STRANGE NEW BEGINNINGS

by

R. D. Vick

 

He awoke with an odd, coppery taste in his mouth. His tongue was thick and furry and he was thirsty. His stomach growled ravenously. His body ached as if he had run a 10K the day before and he felt as if he had not slept at all. What the hell was going on?

 

Kyle tried to remember what he had been doing the night before that would make him feel this way. He remembered going to the party at Sam and Jill's but he had offered to be the designated driver for the evening and had drank nothing but Dr. Pepper for the entire night. Had someone slipped him something in his drink? He had danced maybe eight or nine times with various women but he was in excellent shape for a 35 year old and it shouldn't have affected him like this. There was nothing he could remember doing to cause this feeling of total tiredness. And besides, he remembered dropping the last of his passengers off at around 11:30 and he had come right home and went to bed. Hadn't he?

 

Reaching up to rub the sleep out of his eyes his hand brushed across his face. Instead of feeling just a day's growth of beard, as there should have been, he felt a full, robust patch of hair that he knew from experience would have taken him at least a month to grow.

 

Sitting up in surprise he could see himself in the full-length mirror attached to the back of his bedroom door. He looked like ZZ Top! How could his beard have grown this much overnight? Glancing slightly to the side of his own reflection he saw the reflection of another form lying beside him in the bed. Surprised, Kyle leaped out of bed dragging the top sheet along to cover his nakedness.

 

"Who the hell are you?"

 

"Hmmmmmm, come back to bed silly, you know who I am."

 

The sleeping form languidly stretched her arms and slowly rolled over, exposing a breast to his view. And what a breast! Her nightgown had slipped off one shoulder and without the top sheet the cool air of his bedroom had some interesting side effects on her exposed nipple.

 

Kyle stood there bewildered. He might have been tired last night, but if he had brought home someone this luscious he was pretty sure he would have remembered. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

"Ugh, this might sound weird, but humor me. I really don't know who you are."

 

Sighing in frustration she sat up. "Why do we always have to go through this Kyle?"

 

"Go through what?"

 

"This business where you wake up in a weird mood and pretend that you don't know me. You know that I am your woman and have been living here with you for the last six years."

 

This was too weird! Maybe he had gone to a bar after dropping everyone off and gotten so shit-faced that he didn't remember hooking up with this girl. Or maybe it was one of those Twilight Zone things and he went to sleep and woke up in a parallel universe or another dimension or some weird stuff like that. One thing he knew for sure was that if he had been living with this woman for six years he would remember. Glancing around the room he began to smile.

 

"What's so funny?"

 

The look on her face only added to his growing mirth. Now he knew what was going on. It was a trick. His woman indeed!

 

"All right guys, the joke's over. You can come out now. Very funny."

 

"Who are you talking to?"

 

"Cut the crap. Come on out Bill and Eddie! The joke is over."

 

"Who are Bill and Eddie?"

 

"As if you don't know. They're the two guys who put you up to pulling this prank on me. Come on out you two!"

 

"What makes you think this is a prank?"

 

"Oh come on! For one thing, I feel really strange so they probably drugged me with something then set this whole thing up so they could sit back and laugh their asses off." Kyle began trying to pull the fake beard off. But it wasn't a fake. It hurt when he jerked on it!

 

The woman's face began to scrunch up and she hung her head so he could no longer see her face.

 

"Add to that your 'I am your woman' stuff and it all makes sense." This is the 90's - no one talks like that, especially women. This has to be a joke."

 

Absently pulling on his beard, Kyle was still looking around for his two friends when he noticed that the woman's shoulders were shaking and that little mewling noises were beginning to come from her. That was it for him. He hated to see a woman cry. Forgetting about the peculiarity of growing a full beard overnight, he rushed to her side.

*

After calming her down and getting her to stop crying they both got dressed and went downstairs so they could talk in the kitchen over a cup of coffee. Although a quick search of the bedroom and the rest of the house had failed to turn up Bill and Eddie, Kyle was still half convinced that this had to be some kind of joke. The sense of oddness he had felt earlier continued to permeate everything around him. While searching the house he had the distinct impression that things were different than normal - it was his house, yet it wasn't. It was almost like a movie set where you saw these elaborate rooms full of fancy furniture and expensive knick knacks but they were all either cheap reproductions or empty shells. Things just weren't right and he couldn't put his finger on why. He was reminded of that comedy bit by Stephen Wright where he said something about his apartment being broken into and everything being replaced with exact duplicates. Things just didn't feel right. Shaking his head he turned to the woman sitting across the table from him.

 

"Let's start over, OK? My name is Kyle, and I hate to admit it, and don't start crying on me again, but I have no idea who you are."

 

"This is strange for me too. How do you think I feel waking up next to the man I've spent the last seven years of my life with and he doesn't even remember my name is Jennifer?"

 

"Jennifer. Now that's a pretty name. I've always liked the name . . ." There it was again! That sense of oddness plaguing him was tickling at his subconscious. Something had just happened that was not right. What was it?

 

Jennifer began talking to fill the silence his sudden introspection had left behind and Kyle desperately began to wrack his brains for the answer. Something she had just said. Yes!

"Seven years?"

 

Jennifer paused with a confused look on her face. "What?"

 

"Just now you said we had been together for seven years. Earlier you said it was six years. So which is it? Six or seven?"

 

"I'm sure you heard me wrong. I must have said six years." She glanced nervously over her shoulder as she spoke, as if looking for someone to come into the room.

 

"No. I heard right. You said seven years. So what's going on here?"

 

Jennifer hunched forward and grabbed his hands. "Please," she whispered. "Stop before they come in."

 

"Who is 'they?' It's Bill and Eddie, isn't it? I knew it!"

 

"Keep your voice down. No, it's not your friends. It's someone much worse."

 

"What do you mean by that?" His voice began to rise in pitch and volume. Kyle pounded his fist on the table.

 

"I want to know what the hell is going on here and I want to know right now!"

 

Suddenly there was a distinct change in the atmosphere and Kyle sensed a presence in the room. Jennifer appeared to shrink in on herself and her eyes became as wide as saucers as she looked over his shoulder.

Quickly he turned to see someone standing behind him. His mouth dropped open in shock and he was speechless. The man, or at least he assumed it was a man, was definitely not Bill or Eddie. Its shape was humanoid in nature but resembled no human he had ever seen. A large head with protruding eyes sat on top of a body that was almost laughable in its thinness. It wasn't much more than a walking skeleton with skin on its frame. It was not wearing clothes but Kyle couldn't determine its sex - where there should have been genitals there was nothing.

 

Thinking he would finally get to the bottom of this and find out what was going on Kyle headed for this "thing" and made ready to choke some answers out of it. Before he had even taken a step - almost while he was still thinking of it - the figure moved its hand. Kyle suddenly found himself flying across the room and landing in a heap in the corner. Every nerve in his body felt as if it was on fire and the agony was almost unbearable. While he lay there, unable to move, another form materialized beside the other one. Although Kyle could not see their lips moving he began hearing their conversation. It was almost like they were speaking directly to his mind!

 

"It is a strong one."

 

"Yes. Very strong. The last one was not able to survive the pairing; this one might stand a better chance. See how he was able to take a grade two punishment, yet he is only stunned."

 

"Impressive. It will be a good addition."

 

"Do you believe the other one will accept it as her mate without the problems we encountered last time?"

 

Kyle was slowly regaining his strength and was about ready to attack again. If he timed it just right maybe he could take out both of them at once. Before he could move the newcomer turned its head and looked directly at him.

 

"Do not try it. This first lesson was a mild one. The next one will be much more difficult and you may not survive."

 

With a surprised look on his face Kyle relaxed his muscles. "You can read my mind?"

 

"Your species has not advanced to the point where you have the ability to block us. We know all there is to know about you and your kind."

 

"My species?" Kyle said while glancing toward the table. He could see Jennifer still hunched over with her eyes closed. Her body was trembling and she seemed frozen with terror. If they hurt her . . .

 

"Excellent. It shows protectiveness toward the female. If I am not mistaken that is a sign that the union may be successful."

 

Embarrassed Kyle tore his eyes away from the girl. "Why don't you guys tell me what the hell is going on here," he snarled. He almost wished he hadn't asked.

 

"Since you are already aware of our existence we might as well tell you," said the first alien Kyle had seen appear. The other nodded its head in agreement and Kyle relaxed a little.

 

"It would be difficult for you to pronounce our names so we will go by the names you are familiar with. You may refer to me as Bill, and to my partner as Eddie. Hopefully this will make it more comfortable for you."

 

"Thanks," Kyle said sarcastically.

 

"You are perceptive in realizing that your surroundings are 'not real.' Everything you see is being projected into your mind. We scanned you while you were unconscious and used the memories to recreate your home."

 

"So everything is an illusion? What about Jennifer?"

 

"No, she is real. But the rest of what you see is not."

 

"So it's like a hologram and I can interact with it," Kyle said softly to himself.

 

"If you want to describe it in such simple terms, yes. That is essentially what is happening," Eddie said.

 

"Hey, maybe I'm no genius but I know that something like this is not possible yet. It is only theory and science fiction crap!"

 

Bill and Eddie turned toward each other, seemed to pass a look, then turned back to Kyle. "We can tell that it is finally starting to make sense to you," Eddie continued. "On your world and with your limited capabilities it would not be possible."

 

Kyle began adding things up. His hand darted to the beard he had forgotten about earlier and he remembered the symptoms he awoke with this morning. If he was following the logic so far, he was a long ways from Earth. He must have been traveling through space for a little over three weeks to reach this destination.

 

"That is correct," Bill said. "Your simple mind cannot grasp the concepts of the time/space continuum but you should be able to understand that your three weeks traveling here translates into a lifetime on Earth."

 

Damn it! And just when his life was getting comfortable. If he were to believe these yahoos then everyone he knew or loved was long gone. Even if he did manage to return there would be nothing for him. Maybe the best thing to do would be to cooperate with these guys until he could determine a better course of action.

 

"A wise decision," Eddie said. "We have been searching the galaxies for millennia to gather subjects for our experiment and now that we have a complete group we are not willing to let you go so easily."

 

"Do you guys 'hear' everything I think?"

 

"Yes, so attempting to plot an escape would be useless."

 

Eddie and Bill seemed to communicate to each other again. When they turned back to Kyle, Eddie began speaking to him.

 

"We will answer the 'why me' thoughts you are having. Our race was much like yours in the beginning. However, we evolved much faster. It has been well over a thousand of your years since one of our race has died. We do not get ill, and we lack for nothing. Our minds had evolved to the point where we could exist almost as pure energy and our bodies would no longer be needed. This is why you see us as we are now. Unfortunately, when we stopped utilizing our reproductive capabilities and let our bodies whither away we lost the ability to go back to the way we were. It was at this point that we decided that was not the course we wanted to take. We realized we would miss the tangible effects of having a body, but the damage had already been done."

 

"So basically you're a race of pervs and just want to watch people mating so you can live vicariously."
Bill raised his hand and both Kyle and Jennifer shrank away, but before he could exert punishment Eddie stopped him. "Being sarcastic will not help you. I suggest you control yourself."

 

"Hey, I'm sorry. OK? Go on, please."

 

"Once it was determined that we could not return to our former states our scientists began working on the problem. It was discovered that we could transfer our minds into another body and we decided to cross-breed species throughout the galaxies to engineer the perfect form. After all, if we were to begin anew it should be with a new form."

 

"So that's all I am, a stud? You abducted me from my home and took me light years across the galaxy to put me in an X-rated zoo?" Kyle looked over at Jennifer and she looked back imploringly. God, was she good looking!

 

"A crude way of putting it, but yes. You are to be mated with Jennifer and we will see if the outcome is pleasing to us. If not, perhaps we will try another pairing."

 

"If you guys are so advanced, why don't you just go to another world and take it over? Why all this?

 

"We like our world, and do not want to leave this system. Also, there is not any single race that we have come across that was pleasing to us. All have had some traits that we admire, so we intend to genetically mix them and see what interesting variations develop. As for doing it without 'all this,' we could. But after thousands of years of boredom it is pleasing to us to do it this way."

 

Kyle thought about his situation. He was never going home. He would spend the rest of his life on display for the cheap thrills of a race that was not even in the same galaxy he was from! Looking over at Jennifer he smiled ruefully. Oh well, things could be worse. If he had to be paired with someone he couldn't have picked a better looking woman if he had tried. Looking at Jennifer's smiling face he smiled back with acceptance. This wasn't going to be so bad. Her eyes were mesmerizing and he tuned out the two aliens as he sank deeper into their depths.

 

"Should we allow him to see her in her true form?"

 

"Not quite yet. His simple mind has not fully grasped the concept of crossbreeding and the shock might be too much for him. Let the mating progress and we will see how he adapts before we take the mind shield off. It would have been better had he not awoken before we had the chance to implant the false memories."

 

"Yes. However, the damage seems to be minimal. He has accepted the mind shield and sees her as the composite woman we took from his memories."

 

"Do you think she understands that this one is not food?"

 

"Oh yes. You see how she reacted when we entered the chamber. Her punishment from the last pairing is still fresh in her mind and she will not displease us again."

 

"Still, we should watch her closely."

 

"Agreed."

 

As Kyle rose from the floor and walked toward Jennifer he was blithely unaware of the gleam in her eye and the rumbling her tri-chambered stomach made as he approached her. And the way she licked her lips seemed to him to be almost…sexy.

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