by Sophie Stern
A Whore
Aboard the Mother Ship
Sophie Stern
Summer is bored with her job, bored with her friends, and bored with her boyfriend until one strange night changes everything.
Copyright © 2014 by Sophie Stern
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Amber Feldkamp
Contents
1.
2.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
AUTHOR
1.
The front door slams shut as Evan storms out of the house.
I stand silently, for once, just watching him march down the sidewalk to the driveway. It's not like there's anything I can do. After all, we've had this fight before. We've had this problem before. We've had this solution before. It's all very trite, of course, but that doesn't change the way that things are.
I piss him off: he goes to Cory's.
End of story.
It's not that I'm trying to be a bad girlfriend. I'm not, really. I'm just so damn bored with my life and tired of everything. Everyone does the same thing every day. My friends go to the same restaurants every weekend. My boss wants me to file the same paperwork every Friday. It's old, and I'm tired of it.
I need something different.
I slump onto the couch and pick up my glass of wine, wondering if it's time for me to make some changes in my life. I could. There’s plenty that I could do. It wouldn't be so bad. I could get a new job, move to a new place, find some new girlfriends, and maybe even get a new guy. I could do anything. Hell, I'm only 23. That's much too young to be tethered down anywhere for long.
At least, that's what I tell myself.
The problem is that I’m lazy. I’m stuck in a rut. I’m comfortable where I’m at and I have little motivation to change. How bored do I have to get before I actually do something to improve my situation? I don’t like the routine and monotony of my life, but is that enough to get me out of my comfort zone?
I glance at the clock and realize that it's only 9:30. It's too early for bed, but too late to call anyone. All of my coworkers are undoubtedly soaking up their favorite shows on Netflix and my girlfriends are either putting their kids to bed or blowing their boyfriends.
Looks like I'm alone tonight.
I finish the wine and carry my empty glass to the sink, wondering how much more of Evan I can handle. It's not like we're that serious, really. We’ve been dating for close to a year now and we’re sort-of happy together. We get along most of the time. Sometimes I feel like we’re together out of convenience, though. Neither one of us is particularly passionate about the other, but we have a lot in common, so we stay together.
I like him, don't get me wrong. I might even love him. Do I want to be with him forever, though? That I don't know. Forever is a pretty long time. Maybe it's because my parents are divorced that I'm so hesitant to jump into marriage. Maybe it's because I'm so unsure of myself. Maybe it's just that I'm selfish. I don’t know.
The one thing that I do know, though, is that if I don't do anything tonight, I'm going to go crazy. It's cold out, so I grab my hoodie and head outside. A little walk could do wonders for clearing my mind. At least, that's what I tell myself as I make my way out the door and down the road.
My neighborhood is very much the ideal picture of perfection, at least if you love the suburbs. No one smokes here. Almost nobody drinks. Everyone is always inviting Evan and me to barbeques and cookouts and pool parties and events.
And as much as I'd like to be seen as the picture-perfect girlfriend of the neighborhood, that's just not who I am. That's just not the kind of person I feel like trying to be.
So instead of gulping down lemonade and pretending to enjoy hanging out with my neighbors' kids, I spend most of my free afternoons going on jogs at the lake or drawing at the park. I tell myself it's a great night for a jog and I make my way down the familiar route to the nearby trails that lead to one of the most beautiful lakes I've ever seen.
I just hope it's enough to erase tonight from my mind, at least for a little while. It’s not that this was the first time we’ve ever had a fight. Trust me: we’ve had plenty. There was something different about tonight’s argument, though. There was something final about the way Evan slammed the door. I think he’ll forgive me if I grovel, but I was a huge bitch. That’s not something a guy is just going to forget.
Maybe Evan was right. Maybe I am just a huge prude.
I try to push his angry words from my mind, so I run. My feet pound against the pavement and soon I forget everything but the way my body aches to stop. I press on, trying to do just a little more. Just a bit more. Just a little farther. I can do this.
I need to.
I’ve made so many mistakes in my life, let so many people down. The last thing I want to do is stop running. I know that it’s late and I’m still angry. I know it’s crazy to be out in the dark by myself, but I can’t stop. I can’t stop going.
And then I see a light.
I mean, I see a light.
It's not the kind of light you'd expect to see at the park. I wonder, briefly, if someone is having a party and decided it would be fun to have a strobe light. I keep moving along the path, trying to keep my pace steady. When I get closer, though, I see that the light is coming down toward the ground. It's not going up.
I wonder what it is.
And like a dumb blonde opening up the locked door in a horror movie, I move toward the light. I can’t seem to stop myself. My feet take on a life of their own. I stray from the pavement and wander into the grass, toward a large clearing.
I glance around, but the park is empty. It’s just me and this weird glow. Suddenly, I’m drawn to the light. I can’t look away. It’s so beautiful. All the fear, anxiety, and stress that’s been weighing me down disappears and I just gawk at this light.
I almost feel like a falling star is hovering a little too close to earth. I could just reach out and touch it. After all, what's the worst that could happen? It’s just light, but it seems magical. I can’t explain why.
For a brief moment, I wonder how I got to be so lucky that something magical happened to me tonight. I wish Evan was here to see it with me. I wish we could hold hands and stare at the light together. Maybe it would make us realize that our argument was stupid and meaningless. Maybe it would help us realize that nothing really matters, as long as we’re together. I think of Evan and how he would love to see this.
But he’s not here.
I fucked everything up and he left.
So now I'm here alone.
The thought makes my heart feel heavy again, but I take a step closer. I’m desperate to forget about my day. Hell, I’m desperate to forget about my life. I take another step, then another.
As I near the radiating light, I try to peer up. When I do, I'm nearly blinded by the strength of the light. It's so bright that it hurts my eyes. I feel like I'm staring into the sun on a hot summer day, but I remind myself that it's the middle of the night. It’s the middle of the night and there’s this random light.
I look around once again to make sure I’m not being stupid. Surely no one is doing construction here in the middle of the night. No one is having a party. No one is messing around out here. There has to be some sort of logical explanation, though. Where is the brightness coming from?
I take another step.
I walk slowly until I'm standing in the middle of the light, and that's when I'm finally able to look u
p again.
And I see it.
It's a mother ship.
No, not a pretend ship or a fake ship or a hologram.
It's the real deal.
I'm standing in the center of a clearing and there is an alien spaceship hovering over me.
And just when I think things couldn't get any more fantastic or any more weird, I start to float up towards it.
2.
I open my mouth to scream, but nothing comes out. I’m floating up toward the ship. I know it’s happening, but it has to be a dream. It has to be.
Finally, my voice starts working and a scream escapes my lips.
“Help!” I shout. “Help me!”
What’s happening? Where am I? What is this? Am I dreaming? I have to be dreaming. There’s no way this is real. I’ve never considered myself to be the type of girl who freaks out over the unexplained, but this is impossible.
A million thoughts race through my head as I'm raised above the ground. "Why am I here?" and "Is there life after death?" are not among them. No, I'm not thinking about dying or the meaning of life. I know I’m not going to die today. What I don’t know is if this is some weird government experiment gone wrong or not.
Something is stealing me from planet Earth and I have a feeling I’m not going to like what’s about to happen to me. If there are aliens on that ship, I know enough to understand that I’m going to be touched and poked and prodded. I’m being abducted from my home, from my world, from my life. I’m being stolen away on a real, honest-to-goodness spaceship and there’s nothing I can say to make it stop.
I hear a sound through the darkness and I realize that it’s me. I’m still screaming. I’m still crying out for help as my brain tries to understand and rationalize what’s happening to me. I’m being taken and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I've seen plenty of movies about aliens and abductions. Hasn't everyone? In the movies, you always feel stupidly scared or stupidly relaxed. If you're too scared, you’re racist or afraid of things you don’t understand. If you're too relaxed, you're dumb and the surprisingly evil aliens take over the world.
I try to tether myself to a mood that's somewhere between the two extremes, but I can’t. I just can’t. Horror fills me and I wonder if I’m ever going to be returned to my home. I’m not under the impression that this is anything less than an abduction. It’s a kidnapping in the strangest form.
I’m filled with dread and the realization that I’ve made a huge mess of my life. I’ve wasted so much time with people who don’t really care about or appreciate me instead of going after the things I really want. Why am I still in a crappy relationship with someone who doesn’t love me? Why do I hang out with boring people who never do anything interesting? Why am I not in school, training to be a vet?
I feel like a huge failure.
I’ve let time slip by me. I’ve wasted my years away. At just 23, I suddenly feel much, much older. And now, as I hang loosely in the air, suspended by some magical light, I realize that everything has been useless.
I take a deep breath and look up. I'm floating higher and higher. I can see the tops of the trees, the jogging path, and the playground where little children spend their afternoons. The whole world rests in silence this evening. The solitude is broken only by my screaming and my beating heart, yet no one can hear me. Without being told, I get the feeling that the light that encases me is holding all of me from prying eyes, including my sounds.
I’m completely alone now.
Part of me wishes for one brief moment that I could tell someone about this. Part of me wishes I had a friend to talk to, anyone. Whether it be Sally from accounting or Lucy from high school, I feel like someone should hear this story.
But who would ever believe me?
And why isn’t Evan the one I want to tell?
The light continues pulling me upward for what feels like hours, but what is probably just a few minutes. It's warm. I feel comfortable and safe. I try to twist around and look down to see how far I've come, but I find that I'm unable to move. All I can do is lie here and wait until the light ends to see where I'm at.
But the light doesn't end.
I keep moving up and up and up. The ship that seemed so close now seems far and I am in an endless stream of light. I float for minutes or hours, but don’t seem to get any closer to reaching my destination. There’s no doubt in my mind that the ship is my destination, but there’s nothing I can do about it, so I allow my body to relax and just be.
And despite being in the middle of the sky, I finally drift off into a warm, comfortable sleep.
I dream of the argument and the freedom I felt floating. I dream of my childhood and my parents. I dream of my first pet and my last. I dream of my whole life and then I dream of nothing.
I begin to slid in and out of consciousness as I reach the end of the light. Part of me wants to wake up. Part of me wants to see what's going on. Part of me wants to explore every single thing that's going to happen. There's another part of me, though, a more logical part. That part of me reminds me that I need to rest. I need to gear up for what's about to happen, so I close my eyes. I let the stress, anxiety, and frustration of my day melt away.
I let my mind become perfectly blank.
I have the overwhelming sense that nothing can hurt me. I have this feeling of excitement that everything that's going to happen is going to be very, very satisfying for everyone involved. I'm not sure why my thoughts feel so very vibrant. I'm not sure why I suddenly feel so at peace.
I just do.
4.
I open my eyes, and I'm in a large cushion in the center of a room. It feels like a giant beanbag chair: the kind you'd see in a freshman's dorm room, only this one is large and clear and envelops my entire body. I'm sinking into it and I almost can't see through the clear exterior of the chair, at least not clearly. Everything is blurry.
"Help," I try to scream, but my voice doesn't come out. "Where am I?" I try to ask. The same thing happens: nothing. There's just silence. Maybe my visions of having a wonderful time being abducted were misplaced. Maybe my notions of peace and comfort were wrong because now I'm panicking. Now I'm feeling like I'm going to die here, but it won't be at the hands of an alien: it will be at the hands of the killer beanbag chair.
Just as I'm about to accept my fate, the chair begins to deflate, leaving me in a soft, mushy pile. I open my eyes and look around, surprised to see a lone alien staring at me. At least, I think it's an alien. It isn't exactly what I pictured. It's different, somehow. Sure, its skin is still dark green, but it doesn't have a scary face. It looks almost human, save for its height and skin tone.
And its eyes. Its eyes are pitch black.
Even so, despite its scary appearance, I don't feel like this creature is going to hurt me.
"Of course I'm not going to hurt you."
It's a voice, but the alien isn't speaking to me. It doesn't have a mouth. How could it?
"We are a race that does not need to speak out loud to be understood."
I hear it again, perfectly clear.
And then I realize: it's in my head.
The alien is speaking to me using only its mind. I'm hearing its thoughts reflected in my own. We're communicating on another level.
No wonder I couldn't speak: words are useless here.
"Where am I?" I think hard, making sure that the alien can understand me.
"No need to shout," it says. I feel like it's laughing, but not in a bad way. I think it is amused with me. I think that it is curious about me.
"I'm sorry," I think, not so hard this time.
"You're fine," the alien tells me. "You're on my ship."
"The mother ship," I think, suddenly confident.
The alien laughs again. I hear it in my head: loud and beautiful and sweet. It sounds like bells and treats and warm summer afternoons. I wonder if it is a boy alien or a girl alien. I wonder if it thinks in such simplistic terms.
"This is n
ot the mother ship," it tells me. "This is simply my ship."
"You have your own ship." I can't quite comprehend this. I have flashes of pilots owning their own private planes or ship captains who have their own ships. Is that what life is like for this alien? Did it purchase this ship because it happens to be a very rich alien? Or was it awarded the ship for being a valuable member of its society?
Would it be rude to ask?
Part of me thinks it would.
Part of me doesn't care.
But then I remember where I am and I realize, very quickly, that I should care. I realize, very fast, just how important it is for me to pay attention and be alert. I need to care. I need to try to soak up everything that I can because there may come a point when I need to try to escape.