by Purple Hazel
Meanwhile, B.J., with her sharp wit and lusty fearlessness, thrilled his mind with tales of her past. Told him of all the lovers she’d had and sampled over the years. Told him about the rugby players that night at the stadium back in Toronto. Told him of picking up guys in bars and giving them blowjobs in pickup trucks or in the back seats of their cars in the middle of a parking lot. Told him about experimenting with anal sex, too; and all the times it had turned out to be a painful ordeal that seemed to serve only the debased desires of her partner while providing her little if any pleasure.
Steinhart changed that paradigm for her as well. He showed her just how wonderful it could be; and practically every week or two he’d carefully and ever-so-gently slide himself into her backside, only to pick up the pace until he’d drive her to the most extraordinary and delightful climax she’d ever had with a man. Surprised her immensely when he did so the first time.
After that, it became a regular thing for them; and when she’d crave it, she’d plead with him to do it with her again, knowing all the while he’d get it right. Do it in just the right way so that her body would feel little if any discomfort until she relaxed with his long, slow, and meticulous thrusts, then increasing the velocity and speed until she’d cry out in passionate desperation, begging him to release deep inside of her rectum and feel the torrents of semen gushing within her as his sweat dripped from his brow onto her creamy white backside. When it was over, they’d collapse beside one another as bodily fluids and slippery lubricant oozed from her bottom.
She’d sleep a while, curled up next to him, snoring peacefully, with that look of satisfaction and bliss that women often get after fabulous sex—that look of completeness which all men know means they’ve done their job that day and done it well. When she’d awaken later, with the pirate ship video or beach scene still playing on the Virtual Reality Chamber floors, ceiling, and walls, Steinhart would almost always be snoozing peacefully as well, lying on his side facing her, and yet within moments he’d awaken instinctively, as if he sensed his lover had come around.
At that point, he’d politely thank her for the amazing sex—as though she was somehow solely responsible for how good it had been for the both of them. Only when he’d finish saying all those lovely things to her, would he begin discussing the business of the day…
* * * *
“So...how are they doing, darling—the crew, I mean?” he’d typically ask her after their incredible lovemaking sessions. Might word it differently from time to time, but that was basically what he wanted to know. He might ask her about a particular incident he’d heard about, or recall some conflictive situation she’d told him about prior, and she’d loyally “spill the goods”. He wasn’t being manipulative, of course. He just wanted to utilize his brilliant lover’s expertise in identifying morale problems before they grew into open conflicts or matters requiring disciplinary action—which rarely became necessary in those early years of the voyage.
The common issue she raised, especially during that first year of their journey, that is, was the excitement the crew felt over their anticipated rapid return to Earth. They were talking about it like it was only months away, even though they used terms like “years” when speaking about it - as if 2106 was right around the corner. Which it wasn’t. Not even close. Steinhart could tell they were allowing themselves to become quite overly-enthused about that target date and this was potentially dangerous.
Oh yes, he knew better than to expect things to go off without a hitch. There were so many problems that could occur. First off, the Nautilus would be travelling toward them at such speed and swiftness they’d never see them approaching—for that matter never know they were passing by. Santa Maria was to travel with the matter pod line to her starboard side at all times (as the communiqué had explicitly instructed), allowing for a safe distance from it for good measure to avoid any possibility of a collision. However, Steinhart and his command staff would likely never know Nautilus had streaked past them. They could only continue until the relief ship magically appeared, hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, ready to retrieve them and spirit them back to Earth.
It all seemed so risky and filled with uncontrollable variables! For example, if the Santa Maria missed the rendezvous point they could not just simply stop and go back to link up with the Nautilus later. Star Shot technology required them to continue on their current pace at right under light speed until they reached their destination and only then could they activate their forward propulsion system to slow to a stop. They could steer to avoid debris and objects if that was ever necessary—which it likely wouldn’t be—but otherwise Santa Maria was effectively “gliding” much like a spacecraft descending to Earth after re-entering its atmosphere.
Essentially, they were “falling” back toward Earth like a parachutist—at a pace set by the activation of the laser beam against their solar mirrors back at Kapteyn B—and could not stop until they reached Earth orbit—or clearly identified the Nautilus lying in space awaiting them several years from now. Thus, if Nautilus over-shot them, or met with any form of delay back on Kapteyn B; and Santa Maria had thus passed their rendezvous point, then all Captain Stehter could do was simply continue on their journey back to Earth, hoping they’d link up in space later on during their voyage.
Technically—and he tried not thinking about the possibility of such a disaster—they could just as likely spend the full fourteen plus Earth years in space until their arrival at Earth’s orbit. If something went wrong, well...he certainly knew he’d have some very disappointed crewmembers indeed.
Chapter 18
The Virch
Maintaining discipline therefore became an ongoing issue for the now-worried Captain Stehter. Especially going into the second year of the return voyage, it was becoming more and more lax every day, and he detected this with nearly every report coming back to him from lovely B.J. He could sense it diminishing even without her bluntly saying so. Little things, like the way people addressed him, or the way they saluted him in the hallway, or the way they wore their uniforms, if they even wore them at all. Sometimes it seemed like he was living in a big galactic sorority house.
There were so many females. It had been planned that way, of course, because the presumption was that a mostly female crew would be more docile and easy to manage over the many years in space. The return voyage was meant to be uneventful, with merely an occasional monitoring of the Matter Pod Line stretching back to Earth just under 3.2 parsec (a parsec representing 31 trillion kilometers). Matter pod lines had been placed at intervals—so the crew might go weeks with nothing to do before they’d approach the next one’s location, then alert the pod monitoring team to verify the device was still functioning and in its proper location.
That left most of the crew with hardly anything to do for long stretches of time; and not surprisingly the accompanying boredom—especially when combined with the crew’s common knowledge that the captain himself was regularly fraternizing with one of their own—was a mighty good recipe for acts of devilment.
Space Programme had considered that no doubt. But they’d also assumed a mostly female crew would be less combative. Less likely to mutiny. Less likely to conflict with one another—and best of all those inevitable disagreements that might arise would rarely, if ever, escalate into open hostility. Physical violence especially. It was a good theory!
What Steinhart was seeing was occasional sniping and plenty of tittle-tattle, or klatsch as they’d call it back in Germany. But he also saw plenty of half-naked young women walking around in panties, bras, or an oversize T-shirt barely covering their privates when they were off-duty, heading to the hygiene chamber or the VRC wearing next to nothing. Moreover, they didn’t seem to think it was that big of a deal. That’s what got to him the most.
True, they’d dress in full uniform when on duty, and that was required military protocol. However, Steinhart would often run into scantily clad females and males scampering down corridors h
eading to the “showers” or heading off to play in the gym or Virtual Reality Chamber wearing little more than a smile. He’d chastise them lightly—usually give them a stern warning with only a half-smile on his face as though admonishing an errant daughter for staying out too late on a date. But otherwise he never pursued it officially.
In normal circumstances he probably would have, sure. Could have written them up and noted their personnel files if he’d wanted to. Maybe even harshly reprimand repeat offenders, assuring them that he had every reason to do so if they kept on violating dress code. And yet he’d relent...every time. To be fair, people already knew of his regular liaisons with B.J., didn’t they? He knew he didn’t have a leg to stand on if facing an official inquiry when they one day returned to Earth. That above all was what held him back from “throwing the book at them”.
All the intrigue, the cat-fighting, the gossiping, and of course: the sex. There was certainly plenty of that going on around him most of the time. He couldn’t help but notice how the crew were changing little by little. Morale was “acceptable”, if not necessarily great, but the crew’s adherence to decorum had greatly diminished—especially in comparison to that of his predecessor’s crew. It was far less professional on board than during the Away Team’s voyage to Kapteyn B. Captain Stehter discovered this when reading Tommy Berwick’s ships log of the first leg of the mission. No, those folks weren’t exactly “choir boys” either, but Away Team’s moral decline as the years passed was nothing like what Steinhart was seeing now.
That said, he was compelled to simply let things slide, just like Captain Berwick did. He rarely sought B.J.’s advice on matters of that nature, either. She’d usually tell him what he already knew. “They’ve been through so much!” she’d exclaim. And besides, B.J. was at the very least one of the gals they trusted to keep the good captain off their backs so they could find a way to tolerate the constant, crushing, debilitating monotony. Even when he did ask her, she’d only scoff and chuckle.
“It’s like I’ve been telling ya’, Schnucki,” she’d playfully observe, “Lay off of ’em. We’re like some big co-ed college marching band on a cross-country road trip...riding on a big long tour bus in the middle of the night coming back from a game. You need to be like the cool band director who just ignores all the couples making out in the back rows. Stay up front with the chaperones. Get some sleep until we make it back to campus, in other words. Let the crew have a little fun. It’ll work out better that way...you’ll see.”
Steinhart never liked that comparison much. Feared that he was letting discipline slip away too fast and it would be more and more difficult to get it back if he didn’t tighten the reins a bit. But then he’d give in as always and kindly try to ignore the violations of military dress code as well as behavioral indiscretions that well should have been officially addressed. B.J. was far more valuable to him as a trusted colleague amongst the crew anyway. Her abilities to communicate with them far exceeded anything he was personally capable of. She was “one of the gang” everywhere she went and people adored her…
* * * *
“Na...nah… if you’re gonna try out a sixty-nine together...inside of a sleeping berth,” interrupted B.J. one day, as she walked in on a group of chatting crewmembers, “… one of ya’ll has gotta climb in headfirst and lay on her side—then the other gal—she’s gotta slip in feet first. That’s how ya’ do it.”
She had just stumbled upon a conversation among four crew members—three of them female—going on inside the hygiene chamber dressing area; and they were talking about two women they’d seen getting it on inside a sleeping berth. Prior to B.J. arriving on the scene they’d been discussing how much racket the girls were making together trying to get into position. B.J. had caught the tail end of the discussion and felt compelled to weigh in with her personal expertise on the matter.
“Then...ya’ just open up your knees wide to let her face between your legs...’n have at it,” she added informatively, as though she were some math professor helping a student figure out an algebraic equation. This of course elicited a number of giggles and snorts among the four people, plus a playful swiping motion from one of the girls originally from Belgium who exclaimed excitedly, “Non mais allô quoi! Discrétionnez s'il vous plaît! There are virgin ears among us here, Lieutenant!”
She was referring of course to Shamiso Kachote who was sitting with them, naked except for a pink tank top and with her ships uniform folded neatly in her lap covering up her crotch. The rest of them were pretty much nude as well, seated on a long bench awaiting their turns in the shower.
“Bollocks!” retorted Shamiso—with her thick London accent—“Not since three bloody years ago mind you! Ain’t no virgin here, you slapper.” Shamiso hated it when people kidded her about their age differences. Wished they’d stop doing it, really. Of course, she knew they couldn’t help it...she’d grown up right before their eyes. Met them back in Florida when she was only ten!
In fact, when the thirty-one women and nineteen males of Return Team were eventually revived from stasis machines while in orbit around “B”, they were stunned and amazed to see her all grown up. She’d aged about seven years biologically by then—and now that the Santa Maria had been in space almost three long years since departing Kapteyn B for Earth, she was now (physically at least) about twenty years old. Everyone got a good laugh out of her reaction—even the Belgian lady who fortunately didn’t know what “slapper” meant in Cockney.
“So, look who’s the expert,” scoffed the one male among them. He was a slightly effeminate young man from Brazil. Preferred boys, generally speaking, but would on occasion swing both ways if the idea proposed was kinky enough to try out.
“Imagine that...B.J.’s already tried it out with the captain and no one noticed. Puta que o pariu! How could we have missed this?” he added with a humorous smirk. B.J. giggled mischievously right along with everyone else in reaction to the young fellow’s ebullient sarcasm. He was certainly being inconsiderate of B.J.’s superior rank but really B.J. didn’t mind a bit. He was probably miffed that he’d not been able to see Steinhart getting a broche, or bobo as he also liked to call it in Portuguese. Probably wished he’d been there to see Steinhart’s big dick.
“Besides,” he went on to say, “why would you two have to use a sleeping berth anyway. I see you at the Virch all the time.” The other girls giggled knowingly. “The Virch” had become the latest nickname for the Virtual Reality Chambers among the Return Team; and now everyone had taken to calling them that. “You’re going today again, eh?” he asked, but B.J. could only shrug her shoulders.
“Well...he ain’t called for me yet...figured I’d get my cooter cleaned up nice for him just in case,” she quipped with a naughty grin. She proceeded to strip completely naked while they giggled and cackled joyously, then continued chatting away about all the latest gossip: who was doing who lately and things like that. It was a great way to pass the time really—otherwise there wasn’t much else to talk about...or do.
Yes, this was the reality facing Captain Stehter. As prevalent as it had been on the Away Team’s mission, the Return Team’s appetite for open sexuality and sexual expression was even more voracious.
Perhaps it was in the way everyone saw their situation now—the struggle they’d been through since being revived and all they’d endured on the surface of Kapteyn B. Bottom line though: their libidos seemed to have been intensified beyond anything resembling normal, expected levels. Those handful of male crewmembers, outnumbered noticeably by women in nearly every section of the ship, had a full dance card almost every “day” when they finished their duty shifts.
Discretion was practically out the window by the end of the first year. Anyone could see it. Even B.J. was surprised. Female crewmembers finished their shifts and stripped down to nothing but panties and a t-shirt (or just panties) before flitting across the ship to the shower or heading to the Virtual Reality Chamber for some excitement. Male crewmen
merely had to be available for playtime and nothing more. Stand around the lobby area outside the VRC wearing boxer shorts and a tank top or a T-shirt cut off at midriff. Soon enough some young woman craving intimate companionship would snare them like they were a pretty butterfly fluttering around a peaceful flower garden.
That’s pretty much what the whole second year in space was like. Work a little. Play a lot. Eat. Shower. Sleep. Then do it all over again—sort of like college students on a permanent spring break.
And most everyone had their own particular kink of course. Even Shamiso! She, just like Captain Berwick, had grown up with the same recurring fantasy haunting her dreams whenever she slept. However, it had nothing to do with pirates, that was for certain. On the contrary, her simple little fantasy, which developed when she was serving on Away Team, was of lying on the ground in some alien forest—naked or in just her panties—while being “attacked” by the plants and trees around her…
* * * *
In her fantasy, nearby vines and tree branches would come alive and reach out to her, grasping, encircling, and binding her ankles and wrists, leaving her helpless lying on the soft grassy surface. This was before they’d landed on Kapteyn B naturally, only to discover the atmosphere was unbreathable for humans. Yet this imagery of her tethered to the ground, with plants holding her limbs, spreading her arms and legs apart, and feeling a cool breeze wafting over her private area, gave her the most titillating and thrilling sensation she could possibly imagine.
When she’d awaken inside her sleeping berth she’d be all gooey and sticky between her legs, not even knowing what had happened to her, thinking she might have wet herself accidentally during her sleep cycle. In those early years she’d often be tempted to consult B.J. for guidance, then realize B.J. was frozen inside one of those stasis machines and wouldn’t be available for much-needed motherly advice for several more years. But as Shamiso grew into a beautiful young woman, those exciting dreams never faded. They only evolved into something even more bizarre.