Frozen Love

by Abe

       As soon as I realized I was floating free, in micro-gravity, I knew something was terribly wrong.  I tried to figure out where I was and how I got there.

       Charles and I had only been married for three weeks, two of them in hiding, when he was arrested and tortured for being a member of the Liberty Party.  While I suppose they might have suspected me, too, my father was a recent appointee to the Cabinet, and it would have embarrassed the President, if they had charged me.  Charles, of course, confessed; they all do.  His death sentence was commuted to exile, transportation to the planet, Reno, which orbits Gamma Leporis A, about 29 light years from Earth.  Efforts to establish new labor camps for incorrigible criminals and political undesirables in Alaska had failed, and Siberia, of course, was already occupied.

       I was young, and in love, and I petitioned to be transported with him.  I had not even seen Charles, since his arrest, except for his televised confession, and I knew I would not see him until we arrived on Reno, but we had sworn to be faithful, 'till death us do part.  Transportees are frozen, in suspended animation, and only resuscitated when they have been downloaded to the camps on Reno.

       It was terrible, being frozen, even though they tried not to be cruel.  My father, I think, saw to that.  First, there were the good-byes, the settlement of debts, the will -- when I left Earth, I would be officially dead.  Then came the procedures.  They flushed my bowels, which took three days.  They removed all my hair, everywhere.  I was chemically cleansed, with sterilizing laser light bathing my body as well, to protect Reno from micro-organisms which might be on my skin.  It was, at first, embarrassing, to be totally nude and handled like so much meat, but I discovered I could adjust to almost any degrading procedure without being ashamed.  I guess they call that strong self-esteem.  They stretched me on a frame, like a drying hide, like a heretic on the rack, except that my arms and legs were wide spread.  They inserted needles in my femoral arteries and saphenous veins, and for hours my blood was conditioned with various chemicals and drugs, being pumped out, treated, and pumped back into me.  Finally, charitably, they injected a sedative and I lost consciousness, so I did not suffer through the chilling.  Ultimately, I knew, I would be bathed in liquid nitrogen, and I could be kept indefinitely, like frozen semen in a sperm bank.  Then it would not matter that the space ship traveled only a fraction of the speed of light; the unconscious passengers wouldn't mind taking 331 years to get there.

       I knew, when I regained consciousness and suffered the nausea of space sickness, that something was very wrong.  I could feel the ties at my wrists and ankles, which stretched me on my freezer frame, so I was not numb, but I felt no strain on my limbs.  I wasn't cold.  I weighed nothing.  I was not on Earth.  I was not on Reno.

       I don't know how long I hung there in the dark, not knowing which way was up, for there is no up or down in space.  I could hear nothing but my own heart and a kind of hiss.  Perhaps it was  circulating air, or perhaps just some artifact of my hearing, the sound of silence, the blood coursing through my vessels.  I could feel that the needles were still in my thighs, and from time to time I would hear a faint click and, I imagined, a little pulse, as if food or drugs were being automatically injected into me.  As time went by -- I have no idea how long -- my mental faculties sharpened, and the boredom, the uncertainty, became unbearable.  A prisoner, in solitary confinement, can still pace his cell, feel the walls, perhaps see some light.  My senses told me nothing, not even whether I was parallel to the floor or the wall of my compartment.  I tried to make some sound, find out if there was some reverberation of the sound, find out whether I was a coffin or a large room.  My efforts were fruitless.  My shouts, my snapping of fingers, returned no echo.

       Then, to my great relief, the darkness gave way to increasing light, and I saw that I was in a room, connected to elaborate equipment, perpendicular to the floor, still taut upon my freezing frame, as I had been when I lost consciousness on Earth.

       A door dilated, and a man entered the room, floating slowly across my field of vision, until he caught a handhold and stopped.  Expertly, he placed his feet on the deck, where his tensile shoes allowed him to walk.  Apart from the shoes, he was naked, and I noticed immediately that it was almost funny, the way his genitals waved about in the absence of gravity.  He was, it appeared, no older than I, though it was hard to judge.  His hair was very short, dark brown.  His body was muscular, and had that strange look I had seen in pictures of people who grew up in micro-gravity.  Undoubtedly, he spent a lot of time exercising on machines, to compensate for the weightlessness, or his musculo-skeletal structures would have been grotesquely malformed.  He stood there, anchored by his shoes, and examined me.  "Who are you?" I said.

       His grey eyes met mine.  He seemed startled.  Then, slowly and carefully, he said, "I am 97."  I made a face, confused.  "My. . .name. . .is. . .97.  You are Ida, Mrs. Charles Jones.  Yes?"

       "Yes," I said.  "Where is my husband, Charles?"

       "He is in freezer seven."

       "Why am I thawed, awake, if he is still frozen?"

       "He is several layers of canisters from the hatch.  Why would I try to thaw him?"  His voice was unnatural, flat, like a mentally retarded child, perhaps, or a deaf person who had learned to speak without hearing normal speech.

       "Because he is my husband, and we should be together."

       He looked at me strangely -- everything about 97 was strange -- and he said, "No.  I will be your husband."

       I must have gasped.  "I am sexually mature," he stated, as if that explained everything.  He walked right up to me and extended his hand, touching me, my arms, my face, my breasts.  He seemed particularly interested in those.  In weightlessness, they jutted from my chest and quivered at the slightest touch, like Jello.  His investigation continued, visual and tactile, and eventually he convinced himself that I was all there.  I was a woman, with female genitalia.  As I said, I had learned to feel no shame, but I can't say I liked being examined like that.  The man was weird.

       "Perhaps, 97, you should explain to me what is happening, and why?"

       He moved back, looking down at his erect penis, as if that was unexpected.

       "You must excuse me, please," he said.  "I am not used to speaking with a person, not a computer.  And I have never seen a woman like you.  You must have been called beautiful.  You look like a Playmate of the Month.  Did you fuck with Charles on the floor in front of a fireplace, and go skiing with no pants on, and lick your girlfriend's cunt, while he watched?"

       I began to understand what a simpleton I was dealing with.   "No.  I was never a Playmate of the Month.  I've never. . .enjoyed sexual intercourse in front of a fireplace, nor gone naked in public, nor participated in a threesome.  I wouldn't want to."

       "But you will fuck with me, won't you?"

       I realized I was totally helpless, still stretched upon the rack, and I knew he could do anything he wanted with me.  "I'd rather not," I said.

       He approached me again and ran his fingers over my body as if he were a blind sculptor, making sure he would get it right this time.  He explored every bit of me, even pushing his hard penis against my hairless vulva.  Fortunately, he didn't persist, and it did not penetrate.  Certainly, I did not find it sexually arousing.  For all he looked very manly, I do not get turned on by children, no matter how well hung they may be, and I was still fixing my thoughts on Charles, frozen, somewhere not too far away.  We had promised to be faithful to each other, and, even if I had found 97 attractive, I would not copulate with him while Charles still lived.  If he kept poking at me with that rod of his, however, I might have no choice.  He would find the right place and angle, and I was helpless to resist.

       "Please, 97, explain to me what this is about.  Why did you thaw me?"

       "I need you."

       "Why me?  There must be a thousand women on this ship, aren't there?"

       "Seven hundred thirteen, counting you."

       "Why did you choose me?"

       "Your canister was close to the hatch.  You are of childbearing age, healthy, not a convicted sociopath.  Actually, I was fortunate you were near the hatch.  There are six other suitable women, but none of them is easy to get at, so it had to be you, Ida.  I love you."

       I knew I had to be very careful.  No sarcasm, nothing that might provoke this simpleton to rash action.  "Why do you need me?"

       He looked at me as if I were the simpleton.  "We will not arrive at Reno for another 213 years, ship time, that is, and neither you nor I will be alive then.  Who is to handle the ship, if we have no children, and grandchildren?"

       Wow!  I suddenly realized that he was perfectly serious about fucking me.  "Who else is alive on this ship, not frozen?"  Perhaps I hoped his nanny would come and send him to bed without his supper for thawing me.

       "You and I are the only ones.  42 died some time ago, and 114, the last of the children, died two hundred hours ago.  That's when I knew I would have to break the rules and thaw a passenger."

       "You were born on this ship?"

       "Yes.  You don't understand about generation ships?"

       "Explain to me, please, 97."

       "We started out with a crew of eight, four men and four women, plus 400 frozen human embryos with adequate genetic diversity.  The men and women, of course, copulated with each other, but the men had been sterilized, so as to avoid inbreeding.  From time to time, a woman would be prepared and one of the embryos would be introduced into her, for her to incubate.  The plan was to have, at all times, replacement crewpersons to run the ship and to incubate new replacement crewpersons.  The problem is, the embryos seldom were carried to term.  We don't know why.  Perhaps there was sabotage, by enemies of the state, or an accident, like irradiation by a stellar event, or perhaps an infection, an unknown virus, or even some problem with nutrition, a missing vitamin or trace element in our artificial diet.  Even when we used only female embryos, still, our numbers dwindled.  I am the last crewperson, and I have no uterus.  So, you see, I had to find fresh breeding stock, and you are the only suitable incubator."

       I knew then that I was not going to be able to talk him out of it.  "You want to insert an embryo into me?"

       "No, not a frozen one.  We used up all the female ones, and the males too often cause the premature death of the incubator.  Finally, there was only me.  I gave the problem serious thought, and I finally decided that I must sacrifice a passenger, that the rest may live.  Since there it is not possible to incubate a female embryo, I must find an egg donor and use my sperm to make a baby.  It violates all my teaching, except logic.  I regret that you will never meet your husband on Reno, but perhaps your grandchildren will, and they can explain to him the sacrifice you made, that he might live."

       Well, I guess he couldn't very well ask for volunteers.  It was my misfortune to be near the hatch.  I visualized how cold it must be in those freezers, something like minus 400 degrees F, and I could see why this poor, naked young man wanted a woman who was close to the hatch.  "97, doesn't this ship have an automatic pilot?  Does it really need a crew?"

       "Oh, yes, Ida," he said, earnestly, I thought.  "There is always maintenance to be done.  Nothing is perfectly reliable.  I nearly lost freezer one, when a refrigerant pump failed.  And there must be a human navigator for the rendezvous with Reno.  Chaos theory tells us that even the best auto-navigation devices will not steer the ship to Reno with the required precision.  There must be human intervention, mid-course corrections.  Why, even a passing comet could perturb our trajectory enough that we would miss the Leporis system entirely."

       I was beginning to think I was going to get fucked.

       "While I was reviving you," he said, "certain hormones and enzymes were injected into your bloodstream, so your uterus would be prepared and you would ovulate.  Shall I release you now, and we can commence to try to make a baby?"

       I had never been propositioned quite like that.  I was not feeling the least bit romantic.  "97, I am a married woman.  I swore to be faithful to my husband, to lie with no other man.  Do you understand?  I cannot let you fuck me, while he still lives."

       I had a horrible thought, that 97 might just say, "All right, I'll kill him, first."  He didn't.

       Instead, 97 said, very seriously, "You won't copulate with me, even to save your husband's life?"

       "No.  I can't.  I couldn't bring myself to do it.  I would fight you.  I might hurt you.  It won't work.  Can't you get an unmarried woman?"

       "Ida, even if I could get to their canisters and thaw them, the only unmarried women on this ship are certified insane or convicted sociopaths.  Would you trust your husband to a crew of crazies and criminals?  Would you ask another married woman to take your place?"

       He had a point.  "I see your logic, 97, but I couldn't have sex with you, with my husband meters away.  I just couldn't.  It would drive me crazy to do it."

       97 paced back and forth in his sticky shoes, and then he said, "Ida, I must execute plan B."  He went to a control keyboard and started typing.  I watched him, noting that his penis stood tall, but he seemed all business.

       "97," I said, "have you ever made love to a woman before?"

       "Made love?"

       "Had sex with a woman, copulation."

       "I have never even seen a real one naked, before I thawed you.  The instructional videos did not include instructions for copulation, only embryo insertion.  I am not totally ignorant.  42 explained to me about women, and I've seen pictures, videos, which were smuggled on board, so I know about fucking."

       "So what is Plan B?"

       "Leave you there, in your frame, and impregnate you against your will."

       "That's rape."

       "Rape?  What does that mean?"

       "Having sex with a woman when she doesn't want it."

       "That business about, 'Not tonight, dear; I have a headache'?  I'll give you an analgesic."

       "97, I don't want to have sex with you.  No.  It has nothing to do with headaches."

       "42 said that the man is the boss, and the woman has to accept that, and that the man can have sexual contact with her whenever he wants, the way it is in the videos."

       "42 was wrong."

       "Ida," said 97, "I am the captain of this ship, and you are the crew, and I am going to fuck you, because that is my decision, as captain.  You will do as I say, because you are crew.  I don't want to hurt you, but you must do what I demand of you."

       "I didn't volunteer to be crew.  I demand you re-freeze me."

       "Ida, I can't do that.  First, I need you.  But, even if I wanted to, I couldn't re-freeze you.  We are not equipped to do that.  It was hard enough to get you thawed."

       So there I was, helpless, with a crazy man who thought it was his duty to rape me.  He unstuck his shoes and jumped me.  I couldn't move.  In zero-gee, he just wrapped his arms around me and tried to poke his prod in.  I screamed.  I told him, "97, you are a fool.  You don't know the first thing about fucking.  You are hurting me."  I was thankful that Charles was not aware of what was happening to his wife.

       "All right, Ida," he said, as he hugged me, mashing my breasts against his chest, "tell me how to do it."

       Consider my position.  Can any woman tell her rapist what to do?  But, if rape is inevitable, why should it hurt?  "97, a woman needs to be ready.  It's called foreplay.  You need to caress me, touch me, say nice things, get me in the mood.  Don't try to get that thing inside me until I'm nice and wet down there."

       "So what should I do?  How?"

       "Remember the videos?  You mentioned the Playmate of the Month and her girl friend?  Do what she did."  I figured there'd be some tit squeezing and cunnilingus.

       His expression brightened, and he went away for a while.  Then he snuck up behind me and thrashed my ass with some sort of whip.  "No, that's not what you do!" I screamed, after I had got over the initial shock and pain.

       "I didn't know how to get a dildo made of ice."

       "You are telling me that the playmate whipped her friend?"

       "Yes."

       "What did the friend do to the playmate?"

       "Well, after the friend was whipped into submission, the friend sucked the man's penis, and then she put her tongue on the playmate's cunt, while the boy friend fucked her ass."

       "Well, 97, don't even try ice.  No way that leads to pregnancy.  No babies come from sucking penises, either.  But you could try doing what the friend did to the playmate."

       "That would help to fuck you?"

       "Yes, I think so," I said.  97 got off me and started licking my vulva, but it didn't make me wet with anything but saliva.  Then he got impatient and tried to push his still hard rod into me.  I screamed and swore.  So far, I hadn't been actually raped, but I wasn't exactly winning.  I wondered what Charles would think, if he knew.  Would he approve of my resistance tactics, or would he simply be disgusted?

       "This isn't working the way I had planned, Ida," he said.  He went back to the control board and said, "Oh, I was in so much of a hurry I forgot to give the run command."  His fingers flew, and he returned to stand in front of me, his rampant rod poised.

       Lights flickered, and I heard some clicks, and the tubes to my veins seemed to quiver.  And then the drug hit me.

       I felt a hot flash, and I blushed and sweated.  My nipples shot out of my breasts, and between my legs all hell broke loose, with wetness and heat.  If there had been any gravity, my secretions would have been running down my legs. "Oh, God!" I screamed.

       "Are you receptive?"

       "Yes! Fuck me!"

       "That's 'Fuck me, Master, please.'"

       "Yes, fuck me, Master, please."  I couldn't help myself.

       His big stiff prick slid right in, and he bucked his hips and I went into orbit.  God, I had orgasms you wouldn't believe, one after another, a kind of continuous spasming, with thunder and lightening and. . . I went out of my mind.  He shot his load into me and I screamed, "No, don't stop.  If you have to, use your fingers."

       He did, and I was just totally driven out of my mind, until the drug wore off, and I was left there, exhausted, and a little sore, and so fucking happy I had forgotten Charles.

       When I woke up, I found 97 had set up an instructional station, screens and such, where I could see it as I hung there on my frame.  "All crew members must master all crew positions," he said, and he forced me to watch a presentation about emergency procedures.  At first, my attention was divided, as I remembered the fantastic sex I  had experienced.  I remembered Charles.  I vowed that Charles must never know what had happened, how I had enjoyed another man.  When 97 saw that I wasn't paying attention, he whipped my backside, and I began repeating the narration of the video, to prove I was attentive.  I thought no more of Charles.

       97 imposed an organized routine.  Sleep, easy enough in zero-gee, then a sponge bath, which I rather enjoyed, when he went over my body with a kind of wet vacuum cleaner, then instruction.  If I didn't pay attention, he'd whip me.  There were no meal times or anything, because I was fed intravenously, and no need to defecate, as I consumed no solids.  He had a little gizmo that I would pee into, and the controls automatically adjusted my IV fluids until I put out the right amount of urine at the right concentration.  It was all there in the computer.

       Then, when he was satisfied with my studies, he would pull off the little urine collecting gizmo and say, "Ida, you have been a good slave," and the drug would hit me.  I would get hot and wet.  My nipples would swell and I'd get these twinges of anticipation, and then he would fuck me senseless, better each day.  I would say, "Thank you, Master," and he'd dim the lights and let me sleep.  Next day, same routine.

       When I got my period, 97 was very concerned.  "Master," I explained, "it's perfectly natural.  It only means I'm not pregnant."

       "Slave," he said, "I have been negligent.  To stay healthy, you must exercise.  In the regular crew quarters, where we simulate gravity. . .  But, with you on the frame. . ."

       He wandered off and came back with a bunch of wires and skin-adhesive electrodes.  He would set the computer to electrically stimulate my muscles, and I would be forced to perform isometric exercises, writhing in my frame, breathing hard.  He realized he didn't have to whip me, if I didn't pay attention to my studies; to punish me, he could just turn up the voltage and make me dance like a puppet, except I could barely move.

       It seemed a long time, while I had my period, that he didn't fuck me.  "Master," I said, "why have you stopped trying to impregnate me?"

       "The computer says you are not ready; you have not ovulated."

       "Is there no reward, then, for learning my crew duties?"

       He looked at me sort of strangely and went away to do the things he had to do, maintenance and so forth.  He came back and made me review my studies, claiming I had not been diligent. (I had confused the part numbers of the male and female peroxidase couplers.)  But then, after I got it all right, he pulled off the pee-catcher and said, "Ida, you have been a good slave."  Immediately, I got hot and wet and my nipples jutted and I waited for what I knew would come.  He didn't fuck me normally, but shoved something electrical inside me which set me off just as well, dozens of orgasms, incredible thrills.  I was happy, and I slept very well.

       Counting my periods, this went on for three months.  My existence revolved around study, exercise, and fucking.  Whether my master fucked me himself, with prick, fingers, tongue, whatever, or whether he fucked me with his high-tech toys, the result was always great, incredibly sensual.  But then he said, "Slave it is time for you to start working, pulling your shift to do maintenance and keep a navigation watch.  I'm going to have to put you on oral feeding and get you out of that frame."

       "Master," I said. "I will, of course, obey your instructions, but. . . how will you fuck me without the drug?  I would find it painful."

       "Nevertheless," he said, solemnly, "I must proceed to Phase II."  Out came the needles.  He released the straps which bound me to the frame, and I floated weightless, until he gave me some sticky shoes, and I could walk.  He took me a tour of the ship, showed me how to get around in simulated gravity (tricky, because of the Coriolis accelerations), showed me how to get food, where to shit (a kind of vacuum cleaner thing), and so forth.  He had me demonstrate some of the things I had learned, using actual hardware.  I was glad to be free, but I wondered how he would rape me, when the time came.

       We were in the crew quarters.  "Lie down on the deck," he ordered.  His penis, I could see, was ready to do its job.

"Spread your legs."  I spread my legs and arms, so I was as I was in the frame, except I was on my back on the floor.  "Ida, you have been a good slave." 

       Instantly, my crotch was wet; I could feel it drooling down toward my anus, with gravity now.  My nipples sprouted.  I was hot and ready, and my master fucked me gloriously, there on the floor.  Being able, for the first time, to hold him and kiss him and buck my hips as he fucked me made it altogether wonderful.

       Then it was time to sleep, and we snuggled in his bunk, taking up hardly more room than one of us would have.  "Master," I said, "how did you make me wet, without the drug injection?"

       "Slave," he replied, kissing me, "the drug dispenser ran dry a month ago."

       All of that was many, many years ago.  We still keep up the same routine, and I still enjoy those glorious orgasms.  Of course, even though he claims to be the master and says I am the slave, he doesn't rape me.  When he says, "Ida, you have been a good slave," I am ready for sex!  If he didn't immediately satisfy me, I'd be trying to rape him.  I think sex gets better as one gets older.  I very seldom think of Charles, and when I do, I think how much better sex is with 97 than it ever was with Charles.  It isn't that I stopped loving Charles; I rationalized that "death" had parted us, and I had "remarried."

       I never did carry a pregnancy to full term, never had a child, and I'm sure my master knows I never will.  But, just as I keep training and exercising, he dutifully keeps stuffing my cunt in the most delightful ways.

       We are growing old together, 97 and I.  Soon, we are going to have to thaw two more passengers, train a new master-slave pair.  No, I won't thaw Charles; he would never understand.  My first love will stay frozen, and he will never learn of his wife's infidelity, her nymphomania.  Let him arrive on Reno a young man, full of promise, with only pleasant memories of his long-dead wife.

[END]