“What did I say, Margaret? I said cheese sandwich. I didn’t say cheese and pickle sandwich.” Mark's face is contorted with petty rage. A broken plate lies in thousands of shattered shards across the cheerful sunshine colored kitchen tile. We picked the tile out together. He smiled so nicely and told the sales representative that I could have whatever I liked because I was the boss, of the kitchen at least. They both laughed at that. 

 

“I thought you might like…”

​

The sandwich comes sailing by my head, still encased in the gay wax paper I wrapped it in. He hasn't even unwrapped it. I wonder how he senses the pickle of his dissatisfaction between thick slices of home made bread. My husband is a sensitive man. A rage filled, sensitive man. 

 

His face is twisted in anger, all hot and apoplectic with rage. He’s been drinking. He’s always been drinking. Before we married, he wouldn't have any more than a beer shandy on Sunday evenings. Now he drinks every night at the office with the other advertising representatives. 

 

Neither one of us noticed the front door shattering open. Mark’s screaming rage covered the sound almost entirely. He still hasn’t noticed. 

 

I feel a brief pulse of hope at the notion it might be the police. Then I remember the police don't care. Nobody does. The entire block can hear how Mark goes on at me. I am sure they, like I, believe that Mark would stop if only I would be a better wife. 

 

“It’s because you insist on working!” He hollers at me. "If you were a good wife, you would stop wasting your time and pay more attention to what you need to do here to look after me.”

 

“I will quit my job when we have children.”

 

"We won't have children until you can stop being such a lousy slovenly excuse for a housewife!”

 

If Mark had any idea what the slim circle of plastic in my handbag really was, he would be so furious I do not think he would survive it. I take one of the little pills every day without my husband’s knowledge, and against his wishes. It is my one rebellion. My one strand of sanity. 

 

Mark’s eyes widen. I fear that he has found some new trespass about which to freak. Something over my shoulder. Something which makes him turn more pale than ever, and which sends his pupils from two angry dots to wide saucers. 

 

“What the fuck… Margaret! Get behind me!”

 

He seeks to protect me, in the midst of attacking me. This is the contradiction of a bad marriage. It has so many of the elements of a good one, but they are all twisted up and scarred. There are holes in them where feet and fists have found their way through, patched over with belated apologies and a mutual unspoken agreement to let it all happen. Again. And Again. 

 

Mark grasps my wrist and pulls me roughly toward him before pushing me back against the kitchen sink.

 

We have just run out of happenings. This will be our last fight. Ever.  In the doorway stands something that is surely not here to rescue me. It is a demon of some kind. Or an alien? Why does that word leap to mind. It does not have big dark eyes and spindly appendages. It is a massive pale muscular beast with the biggest, sharpest teeth you ever saw - all the better to eat you with my dears.  

 

I am stunned into silence. He is so very nearly human, and yet completely inhuman. He has the most fabulous dark hair cascading from its head in thick warrior braids. He glows beneath the skin, as though it were powered by some internal battery. He is staring at us with golden eyes which are so inhumanly beautiful I feel as though I could fall into them for an eternity. There is a brief moment in which I imagine this may be my guardian angel incarnate. 

 

There have been many times I wished some kind of divine intervention existed in the universe. Mark's temper has only worsened over months of marriage to the point I have been tempted to leave him, but what would I do? I have no skills, and a married woman who becomes unmarried by divorce is a shameful, pathetic creature. I swore to be faithful to Mark until death did us part.

 

“Have a baby,” my mother advised me. “Men always calm down once they become fathers. It’s foolproof.”

 

She forgets how it was for her, but I have not forgotten how it was for me, growing up in a household full of silence and shouting, two alternate terrors each as bad as the one before.

 

I stare at this strange creature, feeling all those petty concerns being washed away by his oddness. This thing. This man. This male creature of ultimate strangeness should not be here. 

 

He speaks. 

 

"Which one of you is the human assassin?”

 

“What?! Get out of here, freak! I’ll call the police, you see if I don’t!” Mark shouts threats at him that make less than no sense. What would we tell the police if we called them? Excuse me, but there’s an alien in our kitchen. They would think we were mad. We’d both be taken off the lunatic asylum, assuming there was anything of us left. My eyes follow the path from the alien's shoulders to his elbows to his hands, every part of him more muscular and frightening than the last. He has fists like hammers. When he flexes his hands I see that his large fingers terminate in unholy claws. 

 

This is a creature made to kill. 

 

“Get out of my house, do you hear me! Get out, see!” Mark tries his best to bully the creature away, but he is not used to dealing with larger, terrifyingly erratic and aggressive beings. I know it is best to make myself appear as little like a threat as possible. 

 

Mark makes the final mistake he will ever make in this life by picking up a butter knife. There are still traces of butter on it from where I was hopelessly attempting to make him a second sandwich to rectify the first. 

 

The creature lets out a roar and rushes forward with an incredible speed that makes it seem as though he teleported from one place to the other.  One moment he is menacing us from a distance, the next he is running his claws through Mark’s midsection like a warmed knife through breakfast butter.

 

Mark dead almost right away, but the alien doesn't seem satisfied with merely killing him. It continues ripping into him until there are bits of Mark absolutely everywhere. Mark is on the ceiling. Mark is on the hand towel. Mark is all over the clean dishes, and the dirty ones too. Mark is in the tile grout. Mark is on the anniversary plates. Mark is on the windows. Mark is on the floor. Mark is dripping over the glass flower balls. It would be easier to state all the places Mark is not. 

 

I am left staring, shocked. Amazed at how much blood is in a person. It took several gallons of the finest paint to set this kitchen to the lovely sunlight yellow it was. Now Mark has turned it almost orange with the spray of his bright red blood. 

 

It does not occur to me to be afraid. There are some things, that when witnessed, make one stop being anything at all. Thinking, feeling, they are extra and completely useless. I don’t think I am going to survive, so there is little point in attempting to. 

 

“Hello.”

 

I say the word politely. We haven’t said hello yet.

 

“Hello,” the alien who just murdered my husband says. “I am here to arrest you.”

 

“Oh. Okay. For what?”

 

“For the murder of Sylvania, would be bride of King Krush of Megaris.”

 

“For murder? But…”

 

“Don’t talk, human. Not another word.”

 

I do as he says, because I have seen the consequences of not doing what he says. Silence is the only sane response to this level of crazy. He touches me, wraps his hands around my wrists and I feel Mark lubricating the space between us. He’s still warm for the moment. He’s going to dry on my skin. He’s going to stick to me. This is the last intimacy we will ever enjoy. 

 

The alien breathes over me. I feel the oddest tension. It is a hot, dark thing. It is an invitation to desire. I do not take it, but I could. I let him secure me with tight bonds, thick heavy cloth wraps that hold me in place. He doesn't need to tie me up. I wouldn’t resist him. He has effectively destroyed absolutely every part of my life in a matter of seconds.

 

I feel a rush of affection, or something very much like it. Maybe gratitude. I married Mark for love, but he became something entirely unloveable in the course of our marriage. Now he is gone. Utterly removed. There is nothing of him left at all besides what is scattered all over the kitchen and smeared on my skin. 

 

“Why can I smell arousal on you, human? Are you pleased by my destruction of your weak and petty mate?”

 

“I’m not aroused,” I lie. 

 

“I do not need words from you," he tells me. “I can smell the truth. And I imagine I could feel it too.”

 

The claws on his thick fingers retract as he reaches between my legs and runs his hand between my thighs. He touches me with possessive ownership. I feel myself tighten with anticipation of something I should not want. This is a cruel beast, but also an ardent one. 

 

I feel his rough fingers dragging up the inside of my thighs with a slow and purposeful motion. He finds the core of me with the pads of his fingers, massaging me in the place where only my husband was ever supposed to touch me. 

 

Mark is running over our skin. I see him as a red smear on the alien’s cheek. This is a mortal sin, an act of infidelity. The angel-alien rubs me on that little nub, stirring feelings I have not shared with anybody in a very long time. Mark never touched me down there except to push his prick inside me. 

 

“Who are you?”

 

“I am Tusk,” he says. “I am the soldier come to bring you to justice."

 

As he says the word justice, his fingers pinch my clit lightly. I let out a shocked moan. 

 

“I haven’t done anything wrong."

 

“You are spreading your thighs for me after I slayed your bonded human mate. You are ripe for mating, awash with desire after an event which should have left you absolutely destroyed. You should be crying and screaming, begging for mercy in case I kill you. Instead, look at you.”

 

The beast wraps his hands in my hair and turns me to face the pretty mirror which hands in decorative fashion in the lounge. It is covered in a light mist of Mark, but I can still make myself out in it, my flushed face showing far more arousal than fear. 

 

“You little human monster,” the creature growls in my ear. “Death arouses you, doesn't it. Killing produces a carnal thrill in your twisted flesh.”

 

“No,” I moan. He doesn’t understand who I am or what I have been through. 

 

“Yes,” he snarls in turn. He carries me roughly through the room before pushing me down over the couch. My skirts fly up over my waist, my nether regions exposed to the gaze of the creature. I hold my breath and wait for some terrible travesty of nature to occur. I can feel the carnal intent rolling off this creature. He has slain my mate, and now he intends to dominate me. He may be alien to me, but this is a pattern of conquest as old as time, written into the very fabric of my psychosexual being. 

 

“Admit what you did, woman.”

 

“I did nothing!”

 

He strikes me. Hard. I feel a flash of heat burning across my raised cheeks. I scream, and begin to beg for mercy. 

 

“Please! Sir! Stop! I didn’t do anything! I don’t know what you’re talking about! Please don't hurt me! I’ll do anything you say!”

 

If there is one thing Mark taught me before he died, it was how to grovel and beg.

 

“Stop your lies,” he says, slapping me again. And again. I know he is capable of much greater aggression than this. I saw him kill. He is going out of his way not to harm me, even as he makes absolute certain to hurt me. 

 

It has been a long time since I was spanked this way, held down and brought to justice. There must be some guilt in me, because every time his alien palm lands, I feel a brief spark of relief along with all the more predictable pain, fear and humiliation. I stop begging. I stop fighting. I start surviving. Each stroke is followed by a deep breath, a curling of my toes, and a drumming of my feet. My flesh burns with alien fire, every harsh slap of his rough palm followed up by a perfectly calibrated scratch of alien claws ever so lightly over seared skin. He is taking more than pleasure in my punishment. He is an artist and I am his canvas. His work is one of discipline and domination, the medium being my skin and my soul. 

 

I lose track of the number of times he strikes me, or how many times I cry out, helpless and plaintive. It becomes a constant ebb and flow of sensation, little moments of release and relief when he stops and inspects me.

 

I feel his fingers swiping up the seam of my sex with a casual ownership which I would find terribly offensive if I weren't caught up in the terrible, awful, wonderful events overcoming me. 

 

“You are even more soaked,” Tusk says. “You enjoy pain, and fear, like all the most dangerous human females. Your species is wired to be dominated and claimed by the most violent warrior. Good news, Margaret. The most violent warrior you could ever imagine is here.”

 

He is right. I am throbbing between my legs. I can feel a singing heat and a clenching desire which remains unsated. My heart is hammering in my chest. I cannot think of anything to say that might calm this beast, but aside from spanking me he doesn’t seem to have any intent of destroying me. 

 

He holds me there in that position, bent, spread and open. He lets me feel my own reaction. He makes me sink into the moment. My arousal should be in decline, but it is not. The longer I feel his clawed hands pinning me down, his large, booted feet pushing mine apart every time my ankles attempt to slide back together, the more I feel that insistent throbbing at the very apex of my lower lips. 

 

“I came a very long way to find you," he growls. “Most of the korabi on my planet do not believe that you exist. You would have gotten away with this crime entirely if not for me.”

 

“Crime?”

 

“You killed a korabi female who was auditioning to be part of the king’s harem. I do not think the purpose of the attack was to slay her as much as it was to send a message to her people. But you will fill those details in for me, won’t you? You will tell me everything I want to know, because I am the only creature on this world, or any other, who knows what to do with these wet holes of yours.”

 

He speaks so cruelly, this alien. He must be alien. He is not of this world, and he is certainly not of any world close to ours. He commits unspeakable heinous acts without considering any of the consequences. I do not think he is afraid of the law. I doubt he is afraid of anything. 

 

"Tell me why you did it.”

 

“Why I did… I didn’t.”

 

“You continue to lie to me. It cannot be because you do not understand what I am capable of, as I just cut your life partner into a thousand pieces. You must be concerned that I will do even worse to you.”

 

“I am concerned," I whimper. I am very concerned. But I am also caught up in a strange state of flight or fight in which my blood is pounding in my ears and the potential for death is present but does not seem to matter as much as it would if I were sitting on this couch reading a book. There is something about being bent over, spanked, and thoroughly dominated which makes every bit of life skew itself into new configurations. I am feeling a rush of aliveness like no other. 

 

“You are not,” he observes. “Little killer that you are. Where is your korabi suit? Did the scythkin take it from you? Do they deliver fresh ones with each assignment?”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“Liar!” He slaps me hard, not just across the ass, but between my thighs as well, his massive alien fingers catching the seam of my lips, punishing the sensitive little guardians of my sex. “You stink of guilt and need.”

 

He's not wrong. I am guilty of so many things. I am guilty of not mourning the man I promised to love… though I suppose it was only a vow until death did us part, and death has parted us most definitively. 

 

I feel him lean over me, the bulk of his body pressing me into the upholstery and threatening to drive the breath from my lungs. “I will tear the truth from you, Margaret. I will make you tell me everything you know, and so many other things besides.”

 

I cannot tell him anything. Not a single word may pass my lips. I have been sworn to a thousand secrets and each of them will go to the grave with me and poor Mark.

 

He growls. I feel his frustrated rage rumbling through my flesh, making my bones dance in response. The monsters always think the weak will make it easy, but the weak are so much harder to break than they think. I am accustomed to sliding the essential parts of myself away from the cruelty of the world. Whatever he touches now will be a decoy, a fleshy shield, something I can sacrifice. It will not be me. 

 

“You should be used,” he snarls into my ear. “You should be spread open and filled, taken in every hole you have.”

 

The crudeness of his speech is almost as foreign to my ears as the accented language which I understand but in a very odd way. It is as if there is some connection between us, a channel which can carry language across it. 

 

“Please, don’t do this to me.” I am begging for mercy I do not want. In the presence of a creature as terrifying as this one, there can be no real understanding of consequences or threat. I want him. I want him because my biology tells me to want him, because I have had the switch thrown in my head, the one buried deep in the almost animal part of my brain. He knows about it. He knows about me. He knows what I want, and what I need. 

 

He frees his cock. Mark was the only man who ever had me before this moment. Now I am feeling new flesh against my most intimate regions. This alien beast will not respect me, or the vows I took. It does not care for, or understand human carnal conventions. It follows animal desire without any care for anything besides its own desires.