Kate Walker's skin was perfect, a uniform soft hint of tan everywhere, from her forearms to her inner thighs to the back of her neck to the puckered skin around her anus, visible only when she bent over and pulled her buttocks apart.
Which she didn't, of course. She showed up at their place wearing a shapeless environment suit and carrying a battered heavy-sided case. Alice opened the door and quickly closed it behind her. She took the case from her while Muriel and Staughton helped her remove her helmet, revealing a face streaked with perspiration and extremely short blonde hair. Tony knew she was 26 standard, but her severe buzzcut hair made her seem older. Many people were serving long tours in environment suits nowadays, so maybe she had it cut for convenience, not the strict look.
The case and the helmet went on the kitchen table, next to three other helmets. Alice, Muriel and Staughton were all in environment suits too. Tony was the only one in soft clothes, trousers and a T-shirt that read, "Forget about cleansing the doors of perception. Wash the windows, then you'll be able to see out."
Awkwardly, they all embraced. "Kate darling," Muriel said, kissing her deeply, tongues touching gently, "It was so hard to get in contact with you, what with the situation and all. And you changed your name!"
"By whatever name," Staughton said as he kissed her, longer than Muriel had done, then moved down to her neck, or as much of it that wasn't covered by the impermeable suit, "We've missed you so!"
"Ah!" Kate sighed, stroking Staughton's thinning, greying hair, "But what's with the e-suits? Did you just get back too?"
He gave her another kiss, this time on the left cheek, before reluctantly stepping back, "No. In fact, we're just going out. Emergency volunteer duty."
"We were afraid we were going to miss you altogether," Alice said, "I mean, yes, we were going to leave you and Tony together for the day, but we'd hoped there would be a little time for catching up before the party started."
She turned, Tony stood up and she gave him a hug, whispered in his ear, "Behave and enjoy yourself!"
Kate and Tony helped the other three on with their helmets and in seconds the two of them were alone.
"So, you're not Kate?" he asked.
"Not Walker," she pulled at a chest fastener, "Malsenior now. C'mon, help me get this thing off!"
It was an older model, with a lot of wear at the joints, designed only for protection and ease of getting into. Even with the reduced population, Logistics wasn't able to supply everyone with modern equipment lately. Under the suit, she wore a skintight green coverall. The material was supposed to wick moisture away, but it was so damp with sweat it displayed her nipples, pubic bush and cameltoe in well-defined relief. It tented his trousers to see she obviously wore nothing underneath.
"Glad to see you like it," she said, unsealing the waist closure between tunic and trousers, "Undress me and we can take a shower, unless," she traced a teasing finger in a little circle around the outline of an erect nipple, "Unless you're so horny you're first time has to be right here," she leaned forward ever so slightly, "Me bent over the kitchen table, perhaps?"
Tony reached for her, tentatively took hold of the hem of her tunic and began pulling it up over her head. "What would you like?" he asked, "I'm new at this!"
"Oh, I don't know about that!" She shrugged her shoulders, "I suspect a lot of boys -- and girls too! -- do a lot of surreptitious partying before their official emancipation." She shrugged again, playfully. Her breasts bounced hardly at all. They were nice, round C-cups that didn't sag a single millimetre, even unsupported. Fascinated, he touched them gently.
It was a double shock. Did she know about Zora? How could she, with her and him and Alice industriously forgetting the whole thing? And now Kate's breasts. The skin was like the thinnest layer of smooth, tough rubber over rock-hard artificially enhanced flesh. For all that they were perfectly shaped, they looked and felt just a tiny bit inhuman, alien even. The holes in her nipples, piercings that maybe yesterday held jewelry, only made them seem more like ornaments themselves. He put her tunic on the table and reached for her trousers.
Before she let him take down her trousers, she turned around, letting him see the way the tight stretch cloth held her buttocks, separating them, accenting the cleft between them. Were those hard implants too?
He took the trousers by the waist and pulled down, peeling off the hip-hugging fabric, running his hands over her skin, exploring. Her buttocks were firm and muscular, but warm and soft against his palms. He sighed, imagining cupping them while she rode him...
She turned to face him as he folded her trousers. Her blonde pubic hair was trimmed short everywhere (though not as short as the butch-cut on her scalp) except around her labia, where it had been removed neatly and completely. There were at least half a dozen puncture marks on each pussylip: she had left a lot of surgical steel at home.
"I know," she said, following his glance, "It'll be a shame to let them close up. But right now the jewelry is something we can't afford right now."
He piled her trousers on top of her tunic, thinking. Were the piercings inconvenient in an environment suit? Did she have to sell off gold rings or diamond studs for the money?