11. Happily Ever After

Swing music is playing on the big free-standing radio, and I am maneuvering a mop around the black and white checkered floor as sun streams through the window. I can hear the sounds of the neighborhood filtering through the partially open pane. There's the low hum of cars, and the sounds of kids playing ball in the cul-de-sac. I smile to myself as they shout their little victories and frustrations to the world at large.

"Honey! I'm home!"

I turn toward the door as it swings open. A man steps in wearing a brown three-piece suit. He has very pleasant square features and a broad, pleased smile on his face. He drops his briefcase by the door, removes his shoes, and comes to give me a kiss.

"Hello, darling," my handsome husband says.

I smile up at him, rubbing my palms over my now flatter stomach. I have the memory of being big and wide and swollen, but every time I touch my body now, I find it quite different. I suppose I'll get used to the change over time. That's what my husband says anyway, and he's always right. I'm very lucky to have such a handsome, wonderful man in my life. Some of the other ladies down the street occasionally have things to complain about, but I never do. My husband is perfect. He provides for me and ensures I have everything I need. A low hum thrumming through our house is testament to that — it's the sound of my new washer dryer unit doing the laundry so I don't have to.

He makes sure I have all the clothing and other trinkets I want too. Right now I am wearing a very pretty dress with cornflower blue blooms all over it. My hair has been coiffed into curls. When I glance into the little plastic framed round mirror set on the counter, I see that my makeup is perfectly applied even though I don't entirely recall applying it.

"How was the baby today?"

"Oh, the baby. Of course, he's been perfect!" I let out a little carefree laugh and go into the nursery, which is painted in a lovely teal and powder blue. Teal carpets, a pale blue crib, and matching change table with a soft mattress with little red rockets on it. There are other little touches too, dresser drawers and even a little wardrobe with onesies hanging neatly along a rail. There is also a baby.

My baby.

"Hi baby," I smile down at my son, whose blood-red eyes crease with glee when he sees me. His chubby little silver-gray cheeks and raven dark hair remind me of someone. He is wearing an adorable white onesie with rocking horses playing across it. It's quite cute, but he's already starting to outgrow it. I will need to go shopping again, but that's no hardship. The local store always seems to have everything I need no matter what it is I need.

"Mama!"

He reaches for me and I pick him up. He is a warm, squirmy weight in my arms. Holding him feels like everything that is good happening to me all at once. I wonder what life was like before I had him. It's very hard to remember, but my husband says that is normal too. He says that when a woman has a baby, her life starts over again. I think that must be true. I don't remember giving birth to the baby, it's the oddest thing. But my husband explains that it's not uncommon to forget the pain of childbirth, so I am glad for that.

"Ow!" Baby nips me while nuzzling hungrily against my chest.

He's the sweetest little thing with the most adorable little fangs. I have to pump to feed him, and there's a special bottle I use because he tends to puncture them. It's funny how some things feel so clear, and other things feel fuzzy. I try not to dwell on them, but there's an unsettling feeling that seems to follow me around.

My husband appears with the bottle. It has been warmed to just the right temperature, and the baby reaches for it with his happy grabby little hands. He'd like to hold it for himself, but of course he can't yet. I cradle him in my arms and hold the bottle for him as he suckles hungrily at the teat.

"He is growing so nicely," my husband says.

I smile at the baby and then back at the man. I know their names. Of course I know their names. But they swim hazily in my mind and there is a sense that it doesn't matter really. They are my baby and my husband. That's all I have to know. That's all that matters. Life is simple, and so am I.

I am safe.

I am kept.

I am home.

"You've worked so hard," my ever so handsome and entirely adoring husband says. "You've looked after the baby all day long. I know you must be exhausted and hungry. Why don't you let me feed little Rhys and you can go get something to eat."

Rhys, that's right. He's named after his father. How could I forget? I am so silly sometimes.

"I am peckish," I admit. "But I am watching my figure."

"Your figure is perfect," he replies. "I've left something in the back yard for you. Take as long as you like, my dear."

Ileave my doting husband feeding the baby, and I go out to the back yard. The grass is cut neatly into a criss-cross pattern, and we have a lovely little bubble glass picnic table with a yellow-tasseled umbrella I like to put up on sunny days. The day is waning now, though. Dusk is starting to settle in a golden blanket across…

"Help me!"

"Oh!"

My meal really is waiting for me in the form of a naked numahn staked out on the lawn by his hands and feet. I would have missed him entirely if he hadn't called out to me. I just find this home so enchanting. There's something about this little corner of the world that feels perfect - as if it were built just for me.

I feel a welling of affection for my husband. He knows me so well. Meat is always nice. Blood is essential, but there is nothing like live prey to really satisfy my hunger. It tastes different. It is richer. It is… I am licking my lips as I approach the cowering creature.

He looks up at me with hope in his eyes. They always do, because I am a pretty lady in a nice clean dress and everybody knows pretty ladies in nice clean dresses can do no wrong. He thinks I am here to save him.

"Aw," I say. "It's not really fair for you to be tied up like this, is it?"

"Please let me go," he whimpers.

He is relatively young, perhaps somewhere to the north of his twenties. He smells like fear. It is a spicy sort of tang that only serves to make me want him more.

"I think I should untie you," I tell him.

"Thank you. Thank you so much. You're so nice. I don't know what's been going on. I don't know why that creature tied me up like this…"

"Creature?" I ask the question as I crouch down next to him.

"The one with the red eyes, the vampire…"

I let out a little laugh. "Poor boy, you sound so confused." I am almost done untying him. Just one more…

"There we go," I say.

He gets up and he starts running without so much as a thank you very much. I smile to myself, slipping off my kitten heels. They're not terribly practical for the type of terrain I'll be giving chase over. I don't mind that he's running. He's actually playing along perfectly. I like to give my prey a head start. It's only fair, after all. I am faster than most of the meals my husband provides me.

"Three… two…" I start to count down.

Sure enough, the meal reaches the fence, trips, and scrambles through the dahlias. It's very cute.

It's also very much…

The End.

For him.

Ifeast on my meal's flesh until it stops twitching inside my throat as it slides down. I am beautifully, delightfully full. I delicately lick the blood from my fingertips. It is a nod to some genteel impulse though it makes no real difference. My hands are covered in blood, and it trickles all the way down to my elbows in little rivulets.

There are bits of him strewn across the lawn because I started consuming him before he was completely gone. He crawled away from me and I let him, picking pieces off him little by little. It was cruel, but it satisfied some nameless pain inside me. I want to hurt this kind of thing - and I did. I hurt it hard and I long. I hurt it until it couldn't feel hurt anymore.

Some of my appetite has been sated, but not the part that wants numahns to suffer. I don't think I will ever have my fill of that.

"Such a messy, hungry little thing," a strong voice growls.

I look up from the remnants of my meal to discover that another husband has come for me. Not the husband feeding Rhys. A different husband. A husband with long hair, and strong but noble features. I smile broadly as he wraps me in his arms and begins to wipe me down with a warm, wet cloth. He has come prepared.

"You have fed," he says. "And now it is time you were bred."

His words are warm and rich with carnal undertones. I melt into him happily, feeling his big, strong body protecting mine and lusting for mine at the very same time. Funny that a monster like me should enjoy being protected. I don't really need it. I could save myself time and time again. I am a predator, driven by hunger and the kind of rage that burns inside me like a furnace.

No matter how pretty my dress, how neat my hair, or how flawless my makeup, I will always be searching for fresh flesh.

"Yes," I murmur under my breath. "I should do my wifely duty by you."

He turns me around and looks down at me. I see that little sadness in his stellar gaze. There is a ping of recognition, and the world seems to glitch, the sky breaking apart into little jagged pixels just for a moment. When I look again, it is all back together - but I am left with the indelible feeling that there is something unreal about this place. I might be real. He might be real. But everything around us is…

"What's your name?"

"Kr… Karl," he says, not looking very happy at having to say that. I wonder why he lies about his name? Is it the same reason he is wearing a t-shirt and jeans, both of which look as uncomfortable on him as his fake name?

"No, it's not," I say. "It's not your name, is it? What's mine?"

"Ours," he says. "Your name is Ours."

I forgot my name long ago, if I was ever given one. But my husband should know it.

"Ours isn't a name. It's a… a word that denotes ownership."

"Ours is a pretty name," he says, pushing some of my hair back behind my ear. "Though I always enjoyed calling you Mine."

He lowers his head and claims my mouth in the kind of kiss that drives all concerns about reality or lack thereof right out of my head. There might be something unreal about this world, but there is nothing fake about this. The physical chemistry and magnetism is a hundred percent real. I sink into his embrace, seeking not only the pleasure he is offering me, but the sense of something meaningful.

"Yes," he growls as he senses my sexual surrender. "You are a perfect mate. You are a wonderful wife."

I know I am fortunate to be so well-regarded, because I am not a perfect or wonderful anything. I am a monster wearing the shell of a good wife. I am a creature stitched together from pain and regret and a thousand wounds I no longer remember. I am holes and voids held together by the breaths I just keep taking.

I let him pretend I am perfect. I let him kiss me as if I deserve it. I let him caress me and hold me and I let him lie me down on a patch of grass that is less soaked with the blood of my prey than some other parts. This husband loves me. I can see it in his gaze, and I can feel it in his touch.

He strips the shirt and jeans off his body before joining me down in the bloody dew. The shirt rips as he pulls it off over his head, tearing at the seams. He casts it away and yanks the rough material of the jeans off his legs too. Without that human clothing, he looks closer to alien.

There is a certain attempt to make this world feel as though it is for humans only, but I am not stupid. I am addled. I am lost. I am being kept in a situation I don't entirely understand… but I know when I am looking at the god-like cock of a barbarous alien capable of intense carnal conquest.

A name tries to float to the front of my mind, but fails in its task. K. It does start with K and it's not Karl. It doesn't matter, I suppose, compared to the sight of his muscular, scarred body that is bared with the intention of mating me.

"You will take my seed, and you will bear my young," he promises me as he crouches over me. "We will make a new life, an embodiment of our love."

I hope if I do become pregnant, it is with a creature more like him than me. He exudes goodness of a kind that makes me all the more aware of the darkness swirling deep inside me. I don't think he could ever truly save me from myself, but he might be able to save our progeny.

The sun sets and the sky is filled with stars, pretty silver lights twinkling in predictable patterns above as he makes love to me on the lawn, pushing up my skirt, discovering that I am not wearing underwear. I am wearing stockings, and suspenders, but no panties. There is nothing to stop his big, throbbing alien rod from spearing inside me. There is nothing to stop him from filling me up with his seed.

Pinned beneath him in soft grass, my legs spread and wrapped around his waist, I give myself to him. His body enters mine, his flesh hot and thick. He is so much bigger than I am, his arms like rippling tree trunks on either side of my head as he thrusts his hips over me, guiding his cock deep inside me. I am wrapped around him, my inner walls gripping him tightly, my body performing precisely as it was designed to perform.

This is the closest I will ever get to normality. This lover. This sky. This lawn. This cock throbbing inside me, pulsing with the urge to come. I can see the strain on his face as he tries to hold back from coming too soon. He doesn't want to just pump me full and dump me, but every instinct he has tells him to get his cock nice and deep inside my tight, wet hole and fill me to the brim.

I want him to know that is okay. His base instincts are the correct ones.

"Please," I beg in his ear. "Please come."

He makes a sound somewhere between a grunt and a growl, and I feel his powerful body stiffen in an instant as his virile cock slides as deep inside me as it can humanly go. I am fucked. Deeply fucked. I am used. Completely used. And now I am brimming with alien seed as my captor husband roars in pleasure and fills me all the way up, moving his big hands to clasp my ankles and hold them high. I feel my ass lifting up off the ground as he tips me up onto my shoulders, holding me much like a fisherman might hold a trophy catch.

"What are you doing?" I half-giggle the question.

"Helping my seed find the fertile ground," he explains. "Gravity is a powerful thing."

Here I am, my skirt up around my shoulders now, most of my body bare in the silver light of the night. This is undignified, but dignity comes a very distant second to my alien husband. His priority is fertility. He feeds me, breeds me, uses me, keeps me, all to this end.

"You could at least give me something to do while I'm stuck here," I say. "Give me desert or something?"

A sharp tap on my ass reminds me that though this husband is the most gentle of them, he is not a complete pushover.

"You can meditate on pregnant thoughts," he says.

"Or I could find a new way to entertain her…"

I hear a rough, rasping voice. This is my third husband. He is not mild-mannered like the one who is feeding baby. He is not driven by the need to breed the way my big, handsome, currently holding me upside down is. This husband is the one who knows me to the depth of my corrupted core because he is part of the corruption.

"My seed needs to settle," my recently satisfied husband says. "You cannot have her yet, Emrys."

"Don't worry, I won't touch your precious sperm," Emrys laughs. "She has another, tighter hole for me to enjoy. You've had your turn. It's time to share."

He takes me by the ankles and casually flips me over and onto my stomach, handling me with a casual alacrity that is rather exciting. I have been used and filled, but I have not yet orgasmed.

Emrys lowers my legs to the ground, leaving me in a face, down, prone position. I find a little scrap of flesh in between the blades of grass and push it between my teeth, nibbling on my found snack as perhaps the most terrifying of all my husbands prepares me for his use.

"Did you enjoy dinner?" He growls the question in my ear as he lubes my ass, smearing fat against the tight little bud he intends to split wide open.

"Yes," I moan.

"I selected him specially," he says. "You're always that much more feisty when you've had a numahn meal. Do you remember why?"

"You know I can't," I whimper. I have the feeling we've had this conversation before. I can feel so much information hiding in the fog at the edge of my mind, not quite accessible.

"No, you can't," he says, his voice holding a note of what sounds like fake pity. "You're stuck, aren't you. It's really not fair, a talented hunter like you cooped up in a safe, sterile world like this. So much talent wasted."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking to a part of you that knows," he says, pushing two fingers deep and easily into my ass. The lubricant has made it easy, as has my relaxation. When Emrys handles me, I go soft and tender. There is something in me that recognizes him on a deep organic level. The baby is his, I think. Rhys and Emrys. They are cut from the same cloth. They are…

Thoughts escape my mind as Emrys' fingers work in a twisting motion inside my ass. There is a bolt of excitement and yes, shame, that rushes through me. I can feel my barbarian husband watching me take this much less romantic handling.

This is an alien who knows there is something wrong with me and likes it. The back of my cute dress has been dragged through bloody smears, and now the front of it is suffering the same fate. I can smell the scent of my prey around me. The prey he brought for me. The prey he probably watched me consume with no small measure of pride. This is the father of my baby. This is the owner of my interior.

He spreads my legs while keeping me elevated in a similar position to the one my sweet barbarian had me in. He uses my ass as a grip, then picks me up around the upper thighs before angling his silver cock down and impaling my ass in one long, firm, possessive thrust.

"Yes," he hisses. "You are so tight, and you get tighter still when I remind you how very wrong and twisted you are, don't you? Don't you love being taken this way, your filthy little asshole fucked nice and hard by the one who owns you and knows you?"

"Yes! Yes…." I can't help but admit to everything he accuses me of. I love how rough he is being with me. He knows exactly what I can take and he is giving it to me. He reaches under me with his pale hand and begins toying with my pussy, rubbing my clit, making my inner walls clench and throb.

"You've got to help her get the seed deeper, Kronos," he says. "It's better if she comes."

Kronos. That's right. Not Karl.

I wonder for the briefest of moments why Kronos is hiding his name - then one realization leads swiftly to another bank of memories. I am being fucked in the ass with rough strokes as I remember the truth. This is not a real world. This is a prison in which my alien mates are keeping me contained. I was conditioned to forget, but when you are experiencing harsh reality of the kind Emrys specializes in, illusions have a tendency to fall away. I feel everything I am. I feel everything he is. I feel the trickle of life inside me, and I feel the greed of my clit as my valker husband rubs Kronos' seed into my pussy, using his come to bring me closer to orgasm.

"You're a perfectly tight set of holes," he tells me, his language coarse, and his actions even more so.

Emrys can be so refined. Unlike the others, he is not dressed on theme. I didn't notice it before. Maybe my prison addled mind would not let me. But he is wearing a regal tall coat with a high collar, all in black and red with silver markings to denote his station. When I twist my head and look back at him I find him looking down at me with the expression of one who can cherish and degrade all in the same breath.

He fucks me a little like the way those who have disliked me have fucked me, but it is different when he does it. I have a connection with this creature. I feel his care and even his hidden tenderness. I feel the way he thinks about me, how he adores me. I drive him mad, but that is because I live under his skin. So it is only fair he be buried in my ass.

He pulls me up and I feel myself leave the ground but remain impaled on him. He dangles me from his powerful grip and he fucks me like he needs me. He fucks me like coming inside my ass is the most important thing he will ever do. I am thoroughly possessed, twisting in his grip as my empty pussy quivers with the strength of two separate orgasms it has yet been denied.

"Come over here and play with her," he demands. "Do what needs to be done, barbarian."

He pulls back and twists me around, so now I am once more facing upward. My sex is still being held high, my ass is still being filled. My face is the lowest part of me. I am being rutted in the dirt, as I have been before.

Kronos' shadow falls over me, and I feel a light slap on my pussy, a surprise given it comes from the most gentlemanly of my alien mates. Emrys holds my legs apart, keeping me upside down, keeping me exposed, keeping my ass full as the barbarian starts to do things no respectable husband would ever do to a respectable wife. He pinches and rolls my clit between his fingers, the juices of my pussy combining with the slippery remnants of his seed to create a lubricant that makes every touch of his rough hands feel like a caress.

This is the difference between one who is using me brutally with no thought for my pleasure, and two who love me in their own twisted ways. They want me to feel pleasure. They want me to be properly satisfied.

I start to come while I am still being fucked. I writhe and moan and cry out as pleasure rushes through me in those powerful waves that make my pussy clench and my toes curl and my body squirm back and forth between my filthy alien husbands who are worshipping the chalice of my flesh.

Emrys grunts as my desperate motions put him over the edge. He likes to be self-controlled. He likes to decide when he climaxes. But a hot human ass writhing on his cock is too much even for this royal valker. His fangs are exposed as his lips curl and he lets out a cry more like a howl, pumping my ass full of his seed while Kronos ensures that my pussy continues to contact and draw his seed deeper inside me.

Emrys pulls free, but I am still upside down, soaked and filthy and covered in come when we collectively hear a voice of stern disapproval.

"What have you two done?"

I let out a giggle as Atlas comes striding out of the house, baby monitor in hand, an expression of intense displeasure on his human mask. Seeing him upside down does little to make him look less irritated.

"If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times. Missionary only! Anything else breaks her programming!"

"I'm not fucking this perfect thing missionary," Emrys says. "And, scythkin, you have no right to tell us how to fuck."

"Look at her. I had her in perfect housewife mode when she went outside and now she's back to being a feral blood soaked, come covered…" he draws in a breath and lets out a deep sigh. "This is supposed to be a place for her to be proper. A good wife and mother. Nothing more. Nothing less."

Emrys swings me up into his arms, catching me as I come squealing through the air.

"None of us want that," he says, my butt perched on his forearm as he snugs me tight.

"What none of us want is a lose, pregnant human doing whatever she pleases in an infinite universe. I'm going to have to recondition her."

"Not yet," Emrys says. "I like talking to the real woman. The one you make is boring. She smiles at nothing and makes comments about the weather."

"That's small talk! It's an indication of a settled and healthy human mind. The smaller the talk, the happier the human. That's science."

There's something about the way Atlas says that's science which makes me think it might not be.

"Stop reminding her of the past. Let her settle here. She is doing well, most of the time, until you start winding her up. It makes her start to question things, and that makes her fight the programming. It's not good for her."

"Being kept like a doll in a doll house isn't good for her either," Emrys says.

"Isn't it? She's had one baby in calm and safety. She's not gotten into any trouble at all. She's been happy and settled and she has a future here. If you fuck with this, Emrys, I will make you pay."

Atlas is not happy. Kronos also looks on with an unhappy expression. Nobody is entirely pleased with the way things are going. I remember everything by this stage. I know that I am stuck in this simulation, a place designed to keep a human safely tucked away living a fake life.

"Put me down," I say to Emrys. "I need to check the baby."

He lets me go, and I smooth my skirt down over my ravaged nethers before walking past Atlas with the most demure expression I can muster.

I clean up before I go to the baby, washing my sensitive areas and restoring myself to some semblance of propriety. I change my dress and I brush my hair and I ensure that there are no little flecks of dinner on my body.

As I wash I reflect that I don't actually mind this little life. It is small, and it is simple, but Atlas is right… it is safe. I am safe from the world outside, and the aliens who still have bones to pick with me. More importantly, I am safe from my own broken impulses.

The baby is sleeping when I go into his room. I know better than to wake him and start the cycle of feeding again. Instead, I stand next to the crib and look down at his innocent, sweet, fanged face. This baby is part human, part numahn, and a whole lot of Emrys. His existence is a beautiful miracle that came out of a terrible travesty. When I am under the influence of the simulation, all I see is my perfect child. Now, I see every bit of suffering that went into his creation. I could erase it all by surrendering to Atlas again. But I don't know if I should. Life is pain, and I am beginning to believe that sometimes it is important to remember that overcoming suffering is the only way to be happy.

I hear Atlas come into the room behind me. Only he would be foolish enough to follow me. The others have what they wanted, and know how I relish these moments with Rhys.

"You can't keep erasing everything," I tell Atlas. "And please, take that suit off. I want to see you for what you really are."

My scythkin husband hesitates. "But the programming is only going to get more broken if I appear before you that way. You've been safe and happy with it intact. If it wasn't for those two fools…"

"I'm not happy. I'm a shadow of myself. Even if you could permanently erase everything about me you think is challenging or sad, it wouldn't leave me better. It would leave me empty.

Atlas sighs and unzips himself. My mild-mannered handsome husband turns into the shining dark monster once more, his hardened carapace gleaming in the nursery light. His face is always harder to read in this form, because it is so brutal.

A scythkin warrior has no business in a nursery. I see that immediately, even though he has none of his blades extended. What on earth am I asking for? What right do I have to try to be myself, when my true self is so terribly dangerous?

With my mind finally functioning properly for the first time in a while, I find myself understanding Atlas' intentions more and more. He just wants things to be nice.

"I don't like being like this around Rhys," he says. "It's not safe. He shouldn't see me like this."

"He should see you exactly like this. He should see you for who you are, not for who you are trying to pretend to be. He won't ever know what truth is if he lives inside a lie."

"Why can't he live inside a pleasant little lie, at least for a while? Why can't you? Why can't we all? It doesn't have to be a lie if we all believe in it. Life can be good, and simple, and nice. You are happy, most of the time."

"What if we lived this life, but we left my brain alone?"

"You won't stay here," he says, sorrowfully. "You'll become bored."

"You don't know that. I don't know what being bored is anymore. I have my baby, and probably another on the way. I have mothering to do, Atlas. I don't have time to steal your ship again, promise."

Atlas frowns at me. "You say that today, but one day the children will be grown…"

"Kronos is going to want to take his babies to his world," I remind him. "We have a great many obligations outside the ones you and I might share. I know you want to keep me safe. I know you want things to be easy, but…"

"Why must there always be a but?" The great, terrifying scythkin sighs.

"Because… life?"

"Because life," he sighs, in what might be an admission.

We both look down at our sleeping son. Rhys has no idea what the universe is like as yet. He does not know where he came from, or what he came from. All he knows is that he is loved, and he is provided for. His needs are met and his world is everything he needs it to be.

"You might be right," I admit as I look down at his sweet little fanged face.

I make a decision. Not for myself, but for my son.

This may not be the universe as I know it. I might not be free here, not in any real way. But if I surrender to this captivity, we will all be happy for a little while. My son will grow up in the way he deserves to grow up. Not forever, but for a few years at least. He will come from a place of peace. If we do this right, our peace will always live inside him. I know what it is like to come from chaos and loss. It is not something I would wish on my greatest enemy, let alone my child.

"You can reprogram me," I say. "Make me what you want me to be. Just promise me that if a day ever comes that I need to be what I truly am, you will let me do that too."

"Really?"

"Yes, put the suit back on," I say. "Let's play pretend for a little while at least."

Atlas slides himself back into his human suit. The monster in him takes refuge behind the square jaw and kind eyes of my handsome very nearly human husband. He reaches out, and takes me by the hand…