Alien dust. It gets everywhere. It penetrates despite the best insulation science can devise. Cycling into the dome through the airlock from the crawler I feel the intimate rub of its familiar dry grittiness on my skin, that same urgency to cleanse it away. Once inside I head direct for the bath-unit. It’s already in use. But I can hear the water tapering off to a trickle. The screen draws back and Thornsberg steps out. He’s a big guy, and he’s naked, his body-hair matted wet as he reaches for the towel. I wait. As I wait I can’t help my attention being inexorably drawn to his groin. To the huge swaying monster hung between his legs, slippery-wet.
He intercepts my gaze and smiles.
“I see you’re checking me out. Maybe you wanna give it a suck?”
I smile back.
“As appetising an invitation as that presents, I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass.”
He shakes water-droplets from his hair and starts toweling.
“Pity, it could be nice. You still in a one-to-one thing with that palaeoarchaeologist, Ravel?”
“I guess so” I admit.
“No sweat. Whenever you fancy something different, just give me a nudge.”
“Thanks. I’m sure I will.”
I haul off my tight gear as Thornsberg wraps the towel around his waist and moves out, giving me access to the shower cubicle. I step into its confines naked, and the hissing needlejets spray in from all sides. The sluicing water feels good. Red dust at first discolouring the teeming rivulets coursing down my body, until it begins to run clean. I stand there loving its luxury as it ripples through my close-cropped hair and across my face. I massage foamy-cleanser in circles across my chest and stomach, teasing its bubbles around my genitals. Yes, there are early signs of arousal there.
What a bizarre conversation that was with Thornsberg! How strange. There’s always banter with sexual overtones rife in all exclusively male institutions — hell, that’s been going on since the medieval monasteries. Nothing odd about that. But this is different. Beneath Thornberg’s playfully casual suggestion, he was serious. And beneath my playful response, yes, I was seriously considering his suggestion. Not only that, but my cock was pleasurably reacting to the possibility.
I turn off the shower. Despite deep frozen aquifers water is still at a premium here at the Valles Marineris research station. Deep in conflicted thoughts I head back for our quarters. Ravel turns and smiles as I enter. It’s good to see him. He offers a flute of wine. I sip its sharp bitter tang. Local hydroponically-grown wine is not yet renowned for its subtlety. Then I reach out to him, lick the taste of wine from his lips. His laughter is a delight, and inevitably kicks off a squirming reaction in my pants. He catches my mood. He runs the palm of his hand down across my stomach. I inhale in a breath-catch of pleasure. His fingers continue their spidering way down into my groin, tracing the shape of my stirring arousal, squeezing it affectionately.
He makes a little purr of approval in his throat, and moves to manipulate the Velcro catch. I stand there and let him have his way. In a single graceful move he’s down there, crouching beneath me to carefully ease my penis free. The first touch of his fingers send energy-jolts through me, my knees almost buckle as he cossets my cock in both hands, enveloping it. Not entirely erect yet, but when his head goes in and the delicate touch of his lips brush the sensitive glans, it fills out in eager anticipation of what is to come.
“I’ve been thinking of you” whispers Ravel softly, as he kisses my cock-head. “I’ve been thinking of doing this to you all day. While we’ve been apart, all I can think of is sucking your cock.”
“Don’t feel you have to wait any longer.” My voice is breathy.
His head moves, the perfect softness of his velvet lips enclosing the head of my cock, then slowly sinking it deeper into the moistness of his mouth. The first suck is exquisite. He knows fellatio, he has the kind of effortless expertise that makes this sex just about the best sensation on this, or any other planet. Whoever it was who first invented cock-sucking was the greatest benefactor of humankind, we all owe him a debt.
Ravel sucks. I let him suck. It’s a beautiful synergy. I pull off my tunic as he works my pants down and off, careful to never release a single millimetre of cock from his perfect mouth. In a conflicted half-reluctance I try to push him away. He makes a play of holding it in his mouth, his teeth nipping softly down on my root. Then we both laugh as I slop free, my cock springing up glistening-wet with his saliva.
We move to the bed. I’m impatient for him to undress, watching him with my teeth on edge as he’s pulling his clothes off. He looks so good, so smooth, so sexy, so hot. Then, both naked we tussle on the covers, snaring each other in tight embrace. His skin up tight against mine. For a second, no longer, there’s a conflict of intention, a moment of who’s going to do what to whom, then he bends forward, presenting the rounded curves of his arse to me. In my haste I can’t wait to slide my moist cock in and he groans appreciatively deep in his throat.
I try to take it slow. I try to make it last, fucking in long strokes. But I’m too hyped up, too urgent. My hands snake around his waist, both holding me scrotum-deep inside him, while seeking out his inflamed cock with my eager hands. Caressing the tight warm flesh-eggs of his balls, wrapping my fingers around the heat of his shaft, feeling its energy expanding in my grasp. I try to hold back, but it’s more powerful than I am, an ancient primal urge that’s older than time. When it tips us over into mutual orgasm, the first spurt erupts from the depths of my balls into his receptive gut, and we’re both flexing together.
Afterwards we lie together, breathing low. His cock looks so forlorn, drooping a little, but still firm. So I go down to kiss away strands of slimy cum from its blushing dome head. And just for a moment as that familiar bulb slips smoothly between my lips and into the warm hold of my mouth, just for a flash split-second, it’s not Ravel at all, it’s Thornsberg’s cock I’m sucking.
“If my body were a planet, it would now be inundated by millions of alien spermatozoa” he tells me.
“Yes, but what a wonderful invasion” I whisper.
“And such a sweet sweet surrender.”
I hesitate about confiding what’s just transpired, then take a deep breath and tell him what Thornsberg had said to me in the shower-bay.
“Yet Mars is the god of war” I conclude in a questioning tone. “Here, at this base, there’s no warlike tendencies, only male love and desire for each other. I’ve never known a place so open or so accepting of it. Does that make sense to you?”
“The god of war bit, that’s true — and a useful fiction to hang garish SciFi onto. But it’s true only up to a point. A simplification. Just as Venus is seen as feminine, Mars has always symbolised the embodiment of male virtues, maleness in its purest most austere form.”
“And that’s why we’re responding to each other in the way we are?”
He rolls over, facing me, eye to eye. Nose touching nose. Nipple to nipple. Stomach to stomach. Penis-tip nudged up against penis-tip.
“Come with me tomorrow. I want to show you something we’re just uncovering. It’s not complete yet. Nothing’s been published, but it might answer our questions.”
Humans have been here, on Mars, for two decades now. There’s an equatorial domed city with oxygenating parks for families with Mars-born kids. But it’s still a pioneer planet with vast unexplored areas. We’re operating from the lowest levels of the Valles Marineris, where ancient dry riverbeds spread out in dusty deltas. We set out in a two-man Crawler early the following morning. It’s bright and clear, and although they’re still some way away the vast vertiginous canyon-cliffs are breathtaking. It’s day, but the thin atmosphere means that diamond-hard stars are still visible beyond the thin wisps of cloud. It has its own tortured beauty.
Ravel steers us. I just slouch there, enjoying the trip. There’s not a great deal for me to do, so I close my eyes, and startling memories return unbidden of Thornsberg emerging naked from the shower. His teasing invitation to have sex, his cock glistening moisture-wet as though its already been sucked. As though I’ve already been guiltily sucking it. Hell, if it only had a brain, a dick that size could rule Mars unopposed!
The stimulating thought causes me to squirm in the bucket-seat to relieve the increasing tightness in my groin. Then I’m plunged into a vivid flashback of sex with Ravel, the feel of my cock sliding into the tight responsive clasp of his anus, so real I can almost taste the sweat on his body. I bite my lower lip in an effort to concentrate on the ochre landscape lurching past outside. But the motion of the crawler thrumming up through the tracks, the floor, and the upholstery, effecting pleasurable vibrations across my buttocks, just stimulates fresh arousal. I surrender to the sensation. Why fight it?
We travel some distance, so that it’s approaching midday by the time he hangs a turn down into a still deeper run-off channel, through a haze of ghost-yellow dust. I scramble up to see better. His earlier expedition had left a sealed bivouac with equipment placed outside the mouth of a cave-system. We park up the crawler and dismount. The air is a little denser at this depth, but we wear breathing masks. We rest briefly in the bivouac to raid its supplies. There’s chilled beers and rice crackers as well as instruments. Flashlights.
Walking is easy. Not quite ‘John Carter’, but not nearly as taxing as it would be back on Earth. We enter the cave. Deceptively small, the ceiling gets higher the further we penetrate. Ravel knows the way. There are flags and ribbons marking out where they’ve already excavated. He bypasses them all, and leads me further. It’s only later I realise that, although we’re a considerable way underground, it’s still light enough to see, without relying on flashlights. And the cavern-walls are more regular than might be expected. With contours resembling the organic curves of elongated faces, limbs. Something eerie crawls up my spine.
“This looks to be not entirely natural. But we know there were no Martians.”
“Perhaps we don’t know it all. Perhaps these were just temporary visitors to Mars, like we are.”
We’d emerged into a circular space that gives every indication of artificiality. No mistaking the shapes lining its walls now. Tall melancholy faces with expressions of sad yearning. For a moment Ravel looks into my eyes. His expression is intense, it reaches through to touch my soul. He beckons. Leads me to the centre of what I’d begun to think of as the ancient temple of this long-extinct species. There’s a low plinth, or maybe an altar.
Ravel kneels down. For a second it’s as though he’s about to initiate sex, and I’m ready. But he’s indicating a series of carvings set into the base of the structure. I squat down beside him. Pictograms. Easily recognisable images, like a series of detailed cartoons. Eroded and chipped, some obviously broken and time-lost. Others clearly decipherable. Figures. Human figures, or as close to human as makes no odds.
Ravel brushes away grit and dust, so we can see more clearly. And it’s staggering. The figures are naked, and male — proudly, erectly male. Some standing. Others crouching, all engaged in pornographic group-sex. Oral sex. Anal sex. In every possible position and combination. It seems that whoever it was who first invented cock-sucking was the great benefactor of Martian-kind, too.
We can’t help sniggering like naughty schoolkids, pointing out this excess or that exaggeration. One after another, panel by panel. Ravel’s hand rests on my leg provocatively. He turns to look at me. Our eyes meet mischievously.
“No, we can’t, not here…!”
“If we don’t, I’m going to explode.”
Looking around warily, as though someone’s observing, we move around, tugging and struggling with each other. The air is thin, but almost adequate. It’s cold, but not excessively so, and the eagerness of our combined body-heat enables us to ignore it, for long enough. Ravel’s cock springs free, so white, slender and tall, I can scarce believe it’s all for me, the urgency roaring through me makes it irresistible. I can’t hold back. I go down and swallow it. It fills my mouth with its hot hungry need. He bucks his hips as I suck greedily at his deliciously fat erection. It’s as though alien eyes millions-of-years dead are watching our rut. He’s grunting and moaning as I slaver in his groin. At the same time I’m struggling my own trousers down. My thirst for him is overwhelming.
I release his wet cock and bend down over the plinth, bare bottom raised in invitation for him, legs slightly apart. He needs no more invitation. I can feel the heat of his firm cock forcing its way through the tight sphincter of my anus, then sliding deep up into me. I rear and howl with joy as he penetrates me, my own genitals swaying.
The fuck is swift and intense. Both of us grunting like some primeval beasts. The sound of the slap of flesh on flesh echoes around the enclosed chamber. He reaches around my body as he’s impaled in me, seizes my cock and wanks me furiously. Gasping hoarsely we’re soon, too-soon both into the last strokes. The orgasm that hits me is incredible, spurt after spurt of spunk bursting from my cock as Ravel milks it, spattering onto the plinth, dribbling and drooling across the pictograms and alien images, as Ravel’s own ejaculation erupts inside of me.
We stay connected, fallen over onto the plinth, breathing heavily. Sexually drained. My bones turned to rubber, my blood nothing but water. I feel the raw stone up against my sensitive skin. It should be cold, but it’s not. On the contrary, surely it’s warmer than before? A kind of flesh-warmth. My sperms are burrowing into the Martian basalt, soaking into its million-year-old dryness. Setting up some kind of response. We lie together, eyes closed, his wilting cock still inside me. My own cock dribbling the last clear milky strands of my ejaculate onto the altar. The great post-coital calm consuming us completely.
There’s movement, where there should be no movement. It’s like footsteps walking across my brain. It startles us back. We retreat a few hesitant steps, buckling our pants haphazardly back up. The glyphs are moving. An animated cartoon, ignited from its ancient dormancy by our body-fluids. Telling their amazing story…
Of course, you’ll have seen the data on vidi-screens. You’ll have read the immense cosmic histories it tells in the plethora of subsequent publications that rewrite human history, and the history of the solar system. This is now the common property of all mankind. But it was Ravel and I who were the first to see it. It was our sex, encouraged by the subtle radiation of their legacy, and feeding from our jism, that made it possible. It also came close to breaking us.
There’s an official reception afterwards, to celebrate our discovery. Maybe I’m learning to appreciate Mars-grown wine, because I end up more than a little tipsy, and finally succumb to Thornsberg’s invitation which had been teasing and tantalising its way around my brain since that time I’d first seen him emerging naked from the shower. We’re back in his untidy apartment, which gets even more untidy by the time we’re done. I’m pulling his pants down in a fever of fear and delight, scarcely believing my luck as it tumbles free into my face. My teeth singing in joy.
And I find myself spending the night with that monster cock forcing my mouth and arse to their limits. Scary and exciting, exhaustingly satisfying, but just pure lust. I mean, surely every Gay man must be curious about how, in real life, he’d manage to accommodate that giant cock of his fantasies? And sometimes, raw sex is all you need. It was a one-off, with nothing of the tender consideration or sweet reciprocation of my copulations with Ravel.
The Valles Marineris research station is a small enclosed community. You can’t keep secrets. And the sad recrimination in Ravel’s big tearful eyes when he found out about my… indiscretion, tore me apart. The same ancient sadness about the eternal unreliability of the human male, reflecting the melancholy I’d seen on the Martian faces. They’d known, a million years before civilisation began to take its first uncertain steps on Earth, they’d known about deception, betrayal and hurt.
Ravel left soon after, using a new assignment at Olympus Mons as an opportunity for a trial separation. I await his return, uncertain of our future together. What if it was the alien influence of the cave-temple that was responsible for stimulating our desire all along? Will he still want me, once he’s outside its zone of influence?
Mars is a Gay planet. It was then. As far as we’re concerned, it is now.