by Flora Dare
It was like losing part of my body, when he ripped his lips away from mine and said, "I've been searching for you for years and it turns out, you're a stupid, fragile human."
Searching for years? I stared up at him, and alien or not, it was nothing but pure lust staring back at me. That look I could recognize, even on his alien features.
"You are a stupid backwater ape. If you understood, instead of shrieking at me, you would praise me. You should worship me for not slaughtering those stupid men and claiming you from atop a pile of their corpses. They dared to touch, to harm, my life mate."
Life mate? And a pile of corpses would be the worst bed ever, no matter how much my traitorous body wanted to be joined at the hip with his.
He pulled me against him again for another long moment. He was all muscle and firm body and I couldn't help myself, moaning in his arms. Need and fear jumbled together.
His hands tightened against me, almost hurting me. I thought he was going to kiss me again, but instead I felt a puff of air against the back of my legs.
He never broke eye contact with me and he stepped forward. I expected to feel the cold metal wall against my back but the air movement must have been a door opening.
He extended his arms and I dangled like a rag doll from his hands. He was insanely strong, simply holding me in front of him with no apparent effort, like I was a newborn kitten. Then he abruptly released me and I fell to the ground, relieved that it was soft and cushioned.
He kept his eyes on me as he stepped backward. Our eye-lock was only broken by the door sliding shut, leaving me drugged, frightened and crumpled on the floor, helpless and horny.
~ * ~ * ~
Mated
I was sprawled on the floor as the door slid shut. I couldn't move and had to lie there in a heap. I was losing the fight against unconsciousness when air moved by me and I heard a soft swish.
A curtain of filmy green fabric filled my vision and a gentle female voice said "Oh dear, I'm sorry. My brother can be very reactive. Close your eyes, I'll keep you safe."
I wanted to fight my way back into the light, but her voice made me feel safe, like I could trust her. I finally allowed my eyes to close and, as the darkness claimed me, thought, Well, at least I was right about it being male.
~ * ~ * ~
I couldn't tell how long I'd been unconscious, but it was a mirror of waking up in the desert.
My mind was a blur of confusion. I couldn’t tell where I was and I couldn’t remember how I had gotten here. Instead of the expected sand under my cheek, it was soft leather. My eyes fluttered open and panic blazed through me, until I remembered shooting up Frank’s truck, and the angriest, sexiest alien carrying me onto his ship and abandoning me in a terrified lump on the floor.
I sat up gingerly, my stomach had been shaky enough before I was shot full of whatever that alien shit was that knocked me out. My eyes felt full of glass shards and my tongue was a million sizes too big. But I was pretty sure I wasn't going to barf. I decided to count that as a win.
I looked around the room I was in. I was resting on a low padded bench with a soft, thick blanket tucked around me. If it had been thinner, I would have sworn it was silk.
The spacious room was draped in rich fabrics, all glorious jewel tones. I mused that the colors would make the bronze alien god look absolutely incredible.
There were other various pieces of furniture around and they all looked comfortable for lounging.
The fabric on one wall parted and a female version of the creature who abducted me stepped through. It seemed like she was smiling so I went with it and weakly waved at her. I had to hope she was friendly or at least not actively trying to kill me.
She brought in a tray with food, a decanter and glasses. She put the tray next to me, then extended a glass full of something to me. I tried to remember my manners. "Thank you, I'm very thirsty."
"This is called vitae,” she said. “It should refresh you after your ordeal."
I took a sip and sparkles exploded on my tongue. It was like nothing I'd ever had before.
"Whoa, this is amazing!" I took a few more greedy gulps and it slaked my thirst. Paranoia took hold of me and I panicked, blurting out, "Oh my God, are you going to knock me out again? Is this going to hurt me?"
She held out her hands and shook her head, looking distressed. "No, not at all. It's not intoxicating and is safe for humans. It will help rejuvenate you."
I hesitated and she sat down next to me. "I know this has to be very frightening and disorienting for you." She made a gesture and the tray moved to be between us. She poured a second glass from the same decanter and took a hearty drink.
It could have all been an elaborate trick to get me to trust her, but I needed another drink more than anything so I polished off the glass.
As the last bit of the drink slipped down my throat, it dawned on me that the freaking tray was just floating between us. I'm so not in Kansas anymore. I rubbed my head and tried to come to grips with the fact that I was on an alien ship that had obedient floating trays.
Maybe I was still hallucinating. I was still lying in the desert, tripping my gourd off. None of this was real. I wasn't sitting cheek and jowl with a sort of reptilian woman.
Before I got too far into my own head, the woman reached out and tore open one of the loaves that were on the floating tray in front of us.
She handed me the still-warm food. I took a hearty sniff - it smelled just like bread. It looked just like bread.
She giggled and said, "It's bread. It's from your planet. I thought it would be more comfortable for you to have something familiar to eat."
I had to laugh at myself. "Thank you, I appreciate that."
At a certain point you just have to give in to what is happening around you, so I nibbled at the bread. There was something delightfully commonplace and grounding about eating bread aboard a spaceship with a scaled alien.
"Oh, I'm so rude, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Thearaugqua Iztan Droqrolla."
I tried wrapping my mouth around her name. "That's a lot of name."
She laughed. "My family goes for the long and pretentious. Please, call me Thea."
"Well, for all that my mom is a hippie, she goes for epic names as well. I'm Melisandrea Epona Jordan, but everyone calls me Meli."
"Hi Meli, it's nice to meet you."
Despite the fact that she was a tall, bronze, lizard-like alien, she put me at ease.
"It's nice to meet you too, uhm, you, despite the circumstances. So, I hate to be rude, but why am I on this, whatever this is? Where am I? What are you?"
"With everything that has happened to you, a few questions are far from rude. You are human, I am Madrelir. As for where you are, these are my quarters, on my brother's starship, the Sekkal Grazoaran. You met him already."
I rolled my eyes at her understatement. "Yeah, briefly. When he swooped down on my desert camp like an angry, vengeful god, then drugged me and abducted me."
"Yes, Tlavi is a bit impulsive."
I snorted at that. Then it dawned on me that I wasn’t hearing the liquid hissing Tlavi had made at me. "Wait, how do you know English?"
She shook her head at me and said, "I don't. You are speaking my language. It's part of why Tlavi injected you. It was actually an injection of nanobots. They gave you our language while you slept."
I took a deep breathe. Nanobots. Again, Toto, I was so not in Kansas. "Okay, I guess. I'm going to try to not freak out about being filled with tiny, alien robots who root around in my brain and just ask again, why am I even here?"
Thea finally looked uncomfortable, shifting around in her seat. She wouldn't met my eyes when she said, "I'm sorry, Meli, I really am, but you'll need to talk to my brother about that. I can't tell you, I'm so sorry."
I stood up. "Well then, take me to him." I tried to be matter of fact about it, but I wasn't really looking forward to actually seeing him again. My intensely physical reaction to him scared the hell out of me. An
d that kiss? Danger zone.
She stood up hastily and nervously wrung her hands. "He's not available right now. But I can help you get ready for meeting with him."
Thea grabbed my hand and drew me toward the curtains behind us. She definitely did not want to talk about her brother or why I was there.
Before I could badger her about it, she drew me into a room that took my breath away. The draperies on the walls stopped around a magnificent tiled pool. It reminded me of all the pictures of decadent tiled Roman pools. A waterfall at one end cascaded into it, filling it.
This must be whatever passed for a bathroom on a space ship. Which made me realize how utterly prosaic it was that I really, really, really needed to pee. And I had no idea if there was a toilet hidden anywhere or if it would work for me. I didn't see anything that resembled what I needed and I really did not want to pee in that magnificent pool.
"Uh, Thea, I don't know how to say this, but while I recognize a pool when I see one, I do not recognize a toilet. And I desperately need to use one."
"Oh yes, of course." She walked over and pressed part of the tiled wall and that section disappeared. She gestured me inside.
I was relieved that something that looked vaguely toilet-like existed on the star ship. It meant they, well, eliminated in some fashion. It was ridiculous, but it made me feel like we had something so basic in common.
She showed me a button next to the toilet and said, "Just press this for cleansing when you are done."
I guess they had moved past toilet paper.
She stepped out and the wall reappeared, giving me privacy. I was alone. I used the bathroom, but sat there for a long minute just staring at the button. Would it…I mean…how did I know they had the same or at least similar genitalia?
I considered just dripping dry, but I braced myself and hit the button. I went to hit it again, but realized that actually, I was clean and dry. Like magic. Just…done. How pleasant. Definitely a point in favor of the lizard people.
I put myself to rights and walked over to the door, realizing I had no idea how to open it. As I stood there, a single tile pulsed so I reached over and pushed it. Success! The door disappeared and I walked back into the room.
The pool had finished filling and steam rose off the inviting surface. In the far corner of the room, water fell like a heavy rain from the ceiling. Thea stepped back in at that moment, carrying a flowing garment.
She set it on the bench, then gestured at the rainfall corner. "There are various cleansing products by the shower, for washing before you soak. The gown is for you, so I can clean your garments."
Considering the look on her face as she regarded my clothing, I figured I was never going to see them again. I felt grungy enough that I almost didn't care. Almost.
"Yes, well, since I don't know where I am, why I am here or how long I will be here, I will want to keep my clothes."
Thea nodded and murmured something noncommittal at me, before fleeing the room.
I did feel absolutely disgusting, so stripping out of my filthy clothes felt pretty amazing. I walked into the crazy rain/waterfall shower. It was absolutely glorious. I could learn to live like this. It dampened my spirits when I realized I might have to live like this. I was a well-treated prisoner, but still not free.
And the various products Thea mentioned? I cannot describe them. Thank God there were pictures on the tiles above the taps, because apparently the nanobots did not give me the ability to read the squiggly alien script. But my hair has never felt more like silk.
And the scents? Out of this world. I suppose literally.
I lost track of time after I slipped into the entirely too-big-to-be-a-bathtub pool and tried to relax. If I was going to be an alien abductee and whisked billions of miles from home, I could at least enjoy the good bits. And this soak was an extraordinarily good bit.
Of course, thinking about being so far from home made me think of my Mom. Whatever fights we'd had in the past, the thought of never seeing her again hit me right in the gut.
If all this wasn't an insane hallucination and was really happening, I could literally be billions of miles away from my family. If that was true, then I would have no way of ever letting my mother know what had happened. I would be one more missing person, and only my mother would remember me.
Holy hell, as far as my mother knew, I’d flitted off again, again, and disappeared into the desert. They would find my car and maybe the two idiots who attacked me. But the men would never come forward and admit what had happened.
There would only be a recently fired shotgun, a campsite, and my car. And my dash cam! I’d completely forgotten that it had been running. Of course, if television taught me anything, it was that the footage was probably already mysteriously missing. Either a government agency bound to secrecy or alien technology helping keep them under wraps.
I hoped the men would be forced to say something, so even if I never made it back to earth, Mom could at least get some closure. To know I didn't abandon her, that I would come back if I could.
Thinking about never seeing her again, combined with being clean and sitting in the tub, and I burst into tears. I tried to muffle the sound, but I'm an ugly, loud crier. Fuck 'em. They kidnapped me. It's okay for me to have a solid breakdown bawl in the tub.
After I'd finally cried myself out, I got out of the pool. Whatever was in their version of soap and shampoo was just amazing. Even after a good soak, my hair and skin had never felt softer.
I stood there dripping and looking around the room. There were no towels. I hadn't thought about that. They'd done away with toilet paper, and apparently towels, too. Since I loved the feeling of toweling off after a bath, I was pretty bummed out.
I took another step and whatever crazy drying technology they had kicked in. Before I made it to the bench my gown was hanging next to, I was dry. I still missed the feeling of a nice towel, but at least I was dry.
I touched the dress. The fabric was gorgeous, an ombre of dark blue into emerald green. It moved like chiffon, light and airy. The color shifted as I touched it. I looked around the bench and realized that, while she'd provided a dress, there were no undergarments. No panties, no bra. I side-eyed the dress and thought, And no Spanx. This could get ugly.
Still I could give my panties a good wash in the pool and use the magic drying powers of their bathroom. I moved over to where I'd stripped out of my things and they were gone. I walked in a slow circle, trying to convince myself that I'd just put them someplace else. But nope. They were gone.
At some point, someone or something had slipped in, stolen my dirty laundry and I never noticed. It made me feel very vulnerable and I scurried back to the dress. I wanted to get dressed ASAP, even if it meant I was going commando.
It appeared to be one piece and I groaned. There must be some magic hidden zipper or something, but I couldn't work it out. I finally pulled it on over my head. I had to wiggle a bit to get my boobs into the top, but it was surprisingly comfortable.
A section of the wall mirrored as I stood there and I took advantage of it to preen a bit. It draped and flowed like it had been made for me.
I couldn't help but marvel at the magic of the garment. I guess the comic books got one thing right - boob wrangling of the future was made of magic. My significant bosom felt supported and the girls looked freaking amazing, all without a single strap digging into my shoulders and back. A girl had to appreciate that!
I finally figured out the whole "leaving the bathroom" thing and stepped back into the main room.
And he was there.
He was lounging on one of the divans. I froze at the door and contemplated fleeing back into the bathroom when the door slid shut behind me. Fuck.
He slowly rose - his gaze never shifting from mine. I decided against fumbling to figure out how to reopen the door. I squared my shoulders and took a step forward, trying to project a strength I didn't feel.
"I want you to take me home, now."
; My words fell into the room and sat there. He started walking slowly toward me, but I stood my ground. Sort of. It was like being stalked by a wild animal and I knew in my bones that, if I let him get close…SNAP…the jaws of a massive saltwater croc would snap around me.
I put my hands up. "Stop."
Dammit, I sounded more scared than firm. But he stopped. Stopped and smiled.
Gulp.
His eyes raked over my body. He lingered at my considerable cleavage and it took everything in my power to not cover myself with my hands. I had to hide how he impacted me. I'd never physically lusted after anyone so badly.