Our technology has served to rescue our civilization. Not the over engineered, unreliable technology of today, but a simpler, more conservative technology, systems based on efficiency and reliability. Mankind has reached the heavens, discovered new worlds, gone forth and multiplied. Greed, mismanagement, exploitation, have been left behind. Now humanity works together for progress, for the betterment of all. Resources from space are developed, not for profit for a few, but to benefit all. Life is once again good.

Asteroid, Mine [chapter 1]

The big machine bucked and rocked. I nudged the control stick to center the irregular shaped nodule in the massive claw, evening the balance. I made the adjustment automatically, without taking my eyes from the story I had been reading. The Marquis had Pauline’s nude body stretched along a ladder, her wrists and ankles tied tightly to it’s sides. The cat whistled through the air, striking her bottom again and again, her screams of pain and ecstasy filling the basement room, echoing off the cold stone walls.

My hand reached down to finger the controls of the operators chair to deflate and harden the seat cushion while I rocked my hips forward, pressing my clit down, letting the vibrations of the digger work on me. The machine strained to carve out another huge nodule from the trench, rocking slightly as it transferred it to the ore belt. The banging from the jaws, the vibrations of the machine transferred through my bare feet, up my legs, and more directly through the seat to my pussy, pushing me closer to the edge. Pauline’s ass and back were criss-crossed with angry red welts as De Sade continued to slash his whip across her helpless form.

The engine roared as the huge digger bit into the ground. My foot lashed out at the E-stop bar as the cabin tilted up, my clit ground harder into the chair, and my orgasm crashed through me. The roaring both outside and inside my head eased off. As the power from my cum tapered away I slumped back in the chair even as the machine gently slumped back into the trench, it’s power winding down. I’m going to have to do more blasting here, I thought, as I opened my eyes to see what I knew I’d see, the ore highly concentrated here, too much for even the power of this machine. At least we’ll get a good yield for the week.

For the past eight years I have worked for the Intra System Asteroid Mining Company, I SAM for short. Fresh out of grad school at Rigel 4, oh, I had grand ideas of taking my diploma and landing some cushy high credit job at Eden or Olympus, where the money and the life was easy. But a girl has to eat, and after ten months with no prospects I signed on with I SAM for a year. I started in the shop, machine repair. The work was hard, dirty, even dangerous. But damned if I didn’t enjoy it. After that first year I re-upped, five weeks training in electronics and machine controls, then back at it with cleaner work and more credits to bank. Work was work but I SAM took care of it’s workers. There was none of the bull shit that infests a lot of jobs, you were trained how to do things, then left to do it. Your needs were taken care of and the pay was better than good. And the people I worked with were the greatest.

I powered up to disengage the claw from the massive boulder it had tried to eat, then set the drive to back up along the trench. I had still another hour in my shift so I could get most of the charges set before Jim took over. Unlike ore retrieval, which the digger could pretty much handle on auto, setting a blast was manual work so Pauline’s plight would have to wait. I stowed my reader in my pack, then guided the machine up the ramp and across the surface again to the head of the trench. Five holes, five plasma charges, then retreat a safe distance. By then Jim should dock and I would be free for a four day off. I tapped the comm to send a report to opps, then got to work.

I had finished setting the last hole when I felt Jim’s shuttle locking into the dock. A few moments later his head popped through the aft hatch and he dropped his helmet on the couch, shucking his bulky suit off. Digger op was a dangerous job but it paid the most so that’s why I had gone for it. I’m Twenty nine now and this will be my last year with I SAM. With the credits I had in the bank I could take a year or two off, then find something else. There are plenty of opportunities for someone like me in this system. I met Jim a few years back and we had a torrid fling, for a while. He had been a spacer with the Imperial fleet, and had moved up in I SAM to operator quickly. He gave my shoulders a squeeze when he came up behind, and I pointed out the charges I had laid.

“Good metal down there.” I said. “Should make the old man happy.”

“You’re off now, right?” Jim asked.

“A four day at Crydon,” I said. “Might pinch an extra shift, I hear the baths at Landon are heavenly.” I stood and stretched, giving Jim the chair.

“You might as well book off the extra day now,” he told me. “The baths are wonderful. Drop by the Lambda Bar on Fleet street while you’re there, you might find it fun.”

I was pulling on my pressure suit and my ears perked up. Jim knows all too well my tastes. “Fleet near 23’rd? I’ll have a look.” I said.

Jim gave a short bark of a laugh as I grinned back at him. I had heard of the Lambda bar and that was actually my main destination this trip. I grabbed my helmet from the rack and said “See you next week.”

I cycled the dock air lock and climbed into my shuttle. The company gave me this ship when I was doing service calls four years back. You could buy your ship at the end of your career, if you wanted, and I planned to do just that. The ship was old when I got it, not luxurious, but it was solid and that’s what counts when you’re ten K cels from nowhere. I knew it from stem to stern, having worked on it enough times and with the mods I have made it will do 50 cel out of system. That’s five thousand times light speed, in the old measure.

I blew into ops to clock out, then went to quarters for a quick shower. I was back out less than an hour later, heading for Crydon, De Sade on the screen. Although I studied earth history in school it was only lately I have come to appreciate the valiant salvage operation that followed the Big Disaster. It was not just genetic material and early technology that was spirited to the colonies, but music, art, books on human history, and literature, such as the one I was now reading. That a tale written so long ago could move me so strongly now I found amazing. Times change, but people are still people.

I had shucked my heavy pressure suit minutes after departure. I sat relaxed, curled in the chair in an over size tee shirt, nothing more. But in my mind, I was tied tightly, spread across Sade’s heavy wood dining room table, the flickering candle light casting ominous shadows on the dark wood panelling of the room. Pauline strained at the thick ropes on her wrists and ankles, but there was no give in the unyielding hemp that streached her hands and her feet away from her naked form on the table. She slumped back in her bonds, a tear rolling down her cheek. She (I) looked up at a sound, the door opening behind her and a shadow moved into the room. I shivered as my fingertip brushed over my clit. My other arm raised to my chest under the shirt, touching, then squeezing the stiff buds there as the text continued to scroll on the console screen.

Pauline moaned as the man came to her and tenderly stroked her tortured back. Her body jerked when he placed his hand between her spread thighs, cupping the folds of soft flesh there. His finger traced her slit, the lips parting, inviting. I slid in one finger, my thumb pressing the little nub against it. She arched her hips up towards his hand, mashing her breasts against the hard wood of the table. De Sade pushed in deeper, savouring the heat, the wetness, the girl’s anticipation of what was to come, bringing her closer to the point, that moment of sweet, burning pleasure-pain, and the flood of release that would follow.

Using his hands he drove the girl ever onwards, up the steep slope to a point where she was writhing and moaning her need. De Sade’s hands abruptly left the girl’s body leaving her momentarily stunned, lost, without the stimulation he had been providing. As Pauline bucked and moaned on the table De Sade reached down to unhook the whip at his belt. A moment later it whistled through the air, striking poor Pauline square across her upturned bum. She (I) let out a sharp cry as the sensation triggered the first wave of her (my) crashing orgasm.

I closed my eyes, the reading program freezing the display in response, as I squirmed in the chair, lost in the power of the cum I was experiencing. I almost fell out of the chair, not a real tragedy in the low gee of the craft, imagining the feeling of that whip striking my back. I once experienced a stim-sim of a whipping program, modeled after something like in De Sade’s book. It was in a red light district of Nexis, far out in the Sigma quadrant, before I worked for I SAM. It was a good simulation, leaving me sweaty and breathless but like all sims it couldn’t substitute for the real thing. I would have never considered it in my younger days, but lately I have been having desires to drive myself, or more accurately, be driven, further into my more deeper fantasies.

I opened my eyes and switched the display to navigation. Half hour to go. I switched back and read the rest of the chapter. After her whipping, Pauline is carefully untied and carried to her bed, retied there for the night. De Sade tenderly locks the cuffs on the wrists and ankles of his most treasured possession, the chains at the ends of the bed a little slack, giving her some freedom of movement for the night. He kisses her lips softly as he whispers goodnight, then rises, to blow out the candle, leaving Pauline alone with her thoughts.

There has been no one in my life who could tame and inflame my passions, I thought, as I made ready to land. There have been men, yes, who I sometimes let come close, but often they were either too weak to just take me like I yearned for them to do, or they lost their nerve upon finding out I was one of the tough and rough breed of asteroid miners. I am one of those breed, can tear down a mass converter in my sleep. Yet sometimes, the fragile little girl in me peeks out, then begins to lead me off in a direction I don’t know but, when I get a glimpse of, know that I want to explore farther.

I met a programmer once, worked with him doing some mods in the smelter. We got to know one another pretty well that week. The sex was all that and more. After we had discovered a shared interest, our true passions, he offered to take me to a friend’s place over on Quarrk. During the flight his ship lost it’s drive and we were being pulled down the gravity well of a gas giant. He freaked out. Rather than continue in my demure female character and meet an untimely demise, I tore open an access panel and yanked the plasma flow shift valve. Singed my finger tips a bit, and broke a nail, but I re-machined the slides with a small file and greased the actuator with some butter from his galley. Then I jammed the valve assembly home before the unmodulated plasma could blow the compressor to bits and reached over his sobbing form to stabilize the engines. We pulled away from the planet and made the first nearby port safely to effect a more permanent repair.

My companion was grateful I had saved his scrawny neck, but there was a definite cooling of the relationship. I had assisted him in his work at the smelter, but when I had taken over on his ship I had crossed some line that said he was the male and girls can’t understand machinery. This was how it was in olden times yet even now some men still cling to this absurd notion. I grabbed the next commercial flight back, canceled my vacation and reported back to work. My supervisor noted my mood and assigned me light duties for a few days. In the end I was glad that I saw the fellows true character, before wasting too much time on him.

Traffic was thick around Crydon, it being a most hospitable planet. Much like old Earth would have been, before things started to go bad. Oxygen rich, warm climate, and water everywhere, cool, clean water. Rivers of it, lakes full. One could scoop up handfulls anywhere and drink your fill. I got my vector from control and swooped under the cloud cover. Water beading against the view port. It was raining! I touched down in a grassy field near the hotel I was booked into. Wearing just my tee shirt I exited the craft. Bare feet on the soft wet grass, water soaking me at once. It was heaven. An electrical discharge flashed from the sky, down to a point several klicks east. A moment later the sound boomed across the field, a low rumbling in the pit of my stomach and the soles of my feet. I stuck out my tongue to catch the water as the rain washed away all of my stress.

I saw a land vehicle detach from the hotel to circle around, then head my way. When it came nearby, the window opened and the man inside said “Miss Rytell?”

“That’s me.” I replied.

He slipped a beat, staring at me standing in the rain. My shirt had become almost transparent with the soaking I was getting.

“I can give you a lift to the hotel, if you like.” he said.

I reached into my shuttle to grab my bag, then closed the hatch. The man opened the LV door for me and I sat down. By the time we reached the hotel the rain was starting to ease up and he let me off under the canopy in front. The man at the front desk was more subtle, snatching quick glances at my chest when he thought I wasn’t looking, the chill of my wet shirt causing my nipples to stick out underneath. I logged in, then an attendant showed me up to my room. The room was nice with a door leading out to a balcony and fresh air, the smells of greenery revitalized from the rain. I tipped the attendant, then, when he’d gone, I stripped off my wet shirt and grabbed a towel to dry myself off. I sat at the terminal to book a time at the famous mud baths, then I punched to the Lambda bar’s site.

I had seen this page before but I hoped the local net contained more details. I was right. Daily listings, retro rock and roll band in the upstairs lounge and in the cellar, level two, S&M 201, an “interactive lecture”. Yumm.

But first things first. I pulled out a shirt and my ankle length skirt from my bag. I had brought a pair of hiking boots, but didn’t expect to need them. I prefer barefoot whenever possible and this planet was perfect for that. Even when I’m operating a machine I found that I could sometimes detect a change in vibration through my feet that might alert me to trouble I could have missed. Plus I just like the feel, and I have noticed some men seem to like the look of a barefoot girl. I wiggled my toes in the soft carpet of the room. My two little silver titanium toe rings twinkled at the hem of the cotton skirt, a gift from me, to me, on my twenty fifth birthday.

I went downstairs to the hotel dining room. Fresh and fresh are the key words to describe the food on Crydon. The planet doesn’t have a season, it’s summer all the time at this latitude. Nearer to the equator it is hotter. Every type of old Earth crop and plant, those that were saved that is, flourishes here. I stuffed myself with the bounty of fresh vegetables and fruit that the restaurant had to offer. After lunch, I was off to keep my appointment at the baths.

One could hire a LV if you wanted privacy but there was little point. The planet, being a popular vacation destination, had a wonderful public transport system. I caught the subway train in the basement of the hotel, then changed trains in the city. A short hop on a quaint surface trolley took me to the mud baths near a small lake, just south of town.

I had been to these baths about five years ago. Water from the lake percolates through faults in the planet’s crust, finding it’s way deep where the pressure and heat is great. The water picks up minerals from the rock, then is forced back up to the surface. The heat powers this complex as well as much of the town, while the thick mineral mud forms the sticky pools which people find so relaxing to wallow in. Some say that the minerals are absorbed by one’s body to promote good health, and that may even be true, but the feelings of well being after a long soak in the warm ooze can not be denied. While I waited for the receptionist to check me in I could feel the low rumblings of the forces at work under the building.

They had a new pool set up this year that the brochure described as a “confiningly orgasmic experience.” When I stepped up to the desk I asked the girl there about it. She explained that a polymer was added to an indoor pool which thickened the mud considerably. If one was to lay still enough it would become quite hard around you. Once you started to move around, however, the mud would slowly begin to soften again. There was also a thumper in the pool which would set up standing waves of vibration in the mud. The girl lowered her voice a little, and I noticed her blush a bit. “If you position yourself just right,” she said, “it can be a real mind blower.”

I told her that I might enjoy blowing my mind a bit and asked if there was a time limit. She said no, you can stay in as long as you can stand it. Then you just start flexing and moving a bit so the mud softens around you and you can get out. Sounds simple enough. She swiped my card and I was off. A short walk later I pushed open the door to the pool and stepped inside. The lighting was low but I could make out the shapes of three other women, their heads that is, their bodies below the surface of the mud. The room was large, the air smelling primordial. I saw an area lit from a skylight above, tall leafy trees and smaller ferns, around a waterfall, for washing afterwards. There was an attendant sitting at a desk near the door who smiled at me as I walked past. I unbuttoned my shirt and stepped out of my skirt, folding the clothes to place them on a shelf along one wall.

I crossed over to the pool and tested it with my toe. The mud was just slightly cool to the touch. The big thumper was on the far side. I could see the waves from the vibrations rippling along the surface of the mud. One of the women nearby let out a low moan, her eyes screwed tightly shut. I stepped down into the pool, my leg slowly sinking in, to find a ledge around the edge. I eased myself into the pool. When my pussy dipped below the surface I felt the pulsing from the thumper much more clearly. This should be interesting, I thought. It took some effort to swim through the thick goo but I positioned myself where I had noticed the waves were crossing, reflecting off two sides of the pool. The dense mud was buoying my body up, but I managed to keep in a slightly crouched position long enough for the mud to harden around my feet. I was then able to straighten a bit so I was on a 45 degree angle, sort of. I leaned my head back and parted my thighs a little. As a last thought I eased my hands behind my back and grasped a wrist in each hand.

The pulses from that crazy thumper were starting to effect me. The more the mud thickened around my body, the stronger the vibrations became. I had found the right spot all right, with the vibrations coming at me from three sides. The main pulse and one reflected pulse hitting my front, with the second reflection flowing down my back and butt. I could sense the slight delay as the main pulse tweaked my clit, then flowed up my belly to tickle my nipples. The mud around me had become almost hard now and I couldn’t hardly move at all. I heard one of the other women let out a long, low yell but when I tried to turn my head I couldn’t, the goo had hardened around my chin and the back of my head. I started to flex the muscles in my legs, and I did panic a bit, until I felt the mud soften a little. I spread my thighs a little more, then settled back down. I pulled hard with my arms but the grip was like steel. Yet if I slowly flexed my fingers, in a few moments the mud around them would get softer. Slow movement. That is how the mud stays soft, the pulses of the thumper are tuned to the polymer. The softness of my body dampened the pulses to allow the mud to bind together in a hard mass around me.

With understanding came a calm which was quickly overtaken by a lovely little orgasm. I then noticed another feature of this pool. During that first cum my cunt muscles had contracted a few times, in the same slow rhythm as the vibrations flowing through me. I could feel that I had opened a little down there, and some of the mud had been drawn, or pushed inside. I flexed my inner thighs a little, slowly, yes. Yes, there was something going on down there. I relaxed into it and was soon in the throws of another cum, this time defiantly stronger and longer. On the next one I pulled and struggled, my arms pinned solidly behind my back, my feet and legs, every part of me firmly entombed in the hardened mud. And now more of the mud had found it’s way inside my cunt, a noticeable amount, transferring the pulsations of the thumper inside me.

It was my steady breathing that was keeping a reserve of mud liquid around my belly. Each time I came, my deep breathing would push some of that mud down to fill my cunt a little more. Then when the cum subsided what was in me would get hard again. Each time I came, and I was up to six now, I would get filled a little more. I really started to let my subconscious take over as I lay trapped in the mud, getting fucked by an ever growing cock, which was relentless, and never grew tired. Another cum, this one making me reel with the intensity of it. I strained to move but I was held fast in cement. I could only open my mouth a little with the mud gripping my chin, to moan loudly. Even at my ass a small finger of mud was pressing, probing to gain entry. Another cum, the strongest yet, my clit thrashing in the goo surrounding it, the vibrations pounding deep within me, all around me.

My cunt felt full now, but not painfully so. The crest of another cum caused me to gasp and moan as I rode it out. My orgasms were coming quicker now, leaving me almost no time to recover before another started building in me. The firm pounding of that thumper was pressing all around, and deep inside, to my very core. Another massive cum, each time a little stronger and lasting a little longer than the previous one. I couldn’t move at all, could only ride it out, gasping breathlessly even as another cum started to grow. This was heaven and I’m going to die, I thought. This is it. I rode the rush to the peak, then hung there for what seemed like an eternity. My clit was on fire, sending massive shock waves throughout my nervous system, charging my body to overload. I may have screamed, I don’t know. I didn’t know anything at that point. My muscles started twitching all over, the nerves firing seemingly at random. My entire being exploded in such a massive release that I actually blacked out.

It was several minutes before I began to stir, coming back to ground. I was laying in a very comfortable bed, I thought. I raised my arm to find I was covered with some sticky substance. When I looked I found I was floating in the mud pool, it’s density pushing most of me above the surface. I flexed my feet to break up the clump of mud surrounding them, then I rolled over and paddled to the edge of the pool. It was later on that I found out if one stays in long enough, their body takes on the rhythm of the thumper, becomes tuned to the frequency that reverts the polymer back to a liquid. Then you simply float up to the surface. I reached the edge and tried to pull myself out of the mud. I discovered I didn’t have the strength. The attendant saw me and whispered that I should relax a few minutes, that I would be all right.

On the second try I was able to push myself up to lay on the deck for a moment, before standing on shaky legs to move towards the waterfall. As I walked I could feel the clump of mud inside me break up and dribble past my pussy lips to run down my legs. I slumped down on a bench to let the warm water cascade over me, washing all the mud off as I caught my breath. One of the other women was sitting at the base of the waterfall and she smiled at me when I looked up.

“Wasn’t that wild?” she said.

Her face and chest were flushed, her breathing quick and her eyes were sparkling. She was using a small hose to rinse out the mud from inside her. “Quite the trip.” I answered. I sat under the water for a while until my strength returned, using one of the bubbling hoses on myself. Then I dried off and got dressed. I followed the signs leading to the bar and settled in one of the big comfy chairs. I ordered a brown cow, fresh creamy milk with a chocolate liqueur. The milk, lovely and refreshing, the alcohol, the bite I needed to bring me back to the land of the living. I had another, then left, feeling wonderful, to go take a massage.

The masseur used handfulls of that special mud, mixed with oils and lightly scented, skilfully rubbing it into my tired muscles. He worked the slippery goo deep into my back and shoulders, down my arms and legs, into my hands and feet. Then he had me roll over to do my front, gently on my aching nipples and feather light over my throbbing clit. He hosed the mud off me off with a gentle warm spray. I felt the masseur’s fingers moving my rings a little, flushing the mud out from beneath. A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. It’s good when you find some little pleasures in your work. He used a small stick to clean the mud from under my toe nails and finger nails, then he directed me outside the building to a big pond of clean steaming water. This was the hot, mineral enriched water that had finished it’s trip inside the planet and now bubbled up, seeking the light of day once more. I splashed around and swam out to the center. The water over the vent was almost too hot to bear. I don’t think I had ever felt so good.

After my swim I dressed and left, catching the tram to the center of town. I had a big meal in a nice little restaurant, fresh salad with bread rolls hot from the oven. Then fish with sweet potatoes and little carrots, followed by melt in your mouth apple pie with real ice cream. Damn, you miss that working on an asteroid eleven months of the year. After supper I walked around an open air market taking in the sights. I picked up another long skirt, a deep green with a leafy design printed on it. Soft and not too heavy it was a hemp cotton blend, the vendor assuring me it would wear well. It came with a leather belt but I saw a black nylon weave one that I preferred, you never know when an adjustable cinch might come in handy to hold something together. In the end I bought the leather belt too. There was something about the feel of it, and the smell, that I found strangely attractive.

It was quite late when I arrived back at my hotel, dead tired yet never feeling so alive in years. I watched some news on the terminal, then crawled into bed and slept like a rock.