Felicity Ch. 23

Clara sat in the gloom in the kitchen of her lake cabin. The sun had set without her. Soon no sunsets would have her adoring gaze. She was terminally ill.

She had considered going home to Felicity but decided that it would be cruel to have her mother and sisters watch her die. She did not want them to suffer too. Her cancer had spread throughout her body.

She had known that her doctor's hopeful recital of her treatment options was ultimately going to be futile. Her denial stage had passed quickly. The lump still in her breast had told her she had waited too long.

There was never any anger. As she reviewed her life she realized she had wasted it in pursuit of a career. She had amassed a considerable amount of money so she had convinced herself that she was happy.

A corporate attorney, she focused her life on climbing the corporate ladder which she did rapidly, until hitting an invisible ceiling. She had refused to acknowledge its presence too.

Funny, after she resigned her law firm had seen her worth and tried to lure her back. She had never told them of her illness.

Her personal life had been reduced to quick, short-lived affairs with co-workers and clients, male and female. The only thing she had ever done for herself was to buy the cabin by the lake.

Once a month she went there to decompress. Over the last six months she had been there every weekend. Now, at the age of thirty-six, she was there to die.

She sat in a chair in her kitchen allowing the gloom to engulf her, mentally and physically. She had not moved for hours. Suddenly there was movement behind her. Her eyes were accustomed to the dark and she saw a form moving past her left shoulder.

Her anger surged. She sprang at the form violently. Something went clattering to the floor after she delivered her first blow. The form had apparently not seen her sitting in the dark and was caught by surprise.

Clara had been a fitness nut, spending long hours at the gym. It was in fact her noticeable lack of stamina that led to her first complete physical exam in her life less than a year before.

Her anger had returned some of her quickness and strength. She pummeled the creature with swift blows and soon the form was on the floor.

?Somewhere in her mind an observation formed that the battle had been won too easily. Her intruder was weak and small. Her foe had not defended itself.

Clara picked up a metal stool intending to crush the intruder's skull when a ray of moonlight penetrated the kitchen and she saw her adversary clearly.

It was not human.

It was not of Earth.

It had impossibly large almond shaped eyes on a somewhat triangular head, a mouth with no lips, a completely hairless very pale skin.

The alien did not appear formidable and in fact was barely the same size as the diminutive Clara herself. There was "humanity" there. Its face stopped Clara's final blow.

She had just seen that same face that morning in her hospital room mirror. It was the infinitely sad face of someone waiting for death.

Clara threw the stool across the room and sat on the chair she had occupied for hours. Adrenalin was withdrawn from her blood stream and she began to tremble, a flood of tears came. For the first time since her diagnosis she cried.

The alien on the floor blinked its eyes in confusion, not daring to move, in obvious pain.

Clara took a closer look at it as her tears subsided. Somehow Clara came to the conclusion that it was female. She seemed to still be awaiting her fate.

A small movement outside the kitchen caught her eye. It was a small alien, its eyes wide in panic.

"Great," Clara thought, "I almost killed somebody's mother."

Her tears returned as she tried to convince the little one that she was not a danger to him. Eventually she rose from her seat with a sad sigh and gently picked up the alien. Using all her strength Clara carried her to the living room couch.

She motioned the small one to come in and sit with his mother. She returned to the kitchen and prepared a bag of ice for the alien.

Her eye caught sight of the object that had clattered to the floor when she first struck the creature. It was one of her coffee mugs. She picked it up and smelled it. It had the aroma of chicken broth.

She began to put a possible scenario together. The two are stranded nearby. Clara had very set and precise habits which included arriving at the cabin around nine on Friday nights and leaving by two in the afternoon on Sundays or Mondays.

It was Wednesday night. No one would expect her to be there. She had not turned on a light, she had not moved from the kitchen chair. She had upset the alien's timing.

She searched the pantry for cans of chicken broth. She bought them by the case at the wholesale mega giant. It had been her primary form of nourishment for weeks.

Opening a large can she poured broth into a mug and some into a small cup. She warmed them up just a bit and carried them to the living room along with the ice bag.

The alien had not moved from the couch but the small one was now sitting at the end of the sofa. Clara was hurt to see the fear in its eyes.

Fear turned to surprise when she handed it the small cup of broth. Clara watched as what appeared to be a combination tongue/tentacle/straw was lowered into the broth and immediately lowered the level of liquid in the cup.

"Fascinating" she thought, using Mr. Spock's voice in her head.

Clara turned her attention to the mother and looked for buttons or a zipper on her tunic.

She could not find a way to open it. The alien sensed what Clara wanted and pressed a spot on the hem of her tunic which opened seemingly on its own power.

The first thing Clara noticed was the presence of tits, somewhat smaller than her own and apparently without nipples. The second thing she noted were the glowing red areas, the places where her blows had landed.

She took the bag of ice and gently rubbed the bruises with it. The alien flinched but otherwise made no move. It did not take Clara long to see that her first aid was doing some good. The red marks became less angry and eventually settled into a pale pink.

Clara put the ice away and helped the alien sit up on the couch. She placed the mug of broth into her hands. Clara turned to look at the small one and noticed he had drained his cup. Clara got up and took the cup from him as she gave it a reassuring smile while softly caressing his cheek. She went to the kitchen and refilled the cup.

When she returned she saw that his mother had drained hers. They were obviously very hungry, yet she had not missed any cans of broth. They must have been rationing themselves just so she would not.

She took the mug and refilled it for her. A few minutes later Clara re-inspected the alien mom's bruises and saw that the pink areas were slowly fading into her normal milky bluish white color.

One of her bruises was just past a breast and as Clara leaned over to inspect the area for discoloration her hand accidentally covered the soft mound.

The alien squirmed a bit and Clara quickly removed her hand. The breast now had a small nipple.

Clara gave the alien an apologetic smile. The alien's eyes smiled back. There may have been a touch of wistfulness in her expression.

Clara sat in her recliner and watched her guest use her strange oral appendage to sip her second mug of broth. She guessed that with a mouth that was just a slit their food needed to be liquid or small enough to swallow whole. She assumed there were no teeth, as there did not appear to be a lower jaw.

Their eyes were amazingly expressive. The emotions that she picked up from the two were solely from their eyes. There did not seem to be any facial muscles except around the orbs.

Their lack of hair did not register as odd in Clara's mind. It had been months since her own body had any hair at all.

The alien's tunic was still open and Clara found herself gazing at the breasts. The nipple her accidental caress brought from hiding was still visible and there now seemed to be a small bump where the other nipple should be.

Clara wondered how they came to be stranded, where they were from. Their hunger told Clara that they must have run out of their own food a long time ago. She wondered if they had been marooned for years.

Lastly she wondered how long since the alien last had sex. Her own last sex had been with the tall blonde that lived in the cabin opposite the lake from hers, nearly a year ago. Clara suspected her guest had gone much longer.

She felt movement and noticed that the little one had crawled onto the recliner with her and was almost immediately asleep.

Just like a child. His terror of her had morphed into a feeling of safety by food and a gentle caress.

The long day, the stress of the evening, her failing body all conspired against Clara. She was falling asleep. Clara propped the legs of the recliner up, hugged the youngster to her and kissed his head.

His mother's eyes registered pleased surprise as Clara fell into a deep sleep.

When Clara awoke the next morning her only thoughts centered on beating back the pain in her body. She staggered into her bedroom and opened her still packed suitcase. She found her green and pink pills and swallowed them quickly.

She removed her clothing and went to her shower to wait for the pills to take effect. By the time she left the shower she felt like she could function around the pain. By the time she sat on her rocking chair on the back porch, nude but for her baseball cap, she felt as good as she would ever get.

Her coffee, her view of the pretty little lake from her porch, the soft breeze all allowed her to ease back into near normalcy. That was when she recalled her vivid dream about aliens.

She smiled at herself when she realized that she missed the fantasy aliens. "Maybe in my next dream I could have sex with the mom", she thought to herself as she idly caressed her pussy.

Her mind slipped into a reverie of her nearest neighbor across the lake, Fiona. They had made love several times in the years she had owned her cabin.

It started on a morning just like this one. She was as now, naked and playing with her pussy. The sun reflected a glint from the porch of the cabin at the other end of the small lake. Clara always had binoculars by her side for viewing the abundant wildlife in the area. When she trained them on the source of the glint she was surprised to see a stunning blonde, equally naked, also playing with her pussy. She had her own binoculars trained on her.

The woman paused to wave at Clara. Clara paused to wave at the woman. They watched each other masturbate. The woman had her cum first, apparently she had been watching Clara for a while and was closer.

She kept her binoculars trained on Clara until she had her own cum. Clara knew that the blonde understood that being watched greatly enhances the experience.

Her occasional lover would not be at her cabin now. It was early October and she would be back home in England.

Clara's pussy was trying hard to push past the effects of the medication. Her fingers tried to bring her clit to life. A sudden sharp pain shot through the knuckles of her hand causing her to yelp and stop all her motion. She looked at her hand and noticed swelling and discoloration on her knuckles. She looked at her other hand and saw discoloration there too.

The skin on the back of her neck crawled. She bolted up way too fast and had to fight a wave of nausea on her way to the kitchen. As she stood and surveyed the scene within she initially saw nothing out of place. The metal stool was upright; there were no cups in the sink, just a small cup on the drain board.

Again her skin tingled with its own life. There should not have been a cup on the drain board. She had just arrived yesterday and she had no food or drink after she arrived.

"Was the mug in which I poured my coffee on the drain board when I picked it up?" she wondered.

A mixture of dread and hope led Clara to the trash bin. The only thing in it was a large can of chicken broth. Clara felt faint. She returned to the porch and sat in her rocker, her mind in such turmoil that she had a difficult time keeping a coherent thought. She forced herself to relax. She took a sip of her now cold coffee and noted that there was a small chip broken off the base of the mug.

Now she knew, it had not been a dream. Somewhere around her she had new neighbors.

The first option she discarded was notifying the authorities. Her two guests would quickly be at the center of a zoo. She would not wish that on them, assuming anyone believed her in the first place.

Her second option, protecting them indefinitely, was also out of the question. Her time was short.

The only thing left was to work on getting them rescued.

She was dressed with her car keys in her hand before she realized she had given herself a mission. She bypassed the nearest small town and drove out to the big city. As she drove she used her cell phone to sign up for satellite TV with Internet connections.

At the megamart she loaded her basket with cases of broth and cream soups. She bought an iMac with the Pentium chip. At the electronics store she bought a HAM radio, a large antenna and every gadget for transmitting and receiving signals she could find.

She was exhausted when she returned to the cabin. She placed two brand new mugs on the table with a pot full of chicken broth sitting on a small warmer.

She set out every gadget she had purchased at the electronics store on the counter, which included a set of tools.

She turned off every light except the stove light and went to bed. She had hoped to be back up in time to visit with them but there was no chance.

She slept until she was awakened by pain the following morning. It was not a good day for her physically. The pain was just under unbearable all day. She did notice that the broth was gone and the pot was clean and on the drain board.

The large mug she had bought for the mom was also on the drain board. The one she bought for the little one was not to be found. He apparently liked it. It had a photo of Daffy Duck as Duck Dodgers.

Most interesting, however, was that about a third of the electronic gadgets and the set of tools were gone.

Clara found the next few days exhausting even though she did very little physically. She did manage to stay awake long enough each evening to share a broth meal with her alien guests.

Clara could not communicate with them or they with she, even though she saw the mother and child communicate with each other somehow.

She became fond of them, grateful for their company. She continued to refill their mugs during dinner until the mother declined. The child never stopped eating until his mother apparently told him he was done. Clara decided he must be a boy.

When he arrived on Tuesday morning Clara paid the satellite dish installer extra to hook up every device and mount every antenna. She could now communicate with the world and could hope that her friends could find a way to communicate with theirs.

Her body continued its betrayal and at the end of the day Clara had just enough energy to sit in her rocker and watch the sunset.

As the stars appeared Clara saw her aliens "walk on water" towards her porch. It had taken Clara three days of seeing the spectacle to realize that they were walking on a transparent platform an inch or so above the water level. She surmised their ship was under the lake.

Seeing them lifted Clara's spirits and she joined them for dinner. After eating Clara felt better and led the boy to the TV. After a very quick lesson on how to use the remote the small one was happily clicking through channels like every other male in the universe.

While he was thus occupied Clara led the mom to the computer.

She googled star charts and soon found one that displayed the stars by location of viewer and the day of the year. She input that days date and time. She adjusted the chart so it showed viewing southwest. She led the alien to the porch and pointed at the sky, then showed her that the computer had the same image.

Clara then asked the question she had most wanted to ask. In a series of gestures she asked the mom where her home was. Her expression told Clara that it was not in the October field. She clicked on November with no change of expression. She went month by month until her new friend's agitation stopped her on the month of March.

The alien pointed at a small yellow-orange star in the constellation identified as Coma Berenices. Clara had never heard of it.

Clara needed to think clearly so she vacated the desk chair and invited her companion to sit at the computer. As she watched her experiment with the mouse and the keyboard Clara sat in the recliner and mulled over her new information.

She realized that she would not get to see them go home. Assuming that they could figure out a way to signal for help they had to wait until March to send the signal. She would not live that long. Clara had come to the cabin hoping to just make it through Christmas.

She had even contracted for a visiting nurse to check on her after Thanksgiving.

The problem would have to wait for tomorrow. Her body and mind were shutting down for the day. She went to the little one and kissed his head as she hugged him. He hugged her back. She walked behind the desk chair and leaned over her alien friend and kissed her head as she caressed her shoulders. Clara felt her caress her hands. She went to bed.

The next morning was a bit better for Clara and by the time she finished her shower her pills were working well. She walked out of her bedroom naked as usual to have get her coffee and enjoy her porch.

As she moved to the kitchen two things entered her awareness. The TV was still on and it was a dark cloudy day.

On her way to the porch she saw her alien companion was still at the computer. The little one was still clicking through channels. When he saw Clara the little one ran to her for a hug. His mother turned and saw her and walked to her for a hug too. Neither took note of her nudity.

The mom accompanied her to the porch. Clara shivered when the cold wind hit her. Autumn's first cold front had arrived. She turned and walked back into the cabin. Clara pulled a throw blanked out of a cedar chest, wrapped it around her shoulders and sat in the recliner to drink her coffee. Her guest shadowed her every move and even refilled her coffee mug for her.

She went back to the computer and Clara immediately noticed that overnight she had become proficient in its use. She was glad that she had left it on the Apple OS.

She was soon printing something. Clara expected that she would be printing a star calendar or specs for communications equipment. What was printed was a letter to her.

It read, "I am Ohn. My child is Ohnling. We are friends. We love you. We thank you for lives. Our family knows we on this planet but not where. Power to navigation and communication gone. Ship will fly but we can not tell it where to go. I place sign in Internet will be seen by monitors.

What name you problem"

Clara was relived that she would not need to live through March.

She was surprised by the sadness she felt at the realization that they would soon be gone. She was not surprised that her alien had some knowledge of the written English language.

It took her a minute to realize that the last line on her note was a question. Clara walked over to the computer and googled "breast cancer terminal," the first time she had ever referred to her condition as such, then returned to her recliner.

Ohn stayed at the computer for about an hour. Clara saw her go through a dizzying array of medical sites that illustrated the physiology and the biochemistry of her illness. She dozed for a while then took a short trip to the bathroom.