A tanned hand reached over my shoulder and a sealed container with the JAS logo on it was dangled in front of my face. Twisting in my seat, I reached up and collected it with my left hand.
“Thanks,” I said, smiling. Intrav Delgado, as her name tag stated, didn’t smile back but turned her attention to Mariko. Mariko took the alky and shared a look that puzzled me. It was as if they knew each other, but I shrugged the thought off knowing how improbable that was.
Probably something to do with me checking out their breasts, I thought.
I forced myself not to look at Delgado’s backside as she turned away, as I could see, out of the corner of my eye, that Mariko was looking at me. I smiled at her and she raised the container with the spout first to toast me, then to her mouth and said, “Bottoms up.” I copied her action and drained the Endorpho 80. It tasted a bit different than the one I had at the Polar Nights relax lounge, but that was probably due to the stuffiness I still had in my nasal passages as a result of the Moon sickness.
I sat back comfortably in the Siteazy and waited for the drink to kick in, anticipating the cool stillness that I remembered from the last time I had it. The muted roar from the craft’s engine suddenly cut off and the craft banked as the Devscreen in the headrest in front of me flashed a warning that we were now in zero grav. I looked across at Mariko and saw that she was also lying back with her eyes closed, giving me an opportunity to really take a good long look at her body. Her outers had the image of a dragon running down the right leg, the colors were bright green and red. Then the dragon’s tail moved, but Mariko hadn’t moved her leg.
I didn’t remember that about the Endorpho. As it kicked quickly in with full force I felt like I was in a Lev on steroids, dropping through one hundred levels faster than the speed of light. I panicked a little with speed of the rush — it was nothing like what I remembered from my last Endorpho 80 and I might have gone too far with this one. Through wide eyes I looked at Mariko. She still had her eyes closed and seemed relaxed enough.
She turned her whole body toward me slightly, and I saw her left breast bulge out of the opening in the middle of her outers, the faint outline of her nipple clear through the material. She twisted fully onto her side and brought her hands up palms together, placing them under her cheek as though she was going to sleep.
I thought of her nipple in my mouth, and I felt myself reacting. Was this yet another side effect of the Endorpho? Obviously the Endorpho 80 was a whole different proposition in space, but as long as Mariko was OK then I was determined just to go along for the ride. I struggled with my senses, trying to get a bit more control, taking several short sharp breaths. The assault calmed down and the cabin took on a rose-tinted hue, my jaw ached a little: I had clenched my teeth too much. I wished I had some gum to chew.
Mariko opened her eyes slowly, and gazed at me. I was still looking at her breast, but flicked my eyes back to hers and she smiled. “So tell me, what did you get up to while you were on the Moon?” The softly spoken words seemed to journey to my ears one by one. Each traveling on its own, her lips putting each one out softly, slowly, and I could see them flying through the space that separated us until they went past my cheek and into my ear.
Cool, I thought, I can see speech, and then remembered that I was supposed to answer as I saw the question mark trailing the Moon.
My tongue felt thick and dry in my mouth. “Um, I didn’t do anything really. I wasn’t there long,” I replied. Thinking about it I really didn’t remember doing anything at all. I remembered leaving the Lev port at Shackleton and using the walkys to find the Nineveh, but then, well nothing. I had been tired. It had been a long day’s trav.
“I just wanted to go there, you know. It was a pure impulse thing. I saw a suggestion in the Lev port. I had actually been going to a small beach resort on the east coast of the Southern Thailand Geographic but then I saw this suggestion that was the Nineveh Hot Springs Resort and thought since I’d never been to the Moon I’d try it. It was stupid really. I should have gone to the beach, but then again, I wouldn’t have met you, would I?” I smiled at her, feeling tremendous tenderness and love for her. It welled up in me, and almost made me want to cry.
She released one hand from under her cheek and held it out to me across the space between us and I reached out with mine and held her hand for the first time. Her skin felt smooth and a little warm under my fingers. With my thumb on top of her hand, I could feel the slight texture of her skin pattern and I stroked the inside of her palm with my fingers. She murmured and smiled, just lifting the corners of her mouth a little.
“Are you usually an impulsive person?” she asked, still holding my hand in the weightlessness. The words did their float through space. They seemed to be handling the zero grav environment just fine. I thought on that for a couple of secs before answering.
“No, I don’t think I am normally. In fact you might think I am a very predictable person, boring even,” and gave her a self-depreciative smile in return.
“Oh somehow I doubt that,” she said with a chuckle. “Did you meet anyone interesting on the Moon? All I met were sex-starved miners and comms geeks.”
“Uhm,” I struggled to think clearly but then gave up and just said what was in my mind instead. “No, not really. Actually, I didn’t meet or speak to anyone, except you. Strange isn’t it? I mean I was there for at least twelve hours and I didn’t speak to anyone at all. During the whole trip I only spoke with three people. There was a guy on the flight to the Earth’s Orbiter, a woman outside a relax lounge who offered me an orgasm in space and a relax lounge girl who had very saggy breasts with incredibly long nipples that waved around just below her eyes when she talked.”
Mariko burst out laughing with a ‘hah’, and continued with, “Are you a breast man, Mr Oliver? From what I’ve seen you seem quite fascinated by mine, for example.”
“Yes, I think you could safely say that I am fascinated by your breasts, and your eyes, and your hand, and your voice, and your bum, and your mouth and — ”
“OK, OK I get the image,” she chuckled, and gripped my hand a little tighter. A surge of warmth in my groin transmitted a signal through my spine, which registered in my brain as, ‘We’re going to sleep together’.
“Where do you live in New Singapore?” she asked, our bodies still connected through the tenuous senses of our fingers as we held each other’s hands.
“I’ve got an Env in Woodlands, but I’ve been thinking of moving somewhere with a view. From my Env practically everything I see has been made by someone or something. I’ve heard that they’ve just opened a new Lev port on Kuantan and if you go about six kiloms east from there you come to a place called Kampung Tanjung Sisik. It’s on a white sandy beach and the cred isn’t too bad, lower than where I am now. I was thinking of getting an Env there. It means more trav time but you can swim in the sea and you have more sky to look at. And you? What are your plans? Have you found a place to be in New Singapore?”
“No, I’ve booked an Envdorm in Orchard. Thought I’d park near the city center so I don’t have to trav too much, but this Sisik place sounds really good. By the way, what is your contribution?”
“I’m an arbitrator, both civil and criminal. The criminal stuff is mostly pro bono, and the civil stuff is mostly corporate, but either way I sit in the middle of two opposing forces. I try to help them find the middle ground.”