back. It reminded James of kicking a ball in the air. Except the horrifying feeling that a tiny micro-meteor could kill them all.
Bob and Gina kept shouting in joy. They couldn’t get enough, so James waited, keeping the bile down because if he vomited into his faceplate, that shit had nowhere to go. And neither did he. So he closed his eyes and slowed his breathing because the faster you breathe, the slower time travels. Normally time passes one second at a time, but sometimes an event like losing your virginity passes all too quickly, while a moment like this lasts an eternity. Jasmine must have sensed something, so he put on a brave face until she told the crew to winch them in.
James had parachuted and bungee jumped before, but leaping off a cliff into empty space puckered his anus. Being thrown around an asteroid felt no worse than a slow line at the DMV, but the relief from being rolled in soothed his palpitating heart. Suddenly he became talkative again. All too soon they entered the chamber, depressurized, and the crew carefully removed their very expensive suits. The reality show people remote- controlled cameras, so Jasmine and Gina danced for them while overhead speakers blasted Ozzy’s Bark at the Moon. James was not even sure Jasmine knew who Ozzy Osborne was.
“Bobby, we gotta do that again!” Gina crowed.
“I can’t wait to do that when we get closest to Earth,” Bob agreed. “The crew says the tiny atmosphere we poke into feels like flying without a plane.”
“But we have to be in the capsule by then,” James said, bumming their buzz. “If you space jump into the atmosphere, you’ll be stuck here for another two weeks.”
“Can we stay another two weeks?” Gina wanted to know.
“They have a lot of people who have already put down deposits,” James informed them. “They’re booked solid until 2037.”
“What the fuck?” James had not seen Gina this pissed since her boyfriend in high school kept making excuses for marrying her. “We have to wait seven years before we can do this again?”
“There has to be a way,” Bob argued.
“I don’t speak for management. I’m just an investor, but they are contractually obligated to all those people. And any time there’s a cancellation, the next in line gets first dibs. Plus, the feedback from the reality show has been so positive that I hear the line is getting much longer as we speak. Paul says we may need another capital infusion to start the next hotel sooner to meet overwhelming demand. I’m afraid too many people have seen us have too much fun here.”
“That’s fucked up,” was all Bob had to say.
“Sorry.” James felt like he was somehow responsible.
“You’re an early investor,” Jasmine chimed in. “You own enough shares to make it difficult for management. All they want is another two weeks here.”
“Or longer. The last week has been unbelievable. Life on Earth will seem so boring after this.”
“Yeah,” Bob agreed. “It’s too bad we couldn’t stay here forever.”
“Exactly! What better place to spend the rest of our lives than right here?”
James couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Honey, you don’t want to stay, do you?”
Jasmine emphatically shook her head no. “I hate to ruin this bod, but I really want to have your children, and I’d rather not do it in micro-gravity. However, I’d love to come back in seven years or so.”
“There must be a way for us to stay,” Bob repeated.
“You missed your opportunity to invest years ago,” James countered. “I went over the prospectus with you.”
“I don’t invest in what I don’t understand.”
“You could invest now. The more money they have, the quicker they can build hotels and exploit opportunities.”
“If the hotels are sold out,” Gina said, “I wonder how much it would cost to build a condo here.”
Bob hugged her so hard they flew across the room to smash into a bulkhead. “This is why I love you so much!”
Like her beauty and awesome personality had nothing to do with it.
CHAPTER 9
The guy filling the helium vest wouldn’t stop looking at Jasmine’s tits. To be fair, he gazed a long time at Gina’s, too. Even “vest” may not be the best word because the balloon wrapped around their center of gravity — the waist. Pleasing everyone, their breasts rested on the “vest” rather nicely. Or not, since boobs in micro-gravity didn’t sag anyways. Certainly not these newly installed ones. Gravity causes body parts to sag. The space port ended this tragedy.
Science fiction writers wondered how spacemen in the future will concentrate on long trips when women’s breasts stand out so temptingly. Making things worse, what is traveling in a spaceship but being in a machine that vibrates constantly? James himself knew how distracting it was to watch his wife’s nipples vibrate constantly. Which, of course, made honeymooning in space so much fun.
With equilibrium set, the crew let James go. Not that he went anywhere. The whole point was to give the balloon enough helium so that he basically floated in place. Micro-gravity allowed people to jump really high, but they still returned to earth, so to speak. The big difference between the International Space Station and the Ganymed Space Port is that the port had four trillion tons of mass that produced enough gravity so toilets flushed, water from showers eventually dropped, and a person could tell which way was up. Although, technically, gravity still affected the space station, for all practical purposes, it was zero-gravity. What was up did not come down. Ever. Without ropes, straps, or velco, lovers could spend more time finding each other than fucking each other.
So those who just wanted to float needed a little help. Too much helium and he would rise to the ceiling, yet not enough and he would remain on the floor unless he pushed off. Instead, they pushed him in the middle of Central where he joined the others. Jasmine grabbed him as he passed by and they hugged like children after strapping themselves together.
Bob and Gina had gone first, so they had been cuddling for an hour now. James wondered if his father died because he went so long without moving a muscle or making a sound. Gina, at least, occasionally purred. Nobody wore anything heavier than underwear, so ten couples floated as if on magical beds. Few moved, so they rarely bumped into each other. Bob and Gina floated the highest, about five stories up, near the middle of the room. Others chose the equivalent of corners. The Russian and his wife preferred to stay within two meters of the floor. Just in case.
James heard of salt water tanks so dense that people could actually float on the surface and never sink. He had never tried them, but this is what that must feel like. The camera crews grew bored filming couples just holding each other, slowly rotating on their axis. Soft jazz music almost put them to sleep. The new trophy wife of the Chinese tycoon farted loudly, but wisely no one wanted to break the mood. Besides, they couldn’t move out of her blast radius anyways. In fact, the only way they could even get down was by deflating the helium cushions.
Despite himself, James felt all tension drain out of him. He didn’t feel sleepy, yet he wasn’t really awake. Not after the first few hours. He didn’t dream so much as lose himself in the wonderful sensation of weightlessness. He knew of no drug that felt this good. Moreover, he wanted to know why they weren’t sleeping like this every night.
Then Jasmine started touching him. Lightly to not move them too much. She hated facing down, for some reason. James just didn’t enjoy feeling upside down, but if he closed his eyes not even that bothered him.
His cock responded long before she touched it. He came in her just a few hours before, so he knew she was just giving him time to recharge.
That’s when it hit him. “I think I’ve figured out anal.”
Well, that woke Jasmine up like a skillet to the forehead. They scrambled out of the strap that held them together and struggled to change their relative positions. They looked like those suicidals who jump off of buildings, the way their arms and legs flailed in all directions. The other nine couples watched closely and even the camera crews on the floor, anchored there by magnetized boots, perked up.
