I'd been on-station for about six months before I got the balls to ask Julie out.
Now, if you're wondering why it took so damned long, it's just that so many factors weighed against me.
First, we were working. Atmosphere is expensive and the company staffs their stations to maximize their return on investment. In other words, a skeleton crew is the norm and we're all working our brains out. There's no time for chitchat and flirting when you're running approach on at least four freighters an hour. If your docking average falls below three, the whole traffic control crew gets reshuffled, meaning the new guy gets to pay for his ride dirtside, according to the contract he signed.
Second, there aren't that many opportunities for recreation on a transfer station. The company is generous enough to provide a few common areas and rec facilities to keep the crews from going bonkers, but it's the barest minimum as specified by company psychologists. A company psyche is not going to earn her bonus by recommending ball courts and decorative gardens. Ninety-eight percent of your typical station's mass is there for materials transfer.
A consortium once tried fielding automated stations. A freighter's approach is just basic ballistics. Even with a crew, most of the work is done with software. Without a crew to gobble up expensive resources, the consortium could charge lower transfer fees. When they were first released, the auto-stations had a spike in business. But they found that even with the lower fees, miner captains preferred to have a human voice guide them home after months in space.
Someone tried automated miner ships too, but the cost of maintenance was too high. That and remote mining operations suffered from comm latency and they weren't able to attract the right talent. Most folks who want to pilot a ship don't want to do it sitting on their butts on a planet.
The last hurdle that kept me from asking Julie out was that she was absolutely gorgeous. She had that spare, lithe body. The company-supplied jumpsuits weren't designed to flatter anyone, but Julie filled hers out just fine. I loved that spacer-chic hairdo, short with cute little pigtails. And then there were her green, green eyes… luminous was the first word that came to mind.
So after six months of secret lusting, I finally did it. I heard that Julie liked to play foosball. This was my chance.
Our shift had just ended. The usual hubbub filled the control room, mostly about food, drink, sleep, and what everyone was going to do on liberty.
I called out across the room, "Hey Julie!"
Everything stopped.
"You want to play a game of foosball… or two?"
Everyone looked at Julie.
She smiled.
"Sure, newbie, I'll play, but I've got to warn you: you suck."
Chuckles all around.
I could feel my cheeks heat up.
"Oh really? How do you figure that?"
"Call it a hunch."
I pushed off towards the exit, feeling every single eye on me.
As we worked our way to the rec room, I had more chance to admire the way the company jumper moved and stretched on Julie. Watching her thread her way through the hub reminded me of gibbons at a zoo. The gibbon swings through a tree like a fluid thing. Jumps and swings aren't calculated. The body knows every branch, every drop and swing. Julie moved along bulkheads just like that. I gave up trying to imitate her and instead concentrated on just keeping up.
The hub rec room housed zero-g activities such as foosball, hoops, and, although there wasn't enough space, people still managed to play six-wall handball. Also, crew called it the Monkey Room because it was a favorite spot for the horizontal mambo (though in zero-g I guess "horizontal" doesn't make much sense.) I mean, who would want to hump in their full-g quarters when they could make like monkeys in the Monkey Room? That thought echoed like a dim hope in my head as I followed Julie.
We had the room to ourselves. Julie looked downright cocky. She took the red side and turned on the lights over the foosball cube. I moved to the blue side and pressed the power switch. The cube showed blue went first and the ball popped into my cage.
Now one thing Julie couldn't know, and I wasn't about to volunteer, was that this newbie knew his way around a foosball cube.
My dad was a mining exec, which means we moved around a lot as he climbed the corporate ladder. For three critical years, ages 12 to 15, I kicked around on a small company moon. Foosball became a particular obsession with the small group of nerdy corporate brats marooned on that blasted rock. The moon had some gravity, but I got experience with null-g on casinos during family vacations. I even boosted my allowance by winning some amateur tourneys.
So as I fed the ball into the serving tube, I didn't give it any english. I let Julie think I was a pushover.
I lost the first two games. I fought for the third a bit, but still lost. Our mouths were going as fast as our hands. We shot barbs and jibes at each other, relishing every shift in momentum. Julie looked positively radiant across the cube from me.
"You're getting the hang of this, newbie. A few more games and you might even get pretty good."
"It's Kentaro. My name is Kentaro."
"OK, Kent. Let's play another."
The fourth and fifth games were really fun, but I still let myself lose.
"Hey Julie, what do you say we make this even more interesting?"
"What, a bet? You really are a masochistic bastard."
"So what do you want if you win?"
"Let's see," she said, scratching at her chin, "How about you pay my passage on the next liberty ship?"
"Fair enough."
"So what about if I somehow manage to not utterly crush you… again."
"You date me."
"You mean like, go to the movies 'date'? Sharing a root beer float at the malt shop 'date'? Sticky, furtive sex in the back seat 'date'?"
"Sure."
"OK. You're on."
I pulled out the stops and quickly learned that Julie had been holding back as well. Our word play tailed off as the goals racked up.
Finally it came to the last goal. I had the ball in the top-row forwards. Julie had just fended off two match points from my mid-field snap shot that she'd learned to anticipate and block.
Julie looked like she was trying to bore a hold through the acrylic cover with those green eyes.
I kicked the ball down and back and slammed a mid-field bank shot. The room echoed with the "thunk" of the ball in her goal.
"So," I asked, "what do we do now?"
Julie sighed.
"Let's go find a root beer float."
*
A couple weeks flew by. We spent every waking hour of each day together, first in the control room, but that was torture because it was all business. After work, we'd talk on our bunks, chat in the galley area, or swear at each other over the foosball cube.
One evening, Julie stepped out of the galley to use the head and Roland Byerson, third-arm controller on our shift, strolled up to our bench.
"So how is she?" he asked.
"Sorry?"
"How is Julie?"
"Oh, she's fantastic," I gushed.
"Heh. Thought you might think so."
"Have you played her?"
"Boy, every man, woman, and manager in the quadrant has played that little piece."
"Uh… I'm talking about foosball."
He guffawed.
"Well, boy, I'm talking about fucking."
He shook his head as he walked away.
*
We should have been sleeping. Instead we were talking in our foosball room. I had to tell her.
"Roland wants to know why we're not fucking."
"Well, Roland's a prick."
"True."
"Do you want to know why we're not fucking?"
"Of course."
She shifted to face me.
"I really like spending time with you…"
"But…"
"There is no 'but'. I like being around you. I've been sleeping less in the last few weeks just so we can sit up and shoot the shit. I even think you're attractive. I've thought that from the day you pushed through the lock."
"Yeah, you were there."
"I like to check out the fresh meat."
"Roland mentioned that."
"Fuck Roland."
"He mentioned that too."
"Look, do you have problem with that?" Julie looked annoyed, almost angry.
"Not in the slightest."
"Good. I thought you wouldn't… hoped you wouldn't."
"Of course I wouldn't. What sort of a man would I be if I did?"
"A complete asshole, but you don't ever really know until you ask. I've had more fun in the last two weeks doing nothing with you than I have in… in… a damned long time."
She used her toe to turn herself a little away from me.
"I didn't sleep with you at first because you were new. After, I didn't because I didn't want things to change."
"Change?"
"You moving on. Me not having anyone to play foosball with."
"Julie, I'm not moving anywhere without you. Where would I find someone with such a nice butt who can beat me at foosball?"
"You're so sweet. I don't know whether to puke or cry." She was wiping at her eyes.
"Well, if you puke, can I still have sex with you?"
She laughed and reached out. "Come here, you."
I pushed off and took her hand. She tugged me in and surprised the hell out of me with a kiss.
I have no idea how long that kiss lasted, but our clothes had drifted to a far corner by the time I came up for air. I've never been so hungry for someone. I think we were both a little crazy, out of our minds.
Julie taught me so much about sex in zero-g that first time. She braced herself against my thrusting. She would take over and show me where to hold her. She moved against me and I could only just breathe. She paralyzed me with pleasure. I learned that sex was designed for null gravity. There isn't a part of your lover's body that's not accessible. No position is out of the question. Breasts move differently in null-g. Everything overwhelmed me, from the sounds she made, the fact that we were having sex, to the smell of her skin.
At some point, my lust slaked for a moment. I pressed my palm against her belly to get her attention and reached back to unlock her ankles at the small of my back. Still inside her, I pulled her to me and gave her a big hug as we slowly drifted to the center of the room.
"Mmmm," she moaned, "you're so cool."
"I can't believe how cool you are," I mumbled into her shoulder, "you're just so… so good!"
I gasped as she kiegeled around me. "See? See what I mean."
She chuckled and played her fingers up my back.
"Yeah, I'm pretty good, aren't I? And the beauty of it is: no wet spot."
"Huh?"
"Kent, dear, no gravity to pull my intimate fluids into a puddle. They stay right where they belong."
"Brilliant!"
She chuckled again as I pulled out. Then it was her turn to gasp as my mouth closed on her clitoris.
*
We got married, of course. It's the only way the company would guarantee our working together.
We both see kids in the future, but not for a while. When we build enough equity, maybe buy a share in our own processing station, then we'll switch on and spawn. In the meantime, we make sure that every station we work has a decent foosball cube.
Pakeha