Mission Dionysus

It was not as easy as she was hoping. They were just completing the first orbit and nearly ninety minutes after lift off, Merpati was feeling as if she were running a race for her life. Swallowing repeatedly, she willed herself to calm down.

“Dionysus…MEDCOM,” Traynor’s voice continued in a trained near-monotone NASA was famous for. “Merpati, your pulse is on the high side. We’ve got readings of one-four-zero plus and there is very little deviation. Calm down, Hon. Your numbers have all of us a bit concerned, Copy.”

“… Ahhh…mmm… I copy, MEDCOM.” Damn those Biosensors, anyway. Stupid little tattle tales. Young Dr. Lyndon cast her eyes upward and immediately regretted it. Her stomach rolled and she closed her eyes with a half stifled moan. Beside her, in their cramped capsule, Mitch Dunne smiled and took pity on her. It appeared as if the good space doctor might be having some adjustment issues with weightlessness.

“Zero Gee and she feels fine, MEDCOM.” Dunne remarked. Eyes still closed tightly, Merpati reached over and gently laid her gloved hand on Dunne’s arm as a thank you. He grasped her hand with his and she squeezed with surprising force. Even through both their gloves, he felt his partner trembling. He spoke gently as if trying to calm a spooked animal, “It’s okay, Doc. You can handle this. I know you can. Believe me… this is so much easier than Quals and Evals. You won’t have any problems.”

“Mitch, thank you.” Merpati almost whispered, “Quals and Evals… sucked. They were harder than my residency. Thank you. I’m just a bit excited.” Quals and Evals were astronaut slang for Qualifications and Evaluations. Unanimously, the astronauts hated them. They were tests and assignments designed to disqualify people from being astronauts. Merpati hated them bitterly still. Opening her eyes, the woman astronaut caught sight of the Earth through one of the slightly triangular ports. She sighed with unfeigned passion before speaking, “It is so… beautiful!”

“Better now?” Dunne smiled as he asked her. Dr. Merpati Lyndon was American/Indonesian and barely two inches over five feet. Her bulky white spacesuit and helmet seemed half a size too large for her petite build. She hid the turmoil inside her with a smile but made no reply. Weightlessness was proving somewhat problematic for her to adjust to. She tried to force her professional mind to focus on what was happening to her to cause this reaction. There was the Ortho-Evra birth control patch on her right butt cheek and no doubt its chemical-hormone mix intermingling with her growing PMS may be a contributing factor to her sudden heightened arousal. Christ, I am horny as a goat!

“Thank you,” Merpati replied. She was unable to say anything more. Her stomach abruptly rebelled and she vomited inside her helmet without warning. The sound of her retching was frighteningly loud in her helmet headphones. She retched a second and third time before she was able to groan heavily and issue a weak cry of revulsion. The smell of digested food and bile inside her helmet with the wet feel of it on her face was enough to make her shudder and reach panic stricken to remove her helmet.

“Wait! Wait!” Dunne commanded, “Hold on, Doc.” She forced open her visor and the large blob of vomit wobbled unsteadily into the capsule. It quivered and made squishing sounds as it bounced off Dunne’s suit. He corralled it with his hands and held it in place. Merpati made another sick groan but managed not to expel anything more from within herself. Even as she dry heaved, Merpati was fumbling for the small vacuum used for cleaning the interior of their capsule while they were in orbit. Clumsily, she managed to break out the hose and activate the suction. In a bulky spacesuit, strapped to an aluminum frame with canvas called euphemistically a “seat”, it was not an easy task for her.

“… Damn… Sorry! Damn it… Sorry!” Merpati finally succeeded in sucking in the softball sized globule of stomach contents. Mitch took the hose from her and vacuumed her face and inside her helmet with it still on her head. It was embarrassing but she endured without comment. Merpati’s thoughts were turning more to the tube between her legs. She was despising the catheter and hated the way it, along with the affixed Biosensors, made her so very conscious of herself. She wanted to deny all of it was fueling her aroused state. She wanted to deny even the purpose of the Dionysus Mission. Instead, Merpati sighed once more and grinned through her now closed visor at Mitch Dunne and said, “Thanks so much… Again, Mitch.”

“Don’t mention it,” Mitch returned her smile. “It’s all going on the Bloopers tape, Doc.”