The Endless Dance Card : 1 / 7

A Kingdom Ship Story
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

I stood staring at my body as I lay there, unconscious in my sleep pod. I've been doing this a lot lately, but I can't stop myself. It's not that I admire myself, it's just that it's so freaking weird to be able to act like I’m awake: to walk around, talk with the rest of the crew, and carry out my ship duties, all the while knowing that I'm just a kind of hologram, and that the real me lies in stasis in a sleep pod.

It took me about a year to arrive at feeling this sense of dissociation, of unreality. Well, subjectively, it seems like a year, but objectively, by the calendar, it's been twenty years.

If my math seems puzzling, you have to remember that each Kingdom ship has twenty full crews. In the olden days, each crew would take turns being awake and working while the other crews slept. This meant that each person would spend three months out of every five years awake.

My ship -- the ship I’m on -- is a third generation Kingdom ship, and a third-generation ship doesn't need the crew to be physically awake any more. Each crew in turn would be connected to the virtualizer so we could function as immaterial avatars. We see the real, physical ship. We can "touch" it and "feel" it. We do everything the old crews did, but we're only mentally awake. Physically, we're still inert. We're all still in stasis.

As you'll see, an avatar can't do everything that a physical person can do, but for the most part it works just fine, at least from the ship’s point of view. The maintenance, the monitoring, all the things that humans need to do, we can do. For the most part. And if there’s something that can’t be done through the virtualizer interface, somebody gets woken up so they can physically complete the task.

However, as great as that is for the ship, and as great as it is for the mission, and as great as it is for my personal longevity, I have to say that being a ghost has begun to seriously bother me. It’s weird. It’s unnatural. Everything I “feel,” I don’t really feel. It’s all manufactured for me by the ship, and pumped into my sleeping brain. It’s not MY feelings and sensations. They’re all artificial, imported, and even though I know that my nervous system works the same way, and even though I know that what I see and do is objectively real, subjectively it’s all fake and false on a very fundamental level. The only thing that’s really real for me is my body, and that’s why I slip away and look at it whenever I have a chance.

It’s a very zen, empty-mind experience when I stand there. I do nothing but look at myself, my real self, there in the box. I never touch my sleep pod, because I know that my tactile sense isn’t real. (Please don’t point out that my visual sense isn’t real, either. That’s one step too far.) I always feel better after spending time with myself -- at least, I feel better for a while.

Today, as I stood there, my mind empty, gazing at myself, an alert window popped up in my field of vision, in the upper right corner. It read: REPORT TO LT DONALDSON'S OFFICE. It was followed by a nav code with his office's location. I couldn't imagine what he'd want with me, but being called to any office makes me a little anxious anyway.

It took a full fifteen minutes to trudge up there. I took the stairs to make the trip longer. The message didn't convey any sense of urgency, so I didn’t hurry. If there was one thing we had a lot of on the Kingdom ship, it was time.

Lieutenant Donaldson was sitting behind his desk. He gestured me toward a chair. I sat, feeling the oddity once again: the entire act of “sitting” was a huge technological fiction. It was a mass of programming and sensor readings that made us able to pretend that we were both occupying chairs in an office, while in objective reality we were both deeply asleep.

Donaldson gave a brief friendly smile and said, “First of all, Fergus, you’re not in any trouble whatsoever. I just called you here to give you a heads-up about something. We're going to revoke access to the sleeper pod bays. For everybody. Starting at zero-one-hundred tomorrow, nobody’s going to be allowed near the pods. This is for both avatar and physical modes. There’s going to be a general announcement later today."

Before I could ask why? Lt Donaldson went on. "There are two reasons for the change: one is for reasons of privacy--"

"Privacy?" I echoed, not understanding.

"Yes, one of the women caught a group of men--" he paused, as if searching for a phrase. "Well, let's say they were leering at her sleeping body. You can use your imagination to fill in what I really mean; I’m not going into details. It’s enough to say that those men are being disciplined and that we don't want that or anything like that happening again." For obvious reasons, we’re all naked in the sleep pods, and the cover-door is transparent.

"But I haven't--" I began to protest. Donaldson cut me off with a hand gesture.

"I know," he said. "The first reason has nothing to do with you whatsoever. The second reason is the one that concerns you. We found that a number of people have been visiting their own sleep pods. After a great deal of discussion and study, the psychs have decided that it isn't a healthy thing to do. In fact, they've labeled it morbid behavior."

I opened my mouth to speak, but didn't know what to say. Donaldson glanced at his tablet for a moment, then went on.

"They say that this activity is very similar to visiting a graveyard, and they're believe that it leads to dissociation and eventually to depression. They're afraid it could even lead to violent activity."

"But I never!" I exclaimed. "I-- I just--"

"Look," Donaldson said in a gentle tone, "if they thought there was a problem with YOU specifically, it wouldn’t be me who was talking to you: it would be one of the psychs. So this is not a warning or anything negative. It’s just a casual heads-up, so you’re not taken by surprise. And, FYI, you’re not the only person I’m speaking to about this today. All of you have one thing in common: You spent a lot of time in front of your own sleep pod.” He looked at his tablet. “Did you realize that you've stood in front of that thing for an hour at a time? An entire hour? Just staring, not moving?"

I didn't know what to say.

"But as I said, this isn't about you, and I really mean that. We actually have a number of cases of acute depression that seem to have started with frequent -- and you might even say, obsessive -- sleep-pod visits. The psychs aren’t saying anything about cause and effect, but the facts are what they are. It’s serious enough that the psychs are actually discussing whether we should go back to the old-fashioned way, and have each crew physically wake up for its duty cycle. Honestly, I don't think that will happen, but it shows how seriously they're taking this."

We chatted a bit longer, but that’s essentially what was said. Then, so we didn’t end on a weird note, Donaldson talked about some recent ship events, asked whether I knew some of the (harmless) ship gossip, and then I was dismissed.

As soon as I left Donaldson's office, I got another alert: REPORT TO MED BAY. This was a day for alerts! It was followed by the nav code for a bay on the other side of the ship. I notified my duty officer and started walking. I hoped this wasn't related to my sleep-pod visits.

When I arrived, I was surprised to find Dr Harcourt in person. I mean, she wasn't an avatar, she was her true, physical self. She had me take a seat. "I’m afraid I have some potentially bad news for you, if it’s true -- which I strongly doubt. The sensors in your sleep pod have detected a very rare disease in its very early stages. Unfortunately, because this illness is so very rare, we're going to need to wake you up to run some tests. Frankly, I’m not convinced that you have this disease at all, so first of all, we need to verify the diagnosis. Then, if you do have it, I’m confident that you'll heal successfully, but I'm going to have to manually administer the treatments, and you'll need to physically come here each day for an entire month."

"What is it?" I asked. "Is it something that I would have heard of?"

"Yes, maybe," she replied. "If you know any history, you might have heard of it. The diagnostic computer says that you have what they used to call pancreatic cancer. But again, in its very, very early stages."

"Cancer?" I echoed. "Wasn't that eradicated in the 19th century? Like the plague?"

"No," she replied with a slight smile. "The plague was way back in the 14th century. Cancer was eliminated in the early 21st century, although sporadic cases do appear, in the same way that measles is sometimes seen."

"Measles?" I repeated. "What on earth is that?"

"It doesn't matter," she replied. "It’s another ancient disease. You can read about it if you're really interested. What matters now is that we’re going to wake you up and get you in here right now. I'm going to run the tests immediately, and if they’re positive, we’ll start the treatments right after. Okay? I’m going to kick off your wake-up protocol now, so don't be surprised when everything fades to black. I'll meet you at your sleep pod in a half hour."

She punched a code into her pad to disconnect me from the virtualizer. Just like the doctor said, the room and everything around me quickly faded to black.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up. Really waking up, stretching my physical arms and legs, wiping the gel from my face. Dr Harcourt handed me a face towel, and as she did, I caught her glancing at my penis. I pretended to not notice.

She told me, “When I was looking at you, before I woke you up, do you know what I was thinking? IN CASE OF FIRE, BREAK GLASS.” She chuckled to herself. I gave a polite chuckle, even though I didn’t get the joke.

I stepped into the nearest shower and rinsed the gel from every part of me. Dr Harcourt's face kept a neutral expression, but she never looked away. Then, I saw her drop the gel-covered face towel into a recycle chute, and I realized that she hadn’t brought me any clothes to wear, except for a pair of disposable slippers. At that thought, I got a large and immediate erection that bobbed and swayed in front of me as I cleaned myself. I’m no prude, but I did feel a little -- well, not embarrassed exactly, but very exposed. I guess the word is vulnerable, but it wasn’t as though I was in any danger from the doctor. Honestly, she was young and very attractive. I liked her. After the jets of drying air, I opened the shower door, and the doctor bent down to set the slippers near my feet. Seeing her head, especially her brown ponytail, so close to my cock, made me draw a quick deep breath. I slipped my feet into the slippers and the doctor gestured for me to walk down the hall ahead of her.

She followed two steps behind me, and I knew she was studying my butt. I had never been in this situation before, of -- for one thing -- being naked in front of a clothed woman, and for another, to have a woman so unabashedly looking me over. When we came to an intersection, she went so far as to put her hand on my ass to indicate that we were turning left.

When we finally arrived in the med bay, she closed the door and activated the privacy protocol. Then she smiled at me and gestured toward my cock with her chin. “First let’s take care of that swelling, shall we?” and she quickly undressed.

The sex was explosive. I could see that we both badly needed the release. I’m sure the whole business of her watching me in the shower and walking down the hall naked added to my pent-up need. While I was still panting from the first orgasm, she leaned back and spread her legs in a high V, and boom! I was ready to go again. After three incredible, unexpected orgasms, Dr Harcourt cleaned up and dressed herself, and gestured to a sink where I washed myself off.

Then I sat on a table and the doctor ran an intense and very complete battery of tests. She explained that for various reasons, none of them could be run inside a sleep pod. As she worked, she often glanced at my penis, which was stimulating and a little disconcerting at the same time. I’d never been treated like a sex object before, and realized that women are often put in this same position. I don’t mean being naked, exactly. I mean this feeling of having less power and control.

Once Dr Harcourt completed the tests, she sat at her desk and worked at her computer. She had me sit in a chair next to the desk. I was still stark naked, and at one point I crossed my hands over my crotch. Without turning her head, she said, “Keep your hands on your thighs,” and I moved them. Later, without thinking, I crossed my legs. She reached over and pulled on my upper knee. “Keep both feet flat on the floor,” she instructed, “and keep this distance between your knees.” She placed her clenched fist horizontally between my knees to show what she meant. Then she returned to her typing, as though her instructions were perfectly natural and normal. After what seemed like a very long time, she stopped, smiled, and looked at me.

“You’re not cold, are you?” she asked.

“No.”

“Good. Just a few more minutes, and I’ll have the results.” She stood up and rubbed her hands. “Hey, you know, before I called you this morning I did a lot of reading on cancer and other aspects of early 21st-century medicine, and I found a surprising number of references to one particular test that I’d like to try. Are you up for it?”

I shrugged, a little helplessly. Honestly, I was having a hard time resisting anything she told me to do.

She had me climb back on the table, but this time she had me lie on my side with my knees bent. Then she put on a thin glove and picked up a bottle of lubricant.

“Um, what kind of test is this?” I asked, a little nervously.

“Don’t worry!” she said with a laugh. “This was a very common test, way back when. It was often mentioned in comedy routines of that era, so I’m sure that it doesn’t hurt at all. In fact, from what I read, some men quite enjoyed it.”

“What about the women?” I asked, and my question made her laugh. “Oh, they never did this test on women. There wouldn’t be any point.” I heard the bottle of lubricant gurgle behind me, and she spread some of the cold gel around my anus. “Okay, here we go!” she said, “Take a deep breath and slowly let it out.” When I began to exhale, she thrust her finger deep inside my butt.

“Holy Smoking Jesus!” I shouted in surprise, though I don’t know why. It’s not something I ever say. But then again, no doctor had ever shoved their finger up my ass. She was working her finger in and out of me as though she was searching for something, and I found myself with a big, hard erection once again.

When she finally pulled her finger out, I asked, “What the hell was that?” She actually laughed. “It’s a prostate exam,” she said. “The prostate is a little gland that surrounds your urethra, and it’s accessible through your anus. Women don’t have one, which is why this exam was only done on men.”

“Hmmph,” I said. “So how is my prostate?”

“It’s fine,” she replied. “But I knew that already from your sleep pod readings.”

“Then why did you do that?”

She smiled and pulled the glove off with a snap! “After some of the videos I’ve seen, I thought it might be fun to try.”

“Fun for whom?”

“For both of us,” she replied, and gave me two pats on the butt. Then she gave my butt a squeeze and said, “You’re a really good patient, you know that?”

Just then her terminal gave a soft ding! “Results are back,” she announced in a sing-song voice, and went over to look at them. I got up slowly and found some soft paper so I could wipe my butt clean. “Hmm,” she said after a few moments. “Just as I thought: you’re fine. You don’t have cancer at all. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. You’re a perfect physical specimen, in perfect health. Congratulations!”

After all my anxiety about the illness, after the unexpected sex, and after experiencing Dr Harcourt’s -- well, her dominance -- it was kind of anticlimactic to hear that I didn’t have cancer. I knew it was great news, but didn’t feel relieved; I felt like I’d been hit by a train several times in the space of a couple of hours. And, in spite of the fact that Dr Harcourt and I had had sex together several times already, she was still an almost complete stranger to me.

“So what happens next?” I asked. “Do I just go back to sleep?”

“Oh, no! Certainly not!” she exclaimed, resting her hand on my naked thigh. “We need to figure out what’s wrong with your sleep pod. That’s one of your skills, isn’t it?”

“Um, yeah,” I admitted. “Among other things, yeah, I’m a sleep-pod tech. I can do that.”

“Excellent!” she said with a big smile. “Now, let’s settle one thing, so we can keep things simple: since we’re both going to be awake for a while, there’s no reason for either of us to sleep alone.”

“No, yes -- I mean yes, that would be great. I’d like that.”

“My quarters are right upstairs,” she told me. “Do you feel like having something to eat?”

Right on cue, my stomach gave a loud rumbling noise. She laughed and nodded. “Okay, then, follow me.”

She walked to a door in the side wall, which opened to her touch. I followed her up a narrow, winding staircase, and watched her lovely ass moving right in front of my face. When we were halfway up, the door below hissed shut, and I realized with a slight alarm, that the door wouldn’t open for me, unless… “Hey, doctor -- can you program the door to open for me, too?” She stopped on the stairs and looked down at me. “No, of course not. That door is for medical personnel only. If you need it opened, you can ask, and I may open it for you.” Then she turned and continued to climb.

Her quarters consisted of two rooms that were pretty large by ship standards, and her bed, to my surprise, was queen-sized. As I looked around, I realized once again that she was fully dressed while I was still completely naked. Add to that, we were going to be sleeping together, but I was still calling her “doctor.” So I asked, “What is your first name?”

“My first name?” she repeated, as if surprised by the question. “You don’t need to know that. You will call me ‘Doctor’ or ‘Dr Harcourt’.” Then, as if the topic was settled and closed, she turned away and walked into the next room. I could tell from the beep tones that she was using her food-fab.

When she returned, I saw that she had left her pants and underwear in the other room, but she still wore her top. Smiling, she placed a pillow on a counter and bent over it, so that her naked derriere was pointing at me. “Come here,” she said, looking back at me over her shoulder. “Take me this way.” And she reached back with both hands to spread her cheeks.

I couldn’t resist. I walked over and slid inside her. After a few minutes, I heard the food-fab beeping in the next room. “Keep going,” Dr Harcourt grunted, reaching back to pat my thigh. Soon after, we both exploded with soft moans and gasps. As our orgasm subsided, she reached back and pushed my hips away from hers, then straightened up and went to fetch the food. I could hear that she was cleaning and dressing herself, and then I heard her put the food on the table. As I was cleaning myself, I heard a sound that hadn’t heard in a very long time: a wine cork popping. “Wash up and come in here,” she called to me. “Dinner’s ready.”

She had ordered the same dinner for each of us: a steak, a huge baked potato, and a pile of green beans. She poured two glasses of red wine from an actual bottle into real wine glasses. “Where did you get these?” I asked, meaning the wine and glasses.

She smiled slyly and told me not to ask too many questions.

The food was excellent, and the wine was smooth and delicious. At one point in the dinner I picked up my napkin and wiped my mouth. Then, out of habit, I spread the napkin over my lap. Without saying a word, the doctor moved my napkin so that it rested only on one thigh, so that my cock was still visible.

I want to say that I was taken aback, but that’s much stronger than what I actually felt. I mean, she had taken over, made all the decisions, made up rules, never gave me any choices -- she had even chosen my dinner without asking me! Each time she did one of these things, I felt caught short, sort of the way you feel when someone corrects your pronunciation. I didn’t seem able to protest or disobey, and I didn’t understand why. And I didn’t understand why it didn’t bother me. Still, I had another question.

“Doctor, when can I get some clothes?”

She stopped cutting her steak and looked up in surprise. “Clothes? Why do you need clothes?”

That stumped me for a moment, but then I said, “Well, you’re wearing clothes. Why shouldn’t I?”

“That’s not a very good argument,” she replied. “Our circumstances are quite different. I have to interact with patients and other doctors. You only interact with me, so you don’t need clothes. In fact, it’s better if you don’t wear any clothes at all. Do you understand?”

“Well, honestly, no, I don’t understand.”

She smiled and gently asked, “But you know that you’re not going to be getting any clothes, don’t you?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but at first no words came out. At last I nodded. Then I was able to say, “For how long?”

“As long as we’re both awake, silly,” she replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

I struggled to understand what was going on. “I don’t get it. Why do I do whatever you tell me?” I asked her. “Why do I feel like I have to obey you?”

“That’s a good question,” she replied, “and we could talk about that for a long time. The simplest and shortest answer is that you and I fit together like a pair of gears.” And she linked the bent fingers of both her hands as if they were gear teeth, and she rocked them to show how two gears moved together.

Then, as if that topic was closed, she poured more wine and said, “Now we need to talk about how we’re going to fix your sleep pod.”