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Half
This material is copyright, 2004, Uther Pendragon. All rights reserved. I specifically grant the right of downloading and keeping one electronic copy for your personal reading so long as this notice is included. Reposting requires previous permission. If you have any comments or requests, please e-mail them to me at anon584c@nyx.net. All persons here depicted, except public figures depicted as public figures in the background, are figments of my imagination and any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. |
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Half
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"Look here. I know where your questions are going. Two fems with no man in hearing is what we are. You wonder what sex in microgravity is like. All downers must hear those stories. The wrong question is what it is. "You get up to orbit for the first time, and you hint around to find a hidden nook at the hub of the habitat. Well, for one, the hub is an incredibly busy place. Things and people are coming and going, locks are being opened to vacuum. A place you don't want to be without a guide is what it is. For two, the guy is sliding himself in and out of you; his head and yours go back and forth in time with that motion. In micro-gee, the fluid spins around the inner ears. You feel more nausea than lust." "You sound like you've tried it out." "No. But believe me. Drive a feiky is what I do. The tugs that pushed your ship into the entry ports, though I work for Agriculture. A hundred millimeters per-sec per-sec, with screens extended to catch sun power. One hundredth of a standard gravity. I don't dart around in there. You're in a crowd and some crisis occurs. The pilot is the one saying 'Smooth, not fast,' when everyone else runs around. "But I've wandered off trajectory. The wrong question. The right question is, 'Where do orbiters meet to meet?' The answer is half-gravity. There is enough floor to keep your ears from spinning, not enough to hurt your feet." "Sounds interesting. Can I buy you a drink?" "No thanks, drinking booze not on my card can cost me my job. I'll get my own, but if you happen to have packed some chocolate on you.... Why thank you! Yes, they tell you that right. Cacao isn't grown in orbit. "If open minded is what you are, I'll tell about how this stand- down began." "Stand down." "Huh? Stand-downs are like now. A storm on the sun sends radiation our way. Almost nobody goes out, and a pilot can drink what she chooses. A wise fem freezes more blastulas than she's licensed for before she takes a job exposing herself to rad, but there's still a lot of *me* that can be exposed. Descendants is one issue; cancer is another." "Licensed. Do they really regulate how many children you can have?" "Yep. We have so much air; only so many can breathe it, so only so many can be born. We're expanding, though. More can be born than die." "Sounds tyrannical. But I shouldn't talk; I don't have any children." "Right. Anyway, Gamma-two is big, it spins slow but we get the full ten meters per-sec per-sec of floor, just like downstairs on Earth. A plot spins a little faster, but it's small. It only has enough floor to tell the plants up from down. I fly from here to a plot, there to the next plot, coming back three times a shift, working alone. I pump in a ton each of water and carbon O-two, little more of the first than the second. I draw out about 1200 Kilos of atmosphere, and then on to the next one. That means I'm out of my feiky at every plot, working in my suit. Full vacuum is what the cockpit holds." "Maybe two months back, I'm at the hub of a plot, tightening a valve, when my LSI alarm goes off. Lost suit integrity is no joking matter, but the alarms can go off if you stretch too fast. I relax to see if it's a false alarm and review my path to safety. It's no false alarm. I scoot for the feiky. Once I'm inside, I call in 'Lost Suit Integrity; coming back.' Then I scoot for home. Retract the screens, seal up the cockpit, and hit the emergency pressure tank. Scratchy to breathe, but fine for pressure is dryox. By the time I'm near, my right thigh is screaming that it has the worst charley horse in history." "Sounds horrible." "Could be worse. Pain like that tells you you're still alive. They hold traffic for my docking, but my right leg gives me trouble on the controls. All four limbs, usually, flying a feiky. 'Smooth, not fast,' I say as I dock. Really, it's not all that smooth, either; but I fit first time. "Not one leaking thing is what the medics can do while I'm in my suit. So I pull myself along to my regular suit locker. It's in an alcove comfy for one. But the middle of my shift is change- shift for riggers, so a rigger comes in before I'm out of my suit. It's his space that time of day; I told you that the hub keeps busy." "Now a suit liner hugs you pinhole tight, but I was less worried about what he could see than what I couldn't. 'Check out the back of my right thigh,' I asked him." "'I was getting there,' he said. Men! Then he turned serious and called emergency. There was a hole in the suitliner and a millimeter crater in my thigh. Asteroid dust, traveling at ten klicks per-sec, boils you more than it cuts you." "He promised to stay with me 'til I got to medical at half-g, and I took a pain-tab. I put a clout on over the suitliner and watched him change. 'You could look away,' he said. He hadn't; why should I?" "Fair's fair. Did you like what you saw?" "'Built like a rigger' is what we say." "Huh?" "Huh? Oh, big muscles on top, broad shoulders, thin legs. Triangle on its point. Not all riggers are like that, but he certainly was. Men have even more problems with the tightness of suitliners than fems have, and he'd suited up with one problem pointing straight up. More symmetrical than putting it down a leg, I must say. By the time I saw that, the pain-tab had kicked in. I was chem-happy." "We rode down the lift with many of his crew. They were grousing over being held up at the end of their shift for an emergency. 'Do you ignore LSI?' he asked. Not more than once in a lifetime, I'll guarantee. "'Those alarms go off all the time,'someone said. "'This was real, and the pilot is present.' They looked at me, looked at the way I was holding my leg, and shut up. When we got to half-g, I couldn't walk. He carried me to medical before heading for the showers. I spent that trip staring at his pierced right ear lobe. After I got to medical, life got real interesting. And not real pleasant." "I sympathize. Getting hit by a meteor!" "Well, it was a leaking small meteorite. I'm here to tell the tale. But to get to the story, two days ago, I was working outside a taro plot. Got back to my feiky and there was a recorded alarm. Solar storm coming. I was among the last to get the warning, and some leaking idiot ahead panicked and had to redo his docking. So I was third to get to the alcove holding my suit locker. The rigger was getting out of his suit in the open. I don't have much modesty around crew, but I have more than that. "His front was covered because he had to hold the suit to keep it from floating away, but that didn't hide his buns." "Did you like what you saw?" "Liked it plenty. Liked it the first time, really; but, first time, I had another priority. 'Long time 'til the end of my shift,' I said." "'Less for me,' he said. 'Course, nothing urgent then.' That was all we said, but he was lounging in the corridor when I got out of the shower. Know about showers?" "We have them on Earth." "Yeah, but crew showers in half. Half gravity that is. Lots of space at half, mostly ag, but space for other things. Showers are there, and medical treats crew emergencies. Quarantine quarters, 'case somebody coming in is infectious. *Lots* of space, is what you need for that. But unused for quarantine, is what it's been for years." "Yes. They check us out quite thoroughly before they let us into space." "I believe. Still, pandemic worries medical. But, all that quarantine quarters, when quarters are tight on Gamma Two." "Yes, I've been in bigger crowds on Earth, but I haven't been alone since I came up here." "So, lacking a pandemic, housing rents out quarantine quarters by the hour." "Ah!" "Anyway, I showered slow, dried slower. Smooth, not fast. Thinking about things and aiming the drying air where it felt best got me ready. Dressed fast, though. Quirked his brows when I got out is what he did. I smiled, and he turned towards a stairway. We went up 'stead of down, and he put his card in the slot of one of the quarantine rooms." "You use these cards for everything, don't you?" "Not quite everything, but I'm getting to that. Anyway, not much there, but we don't need much. I drape my suitliner on the monitor, he puts his on the desk beside it. After a kiss or two, we take turns. He takes off my top; I take off his; time for more kisses. He takes off my bra; I take off his slacks; you know how it goes. When he takes off my clout, though, he doesn't wait for me to get his. Lots of kisses and more than a few rubs is what he gives. "When I took off his clout, the time for kisses and fondling was over. 'Smooth not fast,' is what I said. Well, I'm smooth by that time, and so is he. He puts his hands on my waist; I put mine on his shoulders. He lifts me. I put my legs around his waist. 'Built like a rigger,' is what I told you. He had a waist to hold. His left hand holds me up by the rump; his right spreads my entrance. My left holds his shoulder; my right puts him where I wanted him. We both relax in various ways, and I slip right down around him -- smooth not fast. And, I'm here to tell, it wasn't his card I felt going into my slot. "Now, y'can do that in full gravity." "Don't tell, but I have." "Right. But it's a strain on the guy. My rigger was carrying less weight on his feet than he'd carry standing right here. He massed more than me, though not leaking all that much. Anyway, it was time for another kiss. "Then I just hung on to his shoulders and let him drive. He'd move his hips so he was going in and out, then hold me with one hand while the fingers of the other tickled me. Finally, when I couldn't stand any more, I started moving myself. He was far enough along that he started to shoot before I'd finished. He pulled me against him by my ass cheeks and swayed to and fro." "Sounds delightful." "Was delicious. By this time, holding on was all I could manage, and my legs were slipping from his waist, half grav or no. Thinking back, it's good he had a real waist. Feeling it, too, he must have been. He took a few steps to a chair and sat. Then he was breathing into my ear and I into his. I drew back a bit and focused on the ring in his right ear. Too late to worry about that, and I wouldn't have gone with him if he hadn't had it. But still, it was nice to remember right then." "Obviously means something I don't recognize." "Either sex can get the right ear pierced when they get their tubes cut. Don't have to, but most of the unconnected do. Tells me he won't leave me any little surprises. It would come off his license, well as mine, if he did. Still, it's something you look for. As I said, when I fill my license it will be by thawing, not starting. But want two-three more years piloting 'fore I do that." "You sound like a woman who has planned out her future. How many children will you have?" "Now! You're a downer, but I didn't let that stop me. But it's ones like you that give all downers a bad name. Just 'cause I was willing to chat a bit doesn't mean I'll tell you personal stuff like that." "But...." "This conversation is over. Don't ever ask a person what's on her license. Not ever! We aren't that sort of friends. "Goodbye, downer." |
The End Half Uther Pendragon anon584c@nyx.net 2004/05/24 Thanks to Denny for editing this. Another all-dialogue story: "Gaggle" The index to almost all my stories is: Index to Uther Pendragon's website |