Chapter 56: Seductions

“What are you doing here so early? I was planning on meeting you in an hour.” Chrissy was wearing a fashionable white dress with a deeply scooped neckline and a demure hemline just above her knees, protected by a totally unfashionable apron. Her hair was pulled back and I noticed her feet were bare, but a pair of heels were sitting by the back door.

“We finished early, but don’t you think I should be the one asking the questions?”

“No,” she said as she walked around the counter and stopped me from coming further into the kitchen. “I’m working on a surprise for you, and you’re going to spoil it.”

Her blue eyes were flashing with anger.

“Where would you have me go?” I asked. “I mean, it’s not like this is my house or anything,” I said. Part of me wanted to snap at her, but more of me wanted another of our teasing exchanges. I hoped my tone told her that.

Her look softened. “How about you go upstairs and work in your office for a bit. I’ll let you know when you can come down. Please?”

I nodded. “Okay, since you asked so nicely.”

She smiled and gave me a quick hug before turning back to the kitchen. I thought about how nice her body felt pressed against mine as I trudged up the stairs. I took off my blazer and rolled up my sleeves before laying out the seminar project notes on my desk. I had decided on the drive over to skim the write-ups first before jumping into the simulations. I suspected I knew who would do the most thorough write up and decided to read his paper last.

I made it through two papers before there was a light knock at the frame of the doorway. Chrissy stood, watching me. Her apron was gone, and her hair had been let loose from its ponytail and now wreathed her face with blonde waves. Her lips were pink, and she had touched up her eyes. She had her heels on now, and a leg cocked slightly. She looked every inch the fashion model.

“Safe to come out now?” I asked with a smile.

Her lips parted, and she nodded. “Yes, but that’s not how you normally greet me after your seminar, is it?” Her teasing tone was back, but there was something more there as well.

I stood up and stretched. I had been hunching at my desk, which was unusual for me. She entered the room and moved behind me, reaching out to rub my shoulders. Her fingers worked on knots I had not even noticed.

“Thank you,” I said a few minutes later. “So how are you today?” I asked.

She looked me in the eye. “I’m captivating,” she said softly. She moved closer and kissed me lightly on the lips. In the past, she had been playfully intimate, hugging me, holding my hand or arm, kissing my cheek, but she had never intentionally kissed my lips. This kiss was full of intent.

Her lips were soft and moist. She reached up with one delicate hand and held my neck while the other squeezed my shoulder. My hands cupped her shoulders of their own volition. The kiss lasted only a moment but left me breathless.

It took a moment to regain my focus. She was smiling. I wanted to kiss her again but resisted.

“I think I can agree with the description,” I finally managed to say. “You are definitely captivating.”

She beamed. She took my hand and led me out of the office toward the stairs.

“You should have argued,” she teased. “I was ready to do that again to prove my point.”

I laughed. “Sometimes, I’m too honest for my own good.”

“I thought it would be much more fun teasing you all the way home from your class, but this will work just as well,” she said as we passed through the kitchen.

She had set a lovely table for two on the back porch. A white table cloth, unlit candles, a bottle of white wine, and small salads were already on the table. The place settings were at an angle to one another rather than across from each other, so both places could take in the lush greenery of the back yard.

She motioned me to the far seat as she lit the candles and then bent at the waist while reaching for the bottle of wine and pouring us both some. I caught a glimpse of a lacy white bra as she poured. She caught my look and gave me a coy smile as she finished pouring and then sat down.

She lifted her glass for a toast. “To the end of the semester,” she said with a smile.

I touched my glass to hers and took a sip of the chilled French Chablis. It was light and fruity, with a hint of oak.

“I thought the drinking age was twenty-one here,” I teased after setting my glass back down.

“Luckily, the owner of this place has a nice wine cellar. I used my womanly wiles to appropriate a bottle or two,” she replied, as she reached out and caught my fingers in her hand. “I told you, I’m captivating.”

“I agree.”

“Good,” she replied. “I know about your reservations, your resistance to being more than friends, your concerns about the differences in our ages. You’ve joked about me snapping my fingers and having a dozen men trailing after me. It’s true, but I don’t want dozens of posers chasing me. I want you.”

Her statement hung in the air for a moment. I did not know how to respond. In the moment, with the early evening light spilling through the leafy trees, it would be easy to give way to my feelings for her. But at the same time, this was the first house Jeryl and I lived in. Jeryl had found it and made it our first home. This was part of my past and reminded me of my loss. Those memories fueled my hope late at night as I worked to solve complex equations and esoteric matrix transformations.

“I want you,” she said again, “and I think you want me, but you’re afraid.”

She paused and took a sip of her wine.

“I’m afraid, too, Paul. I’m terrified of being too bold, or not being bold enough. The butterflies in my stomach are nearly enough to make me sick, but I won’t give into them. I want you to know how I feel, and what I want. I don’t want any confusion in where I stand. But, we’re not going to move beyond this courting stage until you want the same thing.”

Her statement startled me. I half believed she was preparing to drag me into the bedroom. Now she said we were courting.

“I...”

She raised her fingers to my lips, stopping me from saying anything else.

“This weekend, I’m going to be affectionate and flirty, and try to have a good time with you. I’m not going to pretend to just be your younger friend. You’ve already offered to take me to the Olympics in the fall. I’m going there, on your arm, not with my family. Between now and then, we’ll be seen together, in public. I want to spend time with you in private as well, but I think you need to come to realize that I’m not the gawky teenager you met years ago. I’m not as worldly as you, but I’ve been out in the world and modeled on the international stage. I’m not as accomplished as you in the world of engineering, but I love what I’m learning and what you are doing. I want to bring those world views and experiences together, with you.”

She held my gaze as she spoke. Her eyes were nearly glowing, and while her voice was even and soft, her cheeks were slightly flushed, as if she was either embarrassed or excited. Perhaps it was both.

I nodded. “I think I would like that,” I managed to say when she dropped her finger from my lips.

“Paul, what do you have to say about that?” the reporter from the Times asked.

Kelly had invited me out with the kids for a visit over the Memorial Day Weekend. She had insisted it was family time, not politics, but we ended up getting cornered by a few reporters after visiting Arlington Cemetery.

“I think the time and place to discuss the budget and the global economy is not here and now,” I replied. “Today is about honoring the men and women who died and bled for our country. While my sister may feel obligated to answer the occasional off-topic question yelled at her, I do not.”

Nicole stepped up and opened the door on the car as Kelly’s press handlers moved to intervene. More questions were shouted as we got back into our cars.

“Shit,” Kelly said as the door slammed shut. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Are you going to hold up Aunt Kelly’s allowance, Dad?” Ali asked with a grin.

We had a rule that I docked the kids allowance if they used ‘bad’ words. Ali’s innocent smile made me laugh.

“I should, but her boss would have to do it, not me.”

Kelly smiled at the exchange. “Sorry. I shouldn’t let my temper drive my mouth all the time.”

“It happens,” I said. “Do we have other outings planned that I should be ready for sand-bag journalism at?”

“No. You said you wanted the kids to see Arlington. How about we go back to the Naval Observatory and just relax for the rest of the day.”

“How about the Georgetown house instead?” I asked. “There’s more for the kids to do there.”

An hour later, the kids were in the pool behind the Georgetown property we still owned and maintained. Kelly and I sat in the shade watching them play.

“No hot dates this weekend?” I asked playfully.

Kelly smiled. “We’re on the campaign trail, as those idiot reporters reminded us. That puts me off-limits for any dates right now. How about you?”

She had been very circumspect in asking about my personal life lately. I appreciated the change.

“Last weekend I took Chrissy to her spring formal again. Other than that, I’ve been too busy to go out much. Flying to Stanford every week took a bit of a toll on my time.”

I chose not to mention Chrissy’s exchange with me, or the fact that she choreographed the entire weekend, from our intimate dinner Thursday night, to workouts and breakfasts on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings. She had brought things to the house from her apartment and spent the weekend, though nothing sexual had happened. Saturday, after the dance, she had even slept with me. She had looked adorably cute in her white silk pajamas. Other than a passionate kiss goodnight, she had only snuggled up next to me and slept. I was definitely not thinking of her as a ‘little girl’ when we woke in the morning.

“I can imagine, but you’ve always been a traveler. How did your course go?”

“Very well. Two of the students really surprised me. I’m working on getting them on board full time now to work with Hunter and me.”

“And you’re giving the seminar again next fall?” she asked.

“Yes, except I’ll do it at Tulane instead of Stanford.”

“Why there? “ she asked.

“Dr. Perdew has some promising ideas. I want to get him up to speed and then see if he can offer a parallel course there. That means I need to give it once or he needs to take a sabbatical to spend time with me. I like New Orleans, and want to log some longer flight time, so decided to go to him.”

“Log, as in you’re flying?” She asked with an arched eyebrow. I had not told her everything about the hobby Ali was driving me to pursue.

“Yes. I spent this semester as co-pilot. Next semester, I’ll be the pilot with my instructor in the right-hand seat. Heber to New Orleans is right at two hours in the GS-3.”

“And how long before you’re hopping around in the GOT?” she asked.

“Next year.”

“Why? It seems awful risky to me.”

I shrugged. “I enjoy it. So, what is this shit about the budget they were pestering you about?”

Kelly gave a sigh and sipped her iced tea before answering. “The Republicans are trying to use the fear of inflation and the limits in the budget act from a few years back to paint us as being fiscally irresponsible. Quite a few economists are saying that you are limiting our economic growth with your position on hard currency for generators and power. They say you’re effectively tying the dollar to a gold standard.”

“You know that’s not what we’re doing though, right?”

“I sit in all the meetings, Paul. It feels like you are, sometimes.”

“How is settling accounts in grams of gold different than settling those same accounts in dollars or the new Euro?”

She gave me a sharp look. “You’re not thinking of going to a Euro standard, are you? That would play hell with the voters.”

I shook my head. “That’s exactly my point. If we were settling in Euros, we would have to convert local currency to Euros to settle and then convert back to whatever local currency we were purchasing goods or paying wages in. We would get hit on the exchange rates on both sides, in and out. We still get hit with market fluctuations using gold, but the buyer has to eat that conversion cost. Also, since gold is climbing in price, we don’t have our holdings being depreciated when we convert to a local currency to buy goods. It’s not like we are paying US wages in grams of gold, we buy dollars and then put them back into the economy here. How is that moving us to a gold standard domestically?”

“Explain all that in a sound-bite,” she replied. “The people here see their power bills rising. The politicians say it’s because of the rising cost of gold, and that we have to buy gold to buy your generators.”

“You know that’s not true. Power prices could drop if the government would force some deregulation. Hell, I’ve been tempted to just pump power into the grid and sell meters, but never collect on the metered amount.”

“You’d just give power away?” She asked.

“Why not? At five cents per kilowatt hour, one generator makes three point five million dollars a year. At that rate, I’m on track to bill nearly twenty billion dollars this year just on recurring revenue. The thing is, the US domestic market is charging consumers a lot more than five cents per kilowatt hour. For our orbital leases, we don’t even factor in power costs. We’re billing pretty much straight depreciation on the station and ongoing life-support. We don’t break out power as a separate line item on those bills. If we come close to reaching carrying capacity, we’ll just add another engineering module to support the load.”

“If only it were that simple down here,” Kelly lamented.

“Then make it that simple. You know we supply our own power at our facility in Barcelona, right?” She nodded. “We pump about fifteen percent of our generated capacity into the local grid for free. Our agreement is that the local government uses special meters and does not pay for that usage. We could do the same thing here. Hell, Navy Reactors is running sixteen generators at federal installations already. Give federal projects, like housing projects, those same types of meters and let the local power companies cry while you provide a clear benefit to people that could use some relief. If you guys would stop thinking about the rhetoric and start thinking about the simple ideas that could make a difference, you could change the whole campaign dynamic. You know the Republicans are not going to ‘give’ anything away. You can take the moral high ground here.”

She was nodding. “I can see how that would play out. If we had done this in the spring, it would have been better. Unfortunately, this would put the government in competition with local business, which could cause other problems at the polls.”

It was my turn to shrug. “Do something. Don’t wait until the fall, or you won’t get credit for it at those polls.”

Chrissy ran her fingers over the back of my hand and said, “This is so cool. Thanks for giving me this opportunity.”

We were strapped into the GOT and had just leveled off for the pre-orbit checks. It had taken some convincing, but Jer had finally agreed to go through the short orbital orientation course and go up to visit Astra Station. Ali had demanded the new, longer course that was geared toward our new orbital tenants to prepare them for life on the station, as opposed to a visit. She really wanted to do the full crew course, but I had convinced her to take one step at a time. Once Jer had heard Ali was doing a more advanced course, he had demanded to join her. It had snowballed from there to include an invite for Jane, which led to one for Camilla, and then Chrissy was not to be denied the opportunity.

I had flown them all to Ireland after the kids got out of school. They had spent the past week in the new course which was built as a step up from the short course for transient visitors. The short course was designed to ensure graduates would do no harm to themselves, the station, or the orbiter. The full, long-course was to prepare students to be functional members of the crew. This new version was designed for longer-term inhabitants of the station. We expected them to be able to look after themselves until fully trained personnel could get any problems under control.

Having a ten-year-old boy in the course had worried the staff, but Jer had taken to zero-g like a champ. I had been worried most about him. It wasn’t really that surprising since all of my special testers in the course had experienced free fall before on many GOT flights.

“Well, I’m not doing it just for you,” I teased as I captured her fingers in mine. “You did sign that model release, so we plan on using your stardom for promotional materials.”

She grinned. “Is that why I got a tailored flight suit?”

I shook my head. “No special tailoring for you,” I replied. “We custom sew all of the flight suits. You should know that.” It had been one of the earliest applications of the scanning and sewing technology Jeryl helped develop. “We like to make sure everyone is comfortable and safe.”

Our flight suits were made from one of our special materials similar to Diamond Skins. The inner lining was snug, to give some protection against low-pressure environments. Testing showed it could increase survival time, if you didn’t hold your breath during a loss of pressure. The outer layer was flame resistant and the whole suit included air bladders that could be used for water survival if needed. Much of their training had been how to leverage the suit in an emergency.

“Well, I like how it looks on me, even if it isn’t ‘special’,” she said. “Tamara said most people shift out of the flight suits once they’re on the station.”

Tamara had been auditing the new course to make sure it was ready for the first tranche of tenants going through it in two weeks’ time. Our next block of leases started on July first, and the tenants were anxious to take up occupancy.

“Most people shift to shorts and shirt-sleeves in orbit. Some prefer pants and a shirt. You’ll see the Hilton Blue flight suits on many of their guests, but few permanent staff wear flight suits unless they’re travelling away from the station.”

“I like the pockets,” she admitted as the acceleration notice sounded.

We nosed up as the engine roar increased and we were pressed into our seats. About three minutes later, acceleration stopped, and we floated against our seat belts.

“How long until we can see the station?” Ali asked.

“About thirty minutes,” I said. “In the meantime, you guys can all unbelt and check out the view.”

The GOT had much better visibility for passengers than our regular orbiters. Soon, each of the kids had moved to a separate window and they were ooh-ing and ahh-ing as the globe spun below us. Camilla gave me a smile and nod as the Western coast of Australia slipped into view. I left them to their sight-seeing as Tamara floated over.

“The daily from Atlanta just left the station,” she said. “Hilton has asked if you’d like to join some of their VIPs for dinner tonight.”

“I thought they were all VIPs.”

“Some pigs are evidently more equal than others,” she replied with a grin. “The CEO of Hilton is up for three days with his wife. He’s hosting dinner for some of the guests. You know at least one of them.”

“Oh? Who?”

“Princess Caroline is on the station with her new husband.”

I smiled. Caroline had been a delightful companion during my brief ballet encounter with her.

“Would you like to meet some royalty?” I asked Chrissy.

“Is she a real princess?” Ali asked before Chrissy could answer. I was going to have to remind her about eavesdropping and butting into conversations. She was rapidly developing some less than admirable teenage behaviors.

“Yes, she is. Do you want to meet her too?”

“Yeah!”

Chrissy nodded as well.

“How about we make arrangements to offer Princess Caroline and her husband a tour of the station?” I suggested. Tamara nodded. “I’ll call before we dock and make the offer.”

“Are we staying at the Hilton?” Ali asked.

“No, we have our own place on the station. I think it’s much nicer than the Hilton, too.”

The Hilton rooms were just that, individual rooms and small suites. Our apartment was a full apartment with three bedrooms. Camilla, Jane, and Chrissy were staying in our module as well in one of the transient apartments.

“Can we go on the tour with the princess?” Ali asked.

I nodded. “If you want to. Or you guys can go on a separate tour with Aunt Jyl. She and Uncle Collin are on the station as well.”

“Cool. I want to meet the princess but would rather have Aunt Jyl take us around.”

Jer nodded his agreement.

“How about you guys?” I asked Jane and Camilla.

“I think that would be nice. Jyl is probably a lot more fun that a stuffy old princess,” Jane said.

I laughed. “Well, Chrissy, are you going to hang out with family or tour with the stuffy old princess?”

She gave me one of her dazzling smiles. “I think I better keep an eye on you and any gold-digging VIPs in the Hilton crowd. I heard a rumor they were shooting some of their own promotional materials this week. If they’re using who I heard, I don’t want her latching onto you.”

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Carmen Kass. She and I worked together last fall. She is the one who wanted to play a game of chess with you,” she said. “She’s such a big geek she was offering to waive some of her fees for the opportunity to get up here on Hilton’s dime.”

“Supermodels in orbit,” I joked. “I’ll have to alert Billy to roll cameras for our stay.”

We all laughed.

Soon, we were smiling for cameras. Billy and Tom had spent some money to train a pair of official photographers and documentarians for the station. Bryce Tilden and Joy Goodwin had their cameras ready as we came aboard. After we had floated into the hub in a gaggle, they sent us back to do it again for individual shots. Then the kids all came out together for yet another take. Finally, Chrissy was sent back for more takes. Tamara took the rest of the group down Spoke One to our part of the station while I waited for Chrissy to finish up.

“You look fabulous,” Joy told her after the last shot. “We wanted to get you shot up here today before your face starts getting puffy as you adjust to zero and low gee. We all seem to go through a cycle of fluids shifting around as we adjust.”

Chrissy laughed. “At least it’s not a bikini shoot,” she said. “I don’t want to do that in a bloated state.”

The photographers looked at each other as I snapped my fingers.

“Darn, I thought we were going to recreate the SI looks in orbit,” I said.

“You wish,” Chrissy snapped back with a laugh. “I’ve got some casual clothes, but you’re not paying me enough to put on a bikini for this shoot.”

We collected our small traveling bags and followed the rest of the group down the spoke as Bryce and Joy packed up their equipment.

“How much work do you expect from me today?” Chrissy asked as we reached the far end of the spoke.

“However much you want to give us,” I replied. “How about we let them document the VIP tour with Princess Caroline and whoever else is on the Hilton VIP list, shoot you before dinner tonight, and then put you in some of the hab and lab spaces tomorrow? We’ll keep our last day on the station free to just let you enjoy the view.”

“That sounds like a plan. I’d like to spend some time with the lunar team and discuss their habitat fabrication process. I saw some readings in that report you shared with me that I’d like to follow-up on.”

I smiled. She was beautiful and smart. It was a very powerful combination.

“Of course. I’ve got some time with Megan tomorrow. I’ll set it up for you.”

She pulled herself against me in the low-g and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. “Thanks. I really mean it. This is a trip of a lifetime.”

“My pleasure, ma’am,” I said in reply.

Later that evening, after a day of photos and VIP tours for Princess Caroline, her new husband Ernst August the Prince of Hanover, and Her Royal Highness Victoria the Crown Princess of Sweden, we headed back across the hub to the Hilton for dinner hosted by the CEO of the company. Dinner was a delicious blend of Asian flavors paired with French white wines. Stephen Bollenbach, the CEO, shared tales from the chef on how cooking in low-g had created some challenges for his traditional cooking techniques.

Over a desert of fresh berries from one of the hydroponics gardens, the conversation finally turned to more serious business.

“So, what are the real opportunities for investment on the station?” Crown Princess Victoria asked. “Companies in Sweden seem to be torn as to whether they should be buying space up here, pushing the ESA to buy space up here, or just ignoring this frontier until a real economy emerges. What do you think?”

It was a very candid question, one I wish the rulers in the rest of the world would think about. I had been surprised no one raised the questions on the tour.

“I think volume in Astra has several opportunities,” I replied. “Firstly, we can support research for fabrication of materials that can’t be made in a full gravity environment. My own research teams can only pursue about one in ten of the ideas they come up with. So, fundamental research is always an option, but it has an inconsistent pay-back and most would view it as highly speculative. On the other hand, I believe your country is highly rated in business creativity, so an investment in research and applying that research to business problems on Earth may be prudent. Medical and pharmaceutical research may be an area of particular interest to some of your businesses.”

I sipped my coffee.

“Second, there is tourism, such as Hilton is already embarking on. I don’t know which European operators will be the first to move into competition, but it would surprise me if it took very long before that happens. Hilton is already booking a full flight through Delta every third day.”

“I think you should look at that proposition for a very long time before moving in that direction, your highness,” Bollenbach joked. Everyone laughed politely.

“Finally, there will be future opportunities for import and export businesses. We’re established here but are only getting a toehold on the moon. In the next seven years, my teams plan to have permanent bases on the Moon and Mars. We believe we can start exploiting the mineral wealth of asteroids in that timeframe as well. In the short term, you have firms that may want to lease space here for future orbital construction and assembly opportunities.”

“But what of the Outer Space treaty?” Victoria asked. She was obviously well prepared for this discussion.

“Right now, we are operating under the charter we have with the United States. They are the overseeing government for our activities under the Outer Space Treaty. However, we also can operate from Kenya or Tanzania, which are not signatories of that treaty, or the Moon treaty. It may mean that we will need to trans-ship materials through one of those countries, but I fully intend to pursue the dream of colonizing locations beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.”

“That’s a very bold vision,” Prince Ernst said. “If we think about those areas, interests in Monaco and other parts of Europe could see immediate opportunities.”

Princess Caroline nodded. “Even the tourism aspect has appeal to our immediate interests.”

“At the end of the day, I would suggest you look at the global and orbital economy from first principles. Decide what the demands you can foresee outside the earth’s atmosphere will be and then assess if you can become a supplier for those needs.”

“And you would enable competition for your own services?” Princess Victoria asked. “I mean, you would lease us space if we entered the orbital construction arena and built a competing station?”

“Absolutely,” I replied. “If there is that much demand for habitat space up here, I would encourage the growth. If I don’t have to staff and manage that construction, I can focus elsewhere.”

“And you would sell us generators to power new stations?”

I smiled. “We would need to discuss that, but conceptually, yes.”

She nodded.

“You’ve given me very much to think about, Paul. I appreciate the insights as well as the tour today.”

“It was my pleasure,” I replied.

I woke to a delightful feeling of a soft, warm body pressed against me with my hand being held tightly against a firm breast. Only a thin layer of silk separated my fingers from the bump of Chrissy’s nipple. My cock was nestled into the cleft of her ass, pushing at the two layers of silk separating us. My fingers moved of their own accord and I felt her nipple harden, even as my own dick stiffened. It was tempting to nuzzle her neck beneath her blonde hair and kiss her awake.

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