FIVE

ELLI

When the gray giant left me alone in his bedroom, locked in the coffin-like “crate,” I felt at first like my heart might burst from fear and claustrophobia. But I knew that getting hysterical wasn’t going to help me get out of this situation—which was definitely the weirdest and scariest fix I had ever been in, in my entire life.

“Breathe,” I told myself out loud in a shaky voice. “Just breathe.”

I had done some meditation classes at my local YMCA—they actually helped me a lot when I was dealing with Aunt Maizy’s bullshit. So I closed my eyes, pushed everything out of my mind, and just concentrated on my breathing for a little bit.

When I opened my eyes, I no longer felt quite so close to having a panic attack, and I was able to assess the situation calmly. Well, as calmly as anyone who’s just been abducted to serve as an alien’s pet can be, anyway.

First things first, I looked at the door to my crate. (By the way, I still couldn’t believe he had crated me like a naughty puppy who had piddled on the carpet!) The sides of the crate were made of some rigid material that wasn’t plastic but also wasn’t glass or metal. Was it some kind of alien material? Possibly but I didn’t have time to worry about that now.

There were some air slits in the sides and back of the crate, but none was big enough for me to crawl out of. A skinnier girl might have managed it, but I was just too curvy. It occurred to me that maybe this was one reason why my captor had chosen me—because I was too big to escape the crate.

But no—the look in those full-black eyes of his when he had said he liked my “lines” had been unmistakable. He had promised not to use me as a “Sex Pet” but I wasn’t going to trust him about that—I had to get out of here before he showed his true colors!

The floor of the crate was padded with a strange, spongy substance that gave under my feet when I stepped on it. I frowned—was this some kind of absorbent lining? A piddle pad, like you’d put down for a puppy who wasn’t housebroken yet?

It was infuriating, but I thought that was probably the truth. I hoped the gray giant didn’t plan to leave me in here until I wet myself—I had no wish to test the absorbency of the alien piddle pad. Which meant I needed to escape, because I already had to go. Being in a stressful situation always makes me have to pee and this was insanely stressful, as I’ve mentioned before.

Since the back, sides, and floors of the crate held no options for escape, I began examining the front of the structure I was in. It had a lattice of metal bars, woven into a crisscross pattern which at least allowed me to see out.

Looking through this lattice, I could see the latch to one side of the door. It was difficult to see in the weird, blue glow, but after a moment, I realized it wasn’t that different from the latch on a pet carrier back on Earth—the kind where you pinch the two halves together, compressing the internal spring to free the metal pins from their holes, and then the gate swings open.

I was kind of an expert on pet carriers after working for Aunt Maizy for so long, so I figured it should be no problem to get this one open. I reached both hands through the bars—the metal squares that made up the lattice were about a foot square, which made this possible—and began fiddling with the latch.

It was, indeed, the kind of latch I was used to but what I hadn’t counted on was how strong I would have to be in order to work it. The springs inside it weren’t light and also, it was built on a much larger scale than the pet carriers I usually worked with, which were made for small dogs. In the end, I had to use both hands to push the two metal bars together and it took every bit of my strength to unlatch the cage and push the metal gate open.

I was panting and sweating by the time the gate finally swung open and my arm muscles felt like limp spaghetti noodles—but at least I was free. Well, free to explore the bedroom, at least.

Everything looked strange and huge in the blue, underwater glow. It reminded me of the restrooms they have in some of the convenience stores in and around Atlanta that have blue overhead lights. The reason behind the blue glow is that it’s supposed to keep drug addicts, who go into the bathroom to shoot up, from being able to find their veins. But in this case, I was pretty sure the glow was just what my alien captor liked. Who knew what spectrums of light those strange, full-black eyes could see?

All the furniture in the room was built on a much bigger scale than I was used to. At 5’4, I’ve never been the tallest one in the room, but the enormous furnishings made me feel like I had somehow shrunk back down to the size I’d been when I was ten or twelve. Like Alice after eating the mushroom, everything was simply too big.

The bed was massive—a thick pallet raised far off the ground on some kind of platform whose legs seemed to be made of the same alien material as my crate. I had to stand on my tiptoes to see the top of the mattress, which was covered in a kind of duvet that was made of thick, silky, silver material that gleamed softly in the blue glow. The mattress itself was so big, it reminded me more of a silver sea than a bed.

I flipped the silver duvet up to look under the bed and was met with a vast, black space that gave me the shivers. The dim blue glow didn’t give enough light for me to see what was under there and I decided I’d rather not find out.

But this time I was nearly bursting with the need to pee. I’d had to go even before the doggy wedding, which now seemed like about a hundred years ago, though it was probably barely an hour. I wondered if Great Aunt Maizy had found Princess Prissy and her soiled wedding dress in the bathtub yet and if she was wondering where I had gone to. Would she think I’d had enough and had decided to abandon her precious Pomeranian and hit the road? No matter what she thought, she would never guess what had actually happened. Nobody would.

That led me down the road of worrying about what my mom and sister would think. Mom would want to call the police right away but Taylor would say to wait because maybe I was just “cooling off” after that ridiculous doggy wedding. Of course, it didn’t matter when they called, nobody on Earth would be able to find me.

The thought made me sad and scared but I did my best not to give in to it. This was a bad situation but I was going to get out of it.

“Listen up, Elli,” I told myself sternly. “Nobody back home is going to come for you, so you have to get yourself out of this mess!”

But how? I couldn’t even find the bathroom—let alone get myself back to Earth!

I was walking along the perimeter of the room as I thought this. There was a giant chair in one corner upholstered in the same sleek sliver material as the coverlet on the bed. Its seat came up to my waist and I estimated I could crawl onto it if I didn’t mind leaving my dignity behind. But it was clearly not a toilet, which was what I urgently needed.

Further along the wall I finally found what I was looking for. I was trailing my fingers along the wall so I didn’t get lost in the blue gloom, when I found that I was no longer feeling metal but instead some kind of fabric or cloth.

It turned out to be a kind of curtain which was the same color as the walls. After pushing what felt like yards and yards of fabric out of the way, I found myself in another room—a much smaller one.

The lights came on automatically as soon as I entered, nearly blinding me with their brilliance. I squinted uncertainly, looking around at the bright, white walls and the huge appliances.

The first appliance looked a bit like a square bathtub with high sides but it was as big as a hot tub back home. I couldn’t see where the water was supposed to come from—there were no spigots or faucets—but maybe they were hidden. Anyway, it wasn’t a shower or a bath I was looking for—I needed someplace to relieve myself.

The second appliance was more promising. It looked like a large, shiny silver pot balanced on top of a short, squat pedestal. Well, I say short but the top of the pedestal came up to my thigh and the broad, flat lip of the pot came up to my waist. So I would have to stand on my tiptoes and scramble a bit to get seated on it, but I thought it was doable—barely.

Then I saw what looked like two white bricks at the base of the pedestal. Oh good—I could use those to climb up. So this was now definitely doable. Good, because I really had to go!

Before I peed in the pot, however, I wanted to be sure it was the right place to relieve myself. I mean, what if it was part of the spaceship’s engine and I shorted it out by peeing in it? That would certainly make my giant captor very unhappy and I wasn’t free of him yet. I didn’t want to be punished like a naughty puppy who had piddled in the corner.

I looked down into the silver pot and saw a glimmer of dark blue liquid. This seemed promising—like an airplane toilet maybe. This must be the place to go, I thought. Of course, I didn’t see any toilet paper but I decided that just this once, I could air dry. If I didn’t pee soon, I was going to burst.

Carefully, I stepped up onto the two white bricks at the base of the pedestal. As I stepped on them, I noticed that they lit up—the first brick turned red and the second turned blue. It seemed ominous and any other time I would have jumped back, but did I mention how badly I had to go? I decided to ignore the glowing bricks and just pee as quickly as I could.

Settling myself carefully on the edge of the pot—I had to be careful because it was freaking huge and if I wasn’t careful I would certainly fall in—I finally began to pee.

If you’ve ever had to hold it for a really long time, you know what a relief it is when you get to go. I closed my eyes and sighed in pure bliss as the terrible pressure in my bladder was at last released. I felt my shoulders slump as some of the tension I’d been carrying finally left my body and for a minute, I could almost pretend I was back home in my own apartment instead of on an alien spaceship headed God-only-knew-where. For a moment, I felt almost peaceful.

That was, until I felt something hard and cold wrap itself around my waist.

With a gasp, I looked down and saw that the shiny silver bowl I was sitting on had somehow grown a long, silver tentacle out of its side. This tentacle was currently holding me in place where I sat.

“Oh my God!” I exclaimed and reached for the silver tentacle to try and pry it off. No dice—it was really strong and it had a firm hold on me—it was wrapped around my waist twice in a double loop.

I tried to jump down off the pot, but the tentacle wouldn’t let me—and then the pot grew another tentacle from its other side!

I watched in fear as this new appendage waved ominously at me. What did it want? Was the toilet trying to eat me? Was I going to end my life as a snack for an alien commode?

Then, to my horror, the second tentacle made a dive for the space between my legs.

“Hey!” I gasped. “No!”

I managed to grip the silver tentacle before it could get too far, but it was like fighting with a python. The thing was doing its damndest to get to my coochie, but I was having none of it. I’ve seen tentacle hentai before and I had no wish to star in my own version of it!

“No!” I shouted at the tentacle as I wrestled with it. “Get away from me! You’re not impregnating me with your alien spawn, you bastard!”

Just at that moment, the fabric curtain was pushed aside and the gray giant was standing there, staring at me with a surprised and bemused look on his face.

“What in the name of the Goddess Everlasting are you doing, little one?” he rumbled.