Chapter 1 one

Families always have problems, I know that. Mine just seemed to have more than most. My uncles had all spent time locked up and now they couldn't get work. My mother was a drunk and my dad had never been in the picture. To say we were dysfunctional was an understatement.

Somehow mom had managed to buy the house we were in. It was small, just a few bedrooms and a kitchen/ living area. It was full of people, though.

We became the crash pad for anyone in the family with nowhere to stay, which was pretty much everybody. They blamed the bad economy. I blamed the stuff they kept snorting up their noses. Fear of another beating kept me from ever saying anything like that.

I'd had my own bedroom until my last uncle moved in. Uncle Eddy told mom he "needed" to have a comfortable bed. He was creepy enough he probably wouldn't have cared if I stayed. My mother told me I could sleep on the couch, but she spent most nights there passed out drunk. Occasionally I found myself sleeping in a chair on the front porch.

It was a shock when I managed to graduate high school.

Once I finally turned eighteen I'd got out of there as fast as I could.

I took a job cleaning rooms several hours down the interstate in a seedy motel. My boyfriend drove me and my meager belongings to the motel. His payment was a quickie on the motel's squeaky, uncomfortable bed. Once he left, I never saw him again.

The manager at the motel was not exactly nice, but he took my money same as anyone else's to stay there. I had my own bed and a little TV. I did the cleaning, so it was spic and span. Soon I learned to avoid Mr. Pensky, the manager, just like I'd avoided my uncles.

The work at the motel was hard and thankless. Mr. Pensky refused to buy me even simple things, like gloves. My hands were red and raw from the chemicals I used. After a couple months the dry cracks over my fingers and palms just became part of me.

The motel's clientele were mostly old grimy men. They tried to grope me daily, but I was fast. I'd learned years ago how to avoid my uncle's unwanted touches. I kept myself out of trouble.

The basics of living at the motel were still an improvement. I had food three times a day. For once, I could lock my room, so nobody stole what I bought. I rarely had fresh fruit or vegetables, canned foods kept better and were cheaper. I knew I couldn't eat like that forever. It was still an upgrade for me, though.

I loved my days off. I took the bus and went down to the coast. There was a place there the tourists never went. If you climbed the steep slope down, you had your own private rocky beach.

I'd spend hours diving and exploring the deep bottom. It was quiet under the water and the fish never bothered me. I learned to hold my breath a really long time and explored the underwater caves and crevices as far as I could.

If I ever got enough money together, I considered taking scuba classes and renting the equipment. That kind of cash was long way off for me.

That was life for me and I was finally happy. My little world wasn't very exciting, but it was mine.

I shopped after work at the mini mart a block away. I came back to the motel late one night and noticed a faint glowing coming from around back. I dropped my groceries in my room and went to investigate.

There was a small wooded lot behind the building. Drunks sometimes started fires back there. The manager didn't care unless they got out of hand and then we called the police and fire trucks.

I'm not sure what prompted me to go investigate. I should have gone and gotten Mr. Pensky and let him check.

I crunched into the lot stepping over empty beer bottles and discarded syringes. The light was coming from somewhere in the center. I wove between the trees watching the light. It wasn't flickering like a fire. It was more like a steady pulse. That's the last thing I saw on Earth.

I woke up and didn't really remember having gone to sleep. My surroundings were all very clean, sterile almost and completely foreign to me. I bolted upright and realized I was naked.

The room I was in was bright white including the little bench I had been laying on. There were no windows in the room and the light seemed to be coming from the walls themselves. I put my feet on the floor and it felt like hard plastic. Reaching out and touching the walls I couldn't find anything like a seam that would indicate a door.

My breathing was coming rapidly and I figured this must be hyperventilating. Suddenly it felt like the room was moving, the sensation was slight, but prominent. My arms and legs were stuck, held in place by strong air currents. The air pulled my arms out from my sides and separated my legs. I turned my head and saw the bench blend back into the floor.

The walls just disappeared, that's the best way I could describe it. One minute they were there and then they weren't. I was on the white lighted platform looking out into oblivion.

My eyes slowly adjusted to the dark and now I could see faces. My little platform was drifting slowly through a sea of faces. They were humanoid, most of them. Others were what people described when they talked about alien abduction.

I fought for consciousness. My mind just wanted to shut off and be back at the motel fixing Ramen noodles. This could not possibly be happening.

I was so humiliated. I wasn't fat, but I wasn't skinny either. My tummy and hips had a soft look I hated. The same went for my enormous breasts. I longed to cover up all my private parts.

The thing that really bothered me. The thing that should not have mattered that did was that I hadn't shaved my legs or my armpits in ages. There was no one to impress at the motel, so I was a hairy mess.

My bush, oh man, my bush was huge reaching all the way to my navel. The dark curly hair covering my lower stomach was a trait I had inherited from mom. I hated it and I never would have showed it to anyone. Not like any of that mattered, but my brain decided that's what I would worry about.

Occasionally, my little tray would pause in front of a group of faces. The ones that I stopped in front of all looked human. I seemed to glide right past the strange looking creatures in the hall. I couldn't wonder why that was.

The groups of men I hovered in front of appraised me. I could see them pointing at me and talking to one another. Depending where they pointed the light and the air currents changed. I was bent over, laid flat, made to sit, and made to kneel. I couldn't fight the air currents, they were too strong. The light seemed to illuminate the part of me they were most interested in.

In one position I saw other dully lighted trays lining a raised stage on the far side of the room. Other creatures adorned those trays. All were held in a position similar to mine. A human looking woman was passing between them on the stage, placing collars around their narrowest part. It struck me we were being sold, this is what an intergalactic slave house would look like.

It was intolerable that humans were enslaving other humans. They should know this was wrong. Suddenly, I was livid.

This was insufferable. The last group of men had the air currents move me all over the place. The nerve they had to treat me like this. The auctioneers would probably kill me for my bravado, but I didn't care. I was furious.

I tried to scream at the men in front of me. Initially no sound came out, some weird air current was preventing it. I glared at them and resisted the air currents. I wasn't going to just be the puppet they wanted.

One of the males in front of me had long dirty blonde hair down his back, he smiled smugly at me and motioned. The air current preventing me from speaking was gone and I made the most horrible noises. I called them every bad name I'd ever heard and cursed them in every way I could think of. I struggled against my bonds and glared at them.

The men talked amongst themselves for several moments while I floated in front of them. I had run out of cuss words, so I just scowled in their direction. I looked around angrily and wondered which group of ass holes I would stop in front of next. Hopefully these jerks were done with me.

A massive dark haired man in the group made a motion and shouted something out. The air current over my mouth returned and my platform spun across the room to the wall. The light under my feet dimmed until it was just a dull glow. Humanoid hands placed a cool metal collar around my throat.

Oh God, what had I done?

I watched with terror as the auction continued. Despite all the activity, my eyes were glued to the last group of men I had stopped in front of. It appeared the dark haired man had bought me.

I tried to recall exactly what he looked like. It was hard to see him from this distance. He had been large and muscular, I thought. His chest seemed to have a metal breast plate squarely in the middle. I seemed to remember seeing the hilt of a sword at his waist. All in all, he looked dangerous.

I looked away from him for a moment and checked out the other slaves. Some look sort of human, but most didn't. In fact, I didn't see anyone else up here on the stage that appeared to be from Earth.

Scanning the auction again I didn't see the dark haired man anymore. I had a moment of panic that he had left. If he hadn't bought me, who had? The not knowing was worse than knowing.

A movement from by my feet caught my eye and I looked down. The dark haired man was there, along with the four other men and they were staring up at me. Their eyes seemed to be appraising me. I was acutely aware of how my legs were spread and what they had complete access to.

In my fright, my body did the most embarrassing thing. I pissed myself. The golden liquid splashed down my legs to the white platform.

The men looked at it curiously and seemed to be discussing it. The one with the long blonde hair reached onto the edge of the platform. I felt the air currents fighting him, trying to push him away. He wasn't even a little deterred and dipped a finger into the yellow puddle. He examined it, as did his friends, and then he tasted it.

Bad enough to piss myself in public, now some alien is tasting it.

The female looking creature that had collared me came to stand beside the men. They looked warily at her. A long tentacle came out of her throat and delved into the ear of the long haired man. She was impassive, but the man bowed his head to her. She motioned and my little platform was clean of the puddle. The urine still clung to my legs and I wished the air currents would dry it.