Chapter 6
It’s almost dark before I leave the cabin, but one way or another, I am going to have to sell this place.
“He will come to you in your dreams,” Nestor had said.
I’ve spent all day drinking coffee.
My legs still hurt and my skin is still pretty fried, but I can’t put this off any longer. I walk down Lakeview Drive and am quite pleased I actually make it to Max’s without interruption.
He’s sitting on his front porch, smoking a cigarette. When he sees me walking up, he stands.
“Kate,” he says. “Why, you look like hell.”
“Feel a lot like it too,” I tell him. “Hey, I was wondering if you happened to keep track of people making offers on the cabins up here.”
His bottom lip presses up against the top. “Decided to sell the place, huh?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I answer. “Otherwise, I don’t think I’m going to be able to keep going much longer.” I don’t know why, but I’ve always been a little extra honest with Max. Okay, maybe not all the time, but I try.
“Well,” he says, “I’ll be sorry to see you goin’ so soon, but I bet I can scrape some names together. Mind if I bring that over to you in the morning?”
“Sure,” I tell him, a sharp chill shoots through my body. “Morning should be fine.”
In the back of my head, I think I was expecting some kind of immediate solution: Someone who’d already placed an offer that would answer my call tonight. I was expecting there’d be someone who would come up here before I got too tired to stay awake and too sick to keep drinking coffee; someone who’d get up here before I fall asleep, who’d bring cash—at least a down payment—and I could leave tonight. Then, I could make my decision without actually making my decision.
“Did you need somethin’ else?” he asks. “I bet we’ve got some aloe or something for your sunburn. Where were ya, anyway?”
“Thanks, Max,” I say, and I turn and walk back toward Gramma’s cabin. For now, I guess it’s my cabin.
I’m willing to meet whoever the Arcturians have chosen, but I’m afraid I’ll end up wanting to say no, but being guilted into saying yes. Still, though, I’m not sure saying yes is necessarily a bad thing. Apparently part of me already wants to; otherwise, I would have taken the out Nestor already offered.
I’m wired and tired, my muscles crying out for rest, but injected with the very tension that’s going to prevent it. When I get into the cabin, I don’t think too hard about it as I grab my purse and take out the pill bottle.
Maybe another pill is too much for me, maybe it isn’t. Either way, one’s on its way down my throat. I tell myself it’s just to take the edge off of all that coffee so I don’t feel like my brain is trying to electrocute my body all night, but I don’t believe me.
Every time I think of just calling it off at my soonest opportunity—whenever that’s going to be—my mind flashes back to the vision of that tall, dark-haired man. He’s the one they’ve selected for me. I can’t say how I know, but I know.
I don’t know if the whole process would be carried out in a dream-like Nestor said; or whether that was just a metaphor, that it would simply begin after I’d fallen asleep, only to be reawakened on the ship.
Already, I’m feeling less shaky. I wouldn’t say I’m really tired, but the pill is starting to kick in.
How do I know they’re telling me the truth about everything? They could be trying to breed a race of super-aliens to take over the galaxy for all I know, and giving birth to one of those creatures may very well split me in half.
I think about grabbing another cup of coffee to try to short-circuit the sleeping pill, but that vision, that man, he flashes back into my consciousness again, and I feel my right hand moving down my front, settling at the bottom of my shirt.
There is nothing like the desire coursing through me in this moment. I close my eyes, trying to hang onto that mental picture just a little longer and with my right hand, I unbutton my pants. What’s most surprising is that I’m doing all of this and I know it.
I always told myself I was so smart for staying away from any kind of serious relationship, but I missed out on a lot of things in doing it. Maybe my first sexual experience didn’t set the bar very high, but that doesn’t mean I stopped being a woman somewhere along the way. To be honest, I’d kind of like to start referring to my first sexual experience because it was the first, not because I don’t want to think of it as my only.
If I can just release the hold of that man in my thoughts, maybe I’ll be more likely to go into things with a clear head. It’s an excuse. I know it, but as my fingers slide between skin and panties, that desire only grows.
Feeling the heat coming from my center, I gasp a little as the pad of my middle finger slides over my bud and I curl it between my folds, into the slick wetness inside me.
In my mind, I’m standing in front of the man and we’re both naked. He takes a step toward me, I take a step toward him and we meet in the middle, our lips coming together as we embrace. I can almost feel his throbbing hardness pressed against me.
I slip my finger out from inside me and rub my clit in little circles, my legs twitching infrequently from the sharpness of the pleasure coursing through my body.
In my mind, he’s brushing a strand of hair away from my face as our lips separate. He’s taller than me by five, maybe six inches, and he lowers his arms, releasing me. Staring me in the eyes, but not saying a word, he walks around me, stopping before he’s all the way behind and he grabs me, his hands firm, eager.
I lift my finger and sit up a little, undoing my bra with my free hand. There’s no sense taking it off, though. I lean back into the sofa, closing my eyes again, and I’m pleasuring myself as I slide my left hand up under my shirt to grasp the soft flesh of my own breast. In my mind, the hands are not mine.
In my fantasy, he’s kissing my neck and my legs begin to quake, but he removes his hands from my body and walks away from me entirely. I want the real thing.
Maybe it’s not going to be like I imagined it. Maybe it’s not even going to be a sexual experience in any way I can imagine, but there is something so powerful drawing me toward that man that I don’t even care he technically isn’t one.
I couldn’t do this if it were just about avoiding the guilt that would come from saying no. Of course I feel empathy for these beings, assuming what they’re saying is true, but I’m not the only woman on Earth. Maybe I’m not to a definite yes or no yet, but I’m no longer afraid to fall asleep.
I’m eager.
I’m lying down now, my hands loosely clutching the top of the afghan, pulling it over me. Wanting to fall asleep, though, is making it difficult not to stay awake.
After about half an hour, I sit up and I take another pill. By the time I’m swallowing it, though, the obvious thought finally hits my negligent brain: If they can teleport me onto their ship, project my consciousness to a distant star and communicate with me by responding to my thoughts, they must be able to influence my thoughts. This overwhelming desire I feel could easily be just some form of mind control to get me to do what they want while convincing me that it was my choice in the first place.
Still, awake though I may be, that first pill is starting to reach its peak and my muscles are already gelatin. I haven’t taken enough, even with my limited tolerance, to overdose. I’m not worried about that. I’m just worried that when I meet this being, I won’t have the will to say “no.”
I lie back down and I feel like I’m melting into the cushions beneath me. Taking that second pill was a mistake. There is no more tension in my body and I’m having trouble focusing.
Of course, there’s a chance I’ll be too out of it to agree to anything. That’s my last thought before falling asleep.
***
My eyes are closed, but there’s light coming through my eyelids. I’m there, wherever there is. There’s no lingering smell of the pine trees surrounding the lake, only clean, odorl
ess air. I’m sitting up.
“Why do you close your eyes?” a male voice asks me.
“Because I don’t want to see you,” I tell him.
“Do you wish to return home?” he asks.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
There’s a pause. “You may call me Ryker,” he says. “You are Kathryn. You fear we are trying to remove your free will.”
I take a deep breath in and slowly release it. “Aren’t you?” I ask.
“We are not,” he answers. “If you wish to return, you may—” he stops suddenly. A moment later, he says, “You fear that our child would cause harm to your body.”
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” I ask. “You’re going to tell me I’m going to be just fine, maybe even that the birth will be painless or something just to try and sweeten the deal. Why me? Is it just because I was there?”
“I did not select you,” Ryker says. “You selected me. Open your eyes. Do I not please you?”
Finally, my curiosity overpowers my resolve, and my eyes open. I’m sitting at a small table, across from the man from the visions, only he’s dressed in a black business suit and we’re not aboard some spacecraft. We’re sitting alone at a restaurant.
“What are we doing here?” I ask.
“You wanted to know me,” Ryker says. “We have found that this is a common milieu for such things among your kind. Would you prefer another location?”
“No,” I answer. “This is fine, I guess. It’s just…”
“What’s wrong?” he asks, and I cock my head a little to one side.
“I don’t know why I’m seeing this you instead of, you know, the real you,” I answer.
A smile crosses the tanned, clean-shaven face of the “man” sitting across from me. “We’ve found that most of the people we’ve—”
“There it is,” I say. “You talk differently than the others. It’s kind of like you switched vernacular as we’ve been talking.”
“We’re not naïve,” Ryker says. “We know the fear that your kind have toward us. So, I look a little more like someone you may be attracted to and I speak a little more like you’re used to being spoken to. If you choose, you never have to see my true form.”
“Am I awake?” I ask.
“Of course,” he says. “Your choice must not only be free, but conscious so you can remember it.”
“Can I…” I start but am overcome with embarrassment.
He holds out his hand toward me, saying, “You wish to touch my hand to convince yourself.”
“You know, if you’re going to all this effort trying to make me comfortable, maybe you could stop responding to the thoughts in my head,” I tell him.
He smiles again, showing his perfectly straight, naturally white teeth. “I can do that,” he says.
I take his hand and look at him, first as an overall glance and then my eyes settle on his. The hand feels real enough. I can even feel his pulse quickening a little the longer I hold it.
His eyes are a deep blue, and as I gaze, his irises almost seem to churn and swell like the waves of the ocean. It takes a hard time coming back out of those eyes.
“Stand up,” I tell him. “Turn around.”
He stands, adjusts the blue tie around his neck and slowly turns around, his arms slightly away from his body. The suit, the white shirt beneath and the tie are all new, but in every other way, he is the physical embodiment of that fantasy, that projection in my head.
“So, would we… you know…” I start.
“What do you mean?” he asks. When I scoff, he chuckles.
“You know exactly what I mean,” I tell him. “If I were to agree to do what you’re asking me to do, would we have sex?”
“The sexual act must take place in a higher realm, but your experience of it may be whatever you choose,” he says.
“So, basically, you’d be doing some kind of weird voodoo shit and I’d just think I was getting a good lay?” I ask.
“Your words are strange to me,” he says, shaking his head. He’s really going to have to stop smiling because those dimples are taking a serious toll on my resolve. “Your experience may be whatever you choose,” Ryker says.
I don’t even realize I’m reaching for his hand again until I take it. “Could we just ignore the fact that I’m doing that for a minute?” I ask. “It’s just nice feeling someone’s touch like this—even if it’s not real.”
“Of course,” he says.
I feel a kind of electricity in his touch, and I’m just happy I’m sitting down. I never knew I had a type, but this must be it because I’m about two seconds away from putty in his hands. I’m trying not to think about how wet I am, but I’m sure he already knows it though he’s holding to his word and not announcing the fact.
“So, uh,” I say, drawing figure eights over the back of his hand now. “The pregnancy: What would that be like, really?”
“Our children develop much faster than humans,” he says. “Excuse me, they develop much faster than you do,” he corrects. “The pregnancy would be much quicker. You may notice some changes as the child grows.”
“More than just an expanding belly, morning sickness and the inability to bend over without breaking a sweat?” I ask.
“You’re funny,” he laughs. “I like that you’re funny. You will have much the same effects as a normal pregnancy, but your connection to the growing child will, for a time, connect you with us.”
“What does that mean exactly?” I ask. “You mean I’d be able to teleport everywhere and—”
“No, no,” he says, shaking his head. “We are individuals that serve the whole,” he says. “Though we have our own thoughts, we are connected with one another. What I know, my kind knows. This is a connection that is difficult to sever, even for a short time, though it is possible. It will cause you pain to separate yourself from us when the child’s inside of you.”
“Pain?” I ask.
“Only the separation,” he says. “You will feel nothing during birth. You will be safe.”
“You keep talking like I’ve already agreed,” I tell him.
“You keep touching my hand like you want it to touch you,” he responds.
He’s witty. I wasn’t expecting that.
“How would we start?” I ask.
“Do you agree?” he asks. His pulse quickens again under my fingertips. Those eyes are gravity.
“If I did agree,” I say, “how would we start?”
“Think of a place and we will be there,” he says. “But only if you agree.”
My own heart is pounding in my chest, and for the first time, I notice my sunburn has faded. There’s so much more that I want to know, but the truth is I know it already. Maybe it’s a premonition of the connection he’s talking about, I can’t be sure, but I’ve never felt such an intense sense of peace and security, yet be so unbelievably fueled by arousal at the same time.
I close my eyes and hold his hand between both of mine once more as I speak the words, “I agree.”
Chapter 7
Opening my eyes again, I can hardly believe that it worked. We’re sitting on the porch of a massive house on a beach. The ocean water echoes the color of Ryker’s eyes.
I’m dressed in a loose, white shirt, a pale blue, silken sarong wrapped around my waist. Ryker is in a thick white bathrobe, staring out over the sea.
“Come,” Ryker says. He rises from his seat and pushing open the French doors to the house, revealing a massive, open bedroom with tan carpeting on the floors and an enormous bed on the far side of the room, facing the open doors.
I stand and follow Ryker into the room, asking, “How is it that I feel so comfortable with you?” I ask. “I know all of this is an illusion, but I still feel perfectly safe with you.”
“They selected us because our souls align,” he says. “It is our way.”
I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I walk with Ryker toward the bed, taking his hand. He sits down o
n the edge of the bed and I climb on top of him, straddling him. “How do I know this feeling will go away?” I ask.
“What feeling?” he returns.
I just look at him. He knows very well. I mean the penetrating attraction I feel toward him.
“You chose this because I am your deepest attraction personified,” he says.
In just about any other scenario, that would be a very cocky statement, but there’s no doubt he’s being quite literal. He’s not wrong.
As we’re talking, I can feel his growing erection beneath his bathrobe. Adrenaline surges through me, and I’m opening the front of his robe, kissing his neck, his cheek, his lips. When I’ve gotten as far as I can without lifting myself off of him, he lies back and I lean forward, creating just enough space between us for me to open his robe the rest of the way.
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