The blades of the helicopter thumped through the mist, muffled to staccato thuds by the headset she wore - "another couple of minutes" the pilot reassured her. She smiled despite the patronising tone. He left off the 'sweetheart' (perhaps he'd been on a one day course) but it was still implied.
The rig loomed at the last second out of the sullen spray, massive and improbable amid so much sky and sea. There was a disconnect between this huge and remote machine, and the interior spaces she felt familiar with from the footage she had been watching. She was looking forward to seeing it from inside to reconnect, and to meeting the men she'd been observing.
She had sufficient information already from the footage to write up, and she did run the risk by going to the rig of affecting the power dynamic she was researching, but it would be beneficial to conduct the interviews in situ, both individually and in groups, and she felt it would also inform her research to feel something of the rig's isolation. And she wanted to meet in person the men whose lives she had analysed in detail for months - as they ate, worked, joked, slept, washed, masturbated, played games, fought, worked out and griped about the boredom, and the lack of female attention. So there was an excitement that she felt when the helicopter touched down, and it wasn't purely academic.
The blades slowed, and a fresh spray of sideways rain hit her in the face as the door opened. She thanked the pilot, and politely took the hand that a figure on the deck was offering to her as she stepped down. His hand was leathery but warm in the freezing rain, and she recognised that it was K, the crane operator, beaming a welcoming grin as he roared something about the weather over the sound of the blades starting up again. She had spent so long thinking of the crew by the letters she had assigned to them for anonymity when she came to publish, that for her those were their names. Of course, she knew them also by what they called each other - on the occasions when they bothered with names rather than obscenities - but since she had seen all of this interaction on video it was a little as though it was a drama, whose characters had names like 'Chris' and 'Sergei' but were played by the actors H,I,J,K etc (her principal cast were H through to O, as they were the most consistently resident crew members, with others coming and going).
By the time they got inside she was soaked, and she peeled wet strands of hair out of her mouth as K began her tour, and introduced her to the rest of the crew along the way. She already knew which of the men were sullen, which were vivacious, and knew who would greet her in different ways depending on if he had peers nearby (here she was, already influencing the dynamic). Each man seemed genuinely thrilled to meet her, and there was already a possessiveness to the way that K was introducing her. Sexual tension hummed in the background of each interaction like the throbbing of the heavy machinery below them, and for all her outward professionalism, her knickers were sodden at the power she felt she was wielding over the sex-starved crew. Her top had been chosen to be un-titilating, but the rain had caused it to cling to her, and the stinging wind had flushed her cheeks which gave her a slightly just-fucked look. Along with her wet hair and glistening skin, she was clearly making an impression, and she felt all eyes on her as they moved through the rig.
For her part, she had already seen most of these men naked, and heard their filthy jokes and bravado, including about her impending visit. Her cameras were everywhere. She had watched them sweat and strain in the gym, and watched them scrub hard at the black grease on their arms. She had seen L wanking, almost daily, and seen the majesty of O's sleeping giant (his penis was the largest she had ever seen, but she had not seen it erect). She shook L's hand knowing this, and stood in the shadow of O's huge frame as they exchanged pleasantries about her flight out. And she tried not to look at his bulge, while he failed not to look at her curves.
It had been similar during her project at the prison, and she castigated herself for having ended up in a field of research (social power dynamics in all-male environments) that put her in these situations. At the prison, she had been in such a pent-up state after a fortnight that she had gone and picked up a stranger in a bar. She fell on his cock like an animal, and gushed on his balls within moments of him entering her.
K showed her to her sleeping quarters, and the adjoining shower block, and she thanked him and said she would change and rejoin them in the rec room, which was just the other side of the showers. She dumped her bag and headed for the showers. The cubicles were curtained, but the door to the main room wouldn't shut properly as the frame was out of alignment somehow. The men obviously didn't care about this detail, and she knew it didn't really matter, but it made her feel a little exposed anyway - she could hear their voices from the next room. Her wet clothes were reluctant to part from her skin, and then hit the floor with a slap when they did. Her nipples were rigid, mainly from the cold, and she saw a gleaming slick in her knickers where they lay twisted and curled after she rolled them down her legs. The hot water was very welcome, and she let it cascade over her and warm her back up. At first her hand dawdled indecisively between her legs, before her circles grew a little more focused. She felt as though she was naked among them all, playing with her seeping pussy in the middle of the room, and she pictured them pumping their cocks in a circle, waiting to take turns in her. She could hear their chat over the running water, and she knew the door was only propped closed, and that the curtain hardly covered her. Yet here she was, coming so hard on her busy fingers that her knees buckled slightly and her body quaked. She bit her lip hard and curled her toes while the waves subsided, and she registered that everything she did here would also feature on her own footage.
