First Contact Ch. 02

"I just think you should think everything over before you sign the papers and commit yourselfto this!" Her mother replied in a similar tone. "Why won't you listen to reason for once?!"

"You can't stop me, you know." Annette countered her mother's question with defiance. "I'm an adult and I can do what I want!"

"I know I can't stop you, Annette," her mother conceded as she sat down at the small table in the corner of the room. Her voice becoming more subdued, she pleaded with her only daughter to join her. "Annette, please sit down and listen to what I'm about to tell you."

"Why should I listen to this?!" Annette shouted. "You're just going to try to talk me out of it and get me to do what you want. It's what you always do with everyone! Is that why Dad left?!"

"Annette," her mother continued, "if you'll sit and listen I'll answer that question and maybe give you a little insight as to why I'm concerned about you volunteering for the program." She pulled out the chair next to her and motioned with her hand for her daughter to sit. Annette rolled her eyes and stood motionless for a few seconds then reluctantly took the seat next to her mother.

"Thank you," her mother replied. Allison Perry may have been a demanding, overbearing woman, but she did so with grace and politeness. Now it was time for her to drop her defenses and speak plainly to her daughter. "What I'm about to tell you goes no farther than this table, OK? You have to promise me this, Annette."

"Fine," Annette said exasperatedly while rolling her eyes once again, "I promise."

"Good," Allison said as she reached into her pocket for her cigarettes and lighter. She lit up the nicotine transfer vessel and inhaled deeply.

"Those things are going to kill you, y'know." Annette stated as she watched her mother tap ashes into the glass tray on the table. Allison ignored her daughter's admonition and began to speak.

"Do you remember that time when you were about ten where I was gone for a couple months?" Allison asked then took another drag from her smoke.

"Yes," Annette replied. "When you went to help Grandma after her heart attack."

Allison shook her head and continued, "Your grandmother didn't have a heart attack, Annette. I went to Washington D.C. to participate in the first breeding project."

Annette's eyes widened with surprise as she took in the revelation, "But I spoke to you and Grandma both. I remember speaking to the both of you..."

"Grandma went with me," Allison responded to her shocked daughter. "She didn't participate, of course, but she went with me for moral support. I was allowed to have one person with me. I had asked your father to go but he was dead set against the whole thing. Still is if I'm not mistaken."

"He's not a fan of it," Annette confessed. "I didn't tell him I was interested in volunteering though. I just brought up the subject the last time I saw him to feel out his response. He... made himself perfectly clear on how he feels about the project."

"Well, he was even more clear back then." Allison continued as she stubbed out the end of the cigarette filter then drew another white tobacco-filled cylinder from the pack. She knew her daughter was right about the smoking but she knew she'd never quit. "Your father told me that if I went then he would not only leave me but that he would also take you away and I'd never see you again. Of course he didn't do that, but he did leave. Eventually..."

"Daddy left because you volunteered?" Annette questioned her mother for clarification.

"Not just because of that..." Allison confessed then revealed her secret over draws off her cigarette. "Your father was a good man, a good provider, and a good lover, Annette. He was all I wanted in a husband. When we made love he made me feel like the only woman on Earth."

"Mom!" Annette cried. "Do I really need to hear this?!"

"Yes, you do!" Allison retorted. "You need to hear it because one day you may be in the same situation I was. Your father was a good lover. But the Nebulans..."

"What about them?" Annette queried.

"The Nebulans have something..." Allison replied. "They have something, something that 'manipulates your pleasure center' is how they described it to me. They made me feel so good that it was like a drug, Annette. I was bred three times during my stay and I loved every moment of it. I didn't want to leave. I thought about stowing away on one of their ships when they left. I didn't care about going home or seeing your father again or even seeing you. It was an incredible experience that no human male could possibly replicate. And, unfortunately, your father came to realize that soon after I returned home."

"Daddy left you because he couldn't... he couldn't give you what the aliens did?" Annette asked, modifying her question.

"I'm afraid so, honey," Allison said as she took her daughter's hand. "Your father is a good man, but no man could compete with that feeling. And one day you'll have a man that makes you happy like that. And then, if you go through with the project, you'll have to face what I did: that you won't be able to forget that feeling of total euphoria and you'll never be able to recreate it. Not with a man, not with your hand, not with a vibrator. You'll never experience it again because when and if they return in twenty years or so, you'll be too old to volunteer again, like I am now."

"Did it hurt?" Annette asked. "When you delivered the... alien. Did giving birth to it hurt?"

"Not nearly as much as giving birth to you," Allison answered with a smile. "There was extraordinarily little pain. More a discomfort. But I wouldn't trade either experience. Annette, I'm just trying to protect you, can't you see that?"

"I know you are, Mom," Annette responded, "but I have to have my own experiences. I can't make decisions based on your life. And I hear they're going to offer women a lot of money for volunteering. Did you get any money when you volunteered?"

"Yes," Annette's mother said as she crushed the orange glowing embers from her cigarette into the amber glass ashtray. "But it wasn't nearly enough for what happened after I came home..."

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Present Day

Annette stood with the water from the showerhead spattering off her as she cried. Her mother had succumbed to lung cancer two years after that conversation. The funeral was a spectacle itself as Annette's father broke down and wept at the casket and had to be taken out of the funeral home by Annette's uncles.

Annette brought herself back to the here and now and shut the water off in the shower. Time to get going, she thought as she stepped from the tub and dried herself with the hotel towel. She dried and styled her hair the way Mac liked because she thought the alien might also like it like that, but she had no idea what the creature might like. She dressed in a flowery yellow sundress and wedge sandals. Annette decided to forgo her undergarments. She was quite sure that they wouldn't be on long anyway so she didn't bother with a bra and panties. At three minutes past seven, Annette took a look in the hotel bathroom mirror, fussed with her hair for a quick second, then left her room and boarded the elevator. All the elevators were shut off at 10pm and subsequently turned back on at seven, and all of them had military attendants to make sure people got to the correct floors. As the sliding double doors opened, Annette boarded the car and the attendant addressed her.

"Good morning, Mrs. Simmons." The khaki-greed clad soldier stated. "Heading to the basement?"

"Yes, Corporal..." Annette looked at the soldier's nametag stitched into his uniform, "Saunders. Basement. I have an appointment."

"Yes, ma'am," Saunders said as he pushed the floor button marked B. The butterflies began to stir in her stomach again but she was determined to see this through. Not her father, not her mother's words, and not Mac's protestations would stop her from the once-in-a-lifetime experience she was about to commence in the bowels of the expired casino. No one could stop her now.

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