Page 67 of Stars

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20

ISS

Earth’s Orbit

Sergey rode him,their hands interlocked. Sergey’s head was thrown back, the arch of his throat like the sickle of the crescent moon against a star-speckled sky. Sergey gasped, rocked his hips, drove his tight heat, the core of himself, down on Sasha’s cock,harder, pushed himself against Sasha,faster, more.

Blyad, Sashunya, Sergey panted.I can never get enough of you. Love me forever.

He would—he would love Sergey for all of time, fuck him to the stars and back. He’d crawl inside Sergey’s body, merge their souls and combine their atoms. He’d fuck Sergey until the stars imploded and they were one soul again. Fuck, he was so fucking hard—

“Y.M.C.A.”blasted out of a speaker next to Sasha's head.

He jerked forward, his hips still thrusting, seeking Sergey’s heat as his hands reached for someone who wasn’t there.

NASA’s abysmal wake-up song continued blaring through the ISS speakers, and over the radio, groans and curses mixed with the lyrics. “Rise and shine, ISS,” Dan said, back at CAPCOM. “It’s a beautiful day in space.”

Sasha slapped at the speaker and turned off the alarm. He scrubbed his hands over his face. Fuck, the dream had beensoreal. So real, in fact, he still felt like he was—

Looking down, he realized hewas.

Govno, what was happening? His cock was harder than it hadeverbeen, tungsten hard, diamond hard. He would drill a hole in the station’s hull if he wasn’t careful.

He brushed his hand over his tented sleep sack and hissed. His eyes rolled back, and he moaned—

“Morning!” The corner of his door panel peeled back. Mark’s grinning face appeared.

Sasha tried to curl into a ball, turtle inside himself, but he was still trapped in his sleep sack. He flailed, and his traitorous cock continued to tent the fabric like Mount Everest rising from his hips.

Mark chuckled. “We call that the Zero-G.” He winked. “Little-known secret of space travel. Fluids get all wonky up here. Flight surgeons don’t quite know why yet, butthat—” he pointed to Sasha’s raging boner “—is a daily side effect of living in orbit.”

Sasha blinked.

Mark tossed him a small canvas bag. It floated toward him, and he snatched it quickly before twisting and trying again to hide his erection.

“That’s a little welcome kit we give to all the space virgins. Be careful, or you’ll have a mess to clean up. Breakfast in fifteen in the galley inUnity.” He pulled away, then came back, his shit-eating grin right back in place. “You know, with the fourteen minutes and thirty seconds you’ll have left after you’re done, you could call Sergey.”

Mark disappeared, velcroing Sasha’s crew quarters’ door back into place. He whistled as he floated out ofZvezda, the sound fading until Sasha was alone.

He pulled open the bag. A travel-sized bottle of lotion and a pack of tissues floated out.

Sasha closed his eyes, mortification stinging his soul. But he grabbed the bottle.

Mark was overly optimistic about Sasha’s performance. After he was finished, he had fourteen minutes and twelve seconds left to call Sergey, even after he finished gasping for air and blinking past the black spots in his vision. He rested his head on the bulkhead for a moment, waiting for the dizziness to pass.

He called up Skype on his netbook once he could see straight and dialed Sergey’s number, waiting for the satellite connections to route his signal from orbit to orbit and down to the planet. Finally, he heard the drip-drop ring. His heart skipped a beat.

“Sasha?” Sergey’s face appeared on his screen, breathless, eyes wide. He was sitting at his desk in his office, papers spread in front of him, his laptop open and off to the side.

“Hello, earthling,” Sasha said. “Greetings from space.”

Sergey threw his head back and laughed. “Sashunya… How are you? How is the mission?”

“Have you seen the briefing?”

Sergey nodded. “Another Soviet casualty of space exploration. We will find out who he is. Somewhere, someone is missing a family member.I’ve requested repatriation of the remains. I’m also allowing NASA to autopsy the body.”He hesitated, blanching.“Is he… on the station with you?”