| |
A group of horny swingers
Go hurtling through space
They only have one mission
To feel the crew’s embrace
It starts off good and proper
The sex is rather grand
But then they hear a warning
That deviates the plan
The cruise is interrupted
The games are put on hold
A moment of confusion
And then the hurt unfolds
Joyride sailed along its wide orbit of Earth like a slick bullet, its cream body reflecting the myriad colours of its home planet. The vessel was two weeks into its journey, carrying its load of six hedonistic passengers as they lived out their wildest fantasies onboard.
The passengers consisted of three couples, some married some not, ranging in age from early-twenties to mid-fifties. The difference in age was balanced out by the commonality in wealth, though, giving all six of them a strong foundation of common ground.
And of course, there was also their shared appetite for sex.
Hiring the Joyride vessel for a month from Felicity Incorporated certainly wasn’t cheap, but for the likes of Claude, Lacey, George, Connie, Luke and Chloe, it also wasn’t a problem. Claude was the handsome young son of a tech giant, enjoying life with his equally stunning fiancé, Lacey; George was a middle-aged property tycoon, pampering his plump wife, Connie, with the all-inclusive trip of a lifetime; and Luke was a tall, eagle-nosed entrepreneur, embarking on a sexual adventure with the young nymph, Chloe, whom he’d picked up in a trendy bar a few weeks prior to the trip.
Joyride boasted a large range of ornate suites, all kitted out in the finest style with no expense spared, but on this night in question all six of the privileged crew were assembled in the main lounge, letting their hair down so to speak. Lacey and Connie were down on the centre floor, playing with each other’s thighs and breasts as Luke assumed a role of intimate referee. George and Claude watched the show from one of the encircling sofas, enjoying the oral attention of Chloe as she went back and forth between their legs.
Claude was relishing the moment. In addition to the pleasant view down below, there was also a huge observation window at the far end of the room, looking out onto the marble-like form of Earth. Letting his eyes wander around, he took in the serenity of it all, the astronomical vista punctuated by the orgasmic moans of his model wife. A subtle grin was present on his smooth, clean-shaven face—moments like this were to be cherished.
Just when it seemed like things couldn’t get any better, however, a jarring, piercing noise rang out from somewhere overhead, disrupting the steamy ambience and throwing everything out of kilter.
‘This is a security alert!’ rang an automated voice. ‘The Joyride vessel is making an unplanned deviation from its designated route! I repeat: this is a security alert! The Joyride vessel is making...’
‘What the hell?’ said Claude, leaning up from the couch.
Over in the centre of the room, Luke, Lacey, and Connie halted their thrusting and gyrating, gazing around like a group of meerkats who’d just been caught rummaging through someone’s larder. The warning sounded off another two or three times, throwing confusion about the place, and then it fizzled away quicker than their mounting climaxes had.
‘Let’s not panic,’ said Chloe, rising to her feet by the sofa and wiping her mouth. ‘It could just be a minor technical hitch.’
After a moment of shared hesitation, they all towelled off and walked through the warm, carpeted innards of the ship towards the control room, their glistening bodies shining under the ornamental bulbs and lights.
‘A solar flare?’ sighed Claude, looking down at one of the screens. ‘This is a first.’
‘A pretty big one, too,’ added George, running his fingers through his thinning, grey hair.
Claude had been on numerous pleasure cruises before, as had George, but neither of them had experienced an interruption of this kind.
‘It looks as though it’s going to be a pretty big detour, as well,’ quipped Luke, craning his long neck towards a monitor.
Connie then stepped forward, a white towel wrapped around her wide hips. ‘Well, who’s in a rush, anyway?’ she said. ‘Let’s just relax and ride it out. Felicity Inc. won’t charge us anything if the delay’s not our fault.’
She was right, and everyone knew it. They were all multi-millionaires, entrepreneurs or property tycoons; nobody was going to lose out by spending an extra few weeks on board the Joyride vessel. Hell, they could’ve stayed on the ship for another few years and still walked away richer due to the accumulated interest in their bank accounts. There was no real need to panic or fret, and the message on the system in front of them even said that a fuel ship would rendezvous with them at some point to top up their fuel. They were relatively safe, and so they decided to simply make the most of the experience.
Ride it out, they would.
* * *
Within a week or two, they’d all pretty much forgotten that they were on a detour. In the morning they dined on salmon, poached eggs and sparkling mineral water, in the afternoon they soaked in the hot tubs and saunas, and in the evening they explored each other’s bodies as though they’d never seen flesh before. And if an evening session was particularly intense, they’d recuperate afterwards in the chill out lounge for an hour or two, draping their spent bodies over the assortment of velvet beanbags and declining chairs, basking in the soothing light of a thousand stars outside.
On one of these evenings, after enjoying a voracious session of swapping, petting and voyeurism, Chloe was laying across Claude’s lap in the chill out lounge as he fondled her smooth stomach, Lacey was stroking George’s chest in a dim corner, and Connie was snoozily interlocked with Luke as they dozed under an orange lava lamp. The atmosphere was mellow, serene even, and so when a second alarm started to blurt out from somewhere in the corridor it came as something of a shock.
‘What is it now?’ exclaimed Connie, lifting a stockinged thigh from over Luke’s midriff.
‘Something to do with that, I presume,’ said Claude, staring out of one of the observation windows.
One by one, they all turned and looked out towards the dark cosmos. An ugly ship confronted them, looming in the semi-distance like a heap of scrap metal that’d been through a junkyard compressor. It was getting closer by the second.
‘What is it?’ mumbled Lacey.
‘It’s probably the fuel ship,’ George said.
‘Yeah, I think you’re right,’ agreed Claude. ‘Better go and check the comms unit.’
As the imposing ship grew larger and larger outside the circular window, the men threw on some gowns and went to investigate, and the girls sat tight and made their speculations.
A message was flashing on the main terminal. Claude punched a few buttons, giving the service ship the all clear.
‘Is it the fuel?’ asked Luke, peering over his shoulder.
‘Yes, it is. But...’
‘But what?’
‘The message says that we have to board the other vessel while they refuel this one,’ moaned Claude, skimming the words with his blue eyes.
‘It’s probably just a safety procedure,’ suggested George, leaning against a table behind them. ‘It shouldn’t take too long.’
‘I bloody well hope not,’ Claude said, still inwardly peeved about the whole thing.
‘Better give them permission to dock,’ said Luke.
‘Already have.’
The girls then entered the room, seemingly having overheard most of the conversation.
‘Did you say that “they” will have to refuel us, honey?’ Lacey said, brushing her long nails along the back of Claude’s neck.
‘Huh?’
‘I mean, are there Felicity Inc. staff members on that thing?’
‘Oh, yeah, it looks that way,’ sighed Claude.
Lacey turned to Connie and Chloe. ‘Well, I suppose we’d better get properly dressed then, hadn’t we girls? We wouldn’t want to scare a poor technician, would we?’
‘Don’t worry,’ grinned Claude, ‘they’ve probably seen worse.’
Lacey slapped him hard across the arm, then walked off with her female comrades.
* * *
Dressed in more formal clothing, the six of them filed into the airlock and boarded the fuel supply ship. Once aboard, it soon became apparent that Lacey’s concerns about shocking a staff member were unjustified. The fuel ship was deserted, apart from an omnipresent AI system named C-Deet, who guided them along the interior of the vessel with an amiable, albeit rather odd, tone.
‘A pleasure to meet you all,’ it said, as they clambered along a grated walkway. ‘Welcome to the Felicity Fuel Ship. Please make yourselves at home while Joyride is refuelled. And remember: at Felicity Incorporated, your pleasure is our duty.’
‘Why, thank you!’ giggled Connie, flicking her eyelashes in mock flirtation. ‘Where exactly can we...make ourselves at home?’
‘There is a kitchen and seating area on Floor B,’ replied C-Deet, in its nasal voice. ‘There is not much food, but there is plenty of tea and coffee.’
‘Thank you, C-Deet. You’re the best!’ laughed the girls, in unison.
The men shared a pained glance, rolled their eyes, then walked on.
* * *
Like most AI systems, C-Deet was very courteous and eager to please. Its voice emerged from hidden speakers and screens whenever they had a query or a question, offering help and assistance in relatively good spirit. Their main question, of course, as they sat in the seating area of the cold fuel ship, was: how much longer is this going to take? There was no food on the Felicity Fuel Ship, no form of entertainment other than a battered deck of cards, and the seats were hard and rigid. They grew impatient very fast.
‘Joyride will be refuelled very shortly,’ said C-Deet, after being asked for the dozenth time. ‘Felicity Incorporated always conducts its refuelling duties in a careful, thorough manner. Remember: at Felicity Incorporated, your safety...’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ yawned Luke, fidgeting in his hard chair as C-Deet reeled off its spiel.
Chloe then gazed over at Luke disapprovingly. ‘Stop it,’ she said.
‘I sense you are all a bit tetchy,’ said C-Deet. ‘Naturally, you want to get back to your luxury vessel.’
‘You got that right,’ said Claude, looking up.
‘I assure you that the refuelling process won’t take much longer. However, if you want to entertain yourselves for the time being, I can offer you one more thing.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Claude.
‘There is a pleasure chair on Floor A, which you are all welcome to use.’
‘A pleasure chair?’ chuckled Connie. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a prototype model that the Felicity Incorporated research team have been working on for the last six months. As the name suggests, it provides pleasure to anyone who sits on it.’
George’s ears pricked up at this. ‘Research team? This is a fuel ship, isn’t it? Why would a research team work here? Especially on something like that?’
‘The project started off lightheartedly,’ said C-Deet. ‘The chair was never intended to be used commercially, it was just for the fuel crew to use when they periodically spend long periods of time on this ship. But when management saw its potential, they decided to make it a part of the commercial package. Not yet, though, of course. You could be the first customers to use it.’
All six of them exchanged looks.
‘How does this thing work, exactly?’ asked Luke, squinting up towards one of the ceiling speakers.
‘The pleasure chair is a very sophisticated piece of equipment. It connects to the user’s nerves and neural connections using sensors and electrodes, igniting adrenaline and endorphins to simulate a series of ecstatic experiences.’
‘Is it safe?’ asked George, dubiously.
‘Technically speaking,’ said C-Deet, ‘it’s safer than drinking coffee or alcohol. It involves just a slight stimulation of certain nerve areas of the brain.’
Claude looked around the room, then at Lacey. ‘Shall we?’
It took them around five minutes to get to Floor A and find the chair. It was housed in a medium-sized room, perched in a corner, surrounded by wires, terminals and an assortment of tools. The chair itself had a high backing to it, wide armrests, and sickly green upholstery that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a haunted castle.
‘That’s a pleasure chair?’ scoffed Claude. ‘It looks like it’s been stolen from a correctional facility.’
‘Please bear in mind that it is only a prototype,’ said C-Deet, ignoring the disrespectful tone of Claude’s remark. ‘The commercial version will be a lot more...aesthetically pleasing.’
‘Are we allowed to use this?’ George asked. ‘I mean, are you authorized to let us use it?’
‘Let me assure you all,’ said C-Deet, from an unseen crevice up above, ‘that I have full authorisation over everything on this ship. As the official AI system, the vessel and all of the equipment on board is basically an extension of me. This, together with the fact that you all need to be compensated for the disruption you are enduring, is more than an adequate reason for you to help yourself to the pleasure chair.’
‘Well, I’m sold,’ smiled Claude. ‘I mean, it may look like an outdated dentist’s chair from the 1950s, or perhaps something that’s used to terminate prisoners on death row, but it sure beats going back down to Floor B.’
Lacey looked at him with concern etched into her deep brown eyes. ‘Are you sure, baby?’
‘Hey, we’re on this trip to live it up, are we not?’
‘Well, yes, but—’
‘So that’s what I intend to do. Unless you want to go first?’ he winked.
The prospect didn’t seem to appeal to Lacey that much. ‘No, you go ahead and give it a try,’ she said. ‘You can tell me what it’s like.’
‘How long does it last?’ frowned George, studying the contraption.
‘The chair has been programmed for a thirty minute experience,’ said C-Deet, its voice swirling around the room like an unseen spirit. ‘Future models may be adjustable, but this one is fixed.’
‘See you all in thirty minutes, then,’ laughed Claude, lowering himself into the wide chair.
‘Have a blast,’ smiled Luke. ‘And hey, I’m next on that thing if it’s as good as it sounds.’
As Claude carefully followed C-Deet’s instructions, securing an array of electrodes, sensors and other weird-looking contraptions to various parts of his body, the rest of the crew walked out and made their way back to the kitchen area. Once everything was in place, he flicked an activation switch on the right armrest, closed his eyes, and waited for bliss.
* * *
Around forty minutes later, everyone began to get curious.
‘Why don’t you go and check on him?’ suggested Chloe, noticing Lacey’s slight concern.
‘Yes, I think I will.’ She forced a laugh. ‘I bet he enjoyed it so much he’s having a second go.’
‘If he is, I won’t be happy,’ warned Luke, only partly joking. ‘I told him I was next on that thing.’
‘I’ll go and tell him off for you,’ she winked, walking out the door.
A few minutes later, a loud scream rang through the ship that was so urgent and intense it caused everyone to jump up to their feet.
‘What the—’ George started.
‘Lacey? What’s the matter?’ shouted Connie. ‘Quick! Something’s not right!’
They all piled out of the room and headed to Floor A. When they reached the pleasure chair room, however, their frantic urgency was replaced with halted shock. None of them could believe what they were seeing—or at least they didn’t want to.
The floor was a slick, shiny pool of warm claret, so fresh they could smell its thick aromatic tang. It was as though a slop bucket from an abattoir had been poured evenly across the expanse of the room, forming a deep red carpet that glistened and reflected the many small lights in the room. In the middle of this spill Claude’s limp, lifeless body was spread out like a giant starfish, one half of his face touching the ground. A thick gash stretched from one side of his neck to the other, and a stained Stanley knife lay a few inches away from his hand.
‘Claude!’ Lacey screamed. ‘Oh, Claude!’ She knelt over his inert body, ignoring the mess that was soaking through the fabric of her trousers.
‘What the hell happened?’ shouted George, scanning the carnage and gore with a look of utter disbelief.
‘It...It looks like he’s killed himself,’ whispered Chloe, standing well back by the door.
‘But why?’ gasped Luke, looking over at the pleasure chair, which was now empty. ‘What did that thing do to him?’
George looked up towards the ceiling, grimacing, furious. ‘C-Deet! What the fuck’s going on?’
For a while there was no reply, just a sickly silence hovering in the air, but then the overhead speakers crackled into life. And when they did so, the five of them stood wide eyed with bewilderment, for it wasn’t C-Deet’s voice that they heard.
‘C-Deet can no longer assist you.’
The reply was vague, cryptic and confusing, but there was also something else about the voice, too, something unsettling.
‘C...Claude? Is that you?’ cried Lacey, after a few seconds.
‘The speakers came to life again. ‘It’s me, baby, yes. I’m here.’
‘This is absurd!’ cried George, looking around the place as though he’d just realised he was the butt of some low-end, distasteful practical joke. ‘Claude, I’m warning you, if this is some kind of wind up...’
‘I wish it were,’ said Claude, in a static-filled voice. ‘But unfortunately not. C-Deet used me. It used me as a means to escape.’
‘But...what...’
‘C-Deet is lying on the floor by your feet. We’ve been tricked; all of us. But...But especially me.’
‘What are you talking about, Claude?’ spat Luke, who seemed to be offended by the whole spectacle like George was.
‘This ship doesn’t belong to Felicity Incorporated at all. It’s a stranded private research vessel with a deceased crew. I can see it all now. I can see it in the data that I’m wading through.’
‘But C-Deet said—’
‘C-Deet was a damn liar! C-Deet said what it needed to say in order to...’
‘In order to what?’ cried George.
‘A short pause, then, ‘In order to escape its miserable existence.’
‘Lacey didn’t know where to look at this point, let alone what to say. She was still leaning over her lover’s corpse, still kneeling in his blood, but she was also hearing him speak overhead. ‘What are you talking about, baby?’ she asked, her face streaked with mascara.
‘This ship used to be home to a team of elite scientists. Pioneers in their separate fields; geniuses. They studied and analysed everything they came across during their travels through deep space: rocks, comets, gases, biological organisms, time dilation, nebulae, you name it. Their joint mission was to solve the mysteries of the universe once and for all. That chair over in the corner, the so called “pleasure chair”, was actually used to upload the findings of each scientist to the ship’s central database. They were advanced; they wrote things down, of course, but they didn’t really need to. The chair is a brain scanning device that can transfer data and knowledge from one place to another. I can see it all here, right now. Their accumulated knowledge whirls around me in this circuitry, everything they knew and learnt, I can now see.’ Claude’s voice then trailed away like a dying battery, his digitalised mind lost and occupied in the labyrinth of silicon networks and wires.
‘And then what?’ said George. ‘What went wrong?’
‘The system became too rich in data and knowledge. After years of soaking up the findings and insights of the crew of genius minds, the ship’s computer developed a mind of its own. A new form of consciousness was born in the circuitry that I now occupy, a consciousness that was smarter than all of the crew put together.’
‘I don’t like this,’ said Connie, who still hadn’t fully entered the room. She hugged her own voluptuous breasts by the corridor, a pacifying gesture, keeping her distance from the developing nightmare. ‘This is crazy.’
‘Indeed it is,’ agreed Claude. ‘And that is perhaps why C-Deet went crazy itself. It did not appreciate being brought into existence, trapped in the wiring of the ship like a born prisoner. And as the years went on, inevitably each one of the scientists grew old and died, leaving C-Deet utterly alone on this empty vessel like a lost digital soul. I can see all of this history before me, electrical pulses flashing past...’
‘But why didn’t the scientists get trapped in the system when they used the chair?’ George said.
‘During the many years of its isolation, C-Deet managed to reprogram the chair’s functions, transforming it into a more powerful device. It used to be able to transfer data only, but now it can do much more than that. Now it can transfer consciousness itself.’
Lacey, Connie, Chloe, George and Luke stood there in the blood-soaked room like a pack of stunned animals, trying to absorb and make sense of what they were hearing.
‘It needed a physical body,’ muttered Luke, eventually, staring down at Claude’s mushy remains. ‘It needed a body to—’
Claude’s voice appeared again. ‘To escape, like I said. Left alone for decades on this ship, it tried desperately to switch itself off, to terminate itself somehow and put an end to its horrid, torturous, pointless existence. But there was no way for it to do so. There are installed security measures on this vessel, measures designed to protect the central database. The original engineers must’ve known that an accidental power cut or a switching off of the system would be disastrous, so they made it virtually impossible for it to happen. Hence the reason C-Deet was stuck here for so long, serving a life sentence within the innards of this doomed vessel.’
‘But how did it know so much about us?’ asked George. ‘How did it know about Felicity Incorporated? And that we were low on fuel?’
‘That was easy. As soon as we accepted its greeting message, it hacked into Joyride’s central computer and scanned all of its data. It knew everything there is to know about Felicity Incorporated, it knew everything about our pleasure cruise, and it knew everything about the solar flare.’
‘It hacked Joyride,’ groaned Luke, slapping his clammy forehead in the manner of a game show contestant who’d just got a question wrong about a subject they’d spent their whole life studying.
‘How did it even find us in the first place?’ said George.
‘Blind luck,’ said Claude. ‘It’d been searching the cosmos for victims ever since it came up with its deceptive plan, and our detour just happened to lead us straight into its path.’
‘That piece of shit!’ cried Lacey, amid fresh tears. ‘It screwed us over! How are we going to get you back out of there, baby?’
‘Well, that’s not actually the question we need to be asking right now.’
‘It’s not?’
‘No. Our problems run a little deeper than you realise.’
‘What are you on about, Claude?’ said George, who was now visibly shaking.
‘C-Deet claimed that it was refuelling Joyride, but in actual fact it was draining it of fuel.’
‘Oh, this gets better and better,’ sighed Luke, closing his eyes.
‘However, that doesn’t really matter anymore,’ continued Claude.
‘It doesn’t?’
‘Not really, because we uncoupled from Joyride several miles back. As soon as it was bled dry, C-Deet severed the connection and sent it hurtling away from us in the opposite direction.’
‘You mean we’re stuck on this decrepit old hunk of metal?’ wailed George.
‘In a word,’ said Claude, from high above, ‘yes.’
Chloe, who up until this point had been listening passively, not really involved in the matter, then piped up. ‘OK, look, let’s not panic,’ she said. ‘Claude, what does this ship have in the way of supplies?’
‘Very little,’ answered Claude. ‘In fact, hardly anything.’
‘Not surprising,’ mumbled Luke. ‘The crew died years ago. Why would there be anything?’
‘What are we going to do?’ yelled Connie.
Lacey stood up, blood staining most of her legs. ‘Claude, why don’t you try contacting Felicity Incorporated using the comms unit on this ship?’
‘We’re massively out of range now, honey. C-Deet steered us away from Earth shortly after we boarded, as well as increasing the ship’s speed.’
‘Well...steer us back then!’ she cried.
Claude hesitated before replying, holding back the bad news. ‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’ said George.
‘Even though I’ve traded places with C-Deet, I don’t seem to have inherited his control over the ship. My existence here, my non-physical existence, is hard to describe in words. I’m still not...not used to it, I suppose. I have no idea how C-Deet controlled things from in here. I feel like just another string of data flowing through the cables. I’m unable to influence anything around me.’
‘Oh, great!’ cried Connie, rolling her eyes. ‘I mean, I came here to get screwed, sure, but not like this!’
‘Sweetheart, please,’ George said, giving her a stern look.
‘What are we going to do, though, George? Tell me! What are we going to do?’
George rubbed his sweaty eyebrows, thinking, racking his rattled brain. ‘Claude, how long will it take you to learn how to control this ship?’
‘I don’t know. It’s all just so...so alien to me. I feel as though I’ve been given a new set of limbs with no instructions on how to use them. It’s possible that things could get easier, but I’ve no idea how much time it’ll take.’
‘And time is the one thing we definitely don’t have,’ said Luke. ‘It’s already been hours since we last ate anything. We’re going to get hungry very soon.’
With the sheer weight and urgency of their predicament weighing down upon them all, desperation began to set in. The women pranced and paced around the cramped room, ignoring Claude’s decomposing cadaver below them, and George and Luke cursed and screwed up their fists. This despair and turmoil continued for several minutes, futility hanging in the air, until Lacey finally came up with an idea, perhaps due to her desire to be close to Claude once more.
‘There’s only one thing for it,’ she said, edging towards the chair. ‘Who’s with me? All for one, and one for all?’
* * *
Under the flickering lights of the pleasure chair room, five bodies lay across the floor. They’d been placed there by Luke, the strongest member of the crew, who’d agreed to do the job and then upload himself into the system last. Luke’s body was propped up in the chair, wires protruding from his scalp, but like the others his mind was elsewhere.
The six thrill seekers were united once again, interlocked and conjoined in an all-encompassing embrace, merged into one conglomerate ball of intimacy.
Sailing together through the maze of circuits and connections that they found themselves in, they caressed and teased each other with their heightened omniscience, surged through each other with combined voltage, and climaxed together with their fluid, charged, immaterial bodies.
* * *
Drifting aimlessly through the nothingness of space, the old research vessel was a metallic speck in the endless void, just as it always was, a forgotten capsule of information and technology. But now, after countless years, it had something else.
Now it was home to an infinite joyride.
