Alien Bride, page 8
part #2 of The Alien Series
“Haven’t seen me work all day? What do you think I’ve been doing this whole time?”
She looks up, vaguely annoyed. “A lot of huffing and puffing and delegating. Look, I have comms to respond to and it’s best you aren’t here when I do. Come back tomorrow when you’ve had a chance to regain your focus.”
“Fine,” I concede. “I’ll be more productive tomorrow. It’s been a rough few days, I really could use an uninterrupted rest cycle,” I tell her, rubbing the bridge of my nose.
“So… I take that to mean that your new bride is interrupting your rest cycles,” she laughs.
“Not that it is your business, but last night she did… only not in the way I would prefer.”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t consummated your union yet?” she asks, spinning in her chair to face me. Her tone is half teasing and half filled with genuine surprise. I shut down my computer station and place my handheld in my pocket.
“Tonight may be my lucky night,” I tell her, wasting my best rogue smile on my friend, but somehow I know I’m not fooling either of us.
When I get back to my room Alessandra is not there. I eat dinner alone and sit up in bed late into the night… not waiting for her to return… but reading. Somehow, I fall asleep before she comes back. When I wake in the morning I don’t need to look next to me in the cold bed to know she is not there. I dress for work and frown as I pass Alessandra’s sleeping form on the settee before I leave.
Another week passes like this, where I barely see my wife and not a word is spoken between us. I meant to see how long she could keep up this distance… but it is wearing thin on my patience. I grow more frustrated with each passing day. Does she not know how a husband and wife are to behave with one another? What could she possibly be doing out of our room each night?
“You are even worse today than you were yesterday!” Anu laments. “Please, for the sake of all that is good, be quiet!”
“I am not even speaking, how can I be more quiet?”
“You have done nothing but fidget and sigh all day long! Have you come up with a solution for Serif?”
“No, not yet. I’m still working on it.”
“What are your ideas thus far?” she demands, crossing her arms over her chest. I look away. I’ve got nothing. “Exactly! Now remove yourself so one of us might actually get some work done!”
“Where am I supposed to go?”
“Back to your room for all I care, you can do this same thing there, can you not?” Anu shoos me out of our office. Normally she is much more understanding when it comes to my sometimes less than comparable work ethic, but there seems to be something under her skin lately. Or maybe there is something under my skin… I know she has been working hard to sort through this Makaan issue. I’ve been dismayed to find that it is her political favors that are keeping this debacle out of the news and not mine. Apparently, I don’t have many colleagues willing to put their necks on the line for me, which I suppose shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Luckily Anu does.
I make my way back to the room, frustration boiling at the back of my mind. I can’t work like this, something needs to change. I resolve to make the first move and set things straight with Alessandra. But what is it exactly that I want to set straight? Am I angry because she sleeps on the settee each night? That she is not there to eat dinner with me as a proper wife should? Perhaps that is it. She is not acting like a proper wife and it bothers me. She should be making a greater effort towards this union, even if it is temporary. Obviously, she does not have to have sex with me if she does not desire to do so, but she should at least share a bed and her meals with me. She should be there when I return from my work. We should, at the very least, speak!
Perhaps because she is human she does not know that her behavior is inappropriate. I will simply have to let her know my expectations, I decide. I quicken my pace back to my room. Swiping at the panel, I open the door. Alessandra is not in the living area. I go to the bedroom. Not there either. Nor is she in the bathroom. It is the middle of the day. Where is she?
We had made plans to see the other women from the Makaan ship a week ago and she has not even returned to the room long enough to follow through with that—it is yet another thing that bothers me, I decide. She should be true to her word if she is to be my wife.
I stand staring at the empty settee, wondering where she could be. I showed her such a limited portion of the ship, I can’t imagine how she is filing her time outside of my room. Our conversation must happen now if I am ever to get back to work. I will simply have to retrieve her from wherever she is.
Storming out of the room, I rack my brain trying to think of anything in our limited conversations that might give me a hint as to where she might be. I suddenly remember the first night we met. She told me about humans who “cheat” in relationships. I immediately wonder if that is what is keeping her away from my room. Is she displeased with me and seeking out a new husband for her next union, I wonder? The thought makes my body heat with anger. I stalk through the halls and make my way to the garden first, but other than a few Islerian crewmen taking their meals or lounging in the grass, the garden is sparsely populated. She is not among the people here.
I then remember how interested she was in the artwork throughout the ship and decide to head over to Mardari’s last painting. She seemed to admire that one the most, and there are so few places I can think of that she might be, though even I can admit it is a slim likelihood she has spent the past week staring at a single painting. Along the way I pass a young guard patrolling the ship.
“You there, can you tell me if you have seen one of our new passengers? My wife, a small alien called a human. Her name is Alessandra.”
“Alessandra! Of course! The lovely human with amazing hair, she is hard to miss! She is your wife, sir? Congratulations—” he begins, speaking to me far too personally.
“Have you seen her?” I nearly growl at the guard.
“Yes, she is in the hologram room still,” he says, and I am dismayed to hear that he is familiar with my wife’s daily comings and goings, particularly when I am not. I turn towards the hologram room, but he stops me.
“Ambassador, can you tell me if the human planet is anywhere near here? Are all the women there similar to Alessandra?” he asks hopefully, and I actually do growl this time before I stomp down the hall, filled with anger.
When I arrive at the hologram room the door opens and I notice her immediately within the running program. She is sitting on a sandy beach, just as she was when I left her days ago. I am relieved to see her alone and some of my jealousy dissipates. Alessandra looks up at the disruption in her program caused by the door, she sees me and her expression is one of… embarrassment?
This piques my curiosity, but my frustration from the past week still ebbs in my mind. I march over to her and she remains seated but turns her face away from me.
“Program end,” she says, and we are no longer on a foreign beach, but in the cold black warehouse that the hologram room is when a program isn’t running. She sits with her arms hugging her knees to her chest. She looks small and fragile like this, not like the wild thing that attacked me with books back in my suite. I feel the anger fall from me. Something is wrong here.
“Program resume,” I say, and I sit down next to her on the sand. She tilts her face farther away so I cannot see her, and I notice she is wiping at her eyes. She has been crying here, on this beach that I presume is a place of significance on her home planet. I was not prepared for this.
“This is your world?” I struggle to remember what it was called. “Earth?”
“Yeah,” she says, but adds nothing more.
“Was this your home?” I ask, looking around to see if there is a dwelling she has created. But there is just a long expanse of beach. In the distance I see a pier reaching out into the water with machinery of some kind at the end in the form of a large rotating circle. Far away there are many groups of people who look to be human, like my Alessandra. They sit under umbrellas and on towels, some play a game at a net with a ball. Occasionally I can hear their laughter or one calling to another. Much effort went into creating this program. There are many specific details, though all seem very far from where Alessandra sits.
“This is just a beach. It’s actually bits and pieces of a few beaches… all the things I liked best,” she tells me.
I evaluate what she has created. It’s nothing like the beaches on Isleria. It’s chaotic and brighter than Islerian beaches. “It’s… nice…” I tell her, somewhat at a loss for words, fearful that I will say something to cause her to become angry. Though to be honest, I would prefer her anger to this melancholy. The anger is fun—a challenge. I don’t know what to do with sadness. “Is this where you have been all week?”
“Has it been a week?” she asks and sounds truly surprised. She has been losing herself in this image of her home. We sit in silence and I feel the need to fill it, to talk, to understand what the problem is, but she stands before I can find the right words.
“End program,” she commands, but with a sterner finality this time. “Sorry, did you need something?” she asks, pretending there is not a well of despair in her eyes.
“Alessandra, what is the meaning of this? You are here looking back at your home world, but I don’t understand why it causes you such displeasure.”
“You want to hear about it? Really?” she emphasizes sarcastically, with her arms crossing her chest.
“Obviously, or I would not have asked,” I urge her, perplexed.
She turns and looks out to the empty room around us, as if she can still see the ghosts of her home world’s shore. She lets out a long and pained sigh before she hangs her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her eyes are tightly closed.
“This isn’t me, Kye. I haven’t felt like me since my abduction.” I shift on my feet, not wanting to hear this part of it but not wanting to stop her either. “Everything I thought I knew about myself, every personality trait I thought was deeply ingrained… It’s like I’m watching someone else’s nightmare. I feel… lost. Crazy? Like I’m not even sure who I am anymore.” She finally looks back at me, searching my face for something… understanding perhaps. Not finding what she hoped for, she turns back to the empty room and waves her arm angrily at it, “Like this! Coming here every day, getting lost in this… shadow of Earth. Hah! If anyone from back home could see me now,” she laughs ruefully. “This isn’t me,” she reiterates. “I don’t get stuck in the past. I move forward, I don’t dwell. Yet here I am, every day.”
The silence echoes between us. I stare at her, willing myself to find something meaningful… something comforting to say. She stands with her back to me, close, but too far away to touch. In all my years of politics, in all my speeches and debates, I have never had to struggle for the right words. Yet somehow, I’m not prepared for this.
“Let’s go back to the room,” is all I can think to say. Her head bobs, nodding assent. She turns, and I reach my arm out to her. She doesn’t refuse me. Instead, she tucks herself against my body and I hug her to my side. I am careful my pheromone producers do not brush her flesh. I do not want her to accuse me of being anything besides comforting in this moment. We walk in silence out of the room and down the halls. We pass the young guard, who smiles wide when he sees my wife.
“Good afternoon, Alessandra,” he says brightly.
“Hey, Ohen.” She smiles back at him and wipes away the remainder of her tears.
“Would you like me to put in your dinner order?”
“Thanks, but not tonight. I think I’ll eat in Kye’s room.”
“Of course,” he replies, but his smile is tight now and he gives me a lazy salute as we continue past him down the hall. I grit my teeth, trying to ignore the exchange, but can’t keep myself from inquiring about it.
“That guard brings you your dinner?” I ask. There are crew members whose jobs are to handle food; this guard should not be taking time to perform such a task.
“Brings me my dinner? A couple times, I guess. Mostly we eat together, though,” Alessandra tells me, and all of my anger from before seeps back into my mind. My wife, who I have hardly seen in a week, has been sharing her meals with this guard? Sharing her meals with another man, while I eat alone? I am just about to explode, when she reaches up to hold the hand of the arm I have wrapped around her shoulder, and for a second time in one day I find myself speechless.
Once back in my room I call to have a meal brought up. Alessandra steps into the bathroom to shower, and I am grateful for the time to regain my composure. I still want to discuss my expectations for our union, but I would have to be a fool to think that this is the right time. I rack my brain trying to think of some way to bring it up, or at least something useful to say once she emerges from the shower.
I hear the water shut off just as the door signals the arrival of our meal. I allow the serving crew in to set the trays out across the table. Quickly, they move to make their exit.
“Wait,” I tell them. “Take this with you.” I motion towards Alessandra’s settee. They look back and forth to one another, confused.
“You want us to remove this piece of furniture, Ambassador?” one of the three crewmen asks, before I hear Alessandra’s movements in the bathroom.
“Hurry, get it out of here! Quickly, quickly!” I tell them with no small amount of urgency. The men jump into action, grabbing the settee. They are out the door, just as Alessandra emerges from the bathroom.
“Mmm, the food smells good,” she calls from the bedroom. When she comes into the living area she looks first to the table, with a soft smile on her full lips. She seems more at ease now. I take in her appearance. She wears a tight, thin-strapped shirt that Islerian women typically only use for undergarments and one of the few pairs of pants I added to the wardrobe I assembled for her. I have noticed she usually opts for pants, and it is this particular pair she wears most often. Beyond that, she is barefoot, her hair is wet, and has been brushed straight with my comb. She almost looks Islerian like this—her locks smoothed back the way they are. I find I much prefer the wild look. She looks over to me, but her eyes quickly move past to the empty space which, a few short moments ago, held her “bed.” Her faint smile falters.
“What the… where the hell’s the couch?” she asks.
“It was taken. To be cleaned,” I explain.
“Cleaned? What? Why?” Her expression is one of confusion.
“Oh, the crew. They spilled food on it. It’s dirty.”
She looks over to the table, then at the floor where the settee had been sitting. “What’d they spill?”
“Why don’t we sit and eat while the food is still warm? Are you hungry?” I ask, moving to the table to hold out a seat for her. She raises an eyebrow at me but sits.
“Yeah, I am hungry,” she says, and luckily the food does indeed seem to distract her. “Wow, this looks wonderful. A lot fancier than what I normally eat.” I am reminded of the fact that she has been spending time with this guard, Ohen.
“Hmm, I’m sure Ohen’s tastes aren’t as refined as some,” I tell her, and she continues to eye me with something of a suspicious look.
“I think Ohen’s tastes are just fine,” she replies, with a hint of defensiveness laced in with her words.
“In some things, I agree,” I remark, looking pointedly at my wife. Her hair is starting to dry already around her face. The wisps curl into golden waves. “You missed our plans last week,” I mention.
“Plans?” she asks, distractedly, serving food onto her plate.
“To see the other women…” I remind her.
“Oh… yeah. I guess I kind of went away there for a while… I’ve been stuck in my own head…” She trails off and for a moment she seems as if she is in some faraway place. Perhaps a lonely beach back on Earth. “I don’t want to be stuck anymore. I’d still like to see them, if that’s possible,” she adds.
“Yes, I can see to it that something is arranged.”
“Speaking of arranging things, we’ll have to figure out a new sleeping arrangement until the couch comes back.”
“You can simply share my bed with me,” I wave her off dismissively--hoping the subject will be changed before she can come up with a reason why we should not.
“That didn’t work out very well last time,” she asserts. “Can’t we just call to get a cot or a sleeping bag brought to the room? I don’t mind taking the floor.”
I set my utensil down with a clank. This woman, I think to myself. I don’t think there are any single women aboard this ship who would not welcome an opportunity to climb into bed with me, and yet here I sit with my wife and she would rather sleep on the floor than share my bed. The universe must be playing some sort of sick joke on me. I run my hand across my forehead, shaking my head. I can’t keep the laughter welling up inside me at bay. I look up to see Alessandra looking at me with no small amount of curiosity.
