The Pleasure Machine

[sapphica]

A Sci Fi Story

Everone knew about the back section at the very back of the Spa in the common club of the Inter-Galactic Security Force. For once, it's a club for the ladies - albeit officers only.

You went in through a double security gate, and after everything had been cleared, the lady officer proceeded to the secluded area where she was left alone to undress and shower. Some decided to be completely nude afterwards others put their bra and panties back on before they proceed to the "measuring" area.

While in the measuring area, the lady office laid down in what looked like a tanning booth, and her body was scanned for a map of her erogenous zone. Officer Commander Arlea described the measuring process in her case

"Lied down in the booth on my back with my excercise bra and shorts on. There was a horizontal bar above my head and I gripped it with both hands like I was instructed by the diagrams on the wall. The room turned kinda purplish all of a sudden, then a dot of light was shone onto my skin at my tummy. It felt funny and I twitched, and as I shifted, the dot of light moved some more around, and I could see the readings on a screen. When the light shone on my bra, it was as if I wasn't wearing anything and my skin was being stroked. I thought hey! I gotta get up, but then, I was there voluntarily, so I just lied there and let the light did it's thing. It was...different, and It was kinda fun!"

After the measurement was completed, the lady officer then proceeded to the "inner sanctum"

That was all before the acident at the base. The entire area was affected and shut off, and after a long while nobody even knew where it was anymore, and all that was left, was snippets of recordings from Office Arlea;s interview about the mearsuring area, and the fact that many people swore that much much more existed. It was rumoured that the inner sanctum was a kind of holodeck, where the officer's fantasies could be made to come true. Other said it was full of physical machines and toys, yet other people said it was a hi-tech brothel for girls

Then, an archiological team, digging at a remote moon, found a logo of the Inter-Galatic Security Force on an artifact, and further digging revealed the entrance to what some believed to be the old Common Club... .


(( Any ladies want to be on an archiological team? ))

 

[KaosMom]

It is the year 537 of the Second Galactic Empire.

A group of archeologists have been working on an airless moon that their research has indicated could have once contained a base of the First Galactic Empire’s Inter-Galactic Security Force.

This site had remained untouched until this group arrived – unlike most other Inter-Galactic Security Force bases – which had been torn apart and looted when the recording was found that talked about the “Pleasure Machine.”

Part of the team are interested in the knowledge that this base could contain – while others are more interested in the riches they can get from selling that knowledge and anything else they can pry loose.

They’ve been here about a month just trying to find a way into the base but much of the place had collapsed in on itself in whatever disaster had destroyed the station For the past week they’d been concentrating their efforts in one particular spot that the ground penetrating radar had indicated contained a large seemingly untouched section of the base. Working carefully they’ve managed to remove much of the rubble at that had looked like the entrance to the intact section, and now, they’ve found stairs…

**************************************************

OCC:

Commander of the Expedition - Cassandra Stefanos – Dark haired, green eyed woman in her early 30’s of indeterminate racial descent. Highly trained in First Galactic Empire History and various recovery and mining techniques. She is lean and muscular from years of working on archeological digs, but even this layer of muscle can’t hide the delightful femininity of her body. She has high, firm breasts, a thin waist and full hips, but seems oblivious when people make advances.

She is obsessed with finding out what happened to the First Galactic Empire and has allowed nothing to get between her and her goal. She had never been married, or even been in a serious relationship since a short-term fling with her college roommate 15 years ago.

This expedition is the culmination of 12 years of hard work and research, and she desperately hopes nothing goes wrong… again.​

**************************************************

Cassandra eased herself down the stairwell a bit, ready to bolt of she saw signs of collapse. A few steps down she found a sign that seemed to have knocked loose in the disaster which destroyed the station. She picked it up, turned it over and stopped in shock at what she read there. The rest of the women on the team stood and the top of the stairs looking at her expectantly; she was the only one of them who read old-Galactic. “Damn it.” She thought to herself, “This is the last thing we need.” She looked at the hopeful faces of her team and said, “Yeah… It says ‘Common Club’.”

As the rest of the group whooped and congratulated each other she interrupted them saying, “Guys, this is the first untouched Inter-Galactic Security Force Site any of us have ever seen. And we’ve got to get down to the computers. Remember, we’re here to find out what happened to the first galactic empire, not to go on some sort of wild goose chase…”

She remembered back to when that damn recording had been found, and the feeding frenzy that had ensued afterwards as people ripped apart every sign they found of the first empire, looking for that damn machine. She shook her head and sighed. She could just cry when she thought about how much knowledge had been lost during that dark time.

They all stood there and looked at her, and she realized that she was about to face a full on mutiny. “Ok.” She said, holding her hands up in surrender, “We’ll look, but don’t forget we’re still trying to find a way to the core.” With a glance down at her warning indicators, she added, “And we’ve only got a couple of hours of power left, before we have to go back to the base camp and recharge, so we stick together, and please, don’t go doing anything foolish”

 

[sapphica]

Lt. Commander Celeste Laurel

Celeste brushed the errant banks from her face and once again collected the cascades of untameble blonde tresses into a pony tail. She wished she was wearing something a little cooler and maybe a little more revealing instead of the standard issue uniform blouse and pants and boots required of security personnel. Not that it really mattered that much, because even though she had caught Cassandra looking at some of the girls on the team with more than casual interests, Cassandra's interest in her team members had always been fleeting, except in a professional way. Still, Celeste kept the blouse unbuttoned low, to reveal the smooth column of her neck and down...

She was tasked with providing security for the team - more like keeping an eye on Cassandra and what the team might find in the end. She was, afterall, a Company girl. and the Company had a stake in what Cassandra might ultimately discover.

Ironic - Celeste, the rebel and vagabond, who flitted from one bad situation into another, now finding herself on the otherside, working for the buttoned-down, the stuffed shirts - Celeste, the ex dancer the with the dancer's slim body and her long legs and the dancer's alluring ways, now carrying a weapon on her hips.

But the rebel and the vagabond had not disappeared, despite what they had put her through. Celeste had something in her emergency pouch: a few artifacts that not even Cassandra had been able to discover - something she had unearthed herself from the Company vault. It was the full Arlea interview, with details about the workings of the Pleasure Machine, how it was initialized, how it was to be operated. She also had the disk that was the emegency start-up key for the Machine, among other things unknown to anyone except herself

Cassandra was all business and professional, but what were her fears? What were her needs beyond her work? What would she do if she found herself alone, in the dark? What would Cassandra have done if she had been made to go through what they put Celeste through in that special cell, turning her from one kind of girl into another?....Celeste closed her eyes and shook herself out from those memories. What would Cassandra do in exchange for the knowledge Celeste carried in her pouch?

"Right behind ya!" She chimed up cheerfully and followed Cassandra and the other girls into the entrance

 

[KaosMom]

Cassandra moved down the stairs slowly, stopping often to check the security of the ancient supports. She was glad they’d put up a protective dome over the site so they could work in normal clothes, but she really missed her protective suit. She knew she was driving her team crazy, but she wasn’t about to risk their lives by going to quickly.

“Come on Cassie,” Deirdre sighed. “We been a readin the damn radar for a week now. An’ we both know it’ll hold.
Cassandra stopped and looked over at her engineer. Deirdre Cullen had been with her for eight years, and she was a very good at her job. If Dee said it would hold, it would but Cassandra couldn’t help herself. She’d seen first-hand what happens if you rush things…

She’d been so thrilled to finally be allowed to go along. They’d gotten her her very own set of tools and she had felt all grown up in her custom-fitted survival suit. The site had supposedly been thoroughly surveyed, and even contained a breathable, if slightly acidic atmosphere. So her parent’s had thought that nothing could go wrong. Even though the atmosphere was breathable with nothing more than filters, they had insisted that she wear her suit whenever she was outdoors. But there was a fault in the substrata under the site that had either been missed or ignored by the survey…​

She shook her head, to clear away the memories before they could engulf her again and turned to the matter on hand. “I know it’s probably safe Dee, but it doesn’t hurt to check. We’ve been here for a month, what’s another night going to matter?” She wasn’t sure why she felt so apprehensive about this site, heck, it was what she had been looking for most her life. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe she was afraid that if she actually accomplished her goal, then she’d nothing left to live for. She looked around at the team and said, “Alright. Let’s check the door.”

She stepped back and allowed Mi and Silvia to move forward. While she was good at opening disused locks, these two were masters. They were twins, and seldom spoke, but when they worked they moved in perfect concert. She knew little of their history, just that they’d gotten fired from their last crew because their commander thought they were creepy. Cassandra had her suspicions that the real reason he fired them was because they wouldn’t put out, but she kept her thoughts to herself. She liked them, they did job well, and left her alone, two characteristics she admired, and wished more people would follow.

It didn’t take them long to get the door open, and to everyone’s delight, all the indicator lights on the inside of the chamber were lit. It seemed that the old base still power here after all. Cassandra walked up and read the dials and indicators and looked up back at her crew. “It looks like the base is still pressurized, and…” she paused for a moment, tapping the indicator, not believing my eyes, “and the air might be good.” she finished.

“Well then let’s go!” one of them said with a laugh as they all swept forward into the airlock.

“No!” Cassandra said flatly. “One of us goes – and she’ll be wearing a suit.” When the girls started to object, she shook her head and said, “I said the air might be good. We’re not going to risk killing us all, if that indicator is faulty. One of us suits up, goes inside and checks the air with equipment that we know works. Then, if the air is good, we all suit up and go inside.”

“Why do we have to suit up if the air is good?” Mi asked with a frown.

“Just in case something we do kills the power or if one of a thousand things goes wrong.” Cassandra told her. “If something happens, and we have our suits – we’ll be fine. If nothing happens, we’ll still be fine.”

 

[sapphica]

Celeste Laurel

"Wait"

Celeste stepped in front of the girls.

"As it is, we only have a limited time before we have to recharge. The suits take power too, and if we suit up, that'll give us....oh, 45 minutes of power. Think about it. 45 minutes...that's give us 15 minutes in one way, 15 minutes to look around, and then 15 minutes to get out, in clumsy suits that will slow us down. I am not saying that we shouldn't suit up, if we want to follow procedures and be completely safe, but there comes a time when, if we want to find anything big, we have to stick our necks out, and I think this is the time."

She looked past Cassandra at the other girls, catching each pair of eyes in turn

"Besides, there is another way"

Celeste rumaged in her pouch and brought up a little spray bottle. She pushed the bottle into Cassandra's hand "hold this for a minute would ya?"

Celeste turned, and provocatively unbuttoned her blouse, popping the buttons one by one. She arched her body to push the collar of her blouse over the back of her shoulders, accentuating the curves of her breasts as she tipped her shoulders up, and down, face turned to one side, both arms behind her, ostensibly to wiggle out of her blouse. And when it was finally taken off, she pushed the wadded up blouse into Deirdre's hands with a giggle, and stood clad only in her cotton bra from the waist up. Her breasts where well proportioned to her slender shape, the curves well defined, the outlines of the tips clearly visible. She drew her breaths in slowly before she reaches out to take the spray bottle from Cassandra.

"Guess what they teach you in detention?" She smiled, extended an arm and sprayed a clear gel onto her forearm. "in an atmosphere with enough oxygen to begin with, the substance AGH" She held the spray bottle up for the girls to see "when applied to the skin, monitors the changes in composition of the air by immediate reactions with the skin, giving sensory feelback" She smiled as she rubbed the gel up and down her arm. "It tingles a little". Celeste giggles as she sprayed a little of the gel onto her other arm "If oxygen is out or if the air starts to turn poisonous...you will feel a slight buring sensations on your skin." Celeste cupped her palm to hold it over her face, fingers pinching her nose to give an impression of applying the face mask of the emergency oxygen apparatus, and continued to speak in a funny nasal voice. "You will run like hell. Depending on how much gel you have applied, it will protect your skin from a chemically unbalanced atmosphere for up to 20 minutes".

Celeste released her nose, put her hand down and inhaled a lungful of air, her breasts raising as she turned to Cassandra. "Invented for today's active girls on the go" She beamed and rubbed a little more of the gel on her shoulders, her eyes searching the team.

"What do you say girls?" She produced another bottle from her emergency pouch and tossed it to Deirdre "Should we put it on Cassie for her? Don't everybody speak up all at once!".

 

[KaosMom]

Cassandra watched her second, intrigued by the idea of a chemical air-quality warning device, and by the way the girl got undressed. She'd been wondering about Celeste for a while now, and the looks she was getting from her second in command took away all doubt as to her true intentions. Cassie sighed inwardly. It wasn't that Celeste wasn't attractive; Gods knew she was it was just that… She sighed again, why'd it always have to turn out this way?

Knowing that Celeste would do nothing to jeopardize the mission, she forced herself to watch clinically as Celeste explained the proper application and use of the material, and began to get interested in how useful such and item would be. But as the demonstrations went on, and she realized that this chemical would have to be applied… all over, for maximum effectiveness, and she began to reevaluate her second's reason for bringing such an item. Her worries were confirmed when Celeste tossed a second bottle to Dee and the both took a step toward her.

"Hey!" she laughed nervously, "I think I'm quite capable of…"

"Oh, come on Cassie." Deirdre laughed, walking over next to her commander, "We're not gonna hurt ya."

Cassandra frowned and reached out her hand toward the bottle, expecting Dee to just hand it to here. What she wasn't expecting was to be suddenly tackled from behind by a pair of giggling girls. "Come on Cassie!" one of them laughed, tugging at her shirt. "We want to go inside, so quit delaying!"

"We all know you want to go first." Silvia said, "And if you quit squirming, we can get you done up and through the door while the rest of us help each other get ready."

"Ok, ok," Cassandra laughed, holding her arms out to her side and allowing her crew to strip her down. "You know." She told them with a nervous laugh as her pants were slipped down to her ankles. "This could easily be construed as insubordination." She shuddered as the first of them starting applying the gel to her skin while another helped her step out of her pants. With a look around at her team she added. "As your commander I may just have to report you."

"Yeah right," Dee laughed, "Since when did ya give a damn about rank?" The mischievous little red-head grinned and slapped her friend on the butt, and said, "Now spread your legs, so I can get to your inner thighs." Cassandra squawked, and slapped at the Engineer's hands. "What's the matter Cass?" she asked softly, "It isn't like I haven't touched…"

"That's enough Deirdre." Cassandra said quietly, looking down at her Engineer with a frown, not wanting to be reminded of that time, so long ago…

Seeing that two foot diameter bore-hole had been the one thing she had not been prepared for, and it was a near fatal blow. They had been searching for months, had bargained and bartered for information and artifacts that had pointed to the location, and had spent more than she liked to remember on a map that she could only hope had been as authentic as the black market vendor had promised. They had fought for permits, at times literally, and had charmed and schmoozed they way through the backwater politics that lay around the site, hoping to find the right palm to grease, the right pocket to line that would allow them to proceed without any more expensive “Safety Inspections”.

They had done all this, and had then dug for weeks to even access the chambers. The crew was exhausted, the supplies were all but gone, and they were one the verge of making it all up… when they had seen the score marks of an old time laser bore…

They had, in fact found the site. That was one thing that they could say… The rights to the find, the historical value, the informational weight… they bore her name. But the treasures, the hard-line monetary value that she had been hoping to find, that would have made her famous… had been borne away by tomb robbers over a century ago. The crew had left her, after trying several times to get her to come back, and it was finally Deidre, the stubborn little engineer, that had managed to get her back to the ship, back to the station, and into the first bar they came to… leave it to the Irish.

She didn’t remember much after that… She remembered yelling something about giving up at one point, only to have Dee drag her back down and hand her another drink, and the rest was pretty much a blur. Everything was crystal clear in the morning though, when she woke up with Deidre’s naked body sprawled out beside her, and the smell of the sheets telling her exactly what had happened… for close to six months they had given it a try… had even lived together at one point, but Cassie could never overcome her problem with being held… could never accept even the lightest of hugs from her lover.

The sex had been fantastic, the screaming in the dark, clawing at the curtains kind of sex, but the lack of physical intimacy beyond those wild nights drove a wedge between them, creating a gap that neither could overcome.

They had parted as friends, and had even continued working together… Dee knew more about the engineering of these old sites than any three computers you could care to name, and in her own way, Cassie could even say she loved her, and as for Dee’s part, she had never made any bones about her feelings, and would gladly resume their relationship at the drop of a hat. More to the point though, she believed in what Cass was doing, and had gotten it in her bright little head to see it through.

Two things you never tried with Dee… never try to out drink her, and never try to get her to change her mind. It was even Dee’s Idea that they hook up with the Company, and for good reason. Cassie might still have a mountain of cash, but they both remembered the bribes, the forms, and most of all, the damned permits that it had taken to get clearance… the company had all that, and all they wanted was a fair cut.

They had spent a good week talking about it, and had ended up in bed one last time, with Dee laying in the dark, wishing like hell that she could hold the woman next to her… and knowing all to well that she couldn’t, though she had yet to find out why…​

Deirdre looked up at Cassandra and gave her a sad smile, but went on and finished what she was doing. She may not be able to find a way to thaw the frozen part of her friend's heart, but she would do whatever she could to keep her from getting hurt.

It probably only took them a couple of minutes, but she was sure glad it was over when they finally stepped back from her. She tried to hide her discomfort as the gel made her skin hyper-sensitive, but she doubted she was a doing a very good job of it. She reached for her pants and looked over to Celeste, "It's alright if I get dressed now, isn't it?" she asked. Hoping desperately for a yes, but knowing she probably wasn’t going to get it.

 

[sapphica]

Celeste

It was Cassandra's expedition, Celeste knew her place, but there were larger issues at stake, and Cassandra needed to understand. The rest of the girls needed to understand. She couldn't tell them - not yet - but she will guide them to the Machine, and the Machine will be tested, and they would have to listen to her, Celeste, the Company girl, when it couneds. They had all worked with Cassandra, she knew that, they respected Cassandra, and that's why Cassandra was their leader. Celeste would make them listen to her too, She would show them that she could make things happen for them as well.

She had sensed something between Deirdre and Cassie, there was a dynamic. "Wait" She smiled at Cassandra. "Not quite" She said. "The gel was not properly applied.

"Deirdre, can you help us?"

Celeste turned to the girl.

"Could you help me position Cassie here so I can show everyone how the gel is properly applied?"

Celeste held her breathe. If Deirdre came forward, she would have a chance, and given the dynamics between the two, she thought Deirdre just might....She let her breath out slowly as Deirdre smiled with a wink, then came up and held Cassandra's arm behind her, giggling nervously, cracking weak jokes. The important thing was, Deirdre followed her instruction.

Celeste walked up to Cassie, her arms held behind her by Deirdre. She leaned forward and whispered - a loud whisper that was heard by all the girls

"You missed a few spots"

She sprayed the gel into the palm of her hand, then pressed her fingers on Cassie's bare skin, just below her bra, first on the left side, then both hands, feeling the ridges of Cassie's ribcage as her fingers slipped upward, feeling the tension in Cassie's body, in her eyes, in the girls all around them. Was Cassie going to fight? It would all depend on that.

"You missed a few spots, and I will show everyone where those are"

Celeste slipped her fingers up until they touched the bottom edges of Cassie's bra cups. Her eyes steady on Cassie, then on Deirdre's then back to Cassie's again as fingertips slipped under the edges of the bra cups, under the bra, under the cups, and bare fingertips touched bare flesh - Deirdre holding Cassie still. She pushed her fingers up higher, under the cups, fingers hidden by the bra, ostensibly so that Cassie would not be revealed. Higher the fingers went. Celeste sucked in her breath as fingertips touched the tips of Cassie's nipples, and slowly moved across them. She could feel the tension all around, could feel Cassie pulling. Hold her...she willed her silent wish...Hold her, Deirdre...

She could sense it. Call it a dancer's instinct - instinct developed from being on so many stage shows - and it was a show she is putting up on now. She could sense that she was doing the popular thing. They might become uncomfortable later on, but right now, the girls were excited by what she was doing, and they wanted to watch. Deirdre wanted to watch. If Cassie stopped her, she would instantly become the unpopular boss lady who stopped the show and who would then also have to insist on suiting up as the only unpopular alternative. If Cassie allowed it, then.....

..Celeste pushed her hand higher still, and smeared her gel covered fingertips across the tips of Cassie's nipples...

 

[KaosMom]

As she suspected, Celeste had something more in mind. She shivered inwardly as the other woman convinced Dee to hold her arms behind her, not that it took too much to convince her. Cassandra had always suspected that Dee would have enjoyed watching her with another woman, and that coupled with the ambient heat and remembered sins of touching her skin earlier made Dee eager to find any excuse to continue.

Cassandra noted a strange look in Celeste’s eyes as she stepped in front of her, part lust, which she had expected, but also part challenge which she did not understand. It was as if the other woman was testing to see what she could get away with. Which was ridiculous, since Cassie had always deferred to Celeste in any matter pertaining to security or Company business. Heck, she only took the title of commander because the company demanded it.

Cassie felt the growing weight of eyes upon her, and became increasingly aware of the remaining crew watching with an almost feral intensity as Celeste slipped her hands up her sides and under the bottom edges of her bra to supposedly show where they had missed spreading the gel. But Cassandra could tell, by the fire in the other woman’s eyes, that Celeste was also taking this opportunity to enjoy herself. The Archeologist pulled a bit at Dee’s grip, but wasn't entirely surprised when the engineer only pressed her own body along her bosses increasingly exposed back, and held her fast with a throaty chuckle.

Not wanting to make a scene, but growing increasingly uncomfortable with the situation, Cassie looked in Celeste’s eyes and said, “You know, that if you had said I needed to cover everywhere, I could have easily taken care of this last bit...” she faltered as the other woman’s hands reached her nipples. Closing her eyes momentarily, and sucking air in through her teeth, she groaned slightly, shifting it into a clearing of the throat and she continued on, saying, “myself. I mean, the stuff tingles, so it’s easy to tell where it’s…” Her eyes widened as she felt the strange sensation of the gel on her nipples. “been.” She finished with a soft gasp.

Despite herself, Cassandra felt herself begin to grow a bit warm under the touch of the other woman’s questing fingers. It had been so long since she had allowed anyone close, anyone to… touch her. She let her eyes flutter closed for a second, allowing the pleasure to sweep through her, to wash over her thoughts for just a moment, but then, perhaps because of Dee's closeness, she remembered all the failures and the importance of what they were about to uncover. She opened her eyes, looked down to where Celeste’s hands had hold of her, and grinned as she said “I think the about covers it, don’t you?” She winked and added, “And, since we’re in a hurry, don’t you think the rest of you should get started, while I climb into the airlock and try and see if those codes we found actually work?"

She stood there, a wry grin on her face, and waited for the other woman to realize that whatever she was trying, she wasn’t going to get her to either surrender or attack. Instead, Cassandra just wanted to get back to work, back to seeing what lay behind that door, back to the possible treasure and renown. A wish they all shared, so even though their crew may have been enjoying the show that Celeste was trying to give them at Cassie's expense. What they all really wanted, she had effectively pointed out, wasn't so much to simply ogle the boobs that had been there all along, but to get to the other side of that door!

Once Celeste had released her, she turned to Dee and asked if she could see the bottle for a minute, and then very studiously applied the gel to her hips and buttocks which had been covered by her underwear. Handing the bottle back to her friend she looked back at Celeste and asked, “Now, will this stuff work if it’s covered with clothing, or do I have to go through the door like this?” She grinned and kicked out one hip in a pose she had seen in a magazine once. “I mean, I don’t really care,” she laughed, “but if the building’s recording system is still on, then I get the royalties from any sales of this section of the tape.” Cassandra grinned, hoping that Celeste would believe her bravado and not see past it to the deep-seated terror in her soul.