I should hate guard duty. Few things are as intensely dull as sitting in one of the colony's agricultural cylinders, watching your armored exoskeleton (or Exo to most) collect condensation while you ponder how damn tight your vacuum counterpressure suit was cut. But I didn't mind. It gave me time to think. Lonely time, yes, but time.
And it gave me time to read. Most times I browsed through the HText archives using my suit's onboard computer, shunting the text and images to the LCD monitor covering the inside of my 360degree display. I kept the browser window small, so I could see the HUD clearly, and tried not to squirm to much inside the suit. Out of all the things I had a could read, I had to pick an erotica archive.
Stupid one at that, too. The author had pretensions towards being some great Science Fiction visionary, posting a grand epic of erotic SF. All I saw was a really long personal fantasy where the science was as soft as mud, the characters thin as tissue, and the sex repetitive. He used the word 'cunt' a lot, too. Dad used the word 'cunt' a lot. Mostly against me.
But, I was a lonely, red-blooded RacoonMorph male with all the desires my long extinct human designers left me (Wish that was all they'd left us. Desires). A good sized erection pressed against the lower seal of my shiny, gray vacuum counterpressure suit.
I should explain something about these suits for anyone who hasn't been out of Earth's gravity well before. They're not full 'space suits' really. Vac armor usually consists of one of these worn beneath a jointed, sealed shell packed with survival gear. These are designed to protect the wearer against sudden decompression. With the gloves, helmet and rebreather pack you could survive in hard vacuum for an hour or so thanks to the neoplast fabric. It's useful, but embarrassing.
See, these things are laser-fitted against the wearer. You climb inside and hit a button to tighten and seal it against you. If you've worn a wet suit before...this is more intimate. Which is why they're usually worn UNDER something, like Exo's or vac armor. If it's a touch to cold in there, the entire world knows it by how many eyes you've poked out with your nipples.
Ok, it's not that bad. But it's just as embarrassing. That's why we keep jumpsuits handy.
On guard duty, though, we stayed in our suits. If you were stationed in a green cylinder, you were allowed to crack the shell to save on the life support. Why run down your atmosphere generators when there was plenty about to spare? From a distance, my Exo looked rather gory. Anthropomorphic, like me, it sat on a hillside facing the transparasteel topped end of the agri cylinder with it's chest hatch open. Imagine someone with the front of their rib cage cut along both sides and swung upwards and that' kinda what it looks like.
Though not so gross.
The main character in the story was driving himself into another 'cunt.' It would probably be a few more episodes before something totally character driven wandered by. Then again, most people reading this would probably have one hand firmly pressing down against their privates instead of worrying about character development. Or when their wingmates were scheduled to drop in and
<<HEY!>> I nearly leapt out of my Exo suit. At the end of the cylinder, another Exo slipped through the airlock and down the tunnel of microgravity in the center of the spinning tube. Elaura jetted in, synched herself with the rotation, and slipped downwards onto the hillside next to me.
"Reading naughty web pages again?" she asked, cracking her suit open. The CatMorph--A Russian Gray, if you must know-- glanced into my suit with those wide, jade eyes of hers. My stripes nearly melted off in embarrassment.
"Nah, just monitoring the station update channels."
"And those usually give you a raging hardon?" She grins. "C'mon...which one are you reading?" Elaura reached up and tapped on her own browser.
"The Colony Logs," I said, giving up.
"Yeah, I've read some f those, too. Guy's obsessed with the word 'cunt.'" She glanced over at my screen, then jumped to the section I was reading. "The one after this is pretty good. Doesn't use the easy turn on and there's some lasting character impact."
"What about all the gratuitous references to other SF works?"
"He cuts down on those. Not enough for my taste, but they're cut down." She seated her Exo beside mine. "Why you reading them?"
I sighed. Hiding things from Elaura was nearly impossible. Ten months of patrol duties with her gave her a good look at my mental landscape. She knew when I was tucking things away.
When you're wingmated with someone, you tend to get pretty close to them. It's only natural. You're on long patrols with them, face heavy combat together, and have to take care of each other's mecha. The relationship continued outside of the job with Elaura, which surprised me. She was like the girls who went out of their way to ignore me back in school: Beautiful, well educated, destined for something great.
Then there's me. And that's not much.
Even so, we hit it off and she became one of my closest friends. I could tell her things I wouldn't even admit to myself. Not without embarrassment, but I could still tell her.
"Honestly, I was bored and a bit...lonely," I said, slumping back into my Exo. Elaura just nodded and leaned back into her suit, too. I tried to keep my eyes off the way the her vacsuit's shining skin curved against her, flowing over and her breasts, across her belly and down between, and over, her legs. I tried, but I didn't do to well.
Elaura made it worse by smiling and I blushed, ears reddening. She does these things so she can add to her 'blush collection.' Apparently I've got my own wing.
"I can understand," her hand rested on the suit's fly, covering her pelvis like a monarch butterfly. "Not much else to do. Especially if they issue an order to peal and break." Peel and break was slang for an order letting us climb totally out of our suits. Ever since the carrier Shayla Shayla took up a permanent patrol route, the colony defense forces have gone on standby.
We sat quietly for a moment, Elaura punching buttons on her browser. My own raging erection began to subside when a message whispered over our earpieces.
"Guess what?" I said.
"Peal and break?" she said.
"Yep," I said, punching the 'dismount' macro. The machine kneeled and the seals around my legs and waist opened up, a flower blooming. Elaura did much the same and hopped over to my suit, leaning inside just before I managed to step free.
"Hey!" I blurted out as her breasts piled against my chest and our suits squeaked in contact. Elaura smiled and rubbed against me while punching up a site on my monitor, enjoying my embarrassment. I nearly jumped out of my skin when her hand brushed against my crotch.
"I found this site a few nights ago. Nice stories. Mostly character driven, too. And..." She punched up a section of the archive. "Some feature Exo jockeys like ourselves." I closed my eyes.
"Cool," I said, jaw shaking. "I'll be sure to---" Her weight vanished. I opened my eyes and she was sitting outside my Exo, arms crossed. Frustration creased her fur. I punched the dismount macro and slipped free.
"What's wrong?" I plunked down on the grass. Elaura sighed, ruffled her headfur and sat down beside me.
"Are you being gentlemanly? Or just blind?" She curled her legs against her body.
"What?" My hands started shaking. My hands don't shake. Even when I'm scared. "Um, I..."
"Dammit, what do I have to say to you? What do I have to do to get you to notice how I feel?"
A pause, then I said. "Elaura, I-- I don't like making assumptions. Please, just tell me what's going on. I think I sorta understand, but I don't want to make a mistake."
She sighed, and I tried to keep my eyes locked on hers, not on the way her breasts moved when she breathed.
"Del, I'm attracted to you. I mean, really attracted to you," she said, reaching out to grasp my toes. "We've been together for ten months now, while all the other wingteams have dissolved and reformed a half dozen times and I know I can trust you and..." She lowered her eyes. "I want you."
In combat, my reflexes are usually exceptional. I wouldn't' have survived this long if they were dull. But this wasn't combat. I needed a moment.
"I...Elaura, I want you,too," my hand stopped shaking as soon as she held it. "I just thought, you know, that you wouldn't be attracted to someone like me and--" My words were frozen in my throat. She pounced me, pinning my back against the blades of grass and kissing me madly. I actually whimpered a bit before wrapping my arms around her and returning the kiss.
We lay there in the grass for a long while, eyes closed, just kissing each other. She broke away and licked my throat for a few moments. I held her against me. Part of me couldn't believe what I was saying. Though the home guard was fairly liberal when it came to parings between people in the same rank class, I still worried. Tilting my head down, I looked at the beautiful cat in my arms.
"Now what?" I asked. "Though anything more than this I seriously don't deserve."
"Oh, you deserve this," she said, licking my muzzle. "Out of all the men I've met, you're the only one who treated me with any respect outside of the job." Her fingers touched the collar seal on her suit. The molecular zipper parted as she ran her fingers down her clavicle, between her breasts, over her stomach and down between her legs. I watched her inhale, the seam widening as her breasts pressed outwards, exposing the white ruff of her cleavage. Elaura curled her finger under one half of the suit's opening and pulled it across her breast, baring a nipple.
All the while, her eyes never left mine. The suit slipped off her shoulders and arms, crumpling against me, leaving her half naked and straddling me. She wasn't heavily built. Elaura's breasts were soft, round and lightly furred around the nipples. When she placed my hand against the left one, nipple curling in my palm, my fingers barely missed clasping the whole breast. I ran my thumb against her nipple and she purred.
Elaura's finger touched my suit's seal and a rush of cool air hit my fur as she parted the fabric covering my chest. I stood up for a moment, pulling the covering over my shoulders so I was just as naked as she was. Purring deeply, she leaned over and kissed me. Her breasts pressed against my chest, her nipples bumping against mine. Our muzzles and tongues overlapped each other and my hand found itself sliding down t the seal around Elaura's tail. I opened it and pulled the suit down further, clasping her muscular backside.
"Run your finger under my tail," she whispered. I blinked and started giggling.
"Excuse me?" Elaura smacked my shoulder.
"It's called experimenting."
"Shouldn't we just worry about the basics now?"
"Just touch me," she purred and covered my mouth with hers. Like a good soldier, I followed orders and ran my finger along the underside of her tail. She shuddered nicely, moaning against me. My hand slide along the curve of her buttocks and the tip of my finger brushed against the beginnings of her sex.
Now she giggled and looked at me with her wide, jade eyes. She slid her hand along my waist, pulling my suit down past my thighs. The cylinder's cool air curled around me. I was well erect, out of my sheath and sensitive. Elaura's fingers circled me, stroking up and down, letting the skin roll against me.
"This isn't fair. You've been working on yourself for a while," she smiled. "I'm no where near ready." I cupped a breast and teased the nipple again.
"Then pull that suit all the way off and let me lick you out," I said, not quite believing I actually said that. But in moments like this, it's ok to say embarrassing things. If you can't be silly during sex, when can you be silly?
Elaura rose and, taking her good, sweet time, stripped from her suit. Naked, she pulled mine off as well then straddled me, her sex right in my face. Holding my head against her, hand supporting my neck, she asked me to taste her.
And I did. There are few things I enjoy more than pleasuring a woman like this. Maybe it's the immediate nature of the response. When I parted Elaura's lips, she shivered, and when I lifted the hood above her clitoris with my tongue, licking her over and over, she moaned. This wasn't a small moan, but a long, rabid moan. She pressed me closer and I suckled her, tongue slipping between her lips.
Elaura ground her pelvis against my muzzle, panting 'More, more..." over and over and I was too happy to oblige. Trickles from her sex, salty juices that tasted and smelled like her, ran over my muzzle. I'd never been with a woman who got that wet when I went down on her. But, I'd never met a woman who wanted it as badly as Elaura did. No...have to admit this...she wanted me badly.
"Inside me...please?" she asked, letting me rest my head against the grass as her hand went to my sex again. I nodded, aching. She rose up and slid down my body, positioning herself over me. Then she slid down and devoured me. Warmth just covered me and I gasped, then whimpered. I opened my eyes and just looked at her while she clenched my cock. Her eyes were half closed, mouth open and whiskers twitching as she rode me. I watched her breasts bounce against her ribs, nipples tight and brushed by the edges of her fur. She rippled her belly as she rode me, the lips of her sex wettening. Elaura, at that moment, was the most beautiful women in existence.
I could barely breath as she drew me further inside. My hips thrust into her, the sensation of skin sliding against skin blurring into one long motion. I pulled her down to me and kissed her, sandwiching my fingers against her clit as I slid in and out of her. Then she gasped, and dug her hands into my shoulder, clenching down on me. My vision turned red and I felt myself emptying out inside her. After a few long moments, we collapsed together.
We lay there for five minutes, just holding each other, before rising and cleaning ourselves off. It was just a few moments in one of the open water taps. I was thankful the water was cold. Even after exhausting myself inside her, running my fingers through her wet fur got me aroused again. The chill of the water kept me polite and soon we were back in our mecha.
"Well, now what?" I asked. Seems to be the operative question after moments like that. "The erotica stories never go this far. They usually end with what just happened..."
Elaura shrugged, sealing up her suit. "We could always confess our sins to each other."
"Like what?"
"Hmmm," She leaned back. "Ok, I found that nude photo of yourself and you had hidden in the directories of your web page."
I nearly choked on the water I was sipping. "What?? You hacked my file directories?"
"Well, not really, they were unprotected. I wanted to see some of your CGI Exo renderings but your background was to big and took to long to load so I jumped into your image directory," she explained, looking bashful for once. "And I found that nude photo of you when downloading files. I think that's the first time I thought of you as more than a friend..."
"Really?" I paused. "I, um...gods, I"m really bad at pretending we've changed terribly. You're still my friend, right?"
"Right."
"And we'll still watch each other's back, right?"
"Damn straight," she said. "But now we won't be so lonely at night, and we'll fight for each other twice as hard." I smiled. My Exo's manipulator reached out and held her Exo's manipulator.
"We on for dinner tonight?" she asked.
"Yep. Regazzi's as usual?" "On shrimp night? Damn right..."
I should hate guard duty, but I don't. I didn't' before Elaura and I saw the obvious and I don't now. For most, it's dull, tedious work. For me, it's quality time with someone I love. We never had sex in that green again. Not while on duty.
Off duty, on the other hand...that's another set of stories.