Page 36 of Fresh Flesh

Maisie

I lay in Joras’arms while the snow piles up outside. I’m so glad that he stopped asking me what my business is here in California. I’ve come very close to telling him a few times, but I’m still afraid that he won’t react well to the news.

At some point, I fall asleep in his arms on our bed of hay. I think it’s the best sleep I have gotten since I got abducted from the valley farm what seems like forever ago.

When I awaken, the skies look clear. The snow storm has finished at last. Joras is still asleep, and I don’t feel like getting up yet anyway. I just lay there with him, loving the feeling of his scaled body against my own.

Of course, I can’t help but think about Mlarx and Lurg. I miss the two of them, a lot. I’m glad that Joras at least is okay with sharing me. I don’t want to give up any of my alien men. It seems like after all I’ve been through maybe I shouldn’t have to.

Then again, if the world operated the way that it SHOULD then we wouldn’t have been invaded and conquered in the first place.

Of course, if the Grengorans had not arrived I would not have been able to meet, and make love two, Mlarx, Lurg, and Joras. So maybe I shouldn’t be pondering these matters of destiny overly much.

The sun comes out, and starts to warm up the mountainside. Soon it heats up enough that snow begins dripping off the barn, making a constant staccato sound as it pours and drains.

I realize now how easy it would be just to abandon everything and live simply like this with him. Living off the land, like my ancestors of yore used to. I’d love to live like this with Joras, or any of the alien men I have taken into my heart.

When Joras awakens, at first I’m ecstatic. He kisses me deeply and caresses his hand down my spine. I think maybe I’m going to get to have morning sex, and then his belly growls. Loudly.

I cringe in his arms. Grens eat humans. If he’s hungry, then he’s likely to want to find one of those hidden farms or cabins in the mountains, and…and do what comes next.

The idea is abhorrent to me. I wonder if I can offer an alternative?

“What’s wrong, Maisie?” he asks softly. “You’re shivering. You're not cold, are you?”

“No, not physically,” I say with a sigh. “I’m worried because you are hungry.”

“Yes, I am hungry indeed. Aren’t you hungry as well?”

That’s when I hear a sound that is as welcome as rain in the desert. The high pitched bleat of a deer.

It strikes me that this might be a solution.

“What was that sound?” he asks.

“It was a deer. A type of herbivorous mammal that happen to be excellent eating.”

“Oh?” He licks his lips. “I’ve never hunted a deer before.”

“I have, when I was growing up in Oklahoma,” I say wistfully. I shove the memories of those days away. No time to think about them now. “It can be tricky to find and trap them, but it’s well worth the effort. If you want, I can show you how to hunt them.”

“I’d like that very much.”

We get dressed and step out into the snow. Most of it has melted already, and what’s left is wet and spotty, drawing back from the ground to reveal the land beneath. It occurs to me that the Grens don’t seem to care that there are other things lower on the food chain than humans. They just like to eat us and leave it at that.

He has a laser pistol, a rifle, and a sword. Of the three, I think the pistol will be the best to hunt deer with. It has the lowest caliber and will likely not turn our meal into exploded, burned meat.

“Deer have super sensitive hearing, and they can see on both sides of their body at once,” I explain. “Not to mention they have a great sense of smell.”

“How do you get close enough to one to kill it, then?” he asks.

“You have to be a little bit lucky and a lot smart,” I reply with a wink. “In fact, there’s one method that we can use called a deer stand.”

“A deer stand?”

“Yes, their sense of smell only works at ground level. You get up in a tree or on a high rock, preferably out of sigh, and they’ll wander right up underneath you.”

“Then,” he says, his eyes shining “let us make a deer stand, then.”

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