Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
“Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo! Little green men of the spaceship? Can I get a table for one?” I wave and shout at the one-foot-tall attendants. Half their height is their enlarged heads, but that doesn’t mean they have the brains to speak human language—let alone have picked English if they do.
I grab the collar of one passing by me. He swivels around and bares his little fangs. His six claws, distributed on two hands, rise over his head as he hisses. He doesn’t have pupils, so his black eyes are narrowing black pools of menace.
“Oh, you’re adorable!” He rears back as I rub the top of his bald head.
He buzzes at me. Too bad he doesn’t use words. I have a million questions.
“I’m Jenny. How can I sign up for what they’re doing?
” I reach my hand out to initiate a handshake.
When he stares at my hand, I grab his and shake.
Should I smile? I saw on television that animals feel threatened when humans show their teeth.
Maybe that’s why he tried to intimidate me.
He was afraid of my teeth…but his teeth are pointier. What is it they say in the movies?
“I come in peace,” I say with my lips curved in a smile that doesn’t show my teeth.
He rips his hand from mine and raises it over his head as if he were about to scratch my belly.
A hiss escapes his thin, grey lips, quivering over his mouth full of fangs.
Maybe I have this all wrong and he’s baffled by my enthusiastic response.
If Lisa were here, she would throw a fit—first in fear, then in annoyance at missing her date with whatshisname.
“Oh no, I’m so frightened,” I say with no heat. I raise my fists to my mouth to sell my performance. “Don’t hurt me, alien! I’m just a weak, innocent human!”
I’m no actress, but did he really have to huff at me?
He buzzes and chirps at me in a way that suggests he’s chewing me out.
Eyes wide and hands waving, he unloads his frustrations in the cutest little tantrum.
When he gestures at me to respond, I shrug because, despite my intuition reading his emotions, I didn’t catch a word.
“How about I just sit here until you’re ready for me. Is that it? Are all your tables occupied, and I’m an extra? Did you pick me up as a spare in case one of these ladies needed a nap? I’m very patient…just don’t send me back…please.”
Maybe it was when I sat down to look into his eyes, or when I quieted my voice to release the desperation I’ve hidden all my life, but the alien’s demeanor changed.
I know it wasn’t when I said please. He continued to buzz at me, but with no heat.
We’re pleading with one another in two different languages—maybe asking for the same thing.
He cups my cheek with his tiny hand, and I lean into the contact.
His buzzing stops with a sigh, and we stare at one another.
No shared language. No written communication exchange. But the experience of an overworked, underpaid minion who has reached the end of their tether is universal.
“Same, buddy, same,” I whisper, with tears rolling down my cheeks.
One of his three fingers moves to catch a tear.
He brings it to his nostrils—he doesn’t have a nose—and inhales it.
With a pat on my cheek, he scurries to the alien running the blond’s table.
They exchange buzzes, pointing at me and gesturing in large arcs, until the alien at the redhead’s table joins them.
He gets shoved out of the way, but he still contributes to their conversation.
All three nod at once…and they pull one of the cords hanging from the ceiling.
What’s that whirring sound? Did it just get drafty in here?
Oh my, a glass tube is lowering over me!
I fold my legs and wrap my arms around them to ensure I’m completely in the tube.
I can’t lose a limb inside a UFO! The tube touches the floor with a his before the vacuum kicks into high gear.
Ouch! The suction is stronger than my bobby pins and rips my hat from my head.
“I would have undressed!” I shout as I work the rest of my bobby pins free. They fly to the ceiling like darts. My trio of alien friends pulls the cord again, and the suction intensifies. My shirt untucks from my pants and flies up over my face. I gag at the forced inhalation of hot dog grease.
“I need this shirt back. It’s my only spare.
” My shoulders ache as the shirt is torn from my body.
To avoid more injuries—since my ultimate goal requires me to be naked anyway—I strip off my pants, socks, bra, and panties.
As they are lifted, I imagine them sailing to heaven to complain about my wanton behavior.
I grip my cross out of habit. My heart pounds against my chest, vibrating my knuckles.
The suction whines in a higher pitch as if to rip off my necklace.
“No stopping now,” I say as I release the clasp. What have I done?
Why is everything tinted purple? Where did that smoke come from, and why is it purple? It’s like I’m trapped in a music video with Prince. I sway and hum his tune as my eyelids grow heavy. Oh great, sedation…
My chest hurts like when I drank Chi-Chi’s hot salsa on a dare from Lisa.
Lisa? I bet she’s having the time of her life at our place, and I’m going to ruin it with my hot dog uniform.
I bet I zonked out after falling over the bike rack.
I can’t believe I hallucinated Tiffany’s green concert, UFOs, and sympathy from an alien.
What’s the least believable part? Probably that I’m lying in the softest bed I’ve ever slept in and clean of hot dog grease.
So I guess I am home, but… Who showers while unconscious?
“Hey, Lisa,” I call, “why did we trade rooms?”
“This room is mine, was always mine, and will always be mine, pet,” reverberates a voice from my chest. I wince when I put my hand over my heart.
There’s a metal plate embedded in my flesh!
The surrounding skin is red and angry, too.
“Do not try to remove your translation chip, or you won’t understand me. Worse, you will ruin my handiwork.”
“You did this to me?”
“Catch up!” My collarbones rattle with the force of the yelling. “I’ve worked for months to decipher your primitive language. The least you can do is act like you understand your own words.”
“Thanks.” I guess.
The bed is nearly the size of this dark room.
Tiny rays of light reflect off the metal walls, so I must still be inside the spaceship, but in a much more intimate space.
At the foot of the bed is a large bank of buttons and blinking lights.
A large screen shows the human women on their tables in a network of small squares.
A second screen is black with white dots—bad reception—or is that outer space?
“Have we left?!” I sit up in alarm.
“Just a cruise, pet. There’s no reason to be alarmed,” the voice purrs from within me.
“Where are you? Your voice sounds like it comes from my chest. Are you inside of me?”
“Not yet, pet.”
A large shadow looms over me from behind the headboard.
I rock my head back as if I were in the front row at the movies.
He steps forward and stands still while my eyes study his features.
This alien is like the others, except he is so tall, his bald head brushes the ceiling.
He wears a purple robe with no sleeves…or maybe his sleeves blend with the other folds of fabric.
No, as he walks around the bed, I’m fascinated by the lack of sleeves, arm holes, or slits in the fabric for arms.
“You’re very tall,” I say to be polite, when what I really want to ask is if he has arms.
He stops at the bank of screens and uses his nose to change the static to white lines. Ha! He doesn’t have arms. No way would he boop his snoot if he had hands. “Set course for orbiting the Kuiper Belt, and return to Earth in fifteen—"
“We can’t leave! What about all those women on the screens? They have families!”
He whips around to face me, his eyes scanning the thin sheet over my naked body. I flush from head to toe. “I’m not in the habit of taking orders from my pet.”
“That’s me? Are all those women your pets, too?” I point to the smaller screens.
“They are test subjects. When I’ve harvested all their life nectar, they will be put into a deep sleep until I’m ready to return them.”
I choose not to analyze his term life nectar, nor do I share that a woman can recharge and be ready for the next round after a good night’s sleep.
As long as they aren’t his prisoners forever or subjected to torture, I’ve done my duty as the only human with the ear of the boss.
The boss has a powerful presence and voice that makes my thighs clench.
I thought the probe machines were the sexiest thing in space…
I was wrong. I want to ask him questions just to hear his voice command me again.
“Will you put me to sleep, too?”
“Only if you ask, but our jaunt around your solar system is to give us time to get better acquainted,” he says with a fondness that puts me at ease. “I chose you over them.”
“Why me?”
“When we met, you had a lovely submission. You brought me peace when I was ready to combust with frustration. These humans fought me to stop the experiments until they received their pleasure, then fought me to never let the experiments end. I couldn’t win.
No matter what I did, I had humans shrieking at me. ”
“I must have been unconscious. When did you say we met?”
“On the main laboratory floor,” he says, rushing to my side. “You had just ascended. I held your cheek, and you quieted in my care like the most docile pet I could ever want.”
My mind spins with half-formed memories and hallucinations. “No, I would remember that. The alien who tried to help me was shorter than you—shorter than me. I would have been scared of you. Those small fries in the laboratory seemed harmless.”
“Oh no, they aren’t harmless, pet,” he says, lowering himself to one knee against the bed.
“They’re pieces of me, and I of them. We are of one mind, traveling the galaxy to find another sentient lifeform.
I’ve been alone for centuries. You were the first to accept my touch without fear or aggression.
We didn’t take you for the nectar our home needs to nourish our citizens.
We took you because we want you for ourselves. ”
“I am to be your personal pet? No probes? No electrodes?” I’m giddy with his compliments.
To be chosen for just being me, not following a bunch of arbitrary rules, is more intoxicating than communion wine.
My fingers curl in the fabric with anticipation, and I shock myself by lowering it to my waist. “I like the sound of that. How will you touch me, now that we’re alone? ”
If he wants to boop his snoot against me, I have some ideas where I’d like him to start.
I’m still confused about how the little guys are connected to this one.
Do they share a voice via transmitter, like the one in my chest?
Are they one big fraternity of aliens? They don’t share a brain, do they?
If I consent to the big guy, will I participate in an alien orgy?
I can’t believe I’m excited over losing my virginity in an orgy of little green men, but if they use those stubby fingers while the big guy does the actual penetration…
eeek! I can’t believe my thoughts are so wicked!
“You’re very pink,” he replies. “Are you too warm?”
I shake my head no. How do I explain my modest upbringing, and how bearing myself to his gaze is an act so wanton, I could be damned for eternity for it?
“Then crawl out of the sheets and present yourself to me.”
“What?!” I squeak.
“Crawl to your master, pet.”