I lost track of how long Blue 3 let me lounge in the bathtub, not that I had a way of keeping time anyway. For a few blissful minutes, I floated in the citrusy water, letting the warm suds wash the filth and grime off my skin. The fiberglass barrel in my apartment wasn't anywhere near as nice as this. It was so nice that for a few minutes, I forgot where I was and why I was there. But when Blue 3 knelt beside the tub, I remembered.

She skimmed her hands across the water and grabbed hold of one of the green flowers. She wrapped her free hand around my shoulders, pulling me closer to her. What in the world? I leaned back and held my hands up to stop her.

"I'm good, lady."

Blue 3 crushed the flower between her fingers, sending a flood of soap suds and water down her arm. She opened her hand, her eyebrow quirked as she revealed a mass of soft material where the flower had been.

I wrinkled my nose and plucked the soapy green mass from her open hand. "A loofah? It's a loofah?" For the second time in an hour, I felt stupid, but in my defense, it's not like anything on this planet made any sense.

Blue 3 muttered something in her own language and reached for another flower, this one purple and twice the size of the green ones. She dipped her hands elbow-deep in the water. A burst of fragrance wafted into the air as she came back out with a soapy purple cloth which she rubbed across my arm.

"I said I'm good." I took the purple rag from her too and dragged it over my skin to prove that I knew how to wash my body. "See?"

I moved deeper into the tub until the water came up to my neck. I couldn't make her leave, but nowhere was it written that I had to let her feel me up. Well, it may have been written, but nothing said I had to make it easy on her.

The glamazon shrugged and went back to her seat beside the massive tub. She leaned back and folded her arms, her eyes locked on me. When they wanted to communicate, the aliens knew how to get their point across.

This time, Blue 3 only gave me a few minutes to finish the job before she took me by the arm and pulled me to my feet. We weren't that far apart in height, but she showed off her superior strength by locking her arms around my waist and hoisting me out of the tub in one smooth motion. I didn't try to fight her. What would have been the point?

She muttered another string of words as she turned around and took a robe of the same cream-colored fabric as the drapes and slung it over my shoulders. The softness of her voice made me wonder if they were words of encouragement, and I wished I could understand her. Somehow, it felt like the whole thing might be easier if I could just understand what the blue-skinned models were saying.

Blue 3 took me by the shoulders and turned me toward the only wall in the room that wasn't covered in shelves. She pressed a square metal switch on the wall, and a square area of it slid to the side.

Racks of clothes blocked the walls of the room and swallowed all but a few feet of the available floor space. From their positions on the hangers, it was hard to tell things like cut and size on sight. There were a few leather and suede pieces sprinkled through the collection, but most of it trended toward flowing jewel tones.

A modeling area of sorts had been carved out in the middle of the chaos. Only eight standing mirrors kept the piles of fabric from swallowing the empty space again. Another alien woman, a different one from the three glamazons, sat on a footstool beside one of the racks. She looked up when Blue 3 cleared her throat, a smile spreading over her full lips.

The two of them had a lot to say to one another, judging by the fast words and clipped tones of their exchange. It wasn't until New Blue climbed to her feet and walked toward me that I realized they had been talking about me.

New Blue walked around me, her emerald eyes roaming my body as she moved. She reached forward and tugged the robe loose, letting it fall to the floor and pool around my toes. On instinct, I bent forward to grab it. Blue 3 grabbed my wrist and pulled me back upright. The string of words that left her mouth didn't sound as friendly this time.

Apparently, whatever was about to happen required me to be naked. I opened my mouth to complain but stopped myself. The glamazons couldn't understand me any more than I could understand them. Even if they could, why should either of them save me?

Did I even need saving? On paper, my life had absolutely gone sideways. I was on another planet, about to be sold to an alien for reasons I tried my best not to guess at. Where was the knot in my stomach, the lump of lead that had lived there since I was ten years old? I should have been afraid. Terrified. But all I could manage was vague embarrassment because two alien women saw me naked.

The women grabbed ahold of my arms and guided me to the semi-circle of mirrors. I looked at myself in them, trying to reconcile the woman who stared back at me with the woman I thought I was.

Blue 3 kept whispering to me in their language. I still didn't understand, but the rhythm gave me something to focus on that wasn't New Blue's eyes combing over every inch of my bare skin. She put her hands around my waist, mumbled something, and disappeared into the racks.

When I couldn't stand the silence for another second, I turned to Blue 3 and quirked an eyebrow. "A spa soak and a fitting. Women back home would pay a pretty penny for this. I mean, if you re-think the ending part."

The glamazon didn't even crack a smile at my little joke. My gibberish probably didn't make any more sense to her than hers did to me. Whoever bought me probably wouldn't know English either. My stomach flopped as it dawned on me that they might not be as kind as Blue 3.

New Blue popped out from a different rack in the row, each arm covered in flowing warm-toned dresses. She held the mass of fabric up and compared it against my skin. Every few seconds, she whispered something to Blue 3, and the other woman took away one of the dresses and set it to the side. Of the original dozen, only six made the cut.

But the two women didn't seem to agree which of the six dresses to shove me into. Blue 3 plucked a sheer orange from New Blue's arm and held it against my naked body. The fabric felt softer than it looked, but didn't cover anything at all. They may as well have marched me into the auction room naked.

The thought made my stomach flip again. I closed my eyes, hoping to call visions of puppies or baby seals to my mind. Instead, I got a hulking hairy man with bright yellow skin and three horns. Plan B. I looked at the mirror, focusing on my reflection and blocking out the blue women's gibberish.

Days and days of the gray slop diet had stripped a few pounds from my body, but my curvy frame was mostly intact. The chocolate brown waves I usually flat ironed into submission had gone rogue in the dry air of the dressing room.

"Maybe I'll be saved by an epic case of helmet hair," I said.

Blue 3 and New Blue paused and looked at me, exchanging a glance between themselves. This time, I understood what New Blue said perfectly. What the hell is wrong with this one?

The thought had crossed my mind too. Women about to go on the auction block didn't crack jokes. Normal people didn't keep trying to talk to people who couldn't understand them. A normal person would have been afraid. Why wasn't I afraid?

New Blue shrugged and separated one dress from the others. She held it up in front of me and slipped it over my head, letting it fall into place over my hips. The soft light from the wall sconces bounced off the fabric as it brushed across my toes, making it look like liquid gold. My eyes widened in horror as New Blue stepped away to reveal her handiwork.

From my hips to my toes, the dress was fine, elegant even. From my shoulders to my belly button was a different story. The entire bodice of the dress was made from braided strips of the gold fabric weaved together. The fabric wasn't as sheer as the orange dress Blue 3 had selected, but the heavy fabric clung to my curves so tightly that it didn't matter. It covered my vital parts . . . barely.

Nothing about the outfit said Ella Browne, but neither woman had asked my opinion on anything so far. Nobody had asked me a damned thing since they’d snatched me and shoved me in the back of a spaceship. What I wanted to wear didn't matter to the women. It probably wouldn’t matter to whoever bought me either.

But my mind couldn't stop freaking out over the image of myself wearing such a skimpy dress. Never in all my life had I felt so exposed. Mama would have called it a hussy's dress. Daddy wouldn't have been so nice.

The thought of my father made my stomach clench again. I wasn't supposed to be in the room with those women, wearing a dress that would have looked better on a celebrity housewife than on me. I should have been at home in bed, nursing a hangover and ducking my parents’ calls. Daddy had campaign events coming up. He would blow a gasket when he couldn't get ahold of me to give me the schedule.

Blue 3 took me by the shoulders again. This time, she didn't speak, but her eyes said more than her staccato words could have. Fear wouldn't save me from what was coming. It might even make it worse. If I wanted to get through the night, I needed to be strong.