She was shaking in her fury. She was sure her mom knew exactly was going on and she didn’t want to tell her.
“All right, honey,” Béla said, suddenly more calm. “Let’s sit down. These new feelings you have are symptoms of your body growing up; that’s all.”
“What do you mean?” Lisa asked, puzzled. “I’m grown up? What do I do now?”
Béla smiled, suddenly realizing that her daughter didn’t know why she was here. Human children, at age five, didn’t think about things like that. They were still learning how to live. Lisa was a hybrid. At age five, she was an adult – an adult with no experience in living.
‘No wonder she’s so scared…’
“I am not scared!” Lisa insisted, reading her mom’s thought. “I just don’t know what to do. What am I supposed to do? Why did you have me?”
“Oh, darling!” Béla cried, laughing and hugging her daughter tightly against her. Memories flooded through her mind.
That first night with Jake, actually standing in front of him after all those years of dreams and frustrations, yearning to complete what was begun a century earlier. A baby-murdering monster interrupted her life, then it was interrupted again the next day by that stupid, stupid car bomb and a jammed seat belt.
“You weren’t thinking of me at all, then, were you,” Lisa quietly accused her mother. “Just your own self-gratification.”
“What?” Béla asked, stunned by her daughter’s thought processes. “I made a body! I didn’t make you! You chose me! I distinctly remember your flamboyant arrival. You set my house on fire!”
Béla showed her the memories of Beth’s arrival.
“That was real?” Lisa asked, suddenly frightened. “I have nightmares about that! I blew up a city!”
The room was suddenly about forty degrees hotter.
“Wait, Darling!” Béla exclaimed. “You didn’t blow up a city! It’s still there!”
“But I remember!” Lisa cried out. “I died in that fire! I was glad I was dying! Why am I here now?”
Lisa was sobbing and the room was getting even hotter.
“You’re here because you can’t die, darling,” Béla said, soothingly. “None of us can. You can only move on and forget. But usually, even that doesn’t help. You carry your dreams and desires with you forever. They’re a part of who you are regardless of how you identify yourself or what you look like.
“You blew up a building,” Béla continued. “The energy that would have destroyed the rest of the city was never released. You captured it somehow and it’s still in your mind. That’s why you have the white fire trapped inside of you. You stopped the city from being destroyed.”
She gratefully noticed the room beginning to cool down.
“So,” Lisa said, somewhat less upset. “What now? What am I supposed to do?”
Her voice was still a little shaky.
“Nothing,” Béla said, “Everything. Your life will be whatever you make it. The strange feelings you have inside are sexual feelings. They have to do with reproduction of the species. Although, by telling you this, I hope you don’t decide to go out and get pregnant.”
“Mom…” Lisa said, actually sounding embarrassed.
“I not kidding!” Béla insisted. “That’s was most earth girls do. They go out, exploring their bodies, exploring the marvelous sensations that life offers them, and they get pregnant. For you, it would only be a delay in your life of about five years out of the thousands of years that you will live. But it takes twenty years to raise a human child. Twenty years is a long time for a human girl, and suddenly discovering you’re pregnant can be devastating when you realize that your entire youth will be spent raising your child.”
“That sounds awful,” Lisa said. “Why do they do that? Get pregnant, I mean.”
“Well, most of them don’t intend to when it happens, Hon,” Béla replied. “But after they get used to the fact that they’re going to have a baby, some of them actually decide they like the idea – not that they have much choice in the matter. That’s why Body Monitors have become so popular, especially among the female humans. They can be set so that their bodies are infertile.”
“Hmm!” Lisa said, thinking for a moment. “So this tormented feeling that I get. That’s just sex? That’s it?”
“Well, maybe not for you, darling,” Béla replied, deciding to be perfectly candid with her daughter. “You were pretty tormented when I knew you before. I’m not sure how we should address that.”
“We?” Lisa asked. “You’d help me with this?”
“Of course,” Béla replied. “Why would you think other…”
The image struck her right in the center of her skull.
“Oh, no!” Béla said adamantly, shaking her head. ‘My daughter wants to make love to me!’
“Yes, mom,” Lisa insisted, happily hopeful. “You said you’d help… Show me what it’s like.”
“Oh, God,” Béla murmured, almost to herself. “Jake said this would happen.”
“Honey,” Béla began, then her daughter let her mind open up.
Béla watched Lisa spying on Frank and Tanya. Then she’d come downstairs and seduced Alicia, her evil stepmother.
‘My daughter is already sexually active! She plans to make love to everyone she knows! Starting with me!’
“No,” Lisa gently corrected her mom. “I started with my step-mom!”
‘You would’ve been first when I went to find you this afternoon if you’d smelled better…’
Chapter 3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The night before:
Jake had disappeared somewhere after a private little conversation with his wife, who was leading Alicia upstairs.
“Where’s Jake going to sleep?” Alicia wanted to know.
“Don’t worry about Jake,” Béla said, non-commentally. “He’ll be fine.”
They reached the top of the stairs and went right – the opposite direction from that which the wild-looking, flaming young girl had appeared from and vanished into. A faint smell of scorched cotton came from that other direction.
Béla opened her bedroom door and, smiling, invited Alicia in.
“Do you have any luggage?” Béla asked, “Clothing, accessories?”
“I packed a bag,” Alicia told her. “It’s at my folk’s house.”
‘Why would she wait until she’s getting ready for bed before asking a silly question like that? Does she expect me to go get it?’
“Make an image of it in your mind,” Béla suggested. “Include its location – where you think it might be.”
“What?” Alicia asked, not understanding.
“Where’s your bag?” Béla asked. “Is it still packed?”
“Well, no,” Alicia said, trying to remember where it was the last time she saw it.
Béla watched while Alicia remembered. Then the bag was on the bed in front of her.
“Well!” Alicia said, surprised. “That’s a neat trick!”
Béla smiled at the complement. “You need anything that’s not in the bag?”
Alicia thought for a moment, then remembered stuff she’d put in her mom’s bathroom. It was suddenly on the bed next to her bag.
“You’re hired!” Alicia said, grinning. “Come with me back to the Hub! I’ve got plenty you can do there!”
“No, thanks,” Béla replied, grinning back. “I have a job, here – raising the flaming tornado down the hall.”
“Yes! That’s amazing what she can do!” Alicia said, animatedly. “How do you control her?”
“Control? Her?” Béla asked, raising her eyebrows. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Why? Is she that difficult?” Alicia asked.
“Well, not really,” Béla admitted. “Not after we started communicating with each other. But she could teleport the day she was born. In fact, I actually didn’t have her – she came out on her own and landed right in the middle of the floor.”
“God!” Alicia exclaimed. “I’ve had nine children, but I’ve never had one that did that!”
“Creating a vacuum like that, right in the middle of my tummy, just about killed me,” Béla admitted. “But, luckily, your brother was there to help.”
“Yes, we’re lucky that he decided to become a doctor,” Alicia admitted. “That way, our little family secret stays secret!
“So, where do you want me?” Alicia asked, walking toward the bed. “You said I was sleeping with you, and that seemed to upset Jake. Is there something… um, sexual… that you’re expecting?”
“What?” Béla asked, surprised. “No, it doesn’t have to be sexual… Although, regardless of the gender of the person I’m merging my mind with, it often becomes sexual. We are all sexual creatures, after all.”
By this time, Béla was completely undressed – that is to say – naked. She walked toward the bathroom.
“Would you like to share the Jacuzzi with me?” Béla asked. “We can talk some more, if you like.”
‘Relax, will you?’ she thought into Alicia’s unsettled mind.
Alicia hesitated. She wanted desperately to know everything that was in Béla’s mind, and get Béla to help her as much as possible. But, she wasn’t really interested in sharing anything with another female, especially her body. It was bad enough that Béla had Jake.
“Ah… okay,” Alicia agreed, reluctantly. “We can talk some more…”
She shed her gown and carefully hung it on the rack the closet presented to her, and tossed her undies into the hamper. It actually acted annoyed that someone hit it and made a sound like it was shredding her undergarments.
Alicia found it surprisingly easy to make light conversation with Béla in the Jacuzzi, telling her a little about the work she did, and the underground city she was having constructed in Colorado – nothing that Béla wouldn’t have found out anyway when they merged later that night.
Finally, unable to put it off any longer, she crawled into bed with the strange, dark-haired alien girl that had stolen her first love’s heart before Alicia had even been born.
“How do you want me?” Alicia asked nervously.
“Well, it helps if we’re in full body contact,” Béla instructed, “but you can leave your nightie on if you’re more comfortable that way.”
Alicia smiled in gratitude. Although she usually slept nude – especially on nights that her husband was home. This night, she left it on.
Béla’s body felt uncomfortably warm against her skin, especially after the Jacuzzi. Béla, noticing the claustrophobic, clammy feelings emanating from her guest, had the room’s air circulator, normally retracted behind its ceiling panels, lower itself and begin ionizing the room with its slow, silent air currents. Within a minute, she noticed Alicia relaxing.
‘Hello, darling,’ Béla said into Alicia’s head.
Alicia blinked, startled, then stared into Béla’s eyes.
Leave a Reply