How To Have Sex On Mars
Part 12 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 desert, but that vast amounts of frozen water can be found just below the dusty surface. Today, members of groups like The Mars Society make 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 diffΓ©rence!
Here in Part 12, Mike is asked to make one more 'sacrifice' for his female colleagues.
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Most mornings I woke up thinking I was the luckiest man alive. I lived on Mars. I did important work building the first permanent colony on another world. I was engaged to my darling fiance Adeline, and we were both in love with our commander Elke. I had a rewarding romance with my colleague Agatha, and I had no-strings relationships with a group of self-described "harem girls" who counted on me to meet their sexual needs. Things were going so well that I sometimes felt I was having a very pleasant dream, and that I was in danger of waking up unexpectedly.
I began to rouse from this slumber one morning when Elke asked me and Adeline to come to a private meeting in her office.
"I want to discuss some issues we need to deal with," Elke said after closing the door behind us. "I've asked Grace to join us. She has some information I'd like her to tell you about."
"Good morning, Grace," I said.
"Good morning, Mike," she said. "It's good to speak with you again."
"What are these 'issues' you mention, Elke?" Adeline asked.
"Let's begin with me saying I'm very concerned with some reports I've been getting regularly from Grace," Elke said. "One of her duties is to track the fitness of everyone in the colony. That includes everything from aerobic capacity to stress levels. Grace, please give Adeline and Mike a summary of what you told me yesterday."
"Of course, commander," Grace said. "For more than a year, I've been observing a troubling increase in the number of accidents that can be attributed to stress. Almost all of them have been very minor so far, usually involving someone making some kind of error because they are overstressed. In addition, there's an increase in forgetfulness, indecisiveness, scratching, teeth-grinding, nail-biting, bickering, and other classic symptoms of stress."
"Tell them what happened to Alice Copland," Elke said.
"Three days ago, Airman Copland broke her arm," Grace said. "She and two other members of her team in food service were arguing. During their discussion, Copland dropped a heavy crate of cooking utensils. It landed on her left forearm, causing a partial fracture of the ulna."
"How is she?" Adeline asked.
"Her injury will heal," Grace said. "Her cast allows her to work while the bone mends. However, Airman Copland's daily life has multiple sources of stress. Nothing has been done to alleviate her stress. She is just the most recent example of the damaging impact of growing stress levels affecting the crew."
It was sobering information, but it wasn't exactly news. We all knew that trying to live for years inside a cramped enclosure on a distant planet wasn't easy. It was the reason Elke instituted the harem system, allowing members of our female-dominated crew to relieve sexual tension with some good old-fashioned penis therapy. Both Grace and Elke had told me that the women were feeling better, but it hadn't fully solved the problem.
"I'm making some changes that I hope will improve things," Elke said. "I'm changing schedules so people get more time off. I'm scratching some items off the crew's to-do list so people don't feel they need to work so much. I'm getting a little more demanding about exercise. Everybody knows that exercise relieves stress; some members of the crew haven't been working out enough.
"Lots of little things are going to change, but I have one idea I'd like for you to help me with, Mike. If you agree, it might go a long way toward relieving everybody's stress. Grace, tell us about what you've learned about the efforts we've already made to lower stress levels in the colony."
"Of course, commander. The most successful stress reliever so far has been encouraging members of the crew to have more sex with each other. Several metrics show increased productivity, reduced stress hormone levels, improved overall happiness, and a reduction in reports of the symptoms of stress."
At this point, I began to wonder what, exactly, Elke wanted me to do. I was already having sex with two different women every day. If I had more sex, I couldn't get my job done.
"None of this is particularly surprising," I said. "This just confirms what we suspected when you started the sex program. I see how you can find ways to give people more time off and more exercise, but I don't see how they can get more sex."
"I have an idea about that, Mike," Elke said. "I'd like for you to cut back on your work duties. I believe it would be good for the crew if you and the other men make time to have sex more often with the women."
Cut back my work duties? I LIKED my work duties! Helping build the colony's power system was the most exciting job I'd ever done. I didn't expect I'd ever get a more important opportunity for the rest of my life.
"Elke... I don't want to work less," I said.
"I understand that, Mike," she said. "But you and your team have completed all your critical assignments. The colony's power requirements have been met. Besides, I've been getting good reports from you about Agatha. Isn't it possible to give her more responsibility?"
That was a good point. Agatha was a better engineer than me. The only reason I was the team leader is that I graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy, and Agatha came into the astronaut program as a civilian. As part of an exchange program with the Canadian military, I gave the Mars mission a more international flavor. But from a technical standpoint, Agatha understood the details of our systems better than me.