Over."

Wati spent the wait for response by reading the text versions in Russian, Urdu, and Swahili. She was partway through the Spanish when her headset gleamed with new imagery.

Hillaird wore a small, crooked smile. "Volpe might like to know that she's giving me a better option than videos of nerds banging in zero gee."

The CEO mentioned a pending project that could now be sped up. The Captain observed silently that Hillaird more than 'liked' Volpe's offer. Also, well aware of the relationships among the passengers, Wati made a note to inform Patel about the pending project, and to give him the opportunity to pass it along to Volpe.

Finally Hillaird sent, "So, Captain, I'm making it tougher for you to run that asylum, but not as tough as it might have been. Over and out."

***

When Diego Santamaria got to the ERV hatch, Idris Bahramzadah was already waiting there. They exchanged smiles that seemed more obligatory than friendly.

"Just think of this as a mental health moment," said Idris. Diego returned a chuckle.

The readout on the hatch showed forty-nine seconds left in the current exclusive access. Idris, never fond of silence, felt the need to banish it. "We're not the only ones feeling this way now. Remember the first month after launch? The ship was like a singles bar, all the flirty chatting in the Common Zone, then sneaking away to sleepwraps. Moving on to the ERV was a big thrill for a while, but then the need to reserve times made it less spontaneous. And then all the pairing off, and changing partners—"

The readout chimed, and while still nodding Diego opened the hatch. Idris stopped talking, to Diego's relief. They pulled themselves through the hatch.

On the far side of the ERV they saw the two previous occupants, dressed, in a quiet conversation, each with a limb hooked around a part of the cushioned grid. Then Cho Weichang and Berta Gonsalves looked up, and pushed off towards the hatch. "Sorry," called Berta, "Time got away."