The next two weeks were the shittiest I could ever remember. They started with the absolute joy of being transported naked right back to my Great Aunt Maizy’s bathroom.
Of course, the clothes that I had left behind when the Commercians first abducted me had been taken away by that time. So I had to try to explain to my Aunt why I was wandering around her house butt-naked and how and why I had disappeared in the first place, more than two months ago.
I made up a story about being abducted by a masked man through the bathroom window, but I could tell she didn’t believe me.
“I don’t think you would fit through that window, Eliza!” she said, staring at me severely. “You’re much too plump for that! Though I’m at a loss to know what else might have happened to you!”
My mom and sister were extremely glad to see me, of course—that was nice. They were more inclined to believe the kidnapping story. I embellished it a bit and said the kidnappers thought I would be worth a lot in ransom since I was always at Aunt Maizy’s big, expensive house. Then, when they found out I wasn’t worth anything, they decided to let me go.
Of course, I couldn’t tell them the real truth—that I had been abducted by aliens and, for a brief time, had been an Alien Overlord’s pet. Who would believe me? Even my loved ones would have thought I was crazy and would probably have tried to have me committed.
My mom did tell me that she’d had odd dreams of me that comforted her—dreams that I was well and safe and eating Jell-O Jigglers, just like she used to make for me and Taylor when we were kids.
It made me want to cry because I knew the dreams had come from Sir. I told her that the kidnappers had fed me Jell-O and treated me pretty well, which kind of gave her the idea that she might be psychic.
“I knew it!” she told me, fluttering her hands excitedly. “Don’t I always get feelings about things? I knew you were going to be all right, sweetheart! I’m just so glad my dreams were true.”
I wished I could tell her about my own mental abilities…except I didn’t have them anymore. Just as I had suspected, the minute I came back to Earth, my La-ti-zal powers vanished. And along with my powers, went my sex drive—I had zero desire left in me. Not that I wanted to have sex with anyone but Sir, even if I had been able to get horny.
I broke things off with Don—he didn’t put up much of a fight. He did say he was glad I was all right, which was nice, I guess. Then he just kind of shrugged and went back to playing his video game.
I couldn’t help staring at my ex-fiancé and wondering what in the world I had been thinking. Why had I been willing to settle for so little? So little passion and commitment and kinkiness?
Probably because I hadn’t met Sir yet, I thought as Don stared blankly at the screen, the blue glare reflected off the lenses of his glasses. Because I hadn’t had any kind of sexual awakening.
Then I made myself stop thinking of Sir. I tried to tell myself I was better off without him—if he didn’t want me, well, I didn’t want him either. So there.
But it was useless—I did want him. I cried myself to sleep almost every night, wanting him and missing him and wondering if he was thinking of me. It made for some really miserable nights, I can tell you.
Days weren’t much better. I had lost my job at the library because of my failure to show up for any work for two months. It didn’t do any good to explain that I had been kidnapped either—my boss didn’t believe me. He just thought I had run off with a boyfriend to Europe or something—as if I could afford a European vacation on a part-time librarian’s salary!
In addition to losing my main job, I lost my apartment too, because I hadn’t paid rent in two months. So I was working for Aunt Maizy full-time now and sleeping on my sister Taylor’s couch.
My life was in a horrible mess and it was all Sir’s fault—so why did I still miss him so much it made me ache inside?
One night, about two weeks after the Commercians had sent me back, I was crying myself to sleep when Taylor came in. She had her long blonde hair tied up in a bun and an elaborate cucumber and avocado mask peel covered her face. Still, I could see the sympathy in her eyes when she sat at the foot of the couch and put her hand on my leg.
“What is it, Elli?” she asked, looking at me. “You haven’t been the same since you came back. Do you want to talk about it? Did the kidnappers…” She hesitated, as though uncertain how to proceed and then her voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Did they do things to you?”
Did they do things to me? I nearly laughed in the middle of my tears. Did Sir do things to me? Only put me in a collar and make me walk on a leash and feed me human chow and train me to be his Sex Pet and make me fall in love with him and then abandon me!
But I knew I couldn’t say all that to Taylor. She was a good older sister, but she was also eminently practical, just like my mom. Neither one of them had much of an imagination and if I tried to tell my older sister what had really happened to me, she would have thought I was going crazy. So I was going to have to choose my words really carefully.
“It wasn’t so much what he did,” I said at last, swiping tears from my eyes. “It was…how he made me feel. I…started caring for him—for the main kidnapper, I mean.”
Taylor’s eyes went wide.
“You had Stockholm Syndrome!” she exclaimed.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “At first, maybe, but it went way beyond that. We…we had a real relationship. Well, I thought we did until he decided to send me back.”
“Oh, honey…come here.” Taylor held out her arms and I found myself hugging her and crying.
“I’m so messed up—my whole life is a wreck!” I sobbed. “I hate it here—I want to go back!”
“You don’t mean that,” Taylor said, stroking my hair. “You can’t mean that!”
“Yes, I do!” I pulled back from her embrace and looked at her fiercely. “Let me tell you, if I disappear again—not that I’m going to, because he doesn’t love me anymore—but if I do, don’t come looking for me. Because if I get out of here again, I am never coming back to this shitty town and this shitty life and the horrible job at Great Aunt Maizy’s!”
“Is it really that bad?” Taylor asked sympathetically.
“Getting seven yappy little dogs in and out of their costumes and taking them on ‘walkies’ and back and forth to the vet and the groomer every day and picking up all their nasty little shit bombs, while they all bark so loudly I feel like I’m going deaf? What do you think?” I said darkly.
“Didn’t Princess Prissy finally have her puppies?” Taylor asked, trying to see the good side of thing. “That must be nice at least. Puppies are always so adorable.”
“Not these ones,” I told her. “Remember the father was a Bulldog and Prissy is a Pomeranian. These are hands down the ugliest puppies you’ve ever seen in your life. I mean, they’re sweet—don’t get me wrong, they’re still puppies, after all. But I don’t think anyone is going to be lining up to buy a Pom-Bull or a Bulleranian or whatever you want to call them anytime soon.” I sighed. “Which means that Aunt Maizy is just going to keep them, so she’s going to have fourteen dogs to take care of instead of just seven.”
“Oh, my!” Taylor’s eyes got wide. “That’s a lot of dogs.”
“You’re telling me,” I said grimly. “It’s a freaking pack. And who do you think is going to be responsible for potty training all of them? Aunt Maizy has already said it’s going to be my ‘special job.’ Not that she’s going to pay me any more for doing it.”
“Oh, Elli…” Taylor sighed and put an arm around my shoulders for a sisterly squeeze. “I know that things seem awful right now, but please don’t give up. Things are going to change for you soon—in a big way—I’m sure of it!”
As a matter of fact, my big sister was more right than she knew. But please remember, she didn’t say things would change for the better.
I gave her a hug and promised I wouldn’t give up and thanked her for being there for me. And that was the last time I saw her because the very next day is when that big thing she’d been predicting happened…