Homebrew - a NaNoWriMo Novel - Day 12

Whew!!! Glad today's over! I made the 25K mark. I've reach the 'official' half-way point to 'winning' NaNo this year. And I managed to do it before Wednesday, which is the half-way point as far as days spent/days to go.

Let me tell you. Most of the difficulty was knowing that I was writing a 'sex scene' today. Part of what made last year so difficult was knowing that I had chosen to write a 'Chick Lit' book, with more than one sex scene. Lots more! So starting today knowing I was facing the thing that caused me such downfall last year almost made me hit the wall, get writer's block, this year. But I worked my way through it.

Don't get me wrong, I already know I've got several areas in the lead-up to the scene which can be expanded and fleshed out, more motivation and direction given, and I'll do that later, during the editing process. I bet just editing the page or two prior to this will add a cool 2,000 words to my word count.

Anyway, if you've been reading along, I want you to know that about one half of today's snippet is a 'Hard R' or even 'Soft X' sex scene. If you feel not up to it, feel free to skip the last third to half and wait for tomorrow's post.

"I think it has to do more with not accomplishing something. I mean, you saw our habitat modules are on their way, yet it's as if we're in a holding pattern until they get here. That's part of it; I want to have things ready to go when they arrive, but I don't know exactly what I want to have ready." He sighed. "I'm sorry; I've been a jerk. I just don't know..."
Ellen shifted down to one end, patting one hand beside her on the bunk. "Come over here," She reached out and tugged him out of the chair, guiding him over and turning him, as he sat, so he faced away from her. She began to knead his shoulders as she continued.
"You are not the only one who is feeling disappointment about our jobs. You should hear Dora. She has a Master's in Business Administration; do you remember her telling us? Yet here she is hauling around girders and dispensing tape." Dermot leaned into Ellen's ministrations, staring out the viewport and listening to her words. Finding out he wasn't alone in his feelings worked with the massage, bringing a release of tension. Half his mind listened to her while the rest pondered how he could use those habitat modules they now owned. He wondered why he hadn't done this sooner.
Her words snapped him back to the reality of her room.
"What did you just say?"
"I said you've received all the back rubs you're gonna get from me." tartness dripped in her every word. "It's my turn to be pampered."
"No, not that. You said something else..."
"I"m going to say something else if you don't turn around and give me a massage. My back is killing me." She eeled past him, stretching out full-length along his bunk, teasing him with, "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Hardin."
"Not before you tell me what you said at the last."
She rolled over to face him showing her irritation, "This better be important. After all the work I just put into your..."
"I promise to pay extra attention. Now what were you saying," he interrupted.
"I said, it's too bad we can't just drop over to the cafeteria and get a pizza. That's the one big thing I miss about being up here instead of ground-side. I guess they can't figure out how to make a good pizza up here."
"That's it! You're a genius!" He pulled her up and wrapped his hands around her skull, sliding a slobbery kiss across her lips.
"Ewww! You know I hate goopy, dripping kisses!" She tried to disengage but was just able to wipe off the beads of moisture before he planted a deeper kiss on her, sliding his hands down and pulling her close. His warmth heated her and she felt her heart skip a beat as her body matched his heartbeat. Abandoning any attempt for conversation, she gave in and molded herself to him, returning cuddle for cuddle, tightening her own embrace of him.
"Mmphph!" she attempted to say, an interminable time later. She found the strength to pull away from his mouth, his lips, his face. "Wonderful. It's about time you remembered how to do that. Now was there a particular reason for it or were you just telling me how much you loved me?"
"Um," he stalled. "Damned if I know. After a kiss like that, does it really matter? Oh wait! You complained about pizza."
"Man. If I complain about broccoli, do I get a full makeout session?" She batted her eyes and smiled, invitation written broad upon her face.
He pulled back feigning disgust. "Yuck! You'd actually expect to make out after eating broccoli? That's it, I want our progeny to not have a broccoli-loving gene."
She sat up, pushing both of them off the bunk and toward the ceiling. He grabbed her with one hand and the safety bar near the head of the bunk with his other, pulling them back down.
"You want to have kids?" she demanded. "With me?"
He took his time answering, trying to read her mood from her expression. Finally, he said, "Sure I do. You and I click, far better than Mary." At her name, Ellen frowned, but kept her silence. "I... Well what I mean is... Look, it's probably too early to make plans, and I didn't really want to push, but I'd like us to be, eventually, an 'us', not just short-term friends."
"I accept!" At his horrified look, she relented. "Oh, keep your booties on. I'm not trying to trap you into an instant marriage; we've got months and months to think about it - at least two years. Dad's somewhat of a traditionalist, he doesn't believe in short romances and quick engagements." Dermot relaxed, somewhat. She ploughed onward, "Tell me again about pizza."
"Oh. That." He gathered his thoughts, allowing her to pull him back down beside her. "I was thinking we could make one of the habitats into a pizzeria. Maybe hook up a mirror array to heat a fire-brick lined oven hanging off one side of the 'garage' module; that module would be our kitchen. Since the garage modules are metal, we wouldn't have the risk of burn-through if the mirror came out of alignment - at least not as fast as on the fabric module. And there'd be plenty of room to fit out some game stations and tables. If we set it to spinning, we could generate enough force to keep butt and pizzas on the chairs and tables." He stopped when he caught her expression. "What? You don't think it's a good idea?"
"NO! It's a great idea! You're a flipping genius!" This time she initiated the mandibular docking maneuver, taking sufficient time to seal the netting over them. Minutes passed, and the room became noisy with the sounds of their passion. Later, spent from their lovemaking, she curled close, snuggled between his body and the cabin wall.
"Sean?" she said. "If we can run a pizza parlor, could we also do salvage work? We'll have three other habitats out there, close by. And all of them have cargo bays. Plus each of them comes with it's own tow boat."
"Salvage? Salvage as in 'we go sweep up the garbage', or do you mean something else," he murmured, already drifting off. She elbowed him. "Ow! What did you do that for?"
"Wake up! I'm serious. Can we start a salvage operation?"
"Sure thing. They're very serious about cleaning up the junk out of the orbit paths. These solar arrays aren't cheap. The more junk removed, the lower the chance a piece is going to hit one of the panels and have to be replaced before maintenance has scheduled it."
"What about refurbishing some of the smaller satellites? Could we do that? Could we go out, capture them, bring them in, fix them up and put them back out, ready for their owners to put them to use?"
"In general, we could." He thought for a moment. "I see several issues we'd have to deal with. We'd have to get permission to move them from their current orbits to our shop. We'd have to have diagnostic tools and manuals, as well as either chip-level or board-level replacement parts, and we'd have to have a source of fuel. That would be our biggest expense, and our biggest headache. Because we'd have to either buy fuel in small quantities, or build a storage tank 'farm' and buy in bulk. Plus we'd have to have a way to advertise our services."
"So it's feasible?"
"Yep. We could do it. I don't know if we could handle it right away, but we could do it. Maybe in a few months. Remember, we'd have to use those tow boats to go out and retrieve the satellites. Some of them are rather big - and far out in other orbits."
"So let's say we start with the small ones in the closer orbits. And let's make the assumption we'd start out on just those which are still sending signals, but have lost maneuvering thrusters. How many do you think we're looking at? Five? Ten?"
"More like several hundred. They've been sending these things up for years."
She noticed his hands performing a slow caress up and down her spine, making it difficult to focus on the train of her thoughts. Yet she fought to maintain her concentration, not quite willing to give in to the demands he, and her body, were making on her. Even so, she couldn't quite resist her impulse to run her own hands over his sleek hips and along the curve of his ribs.
"Mmmm... And I thought you were tired and wanted to go to sleep," she said. "We'll start by offering to do the first four or five 'on spec'. No charge to them if we can't handle the job. And... And I'll just have to write all this down later."
With that, she let herself go, wrapping herself around him, pulling him close as she molded her body to his.
In response, he cupped one hand around ass and squeezed it, grinding against her hips and belly. His neck bent down and around, his mouth found the hollow of her neck, just below her earlobe. He began to alternate between light kisses and soft breaths, tickling her in one of her most sensitive areas.
She rolled slightly to one side, exposing her breast, giving him the opportunity to move further down and he took it. Stopping every inch to kiss her skin, he followed the curve of her neck, moving closer and closer, edging onto the cleft between her breasts. There, he paused, exhaled soft air over her flesh, raising goosebumps. Then he stroked around the base of the mounded skin with his tongue, once, twice, three times. Each time his mouth came closer to the center and it's treasure. By the time he reached the aureola, her nipple had hardened and extended nearly a half inch above the rest of her breast. He took it between his teeth, nibbling an pulling up, the most gentle of tugs. She felt her breasts firming under his ministrations. Further, a tingling heat had started to grow in her belly, working it's way down This caused her to grind with more strength against his loins.
Moaning, ever so softly, he moved his other hand along her back and down her thighs with increasing fervor. His sex swelled against her abdomen, rising again. She groaned and captured one of his hands, pushing down, down between her thighs, guiding it to her quivering valley, still slick from their first lovemaking. He needed no further hint and began to stroke along it's outer edges, playing with the button of firmer flesh, stroking it, teasing it, even gently flicking it. As she grew even more moist, he started to slip a finger inside, but she couldn't wait; she grabbed his hand and held three of his fingers together, using them, plunging them slow but deep inside her. Then as he continued to stroke, she gathered more of her wetness in her own hands and washed them over his own member, laving the shaft top to bottom three, then four times. Keeping her hands on him, she shifted herself away from his hands and guided him inside.
The warmth of his flesh, throbbing against her was nearly too much. Four strokes and she was already building to a climax, but he sensed this and held back, slowing his motion, drawing her vibrations and convulsions to a finer edge, sending her higher and higher. With each stroke she gave small cry, the cries coming closer together, her hands pulling him closer and deeper within her, fingernails clawing his back and sides, until she could no longer tell one cry from another, her whole body throbbing to a single, massive high. Then, and only then, he gave one final push, striving further than he'd reach on any of the previous strokes, his arms tightening around her as he cried out in release.
"Oh God!" she cried and buried her head in his chest.