Authors: Julia Sexton
Chapter 6
Natasha woke up, feeling dizzy. Her first impression was that she shouldn’t have drunk so much booze. Her second one was that she, in fact,
had not
drunk so much booze. The hangover she was having was way out of proportion to the amount of alcohol she had consumed last night.
She opened her eyes, taking in the surroundings. This was unlike any room she had ever been in her life. It was right out of a movie. Right in front of her were two mirrors facing each other. There was nothing in the space between the mirrors but they seemed to be reflecting an image, not unlike a television.
She blamed it on disorientation in the morning and started to look at something to distract her. Her eyes fell on a wooden table top that looked ordinary enough; until, that is, when she saw that there were no legs on the table. The top seemed to be suspended in midair. On top of the table was a pen, or rather something that functioned like a pen. If she had to put a name to it, she would call it a quill. It was moving of its own volition.
She got up from the bed and moved to the table top. She looked at what the quill was writing at. It was not paper or screen. It was something in between, translucent enough to be a screen but had the feel of a paper. She read a couple of lines and her breath caught in her throat: the quill was writing her movements of the day.
The semi-darkness of the room, coupled with the weird twin mirrors and the self-thinking magic quill made her queasy. She wanted normality, she wanted light. She moved to what looked like a curtain beyond which there
had
to be a window. She pushed the curtain aside and gave a loud scream.
She was wrong to think that this was a movie. She was looking at flying vehicles and disc like space objects that had no other name than UFOs. The sky wasn’t blue. It was a light purple and there seemed to be two large orbs in the sky and one of them was definitely not the sun. There were structures like buildings but these structures seemed to be made of liquid made solid or something like that. They seemed to bend and move around to avoid the flying objects.
“I see that you’re up,” a voice said from behind her.
She didn’t think that she could scream this loud twice in two minutes but she did. This was not happening. This did not make any sense. She turned around and her jaw fell open.
She could immediately place the man she was looking at; half dressed and all drowsy, entangled in the sheets she had just come out from. In her bewilderment, she had not noticed him lying on her side, which was a pity because he looked absolutely dishy.
It was the stranger from Mike’s wedding who had shooed off Todd and she was now sure that this was the same man who had been looking at her from across the street.
“Who are you?” she said, the first logical question coming to her mind. It seemed odd to her that she didn’t put more questions to him, to get to the bottom of this very weird trip.
“I am Viktor of House Basilia,” he said proudly. She had no idea what that meant.
“Where am I? What is happening to me? Did you give me some drugs or something? Is this because of a bad reaction?”
Natasha was rambling on, trying to make sense of what was going on because so far she was in denial mode and she was not going to give in easily.
“You are where you are supposed to be. It was written,” Viktor said. He looked like a man who was not used to being asked so many questions, or at least not by some girl.
Then a thought hit Natasha.
“Where are my clothes? Who changed me into these? Why were you in bed with me?”
Viktor had seemed to anticipate this line of questioning and he was in no hurry to answer, despite impatience on Natasha’s part.
“Don’t be in such a hurry. Settle in. Get dressed,” Viktor said calmly.
“Dressed? Dressed in what? This isn’t my room. I don’t have clothes here,” she said, incredulously.
“About that,” Viktor said, offhandedly, pointing to one of the mirrors. The mirror started reflecting clothes from Natasha’s wardrobe and she became even more baffled.
“What does this mean?” she said aloud, not expecting to get an answer but the silence was making her sick.
“Listen,” Viktor said loudly and Natasha looked at him, trying not to stare at his perfect abs.
“When I said you were
supposed
to be here, that was what I meant. Look at your ring finger,” he said.
Natasha had not noticed it and before even she had looked at the finger, she felt a certain weight and with dread she lifted her hand. Adorned on her ring finger was a wedding ring, bright and shiny. Normally, a girl’s heart would melt at that sight; hers started to pound loudly.
“What is all this? You can’t do this. We can’t be married,” she said. She was just saying whatever came to her mouth.
“It isn’t about what I can or can’t do. This was written in the stars. It is our destiny,” Viktor said as if this made all the sense in the world.
“What destiny? What are you talking about? You better give me some answers.”
As soon as she said it, she knew it was the wrong thing to say because Viktor’s eyes flashed angrily and he sat up a little straight.
“I will let this one go because it is your first time. Nobody talks to me like this,” Viktor said arrogantly.
Natasha didn’t know what to say. “At least tell me what place this is. This doesn’t look like America.”
Viktor gave a derisive laugh.
“America? This isn’t even your galaxy.”
Natasha didn’t believe this statement first. It didn’t ring true to her. It sounded like the plot of a bad movie.
“What are you on about?”
Viktor got up and started pacing and Natasha had to block out his rippling abs to concentrate on the sticky situation she was in.
“You see that ring on your finger? It is not just an ornament. It is bound by blood, yours and mine. Our destinies now lie on the same road. We are one and single. This isn’t the marriage like you know. It is a commitment from which there is no turning back.”
Natasha kept quiet, eager to get to the bottom of the mystery of whatever this situation was boiling down to. It seemed Viktor had decided to provide her with answers and she didn’t want to ruin that with some offhand remark that might be taken in the wrong way. Earth or not, the male ego was still the most fragile thing in the universe.
“I have been watching you for some time now and you probably saw me as well,” Viktor continued.
“At my brother’s wedding,” Natasha said softly, putting the pieces of puzzle in their place.
“Yes. I had to ward off potential suitors. The destiny can taper off in a direction, which is not written. The ripple can have effects which you can’t fathom. You earthlings are too narrow in your seeing.”
It seemed that Viktor could not go without forgoing that jibe at the way earthlings perceived things and future events. Natasha remained quiet, perceiving it was the best course of action.
“This is the planet Zamorrah. It lies thirteen eons away from your planet,” Viktor said.
“Eons? Isn’t that years?” Natasha said, her curiosity getting the best of her.
Viktor smirked. “You humans have not yet figured out the relation between time and distance. You have a lot of catching up to do and your inability will always render you weak.”
Natasha didn’t understand how this system still worked but she knew that she had given Viktor another opportunity to be snarky about humans.
All this was not helping Natasha in any way. She had to get some answers and quickly to make sense of this situation.
“So, how long do I have to stay?”
“How long?” Viktor said, somehow amused at this question as if this was a stupid remark.
“You don’t expect me to leave my home…my planet?”
“You’ve already done that,” Viktor said.
“Not by my choice!”
“That hardly matters,” Viktor said, offhandedly. Natasha was getting the feeling that at this planet, wherever this was, a woman’s opinion was not given a second thought.
This place has something in common with Earth, then.
“
What do you expect me to do here, then?” Natasha said, resignedly. She wanted to know her options.
“Well, first thing’s first: I will show you off to my friends, that is a must---“
“What?! Show me off?!” Natasha was flabbergasted.
“Yes, they will meet you, to see if you are prettier than their wives or not,” Viktor said, nonchalantly, as if this was normal.
Natasha was open-mouthed for a solid fifteen seconds before she had contemplated something to say to this arcane ritual.
“Can’t you see the problem in that?” she said, quietly. Her mind was still reeling.
“What problem?” he said. It was Viktor’s turn to be surprised.
“That you are showing me off like I am your property, like I am a new car you bought,” Natasha said, slowly, as if talking to a child. She was not sure if she was getting through to Viktor who seemed positively baffled at Natasha’s anger.
“That is how we do things here. You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it,” he said in a loud voice.
Natasha kept staring at him for a few seconds and Viktor thought that the coast was clear to go on, or maybe he didn’t care.
“After the showing off, we will go for the rhumbus-“ he said but Natasha cut him.
“The what?” she said.
“The rhumbus,” he repeated.
“Repeating a word doesn’t clarify its meaning,” she said.
“Rhumbus is a dance that all newlyweds have to do in front of the Elites,” he said and looked ready to move on but Natasha definitely was not.
“Elites? And dance? What dance? I don’t dance,” she said.
“Elites are the ones who run this planet. They will see us dance and check if we are in sync and indeed ready to be married. And you will
have
to dance.”
Natasha was beginning to understand that this man (alien?) was not used to hearing the word ‘no’ a lot.
“Then what?” she said, though she wasn’t sure if she was going to go with the stuff he had already said, but her options were limited.
“Then we consummate the marriage,” Viktor said and this was where Natasha lost it.
Showing off and dancing was one thing, but how could she have sex with this stranger, who just said that she was his wife? Was she supposed to take this seriously?
Just as she stood there, it seemed as if the sky was depicting her mood. It got from the purple haze to a crispy red. She was so preoccupied that she didn’t have the energy to be surprised or fascinated by the odd color change.
‘”Consummate?” Natasha croaked.
“Yes,” again Viktor’s tone was too casual. “Every marriage has to be consummated; otherwise it is not a marriage at all.”
“What if I don’t want to consummate the marriage?” Natasha said, challenging him.
Viktor looked at her for a few moments.
“That is not how it works,” he said, and there was finality in his tone that scared Natasha.
“Get dressed,” he said. “We go out in a few hours.”
He left the room, leaving her standing there, trying not to think about all of this that was looking more and more like a nightmare now.
Chapter 7
Viktor had gotten a red dress for Natasha, not unlike a cocktail dinner dress that she would wear to a fancy party on Earth. The weird thing about this room was that it didn’t have a typical bathroom. There was a screen in one corner of the room and behind it a tube that ended in a shower head. When she came beneath the shower head, the water didn’t run. She didn’t know what the case was. She removed her clothes and the water started running.
Neat.
As soon as she stepped out of the shower, the water stopped running and she saw that the floor didn’t have a drop of water. She grabbed the towel from the screen and dried herself. She looked around to see if there was somewhere in the room she could fix herself up and it appeared as if the room was hearing her thoughts: a table appeared in front of a mirror in one corner, with the complete set of cosmetics, most of which were her usual products. She didn’t know how that happened, but maybe Viktor had something to do with it.
Viktor arrived when the sky outside was getting darker and he didn’t bother to knock.
“Don’t you knock?” Natasha said, flared up.
She could see Viktor taking her in, in that red dress that clung to her body and accentuated her curves.
“What’s the difference?” he said, dismissively. For a moment, Natasha had thought he might compliment on her dress.
“I could be doing anything! I could be naked!” Natasha said, exasperated that she had to explain the simplest of etiquettes to this impossibly handsome man.
She had just noticed that he was wearing a dinner dress, not unlike what men wear at Earth. He looked dapper in that dress but she didn’t point that out.
“You’re my wife, what’s the matter if I see you naked? To tell you the truth, a lot of marriages could be saved if the husband and wife spend a little more time seeing each other naked and a lot less time fighting.”
Natasha rolled her eyes. This alien from
eons
away was giving her marriage advice after essentially kidnapping her from her planet and marrying her when she was passed out.
“You’re a real keeper,” she said sarcastically.
Viktor probably didn’t catch that and looked pleased with himself.
“Come, the fly-bot is ready,” he said and opened the door.
There was no doorstep. It opened to wide open sky, which was tinged with red and black. Natasha gave a little gasp but followed Viktor. When she reached the doorstep, she saw a vehicle parked.
Midair.
She thought this was something reserved for
a sci-
fi movie, but here it was, in steel and paint, right in front of her eyes.
“What?” Viktor said when he saw Natasha’s reluctance.
“How do I get in? And
what
is that thing?” she said.
“Like this,” Viktor said, and let himself fall freely. It was just a second after that he was sitting in the front seat of the vehicle.
The fly-bot was shaped like a two seated tube with glass ceiling and a metallic body. There was one empty seat beside Viktor. Natasha looked around the night sky and she saw several of these things flying about as if this was the most common mode of transportation.
“What are you waiting for?” Viktor said, irritably. He was not used to waiting for anyone.
“This is not how we do stuff,” Natasha said, echoing his past sentiment.
“Don’t be afraid. Here,” Viktor said and opened the glass case and offered her his hand. Natasha had not expected this. In one brief meeting, she had seen the hard outer shell of this alien who looked like a Greek god but she had not expected tenderness from him. Natasha gave him her hand.
As soon as their hands touched, there was something like a current that shot up through her body and she was sure that he felt it too, because his fingers twitched but his hand didn’t recoil. He grabbed her hand and pulled her through three feet of space into his arms. She buried her face in his shoulder and was struck by how well defined his muscles were.
The moment passed and she sat down on the seat. Viktor closed the glass ceiling. There was no steering on the vehicle and the panel looked more complicated than a rocket. Natasha could neither make head nor tail of this, and it appeared that Viktor was the same either.
“Destination: Club Zenoa,” Viktor said clearly in a black box and the fly-bot purred into motion.
As the fly-bot whizzed past buildings and other bots, Natasha looked here and there with fascination. The buildings in this planet were designed that would be architecturally impossible on earth. There was a whole house standing on just a paper thin tower of gold. There were large screens suspended midair and they seemed to be nothing more than holograms: the fly-bots were passing through this screen without any problem.
Then Natasha’s eye caught the sky and she gasped. She had not previously given any thought to the red tinge in the sky but now she was captivated by it. The stars here were much closer than on earth and they were
red.
Red light shone from them and bathed the inhabitants of this planet in a perpetual bloody tinge. It was breathtaking, like some dance scene from a carnival.
“These are the stars,” Viktor said, looking at Natasha who was gazing at the sky in wonder.
“I figured,” Natasha said.
Viktor’s eyes dropped to her bare legs.
“Good,” he said, more to himself than to her. “The other men will be envious. That is good.”
Natasha rolled her eyes and adjusted her dress to cover her bare legs. Viktor gave her a look that was clearly intended to show his displeasure, but at this point Natasha wasn’t much in the caring mood for it.
They reached the club and it was unlike any building Natasha had seen in her life. It was like a huge orb, emanating white light and covered with glittering lights. It even
looked
like an orb, filled with smoke. Viktor and Natasha entered the club, after handing over their fly-bot to a creature that looked like a cross between a man and an ape.
The entire circular room was bathed in a white glow that gave the place an ethereal look. Natasha was dazed by the aesthetic of this place. Clubs back on earth were usually dark and random lights fluttered that sometimes hurt the eyes.
There were a lot of people in the room. Men were dressed in black and all the women were dressed in red. The men seemed to be standing in groups and the women by themselves. It was a sorry sight, Natasha thought.
One thing caught her attention and she asked the question.
“Why do all of you look like humans?” she asked. She was surprised why it had not hit her before.
Viktor looked at her. “You Earthlings; you always think that you are special and that you are the only intelligent species in the whole universe. Your inability to find intelligent matter in this infinite galaxy has not taught you anything. Maybe someone smarter than you is trying
not
to be found and made a fool out of you. We don’t look like
humans.
It is not an exclusive human look and thinking it just shows how highbrow you people really are.”
Viktor ended his monologue and glared at Natasha as if she alone represented all the arrogance and ignorance of the Homo sapiens.
“Jeez, I just asked one simple question. Don’t get your panties in a knot,” Natasha sighed. This guy was way too intense for her taste.
He led her to the center of the room where there was a raised platform. She realized it was some kind of stage and it dawned on her that this was where Viktor aimed to ‘present’ her to all these people. She felt her face go red. It was the most nervous moment of her life. She was dreading every moment.
“People of Zamorrah!” Viktor said and his voice boomed from all corners of the room, though he was not using any form of voice enhancing gadgetry.
“Zaluk,” said all the males, raising their pitchers in celebration.
“Thank you, thank you for coming to the initiation of my life,” Viktor said. “With this woman: her name is Natasha.”
The crowd collectively turned to look at her. The lights dimmed in the room and Natasha could feel the presence of a thousand gazes on her body. It was a weird feeling, like being x-rayed. She remembered the time when she went to beach and had to walk around in her bikini, it was so much not like this scrutiny.
Back there she knew that boys and men would look at her, because that’s what they were doing to all the hot girls. Here she was the grand attraction in a zoo. She felt jittery and a little sick to the stomach.
Maybe this is how models feel on the runway.
“Join me in welcoming her to our world. She is from the Milky Way; she doesn’t know how our world works. I hope you will make her feel welcome and warm in this world. I know I will make her feel warm,” Viktor added, winking and laughing at his own lewd joke.
The men joined in the laughter and Natasha shot him a look of anger but he was too busy laughing not to notice. All the women looked embarrassed. This seemed to be the norm here; men laughed and women looked unhappy.
Viktor beckoned Natasha to get off from the raised platform. Viktor tried to hold her hand while they walked to a group of men, looking their way in a way that seemed as if they were waiting for them to come to them.
“What?” Viktor said out of the corner of his mouth. “You’re embarrassing me.”
The accusation stung Natasha. “The irony; who was up there making weird sex jokes in front of strangers?”
“Strangers? These are my people, my family and now they are your family.”
Before Natasha could tell him that they could never be her family, they reached the said group of people. Viktor introduced her to each individual one, but she forgot their names as soon as he mentioned them. She noticed that all the men were well dressed and handsome. All the women had slender bodies and wore dresses that showed off their best assets.
“You have got a nice specimen here, Viktor,” said a tall young alien, winking at Natasha.
Specimen?!
“I got lucky,” he said. “There were not that many options on Earth.”
Natasha was about to say that he should have gone to Brazil but then she realized that he had probably never even heard of Brazil.
The men talked more about her, acting as if she was not standing right there. They talked a lot about sex and nothing about love. Their primary instinct seemed to be lust.
“Last night my wife, Grenda, slept before I did and I needed to release. She will be sorry for that disobedience.”
“Ginerra, mine, she couldn’t be bothered to wake up before me and service my needs. Insubordination in a wife is the worst trait.”
The men had nothing but complaints about their wives and that too in the sex department. It seemed all their life revolved around getting their lust fulfilled by their women and not a single one of them had a tender thing to say about their wife. It deeply saddened and horrified Natasha; saddened because husband and wife were supposed to be a relationship that made room for love and lust, both. One without the other was not how it was supposed to work; and horrified because she was sure that this was the fate that awaited her. The reality of the situation was dawning on her slowly and she was getting terrified by the latter.
Viktor seemed to have had his fill of conversations with this group of men and they moved to the next one. This happened two more times and finally Natasha was alone with a group of women. They all looked eerily similar. In fact, Natasha was sure that she was the only one who was distinguishable from the bunch of them. All the women had tried so hard to look like each other that they all had lost their individuality.
After some time, Viktor came to her and said, “Good enough. Let’s leave for the rhumbus.”
Oh yes, the rhumbus, Natasha thought resignedly. She was not very excited about this dance. They got in the fly-bot and made their way to the place where the Elites gathered.
“Listen, this is very important: the rhumbus shows what we are as husband and wife,” Viktor said and for the first time since meeting him, he seemed a little nervous; as if he really cared what these Elites thought of her.
“I have never even seen a rhumbus. I don’t know what that is. What am I supposed to do?” she said. She didn’t much care of the rhumbus but she sure as hell cared for not making a fool of herself.
“You don’t have to do anything. Stand in the middle of the room. The lights will go out and then I will take the lead from there,” he said.
“Seems like a pattern here,” Natasha muttered.
“What?” Viktor said but then let it go when the Elites residence came into view.
Calling it a residence was a joke. It was no less than a palace. The building was straight out of a Hollywood movie, complete with turrets and what not.
“They are fond of your distractions,” Viktor said, looking at the incredulous expression on Natasha’s face.
“What?” she said.
“The design of this building is inspired from some form of entertainment from your world.”
“I can see that,” Natasha murmured to herself as they zoomed in on the palace.