CHAPTER FOUR
The Grand Ball
The next day it was time for the ball. I was so nervous. I didn’t know if I would be good at keeping our secret. I dressed in a green gown of silk and lace. It was the best one I had. My hair had small white flowers pinned up inside of it and I wore white gloves. My father and mother escorted me to Emilio’s estate. When we arrived I had to act like I was in awe of the place. As though I had never been before. I looked around the grand ballroom and nodded at people saying hello while my mother and father talked. I scanned the room for Emilio. He was nowhere to be seen. Then the band started and every one danced the first dance. I sat on the side of the room waiting to be asked to dance.
Then it happened, I saw Emilio. He was standing at the front of the room with a woman. I knew her. It was Rose Harrington. She stood with her father and her arm around Emilio’s. I was confused. What was happening? The band stopped and Mr. Harrington took the floor.
“Thank you all for coming! If you are wondering why I am making an announcement instead of our host, the Viscount of Seville, it is because I have an announcement to make. As of this evening, my daughter Rose is engaged to be married to the Viscount!”
Everyone erupted in cheers. I nearly fell over. A sharp breath of air entered my lungs and I felt like I was drowning. How could this be? I saw Emilio standing proudly with a look of proud arrogance on his face. I was insulted, mortified and hurt. He scanned the room and his gaze landed on me. His face changed. I quickly turned and ran away. I ran to the French doors that opened to the outside veranda. I ran out and caught myself against the rail to hold myself up. I was dizzy with hurt. I was motionless for a good ten minutes. I was numb with pain.
When I finally got my senses back I realized that I had done this to myself. Emilio never proposed marriage and I had never asked for it. In fact I entered into this affair with only wanting sex. Then somewhere along the way I fell in love with him. I fell in love, not him. I straightened up and gathered my pride. I would go inside and find my mother and tell her I needed to go home. No doubt she would want to stay. I would take the carriage and have the driver return for them.
I walked in and found her. She was talking to some friends. I went straight up to her.
“Mother I…”
“May I have this dance?” a thick Spanish accent said.
My mother and all her friends turned to see that Emilio was asking me to dance. I couldn’t refuse with so many eyes on me.
“She would love too,” my mother added.
I was mortified. I bowed slightly and let him lead me on the floor. It was the most excruciating dance. I had to keep my composure and not cry. I had to do the steps and not make eye contact with him because I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I was cold in my manner. When the dance was over. I left the ball.
I went home and cried myself to sleep. I would have to just endure the pain and remember that I brought it upon myself. I would need to use the memories we made together.
That was it. That was the end of my affair with Emilio. I stayed indoors for a week. I didn’t want to hear any news of the engagement. I didn’t want to run into him in the village. I stayed in. I was back to my mundane life. Then one day a letter arrived. It was from him. He was inviting me to lunch. I tore it up and threw it in the fire. How dare he. I was disgusted by his behavior. He was engaged and he still wanted to be with me.
Two days went by and I got the same letter again. I did the same thing. This went on for another week. I was sick of it. I almost wanted to go to tell him to stop. My stomach hurt and I had to vomit every hour or so. Then it hit me. It hit me hard like a slap to the face. I had missed my last bleeding. I panicked. I knew though. It felt obvious to me. I was pregnant. I would have to tell him. Now I truly was a pariah. I would have to leave home and go stay with my aunt and uncle.
I got dressed and walked in the woods. Just as I expected Emilio was waiting for me.
“Charlotte, my Charlotte. I have been trying to…”
I slapped him across the face. “You could have told me you were engaged to Rose Harrington! That way I would not have been shocked at least. You are a cruel man.”
“Charlotte, it is not what you think. It was arranged by my father. I had no say in the matter. I didn’t know until the ball.”
I began to cry. I was so hurt.
“I am sorry I hurt you. I did not mean too.”
“I’m pregnant,” I said.
There was no point in not telling him right away. He was silent. Then he hugged me. I pushed him away. I beat on his chest with my little fist. Then he hugged me again. This time I let him. I was scared and I needed comforting.
“I will call off the engagement. I will take care of you. You are mine Charlotte,” he said rubbing his hand on my back.
“You can’t. You’re father.” I said crying knowing the situation was hopeless.
“No, I will not let him run my life. I have my own money. I do not rely on him. I am my own man. I should not have let him engage me to a woman I don’t love. He is in debt and he was trying to add more money to our family. That is his debt. I will not honor it. I am free of rules as I said before.”
“Emilio is this true? I want to believe you but after the ball. I do not trust you.”
“Yes, I understand that. Come let’s go.”
“Where?”
“We go to my house where I will write the Harrington’s to call off the engagement. You can seal it with my seal and my man will take it to their home. Then we go to your father and I tell him I am marrying you.”
I smiled at him. I was relieved to hear those words from his mouth. We made our way through the woods for the last time in secret. We went to his house and we did just as he had said he would. He wrote the necessary letters to the Harrington’s and to his father. Then we went to my home. My parents were in disbelief and shock. They had no idea we knew each other and the engagement was out of the blue. I did not tell them about my pregnancy but it might have been obvious because we married four days later. It was necessary to marry as soon as possible. Not only to make it seem like the baby was conceived after marriage, but because we could not stay apart any longer.
This was the end of my path to being a spinster. I went the untraditional route to finding love, but I found it. It took an untraditional and exotic man to capture and keep my heart forever
******
THE END
Alien In My Bed
An Erotic SCI-FI Romance
By: Heather Lewis
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Chapter 1
"Are you an alien?"
The question that Professor Olivia Monroe posed to the tiered rows of students sitting in the auditorium was one that fascinated and compelled her like few other questions in human thought, and she hoped that she was communicating her fascination effectively to them. Olivia had never embraced the idea that science was a cold, loveless, spiritless thing, a thing without wonder or awe, a thing lacking a soul. She had rejected that perception as surely as she rejected the image of "a woman scientist" as an asexual creature with her hair pulled back in a bun so tight that one expected her face to split like an overripe fruit; and drab, colorless, dowdy clothes. Olivia had always enjoyed being both a woman and a woman of science, and she dressed and carried herself accordingly. She looked professional; she never presented herself as some tart with a PhD. But she also did not present herself as a caricature of who she was. She was not just pretty; she was beautiful and she did not hide it. She wore just a little bit of makeup and lip gloss on her soft and feminine face. She let her light brown hair fall softly on her shoulders. Her nail polish was clear and the heels on her shoes not impractically high. She dressed in cottons and lin
ens of softened but not muted colors. Olivia did subtle things to remind those with whom she came into contact that she was a whole person, not just her occupation.
From her lectern, Olivia used her iPad to progress the slide show displayed on the screen behind her to the tiers of students before her. Each advancing picture was an illustration of the points she made.
"The question isn't as far-fetched as it sounds," she lectured. "I want to finish today's class and start our next one with another hypothesis. Panspermia is the hypothesis that life is not unique to Earth, but distributed all over the universe in the form of microorganisms and the organic molecules that are the building blocks of life." Behind her, bigger than life but nowhere near as big as it actually was, appeared the awesome images of nebulae transmitted to Earth from the Hubble Space Telescope; images that she was sure her pupils had seen countless times already, but which she now hoped she was putting into a new context for them. She elaborated, "Rather than seeing just a cold, harsh, unforgiving vacuum when you look into space, imagine a place rippling with life and with everything that life is made of."
Something like a star flashed in the dim lighting of the auditorium, catching Olivia's eye. She immediately knew it for what it was: The smile of Levi Adams. There he sat, right in the middle of the tiered seats as always. Levi Adams, a pre-law student taking Astronomy and Cosmology as part of his Liberal Arts requirement, was one of the most beautiful products of natural evolution she had ever seen. Just 20 years old, he was a blond vision of handsomeness who wore the most pleasingly tight shirts that showed off the muscles so perfectly packed on his young frame. In the dimmed auditorium, Levi's smile occasionally flashed like the trail of light in the sky from a burning meteor. Every year there was at least one Levi Adams in Olivia's class, and in her daily travels on campus she routinely passed many more of them. The Southern California campus where she taught, which was the home of her research, attracted them, and the sight of them was one of the daily perks of her job. Had she abandoned teaching entirely for research, she would not see so many of them. She considered them one of nature's gifts, like the meteor showers and the Aurora Borealis. One of the most profound lessons of Olivia's own education was that that the universe creates beauty. Levi Adams was one of the beautiful things that the universe did. He made her think it was a good thing indeed to be an astronomer.
Or, to be more precise, Olivia was an astronomer who had in the last few years branched out into exobiology, the theoretical study of how life might evolve in environments outside the Earth, such as hypothetical alien planets. Returning her attention to the lecture and advancing the slides again to another series of shots corresponding to what she was describing, she went on, "Bodies traveling through space, such as asteroids--which become meteors--and comets--may contain microorganisms, carbon compounds that are the basis for proteins and amino acids, and even water itself. These bodies may collide with larger bodies, like planets. The amount of water locked in asteroids and comets far exceeds the amount of water presently on Earth, and all the water on Earth may in fact have been originally brought from space--and whatever may have been frozen in the water may have found conditions on Earth to its liking, so to speak. That may have started the first chemical process of evolution, and that may be how we all got here."
At this, Olivia allowed herself another glance at Levi, who now had a glint in his eye to match the flash of his smile. She enjoyed nothing better than to see a student's face lit up with understanding and appreciation of a thought--especially when the student looked like Levi. Finishing the lecture and cutting off the Photos app of her tablet, she hit the remote control for the lighting in the room and brought the lights up bright.
Stepping out from behind the lectern, she finished, "So I ask you again: Are you an alien? Look at the person to your left and your right. Are they extraterrestrials? Are we all?" The students, including Levi, did as she asked, and a tinkle of laughter rolled across the auditorium. A few people pointed at a few other people and made a few joking insinuations, and the tinkle of laughter rose a bit until Olivia raised her hands to quiet things down, asking for a chance to finish. "If panspermia is correct," she said, "and I think there's a very good case to be made for it...there may really be no such thing at all as an Earthling."
And the tinkle of laughter broke out again at the peal of the bell. With the class rising from their seats, Olivia called out, "For the next class, I want you all to have read the chapter explaining the theory in more detail and be ready to discuss it further. All right, out with you."
Chapter 2
Remember, you're 36 and he's 20. Okay, that doesn't matter. Then remember, he's a student at this University and you're his Professor.
Walking through the quad along the rows of palm trees and the manicured lawns to her office and looking into the earnest and painfully handsome face of Levi Adams, Olivia did her best to keep her attention on what he was saying rather than how totally mouth-watering he looked, until she snapped to alertness when he said...
"So I really think I want to do it, Professor Monroe."
She blinked, startled, hoping she did not look as flushed as she felt. His looks and his body were so distracting; what was he talking about again? Finding her voice and her composure, she replied, "Excuse me, you really want to…?"
"Switch majors. From Pre-Law to Astronomy. I think it's what I really want. I know it'll mean more time as an Undergrad and my Dad almost went off like a nuke when I told him. But sitting in your class and hearing you talk about all those ideas and what they're about, and doing the reading...it makes me realize how much I like science. I've always liked science. Especially astronomy. I love the stars, Professor. You've taught me that."
"Really?" she couldn't help but smile at the boy walking beside her, so sincere, so interested...so bloody gorgeous. As a science educator she always liked knowing that she could light a fire of inspiration in a student and put him on a path to wonderful discoveries. It was doubly satisfying when the student looked like this. "So do you think your father might come around?"
"He wasn't hearing it at first," said Levi. "He really had my heart set on my being a lawyer. He wanted me to sign on with a big, prestigious firm like he did and move up to partner. He wanted to see me with the best office and the best wife and the best car and the best vacations and the best summer home, all the stuff he had. And I don't mind all that; I was brought up with it and all. And I like the law. But...there's just something about the stars that calls out to me. You know how it is."
"Yes, I know exactly how it is," Olivia answered. This boy was such a kindred spirit. He was describing all the things she had felt all her life. She envied him his sense of discovery of the universe, the thing that had lit up in her when she was a little girl. Perhaps if she were to help him transfer to another school, they could visit back and forth and... She suddenly caught herself: Oh Lord, what am I THINKING! He is a BOY! A very beautiful, very smart boy, but a boy! And he's GOT to have a girlfriend.
Thankfully, Levi was so intent on telling her about his decision that he didn't seem to notice the embers that he was stirring inside her. "So anyway," he went on, "I looked up the career stats for astronomers online, and I printed them out for my Dad to see. And I pointed out to him that some astronomers, the really good ones, might make $100,000 a year. Senior partners at the big law firms make more than that, but I wanted Dad to see I wasn't just throwing my future away on something that would make me a deadbeat. Astronomy isn't just some crap, worthless thing; it's important and you can make a good living at it. And that calmed him down a bit."
"I'm glad. And I'm happy for you if this is really your decision."
They reached the brick and glass building of the Science Department where Olivia's office was, and paused at the door. "Professor," said Levi, looking into her eyes in the way that only a young boy can look when he's seeking the approval of someone older, "do you think I can be one of the good astronomers? I mean, one of the really
good ones?"
She looked up into Levi's face and saw the need for encouragement there, and wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him. And take him into her office with her, and peel off his clothes, and plop him down on the sofa, and dive down between his... Never mind. "Judging by your interest and your enthusiasm--and your grades this semester, young man," she answered with her warmest smile, "I absolutely think you can. One of the best."
Levi burst into a smile like the Sun coming over a mountain. He did a fist-pump in the air and half-shouted, "I knew it! I just wanted to hear you say it! Thank you, Professor! I'm gonna tell my Dad I'm doing it! Yes!"
Olivia carefully, very carefully in the interest of appropriateness, touched him on his arm. His wonderfully large and muscular arm. "Good. And I'll see you in class in a couple of days."
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