How to Have Sex on Mars

How To Have Sex On Mars

Part 3 of 16

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Mars. For millennia, the Red Planet has fired humanity's imagination.

Scientists like Percival Lowell thought it was an "abode of life" with irrigation canals transporting water from the polar icecaps to farms in the warm equatorial region. Novelists like Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, and Robert A. Heinlein imagined Martian civilizations.

NASA spacecraft revealed that Mars is a cold, uninhabited desert, but that vast amounts of frozen water can be found just below the dusty surface. Today, members of groups like The Mars Society are making plans to build a permanent colony there.

That work would be done by people like our protagonist, Mike Russell, an astronaut who spends years working and living on Mars. What would it be like to be one of the first people to call Mars home? For Mike, it includes the discovery that sex on Mars is very different from on Earth - and Vive la différence!

Here in Part 3, Mike is overjoyed to experience gravity again. Wait until you find out why.

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Every member of our crew had reasons to be happy when we finally landed on Mars. I was tired of feeling bloated; weightlessness lets blood and other bodily fluids collect in places where they don't belong. I was tired of being constipated. I was tired of spending hours each day working out on the horrible exercise machines on our ship. It made me anxious to get back to letting my muscles work against the force of gravity.

Mainly, I was tired of being so bored. I had important work on Mars, and I was anxious to start.

But I also wanted to enjoy some real intimacy with Adeline. The only privacy we had during our seven-month voyage was in tiny cubicles that were big enough for a one-person bunk but too small for comfortable sex. I was tired of being limited to handjobs and the few other ways Adeline and I could satisfy our desires for each other. I wanted to have sex in a real bed under the influence of real gravity.

"That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Adeline said as we looked out the observation port the day before we landed. The face of Mars almost filled the entire window, and it seemed to grow larger with each passing minute.

"What are you thinking?" she asked me.

"I'm wondering what Ray Bradbury would say if he was with us," I said. "He lived in a time when people believed Mars had life. He wrote about ancient Martian cities built by a lost civilization. He wrote about humanity as an invading army of greedy opportunists who came to plunder the riches of Mars without regard to the things that made Mars so special.

"I have a feeling that Ray Bradbury would be suspicious of us. I think he'd be afraid that we're going to start tromping around on Mars so we can build something no different than the worst places on Earth. I hope that doesn't happen."

Adeline looked surprised. "You sound very French," she said. "I like it when you talk like this.

"Mon amour, try not to worry about Mars. We won't ruin it. If anyone does turn Mars into just another home for humanity's failings, it will be the people who come after us, no? All we can do is create an opportunity for people on Mars after we've gone home.

"I think your Ray Bradbury would know we've learned from the mistakes we made on Earth, and we won't repeat those mistakes here."

"You sound very Canadian," I said.

"Maybe I'm just tired of being constipated," she said.

I made sure I had an empty stomach at the time we landed. We strapped ourselves into our bunks and closed the privacy curtains to make sure no vomit escaped into the cabin. I had two barf bags available. I never had to use them, but I came close a few times.

The final minutes of the flight began with a three-minute firing of our rockets, which slowed us down enough to make it possible to enter the atmosphere. During this deceleration burn we experienced g-forces more than three times normal gravity on Earth. After seven months of weightlessness, that was rough.

We were weightless again as soon as the burn ended. I felt a wave of nausea, and I gagged a few times, but I didn't barf because there was nothing in my stomach.

Then things got really bad. The rocket began to rotate like a giant amusement park ride. The descent through the atmosphere generated intense heat, and the only way to survive was to slowly spin so all parts of the rocket warmed up evenly. I realize this is probably hard to visualize, and I doubt it matters much, so feel free to skip the next three paragraphs.

We were spinning slowly as the rocket hit the atmosphere. The force of deceleration pushed us against the wall when we were on the windward side, and it tried to pull us out of our bunks when we were on the leeward side.

It was horrible. We were being pulled forcefully in different directions that never stopped changing. They warned us that this would be the worst part of the entire trip from Earth, and they were correct.

Things changed abruptly when the rockets fired and turned the ship so our engines pointed downward. The ship stopped spinning, then the rockets fired enough to produce more than five gees of deceleration. It slammed us into our bunks, but it was a blessing that we weren't spinning anymore. It felt like I was lying down with an elephant standing on my chest. I didn't pass out, but some of my colleagues did.

Then we landed. The weight of deceleration diminished abruptly just a few seconds before we heard the landing legs deploy. As soon as we touched down on Mars the roar of the engines stopped, and the whole cabin became quiet. The only thing I could hear was the moaning of those people who'd had the hardest time tolerating the misery of the final minutes of our trip.

I couldn't move for several seconds, although I tried. I was worried about Adeline, and I wanted to get out of my cubicle and rush to her bunk. The gravity on Mars is only about one-third that of Earth, but even in that reduced gravity it was hard for me to lift my arm enough to retract my privacy curtain and look around the cabin.

I moved as quickly as I could to slide out of my bunk and stand on the walkway beside it. I felt another wave of nausea and dizziness, and I had to lean against the wall to keep from falling. The feeling passed quickly, and I began walking to Adeline's cubicle. Along the way, I could hear that lots of people were in some form of distress. There was a lot of groaning, and I heard one person sobbing inconsolably.

What if that's Adeline!?

I asked myself, hurrying to her bunk as quickly as I could.

I opened her privacy curtain and saw no reason to think she was injured. "Are you alright!?" I asked.

After a long pause, she said "Oui."

"Are you sure!?" I asked.

She gave me an angry look, followed by a string of French profanity. "Of course I'm sure! Do you think I'm such a frail, helpless female that I need some Canadian meathead to hold my dainty little hand!?" Then she let me have another dose of French profanity. The only word I recognized was "merde," which even a Canadian meathead like me knows is the French word for "shit."

At the time, I couldn't see why she was so angry. In retrospect, I understand. Like all of us, she'd had a brutal time during the deceleration and landing. Imagine being strapped inside a tin can while some giant spends 15 minutes shaking the can in all possible directions. The only reason I wasn't lying in my bunk and crying like a little girl was that I was so concerned about Adeline that I ignored my own discomfort.

"Mon amour, I'm sorry, but I think some people are hurt," I said. "I was afraid you might be one of them."

She stopped swearing. "Hurt?" she asked.

"Listen," I said. Now that she wasn't swearing, Adeline could hear the sobbing of one of our colleagues, and the groaning of several others.

"I think I should find out who's crying," I said.

"Go," Adeline said, closing her eyes as I walked away.

It was about this time that I saw a person emerging from one of the cubicles. It was Capt. Elke Brandt, the mission commander. She was struggling to stay on her feet. She'd heard the same sounds of distress I heard, and there was a worried look on her face.

Elke began going from cubicle to cubicle, pulling back the privacy curtain and asking people if they were alright. I started doing the same. Time after time, I found individuals who were very shaken up, but not seriously injured. The sound of crying got louder, and eventually, I got close enough to be able to tell which cubicle I needed to check.

"What's wrong!?" I asked as I pulled back the curtain. For reasons that will soon be obvious, I'm not going to reveal the name of the person I saw as she cried in her bunk. The inside of her cubicle was splattered with so much vomit that anyone could see she must have gotten violently ill while we were still weightless. There was vomit on her face, in her hair, up her nose, on her uniform, and all over her bedding.

One of the belts that was supposed to hold her in bed had come loose, meaning that she must have bounced around inside her cubicle during that horrific descent. It's a miracle that she wasn't thrown out and seriously injured. As it was, she suffered serious cuts and bruises, with a particularly nasty gash to the scalp on the back of her head.

"I'm fine. I'm fine," she said between sobs.

"You are definitely NOT fine. But you will be soon," I said. Elke saw that I'd located the injured person, so she rushed to the cubicle as fast as her unsteady legs would carry her. I expected her to ask me to report what was happening, but that wasn't necessary. You didn't need to be a doctor to figure out exactly what had transpired.

"Mike, fetch some personal hygiene towels," Elke said. "We'll get you fixed up right away, honey," she said to the crying woman. I grabbed the towels and got to work cleaning her face, hands, and hair as well as I could. Elke picked up the bedding and used it to wipe up stray vomit.

Two of the woman's closest friends arrived. "Let us take over," they said, shouldering me and Elke aside. As our captain, Elke needed to make some rounds to assess the condition of the rest of the crew. As a man, I needed to get out of the way so the victim's friends could get her out of her clothes, cleaned up, and into a fresh pair of coveralls.

The last thing I did was wait for them to drag the woman out of her bunk and help her limp to the bathroom, then I closed the privacy curtain so no one had to see (or smell) the mess. I'm sure it helped, but the whole ship smelled like vomit for the rest of the day. Several people puked during the entry, and a few of them weren't able to keep all of the vomit inside their barf bags.

I put myself in charge of collecting the used bags. Somebody had to do it. As I walked back and forth from the cabin area to the trash bins, I noticed that it was getting easier to move around in the Martian gravity. I had to be slow and deliberate as I put one foot in front of the other, but it was remarkable how quickly I adapted after so many months of weightlessness.

When I disposed of the last of the bags, I stood up straight and marveled at how good I felt. I was about to learn that Mars had enough gravity to allow me to live normally, but that I had more energy and endurance because I wasn't constantly fighting the amount of gravity we have to endure on Earth.

It reminded me of a work of classic science fiction published early in the 20th century.

John Carter of Mars

is by Edgar Rice Burroughs, better known for his books about the character Tarzan. When Carter came to Mars, he discovered that the reduced gravity allowed him to perform feats of great strength.

This must be how John Carter felt!

I thought.

I was standing there, feeling great, when I noticed something unfamiliar. I suddenly realized that there was a specific chore I needed to complete. Quickly.

Rushing to an equipment locker, I got one of the kits provided to allow us to adapt our zero-gravity toilets to work in Martian gravity. It was a very easy task that didn't require any special tools. All I had to do was unhook one fixture and snap a new one in place. It probably took less than five minutes, but it felt longer because I was experiencing a feeling of urgency I hadn't known since leaving Earth.

As soon as I finished, I pulled the curtain closed in the stall, unzipped my coveralls, and sat down on the toilet. I was just in time. What happened next was that I had my biggest and most satisfying bowel movement in more than seven months.

It was the most pleasant sensation imaginable. I sat there for a long time, a huge grin on my face, savoring the immense relief.

"Welcome to Mars," I whispered to myself.

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Several members of that crew have written books that describe what happened after we got to Mars. I'm going to try not to duplicate too many of their narratives. After all, this book is called

How To Have Sex on Mars,

and this chapter has stretched out for quite a while without mentioning sex.

I will rectify that problem shortly. In the interest of time, I'll spare you a lot of the technical details of how we relieved the five people who'd spent three years of their lives assembling a rudimentary compound big enough to house our crew in reasonable safety.

I'm sure I don't have to repeat the obvious fact we had to do a great deal of work. For a few weeks, nobody had time to do anything except connect plumbing, install wiring, assemble modular equipment, and complete the seemingly endless list of tasks needed to make a Martian-style dormitory habitable.

Before I get to the sex, there is just one thing I want to mention which you won't find in any of the other books about Mars. The five people who'd spent 18 months getting things ready for us looked so sickly and exhausted it was frightening. Nobody has talked about that much because everyone involved in the effort to colonize Mars likes to emphasize all the glorious, positive, historic stuff. We are inclined to downplay the many negative things that happened.

But my colleagues and I were alarmed when we saw how bad those five people looked. The first time I entered their enclosure, I was startled by how bad the place smelled. By how dirty it was. By how primitive the conditions were. Those people are rightly viewed as heroes, and I think we should do more to acknowledge the extent of the deprivations they endured as they carved a beachhead out of the Martian bedrock. They suffered so we could thrive.

They went back in the same rocket that carried us to Mars, and I'm sure it felt roomy and luxurious after the cramped quarters they'd shared. I felt bad that they would have to endure seven months in the hell of weightlessness, but I'm sure they took great comfort in the knowledge that they would soon be back on the most beautiful planet in the solar system.

Now. Let's talk about sex.

Adeline and I were aching for a chance to be intimate. We were on Mars less than two weeks before our living quarters were ready to occupy. The word you see most often when people describe those little one-room units is "spartan." They were six feet wide and ten feet long. Instead of a little canvas bunk, each room had an actual bed with a real foam mattress and sheets made of cotton-polyester fabric.

We had a thin blanket, which was warm enough since the habitat was maintained at a constant 70 degrees. Adeline and I arranged to be assigned to rooms next to each other, but we usually slept in her bed. The bed folded up during the day and came down at night. If you know what a "Murphy Bed" is, you know exactly what we had. Raising it during the day created enough floor space to make the room a pleasant place to relax.

I have a very clear memory of the first time we went into her quarters, locked the door, and had sex. That was the day we discovered that sex on Mars is much, much better than sex on Earth.

Why? There are so many reasons Martian sex is superior that it's going to take several chapters for me to explain them all. Trust me. You'll want to read and re-read every single word. It was (and is) beautiful.

"This is going to be a very nice first date, no?" Adeline said.

"I thought that we had lots of dates on the rocket," I said. "If those weren't dates, what were they?"

"Something less than dates," she said. "Get togethers. Conversations. Minor intimacies."

"Does that include all the handjobs?" I asked.

"Must you quibble, Canada boy?" she asked.

As she spoke, I slowly lowered the zipper of her coveralls. The only underwear she wore was a tiny pair of thong panties. None of the women on Mars wore bras. Ever. Bras aren't needed in the reduced gravity.

Adeline shivered as I eased the uniform off her shoulders. "Hurry," she whispered. "I burn for you, Canada boy."

"There's no need to wait," I said, pulling her clothes off and taking her into my arms. I gave her a deep, soulful, kiss. We'd longed for this moment for months, and I felt myself getting excited much faster than usual.

Adeline pressed her body against mine and felt my erection. "Pour moi?" she asked as she rubbed my hard cock through my clothes. I felt my heart pound as I pulled off my uniform. My cock was so hard that the tip had the purplish tinge it only gets when it is engorged with blood.

I thought that happened because my lust for Adeline was so strong. In the weeks ahead I learned that Martian boners are much harder and longer-lasting than what men have on earth. There are technical reasons related to the fact that blood flows through the body more efficiently on Mars because the heart doesn't have to work so hard against gravity as it circulates blood through our veins and arteries. The important thing was that every erection was as hard as you'd find on an 18-year-old boy who'd just discovered internet porn.

My cock was throbbing as Adeline caressed it with both hands. I pushed her toward the bed, and we began the slow-motion trip that started with us standing upright on the floor and ended with us flat on our mattress. The reduced gravity made everything slow, relaxed, and deliberate.

It took almost no effort for me to wrestle Adeline's body into position on her back. I began kissing her neck, then worked my way down to her breasts, belly, and finally her pussy. It was easy for me to spread her legs and see she was already warm, wet, and bright pink. She was redolent with a feminine fragrance that made my mouth water. I wanted to eat her pussy, but she stopped me.

"Not this time," she whispered. "I want your coq, Canada boy. Give me your coq."

She pulled me up until we were poised in a posture that was very similar to the missionary position. The difference was that the light gravity made it easy for me to avoid putting too much of my body weight on Adeline. On Earth, I have to rest on my elbows to support my upper body enough that I don't squash my partner. On Mars, I could rest on my fingertips. My body weight wasn't a problem anymore because I weighed only one-third as much. The gravity was strong enough to make it easy for us to hug each other as close as we wanted, but not enough to make that uncomfortable.

"Hurry!"

Adeline whispered, wrapping one hand around my cock and pulling it toward her pussy. I didn't need any assistance finding and entering her vagina, but she gave it to me anyway because she felt such an urgent need to have sex. I pressed forward and felt my cock slide inside her wet, slippery folds.

Finally. Finally! After months of handjobs and frustration, I was finally having actual sex with the most desirable woman on Mars. We began moving in and out the way couples have always moved, but things were different - in a good way. There was more than enough gravity to help me press inside Adeline, but it felt easier. Pulling out was virtually effortless. Going in and out was heavenly.