Back To The Stars: ROMANCE: ALIEN (Alien Invasion Abduction SciFi Romance) (Fantasy Anthologies & Collections) (54 page)

Chapter 6:

In less than a week, I had found my first break. It wasn’t the lead role, but it wasn’t a blink and miss either. I was playing the second fiddle to the lead and even though, I wasn’t the main character, I had enough screen presence to register my impact.

“Avery, I can’t believe this! I finally got my first role. I am so excited. I did it, babe. I did it!” I squealed in delight and he picked me up and hugged me. We went on a date that day to celebrate my new journey.

Avery was a true romantic as not only did he make candlelight dinner arrangements, but he strummed a song and sang it for me and I knew that I would never fall out of love with him. We kissed right before the meal and when we came back home, we both knew how the night would end.

For my role, I delivered my best performance and I waited anxiously for the reviews to pour in. Right after the show was aired I got three ad assignments and I knew that I had finally managed to kick start my career.

The feeling of being successful was great and I knew that I had just one person to thank for all of this – Avery.

“What would I ever do without you? I would be so lost, baby! Thank you for being my anchor,” I said and meant it.

“You need to stop thanking me all the freaking time. I want you to become the LA poster girl. You have such huge talent Madeline, you need to live every dream of yours and I am sure that sooner rather than later, you would be able to make the most of your skills and talent.”

I knew that often it was Avery and his words of encouragement that kept me going. I had become one of those people who needed someone to reaffirm my own faith in myself.

However, luckily for me, my career started going well. Even though I was not the face of any documentary and I was still to bag a lead role, there were ample assignments in my kitty.

There were four ad agencies that had hired me and I did a lot of small and big advertisements. I knew it all needed time as climbing to the top of ranks in Hollywood was not an easy job, but somehow I felt a little empty inside.

I knew at the back of my mind that I stood where I was only because of the luck charm which Avery had rubbed on me. If it was not for his good luck charm, I would not be working and I must have given up on my dreams.

As I sat just near the balcony and I was brooding over these thoughts, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and saw that Avery was looking at me. He had his perfect smile. I hadn't realized when, but I had started crying.

“Hey babe, what happened? Why are you crying?” he asked and he was genuinely concerned.

“Avery,  as much as I am happy that my career has started to peak, I can’t help but feel that all of this happened because of the luck you rubbed on me. What if I hadn’t found you? This sometimes makes me feel that I am not worthy enough.

I feel that I do not have the right talent which is needed. I just used the fact that I had you with me. This sometimes makes me miserable. I don’t know. I feel like I have not come here because of my own talents and skills,” I said and poured my heart out.

I had wanted to unload this burden off my chest for too long, but I didn’t know how to say it. There was a part of me that wondered if saying this would hurt Avery, but in the end, when you love someone, you both need to have that understanding wherein you can let them know anything and everything without the fear of being judged.

I knew that Avery would never judge me no matter what and when he sat beside me and took my hand in his, I knew I had done the right thing.

“Listen to me carefully, Madeline. There is another secret you need to know and I am sure when you will know this, all your doubts will be set to rest.”

I didn’t know what it was that Avery wanted to let me know. I didn’t want him to sugarcoat everything and I wanted to know nothing but the truth. I knew I was not good enough and I was ready to hear it from my own lover. I wanted to start once again and prove that I reached where I was on the basis of my skill. I didn’t want to be a cheater.

“Madeline, are you listening?” he asked and I nodded.

“I did nothing that day. I am no magician. Having been on Earth for so long, I was left with no special power. The only thing that makes me an alien is my past. Because I have been on earth’s surface for so long, I have become as human as the rest of you.

I don’t come with any special luck. I knew that all you needed was the confidence that you can succeed. You were losing your confidence and I just played on human psychology. If I told you that I would magically give you some luck, I knew it would lift your hopes and-and you would give your best and this will take your career to places.

Darling, there is no such thing as fairy dust or luck leaves. I did nothing but lie. I knew you needed to hear it because I have observed a lot of humans do that.

Wherever you are in life today and all those contracts which you managed to achieve, it was all because of you alone. I have no role to play,” he said and smiled.

“You are lying. You are saying all of this to make me feel better. You did sprinkle your good luck charm on me. It was your charm that I got my first break.”

There was no way Avery could be telling the truth. I was quite sure that he had actually helped me or else wouldn’t it be such an odd coincidence.

“I swear on our love Madeline, I did absolutely nothing. I just used the moment and played on human psychology. That is it! I had no role to play.”

I got up from the couch and hugged him one more time.

“Oh, Avery! Thank you once again. I was wondering if I even had the skills to come so far and now you have reaffirmed my faith once again. I can’t tell you how much I love you. I love you to the moon and back, Avery. You are the best of everything,” I said and kissed him endless times because he surely was the best thing to have happened to me.

“I love you too darling,” Avery said and we kissed, like always.

Chapter 7:

It’s been two years since I had moved to LA. I have grown considerably as an actress and have also featured in a few documentaries. I not only work as an actress but I have also been involved in a creative direction along with Avery on his projects.

We make a great team together and we have a lot of dreams and aspiration for our projects. With time, I realized that there was more to acting than just playing roles. I got a sense of great passion in a creative direction.

Being with Avery has taught me a lot of things and I am amazed at how it feels to live such a fulfilling life.

We have decided to take a break for a week and travel to Paris. This would be our first real vacation together and I plan to shoot our memories and gift it to Avery as a token of the love we share. Every day spent with Avery is a bliss in itself as I have unraveled a lot of shades of him.

He is surely one of the best guys I have seen and he brings out the best in me too. I saw how Avery was a little fidgety and anxious and I don’t let him know that I had seen his ring which he had tried to hide from me.

I saw the huge solitaire ring which he packed in his briefcase. I had once told him that I wanted to have one of my most precious moments right under the Eiffel tower. I do not want to ruin his surprise but I can already imagine the two of us, under the Eiffel tower, sharing our tokens of love.

We have been living together already, but once things would be official, I know I would jump on him right away. I smile as I realize what a gem I have landed with! Life is beautiful, isn’t it?

THE END

Chapter 1:

I had been estranged from my mother for two years when she stumbled back into my life with the man who would eventually become the love of my life.

Not that mother and I had ever been what you would describe as close, mind you. Growing up, my mother had one thing and one thing only on her mind, and that was men. Specifically, men who could take care of her in the manner she was accustomed to and not complain about her spending habits. Despite the fact that my mother was the very definition of a trophy wife—long blonde hair (dyed, of course.), an hour glass figure, dazzling blue eyes, and impeccable taste when it came to fashion—she also possessed the sexual appetites of a drunken 21-year-old frat boy. By the time I was 18-years-old, my mother had met, married, and divorced 8 men and had taken twice as many lovers.

After so many years of her deceptions and the constant emotional turmoil caused by her divorces, I’d had enough. I wanted nothing to do with my mother’s lifestyle and I decided I wanted a normal life. I wanted to go to school, have a career, a permanent home, and perhaps even a husband and children of my own. But I would marry and have children out of love, and not as a means of extracting more alimony and child support payments if and when we divorced.

The whole problem was, because of my mother's lifestyle choices, I wasn't exactly equipped to lead a "normal life". The simple fact was, despite my distain and rebellion against all of the things my mother cared for and valued, I had little or no experience in what a "normal life" was except for what I saw on television. Growing up, I didn't even have friends who I could model myself after. You see, the biggest problem with being the daughter of a trophy wife is that these vacuous and highly desirable beauties tend to flock together and compare bank books,  jewelry, and vacation homes. And being the child of a trophy wife meant I was surrounded by nothing but the children of trophy wives. Young men and women who were being groomed to seduce and beguile.

So, when I finally went out on my own, I wasn't exactly what you would call prepared for the trials and tribulations of the real world. There were so many details that I never had to deal with living with my mother. I never had to pay rent, buy groceries and clothing, cook, clean, or have a job. I never even had to do something as simple as address and mail a letter. But when I left Mother, I was determined to make a go of things. Luckily, over the years my various stepfathers had set up trusts for me, so I wasn't exactly going into the big bad world completely empty handed.

But, unfortunately, I went into the real world empty-headed and naive. Within a year of leaving my mother, I blew through  $50,000 in trust fund money. The fact is, whether I liked it or not, I was my mother’s daughter and I’d picked up more than a few of her habits. Namely, the absolute need for near constant retail therapy. In the end, I had a closet full of $500 dresses and $250 heels, but I didn’t have enough money in the bank to make rent. But I was determined never to go back to Mother, so instead of crawling back on my belly, I did what so many 18-year-old girls do, I started stripping.

Now before you start shaking your head and clucking your tongue in disgust because stripping just so happens to be a step or two lower down the decency ladder than what my mother does. But, I’ll tell you this, being an exotic dancer isn’t that bad. Particularly when you look like I do. I’m a near carbon copy of my mother with the one difference being that every piece of me is the equipment I was born with and my hair is a brilliant, deep red and my skin is a flawless china doll white thanks to my real father’s Irish ancestry. And because of this, I don’t dance at the sleazy, bunker-like caverns that seem to occupy freeway off ramps in every major city in America. I dance at the high-end clubs where there’s a $50 cover and a lap dance will cost you $200 and a bottle of Dom Perignon.

The other difference between my mother collecting husbands and dancing is this: For the five minutes I possess a man, he is mine and mine alone. For five minutes, I am his fantasy, a woman who haunts his dreams, who touches him, teases him, but who he is not allowed to touch. I am an idea and during those short minutes, I can take anything from him that I want; his money, his love, his desire, and I give him none of it back in return. I think of it almost as a form of torture.

You have no idea how many times I found myself in the VIP room, the taste of champagne foaming on my lips as I slowly rub my pale skin with baby oil. My small, delicate hands slowly caressing every inch of my body and feeling power surge through me as I hear a man’s sharp intake of breath as I tease my pink, swollen nipples. With the slightest touch, I can feel their bodies tense, their heart rates set to bursting as I spread my legs, allowing them a small glance at what they can never have.

No, what I do and what my mother does are two completely different animals. My mother is always at the beck and call of a man. She may have money and comfort, but she is a slave. I, however, am a master.

Chapter 2:

Mother landed on my doorstep on a sweltering August afternoon. It was my night off—A Monday, which I never worked because the only men who would come to the club at the beginning of the week were typically nothing more than angry drunks who didn’t have a nickel to their name other than the cover charge—and I planned to do nothing but sit around my apartment watching old movies and maybe ordering in a pizza. But, Mother’s appearance, of course, changed all of that.

She was, as usual, dressed to the nines and her wrists and fingers sparkled with around $50,000 worth of jewelry, which wasn’t exactly a smart idea in my neighborhood. But then again, mother had always been oblivious to classes outside of her own, which was in its own way admirable, but also very naive and dangerous. It wasn’t that I lived in a bad neighborhood, but I couldn’t help but think that an unaccompanied older rich white lady would be an extremely easy target no matter where you lived. Other than of Beverly Hills, of course.

She craned her head from left to right to get a better look at my apartment without actually stepping inside of it and quietly clearing her throat; this was mother speak for: “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” But instead, I asked:

“What are you doing here, Mother?”

Her jaw dropped indignantly.

“Emily, where are your manners? I raised you better than that!”

I wanted to say: No, Mother, you didn’t raise me. A long series of nannies raised me and they all taught me the best ways to deal with people I had no desire to be around. But instead of saying this, I moved away from the door and motioned for her to come inside. Mother daintily stepped inside as if she was walking a tightrope and she took in the single room that was my apartment. After my disastrous first year on my own, I parsed down to the point that I almost lived like a monk. I had taken my possessions down to only a mattress and large tablet which I used as both my computer and TV. But other than those two things and my street clothes, I only had my work gear, which was an array of cheap lingerie, string bikinis, and an array of come fuck me heels.

“It’s very … quaint, dear.”

I could tell that she wanted to run screaming from the apartment dragging me behind her by my hair. As humble as it was, it was mine, and I was completely happy with my life whether she approved of it or not.

“Once again, mother. what are you doing here?” I asked petulantly.

I also wanted to ask how, exactly, had she found me? I had been incredibly careful in covering my tracks when I left mother, particularly after the first year. I had moved cross country, I didn’t use credit cards or even have a bank account any longer. But, of course, I did have to provide my social security number to the club, which is most likely how she tracked me down. I know how paranoid all of this is, but I really wanted nothing more to do with mother and that meant disappearing completely. Of course, with mother’s considerable resources and connections, tracking me down was probably as easy as simply picking up the phone and making a single call. Or better chances than not, she never lost track of me at all and had just kept her distance, thinking that I was only going through a phase and that I needed to work it out on my own without her interference.

“Well, other than the fact that I’ve missed you,” She said as she began picking some imaginary dust off of her coat. “But I also wanted to let you know that I’ve gotten married.”

Mother never used the word “again” when describing her latest marriage. For her, she considered each new marriage to be something fresh and clean. There were no ex-husbands, no divorce settlements, nothing but the latest man who had somehow landed in her web.

“I’m absolutely shocked,” I said sarcastically. “I thought you said you were never going to marry again after Kyle.”

Kyle had been the husband and step-father who had lasted the longest—an amazing 5 years—and he was my favorite step-father. Kyle had made his fortune creating and manufacturing a deer call and bottling deer pheromones. Unlike the hundreds of products like it on the market, Kyle’s inventions actually worked and were incredibly popular with hunters. What made Kyle so great was that he was a simple man. He loved the outdoors and spent as much of his time as he could out in the wilderness. Mother, of course, abhorred this part of his personality, but I loved it. During the summer months, Kyle and I would go camping almost every weekend, and he actually considered me his daughter unlike the 7 other—including my own biological father— pretenders who had crowded my life.

But Kyle was like most middle age, working class men, he wasn’t exactly all that careful when it came to his health and he ended up dying of a sudden and entirely unexpected heart attack two days after I turned 18. Since he had never been married before meeting my mother, his entire $10-million-dollar estate was willed to my mother and I was provided with the bulk of my aforementioned $50,000 trust fund. Of course, my mother ended up doubling her new found fortune by selling Kyle’s hard-won business to his competitors a mere week after we’d buried him.

I considered her selling the business to almost be a betrayal of some sort. I mean, I know my mother is about as far from a business woman as they come, but at least she could have waited at least a few months after his death to unload the business. It was as if she’d been planning to sell it all along and was just waiting for Kyle to keel over. This was the other reason why I had to get away from my mother because I knew that she only loved one person and one person only:

Herself

She smiled at me politely, batting her eyes, her typical condescending battle mask.

“Well, you know that I loved Kyle very much, darling,” She said as she moved towards the center of my small studio. “But, as they say, life goes on. Besides, if you understood who my husband was, you’d completely understand why I married him.”

Yeah, she was baiting me, and I totally swallowed it down without hesitating.

“And who might your new husband be, mother?” I asked.

“Boyfriend, actually. We haven’t exactly made it to the alter just yet.”

“Okay, so who, exactly is your new boyfriend?”

“Why, Dylan Powell, and he very much wants to meet you.”