SPACE COLONY CHRONICLES (10)
By Dolphin Dan
*** This story takes place against the backdrop of an alternate history where, after the U.S. Apollo Moon landing program ended in 1972, the United States and Soviet Union, and eventually other countries, joined together in a massive concerted effort to build a large Earth-orbiting space station capable of sustaining a significant human population in space. This alternate history explores a trajectory of peace and cooperation that was not taken, instead of a course of antagonism and conflict that, in the real world, was. Peace and cooperation is always better than war and conflict. [/Dolphin rant OFF Execute Program Space Colony Chronicles 10.0] ***
By the turn of the century in 2000, the space colony had been operational for 14 years, ten of which I'd lived there. I was now 27, and living with my boyfriend, Javier, who was 22. Our lives together were pretty tranquil. We lived in a small apartment. I worked for MC, Maintenance Control, and Javier eventually got a job as a teacher at the nursery school after a period of student teaching. It was a great job for him because he was terrific with kids. Although he spoke English well by now, he was especially in demand after two more Spanish-speaking countries, Mexico and Spain, established their presence on the colony which meant more families with young children coming to the station. His father was recalled to Buenos Aires in 1999 and his family went home to Earth, but Javier stayed mainly because of me. Life was pretty tranquil, to be honest.
We really did have some epic sex especially in our 20s. I told you last time about Javier's preference for anal sex and also getting sucked, especially in one position he liked, which was sitting on the edge of a bed. When we had sex I'd say about 75% of the time it was anal with me in the top position, so I got very used to it. Often he'd warm me up with a little ritual where I lay on top of him, Javier on his stomach, and I'd grind my dick into his butt crack which he clenched to stimulate me and get me hot. I also loved brushing the tip of my dick up and down his butt crack. We almost never did it in the "gay missionary" position; it was almost always him laying down on his stomach underneath me. The other 25% was exclusively me blowing him. Javier also enjoyed playing in the shower but we couldn't often do that because water on the station was rationed. But me giving him head in the shower, damn, he loved that. For years when we lived in the apartment at Block B12 our shower was super tiny, so it was a really tight fit for both of us to get in there at the same time. I think that was part of what he liked.
There was one behavior that Javier did (and still does) that was perhaps a little unusual but that I found charming. Because the vast majority of our sex was me doing him, he didn't get off nearly as much as I did, at least while we were together. He would often masturbate on his own, which was fine, but both because he liked it and because it played to my underwear fetish often he would cum in a pair of my underwear and leave it somewhere for me to find, usually in our bedroom, especially one particular corner. I didn't really do anything with them, and that wasn't the point, but finding a pair of my shorts in the corner with dried stains on them, at least I knew he got off and enjoyed himself. We were actually together for a while before we got started with this ritual but it quickly became a habit and I'd just leave my dirty shorts at the top of the hamper for him to do with as he pleased. He would also sometimes masturbate in bed when I was asleep. That never bothered me. Eventually, as happens with most long term couples, our love sort of grew out of the horny young physical phase and crystallized into a deep emotional bond. It was fairly rare to find stable long-term gay couples on the station, but we were one.
Life on the station eventually grew and changed. Although it had been functional since the early days, eventually they completed the Toilet Lid, the giant mirror hanging over the station and beaming sunlight down into it, which meant all parts of the station now had a natural day and night (previously there were sections that were artificial light only). Construction also began on the second ring, outboard of the first major one, which when finished--it would take 15 years to build--would be a quantum leap in the history of the station. By 2005 the main part of the station had reached its projected population capacity which was about 3500 people. When the outer ring was finished the station could support a population of 30,000. And they were beginning Cooperation 2, another even more advanced station. Several more countries added their contingents to the colony. In 1986 it started with just the big countries, but twenty years later there were sectors representing Australia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Egypt, Sweden, Colombia, Thailand and numerous others, countries you wouldn't think could afford or want space programs. Babies were now routinely born in space. George W. Bush became the first U.S. President to visit the space colony. I didn't vote for him, but his visit marked a milestone in the history of Cooperation 1. Not to be outdone, Putin visited a couple of months later, followed by Prince Charles, the President of France and the Dalai Lama. Nobody cared much about these political visits, but when Beyonce came to the station to play a couple of sold-out shows, life basically came to a halt for the three days she was there.
In 2007, Javier and I made a trip back to Earth. He wanted to see his family and it had been twelve years since I'd been back. We spent three months down below, about half of that time in Buenos Aires. It was beautiful, but honestly I had no desire to live on Earth. The spaces were too wide open, there were too many people, and too few of them were paying attention to problems that mattered, like climate change. We got back to the station and I haven't been back since, although Javier has gone back down to Argentina twice. (My parents still live on the station; his don't). We had definitely become space folk.
There are a lot of things that space folk never get to experience. I'm in my late 40s now. I don't know how to drive a car. I've never seen snow, I've never owned an umbrella and I've only ever seen wild animals on television. Because the climate on Cooperation 1 is carefully controlled, space folk like me shiver violently if the temperature drops below 55 degrees (it never does) and I'm told that I could get heat stroke if it was ever above 80. Although it doesn't affect Javier and I because we're not going to have kids, they discovered in the last few years that the rate of sterility in men aboard the station is something like three times what it is on Earth, and the rates of certain cancers are also much higher, having to do with the differing radiation we receive living in space. I can't confidently count on living past my 60s which means my life is already two-thirds over. So there are trade-offs. But on the other hand my home is clean, well-ordered and beautiful. There are parks with trees, the weather is always pleasant, the crime rate is very low and I know the management of every ethnic restaurant in orbit.
I also have a boyfriend I'm very happy with, whom I've been with for over 25 years now. We built our life together exclusively in space, one of the first gay families in human history ever to do that. The little silver speck you can see crossing the sky on clear nights is our home. It's not perfect, but there is love there, and that's the most important thing as far as I'm concerned. Over and out. End program Space Colony Chronicles.
THE END
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