When I touched the access screen of Julian’s chambers with my palm, the doors slid open and I was surprised to find only his chambers facing me. He was still in Channel One mode here. Even on a Explorer-series vessel, he was maintaining a conventional life, it seemed.

I found him sitting on a divan under a portal to the heavens. His high rank qualified him to be one of the few who had visual access to the stars in his chambers.

“You called for me, Julian?” I asked. “And yet there is no fantasy channel established.”

“I am too old and staid for fantasy-channel sex,” He answered. “And I did not sign for you, Jeremy, to satisfy my sexual needs. I signed to give you some relief. And I signed for the night. I know, as you probably are beginning to know, how taxing this part of the journey is on our Pleasure Givers. I’ve often said there should be some sort of rationing while we are in the empty zone—or they should stock up with extra Pleasure Givers—maybe shuttle them out for just this period. Or even, Great Leader forbid, curb the appetites of the crew. This is when our allotted stock of Pleasure Givers is depleted the most. Statistically, it just isn’t cost effective to run a Universe Explorer mission this way.”

I walked over and sat down beside him. “You do not wish to have me?” I asked. “Before the voyage, you engaged my services on occasion. I no longer arouse you?”

“Before the journey I was younger—and feeling much more well,” he said. And then he laughed. “Part of why I arranged this service for you was because I wanted to enjoy you during this mission, I admit. but . . .” He let that thought trail off.

“You are not well?” I asked. I was genuinely concerned. Sometimes Julian was the only one who made this existence bearable for me.

“It will pass,” he answered. “It always has before. It will pass, or I will.”

“But you don’t want me?”

“I’m not sure I could have you in my present condition. But of course I want you. You are the most beautiful young man on this vessel. Everyone wants you. In fact, I’ve heard the captain is going to reserve you as his bedmate soon.”

“So, I’ve heard,” I murmured. “But I will believe it when and if it happens.”

“And when it does—no, even now—I counsel you to be very careful of Lucius.”

“So I have already been warned,” I answered. “But thank you for telling me as well. May I try? May I try to give you the pleasure?”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “But it must be your choice to give. I would not take advantage of you—what has been made of you. Yes, I’ve heard the rumors that you have been enhanced greatly, although I do not know the details. I sometimes think that we have expended too much effort on developing our ability to manipulate the human race to gain more sexual pleasure. There could have been more effort put into medical advances that enhanced other aspects of life. And it seems we go to great lengths to make our humans more mechanical and our humanoids more human—all in pursuit of the ultimate ejaculation.”

And I think that more work could go into letting the prostitute in on more of the pleasure, I thought. But it isn’t what I said. “I think you perhaps fly in the face of human instinct, Julian,” I said with a laugh. “What could be more important to a man than the sex act—and that ultimate release? And then the next enhancement of ultimate release?”

“All so true, but perhaps truer for a young man of your age than an old man of mine. Still, it seems we are on a self-perpetuating cycle with the sex enhancements. No sooner had we perfected the enlargement of the male sex organ than we had to develop means to enlarge the receptacle for the sex organ and augment its ability to arouse. And what from there?”
The ability of the prostitute to fuck the client’s cock while the client is fucking the prostitute with his cock, I thought. Double the pleasure and higher the release for the client. I wondered if Julian had any idea this enhancement had already been perfected. In me.

“I think you think on these things too much, Julian,” I whispered. “I am more interested in you in the here and now. Right now, here and now, I would like to see how large I can make your sex organ for our mutual pleasure.”