Europa Mon Amour

Chapter 4

Boredom makes people do strange things. Living in close quarters for a long time can make for some interesting situations. Marie and I exercised together, ate together, spent time playing games and reading together. After a while, life became a routine.

To make matters worse, the crew compartment was not designed to provide modesty protection. Our beds were essentially alcoves built into the wall and the bathroom occupied a wall-indented space between our beds. One had to strip out in the corridor before entering the shower unit that is more of misting station than a shower, mostly because water is so precious. Every drop of moisture--disposed, secreted or flushed--is purified and reused. The toilet was not much better, it literally was situated in a small indentation in the wall.

It was virtually impossible to ignore Marie when she stripped. For some reason our beds were oriented to face the bathroom section between our bunks. Modesty had been thrown out the window, so to speak because there were no windows on our spacecraft. I assume that she checked my out when I took a shower. Whoever designed this arrangement certainly didn’t figure on a mixed crew, or they just didn’t care.

We usually took our showers before retiring for the night, not that there was actually a night. Space is continually dark, except for the sun’s constant illumination. We were over two hundred and eighty million miles from Earth now and the sun was looking smaller and smaller with each passing day. We had been slowly traversing the asteroid belt. Despite the number of asteroids orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, they are widely dispersed and with careful speed adjustment, were avoidable. Occasionally, we would hear the engines fire or the shielding hiss as the ship tried to avoid the catastrophic results of a collision.

When we weren’t running or exercising, we sat at the command station and observed a Jupiter inexorably growing in size. A telescopic lens on the forward facing camera allowed us to orient the camera and magnify the image.

“How difficult will it be to land on Europa?” she asked.

“That’ll be the easy part. The hard part is trying to ram the submersible down into Europa’s hard ice crust. It has an auger to dig into the ice, but that will only work for a thin layer, which means that we’ll have to drop down into a crevice before trying to dig through the ice crust. At least that’s the plan.”

Marie sighed. “This waiting is driving me crazy. I wish that we could do something more interesting while we travel to our destination.”

“We should spend time studying the submersible manuals,” I said before I typed in a command.

COMA, DISPLAY THE SUBMERSIBLE MANUAL.

The manual displayed on the main screen.

She tilted her head and shot a teasing grin at me. “I was hoping for something more . . . more interesting.”

I smiled. “What did you have in mind, my dear?”

She got up and sat on my lap facing me. I felt her hands go behind my neck and then felt her breath as she stuck her face close to mine. Her sweet breath warmed my face and her beautiful eyes smiled at me and beckoned my lips. Our lips merged and we sucked the breath out of each other, or so it seemed.

Her amorous actions ceased when I explored her scar with the fingers of my right hand.

“What do you find so fascinating about my scar?” she asked with a pout.

I turned my eyes briefly to hers before continuing my exploration. “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen a scar this large on someone’s face. Did you suffer any burns on the rest of your body?”

She glared at me for a moment before replying. “Why are you so interested in my body?”

I gave her a wise-guy smirk. “Duh!”

That made her grin and do something unexpected. She pulled her tee off and dropped it on the floor. Since she wasn’t wearing a bra, I was staring at two perfectly symmetrical heavenly shaped boobs.

“Look at me,” she said in an agitated tone. “Do you see any other scaring?”

I gave her a sly grin and rubbed my jaw for effect. “Well, I’m not able to see all of you so I can’t confirm that.”

She climbed off of me and pulled her shorts down. She wasn’t wearing underwear.

“Now, do you see any scars?”

I made a circular motion with my hand. “Turn around, please.”

She spun around and stood with her beautiful back to me while looking back. “Are you satisfied?”

“Yes, I’m satisfied that you have the most beautiful TUSH I’ve ever seen.”

She exploded with mock indignation. “You are crazy, Ryan Taylor.”

I gave her a satisfied grin. “Most people tell me that.”

She laughed and she jumped back on me for a much more pleasant necking session. I just loved how smooth her skin was. Touching it aroused me, and I had to fight to remain in control.

I wasn’t sure what to make of her more aggressive advances. Did she want to have sex? I felt that having sex while on a mission would not go well with the establishment, but at the same time, I wouldn’t mind doing it with her. However, I felt it would make more sense to postpone it until the return trip, assuming that we were successful.

That evening I was relaxing in my bed and I suddenly remembered something. I saw Marie coming to her bed and I stopped her.

“I knew that I would eventually figure out who you are,” I said.

She stared at me with wide eyes.

“You’re General Edward Gonzalez’s daughter, aren’t you? That explains why you’re on this mission.”

“What are you implying?” she said, frowning and staring at me with accusing eyes.

“I had trouble trying to figure out why they would send a girl on this mission with me; now it makes sense.”

“So, does that mean that you no longer trust me?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. What I’m trying to tell you is that I understand why you’re on this mission. You father wants you to share in the glory if this mission is successful. You and he would be celebrities.”

“But, you will also share in this glory that you talk about, senor.”

“Yeah, I might end up getting another gig with NASA, but I’m just a rocket man, not a famous scientist like you. You graduated from MIT with top honors at the age of fourteen and went on to become the youngest professor ever at UCLA. You’ve even published papers on extraterrestrial life. No wonder they sent you on this trip.”

“Does that change how you feel about me?”

“No way. I think that you’re a beautiful girl despite your scar and I feel that we’re a perfect team.” I smiled. “Besides, I feel better about the fact that you know so much about exploring for extraterrestrial life.”

She smiled, and that made me smile. I felt that it was necessary to keep her in good spirits because if she became depressed this mission and our lives would be compromised.