Beltworld - Part 01

On the belt, they have a saying:
Minerals are controlled by capitalists, flesh is controlled by entrepreneurs.

They say it's because people preferred the competition of smaller businesses and therefore put corporations at a disadvantage to small businesses. However, it was actually a government regulation put in place in an attempt to distribute more evenly throughout the belt.

Either way, anyone with money for decent ship and a few licenses and tickets could start trading the flesh. Nearly nobody bought prostitutes nowadays, all the money was on indentured servants; anyone who had brought up a considerable debt, or wanted to make alternative payments, were now prostitutes of a different calibre. They were easier to track and pay due to bar codes assigned to a Government maintained database.

Dave had a ship for several people, and the licenses to carry them in industry-standard restraints: variable length soft-cord attached to a collar or handcuffs, although most trips didn’t require restraints. He was currently on his way to an iron mine to help them compensate for their recent expansion, as miners preferred sex in their off-hours over alcohol, which any company would try to incorporate for good reasons.

His ship had four rooms: a cockpit, crew quarters, storage room, and a service space below the floor. The cockpit is self explanatory. The crew quarters are simply two bunk beds and a table. The storage room had been fitted with a variable transparency divider and the amenities to legally house eight people. Dave was roughly 6' 4", not an oddity in the reduced artificial gravity of most fields, although still enough to make the door frames collide with his head. He had no taste buds, but he still had a taste for anything with a girlish figure, although his lack of discrimination of gender was not out of desperation; especially when considering that females were transferred more often.

Dave yawned and stretched his legs, then finished the remnants of his burger. Nobody ate burgers, as imitations were cheap and perfect. Most of it was processed algae, and a bit of it was flavour. The ship pushed through empty space, straddling the asteroid belt by a hundred kilometres, he unbuckled himself and got out of his seat. He lumbered back into the cabin and nudged the sleeping figure under the blankets.

"Carol, wake up."

The figure stirred, then a lazy voice replied with three questioning letters, "ETA?"

"10 hours, dear. You can wake me up for arrival."

"Alright, give me a moment."

After some intermission, Dave was laying back in his cot watching the surveillance of the cargo hold.

Technically, the servants were under their ownership with no conditions. It was common courtesy to treat them more like passengers than servants. Although Dave knew they had debts to pay off.

He lumbered back to the cargo bay and took the intercom, inquiring casually into it, "Who wants to get me off and pay off 10 credits of debt?"

He set the window to be transparent both ways, most of the bodies were sleeping, one woman sat on the edge of her bed with a hand raised.

"Do you want to come out here or do it through the food slot?"

"The food slot is fine for me if it's fine for you, sir."

Dave unzipped his jumpsuit from the bottom and let his cock hang semi erect. It was roughly 7 inches erect. He opened the food slot, which was conveniently waist high, and put his length through. The dark haired woman on the other side stroked his length, the first sexual contact he’s had that week. She paused to roll down the top of her jumper, revealing her bare breasts. Dave relaxed as she caressed his flesh.

Ten minutes later, Bren was 10 credits closer to paying off debt and Dave was happily relaxing in his cot, dozing off. The ship continued its course towards the large metal building nested in a spiderweb of support beams and asteroids.

Carol nudged Dave in the same fashion, who sat up in his bunk and rubbed at his eyes.

“Yes, Carol?”

“We'll be docking in 15 minutes, I'm going to check on the servants and make sure they're ready.”

Dave yawned and got up, lumbering over to the cockpit, checking the navigation and communicating with the traffic control of the mine. Carol went to the storage unit and informed the servants of the unboarding procedure after ensuring they were awake.

The situation remained the same until the ship hit a bump, which were caused by connecting to the two cushioned maglocks of the station: one for the crew, one for the passengers. Dave and Carol ate some quesadillas in the station’s cafeteria while exchanging some stories for laughs with some of the miners.

“So the entire time my airlock was pressurized, right? But Galen didn't figure that out until he tried to dock his unit!” Galen rolled his eyes at his friend’s retelling of the story while everyone shared a laugh. Dave checked his pager and elbowed Carol, pointing it's LCD display to her.

“Sorry to stop the conversation,” said Carol. “we have a pickup en-route to some rich kid’s yacht about 300 clicks off the belt.”

“Oh, no problem guys.” Galen replied. “Are you allowed to, well, you know.” Dave sipped his water, waiting for Galen to ask his a legitimate question. “Are you allowed to sample the product?”

“Not unless we pay for it. Sometimes the contract asks for chastity for the duration of the trip.” After a pause, he continued. “I prefer sex with free people.” The unintentional double meaning made him smile, which was taken as a suggestion instead by Galen, who replied,

“Don't suppose you have time right now for a quickie?”