CHAPTER 38
Andie
I led Leo to the receiving room where I usually had lunch with the royal family.
“What the hell was that?” he asked as soon as the door closed.
“That was an old Ptexari legend come to life,” I said. I told him the story of the Lumanela.
“Do you think humans lived here before?” he asked.
“I have no idea, but I’m starting to think so. At the very least, it seems the Ptexari have come into contact with humans before. Blonde humans, anyway.” I replied.
“So what happens now?”
“My plan is to hide until King Akapa comes to find me. Unless you have any other ideas.”
“Nope, hiding sounds like an excellent plan to me!” he said.
I laughed. “Good. I’ll get some Oonag from the replicator. It’s bitter, but you get used to it. So tell me your story,” I said. “How did another human end up in outer space? How long have you lived on your planet? I want to know everything.”
Leo settled on a cushion, and I took the one next to him, setting the Oonag on the small table between.
“I was a senior in high school when I was taken,” he said, and I gasped.
Leo looked like he was in his late 20s, and it hadn’t occurred to me that he had been taken when he was so young. How awful.
“It was Halloween. I worked nights and weekends at a local restaurant in North Carolina. The restaurant was closing, and I was going to a Halloween party at a friend’s house. My boyfriend was going as Superman, and I was going as Wonder Woman.” Boyfriend. Got it.
“I was going to meet him at the party right after work, so I went ahead and put on my costume. Then I headed out the back door with the trash while my manager locked up. I heard a strange noise behind the dumpster and next thing I knew, I was waking up inside a spaceship.” Well, that sounded familiar.
“I didn’t really understand what was going on at the time, but the Grays were pretty pissed when they figured out I wasn’t a woman.
It was a great costume,” he chuckled. “They argued a bit and locked me in a cell. It wasn’t until later that I found out they sold me to a researcher on Coromonn.
He had a stable of exotic animals, and he was excited to have me in his zoo.
It didn’t take him long to figure out I was human, even though we’re pretty rare out here. ”
“Wait, what are the Grays? And why did they care that you weren’t a woman?” I asked, remembering the gray being I saw behind my college dorm.
“Oh, the Grays are a particular species of alien. They have a big, long name, but most species, including us on Earth, just call them the Grays because they’re light gray all over.
And when you see alien depictions in movies and TV, it’s usually them - the tall skinny bodies, the giant heads, and big black eyes.
There are tiers of intelligent species, and the Grays are near the top because they exist in multiple dimensions.
They can also be at different places at the same time, which means they can reach Earth and distant planets in a way that other species can’t.
Most of them act as intergalactic police, I guess, but some of them are active traffickers.
And human women are at the top of the list for sex trafficking. ”
“Wait, what?” I had barely wrapped my head around the interdimensional existence - sooo many questions - but got sidetracked by the sex trafficking.
That was an unexpected turn.
“Yeah, ok, this is where things get weird. Most species, even aliens, have two genders. Some have a third, and some are asexual, but two genders is pretty much the norm. But for some reason, the females of most species don’t orgasm.
They go into heat once or twice a year, where they’ll have sex with pretty much any male for the purposes of reproduction, but they don’t climax.
The drive is there for reproduction, but that’s it.
Human females are one of the few intelligent species that can orgasm.
And have sex anytime, and for recreational purposes.
I mean, there are other mammals that also orgasm, but it’s generally taboo to have sex with anything below a tier 3 species.
That doesn’t stop them from forcing themselves on women of higher-level species, though.
Also, y’all have tits, which most males across species find super attractive.
Even on other species that do have tits, they don’t really appear unless the female is actively breastfeeding.
So yeah, human women are near the top of desirability, which makes them vulnerable to trafficking.
They’re still pretty rare out here because most of the Grays are actively trying to protect Earth from pirates, but there are always a few that slip through.
There’s a lot of money to be made for a human female.
Not so much for human males, though, so that’s why the Grays who took me were pissed off when they discovered they’d snatched a dude. ”
“Holy shit, that’s wild,” I said.
“Yeah, but it probably explains why you were taken. You’re really lucky you ended up here.”
I shuddered to think about that. The way that insect alien had touched me and ogled me in the cell and on his ship, I had no doubt what his intentions were.
Leo was right. Despite the incident with Dakleth, the Ptexari had largely treated me well.
I could have ended up in a really bad place.
I shook the thought away and turned my attention back to Leo.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but they discussed killing me outright,” he said.
“They don’t return humans once they’ve been taken offplanet because they don’t want their secrets to get out.
I think they used to, but there are too many rumors about them now that we’re able to share UFO sightings and stories through modern technology, so they’re more careful about keeping us in the dark.
Fortunately, one of them knew he could sell me to Fintak, who collects exotic animals.
Fintak is a Charonu. They’re a little taller than us, and they kindof look like Godzilla.
At first, he was excited to study me, but after some investigation, he put together that I was a human, which is a Tier 4 intelligent species.
He was beyond pissed. But sympathetic to me, at least. He reported my abduction, but I don’t think anything came of it, and there was nowhere for me to go.
The Grays or a higher tier are the only ones who could return me to Earth, and they won’t.
The other species, like the Ptexari and Charonu, are Tier 6.
They have the ability to travel outside their galaxy, but not far enough to reach Earth.
And without the ability to teleport, thousands of years would pass on Earth before we got home.
Something about the relativity of time and distance.
That’s a science lesson I forgot a long time ago. ”
My mind was reeling as I tried to process all this new information. Grays and Charonu…tiers of intelligence, different galaxies. It was a lot to take in.
“Anyway, Fintak let me stay with him and taught me about the Charonu and other planets and species in the universe. He helped me fit into Charonu society. Honestly, I was out of my mind for the first few months. Legit crazytown - I waffled between crying, throwing shit, and just staring off into space. I found some peace working with the animals, though. Once I adjusted to my new reality, the Charonu let me train with a local veterinarian. Now, I work for Fintak as a caretaker for the animals at his research lab, and on the side, I work as a vet that makes housecalls for pets and livestock. It’s a good gig. ”
“How long have you been there?” I asked.
“I was seventeen when I was taken,” he said gravely. “I think Coromonn’s year is a little shorter than Earth’s, although I’m not entirely sure. I’m guessing I’ve been gone nine or ten years now.”
“And King Akapa just found you and asked if you knew anything about pianos?”
“Yeah, it was pretty random. A few months ago, the King reached out to the Prime Minister and asked if there was a human on his planet and explained he had adopted a human daughter. At first, it seemed he was just looking for human companionship, and we’d already made arrangements for me to come visit you.
But a few weeks ago, he said he wanted to commission a gift.
He put me in touch with an instrument maker who asked me everything I knew about how to build a piano.
Size, shape, how it worked, how it was played.
I’m not sure we got the dimensions exactly right, but he did a damn good job building it.
I knew more about it than I realized, since my mom made me take lessons for so long. ”
“It’s amazing, I can’t even believe it’s real! Was your mom Catholic? You said your Grandmother’s favorite song was Ave Maria.”
“Yeah, my family’s Dominican, so we’re all Catholic. We came to the U.S. when I was 4. My dad got a job as a professor at Duke, so I grew up in Durham. He’s got a Ph.D. in Plant and Soil Sciences with a concentration in Agronomy.”
“Sounds fancy.”
“Yeah, he does a lot of research on the sustainability of food systems. His focus for a long time was improving the agricultural systems in the Caribbean islands to help reduce food insecurity. The job at Duke allowed him more time for research that could benefit a lot of communities globally. That’s what I remember him saying, anyway.
My Abuelita on my mom’s side came to live with us when I was eleven.
She developed Alzheimer’s. She was still with it for the first few years, but started to decline pretty rapidly about the time I turned fifteen.
By then, she sometimes couldn’t remember us and got pretty confused.
No matter what kind of day she was having, Ave Maria calmed her down and made her happy.
I used to play it for her on the piano all the time, even after I stopped taking lessons. ”
“So is Leo short for something?” I asked.