Desmond can't pinpoint exactly when he became autoerotic.
During his first two years of tenure in the Swan station, his fantasies had all been of Penny. He'd indulged himself in the pleasures of his own flesh only when Kelvin was out on environmental analysis duty, lying in his bunk and imagining himself and Penny curled up by the fire in a stone cottage back in the motherland. He replayed their lovemaking, recalled all the little things that Penny enjoyed. She loved to be on top and he liked it, too, watching her move on him, looking down into his eyes with a loving expression or throwing back her head, selfishly lost in her own pleasure. He found that endearing. How he loved to play with those soft breasts of hers. They really were one of her best features. After, when they'd both come (he was an attentive lover, always concerned for the pleasure of his partner), he would wrap his arms around her and bury his face in her bosom. That was what sex was all about for him – comfort and connection.
Then, one day, Penny was not waiting for him in some idyll but was there, in the Swan. It was as if he could no longer envision a life beyond the Island. Her voluptuous body made a striking contrast to the hard lines of mid-twentieth century computer banks and consoles. Lit by the gloomy mosaic light of the Swan's dome, she looked like a nymph come to drag him to another world. His fantasies began to take on a darker tone, more specifically erotic than romantic wish fulfilment. He saw Penny stripped and bent over while he took her from behind. The severe edges of the console made cruel dents in belly and breasts. Her cries were chthonian.
He stopped waiting for Kelvin to leave, began sneaking one off the wrist when the big guy was in a different part of the station, one ear cocked for his return like some furtive teenager in his parents' home.
It became such an obsession that the inevitable happened. Desmond forgot to lock the bathroom door and Kelvin walked in to find him standing over the toilet bowl, eyes closed, lips smiling as he pulled on his stiff rod. His partner's inconsiderate bark of laughter had him yanking up his trousers in a hurry, cheeks burning.
"Hey," chipped Kelvin. "If you're lacking inspiration, you can have access to my secret stash." He dropped the stack of magazines in his hand onto the washbasket lid. "Help yourself." Still grinning, he left the bathroom.
Well, no prizes for guessing that Kelvin had not been planning on taking a shit.
The cover of the porn mags was inauspicious – even detumefying. Their white covers were adorned only with the Dharma Initiative logo in the centre of which lived a yin-yang symbol. Desmond climbed into his bunk, got his pillows comfortable behind his head and slid a hand into his briefs.
Page One didn't help. It was titled, 'A Message from Pierre Chang" and there was a picture of the Chinese guy from the Swan station orientation film. Underneath, in italics and quotation marks, was the Dharma Initiative's porn mission statement:
"We at the Dharma Initiative believe in social cohesion and personal liberty. A part of that is sexual expression. We appreciate that not every member of the Initiative has a partner or partners but that we all have the need to express ourselves sexually. In response to this, we produce home-grown erotica on a bi-monthly basis – no pun intended! – starring different members of the Dharma Initiative. Participation is voluntary but recommended! We hope you enjoy our June 1975 issue which focuses on the peregrinations of our own Victoria Asprin, Sally Rosenthal, Miles Straume and Daniel Faraday. Namaste."
Desmond's cock was limp in his hand. Okay – don't start at the beginning. He flicked a few pages on.
Seventies porn. He'd forgotten how different it was! This was the porn he'd picked up in hedgerows on his way home from school, the treasured pages his best friend had shown him then scrumpled up as he stuffed them under his mattress in a panic, afraid his mum would catch them. The lighting was flat and the colours rich, almost textured – not far from technicolour. The women were slender, girl-next-door types, long-legged and freckly. And they had pubic hair! Desmond was used to seeing women's pubic hair in real life – it was not as if he'd only dated models or actresses – but it had been a long time since he'd seen it in porn. Sally's bush was relatively neat, a dark triangle over her mound, trimmed short. Victoria's, on the other hand, was rather more luxuriant, long strands of silky blond hair spreading down either side of her pussy lips. Des was thrown for a moment until he came across the first of a sequence of photos called 'Miles and Daniel Investigate'. Miles was a slim Chinese guy with wispy facial hair. He looked young and fresh-faced, and had a pouty top lip. Daniel was another slim guy with straggling dark hair and glittering, kindly eyes. They stood on either side of Victoria – dear, sweet Victoria with her thick blond pigtails and innocent green eyes. She was looking at the camera and biting her bottom lip as Daniel and Miles worked in tandem to strip her, Daniel unzipping her beige Dharma Initiative overalls from neck to crotch while Miles pulled it open at the top, exposing one of her pink-nippled breasts. Where the zipper stopped, a tan-line and a glimpse of gleaming pubic hair appeared, tantalising the reader with thoughts of further treasures.
For the first time, blood jolted into Desmond's cock. He gave it a couple of lazy strokes then turned the page.
Daniel was a scientist. The scene was set in his lab and titled, 'Daniel and Miles take a break from saving Mankind'. They were all wearing lab coats – just. The guys both had their pants unzipped and were leaning back against the counters while the girls sucked them off. This was no coy soft core imagery – their hard cocks in all their veiny, shiny-headed glory could clearly be seen penetrating the mouths of their playmates. Miles held the back of Victoria's head and looked down, open-mouthed, at the soft lips sliding over him while Daniel had his head thrown back and was gripping the edge of the counter for dear life. The slight frown on Sally's face told that her lover's cock was surging in her mouth and he was about to come.
Des whipped through to the next page.
'The boys discover something new every day.'
They'd swapped partners. On the right of the picture, Miles had Sally up against a wall. Her arms were above her head and she was holding on to the light fixtures as Miles pulled open the top half of her lab coat and suckled on one of her very round breasts. Her lipglossed lips gasped.
Over on the left, Daniel had Victoria up on the counter. She was completely naked now and spreading her legs, two fingers holding her pussy open for the young scientist. Daniel crouched between her legs, pressing some ocular apparatus to his left eye. It sent out a beam of white light that illuminated her swelling clitoris and the moisture that framed her slit.
Desmond's tongue moved over his lips as his mind filled in the blanks – the scientist's tongue lapping; the scent of woman's musk; her gentle, pleading moans; the jerking of muscles inside and out as the pretty thing came in his face. He turned to the centrefold.
NOT what he wanted to see! A tall blond man lay across the centre pages, naked and grinning, with a large yellow flower gripped between his teeth in a clear homage to Burt Reynold's famous 'Playgirl' pose. 'Jim LaFleur wants to water your flower,' said the caption.
"Yeush!" cried Des. "See ya, Dimples." He ripped to the next page.
'Nothing like a spot of fresh air.' And he was back to the adventures of the guys and girls who were showcasing the Island's bucolic splendour with a little outdoor fucking. In a serene glade, a picnic blanket was spread on the ground and in a series of vignettes, Sally was feeding pineapple chunks to Daniel while Miles watched Victoria get herself off with a banana. Miles licked cream off Victoria's taut, skinny girl's ass while Daniel was being ridden by the black-haired force of nature that was Sally. It was clear from the smile on his face and the way he was looking up into her eyes that Faraday, the brainy one, enjoyed relinquishing control. Lastly, all were completely naked. The girls faced the camera side by side and on all fours while the guys took them from behind. It was Seventies porn and they were all thoroughly enjoying themselves.
Looked like the Island was a fun place to be before the infection set in, thought Des.
Holding the magazine very close to his face now, he began to jack himself off in earnest, stopping every now and then to thrust his cock up into his hand.
'"Mah Jong?" asks Daniel. "We'd rather play with you," say Sally and Victoria.'
Daniel's Dharma Initiative home was a picture of Seventies chic. Scandinavian furniture abounded and burning joss sticks added a smoky atmosphere. The threesome reclined on a sofa covered with a handmade, crotched squares throw. Desmond's eyes traced a wavy line across the most intriguing aspects of the scene: Victoria and Daniel's open mouths pressed together, soft tongues touching; the erection sticking out of his casual pants, both girls' hands grasping it; Sally's narrowed eyes staring down at the head of the hard prick while Daniel's hand reaches inside her knickers, fingers clearly already inside her. A smaller picture was inset bottom right and titled, 'Caught on camera.' It was almost the same image except all three of them were now staring at Daniel's prick as if in astonishment as it spurted out its joy juice, as a Seventies lad might say.
That was enough for Desmond. He shook his ejaculating cock, spattering the front of his briefs. Judders passed through him of an intensity he hadn't experienced for a long time. It was a long time before he came-to, got out of bed and threw his sticky briefs in the washbasket.
It was about then that it must've happened – that he became autoerotic. He realised one day that he'd spent over an hour fantasising and Penny hadn't crossed his mind once. Then there was the time when he was sitting in front of the computer, bored and masturbating idly, when he became aware he could see part of his own reflection in a dingy triangle of dome glass. Suddenly, it was all he could think about. The dim, segmented nature of the reflection made it seem it wasn't him he was looking at. The flickering of the LEDs added to the eeriness of the scene. He tilted his pelvis so his cock loomed large and began to stroke it purposefully. He pulled on it, stretching it to maximum length (not that the Scotsman lacked length to begin with – he was a brawny Celt in every aspect of his conformation) and squeezing it to make the head swell. He played his favourite game, holding his fist still while he pumped into it. The sight of a cock – any cock – making fucking motions sent a dark, urgent thrill running through him. Realising he could see a little of his belly, too, he unbuttoned his shirt at the bottom to watch his stomach muscles clench as he neared orgasm. Quickly spitting into his hand, he smeared the lubricant on his cock and enjoyed the increased smoothness of the jacking, the glistening of a fierce-looking beast. With a few rapid passes and a cry of, "Oh, yeah, Brother. Come on. Come on!" he climaxed, sending several pulses of nasty into the air.
He slept so well that night.
So that was the beginning. In the following days, he began to lock himself in the bathroom and explore his own body in a way he hadn't since he was teenager. It was his custom to wear his shirts open at the neck for ventilation but now he took note of what he was exposing. In the bathroom mirror, his wild brown eyes travelled down the gap and focused on the powerful chest muscles, smooth and sheened with sweat. A hand crept into his shirt, fingers spread wide to feel the bulge of muscle, then delicately traced a nipple. Silvery tingles ran through him. He opened his shirt further. The fixed mirror only showed his reflection from his head to his breastbone but that was intriguing enough. Desmond lifted a handful of cool water to his throat and splashed it against his flushed skin. It spilled down over his chest in rivulets and soaked his blue shirt, making it stick to him. He watched his sturdy chest heave in excitement, every movement visible through his drenched clothing. He looked back up at himself, at that long, quirky face he was always surprised women found appealing. His brow gathered. "Penny, what am I doing?" he asked. He pulled his shirt across his bare chest and left the room.
But that was not the end of it. He was on a roll.
"It's uncanny," remarked Kelvin, "how quickly we get through the soap these days." He cast a suspicious eye across the table at Desmond as they sat eating breakfast in the Swan's diner-style snug.
"Some of us actually want to be clean, Brother, rather than seeing washing as a chore." He cast an equally droll eye over his increasingly irritating partner.
Following that exchange, it occurred to him that perhaps he shouldn't spend so long in the shower these days but he quickly dismissed that idea. It was an addiction now.
Even lathering up the soap between his hands was part of the ritual. Thinking about pounding off was enough to get him hard. He smothered himself in thick, creamy lather – chest, belly, thighs, up the crack of his behind. His cock most of all. Once his cock and balls were a morass of foam, he took hold of the edge of the glass shower door and rubbed himself against it, sliding his slick cock up and down. There was something about the coolness of the glass that thrilled him – so ungiving, so asexual to the touch that it made the activity seem even more debauched. He didn't come this way, though. This was just foreplay. After he'd finished fondling himself all over, he would take down the shower hose and unscrew the head so instead of spray he got a stream of water. He'd get on all fours, legs spread wide and start to jack his soapy cock while reaching behind himself to direct the stream of water at his exposed anus. It was an awkward position but worth it for that extraordinary sensation, the perpetual five-thuds-a-second feeling of a strong jet pounding at his hole. He hung his head, water pouring from his long dark hair on all sides, mouth stretched in a soundless cry lest Kelvin overhear. Over and over, he clenched his anus, letting the pleasure there guide the experience until finally, a crashing sensation came over it, shuddering along the length of his rectum as his ready cock splashed its cum on the tiles.
He'd always enjoyed getting his cock sucked. What man didn't? He never just expected a partner to indulge him, though, never forced it upon them. As a result, his poor cock had been given far less attention in his life than he would have liked.
Not so now. He lavished touch upon it, teasing it, tickling it, exploring it. He liked to see it from every angle: from behind, hanging down between his spread thighs; from above, its one eye appearing and disappearing as his foreskin came up over it; best of all, from below, the cocksucker's angle. Seeing it so large, dominating his figure, made him feel dominant. Feverish dirty talk spilled from his lips as he watched it magnify. "You want some of this Scottish boy, eh? You want this chunk o'muscle in your mouth? Oh, aye, I'll give it to ya. Come on and take a taste."
He needed no convincing himself. Much as it was fun to try to catch his own cum in his mouth, he soon became obsessed with the thought of sucking himself. Several times, he came tantalisingly close, especially when he lay on his back and swung his legs over his head but he was no yoga expert. Sure, he was a little double-jointed in his hips but it wasn't enough.
He became a yoga expert. After three weeks of dedication, he gave it another try, putting a couple of pillows behind his head, and swinging up and over. He didn't reach for it immediately. He let himself enjoy the wank, watching his cock swell framed by his own hairy thighs. He cupped and warmed his balls, traced his throbbing veins, swooshed a spit-wet palm around and around the head. Each time a bead of pre-cum oozed its way out, he licked his lips in his craving but he tried nothing yet. Only once his spine had warmed up and his body settled into the gentle rocking did he dare reach a tongue towards it.
The tip touched the engorged flesh – tickled it lightly. He gasped. Then more – the flat of his tongue was against it and if he pouted, he could just plant his lips on it in a kind of kiss. Desmond cried out again – a sound that combined a groan of pleasure with a whoop of triumph. He could taste his own salty, sour flavour, he was jamming his cock in his own face. It made him want to swoon in submission. He dedicated himself to the sucking, drooling over it, wanking the shaft at the same time. And even though his back was already beginning to ache, he took it at a steady pace. Slow and sordid. Only when orgasm approached did he increase the speed, jerking his hips in an attempt to fuck his own mouth. He voiced a series of long, whimpering groans as his motions became wild, cockhead dancing a jig across his lips. Then suddenly, he was coming, semen shooting along the shaft. Desmond opened wide, tongue flat and passive, and his cum jetted into him, painting the roof of his mouth white. It seemed endless – the quivering, the aching, the warm salt, the feeling of filthiness. He swallowed and as he allowed his hips to fall back onto the mattress, semen and saliva hung between his lips and his cock, giving him his first ever pearl necklace.
He could hardly believe he'd never tried this shit before!
So this is how Smokey finds him – a man divorced from all desire to communicate sexually. Kelvin is long gone and the entire Swan station is now Desmond's erotic playground. Smokey doesn't judge – not on this matter, anyway. He remembers what it was like to have a body, to be a man. There are plenty of kinky skeletons in his closet. Still, he's amused by the Scotsman's new game. There's nothing like a little adrenaline rush to titillate the erotic receptors, he muses.
It's just an ordinary wank. Desmond sits in the chair in front of the computer, beating himself off. Except this time, he's not looking at his own reflection. His eyes are fixed on the countdown. He attempts complete chronological control of his climax. His movements are steady and unhurried, timed to the pip-pip-pip of the timer, until it reaches one minute before execution and the alarm goes off. Nah-nah-nah – harsh, stentorian. It goads him into frantic action, pulling at his hard-on until the sap begins to rise and he has to hold it just below the plateau, throttling it. It's a strange place he finds himself in, squirming in his seat, forced to furnish his tyrannical prick with the occasional perfunctory stroke while attempting to stave off the orgasm that gathers like a muttering host in his loins. He grits his teeth, hissing between them. Holding his cock in one hand now, he inputs the numbers with the other and waits – waits – his chest heaves and gleams – his brown eyes are bloodshot, riveted by the flicking of the timer. 10-9-8-7-6- Desmond jacks himself with abandon, crying out over and over now there's no-one to hear, filling the dome with the sounds of his uninhibited self-pleasuring. 5-4-3-2- he hits execute, clenches every muscle in his body and flings back his head – 1. The numbers flick back to 108 and he comes and comes, ejaculate splashing everywhere, and he's particularly happy if he catches that fucking monitor.
Smokey appreciates his inventiveness and thinks it's a shame there's no-one in the Pearl these days to enjoy the floorshow.
He visits them all in his wanderings, delighted when they surprise him. Who would have thought that Libby, the gentle-faced Tailie, would harbour such violent fantasies about being dominated by her comrade, Ana Lucia? Or that Mikhail dreamed of satin sheets and the tender caresses of innumerable soft-bodied, flowing-haired women?
Sometimes, Smokey feels jealous, and he goes and finds himself a body to play with. There's one particular body he's got his eye on these days…
