I Married An Alien (3 page)

“
Are you all right now, Anita?” asked the attractive red-haired woman standing closest to me.

She had to be addressing me because she was looking right at me, but my name was Ruth not Anita. I even looked like a Ruth, stocky, sturdy, a keg on legs, for want of a better description, but for some reason this pretty young thing thought I was someone called Anita.

It was then that I realized I wasn’t meant to be
experiencing
the future, merely watching it. Heavens, had my brain only now caught up with me? Well, it certainly felt like I was smack bang in the middle of Professor Jackson’s sci-fi movie right now. I could feel the cool draft from standing in such a wide open expanse. I even smelt the other girls’ perfumes; a variety of floral scents accosting my sensitive nostrils all at once. And the middle-aged man still had one of his hands on my shoulder, since I could feel the pressure of it through my thin sleeve.

I glanced down at his fingers, and he quickly removed them. That was when I noticed that my arm was covered in blue satin, an arm that was slender, not an ounce of extra flesh on it whatsoever. I stretched it out in amazement. Where was the flabby wing I had started to develop? It looked…
skinny!
I continued to examine my body in complete and utter amazement, discovering that I was clad in blue satin from my shoulders to my shiny slippered feet. I hadn’t been able to cram my plump hooves into a pair of pointy shoes like this in years. Around my waist I wore a gold-linked belt, a waist so slender that I had to actually bend past my ample bust to see it!

Oh, if only this
really is
my body and not just Professor Jackson’s VR! I thought with sudden longing.

Automatically my hands went to my hair. I found numerous long tresses draping past my shoulders. I took hold of one, bringing it forward to reveal a beautiful lock of shiny blonde hair the color of sunflowers. I couldn’t believe my eyes; I’d never bothered to dye my mousy brown hair in the past. When you were as plain as me, not even a good haircut made much of a difference.

If my body was now as slim as it looked, my hair a gorgeous long mane of blonde waves, then I had to assume I had a face on a par with those of the pretty young women crowded around me.

I couldn’t help myself. I smiled. Thank you Professor Jackson. I think I’m really going to like this trip, for however long it might last. How it had become so realistic I had no idea, but I suspected his tinkering with the machine must have sent everything into overdrive, sending my
whole mind
catapulting into future. I found myself wondering what had happened to the poor woman I’d taken over. I hoped she was somewhere nice, not trapped in my old body, or even worse – dead!

“
Okay, I think I might have hit my head a bit hard just then,” I said, still not accustomed to the sweet melodic sound of my new voice. “I’m still feeling… a little out of it. What were we doing?”

The girls started talking all at once, but the official-looking man held up a hand, calling for silence. “If you can’t remember then maybe we should get you checked out for concussion. Does your head hurt?”

I turned it from side to side, watching more long golden waves of hair bob about my shoulders. I liked how full and bouncy they felt against my skin. “Er no, I’ve never felt better actually.” Which was the honest truth. In my old body I had started developing some aches and pains in my joints, no doubt from all the extra weight I’d started carrying around, but right now I felt like I could turn cartwheels, something I hadn’t been able to do since primary school.

“
We were about to board the space transport to Terron, Anita. How could you possibly forget that?” my red-haired companion asked, her hazel eyes narrowing, and her pretty pink mouth puckering.

“
Right Terron,” I said. Another planet I presumed. “Then what are we waiting for?”

“
You’re cleared to board now, ladies,” announced an older woman as she hurried towards us. She too was wearing a satiny gown that reached her ankles, but her hair was swept back into a conservative bun, and she didn’t wear jewelry like the rest of the young women around me, just one gold cameo pin at the open vee of her dress. “Here are your passports back. Everything is in order.”

She began handing them out. I found a small rectangle in my hands that lit up like an i-phone when I pressed my thumbs against it. My alter-ego’s particulars appeared on the screen; a photo of an absolutely stunning young woman with huge blue eyes and a perfect cupid bow mouth. My jaw dropped in amazement, and again I wished that I really was her.

But there was a problem. The woman in the picture looked worried, the photographer having captured a very serious expression indeed. Beneath this was her name, Anita DeBurgh. Nice, I thought. Anita was twenty three, and a student of the University of Summerton, wherever that was. What Anita was studying wasn’t mentioned, but it seemed that she and her companions were off on an excursion of some sort.

“
Grab your bags, and let’s go,” called the older woman. A mad scramble ensured as the girls reached for their cases. When only one remained, I assumed it was Anita’s, and went to grab the handle. It immediately stretched so that the large case could now trail behind me on some kind of air cushion, since I couldn’t see any wheels. The darn thing was a nauseatingly bright pink, which meant that Anita was probably a rather vain creature. Most of the other girls had more subdued luggage, if you could call floral patterns and bright tartan reds subdued.

I trailed after the group as they approached the massive spaceship. A moving walkway had been set up to take us up to the passenger deck, and we all stepped on it to ascend up the side of the vessel.

We arrived at a lounge area that could have belonged to a five star hotel. It was obvious that we were taking our trip through space in first class luxury. Porters appeared out of the woodwork (or was it triple-reinforced titanium?) to relieve us of our luggage.

Then we were ushered to our seats, huge soft armchairs that could be titled right back into beds. Other passengers were already seated; probably about a hundred other men, women and children. My eyes were drawn to a couple of exceptionally tall, well-built men with beautiful bronze-colored skin. They all wore their hair long and falling over their shoulders in soft waves. None of them had the same color. As one of them glanced in our direction, I couldn’t help staring, since I’d never seen a man quite so handsome in my life. He looked like he drank steroid milkshakes for breakfast; he had shoulders any footballer would be proud of. As for his face, it looked as though a sculptor had styled it, all sharp planes and angles and smoldering, deep set eyes. The only soft thing about him, it seemed, was his shiny black hair, falling in rippling waves down his broad back.

“
Anita,” urged one of my traveling companions. I realized I had fallen behind. I quickened my pace and took the seat indicated by the red-haired woman. “You mustn’t stare at them. They really don’t like it,” she hissed at me.

“
Well, he was looking at us,” I pointed out.

“
Heaven forbid if one of us ends up mated before we even leave Earth,” muttered one of the other girls. It was the Asian woman. “I wonder what they’re doing on Earth anyway, since they seem to hate coming here so much.”

“
Settle down girls,” our matronly traveling companion said. “Have you all got your itineraries handy?”

“
Yes, Miss Jackson,” chorused a series of voices. I wondered if she was some long distant descendant of the prof. That would mean Jackson had married at some stage. The thought made me cringe. When would he have time to find a wife if he didn't even seem to have time to wash?

“
Oh, I’ve got yours here,” Miss Redhead handed me something that resembled an I-pad. “You dropped it when you fainted.”

I accepted it with thanks and placed it in my lap.

“
While we’re in flight I want you all to read through it one more time,” Miss Jackson announced. “I want you to view this as a holiday, since most of you will return to resume your studies at the end of the tour. I know none of you want to go. No one ever does, but there are some beautiful sights on Terron. I am going to set an essay on Terron culture once we return.”

Groans ensued all round.

“
Not
that
part of the culture, more to do with the planet’s history. Once you return you will never need to concern yourselves with that rather unpleasant aspect of life ever again.”

This time there were sniggers. “Only by those who have never had a boyfriend,” Miss Redhead whispered to the Asian girl behind her hand.

“
There is a huge different between an Earth boyfriend and being forced to mate with a Terron male,” one of the other blonde woman muttered disdainfully. “I know I’d be really upset if I lose one of you.” She gazed rather meaningfully at the girls seated around her.

I was starting to get a really bad feeling about this, and hoped I’d get the i-pad thingy to work so I could find out what on earth they were all talking about. If my assumption was correct we were all heading off to visit some distant planet on which lived a race of alien males these girls didn’t like, but for some reason had to face in case one was chosen to ‘mate’ with them. I thought I was in the future. Didn’t mating only apply to animals or perhaps cavemen?

“
Mrs Arden’s group got lucky,’ Miss Jackson reminded us.

“
But two girls were taken from Dawn Avery’s, and three more disappeared from the La Trobe Institute,” the Asian girl piped up again.

Just then a computer announced for everyone to fasten their seatbelts in preparation for takeoff. I looked around behind me, and found a small metal latch attached to the back of the seat. I leant over and watched Miss Redhead pull the one on her seat so that it stretched and went around her lap to attach itself to another part of the seat.

Neat, I thought and did the same. Once everyone was sitting comfortably, I heard a loud rumble beneath our feet as the thrusters started up. The rumbling grew louder and louder until we couldn’t hear each other talk. I remembered movies about astronauts, and how during takeoff the G-forces had almost knocked them unconscious. I hoped this ship had some inertial dampeners or something, otherwise I’d probably end up a pancake.

Suddenly our seats bent backwards on some sort of hydraulic system so that we faced the ceiling. The pressure of take-off was phenomenal. I was pressed back so hard in my seat I thought I’d end up passing right through it. But whatever the armchair had been made from absorbed the pressure, shifting around me to cushion me. I managed to hold onto consciousness.

The roaring, rumbling and juddering didn’t last long, and I finally dared open my eyes to look around. Through the side windows I saw the sky darkening as we left Earth’s atmosphere.

Hey Dad, I’m doing it. I’m flying into outer space. Emotion rose in my throat as I thought of my father. How I wished he was here with me. He would have been over the moon, literally.

After a few more minutes the sky turned completely black, and I saw stars begin to speckle the darkness surrounding us.

“
Time to initiate the infinity squared sequence. Please brace yourselves,” the computerized voice over the loud-speaker warned.

Infinity squared? I wondered. What on Earth’s that? How can you square
infinity?
That would just be infinity again! It was probably a simple, easy-to-remember sequence for something really complicated.

No amount of bracing prepared me for the next lurch the spaceship took. If it hadn’t been for the seatbelt I would have ended up plastered to the ceiling for sure.

Then suddenly everything went completely still. It felt very much like the ship had just stopped in mid-air.

“
You may unfasten your seatbelts and move about the cabin. Refreshments will be served shortly,” the computer declared.

I heard the click-clack of seatbelts being released, but couldn’t figure out how to undo mine. Once again Miss Redhead came to the rescue. “I can see you’ve never gone off-world before,” she told me as she pressed her index finger against some sort of pressure-sensor on the metal catch.

“
Thanks,” I murmured. I got up from my seat, expecting to float away in zero gravity. But my feet remained firmly on the ground. Artificial gravity, I realized. I bounced up and down a few times, testing it out. It appeared to be just like Earth’s. I felt somewhat disappointed. I would really have liked to float around like an astronaut.

True to the computer’s announcement, the porters, now waiters, began to move amongst the passengers with trays laden with food and drinks. I thought we were going to receive food in tubes or sticks, or at best dried ration cakes, but I could see normal beverages and canapés. Only these were actually five star cocktails of numerous colors, smoked salmon, caviar, brushettas, prawns and other delicious treats.

When I helped myself to one of each, Miss Redhead slapped my hand away. “Do you want to put on weight?” she admonished.

I stared at her in amazement. “I would have thought by now they would have invented something to keep it off!” I growled, and crammed the tart I had managed to score into my mouth before she could snatch it off me.

“
We all wish that!” She settled back into her seat, and I returned to mine. “Better start on these notes before Miss Jack-boots comes over here.”