2. ALICE

ALICE

The doors opened soundlessly as usual, but a slight disturbance in the air made us freeze and stop whatever we were doing. All heads turned in the direction of the dreaded entrance.

Four aliens pushed two women into the room, while their cold eyes moved over the rest of us, doing a quick, internal count, before the doors closed behind them, leaving the two women standing there, naked and cold, to take in their new home.

Women might not have been the right word from where I came from, but here it was all the same. We were all women here. Equally fearful, equally homesick, equally imprisoned. No matter what species we originated from.

I wasn't sure how long ago, a couple of months maybe, I would have called them aliens—now they were my fellow prisoners.

When none of the other women rose to greet the newcomers, I sighed and walked up to them.

"Hello, I'm Alice," I said, relying on the translator implant our captors gave me only hours after they abducted me.

The two women stared at me; both were of different species, neither was human.

"I'm Boroguaenixean"—or something like that—"and this is Xi." The woman with the green, scaly skin introduced herself and the other.

"I'm sorry, Boro…" I drifted off, unable to make the sounds she had. "Can I just call you Bo?"

Her three yellow eyes blinked as if surrendering herself to her fate of being called Bo by someone as ignorant as me.

"Forgive her, Boroguaenixean." One of the other women finally stepped forward. "She is an ignorant human. Their species has never met any of ours before." She rolled her eyes meaningfully in a very human way, and I stepped aside.

Did I say we were all equal here? I meant to leave Swarqoir out of that. Swarqoir had been here the longest, and for some reason, she seemed to think it made her some kind of queen of us or something.

With a sidewards glance, I returned to my spot where the other human women sat, staring at me in amusement.

"I know, I should have known better," I muttered.

"Here, eat this; it'll make you feel better." Iris, the girl from Germany, offered a piece of what we called space chocolate.

"I don't know how you can eat here," I mumbled but took the offered morsel. They were feeding us well in our captivity, keeping us clean, dressed, comfortable even. I hadn't heard one woman complain about a sexual assault, other than that first—no, I wasn't going there. To that tiny room with the camera.

At any given time there were exactly a hundred of us in this cell. Yesterday two had been taken, and today they were restocked.

Of the hundred, twenty of us humans, made up the largest group in our prison.

Swarqoir, one day when she had felt inclined to talk to me, had informed me that the day we were brought in, twenty of them were taken out, right before our arrival. Where they went…

Nobody knew.

Now and then our captors would open the doors, home in on one or more of us, and pull her or them out. The acts were random, but from the looks of it, they knew exactly who they were coming for.

Again it was Swarqoir who filled us in. "It's sex trafficking. The Mandours are the most successful traders of the universe."

My stomach turned when she said that, but it wasn't as if I hadn't already suspected it. Why else would we be all female? Apparently all males in the universe were the same way as most men on Earth. Sex. Sex. Sex. That was all that mattered, and most didn't care how they obtained it. Bought, taken, or given, for most it was the same.

"Right, as if the hundred of us would be enough for the entire universe," Phoebe, a woman from Ireland, spat. She made an excellent point, though, and my gaze turned questioning to Swarqoir.

She shrugged and employed one of her most contemptuous glares at us. "This isn't the only ship cruising through space, nor is this the only room on this ship." With that, she turned her back to us.

Her words put a damper in my mood—which hadn't been the best to begin with—and I made myself a nest on the ground from the many pillows and blankets strewn about.

The area we were being held in reminded me of images from old movies of harems. Women reclined gracefully on oversized pillows, helping themselves to the most delectable morsels from low tables. All of us wore the finest, albeit flimsiest, clothes possible. If what we were wearing could be called clothed. Most of our attires reminded me of what a certain princess wore in a certain science fiction icon movie series while being chained to a fat alien creature.

For tops, our choices were made up of bras of different designs, colors, and materials. Long loin cloths made up skirts, with slits all the way up to our hips, exposing half of our asses every time we took a step.

Some women took to wearing one or two of the blankets lying around in abundance, but most of us didn't bother; it was just us here. Frankly, as exposing as our clothes were, they were also more comfortable than anything I had ever worn, giving me a unique freedom.

Every morning, our alien captors forced us to put on makeup and dress our hair as if we were about to be auctioned off. This was the one requirement put on us, and disobedience or a half-assed job brought immediate punishment dished out by an electric jolt straight into our brains from the translator chip.

After witnessing the punishment once, on Phoebe, I never disobeyed. None of us did. Every morning, we primed ourselves as if we were going on the hottest date of our lives.

The rest of the day we spent at our leisure. Lying on cushions, talking, dozing, playing games. Games that we made up with the help of food, cups, plates, whatever. All day we just laid about, waiting. Waiting for our turn to be called out. To meet whatever fate our slave masters deigned to bestow on us.

The stories the other women told didn't differ much from the stories I had heard on Earth about sex trafficking. I forced myself not to think about it. To only think about escape. Because once I would leave this spaceship, there had to be a way to escape, right?

I never bothered to explore where I would escape to. Going back to Earth seemed like an impossible dream, but anywhere should be better than this gilded cage, I reasoned.

When they came for me, I cried out in fear, staring at the other captives who averted their eyes just like I had done countless times when the wardens came for another woman. There had been nothing I could have done for them, and there was nothing my fellow prisoners could do for me.

Two burly alien males held me by the arms, while a third assessed me from head to toe. He realigned my bra, patted my hair to keep the long blonde tresses I was so proud of in place, and finally grunted his approval.

When a tear slipped down my face, taking eyeliner and mascara with it, he took my chin sharply between his claws. Impatiently, he wiped the dark streak away, his black eyes burning with anger.

Too afraid to find out what would happen if I disobeyed, I forced the rest of my tears back before I began to hyperventilate.

A sharp prick in my arm, a warm mollifying liquid moving through my system, later I felt as if I were floating. I even smiled as I walked on clouds, down to a warm, sandy beach. Exotic birds flew in the sky; my feet touched warm water that swept at me with gentle waves.

Deep down in my mind, I was aware that I was hallucinating, but it felt good, so good, and I prayed I would never wake up from it.