Before Hannah could misinterpret his reaction as frustration with her, he slid one hand beneath her bra while the other worked her panties down over her hips. He was cupping the tender flesh of her breast, easing his hand between the fabric and her skin as his fingers sought the plump ridge of her nipple, but then her bra was suddenly floating free. He pushed it away—to join their empty jumpsuits floating in the corner of the compartment—and took her stiffening nipple between his fingertips.
He dipped his heard toward her breast to tease her with his tongue and felt himself hardening in response. She gasped and dug her fingers into his hair, holding him in place.
Then she giggled. “Looking to plant your flag, Astronaut Gary?” More laughter. “No, sorry, that was awful.”
“Is that an invitation?” He shucked off his boxer briefs, getting his feet tangled only briefly before unexpected static had them clinging uncomfortably to the hair on his left calf. He tried to shake his underwear loose, to no avail. Gary figured that as long as he was ignoring the pain of a broken nose, he could ignore a pair of tenacious boxers, too.
“Or was that a command?” he asked.
“Mmm,” Hannah moaned. She tightened one naked leg around his waist and flexed, drawing him closer. She adjusted her foot in the wall-mounted tether, and gripped her sleeping sack behind her with both hands. She gazed at him with half-closed eyes as the shiver of a frown touched her brow. “I, uh, can’t guarantee that this is going to be particularly, umm . . .”
Gary laughed. What had Dana said? Space changes everything. He slid a hand down between her legs and felt his own stiffening ache at the wet warmth he found there. Hannah let out a murmuring sigh and dug her heel into his gluteal muscles.
She was guiding him in. Gary paused. “Um, do you have a condom?”
Hannah’s eyes blinked open. “Yeah, I think so. Hang on.” She narrowly avoided smacking him in the face as she reached for a cupboard in the partition over his head. She retrieved a small square of foil and held it up to him. “Do you want to do the honors, or shall I?”
“Is that yours, or was it already here?”
“What?”
Gary took the condom package from her and held it up to the reading lamp. The brand was one he’d not heard of before—AstroSheath. Maybe the company specialized in providing radiation-proof prophylactics for preventing the dissemination of space herpes, but he kept those thoughts to himself. He tried to make out the expiration date. “Did you pack this for the trip, or was this already in the cupboard when you got here?”
Hannah shrugged. “Already here. What difference does that make?”
“Probably none.” Gary squinted at the tiny type and was immediately reminded of his throbbing head and face. He couldn’t make out the exact date, but it was sometime in the current calendar year. He decided that was good enough. “Just curious.”
Hannah took the packet away from him and tore it open. “Do you always talk this much?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid I do.”
“I’m beginning to understand why you’re still single.”
“Pardon?”
Hannah shook her head, but Gary caught the irritation mixing with her ardor. He smiled. Of course they were on the verge of bickering, even now. Why should their relationship in the bedroom be any different? It made sense, and even excited him. He wondered how far he could push her, and the heat between them, before she kicked him out of her cabin.
“I used to think it was a nervous habit,” Gary continued, deliberately drawing out the conversation and relishing the annoyance creeping across Hannah’s face. “But then I realized I generally ask a lot of questions. I like to find things out—”
“Just shut up and put this on, will you?” She thrust the condom at him in impatience, but her smile was far from angry.
“Yes, ma’am.” Gary was relieved to find that putting on a condom in microgravity presented no surprising challenges. He made a mental note for the segment on space sex that his imaginary space documentary series would include. He would decide later if the host should reveal that he’d come by his information through personal experience.
“Okay,” he announced. “Ready when you are?”
“Seriously?!” Hannah huffed even as she firmed her grip on his body to anchor him in place against her. “Do you honestly not know when to shut your trap?”
“I can think of at least one good reason . . .” Gary grabbed hold of the sleeping sack and pulled himself forcefully against her. He covered her mouth with his own and plunged his tongue past her lips as he fitted his body to hers and slid inside her. She gripped the tethers over her head and moaned as they started to move together.
And, it was awkward. Every thrust proved Newton’s Third Law of Motion, producing equal and opposite reactions that had Gary slamming the top of his head into the ceiling. Hannah let go of one of the tethers to try to steady him, but then they were twisting together in space in addition to bouncing around.
Gary stopped. “There’s got to be a better way to do this.”
Hannah giggled against the base of his throat, then nipped at him playfully. “Yeah, this is kind of a carnival ride.”
They tried a variety of strategies. Gary braced his feet against the opposite wall for leverage and ended up feeling like a human battering ram. They switched positions to give Hannah greater freedom of movement, but Gary got tangled up in the sleep sack to the point of losing circulation in his left hand. They tried X-shapes and a Y-configuration, an attempt at a Z and pretty much every other letter of the alphabet that even remotely made sense. Each tricky maneuver left them sticky and slightly bruised and clinging to each other with laughter.
“So, back to one?” Hannah ran her fingernails down Gary’s spine and over the flesh of his backside while her tongue traced a similar line along his earlobe.
“Mmmph,” Gary grunted. In a fit of sudden desperation, he took her by the shoulders and pressed her against the sleep sack on the wall.
Hitting her original mark, Hannah secured her hands in the webbing and welcomed Gary into her body. Action and reaction were still in play, but Gary ducked his head to prevent a concussion and Hannah gripped his waist with her knees to stabilize him.
Gary was locked in, his course suddenly sure. This time, it was working. He wrapped one arm around her and pressed his body against her.
“Oh, oh, yes,” she moaned in his ear as he pushed deeper into her. He closed his eyes with his swirling, building need and tenderly bit her shoulder as he exploded into her.
10
As Hannah expected, Gary was unfit to go back in front of the camera, at least until he could get proper medical attention—with a likely cosmetic surgery follow-up. His face was a mess, with two black eyes and a swollen blob of yellow and purple flesh where his nose was supposed to be. Even if Hannah had brought a theatrical make-up kit up from Earth with her, she wouldn’t have had the first clue where to start to make the Face of Space presentable again.
So Gary took his place behind the camera, which put Hannah center stage.
“A little more to the right.” He waved his hand one way and then chuckled when Hannah moved the other direction. “No, honey. My right. Stage right.”
“Oh, okay.” Hannah was flustered. Other than a few, mercifully brief appearances on behind-the-scenes programs about Mars Ho, she didn’t have much experience on this side of the camera, though Gary seemed comfortable enough framing up his shot and giving her direction. His time filming the Churly Flint crew had been good practice.
“Yes, hold it right . . . there. That’s perfect.” He locked the camera into place on its wall-mounted bracket. “Now we’ve got the view out through the cockpit windows directly behind you. It’s really good.”
“Oh?” Hannah started to turn her head to see precisely what the view looked like behind her, but Gary immediately called her back.
“No! Don’t move.” He laughed again. Instead of being frustrated about not being the center of
attention or pouting about his busted face—as Hannah would have expected just a few days earlier—Gary seemed like he was actually having fun.
Hannah reached for a tether over her head to keep herself from drifting out of the shot. “I was really wrong about you, Gary. I’m sorry for that.”
Gary’s cheerfulness didn’t dim. “Me, too. But we’re here now, and we’ve got a job to do. So let’s get to it, yes?”
He was dedicated to getting the work done, just as she’d always been, but he was handling it with a merriment that had been lacking from her own professional toolbox. Her turn on this side of the production also gave her a greater appreciation for his frequent desire to go off-script. It was nerve-wracking in front of the camera, knowing every gesture was being recorded. She felt a new empathy for Gary and the Mars Ho colonists both.
With the sharp, buzzy alertness of anxiety ratcheting up, Hannah began to worry she might end up stuck on a permanent adrenaline stream. But then Gary winked at her, and Hannah felt herself relax. She clenched her hands into fists and then shook out her fingers, just like Gary had shown her.
“You’re going to do just fine. And you look great.” His grin broadened, and Hannah felt a soothing warmth spread through her chest. He looked awful, the absolute worst she’d ever seen him, but there was nothing like his smile and the sound of his voice to put her at ease and set her body humming all at once.
“All we need is about twenty or thirty seconds here,” he said. “Then we’ll drop it in and send it off. Piece of cake, right?”
Hannah smirked at that but her face felt tight, her expression forced. Gary always made it look so easy, casually cold-reading lines off the teleprompter and selling them as if they were his own extemporaneous thoughts, even when the writing was terrible. It was little wonder Hannah had spent so much time thinking Gary was actually an idiot.
She didn’t have the luxury of a script now. They’d spent a few minutes going over what she needed to say, but Gary advocated against using the teleprompter. What she needed to convey had to come from the heart, with no pretense or polish. All that had made perfect sense until she found herself in front of the camera with Gary giving her a silent countdown on his fingers.
He got to one, and then mouthed to her, “Just relax.”
Hannah didn’t smile. She looked directly into the camera’s tiny lens. She took a breath, and began.
“There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes when making entertainment. A lot of manipulation and machinations, even when it’s just reality television.” She paused. “Especially when it’s reality television.”
Behind the camera, Gary gave her a thumbs-up and motioned for her to continue.
She took another breath and tried to remember the Shakespearian quote Gary had offered during that first satellite capture, shortly after they’d arrived on the Churly Flint. How had it gone? The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact?
“There is no such thing as reality in reality television,” she said at last, and Gary gave a vigorous nod in response. “What you’ve seen here, in the footage we’ve put together, is our best effort at providing an honest look at the dealing and scheming and other shady stuff that has been going on behind the scenes—for the Space Junkers show, for Mars Ho, and with DayLite Syndicate and its partners in general.”
She paused to clear her throat and to get her thoughts in order. This statement wouldn’t be edited, because there simply wasn’t enough time. There would be no post-production fixes for gaps in her speech or stumbling over words. This closing clip would be authentic and raw, just as her words were coming from the hip.
“What we’ve shown you here is only one part of a greater puzzle. It’s what we’ve seen and experienced, to the best of our ability to show it to you. We’re releasing documents, too—corporate memos and emails and the like—and other recordings to back up what we’ve uncovered. Lives have been put at risk. People have died up here. And all for the sake of entertainment. We can’t . . .”
Hannah took another breath. There was no use in letting her anger get the better of her. Ranting and getting hysterical on camera wouldn’t help their case. She needed a cool head. When she looked past the camera, she saw Gary pressing one palm against his chest. Speak from the heart.
“As viewers, we see what we want to see, what the producers choose to put on the screen, and we’ve blithely ignored what’s actually real. Space is a dangerous place. That’s real. No amount of blockbuster explosions on the screen or stories of true love pulling on our heart strings can change that, or can justify the lengths that DayLite Syndicate has gone to, to keep you tuning in and buying its branded and sponsored products.”
She felt the familiar sting of tears, and she brushed them away before they could blur her vision.
“But please, don’t let any of this stop you, any of you, from continuing to reach for the stars!” Her voice caught in her throat. “There is true beauty and nobility in dangerous adventure and pushing the boundaries of exploration, and one person’s or one company’s manipulations and just downright awful behavior shouldn’t bring about the end of the Mars Colony Program.”
She looked into the camera and tried to smile, even as more tears rimmed her eyes. “We just thought everyone should know.”
Her words hung in the air. Hannah’s ears filled with the pounding of her heart and the sounds of the ship’s recyclers. Was Gary waiting for her to say something more? She looked to him for direction, and he held up a hand for her to wait.
Finally, he turned off the recording, and the camera’s red light went dark.
“Perfect.” He came around from behind the camera, took her hands into his, and gave her fingers a squeeze. “Just perfect. I couldn’t have done it better myself.”
“Really? I thought maybe I punched it up too hard at the end. We could do it again . . .” She glanced over Gary’s shoulder and wasn’t entirely surprised to find the combined crews of the Churly Flint and the Midden, crowding the corridor and watching. From the looks on their faces—Sid’s stern smile in particular—Hannah knew her words had been just right. Manny even offered a brief round of applause.
“So, um, if you’re done, can we get back to work now?” Barbie pushed into the compartment and stopped just out of range of the camera. “We need to get back into the cockpit.”
Gary waved them forward. “Yeah, we’re done. Thanks for your indulgence.”
Barbie maneuvered past them to take up her station in the cockpit, and Hannah made quick work of packing up the single camera and its adjustable bracket. Sid slid into the captain’s chair, and Joey pointedly ignored both Gary and Hannah as he made his way to his own workstation.
“So, now we broadcast?” Gary asked.
“Just about.” Hannah pulled her tablet out of her gear bag and slid the camera’s SD card into it. The video transfer started right away. “All we have to do now is drop in this clip, and we’re done.”
She smiled at the fact that she was using “we” so easily. Our project. They had technically been a team from the start, but their roles had been clearly defined. That might have been the only thing that allowed them to work together despite so much dislike and mistrust.
Now, things were not as clear. Her work and her personal life were tangled in a dense knot. Her life had been in real danger more than once. She was about to be in serious breach of contract and possibly a number of international laws, too. And she couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt happier or more alive.
The file transfer was complete. Hannah opened her digital production suite, made a quick trim on the front and back of the video they’d just shot, and dropped it into the gap she’d left at the end of the very rough, ninety-minute documentary she and Gary had compiled.
She looked at Gary and smiled. “All done.” She started exporting the completed movie to a flash drive. “Just a few more seconds, Barbie, and I’ll hand this over—”
“We’ve got a message c
oming in now.” Barbie frowned at her center screen.
Joey leaned her way to look over her shoulder. “I thought our transponders were off? Nobody should even know that we’re here.”
“They are off,” Barbie bit back, flustered. “We should look like just another piece of space junk to anyone who doesn’t have a visual on us.” Barbie typed furiously on her keyboard and watched the readouts on her trio of screens. She typed in more commands and pored over the new results.
Sid turned toward her. “Barbie, talk to me.”
“I don’t understand it. But this connection request is definitely meant for us.” Barbie glanced at Hannah. “Actually, it’s for you. It’s real-time, not a recording.”
“Bring it up.” Sid lifted up out of his chair and hovered behind Barbie. He motioned Hannah and Gary over.
Rufus’s face appeared on Barbie’s center screen. Hannah felt Gary stiffen beside her as she let out a groan of disgust.
After a few seconds’ delay, Rufus made a face and grumbled his own distaste. “Jesus, Gary, I paid a fortune for that face, and look what you’ve done to it. Should have let you rot on the moon.”
Hannah nudged Barbie aside and took her seat. “That’s exactly what you tried to do, Rufus. You tried to freaking kill us!”
Barbie started a heated, whispered exchange with Joey in the background, but Hannah tried to ignore them as Barbie took Joey’s place and started working from his station.
“Now, now, you’re overreacting.” Rufus leaned back in his leather office chair, framed against the massive window overlooking the Arizona desert. “But I suppose I should have expected as much, putting a woman in charge.”
“Just wait a minute!” Gary leaned in beside Hannah. “Hannah is an enormously competent and I would say even brilliant producer. Something you’ll see for yourself in fairly short order.”
“Gary, no.” Hannah patted his arm and pushed him gently back from the communications station. She felt Gary and Sid huddled behind her, and she drew her strength from them. “There’s really nothing to say, Rufus. Nothing you can say that will make any difference. Probably not ever. You know what you’ve done, and so do we.”
Lovers and Lunatics (Mars Adventure Romance Series Book 2) Page 20