'Sacmis' (formerly 'Alien Abduction')

Chapter 14: Kate

By the time Matias returned with food, Kate had made a number of discoveries and done some hard thinking.

To begin with, the sheer bliss of the shower had wiped all other thoughts from her mind and she gave herself over to the simple pleasure of hot water running over her body. Soap and shampoo were precisely the brands she bought herself when she had money to spare and she used them lavishly.

Discovering the wardrobe it was all she could do to resist some simply gorgeous items, but realising - and resenting - the calculation that lay behind the selection, she settled for the plainest choices hanging there: jeans, T-shirt, trainers. But even these labels were way over her usual budget.

She then sat down to take stock of her situation, sitting cross-legged on one of the low chairs and staring at one of the Monet reproductions displaying on one of the screens opposite - Le Bassin Aux Nympheas, The Water Lily Pond - an exquisite painting of the small bridge that arched over the lily pond in Monet’s famous garden at Giverny - and one that she could never tire of looking at. 

The facts of her situation didn’t take long to sum up:

One, she had been kidnapped against her will. Two, she had been abducted by a man who claimed to be an alien. Three, he insisted she was on a spaceship with three other crew members besides himself.  Four, she wasn’t the only victim: apparently there were three other female captives like herself. Five - and most unacceptable of all - Matias had made it plain he hoped to have sex with her, spinning an unlikely story of the scarcity of women on his planet. Pull the other one, she thought, but you’re not pulling me.

Taken together, it didn’t add up to much. Or not much that could be confirmed.To this information, she could only add the following: she hadn’t been hurt in any way or made to do anything against her will. Matias seemed anxious to please her and had gone to some lengths to make her quarters comfortable.

So far, she reminded herself.

There was another message her body was sending her, far more demanding than the rest: she needed to run. 

For professional athletes like herself, running was not just a sport, it was an addiction. Exercise released endorphins - the ‘feel-good’ hormone - and athletes got used to the high they produced. She estimated that it was at least 24 hours since her last run had been so spectacularly interrupted - and her muscles cried out for exercise.

Summing it all up - and trying to ignore the ache in her limbs - she concluded that knowledge was what she needed most and - like it or not - Matias was her only source. Which - in turn - meant that manipulating him was the priority.

Objectives were even simpler: One, eat. Two, pump Matias. Three, find the other women. Four, escape.

It was as she reached this point in her conclusions that the outer door hissed open and Matias appeared with a tray.

“I wasn’t sure what you’d like,” he said, “but I took an educated guess.”

As he laid down the tray, she saw a bowl of pasta, a side salad and a bottle of mineral water. The pasta looked - irresistible. Carbs!

“Spaghetti Carbonara, if I’m not mistaken,” she said.

“I know it’s a favourite of yours,” he replied. “You usually order it at your local Italian.”

She didn’t have the energy to enquire how he knew this, but the smell of the food erased any other considerations.

“Don’t expect much conversation from me for the next ten minutes,” she said.

“No problem,” he said, smiling and settling back in the chair opposite her.

Even though she had no time to talk, she took the opportunity to study him closely, glancing up now and then from her plate.

Her brain was struggling with the central issue: Could he just be an ordinary human male? And was this all just an elaborate - and sinister - hoax?

He was certainly taller than the average, but no taller than some men she’d met. His shoulders were broader than most tapering to slim hips, accentuated by his tallness. Two things, however, marked him as out of the ordinary: that amazing skin colour and his face. Skin colour could be faked, but try as she might between mouthfuls of food and surreptitious glances, it didn’t look cosmetic. His skin was an iridescent bronze, changing colour every so slightly when the light caught it from different angles when he moved. Under other circumstances, she might have described it as beautiful. But it was his face that commanded her attention: everything was - at first glance - human. But the proportions were not quite right: eyes just that bit too large, nose just that bit too thin, lips that were surprisingly generous, seeming to stretch from ear to ear when he smiled. Handsome? Definitely not. Ugly? Not at all. Just - she was forced to admit - fascinating. And a little bit scary. No, a lot scary. The big shock was his eyes. Glancing up from her plate, she had momentarily met his gaze full on. Where there should have been whites was a deep black-brown and the irises were enormous, dark gold in colour and streaked with lighter golds and greens that flickered and revolved, like a vortex.

If that’s make-up, she thought, it’s damn good.

In spite of herself, she couldn’t stop the wicked little question sliding into her mind. After all, it was he who had raised the agenda. It was the insidious, unavoidable question most men and women silently asked themselves when they met someone of the opposite sex of a dateable age: Could I? Would I?

Literally shaking her head in anger at herself, she banished the question from her mind, but not in time to prevent the whisper of an answer: Under different circumstances? Perhaps. 

She’d dated worse.

© Adriana Nicolas 2014