Authors: Julia Sexton
Rescued By The Alien
Julia Sexton
Copyright 2015 by Julia Sexton
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced
in any way whatsoever, without written permission
from the author, except in case of brief
quotations embodied in critical reviews
and articles.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any
person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
First edition, 2015
Chapter 1
Melody lived a pleasant life. She was twenty years old, and she lived with her father. She hadn’t been to college yet, since she had decided to take two years off after high school to get her head back in order.
High school hadn’t been the most pleasant time of her life, after all. But it was over, and she was free to do what she wanted. She wasn’t rich, but her dad didn’t make her pay rent so long as she earned her keep around the house, and she earned a tidy amount of money by maintaining the neighbors’ lawns and gardens.
“Some of what you do with plants is magical, I swear,” Mrs. Griffin from across the street sighed.
“Those snapdragons weren’t even supposed to be perennials, but somehow you’ve gotten them to come back.” She sighed dreamily as she finished filling out the check and handed it over.
“Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without you; the green thumb skipped me.”
Melody smiled politely and laughed gently. “It’s what I’m here for,” she replied pleasantly as she accepted the check.
“And I’m here if you have any questions.”
She waved cheerfully as Mrs. Griffin left, pocketed the check in her shorts pocket, and reached behind her neck to adjust the ties of her bikini top.
She’d had people tell her she shouldn’t wear bikinis before, but she never cared to listen to them. Maybe she didn’t look like the women in magazines, but she didn’t think she was unattractive.
She had high cheekbones, wide blue eyes, and skin and hair that glowed bronze in the sun. She wasn’t a tall, sleek willow of a woman, but she thought she might have looked weird if she was. At 5’1” she was not what anyone would call tall, and she had broad shoulders and broad hips and a chest that was bountiful, to say the least.
She rather liked the way she looked, and for as long as she could remember, her father had done whatever he could to make sure she knew that she didn’t have to look like a supermodel in order to be beautiful, and she had always believed him.
She supposed her self-confidence might have been what had led to her string of boyfriends in high school, though they had never lasted long. High school had been a nightmare of teasing and mockery, and she simply hadn’t been in a place to have an intimate relationship, and so one after another, the boyfriends got impatient and left.
One day, she would be ready to take that step, but she wasn’t going to force it. In the mean time, she was living a good life.
She was settling down on her knees in the grass to begin tending to the garden in front of her father’s house, but she was only there for a few minutes before the sky rapidly began to darken.
Brows furrowing in confusion, Melody looked up at the sky, and it was already so dark that she didn’t even need to shade her eyes.
“Strange…” she mused to herself quietly.
“It’s supposed to be sunny all day.”
Indeed, the forecast had called for hot, humid weather and clear skies. She had seen the forecast be wrong before, but she had never seen the sky get dark so quickly.
As if in reaction to her thoughts, suddenly Melody saw light. So bright and blinding that she yelped in surprise, clamped her eyes shut, and threw her hands up to cover them.
After that, everything seemed to go fuzzy, the ground felt like it vanished from beneath her, and she lost consciousness.
Melody woke up slowly, as if she had to swim through molasses. She was laying on something hard, and for some reason her neck, wrists, and ankles were cold.
She opened her eyes slowly, and she saw a gleaming metal ceiling. Slowly, slowly, she sat up on what she soon found to be a metal table. She stared down at herself to find that she was still dressed in her bikini top and denim shorts, but she had acquired metal cuffs around her wrists and ankles.
That would explain the inexplicable cold. Hesitantly, she reached up to her neck, and she probed delicately at the metal collar.
She looked around the eerily pristine, gleaming metal room cautiously and quietly called, “Hello? Is anyone there?”
She stared at the mirror on the other side of the room.
At first, there was no answer. And then, after almost a full minute, a voice like nothing Melody had ever heard spoke, radiating from the ceiling.
Like the buzzing of a fly and the digital hum of an old dial-up modem, the voice said, “Undress.”
It was utterly impassive and cold.
“What?” Melody demanded, startled.
“No!”
There was no hesitation. As soon as the word left her lips, there was pain. Electricity lanced through her, coming from the cuffs and collars. Her back arched in agony and she screamed.
Her knees buckled and she spilled across the floor in a heap. And just like that, the pain stopped.
For a few seconds, she stayed on the ground, muscles still twitching. She pushed herself up with trembling arms until she was kneeling on the chilly floor.
She lifted her head to stare at the mirror.
“Remove your clothing,” the voice spoke again, still impassive and unchanged.
“Fuck off,” she spat, her voice trembling.
The pain came back, sending her right back to the floor, where she howled and writhed. It was only a couple seconds, but it felt like an eternity. When it ended, she didn’t bother to sit up again and simply stayed on the floor, chest heaving.
“Undress,” the voice reiterated, still devoid of any feeling.
“Leave me
alone
,” Melody sobbed, and the sobbing turned to screaming when the pain returned again.
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it!” she wailed when the pain ended once more.
Slowly, shivering like a leaf in the wind, she sat up and got to her feet. She stumbled as her legs shook and refused to cooperate, and she caught herself against the wall.
When her legs were finally able to hold her, she reached back to untie the bikini top. Silent tears slid down her cheeks as the bikini top fell away and she slipped off her shorts and the bikini bottoms.
Once she was bare, she hazarded a cautious look at the mirror again.
The walls changed so quickly that Melody nearly squealed in surprise, and then she shrieked. The mirror and the metal walls abruptly turned entirely transparent. Standing directly in front of her room was…
something
.
It was an unusual fleshy, peachy color, and it resembled all of the most stereotypical depictions of aliens she had ever seen. It stared at her with large, round, compound eyes, unblinking.
She could only assume it was the one who had ordered her to remove her clothes.
The setting, though, was worse than the visitor.
On either side, extending in either direction, were numerous other cells, much like hers, and she could see even more across the hall that the creature stood in.
When Melody chanced a look over her shoulder, she saw more behind her, one butted immediately against the back of her cell.
In the cell to her left, there was an African American woman maybe two years older than Melody. In the cell behind her, a woman so pale she almost seemed translucent. But it was the woman to Melody’s right that drew a startled gasp from her.
She looked somewhat human. A torso, a head, two arms and two legs. But her body was covered not in skin, but in miniscule, iridescent scales that glimmered like gemstones. Her eyes were like diamonds, facets and all. She had no hair upon her head, and a long, whip-like tail extended from just above her ass.
Melody screamed and fell to her knees, curling up on the floor to hide her face and try to block out everything that she was seeing. It was a dream. It was a nightmare.
She would wake up soon, laugh at herself for dozing off in the sun, and go inside to ask her dad what was for dinner. It was all just her imagination and everything was fine. Everything was perfectly fine.
Chapter 2
Every time someone came to look into Melody’s cell, they looked different. Sometimes they looked somewhat human, sometimes they didn’t look even remotely human.
But always they had the same cold, clinical air about them, so Melody couldn’t help but think that they were all the same being, just in different shapes, somehow. She pondered how that was possible to avoid thinking about where she was and to avoid thinking about what was happening to her.
Early on, her…visitor actually came into the cell. She tried to attack him and flee, but almost as soon as the thought crossed her mind, electricity surged through her and left her trembling on her back on the metal table that acted as a bed.
He examined her thoroughly, as if to check her for illness or bugs, and Melody almost laughed as she thought, ‘
My first gynecological exam is coming from a spaceman with all the personality of a dead turtle.
’
It kept her from crying, at least. She didn’t think her visitor would actually care, but she still didn’t want to give him that satisfaction.
Many times, her visitor would simply observe her, but just as often he would issue commands.
Stand this way, walk this way, pose this way. It was like he was trying to coach her through the proper way to display herself, like merchandise.
One day, when her visitor stopped by, he had someone with him. Another man, taller than Melody thought possible, and covered in a fine layer of white fuzz.
“She is our newest,” her usual visitor—or perhaps keeper was a better word—said in his calm, impassive voice.
“She is still in training.” He turned his attention back to her and commanded placidly, “Present yourself.”
As if she hadn’t heard him, Melody didn’t move. She stayed where she was, curled up on her side on the table, staring at the wall and the pale woman in the cell behind her. And then there was pain.
When it ended, Melody rolled over but she did not get up. Her keeper, for once, seemed irritated, but the other man was moving along, and Melody’s keeper followed him away.
So, people lost interest in her if she didn’t throw herself at them. That was good to know.
She was not going to let them break her. No matter how many people stopped by her cell to look at her, no matter how many times her keeper shocked her, Melody refused to obey.
If they wanted her to turn into a wilting flower, they would need to work for it.
Countless men inspected her through the walls of the cell, and the women in the cells around her were gradually purchased and replaced with different women.
Some of them were human, some of them couldn’t be properly described, and Melody couldn’t help but wonder how many women had been stolen from their homes and thrown into cells to be gawked at by horny strangers. It was like the worst sort of freak show.
As the women around her broke and succumbed to the pain and the hopelessness, Melody continued to stand strong. If she was never going to see her father or her home again, then it would at least be on her own terms.
“Present yourself,” came the by then familiar command. Melody didn’t even bother to look up. She simply continued to glare at the wall and hugged her knees tighter to her chest.
Every muscle in her body tightened as the electricity came, and she grit her teeth against it, refusing to cry out.
She panted harshly when it ended, but still she didn’t move.
“I will take her,” the most recent stranger said.
There was a moment of silence, and finally Melody’s keeper wondered, “Pardon?” and
finally
he sounded something other than placidly composed. He sounded
stunned
.
Slowly, Melody turned over to see just who it was who decided she looked to be worth it.
Once upon a time, she would have said he looked like a freak, but after everything and everyone she had seen since her abduction, he almost looked normal.
He was tall. Much taller than her, and part of the reason seemed to be his digitigrade legs that ended in rounded, horse-like hooves. Rather than skin like her own, his skin was a pale, pearl gray, and in patches it was covered in dark, iridescent scales. He had short, dark, slicked back hair that almost looked black, until the light caught it at the right angle and it gleamed dark blue.
His facial features were sharp and angular, giving him a regal look. He had a long, thin tail swaying idly behind him, ending in a wicked spike. He was speaking quietly with the keeper, and Melody could see that his eyeteeth seemed too long.
His eyes, though, were the most distracting part. They looked like faceted spheres of onyx, save for pinpricks of light in the middle that Melody could only assume were his pupils. He was wearing a simple, form-fitting black sleeveless turtleneck and an equally form fitting pair of dark pants.
The keeper still seemed stunned as he opened the cell, a portion of the wall retracting. He stepped into the cell and attached a lead to Melody’s collar.
It wasn’t a traditional leash as Melody knew them or even a chain, but rather a strand of glowing energy connected to the collar on one end and a metal handle on the other. She was fairly certain it was also what the keeper usually used to shock her.
With a tug on the leash, Melody was led out of the cell, and the leash was handed to her…owner. Thinking the word almost made her sick, and standing outside her cell left her feeling painfully aware of her nudity.
That made absolutely no sense, considering the cell’s transparency, but she still found herself crossing her arms over her chest, as if that somehow hid everything.
She followed her new owner at a slow, lackluster pace, and he seemed content to let her trudge as he led her along the rows of cells, towards a lift at the end of the corridor.
The inside of the lift was just as sterile and pristine as the cells, though the lift was not transparent, thankfully.
The ride in the lift seemed to take an eternity, and when the doors slid open and he led her out, they were in a blindingly white corridor lined in doors. Everything was still too clean, and Melody almost wanted to find a pot of dirt to throw around, just to make everything a little less spotless.
Her owner led her to the end of the corridor, and the door slid open.
They stepped into a slightly barren apartment. Melody couldn’t tell if it was some sort of hotel, or if even the actual living spaces were that clean.
Almost as soon as they were through the door, the leash was removed, and the strange man tossed it aside, uncaring of where it landed. He stretched, muscular arms reaching over his head, and…changed.
Not much, but it was still noticeable.
Where once there had been hooves and an extra joint, after the change he simply had regular legs and feet. Where once there had been a spike, his tail instead ended in a dark blue, spade-like fin. Melody didn’t need much confirmation, but still, it was proof that they were shape-shifters.
“You may call me Garon,” her owner said after a moment.
His voice was deep and rough and reminded Melody a bit of gravel. It was bizarrely soothing, though she supposed any voice that wasn’t the keeper’s would be a relief.
“What is your name?”
The question caught her off guard. The keeper had never asked her that. He had never even referred to her as anything other than ‘this one’ when speaking with potential customers.
At first, she thought it had to be a joke, but when she looked at Garon’s face, she saw only gentle expectation.
She met his gaze and held it as she said, “My name is Melody.”
He nodded once in acknowledgement and then stunned her once more when he promptly began removing her collar and cuffs.
He tossed them aside, and they landed on a table with a clatter.
It was that action that finally convinced Melody that she could ask questions without being hurt.
“What is this place?” she asked. Not Earth, she imagined.
Garon sighed quietly.
“You are on a space station, orbiting a star that your people know as Arcturus,” he replied.
“Why did you buy me?” followed quickly.
“The others would all leave when I didn’t immediately obey. What makes you different?”
“The others would like to at least pretend their pets are willing participants, so they left when you made it impossible to do so. But I did not buy you for sex,” he answered simply.
“I bought you because you were the only one there with any substance left to save.”
Melody dragged her hands through her hair.
“So that’s it? They just hand you my leash and that’s that? No check-ins to make sure you’re using me for my intended purpose?”
He shook his head minutely. “No. Nothing like that. My rank is too high for even the most prestigious merchant to have any sort of authority over me.”
Melody’s eyes narrowed in suspicion and she folded her arms defensively over her chest.
“Just what
is
your rank, then?” she asked.
Garon cleared his throat.
“It requires a bit of backstory,” he replied.
Slowly, Melody arched one eyebrow and glanced around, before settling her gaze back on Garon.
“I’m not exactly going anywhere,” she pointed out.
He sighed quietly.
“Very well.”
He gestured for her to have a seat on the pale couch, and draped a blanket over her once she was seated before he sat down as well.
“My people—we are shape changers, as I am certain you have realized—are very widespread. Our home planet is barren and lifeless due to overpopulation, so we spread out amongst the stars. Many of us live on space stations like this,” he gestured around with one hand, “but many of us are also trying to find new worlds that we can live on. Those of us who explore new worlds, like myself, are very highly regarded. Some of us are regarded as brilliant minds, and some of us as warriors.”
Melody drew the blanket more closely around herself and slid further down on the couch.
“Which category do you fall into?” she asked.
“I am a warrior,” he answered.
“You and many, many others were captured to be sold as…prizes for explorers like me.”
He cleared his throat.
“Sad to say, many do not see a problem with it.”
Melody stared at him silently as she absorbed the influx of information. She didn’t really know anything about Arcturus, but if it was another star entirely, that told her all that she needed to know about just how far away she was from Earth.
“What are you going to do with me?” she finally asked
“That can be decided later,” he answered.
“But I will not hurt you, and I will not make you do something you do not wish to do.” He stood up and headed to another room, but he paused at the door to look over his shoulder at her.
“It is late, and I imagine you would like to rest. You may sleep out here, to avoid sharing a bed with me.”
With that said, he entered the next room and left Melody to her thoughts.
Her thoughts were not pleasant that night, but they hadn’t been pleasant for many nights at that point.
Unlike most nights, though, her dreams were not painful and dreary. They weren’t overwhelmingly pleasant, but they were at least peaceful for a change.