by Ella Wayne
“I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way. I'm almost thirty-”
“You don't look it.”
Leslie blinked and smiled at the compliment. “-and I feel like I'm way behind from where my parents were at my age. Like, I still feel like I'm trying to figure stuff out but by this point they had already gotten married, bought a house, and had me.”
“It's always a scary thing to compare yourself to the older generation. I think things are different for us. We have to try and judge ourselves by different standards. It was easier to get into trades then I think. I've been lucky in that I've got this break being a writer but I know it may not last forever. If this film bombs then I'm back to square one and I'll have nothing.”
“There you go being negative again,” she teased.
“Force of habit,” he said, smiling. “So, do you want all of that then? The house and the marriage and the kids?”
Leslie shrugged. “I don't know. It depends if I meet the right person,” she said, when in truth she had wanted it. She'd always like the idea of settling down and having a home that was hers, of raising her children, seeing them grow up, and grow old with a man she loved. But she didn't even know if that was a possibility anymore. She didn't know what the tall whites had planned for her. As for children, well, she was going to be responsible for more children than probably any other woman in history.
“I've always wanted to get my own life in order before I introduced my chaos to someone else. I want this film to be a success and then I can start planning for the future properly, once I know that I can actually make a career as a writer.”
“Have you been doing it long?”
“Yeah, since I was a teenager, but it was always more of a hobby. Steve and I have been friends since we were kids and we were always creating different worlds and working on projects. We parted ways when we went to college and we lost that, but when we came home we found each other again and it took a while but we got back in our rhythm. We worked on a few things but we didn't have any luck with them, then we had this idea and things just snowballed. It's been pretty crazy really. Sometimes I can't believe this is actually happening. You ever look around at your life and feel like it's so surreal, like it's a dream and you're almost afraid to wake up?”
“Sometimes,” she said in a small voice.
“Steve's pretty confident about it but I don't know. I think audiences are more accepting about these things nowadays, aliens I mean, and you can put them in romance stories rather them being the bad guys all the time, but I don't know. It's still risky. The studio seems to think it's a good idea. I guess I'm just being overly cautious.”
“I think so, sometimes in life you just have to go for it and believe in yourself. It sounds like you've got a good idea of what you need and want out of life,” she said. Thinking to herself, she couldn't believe that he was single. She wondered what was really wrong with him that he was here in this bar rather than lying in bed with a beautiful actress.
“I guess so. We'll see what happens anyway.”
“So, what made you choose aliens?” Leslie asked.
“I think we both just wanted a protagonist who was outside of humanity so we could sort of offer our commentary, like Spock always did in Star Trek. I think we learn most about ourselves when we see ourselves from a different point of view. The world today, you know, I think we've lost a bit of perspective. We're so focused on looking at ourselves, like everyone is obsessed with sharing photos and trying to get attention we rarely ever look around anymore, and it seems to me that people are always so intent on looking at each other’s' differences rather than our similarities. We're all lonely people, we all want to fall in love and be happy and find some sense of companionship. We all want to belong, to feel like we matter, but we all feel so different and isolated. It's like we're lost in our own heads and we thought that with an alien we could show people that actually we're not all that different.”
He spoke with real passion, and Leslie wished that he had been different because she actually found herself becoming attracted to him and she knew that couldn't be allowed to happen. The combination of him and the alcohol was intoxicating, and she could feel the danger rising within her. Leslie's duty to the tall whites prevented her from living a normal life on Earth and yet what Jack was saying really spoke to her. She was lonely, and isolated, but she knew that she would never be able to find love. Not while she was being used for the alien experiments, and while she enjoyed being special - chosen by them before every other woman in the world - she was also conflicted because she knew what she had to sacrifice.
If the tall whites weren't a factor in her life she would have been happy to take Jack home and speak with him more, to enjoy a night of passion, to feel his flesh pressing against hers, but now whenever she thought of anything arousing, her mind flashed to the tall whites, to their lithe, thin bodies against her, touching her, exploring her, the pale, hairless flesh sliding against hers, all the others watching, all eyes on her.
“Looks like they're leaving us,” Jack said, interrupting her thoughts. Leslie twisted her neck around and rolled her eyes at Sharee as she and Steve disappeared out of the bar, hands linked together.
“Great, now I'm going to have to make my own way home,” Leslie said.
“I'll give you a ride,” Jack said. Leslie said that it was okay but Jack insisted. “I'm too much of a gentleman to leave you to the mercy of the night.” Reluctantly, Leslie agreed.
Chapter 5
J ack's car had a plush leather interior and the ride was smooth. He'd punched Leslie's address into the GPS, and its soft tones occasionally piped up with directions whenever he had to turn. The engine purred and the stars streaked by in the night. Leslie gazed out of the window, almost feeling guilty from being in a car with another man when there were a whole hoard of aliens waiting for her, needing her. She looked at the time and groaned inwardly. She should have been in bed ready for them instead of out here with Jack. And yet shouldn't she be allowed her own life? She was still human, and it wasn't like the tall whites had taken her from her life.
At that moment, it felt like she was living a double life. Down on earth she had a job and friends but she felt restrained, like she wasn't really able to throw herself into her life because she had her duties to the tall whites, and she knew that they'd be able to find her even if she wanted to move because they had done so all through her life. It was funny when she thought about it. They had been a constant presence for all her adult life but she had been unaware of them until recently. She wondered what her life would have been like if she had known about them all this time. She wouldn't have been so confused about the phantom pregnancies, that was for sure, and she would have probably felt more whole. But even on Earth it felt like she was just going through the motions, waiting for the day when the tall whites would bring her up to their ship. That's where she truly felt she belonged, where her home was, and she imagined that one day they would welcome her into their home and treat her with respect and reverence, for she was the mother of hundreds of them.
Jack made some idle conversation in the car. Leslie wasn't very talkative for she had a lot on her mind, but she attempted to be as polite as she could be. She wondered what was on Jack's mind. He seemed nice enough, certainly pleasant and charming, but he was driving her back to her place and she wondered if he had something on his mind. Her heart thumped in her chest for it was a complication she did not anticipate. There were points when she felt that other people were just a hindrance to life, and in some ways, she wished that she had not encountered Jack that evening, yet he was easy to talk to and funny and he never seemed to run out of things to say. He talked about his writing process and some of the other stories he was working on, including his dream project that he would love to see come to fruition one day. Leslie felt a little guilty for not being more engaging and when she apologized for it she said that it was due to tiredness, and the amount of alcohol she had, even though co
mpared to some other nights she had drank relatively little.
The car pulled up outside her apartment. She looked up and saw that a dim glow shone in Sharee's bedroom. She was probably lost in a blaze of passion. Leslie was just glad that the screams and moans did not carry out into the still night air, for that would have made her interaction with Jack even more awkward.
He stepped out of the car and walked her to her door, which was very classic and old-school but something that Leslie hadn't experienced much in her life, and she certainly wasn't expecting it then. She wondered if Jack thought this was more than it was. After all, just because Sharee had gone home with Steve it didn't mean that Leslie was going to go home with Jack.
When they reached her door, Leslie turned to face him. The moon caught his eyes in a way that made them sparkle, and it looked as though the whole universe was contained within them. A tingling heat spread over her body for being in such close proximity with him, and she knew that if she wanted she could have easily leaned into kiss him. The thought was tempting, and the longer they stood there in silence, gazing at each other, the more natural it seemed. But the moment that Leslie sensed Jack's tilt of the head she cast her gaze downward and stepped back towards the door.
“It was nice meeting you,” she said in a low, small voice, wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible. She turned away from him, putting the key in the lock. As she did so his hand shot out and grabbed her arm, not too hard, just tugging her back so that she was forced to look at him.
“Wait,” he said, with a smile that melted her heart. She wasn't used to sincere men, and Jack was so devastatingly handsome that she knew he would be trouble, and she would be trouble for him because of her secret.
“Jack,” she gasped, wishing she could tell him why he had to leave, why he had to go and never look back, to focus on his own life and forget all about her because her destiny lay away from the planet, but there were no words that would communicate what she needed them to, none but the truth, and the truth was not an option.
“Just hear me out Leslie. I know that we've just met and I'm not trying to push things. I'm busy right now with this movie and it's going to take up a chunk of my time, but you must know that when you get to our age it's a lot harder to meet new people. It's not easy finding others who are on the same wavelength, especially when you're a writer. I just - I really enjoyed talking to you tonight and I'd like to do it again. It doesn't have to be a date or anything like that. I get that maybe you're not in the right place for a relationship but it'd be good to just hang out and grab a coffee or something low key.”
Leslie swallowed and tried to look away from him but there was a magnetic aura about him. He looked vulnerable, and she understood that he was putting himself out there. Perhaps she should have been stronger, perhaps she should have summoned the willpower to resist his charm and turn away, to break off any potential their connection had, because it would have been easier on the both of them.
But she didn't. She found herself typing her number into his cell and then enjoying the feeling of his lips against her cheek as he kissed her goodnight. Her hand was on the door as she watched him walk back to his car. The lights shone through the darkness, the engine revved, and then he disappeared into the night.
Chapter 6
A s soon as Jack was cloaked in darkness, Leslie turned and ran into her apartment, slamming the door behind her. She tore off her clothes and threw her keys on the coffee table, out of breath when she reached the bedroom. The moonlight poured in the window. She gazed out at the stars and hoped that it was not too late, hoped that she hadn't angered the tall whites. She didn't yet know the extent of how they monitored her on Earth, if they knew about all her movements or just where she lived. She hoped that if they were watching over her they wouldn't be angry. She hadn't degraded herself by sleeping with a human male, she was still pure for them, she was still keeping herself clean.
She would never be with another man for as long as she was being used in the experiments, no matter how alluring they were. Jack wasn't like the aliens at all. He was rugged and filled with emotion. He was passionate where they were clinical. He was hairy where they were hairless, and he wanted her for himself, not as the mother to a new race of hybrid aliens. It was confusing when what she needed most was clarity.
“Please come tonight,” she said in a small voice as she looked up to the stars, “I need you.” She wondered if her plaintive sigh was heard by those ascendant beings lingering high above the planet. Could they feel how much she needed their touch? Did they even understand the depth of her emotions? Sometimes she wondered how they viewed her. Was she no more than an object for their experiments or did they see her as something more? She didn't even know if she would ever find out for sure. So far when the tall whites had spoken to her they had done so with the understanding that she would not remember, but now she had the power of memory, although she didn't quite know how to use it effectively.
Leslie threw herself into bed and left her eyes open for as long as possible, gazing out at the stars. Suddenly, now that she was in bed, she was not tired at all. Her mind was alive with thoughts of the tall whites and of Jack, of the future that she used to want for herself but would not be possible now. A star field appeared before her and rushed by, moving quicker than she was aware. The stars drifted and moved around, they swirled and danced before her eyes like fireflies and then melted together. First, they formed the image of the two tall whites that had had sex with her, and she felt a wave of calm wash over her, before they changed shape and gradually became Jack. She thought about the movie he was writing and what he had said about only understand ourselves properly when we looked from another perspective. Leslie thought of the alien girl's quest for love and wondered if that was a foreign concept to the tall whites. How was she ever going to show them the concept of love when it was so elusive and abstract even to humans, to whom it was the most important feeling of all. How was she going to explain it when she had never felt it herself?
The tall whites had given her so much and all she wanted was to give herself to them, but she knew they could not give her love. Not in the way she wanted anyway. Her destiny was bigger than growing old together, than taking a stroll in the park as the fall leaves crunched underfoot, of nursing each other through illness. She was meant for more, and yet it left her feeling hollow inside because she was going to miss out on a fundamental aspect of the human experience. She hoped that Jack would never call because she was not going to call him. It was easier on him if she stayed out of her life. Love was something for people who stayed on Earth, not for her.
The sheets lay draped over her body as the hours of the night passed. Despite her turbulent thoughts she got to sleep fairly easily, and once again awaited the return of the tall whites. Yet for the second night in a row the tall whites did not appear. Leslie awoke searching her mind for the dream, the dream of the two golden angels touching her, thrusting into her, of the chorus of tall whites watching on, but she knew she had not been taken. She felt awful, like she had done something wrong or betrayed them somehow and she wished that she could talk to them, to explain.
“I'm sorry,” she said, just in case they could hear her, “I don't know what I've done wrong but I never meant to displease you. I only want to serve you, to be what you need me to be. Please bring me back. I miss you,” she said in a soft voice. But if they did hear they did not respond. The world did not shimmer around her, it just stayed static and mundane, just the regular Earth, and she hoped that her path to the stars was not closed off to her.
Leslie had an appointment with her therapist, Dr. Arnet. She had thought about canceling it but she knew that would look a little suspicious, and she wanted to find out how much James had told Dr. Arnet about what his hypnosis had revealed. Besides, it was good to talk with someone who could offer an objective view of her life, and Leslie found that she had enjoyed the sessions with Dr. Arnet more than she had first expected.
&n
bsp; After waiting a little while for Dr. Arnet to be finished with her first client, Leslie was welcomed in and she sat on the leather seat. Shelves filled with books lined the walls, and the only sound was the heavy pendulum of a clock ticking. Dr. Arnet welcomed Leslie in. Leslie's eyes darted about the room, and when she sat down she placed her hands under her thighs to hide the fact that they were shaking. Leslie could not discern anything from Dr. Arnet's expression.
The therapist sighed a little as she sat down and nestled into her chair. It creaked a little as she leaned back. She folded one leg over the other and rested her hand near a small notepad that lay in her lap.
“How are you feeling today Leslie?” she asked. She always began her sessions the same way.
“I'm feeling okay,” Leslie said dipping her toes into the waters of her own feelings, still trying to be guarded as she didn't know if Dr. Arnet knew about the aliens.
“Did your visit to James help you?”
“I believe so. What did he tell you about our session?” Leslie asked, trying to hide the tremble that made her voice waver.
