Author's note: this is my very first published story; it was done with much input , help and encouragement from friends. A special thank you to The Tall Man for his suggestions and editing. (I.O.U. a B.J - anytime you choose to collect).
There is no under age sex in this story - all characters are over 18 years of age.
Part One -- The Pilgrimage begins
The year is 2159, a time when space colonization has become commonplace, thanks to the rapid advancement of scientific accomplishments during the latter part of the twentieth century and the beginning of the third millennium. At long last, a one-world government has been formed, it's priorities to deal with very serious and at first seemingly insoluble climatic and population problems on Earth. This government has finally started to become effective in making decisions to try and save the human race, which is threatened with destruction as a result of its own mis-management.
No more wars to kill off any of our people, no major diseases, life is almost eternal as a result of astonishing medical leaps forward; all this means that the anticipated population explosion of the second half of the 1900's had been seriously underestimated. The average life expectancy is now over 120 years, and there is almost no room for newborns.
New doctrine worldwide emergency laws have been enacted to contain the frightening pace of population augmentation. The majority of children were, until now, sterilized at birth as a temporary means of slowing it down. But it was calculated that the world population was already too high for Earth's dwindling resources, and still more had to be done.
Those people who have escaped unflinching application of these new laws, being born before they came into effect, are encouraged to seek voluntary sterilization. If they do not, then legal authorization will be required before they will be allowed to bring new children into the world; such authorization is rarely given, being limited to people who can afford to bribe the final decision-makers, or those of high intellect or important government rank.
Apart from the relentless sterilization program applied to children whose births are officially approved, compulsory birth control is also strictly followed by all men and women. Most future parents opt for early abortion in the case of an 'accidental' pregnancy, since breaking these strict laws results in heavy fines and prison sentences for both parents. The only alternative to suffering punishment is to hand over the child for various scientific projects, which would release the parents of any responsibility. For a first offence, that is. Execution by lethal injection has been reintroduced for an unthinkable second infraction. The value of life for anyone other than the privileged elite has diminished to the point that it can be sacrificed in the so-called best interests of the human race.
Faced with possible extinction, as time passes, more extreme measures had to be taken to ensure the survival of the human race. A vast number of ordinary people are being sent by space vessel to several outlying planets only recently discovered, situated in far flung corners of the known galaxies. In the very beginning it was the smartest that human kind had to offer that were selected to go, in order to set up colonies. Now the major selection of pioneers is done by lottery and voluntary choice.
We are no longer concerned with the exodus of a handful of people, but many millions of families and single people of all ages and races, who will be the last hope for the survival of the human race. The scale of this desperate pilgrimage is at first mind-boggling and will have to be carried out over half a century. The vessels which carry them are the size of cities, and capable of sustaining life for many years, the time necessary to travel unimaginable distances measured in many light years.
In short, with the extinction of life on Earth potentially imminent, these many pioneers, or pilgrims as they became known, may be the only hope of survival somewhere else.
My name is Reema. I was one of those pilgrims, and this is my story.
I was an 'oops' baby for my parents. I have two siblings, my brother Dillon was sixteen and my older sister Tanya was twenty when I came along. Because I was a late, unwanted child, effectively I was turned over to the authorities so that my parents could avoid serious penalties. Once my education began I spent many years in one boarding school or another. These schools were really like glorified convents, even jails to me, but it was deemed best for everyone that I should be educated in the very strict fashion which was common in boarding schools.
Along the way, the world situation became worse and worse.
Just short of turning eighteen, at the end of my statutory education period, according to law like everyone else, I had to go through what was known as 'placement testing'. At the end of an extremely stressful series of physical and mental examinations, a suitable future direction would be decided for each young man or woman, according to their background, their aptitudes, their IQ, character and personality, as well as their physical condition. We students had no influence over the choice which was made for us, whether to be teachers, trainee scientists, functionaries, or whatever the results of the testing showed, or whatever the government decided was appropriate for us. The Principal was god, in this respect, and his recommendations were usually followed without question.
I was called to the Principal's office with four of my co-students -- Tamara, Vanessa, Mica and AndrΓ©a, and we were told that we would have the 'honor' of joining one of the many space pilgrimages imminently being planned. The destination was a planet known as Alpha Seven, where a new colony was already being established.
There was to follow six months of intensive training on how to contend with life during our long voyage and later, on Alpha Seven. As well as far-reaching instruction concerning daily life and conditions on board the enormous space vessel and on Alpha Seven, our personal training would consist of such stimulating subjects as food preserving, herbal medicines, gardening, crop cultivation management, medicine and even midwifery. The latter was the case, even though at this stage we had no clear ideas about how babies were conceived.
Mechanical and electronic maintenance of many types of high performance vehicles and machinery of all kinds were an important part of our instruction too.
At school, we had had no tutoring on sex and related subjects. With the girls who shared rooms, I had discussed the changes we all felt happening in our bodies from as early as age twelve onwards, and talked about the new strange, intimate feelings we had started to experience. Having menstrual periods was explained to us by our tutors in a very simple way, as being a natural way for us to know it would soon be time for us to take our places in society and become good wives and servants as expected. My friends and I had explored our bodies in many curious and pleasurable ways.
I was the only one who had actually seen a man's 'thingy', since I had a father and a brother who were not too discreet around the house. Once, on one of my very few visits home I'd even seen my brother's 'thingy' standing up really long and hard looking, and bouncing up and down, as he ran naked from the bathroom to his bedroom. It looked as though it might hurt him, all swollen up like that. It appeared red and angry, and the head looked shiny wet sort of, but my brother's face showed no sign of suffering, even though I could tell he was embarrassed at being seen like that. Just before he ran into his room, he clasped this 'thingy' it in his hand, and I could see that it was extremely long and thin, with a bulbous end which extended beyond his fist. My one and only sighting of this erect, strange but kind of pretty object, sticking out between my brother's thighs, made me very curious about boys.
At school, all boarders' rooms had full-wall computers with voice control, and despite the blockage on non-approved viewing sites, we had managed to access and download some supplementary information, including some pretty explicit images of men. Not knowing the terminology, not knowing enough about what to look for, we were handicapped in our research, but we got enough to satisfy our curiosity about what 'thingies' looked like in various conditions, and to learn that 'thingies' were properly called penises. But we never got to explain what men did with them except peeing. We knew it had something to do with a woman getting pregnant however; and we did know, that we got very excited indeed about what we found, and this eventually led us to more and more curious exploration of our teenage bodies.
None of us that I know of managed to achieve an orgasm, but looking back, I think I came close one night, as I was rubbing my trembling pussy lips under the bed sheets. My head was filled with vague images of erect 'thingies', all colors, shapes and all sizes, and the pleasure was really lovely. Instinctively, I tweaked my nipples and it felt so good when they swelled up and went hard under my fingers. The pleasure was starting to spread, and before long I was sliding my fingers into my moist pussy. I felt a sharp little pain which didn't bother me too much; then I was enjoying the lovely stimulation that the fingering produced in my body and in my brain. Later I found a tiny blood stain on my fingers, but I didn't worry about it, and it certainly didn't stop me following my naughty instincts.
I didn't even know the words 'climax' or 'orgasm', but the feelings were so good, that I carried on doing what pleased me most, almost every night. My room mates were the first to know, after I almost unexpectedly discovered that first time what fun it was to finger myself deep inside. Then we all joined in the practice, sometimes playing with ourselves for hours as we lay in bed after lights out.