Izzy drags herself back to the cramped room. Life without Charles near her—she shakes, struggling with existence. She walks past Jacob, clueless that he is lounging in a wicker recliner. She walks into the room and sits on the bed. The warmth and comfort of Charles’s cum slowly soaking into her panties is a reminder that Charles is real.
She clings to it.
She had tried to scoop some up and put it in her but soon gave up and settled on letting the underwear hold it close. She sits looking off into the distance.
Jacob follows her into the room. “Izzy, what happened?” he asks, sitting next to her and putting a hand on her back.
At first she flinches and pulls away. Then with a profound sadness she clings to him, burying her head in his chest. “I fell in love, Jacob, deeply in love. We have a connection unlike any I have ever felt.”
Jacob’s stomach knots into a ball; he almost vomits. But it holds it together. He whispers, “Oh.” He had wanted to say more, but that’s all he managed to say.
Izzy cries into his chest, her fists gathering up the t-shirt he is wearing so tightly it’s painful. “I want to be with him forever, and I want his child; I want to be his wife,” Izzy says with fat tears running down her face.
“You just met him, Izzy, and you’re with me, remember?” Jacob says, bracing for her response.
“Maybe you can stay with us in a guest room? Or I don’t know, Jacob, I can’t think; I just love him so much.” She wails.
“What about the contract?” Jacob asks quietly.
“Fuck the contract; I want to be with him,” she screams into his chest. Her voice muffled by the tight fabric.
Jacob, crushed and smashed and broken, rubs her back and consoles her; he holds her and comforts her as she falls asleep.
He falls asleep eventually and wakes to the sound of a knock on the door. Izzy springs out of bed. “Is it you, my love?” she says and opens the door to be face-to-face with Jack Harrington.
“We need to go see the high and mighty.” jack Harrington says looking her over “get dressed and be outside in 5”
“Fine and then we need to talk,” Izzy says quietly.
Izzy sloppily gets dressed and follows him to the reserved gate. The lady of the highest stone walks through the gate. “Idiotic tadpoles, all of them,” she says as she shoves Jack Harrington out of the way. “Let’s go eat before I decide to do something I will regret.”
She bounces her way across the promenade, the structure vibrating with each powerful step. When she arrives at the table she sits looking out of the large window that stares out into the Milky Way.
As Jack Harrington approaches, Marlon appears with a pizza and sets it on the table. The alien opens the box and chomps on a pepperoni bacon pizza with extra parmesan and red pepper flakes spread over the top. “They want to attack now.” She growls as she chomps on her second piece. “What progress have you made?”
Jack Harrington shakes his head and shows her his empty palms. “I am here talking with you, not solving the problem,” he says, sitting down and eating a slice. Izzy looks at it, but the idea makes her stomach turn.
“Then you should get back to the surface and find the child and find a new female; this one looks to be defective. I will hold them off as long as I can,” she says, shoving 3 slices in her mouth at the same time. She stands up. “I do not like the apple that is made of pine on my pizza.”
Jack thoughtfully reaches for another slice, but the lady of the highest stone grabs the box and leaves Izzy and Jack sitting alone.
“Izzy, what’s wrong with you? You didn’t eat any pizza.” Jack Harrington asks.
“I am in love…” She says her eyes lowered, her makeup starting to run as she cries softly at the emptiness of him not touching her.
Jack Harrington looks at her blankly. “I know you are. Jacob is a,” he hesitates, then says, “person.”
“No, Charles!” She says with deep frustration, “How could I love anyone else but him? His love is everything to me.”
Jack Harrington’s eyes narrow, and he stands up. “I see. Pack your things; we are going down. Be ready in 30 minutes.”
“I am staying here with him,” she says, her stomach twisting, the idea of being any farther from him than necessary revolting.
“No, be ready in 30 minutes,” Jack says in a sharp voice.
“I WON’T!” Izzy shouts.
Jack Harrington stands up slowly. He takes her hand. “You will be ready,” he says as he pats her hand with his other one.
In her mind she feels something cold. A splintering of feelings. A shattering of something like a magic spell: ‘You will be ready, and you will not let Charles manipulate your feelings anymore, will you, Izzy?’ Jack Harrington thinks with concentration.
Izzy feels a tremor in her core as Jack Harrington walks away. She feels hollow, like something that had filled up all the space inside her had just left. She whispers his name.
Charles
but she feels nothing for him. Then a growing rage forms inside her.
‘I LOVE HIM.’ She rages in her mind, ‘Where did it go? I love him. Give it back!’
‘Hello, Izzy,’ a quiet voice from a simpler time whispers, ‘Long time no see.’
Izzy looks around, but she is alone. Jack Harrington had left; it was just her and the view through the window.
‘It wasn’t real; he used you,’ the voice whispers.
The voice is familiar. Izzy thinks, ‘Who is it?’
Izzy grabs the handles of the chair, the thick wicker arms threatening to splinter apart.
“I don’t care; he is the one for me, the only one,” she whispers.
‘It was never real,’ the voice says, some part of her that has been quietly watching the part of her that saw the truth. A part that yearns for tentacles and wild sex with aliens It shows her flashes of their interactions.
A plain-looking man with a small beer gut and a penis that is just ok. A horrible style of lovemaking, uncaring about her or her needs.
She has a vivid flash of the way she has been treating Jacob.
Tears flow down her cheeks. “It’s not real, is it? I didn’t do those things?” she whispers.
‘You did,’ the voice says with a smile. ‘Did you like it? Is this who you are? Who you will be forever.’
“NO,” Izzy shouts. And a fire starts burning in her stomach.
‘Good, get mad, do something about it,’ the voice whispers with venom in every word.
“Your damn right I am mad,” Izzy says to the universe.
’Good girl, go create mayhem and destruction.’ The voice laughs.
“Where is he!” Izzy shouts at the receptionist from across the room. She moves closer to him and shouts it again from 5 feet away.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Marvin says.
Izzy reaches over the desk and grabs the man by the lapels; when she tries to pull him close, she pulls herself to him instead. “Where is he?” she yells inches from his face.
“Room 6,” Marvin says, backing away from Izzy as far as he can go.
Izzy lets go, slowly falling back to the floor. She moves to room 6, the hatred bubbling in her soul. She slams on the door. “CHARLES, open up!” she shouts.
The voice in her head laughs as it chomps on popcorn.
The door opens. “Oh, hey Izzy, what’s up? You ok?” Charles says.
Izzy looks at him. Her memories were wrong; he really isn’t an Adonis. He is a man in a tracksuit wearing a man bun. “You—you don’t look like you did,” she whispers.
He reaches out to touch her, and she slaps his hand away. For a brief moment when her hand touched his, she was flooded with the feelings again. “You are a monster,” she says through gritted teeth.
‘Ooh, spicy,’ the voice chitters in her head.
Jack Harrington watches from a chair across the room, his cigar in his mouth, his blood boiling. He gnaws on the foul-tasting tobacco. “Give her a chance,” he mumbles to himself.
Charles grabs her wrist with force. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. ‘You love me; you will always love me; you will love me and only me, and you will be with me no matter what,’ he thinks.
Izzy’s brain feels twisted until it tears. She is flooded with love for Charles again. The dreams of wearing the pretty dress and walking down the aisle with him and his adorable man bun. Speaking of buns, a large bun in her oven—a perfect child raised with my
‘Izzy… it’s a man bun fight back,’ the voice whispers.
The fog clears, and Izzy realizes he is still clamped onto her wrist. She looks up at him with disgust. “Let go of me,” she seethes.
He looks at her confused. “But Izzy, I love you,” he says in a calm tone of voice, ‘and you love me forever. Remember, never forget,’ he thinks.
Izzy is hit with another wave of emotions; she remembers being young and being taught how to kick a soccer ball. She is confused why her brain thinks this is important until it clicks. She slides one foot back and leans in, pulls back, and kicks Charles hard enough to make a crunch noise Izzy can hear and feel in the crotch.
Charles the astronaut screams but doesn’t let go.
‘You are terrible in bed; you are awful. You taste awful. You can’t make a woman cum. You are the worst lover. ‘Your dick is below average, and your man bun is dumb,’ she thinks, trying to figure out how to say it out loud. But she feels his hand leave hers as he falls to the ground.
Izzy hears a clapping noise from behind her and turns around to be face-to-face with Jack Harrington. “Good job, Izzy, but that’s enough; go get packed,” he says to her beaming with pride as he watches her stumble and walk away.
Jack looks at the sack of human lying on the ground, holding his junk in his hands.
Jack Harrington, cigar in mouth, smiles at the man. He reaches down and helps him to his feet. “Hello, Charles.” Jack says, patting the man’s clothes down.
“You really shouldn’t have fucked with Izzy; I happen to like her.” Jack says.
Before Charles can say anything in return, Jack Harrington punches the man hard enough to send him tumbling backwards into his room.
He groans as he lands on the ground, both eyes becoming black and blue.
Jack Harrington staggers from an exo-empathic wave of rage that was transferred at the physical touch.
“You’re fired.” Jack Harrington says and closes the door.
