by Sara Page
To drink or not to drink?
I open the jug and sniff at it. It smells like water. If it’s drugged, perhaps I’ll taste it. I dip my finger in the water, it’s blessedly cold. I suck the drops of water from my finger. It’s delicious. I dip my finger in, again and again. Before I know it I’m lifting the jug to my mouth and drinking directly from it.
Swallow after swallow, I drink until I’m sated. I didn’t mean to do it but I was so thirsty and it was such a small pleasure to drink. I have so few pleasures now.
I put the jug back in its rightful place and take my seat, but I don’t put on the safety harness. I wait until I’m falling asleep next to my portable potty. You know, just in case I need it.
Chapter Seven
He’s kissing me. It’s not the Ravager. This time it’s the big, purple alien. He’s naked again and he’s so hard. He pushes himself against me and I find I actually quite like it.
I like the way he feels. I like the way our hips lock. We fit together as if we were made to fit.
There’s strength in his hardness. A strength that will protect me. My hands roam over him, exploring and committing him to memory. I trace the ridges of his muscles and follow the grooves of his battle scars. From the look of him, I imagined his flesh would be thick and stiff, more like leather. I’m pleasantly surprised to discover his purple skin is silky soft. My fingers slip and slide all over him.
His mouth slants over my mouth. He’s so hungry and so warm as he kisses me. He’s kissing me as if he can’t get enough.
He’s sweet, the sweetest thing I’ve eaten in days. I make a small sound in my throat. I want to bite him. I want to sink my teeth into him.
I sink my nails into his back instead.
He seems to like this. His kiss becomes more desperate. I feel his hands gripping my hips, kneading them. I squirm, my stomach tightens. His hands slide around my hips and he grabs up handfuls of my ass. I moan into his kiss. My core clenches
He grinds his hips against my sex and the shock of it wakes me up.
My heart is racing inside my chest. My eyes dart around my pod, looking for him.
It’s just me, all by my lonesome.
Was it a dream? It felt so real.
I’m covered in a film of sweat, all hot and bothered. There’s a steady, familiar ache between my thighs. I squeeze my legs together, very embarrassed.
Did I seriously just have a wet dream about the space demon?
* * *
I know I’ve gone off the deep end now. I’ve been trapped, alone in this pod, going insane for too long. Especially if I’m having wet dreams about the scary alien who looks like he’d rather break me than kiss me.
I feel sick, and a bit perverted my mind even went there. I mean, seriously, how could I have a wet dream, a vivid sexual fantasy about him? He wants to kill me for fuck sakes. What is wrong with me?
I’ve heard of space madness, when people get stuck in space for days, weeks, or years at a time, all alone. They start to have delusions and hallucinations, losing touch with reality. Sometimes they recover when they reunite with civilization. Sometimes they never come back.
Maybe I’m suffering space madness. The thought frightens me just as much as dying does. Losing my mind, going crazy while I’m trapped in this pod….
I need air. I need sky above me and ground below me. But I can’t have it because that damn alien is out there, being a creepy, psycho killer stalker.
Maybe just a few minutes will be enough. If I open the door, stand outside and tuck tail as soon as I see him, I should be okay. It’s worked so far.
I grab my jug to take a drink first. I start to lift it to my lips then stop, eyeing it suspiciously. Maybe the water is drugged. Maybe he put some weird alien drug in it to make me dream of him. I smell the water. It smells like water. Maybe I should just stop with the maybes and focus on taking care of myself.
I drink from the jug and then check the surveillance camera.
Huh? That’s weird.
I hit the green button and the wall sinks into the floor. Just outside the gap, on the ground, are two red fruits.
Are those the fruits that hit me in the head?
I poke my head out and scan my surroundings. I don’t see anything. Cautiously, I step out of the pod. I walk up to the fruits and toe them with my slipper. They roll to the side and otherwise nothing happens.
I bend over and pick the fruit up. For a moment, I wondered if they were just a mirage. But no, the fruit is very real as my hands cover them. I straighten and weigh the fruits in my hands.
This doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know what to make of it. Why did he bring me food? Is it a peace offering? Is it to get me to let my guard down? Should I even take it?
I tip my head back and look to the sky. I watch the leaves flutter and sway in the breeze. It feels so good to be outside, I just have to soak it all in. I suck in a lungful of air. It smells so good to be outside. It’s just as sweet as I remembered it.
I can’t take the fruit, especially because I don’t know what it means.
Through the leaves, I can see clouds rolling across the blue sky. Hungrily, my eyes watch them scroll past.
I don’t know how long I stood there, watching the clouds, but it felt really good. It felt as good as drinking the water after I had gone thirsty for all that time. This was another need, being outside, in the open. I need to be sure I don’t neglect it.
I knew he would be there when I finally dragged my eyes away from the sky. I knew it and dreaded it.
As soon as my eyes touch upon him, I can’t help but fear him. He’s so scary looking. Every fiber in my body is screaming at me, telling me to run, yelling that’s he’s going to kill me. He’s seven feet tall, purple, and staring at me with glowing red eyes.
He just might be trying to fatten me up before he decides to eat me. Little pig, little pig, let me in…
The alien doesn’t move for me, though. He keeps his distance and there’s such intensity in the way he holds himself, such rigidness. His hands clench at his sides and I get the impression he’s holding himself back. I get the feeling he wants to pounce on me and the longer I stand here, the more likely it’s going to happen.
I open my hands and the fruit falls to the ground. Something akin to confusion passes over his stern features. His lips pull into a frown. I shiver, it only makes him look scarier.
I turn and tuck tail back to my pod. I hit the green button and turn to watch the wall go back up. I half expect him to come after me, but he doesn’t. I can’t see him on the surveillance camera and he doesn’t approach close enough for me to see him.
Once the wall reaches the top, I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
I had a wet dream about that? About that? If my rescue doesn’t come soon, I might as well end myself.
Chapter Eight
That night, thankfully, I don’t dream. I do, however, wake up with a stiff neck. Life in the pod is becoming more and more unbearable. It’s incredibly difficult to get comfortable and I’m really starting to feel gross.
I have enough food and water for the time, but I need to find a way to wash myself and my clothes. If I don’t, I’m going to get sick.
The alien can’t be watching me all the time. The light bulb goes off over my head after I choke down a green sludge lunch. He has needs as well and I doubt he can see to them all while watching the pod.
So I start experimenting.
Today, at random times, I steel myself and begin to step outside the pod to wait for the alien to show up. I’m hoping a pattern will develop. Maybe, after a couple of days, I’ll get a feel for his routine if he has one. Or if I’m really lucky, something awful will happen to him and I won’t have to worry at all.
I step out after lunch. He doesn’t show up for almost thirty minutes. I step out later in the afternoon and he shows up rather quickly. I step out just as it looks as if it’s getting dark and he shows up within a minute.
That night, I toss and turn on the floor. I don’t get much sleep. Early in the morning, I step out and he doesn’t show up at all. An hour passes then another, there’s no sign of him. I seriously start to get my hopes up. He’s not coming. Either he gave up or something happened to him.
I’m just about to throw myself a little party when he makes an appearance. Dang it. I look up and note the sun is high in the sky. It must have just transitioned from morning to afternoon. I make a mental note of it.
* * *
I pop out later that afternoon and again the alien shows up rather quickly. I wonder if he’s catching on to what I’m doing. That evening, he’s there as soon as I open the door, standing just in front of the trees. He’s closer and it’s a little disturbing. But what’s even more disturbing is that he’s left me another offering. The two red fruits are back, placed a couple of feet away from the pod. Balanced on top of the fruit is a stick and skewed on the stick is some kind of cooked meat.
My stomach growls, loudly. My mouth starts to water. I want it, bad. I feel his intense glowing eyes on me. My eyes dart to him then back to the meat. Is it a trap? It feels like a trap.
My stomach doesn’t care, it wants me to grab it and eat.
It was so much easier to refuse the fruit. The fruit is strange, it could be sour instead of sweet for all I know. It doesn’t smell delicious. The fruit doesn’t have crispy, crunchy, yummy looking skin. The fruit isn’t dripping mouthwatering, stomach burning juices.
I take one step forward, testing him. He doesn’t move. He just watches me as he always has, tense, holding himself back as if he’s on the verge of charging me.
I take another step forward. I feel so uncomfortable moving away from my pod, moving closer to him. Another step and I’m almost there. I swear I can almost see a vein, a dark purple vein, throbbing in his neck.
He’s going to make a move, I just know it. He’s the hunter, I’m the prey. The food is the trap. I’m an idiot.
I take a step back. He looks furious.
I take another step back. He straightens, somehow drawing himself up taller, and barks out something in his alien tongue. I have no idea what he’s saying but the noises he’s making sound angry to me.
I take another step back and he starts walking for me.
Yep, I’m done now. I scramble back into the pod and jam the green button. I watch on the screen as he stomps up to the fruit and skewer. He picks up the stick with the meat on it and looks to the camera, doing that unnerving thing where it’s like he’s staring right at me.
He jabs the meat in the air and says something. I just can’t wrap my head around the language. It’s like a mixture of clicks, grunts, and coughs. It makes absolutely no sense.
He stands, holding the stick in the air as if he’s waiting for me to respond. The meat starts to slide down the stick. I just want to cry watching it. I could have had that meat, that crispy, tender, juicy meat. But then he would have me. My stomach clenches, it’s so mad. I’ll just have to smother it with a bunch of water and green sludge.
The alien grunts out something loudly. I’m thinking it was a curse word. He looks at the meat, then back to me, then to the meat again. Abruptly, he turns away and stomps over to the fruit. He bends over to pick up the fruit, and the sick, pervert that I am, I find myself checking out his ass.
Where did he get pants? Why is he wearing pants? It’s unsettling. It makes him look that much less savage. He’s a savage. Don’t forget it, Ameia. Even if he’s a savage with a yummy stick of meat and nice ass.
With one hand, he grabs the two fruits. He could crush my skull with that one hand. He turns around and stomps back to the spot he was just standing in. Now he lifts both the stick and the fruit in the air and says something in his alien gibberish. Then, purposely, he bends down. He puts the fruit down then balances the meat on top of it. Once he has it set up, just as it was, he takes a step back. He motions towards the offering, says something else, and continues to retreat backward.
Why did he do that? Why, just keeps looping through my head. Is it a trap? Is the meat drugged or poisoned? Either way, if I eat it in the pod and die or pass out, he still won’t be able to get in. Unless of course he has a tool or something, but then he would have to know I ate the food, he’d have to see it. He can’t see me. Yet he keeps staring into the camera as if he can.
My mind just can’t compute what’s going on here. I can’t make any of it make any sense. It could be a trap, but then it seems like such a stupid trap. He had the food further out and he was closer, yet he didn’t run for me or anything. He didn’t act at all as if he was trying to catch me. As smart as he is, I bet he could have set a real trap, with a real snare, now that I think of it. Stupid, unsuspecting me would have walked right into it.
If anything, he seemed so upset I didn’t take the food. If I wasn’t so terrified of him I might have actually felt bad about it. And he set the food up even closer for me to take. What was the point of that? Perhaps he expects me to pause and eat the food there. That makes more sense.
I watch him, he turns around and disappears into the strand of trees. I don’t feel relieved this time. This entire encounter has only left me more confused and conflicted.
The only other reason I can think of that he left the food there was as a gift. But why? Why give me water? Why feed me? What does he gain from this?
My stomach growls and twists painfully. It doesn’t care why the food is there, it just wants me to take it. I push the green button. The food is so close, as soon as the wall is all the way down, I just reach out and grab it. I grab the stick then immediately stick it in my mouth. I about swoon and fall over before I grab the two fruits. I hit the button. The wall goes back up. Nothing else happens.
Food, real food. My mouth is alive with the taste and texture. My taste buds are exploding with pleasure. I had forgotten how good food could actually taste. I forgot how good it is to actually sink my teeth into something that didn’t threaten to break them. I tear into the meat as if I’m an animal. As if I’m the savage.
When the meat is gone, I lick my fingers, sucking up every last drop of juice left. It tasted just like chicken. I then lick the stick, completely cleaning it. After placing the stick in the box, and washing it all down with a full cup of water, I wrap my blanket around me. I curl up in a ball on the floor, between the seat and dashboard. I’m full. I’m blissfully full and about to slip into a food coma.
That night I dream of him again.
* * *
The alien tastes so good as he kisses me. His mouth slants over my mouth, pulling back deep, lingering kisses. I can’t explain the taste of him. He tastes cool and sweet, like fresh moon water and roses.
We’re outside, I’m spread out naked on a bed of soft, springy grass. I feel better than I’ve felt in days. I feel clean and soft. My scalp isn’t itching. I squirm myself against the grass. It feels wonderful to feel something else besides cold, hard metal beneath me.
His kisses slow. He pauses to gaze lovingly at me as if he’s seriously cherishing this moment. It’s dark out, over his shoulder I can see the night sky. The stars twinkle and sparkle, watching us from above.
He’s naked, we’re touching skin to skin with nothing between us. In the blink of an eye, I go from peaceful and content to flooded with icy panic.
I try to sit up, but he senses my distress and grabs me by the face.
“Don’t be afraid,” he says.
My heart skips a beat. I can understand him. My panic increases.
“Shhh,” he tries to comfort me. “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
“Let me go!” I cry and I push at his hard chest. It doesn’t faze him one bit.
“No,” the alien says firmly. His hands tighten against my cheeks, holding me in place, forcing me to stare back at him. His eyes lock on my eyes. At first, they’re a beautiful violet color. I watch in horror as that beautiful color bleeds to red.
“Let me go! Please!” I start to hit at
his chest.
He frowns. His growl nearly frightens me to death, “Never. You’re mine.”
I grab at his hands and try to tear them from my face. “No, please, no.”
“Mine,” he repeats, his red eyes flashing.
I wake up with his words ringing in my ears. You’re mine. Mine. He said it with such conviction. I shiver and wrap my blanket more tightly around me. As nightmares go, that’s one of the worst ones I’ve had yet.
I don’t think the food is agreeing with me… or maybe it’s this forsaken planet.
Chapter Nine
Today, I originally planned to do some more observation. I wanted to get a better feel for the alien’s routine and when would be the best time to slip off without being detected. But I can’t stay in this disgusting dress another day.
It’s a shame, really, I think as I pick at my hem. This pink gown of mine cost quite a large fortune. It was specifically designed and tailored for me for my birthday party. I endured months of fittings and being stabbed with pins by an overbearing team of ten designers.
Now it’s filthy rags.
I remember how I fell in love with this dress of mine when I first donned it. I felt beautiful. For the first time, I felt like an actual princess and not an object to be hidden and closely guarded.
Vrillum liked this dress. He liked how it felt when he rubbed his hands against it.
The memory makes me shudder.
I’ve already discarded my undergarments in the portable potty. There was no saving them. If I was more comfortable with myself, I could have taken the dress off during my time trapped in here, after all, who would see me besides the creepy purple alien? But the hopeful part of me kept it on, just in case a rescue party showed up. I wouldn’t have wanted to be naked to meet them.
