He liked Vesse. Even though she worked him (and herself) hard, she was somehow more relaxed than anyone else he knew. She was old enough to be his grandmother, but he felt a connection with her that he didn't have with the other men and women in the dormitory. The Mission was so Serious for all of them. It didn't hurt that she sometimes used break time to strip down and get her vitamin D under one of the actinic lamps.
"The air here, ah!" he told Vesse as he checked in on his handheld, so glad to be able to breathe deep and smell plant life, rather than humans or machines, "Wish I could live in the dome instead of the dorm."
"I had to sleep here a couple of nights, back when the old plumbing was acting up," she stretched, her lean muscles showing even in her shapeless green work clothes, "Took forever for my back to recover! Still have the insulation pad and the tarp I used, in a storage up by the north-by-northwest sector." She laughed, "Nobody lives here but the squirrels and possums. I know you haven't got an apartment like I do, but in the dorm you're set up pretty well. You don't even have to wash your own clothes!"
"Yeah, they do everything for you there. And to you, too."
"Oh," she looked serious, but only for a moment, "The docents? They have a job to do, you know, just like us. I know all the rah-rah about the Reclamation-Repopulation Project, all of us being neo-colonial cosmonaut heroes and all that can sometimes be a little much, but it is important work."
He said nothing, just pulled his tools out of the rake-rack and got to work.
"I mean," she said, "It's not as if you can't just, you know, DO it, get it up, let them wank you off. I figured you'd probably be doing it yourself here in the decon shower if it weren't all open-air."
He ignored that. "I've tried to explain," he grunted as they worked on the bed of one of their oldest force-gown oaks, "My clade weren't xenophobes, we paired off with people all over the colony, but... in person!"
"Not liking the turkey baster thing?" she asked. He nodded, though he didn't know what a "turkey" was, really. "I suppose that was OK back then, but with the demographic troubles we're having now... "
"You won't rat me out, will you Vesse?" He was half sarcastic, half worried, "for thinking spraying my DNA all around with strangers is unnatural?"
"Course not, Gene! You want to be with someone, is all. Someone special? Wife? Girlfriend? Friend-With-Benefits?"
"Don't make fun of me!"
"Sorry." They moved on to the pumping station, gleaming, modern, automated systems that only had the most sophisticated, modern, computerized problems. "I have a confession to make. I had an idea that I could help you. I know how frustrating it is to be frustrated." He looked up at her sharply. She paused, then, "Do you think that's crazy of me?"
"No. No, I like you. But... "
"But not in that way? C'mon, I've seen you looking at me!"
"Yeah, you're right, you are pretty hot."
"For an old woman? Yeah, it is kinda hot." She took off her jacket and shook it out.
"I didn't mean -- "
"I know, I've seen you looking at me. I was looking at you too, when you were using the shower." She hung her jacket on a tree limb and pulled off her olive drab T-shirt in one smooth, athletic motion, "Wanna unhook my bra?"
"What?"
"C'mon, I'll put my T-shirt back on and splash a little water around, see if the wet T-shirt look works for me."
He just looked at her, large nipples and bumpy areolae clearly outlined under the fabric of the utilitarian B-cups of her bra. She saw his erection, even imagined she could see it throbbing, but he wasn't moving towards her, looked sad, if anything.
"Oh, honey," she put her arms around him and hugged him, "I guess I'm sorry again!" She kissed him on the neck, "I like to be with someone, just like you do, is all." She thought for a second, as if she had a secret that might or might not need keeping, then, "The boy they assigned here last month was so hot he bent me over the main console and rammed me so hard the edge of the desk made bruises on my thighs!"
They held each other for a while. He didn't say anything, but he didn't pull away either. Finally, she asked him, "Tell you what, when the shift is over we'll go find that old insulation pad and lie down under the actinics and, well, I'd just like to hold you and have you hold me. OK?"
He nodded, then kissed her on the cheek, then on the lips. Then stopped. "OK. Thanks. And, maybe... maybe before that we could take our showers together today?"
She nodded and he picked up her T-shirt for her, then watched her put it on before they went back to work. They made the circuit, raking, pruning, watering, checking readouts on grimy consoles, replacing rusted parts. The reverse osmosis pump range was the only thing that gave them any trouble. It was controlled from outside the dome, so all they could do was check the fault indicators and look them up one at a time. He put his arm around her shoulders and she gently squeezed his left buttock as they scrolled through, line by line. Other than that, they hardly touched or even looked at each other throughout the shift. They did make sure to at least open the chemical fertilizer bins so they'd have an excuse to use the shower.
He'd seen her in the shower before, but never up close. Now he saw every square centimeter of her was tanned a glowing brown, even her sagging breasts and well-muscled buttocks. He imagined her under the makeshift sun-lamps, naked on the grass, turning over regularly to avoid a burn. They soaped each other all over, slowly. She told him to touch her everywhere, legs, breasts, back, running his fingers through the gray cloud of her pubic hair, even separating her tight buttocks to explore.
"I guess this old woman has been keeping herself in pretty good shape!" she said, bending over a bit to give him access to her sensitive anus, feeling her thigh and gluteus muscles flex and tighten, "That feels so nice!"
