We eventually come to terms with everything. As much as two women can come to terms with being prisoners on an alien ship.

“Are you sure he looked human?” Elsie asks me. “How do you even know it was a ‘he?’ Did you see his–”

“Shut up,” I say, giggling.

I think it’s the first time I’ve actually laughed since waking up here. It’s a nervous laughter more than anything, but laughter is still laughter.

Elsie smiles and shakes her head. “I have to pee.”

We both look around, and then back at each other. There are four walls. Four beds. No toilets.

“I’ll...hold it,” Elsie says, biting her lip.

I walk up to the wall that the door opened from, and I start to pound on it. “Hey! We’re thirsty and hungry, and one of us has to pee!”

“Shh!” Elsie says, “What if you make them mad?”

I shrug. “They’ll throw us naked into a prison with no food or water or toilets? Oh wait, they already did that.”

I pound harder and harder, and just when I’m about to give up and curl up into a ball in my weird shape-shifting bed thing, the wall glows bright.

I step back, afraid the alien man might walk right over me if I don’t move out of the way.

The wall seemingly melts away, but it’s not the one from before. It’s a short green thing, with slits for eyes and a big head shaped like an oversized cabbage. Its skin is sickly green rather than teal, and before I can even back away with it, it shoves a rod into me, and a shock jolts through my entire body. I fall limp to the floor, and I hear Elsie scream.

I hear her back into a corner as the shadow of the green thing passes over me, and when I manage to move my head enough to see, Elsie is falling to the ground just as I did.

More figures walk in and start chittering at each other. All are that shade of sickly green, and aside from walking upright on two legs and having two arms, they barely resemble anything human. Unlike the first figure I saw, whose bright violet eyes looked almost more human than any man on Earth–and whose sculpted back would make even the most athletic man jealous–these green things have no visible muscles. Their arms look like limp noodles, and they movements are jerky and quick, like insects more than men.

I realize drool is dripping from the corner of my mouth, but my whole body is numb, and I can barely swallow. When I feel the green things touching me, poking me, and running glowing instruments over my body, I can’t move enough to resist. All I can do is tighten my hands into fists, and cry as they flip me onto my back and probe me all over.

I fear they’ll do more than probe me, but it’s too horrible to think that something so awful looking could have any type of sexual appetite. They are completely naked, and I can see no hint of anything they could use to do the deed with, which is a very small relief considering their four-fingered hands are squeezing me and poking into my torso, seemingly counting how many ribs I have.

“You said they looked human,” Elsie whines, her voice slurred as if she had just come back from the dentist.

“These ones are different,” I say, and I realize I can’t feel my lips. My voice sounds like Elsie’s. “The other one was…”

I trail off, no longer having the strength to speak. The other one, did I imagine him? Did I just see what I wanted to see? I never got a good look at him, but could I really have imagined something like that

Just as I begin to doubt myself, he fills the doorway. This time the light is brighter, and I can see him fully, hoisting another naked woman on his shoulder. I already know it’s Amber, though I’d held onto some hope that they wouldn’t catch her.

The man-like alien throws Amber into one of the beds. His skin really is teal, and he really is larger than any human man. He’s tall and muscular, with an athletic build. His four arms and four legs are all human-like enough that I find my eyes lingering on his well-sculpted calves and biceps. He’s wearing some type of loin-cloth as his only form of clothing. It hides his ass and dick–assuming he even has a dick–and not much else.

He throws Amber down onto one of the beds like a sack of potatoes, then he turns to the green aliens, which are half his height, and he shouts at them in a language I don’t understand.

The two which are poking my ribs jump back and look up. They jerk and tilt their heads, chittering at the teal alien, who I realize has actual horns. It’s not a helmet, but long, curved horns jutting out from either side of his head. He tilts his head down so those horns press toward the small aliens, and he growls.

They scurry out of the room, their examination of Elsie and me seemingly incomplete.

His eyes are a bright violet, just like I thought I’d seen the first time. Aside from that strange color, they are intensely human, with a black iris and dark lashes, set between impossibly high, chiseled cheekbones. Those eyes flick toward Elsie, but then they lock onto me. His eyes burn with an intensity. With a hunger. I know it’s silly to think I can read anything from an alien’s weird purple eyes, but I know hunger when I see it, and this alien either wants to eat me...or–

He licks his lips. He has the face of a Greek statue, or like one of the gods the statues were meant to resemble. I’m too terrified to feel much more than raw fear as he gazes down at me, but I’ve never had a man look at me with such desire, and never a man this attractive.

He’s an alien, Alice, not a man. He has freaking horns on his head, and he’s kidnapped you! And Elsie, and now Amber too.

But my body and my biology can’t separate that from the way my heart is pounding, and the thrill creeping through me even as I’m utterly terrified of what he might do to me. Though it couldn’t be much worse than what the sickly green ones did to me.

“You,” he says, taking a step toward me.

My throat goes dry. He is speaking English, or maybe it’s an alien word that just sounds like “you?”

I bite my lip and find it’s no longer numb. I pull my feet underneath myself and stand shakily up.

“M–me?” I say, pointing at myself.

I become intensely aware of how naked I am, and as his eyes move down my body, I try to cover my breasts with one hand, and my womanhood with the other.

He smirks at that. Who knew an alien could smirk?

“You don’t need to cover yourself,” he says. “You have good breasts.”

I hear Elsie stifle laughter. The alien speaks in a strange accent. It’s rough and clipped, and it’s unlike any accent I’ve ever heard on Earth.

“Excuse me?” I try to ask, but my voice comes out as a dry whisper.

“You have good lines,” he says. “Nice shape.”

He holds his hand out, and as his eyes run across my hips and ass and breasts he extends his index finger and moves it through the air, tracing the shape of my body as if painting on an invisible easel.

“Jesus,” Elsie blurts out.

He looks at her and scowls, and then back at me. “You ask for food, water, these things?”

I nod.

“I will bring you these,” he says.

“Where are we?” I ask.

It feels dangerous to ask. I’m still holding out hope that we are actually somewhere on Earth. That maybe they have some hidden base on Earth, and we’ll be released after some kind of examination. If he says that we’re–

“On our ship,” he says. “Many light-years from your planet now.”

Yeah. That. If he says that, then all hope of ever getting my life back is gone. Everything is over.

He takes another step toward me, bringing him well within what I’d consider my personal space. Being naked makes it even worse.

I try to look down to avoid his gaze, but that just has me looking at his loin cloth, and wondering for some reason what’s under there. So I look up, and I see his cut, teal abdominal muscles. I feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment looking there, so I look up further–past his broad chest–until finally I see that smug grin and those intense purple eyes on me.

“You like my lines too,” he says in a low growl. “I can smell your arousal.”

I look down at the floor now. Not daring to look at him again.

Then I feel his skin touch mine. His hard, calloused hand brushes against my bare shoulder, moving my hair away.

I try to break away, but he squeezes. If I was terrified before, then there are no words for the feeling that overtakes me. It’s a suffocating terror, and I try to curl up into a ball to avoid his gaze.

Then he whispers into my ear. His hand doesn’t stray from my shoulder, he doesn’t violate me. He just whispers into my ear.

“They won’t treat you well,” he whispers. “Once we land. It will be much worse than it was just now. Those green things have no hunger for you, but others will.”

I tremble. My whole body shudders. It’s all too much. I can’t take it all in. Somehow the only thing that feels good now is that warm hand on my shoulder. I’m naked and afraid and alone, and that alien hand on my shoulder feels like the only thing anchoring me to sanity. It’s probably just my body doing whatever it can to feel sane, some kind of desperate psychological defense that makes no logical sense. As if this loin-clothed monster could make me feel safe.

Still, he’s infinitely better than those other things. If I have to choose between him and those insect-like monsters, I’ll choose him.

“They’ll make you a slave,” he whispers.

I look up now. His hard gaze softens as I meet his eyes.

“Your eyes are green, like the sea,” he says.

“A slave?” I ask.

“My clan would treat you better,” he whispers, his brows furrowing.

His expression is pained. Conflicted. “But,” he says. “I couldn’t…”

“I don’t want to be a slave,” I say.

“Nor do I,” he says, “Proximus should never serve others.”

He pulls away from me with a sudden intensity. Proximus? Is that his name? He turns his back to me before I can read his expression. He stands in the doorway, his back facing us. He stands there for a long moment, then says, “You may pee in your beds.”

“Excuse me?” Elsie snaps.

“Food will be sent,” he barks, and the moment he steps into the hallway, the doorway forms back into a solid wall.

Elsie walks toward me on shaky legs. She must have got jolted worse than me. “What did he say to you?” she asks. “He would barely even look at me...but he was like, magnetically drawn to you. Alice, What did he say? Other than that he liked your boobs.”

Slaves. Should I tell her? If it’s true, we’ll find out soon enough. Right now, Elsie might still have some shred of hope. She might think that things could work out. If I tell her what the alien said, then she’ll feel as crushed and defeated as I do. I decide I won’t tell her.

“Just more of what you heard,” I say. “He’s a perv.”

We both look over at Amber, who is completely swallowed up by the bed.

“We should let her sleep,” I say.

Elsie frowns and nods.