by Ashley West
“You should. Don’t you want to get one who’s going to be good to you?”
She turned incredulous eyes on her best friend. “Good to me? Sam, none of them are going to be good to me. It’s not in their natures. They’re…” she lowered her voice, not wanting to be overheard by any of the Calphesians in the stands with them. “They’re beasts, Samantha. They would have killed us all if Dr. Anderson hadn’t come up with the idea for that treaty. They don’t see us as equals at all, and there’s no way that one of them can be good to me if he doesn’t see me as an equal.”
“But they need us.”
And that much was true. The Calphesians were overwhelmingly male. There were very few females in their number, and their numbers had apparently been dropping for centuries. Stooping to marrying and reproducing with human women was a last resort, and chosen only because it seemed like Calphesian blood was stronger than human blood and any child born between a Calphesian man and a human woman would be mostly Calphesian.
The part of the treaty that gave them access to human women was like a blessing to prolong their race. Honestly, Roxy would prefer to let them die out.
The thing about it was that she was opposed to the whole marrying off of eligible young women, but especially when it came to her. She knew that some women didn’t mind. Some of them found the idea exciting, a thrill to be the wife of a strong warrior, someone different than they could get otherwise.
Roxanne just found the idea loathsome. She’d worked so hard, getting through school and everything, working two jobs every summer so she’d have enough money to pay for books and other necessities, and now she was going to be reduced to being the wife of one of these creatures. Who even knew if he’d let her work or continue to look for a job in her field. He’d probably expect her to cook and clean and pop out his babies and treat her likes some kind of servant.
She hated it, and she didn’t see how anyone could hear about the practice and not find it outdated and cruel.
So while Samantha was leaning in enthusiastically, watching the Calphesians lift heavy boulders over their heads one right after the other, Roxanne was sitting there grinding her teeth.
They all sort of looked the same in a muscle bound kind of way, and it seemed ridiculous that down there, standing on the hard packed earth was the man (and she used the word lightly) that she was meant to marry. None of them looked friendly or particularly intelligent, so that meant there wouldn’t be much conversation between them. She couldn’t think of what they’d talk about anyway.
“So, remember when your people were dead set on killing mine? Good times, right?”
Yeah. Not exactly pleasant conversation for dinner time or whatever. Roxanne had barely ever pictured herself married with children, let alone married to someone who wasn’t even from her planet with children who were half...alien.
The very thought made her shudder.
But the tournament continued, everyone oblivious to the fact that she was sitting there fuming. In spite of her anger, she had to admit that they were all very skilled. No one seemed to be even breaking a sweat when it came to the lifting, and soon a Calphesian with dark hair coiled in several thick braids was lauded as the winner and the competition shifted.
Around the arena had been marked out a sort of makeshift track. The length of it was longer than a football field, and it went around the oval shaped arena in a complete loop. That was for the race.
The tournament would continue with that, the top ten competitors from the lifting contest going on to race against each other. From there it would move into the top six who would enter the shootout and then the top five out of that would enter the battle royale, and the last three to be standing would be the victors.
Those three would get to choose from the women who they wished to be their bride and then there would be a feast.
It was a celebration for the Calphesians, and humans treated it as one, too, even though Roxy had no idea how they could act like it was. It wasn’t like they had gained all that much from the treaty, though as her mother had told her, being able to continue living without being killed or enslaved by the Calphesians wasn’t anything to turn their noses up at.
And she knew her mother was right. If she hadn’t been selected as one of the women to have to marry one of them, she’d probably agree.
“They’re sort of good looking in a weird way,” Samantha murmured, drawing Roxanne’s attention from her fuming to the Calphesians who were running around the track. Their feet, bare and now brown with earth, pounded against the ground as they ran, easily outstripping the pace a human would be able to maintain.
They were all muscular, and ten years of being on Earth had darkened their skin from the pallor they’d arrived with to something resembling a light tan. Apparently their planet was so far from their sun that they hardly ever benefitted from its warmth, but as they had no plans to go back, that didn’t seem to matter much.
They weren’t ugly to look at, that much was true. Their features were too sharp to be human, and the horns certainly didn’t help, but there was a sort of otherworldly beauty about them that couldn’t be ignored.
There was even beauty in their strength if someone wanted to look at it that way. All of their motions looked effortless, like they weren’t even trying that hard, even though when they ran by the section Roxy and Sam were sitting in, she could see that they had all broken a sweat.
“I guess,” Roxy replied, shrugging.
It was a close race, all of them keeping pace with each other easily. They went around the track five times, and by then the winners were clear, crossing the finish line in a cluster.
Their names were called out and the ones who had been disqualified went to one side.
And so it continued on like that. The shooting match was an exciting display of Calphesian tech, one of their few women holding an armful of metal disks about as big around as a dinner plate. She threw one after another into the air and the competitors had to shoot a hole through the middle, the beams of light and energy that came from their guns burning round holes right through the metal.
That narrowed them down further, and soon enough it was time for the battle royale. It was this that Roxanne didn’t really want to see.
She had been twelve years old when the Calphesians had invaded, and she’d been glued to her television set in her grandmother’s house where she and her parents had run to when the call to evacuate the area around the ship had gone out.
The first ship had landed not more than twenty miles from the busy city they lived in, and she’d watched the news feed religiously, waiting to see what had happened.
So she remembered how they had wielded their weapons and used them to cut through the first wave of the army like they were nothing more than ants before them. She remembered staring at the screen when the feed had cut out, playing the scene over and over in her head, the way blasters and blades had sliced through flesh, showing the splatter of blood, until her mother had come and made her go to bed.
And they expected her to marry one of them?
Roxanne barely paid attention as the fight started, the sound of metal on metal ringing out in the arena. As they always seemed to be, the Calphesians were shirtless, no armor protecting them from the blows of swords and axes.
She didn’t know if they were using dulled weapons or what, but the blows that landed seemed to roll right off of them.
Beside her, Samantha was nearly falling out of her seat with how far she was leaning forward, clearly eager to watch every strike. Under the roar of the crowd, Roxy could hear Samantha’s excited breathing, and it made her a little sick.
Honestly, she didn’t care which of them won, and she closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing and not thinking about what was happening in the arena or what had happened before.
It felt like it dragged on for hours, but soon enough the horn was being blown, startling Roxanne into opening her eyes. In the middle of the arena, three Calphesians stood
tall and proud. They were bruised and a little bloody, but there were grins on their faces.
“The champions!” called the Calphesian who was acting as the master of ceremonies. He explained what it meant that they had won, and Roxanne found it hard to breathe.
It was over. One of those creatures down there was going to choose her to be his wife, and there was nothing she could do about it.
She felt the need to run, to get up and get out of there, and she jumped when someone touched her shoulder. Roxanne turned her head to see Samantha looking at her with a sympathetic expression. “They just said that you’re supposed to stand up,” she said.
When Roxanne looked, there were two other women in the crowd on their feet, a pretty blonde woman and a brunette, and Roxy swallowed hard and then rose to her feet.
“And the prizes!” the Calphesian called, gesturing to the three of them. “If you ladies would make your way to the back someone will see to you.”
The other two turned to do as they were told, but Roxy felt rooted to the spot. She couldn’t breathe, and her hands were shaking.
“Hey,” Samantha said. “It’ll be okay. You’ll be fine.”
She’d told her parents not to come, but now she sort of wished they would have anyway. At least they knew that this wasn’t something to be proud of or happy about. They would have mourned with her.
Roxanne just nodded to Sam’s attempt to reassure her and turned to head to the back where there was another female Calphesian waiting. “Your name?” she asked, looking down at the tablet in her hands.
“Roxanne Weaver,” Roxy said, voice trembling.
She held out her hand for Roxy’s and pressed it to the tablet. There was a rush of warmth and then a trilling sound that clearly indicated she’d passed whatever fingerprint test she’d just been put through.
“This way,” the female said, motioning for Roxy to follow her. “My name is Llya. I will be attending to you.”
“Nice to meet you,” Roxanne lied.
The female Calphesians were somewhat less scary than their male counterparts. They weren’t as tall, and their horns were smaller, and they wore more clothes, draped in silky fabrics that were nearly sheer, leaving very little to the imagination. Even as she followed her, Roxanne could see the swell of Llya’s hips and the curves of her breasts when they turned down a corridor. She blushed lightly and averted her eyes.
Llya led her to a room that turned out to be a bathroom. A very large bathroom.
The Calphesian compound was the strangest mixture of old and advanced, as evidenced by the tablets and sensors in the walls and doors and the large, sunken basin that served as a bathtub in the center of the room.
It was more like a small pool than a tub, and she watched as Llya and another woman filled it with warm, scented water. It smelled sweet and slightly herby, and Roxanne was nervous about what they might have put in it.
There was a rack of clothing against one wall, and a mirror set into the wall opposite, but the room was bare other than those things and a few small tables which held various bottles and containers.
“Undress,” said Llya, and Roxy’s blush returned. She’d been naked in front of other women before in locker rooms and dressing rooms, but this was something completely different. These women weren’t even the same species as her, and they were staring.
“Do I have to?” she asked, taking a step back.
The two women exchanged a look and Llya stepped forward. “We will not hurt you,” she said. “You must be made ready.”
Seeing that she really had no other choice in the matter, Roxanne sighed. Carefully she undid the buttons of her shirt and took it off, letting it drop to the floor. She toed off her shoes and socks and then wiggled out of her jeans, standing there in her underwear for a moment before she worked up the nerve to take those off as well.
The other female said something in the Calphesian’s harsh sounding language to Llya who nodded and smiled. “She is saying your skin is very dark. Beautiful,” Llya translated.
“Oh,” Roxy said, blinking. “Thank you.”
Since all the Calphesians were so pale, she supposed dark skin like hers was something of a novelty. She was lighter than her mother, her skin a rich, chestnut brown.
Llya took her hand carefully and led her over to the sunken tub, helping her in.
The water was hot and slightly oily, and Roxanne quickly began to wash herself before one of them could decide that they needed to help her. She didn’t need them to tell her to be thorough, since she was going to be presented like the “prize” she was supposed to be.
The soap smelled like vanilla and lavender and she worked it over her skin, and then sank down in the water, rinsing and enjoying the way the soothing bath worked to calm her nerves.
Once she was deemed clean enough, she was helped out of the bath and dried off and more oils were applied to her skin, which shimmered under the lights. The two women looked at her face for a moment and conversed in low tones before Llya went to get a pot of something that turned out to be gold pigment.
She dipped a finger into it and used it to add a dab of gold to the corner of both of Roxy’s eyes and then to draw curving lines over her collarbones and leading down to her breasts.
When Llya stepped back, the other one came forward, holding a bundle of cloth in the same light material that their clothes were made from. She helped Roxanne step into it, adjusting things here and there before tying it with the sash.
It was like a dress, though the splits on either side of it went all the way up her thighs to her hips, showing her legs and leaving little to the imagination. To Roxanne’s relief, the material was less sheer than what Llya and her companion were wearing, though it still clung and bunched in all the right places to show her...assets.
One shoulder was left completely bare, and it reminded Roxy of the clothes that women wore back in Ancient Greece, draped and flowing and tied with a sash.
The color was a dusky rose that worked well with her skin tone, and her masses of dark curls fell over her shoulders, adding to the effect. When she looked at herself in the mirror that was provided, she felt like being sick all over again because she looked beautiful and every inch like some trophy to be passed off to a champion.
The two females stood back and admired their work on her, nodding to each other. Llya stepped forward once again, eyes cautious.
“You know what will happen?” she asked.
Roxy gave her a puzzled look. “I go out there and one of them picks me to be his wife?” she returned, voice dry.
Llya nodded and then hesitated. “Are you…” she gestured to Roxanne’s lower half. “Have you?”
For a moment Roxy was confused, unsure if there was some sort of language barrier here or if Llya was just too awkward to ask her question in plain language. “Have I what?”
The two Calphesians conferred in their language again and the other said something, which made Llya blush. “Are you untouched?” she asked finally, and then it was Roxy’s turn to blush, even though she usually wasn’t shy about things like that. Still, there was something about being asked if she was a virgin or not by an alien woman that was just so surreal.
“No,” Roxanne replied stridently. “Is that going to be a problem?”
They both shook their heads. “No, no. They like...they prefer to not have to...to wait,” Llya explained, and it honestly wasn’t a surprise to hear that.
“Wonderful,” Roxanne deadpanned, dislike and unhappiness twisting and growing until it was like a lead weight in her stomach.
From somewhere else in the compound another horn was blown, and the two women stopped their hovering and adjusting and ushered her out the door.
Everything was happening so fast.
One minute she was being dressed up and the next she was being led back out into the arena. The crowds were still there, but now there were three throne like chairs in the middle of the arena and all the weapons and stones had been cleared away
.
The thrones were high backed and tall, draped with crimson fabrics, and seated on them were the three champions.
They looked much alike, all with dark hair and pale skin, and Roxy wasn’t close enough to see what color their eyes were. One of them was clearly older if his horn size was to be believed, and they sat on their thrones like reigning kings, looking down on the women with interest.
The other two women had been done up in much the same fashion as Roxy, draped in their dresses (blue for the blonde and gold for the brunette), though she noticed that both of them were more heavily made up than she was. She wondered what that was about.
Both of them looked nervous, but excited, and Roxanne knew that she was probably the only one who saw this as a sort of death sentence, but that was fine. She hadn’t expected to end up friends with them anyway.
The three Calphesians looked down at them, two of them looked interested, and one looked like he was bored and couldn’t be bothered, and Roxanne disliked him immediately. For a moment no one moved, and then the one who was in charge of the ceremony rushed forward.
“Three champions, three prizes!” he cried, and Roxanne wondered if he was the most excitable Calphesian on the planet. None of the others she’d ever seen had ever spoken with that much enthusiasm in their voices, and the others seemed to be pained by him, even though they didn’t have much of a choice but to put up with it. “Three for three in the way of the treaty,” he continued. “May there always be peace between our kind and yours.”
There was a moment of silence, seemingly to honor what had been said, and Roxanne barely resisted rolling her eyes. It was hard to see the benefit of this when she was the one who was giving up her life for it.
“Now,” the master of ceremonies said, “as our first champion, Shiia, you have first choice.”
The Calphesian sitting in the furthest to the left rose in one fluid motion, and Roxanne was momentarily struck by how graceful he was to be so big. He was bulkier than the other two, and his markings were the most vivid, a deep red instead of the usual brown color. It looked like blood, and she swallowed hard and glanced away, hoping he wouldn’t pick her.