Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 21

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

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Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps their clothes on...

— Revelations 16:15

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I didn't sleep; I lay suspended in darkness, both inside and out. I experienced nothing. How can you experience nothing? I'll tell you how: Imagine sitting at the bottom of a deep dry well, so deep that light from above can't reach you. You don't know where you are or how you arrived here. You're awake, but stunned to empty-headedness. No thoughts, no words, no sounds, no feelings. All you can do is blink and look around you, even though there's nothing to see.

That's the state I was in. Except for the blinking and looking around. I couldn't do that. I was only aware of being unaware.

Someone had flicked the main circuit in my brain OFF.

Time passed, I suppose. It must have done so; it's what time does. Things happened without my knowledge and volition; things were being done to me. Once whoever it was, completed whatever they were doing, they clicked my brain back on. I didn't wake up. I didn't "come to"; I simply opened my eyes and was aware once again.

I knew immediately where I was and what had been done to me. The vast room, the ambient lighting... the fact that I was lying naked on a slab. I was on that damn spaceship, the one I didn't believe existed. I'd been abducted, in the same way that Mayda and Ross were abducted before me. The aliens had taken my clothes and my belongings. They took my phone!

Luckily (?) I wasn't alone. There were voices, two voices: a woman's and a man's.

The woman, angry and fearful, shouted, "I'm going to SUE those motherfuckers, do you understand! I am going to take every penny they have, and every penny they ever make! I'm going to take their cars, and their houses, and everything they own! And *then* I'm going to have them thrown in jail! Are you listening to me? Are you listening to me?"

Hugh's voice, weary, harrassed: "Yes, I'm listening. You don't need to shout. I'm standing right here. I'm listening."

"Where are the cameras? Where did you pervs hide the cameras?"

"There are no cameras. I told you." Then, the anger in his voice building: "How many times do I have to say it? This isn't a prank, this isn't a TV show. I'm not a part of this; I've been abducted, just like you."

I couldn't move, except for my eyes. I could blink. I could look right, left, up, down. That was all. After a few moments I could turn my head left and right, but not up and down. Hugh and the woman were out of my field of vision. To turn my face toward their voices, I'd need to be able to crane my neck up and back, but I couldn't do that. I wasn't able to speak or even clear my throat. My body, from my jaw on down, was inert. I want to say it was lifeless, but that was an exaggeration: I was definitely alive. Alive, but limp. Alive and lying on a slab. There were two empty slabs to my left. His and hers.

Hugh and the woman continued to argue. She was hot, angry. I almost expected her to demand to speak with the manager; such was her attitude. Hugh, for his part, had the advantage of understanding the situation, and wanted nothing more than to get the hell off the alien ship. We'd been abducted, and he wasn't having it.

Which is why the next sound I heard was the boom! boom! boom-boom-boom! of his fist against a metal door as he shouted, "HEY!" More banging. "HEY, YOU ASSHOLES! LET US OUT! WHAT THE HELL? LET US OUT! WHERE *ARE* YOU? COME ON! SHOW YOURSELVES, YOU COWARDS! FACE ME!"

The woman, aggravated: "Will you stop that? All you're doing is giving me a headache. And you're not convincing me. Besides, if you're really not a part of this caper, you're doing exactly what they *want* you to do: freaking out so people can laugh at you on TV. They put us in a cage like a bunch of naked monkeys. They want us to dance and cry and throw fits."

Hugh, impatiently: "I've told you, over and over again: This is not a TV show. It's not a movie. It's not a prank. It's not some internet bullshit! We've been abducted by aliens, plain and simple! They're looking for human specimens for their zoo."

"Hilarious," she replied, her voice full of scorn. "Do you think I'm an idiot? It's a prank, and somebody's going down for it, the minute I get my clothes and my phone back. I'll sue you, too, and your little friend over there. I'm serious! This is kidnapping and false imprisonment! Those are capital crimes in my book! And theft! You've taken my clothes and left me naked! It's a sex crime! I'm going to make sure they throw the book at you jackasses! Let me tell you something: The next clown who walks in that door is going to get a nice kick in the balls for his trouble!"

Hugh groaned. "Will you stop? Can you listen? Think about what you told me: You said you saw the aliens. How can you—"

"I saw a weirdo in a frog costume, dressed in armor, with four of his friends. That's what I saw."

"It's not a costume—"

I must have groaned or sighed, because they turned to look at me.

"Look, you woke your little buddy," the woman said.

I meant to ask who the woman was, but — disoriented as I was — what came out of my mouth was, "God! It stinks in here!"

Ironically, involuntarily, I felt a fart ease out from under me, a swift, tuneful note that sounded clear and true, like middle C played on a trumpet.

"Phew!" the woman cried, waving her hand in front of her nose. "The stink is on you, fella! You've been dealing them out ever since you got here!"

"Sorry," I groaned. "It's that damn Pizza Alright. And the beans, I suppose."

"Get a grip on it," she demanded, crossly. "Maybe your weirdo friends can put a cork in it, if you ask politely."

"Well, aren't you nice!" I exclaimed sarcastically.

"You goons are in on this prank, aren't you?" She pointed her index finger at me, then Hugh. "Admit it: The two of you came in here together," she observed.

"I'm afraid this isn't a prank," I said. "But if what we've heard is true, they'll let you go as soon as they figure out that you're a woman."

"What is that supposed to mean?" she shot back angrily, offended. "Hello?" she shouted as she gestured to her breasts.

"These aliens can't tell the difference," Hugh explained. "They rely on a detector they built. It gives men orgasms, but does nothing to women."

"Figures!" she scoffed. "I mean, it's bullshit, but it scans." She paced, back and forth, impatiently. "These so-called aliens: is it a comic role? Are they supposed to be buffoons?"

"It's not a role," Hugh told her. "They're real. But no, they aren't very bright."

"Hey!" I called. "How come you two can move, but I can't?"

They walked over to where I was lying. Hugh told me, "Don't worry, buddy, it'll pass. We both woke up that way, but it wears off quickly."

Hugh stood to my right. The woman stood on my left. They were both visible from about the waist up. Both were naked. The woman was scowling, but even so, she was fairly attractive. I couldn't help but focus on her breasts: a pair of firm mounds, standing up well on her chest: two symmetric handfuls, without sag or wrinkle. Her nipples—

"You like them, do you?" she asked, nettled. "Are you getting a nice eyeful, you perv?"

"Sorry, but they're right there..."

She shook her head. "I am SO going to sue these bastards! I will make them regret the day they were born! I'll make sure they spend a nice long time in jail! This is a violation, a humiliation—"

Hugh looked at me and rolled his eyes. "I've tried to tell her," he said.

"What's your name?" I asked, in hopes of changing the subject. "I'm Mason."

"My name's Deeny," she said. "And don't give me any shit about it. The name is Deeny."

"Deeny," I repeated, "Is that a nickname for something?"

She looked at me as if I were a first-class idiot. "Who the fuck cares?" she asked. "What is wrong with you? We're locked in a room, God knows where, all our clothes and possessions stolen from us, with no clue what these bastards have in mind for us — but what is the first thing you ask: you want to know about nicknames! Get a brain, will you?"

"Just trying to make conversation," I shrugged, and noticed that some movement had returned to my shoulders.

"Do us all a favor, and don't," she muttered.

At that moment, the door slid open, and Mr Toad came ambling in, striding, insofar as a bipedal toad can stride. He was exactly as described in the Iodine Story: He was human-sized, walking upright, dressed in full body armor. I had the feeling his armor was not so much protective as it was a sign of status. He was followed by four frog-men, who wore loose brown robes.

Mr Toad looked the three of us up and down.

Deeny, for all her bluster about this being a prank, seemed cowed. Instinctively she must have recognized that these creatures were not wearing costumes and were not of this earth. Despite her alarm, she managed to angrily ask, as she showed the backs of her hands, "Why did you take off my nail polish? How dare you? I just had them done, today! Gels! Do you understand? You're going to pay for that, you armored ass-hat!" At a thought, she touched her face, her lips. "And my makeup! What the hell? Why did you do that, you filthy freaks! You had no right!"

Mr Toad, although surprised for a brief moment, recovered quickly. He answered in a slow, condescending tone, as if speaking to a child, "You did have a variety of... decorative... smudges, unlike the others. We had to be sure these smudges didn't conceal defects of some sort. I'm glad to say that they didn't. I've no doubt these colorings play a significant part in your—" he waved his hand to signal he was about to say something silly, something childish— "your mating rituals, such as they are, but—"

"And you took my clothes!" She bellowed, causing him to take a step back. "What the hell is wrong with you? You're a bunch of goddamn perverts, and you're all going to jail! Do you hear?"

Mr Toad scoffed and explained, "We took your coverings and trinkets simply because we had to examine you. What other reason could there possibly be?"

"What kind of examination?" Hugh demanded. His fists clenched and unclenched.

"Before you ask," Mr Toad replied, in the tone of a person who'd heard the same question a thousand times, "there was no anal probe. I cannot fathom why your species imagines there should be. We're not barbarians, after all! We perform a quite simple examination. You, like us, have a symmetric anatomy, with some minor differences: two upper limbs, two lower limbs. You have ten fingers, ten toes. Two eyes, two ears, and so on. We also check that your skin is intact and free from defect. I'll admit, we're rather cursory when it comes to checking your teeth..."

By this point I could raise my head and shoulders a bit higher. I saw that Deeny had one hand on her stomach and one on my chest; I guess to reassure herself. When Mr Toad mentioned fingers and toes, I tried to wiggle mine, without success.

"Listen," Hugh told the alien. "None of us are coming with you. None of us will play a part in your crazy zoo. We demand that you give back our clothes and our belongings, and put us back exactly where you found us."

"Wait," Deeny said. "I'm going wherever you two guys go. I'm not going back to Mariola." To Mr Toad she directed, "Just drop me with those two knuckleheads."

Mr Toad scoffed, and asked dismissively, "What is Mariola?" He held out his hand. One of his cohort responded by placing a box on his palm, a black rectangular item the size of a remote control. "Before you overly stress yourselves, may I point out that some, or all, of you may be making a great fuss over nothing? We can determine, right here, right now, which of you are male, and which are not." He gestured with the little black box, and declared magnamously, "If you're not male, we'll send you right back down with no further argument."

"What?" Deeny exclaimed, incredulous. "Are you an idiot? Isn't it obvious? Are you seriously saying that you can't tell men from women?"

"No, of course not," Mr Toad replied. "No, I am not an idiot. No, it is NOT obvious, and no, I cannot tell one of you from another. Naturally! No one can. It's a well-established fact. Humans are — or rather, were — indistinguishable from one another — until we created this marvellous detector!"

So saying, he pointed the box at Hugh and pressed the button. Hugh responded instantly. He clutched the slab I was lying on. His head snapped back. His chin pointed at the ceiling. His adam's apple stood in high relief. Hugh's body twisted as though an archer meant to bend his stiffened form into a bow. He rose up on his toes. His entire frame trembled and spasmed. He sprouted a enormous erection. Even I was startled by its size. His cries were inarticulate, strangling in his throat. He gasped and struggled with all that was in him. It was frightening to see.

Mr Toad took his finger off the button, nodding approval. Hugh's spasms ended. "Oh my God!" he cried, his chest heaving. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. His perspiration puddled at the floor around his feet. His body was drenched. He panted like a steam engine, leaning all his weight with both arms on the slab.

The four frog-men approached Hugh as Mr Toad said, "My assistants will take you to—"

"No!" Hugh shouted. "No way! No fucking way! There is NO WAY IN HELL!" Despite the energy he'd just spent, Hugh came to life with a awe-inspiring burst of power and energy, drawn from his deepest fibers of his being. He punctuated the last word (HELL!) with a powerful kick that sent one of his assailants sprawling. He picked up a second and tossed him across the room. With kicks and punches, grabs and throws, he quickly dispatched the other two, and was ready to cross the room and take on Mr Toad himself.

Mr Toad stood firm and unafraid. In some way that I didn't see, he had already called for reinforcements. They arrived in groups of four, in quick succession, one group after another, pouring into the room. Hugh fought manfully, and to tell the truth, the frog-men, for all their numbers, got the worst of it. They lay around the room like so many discarded rag dolls.

I began to feel sorry for them.

Mr Toad watched with some interest, though he didn't intervene. Apparently, he felt sure of the outcome.

In the end, the aliens couldn't overpower him, but they managed to overwhelm poor Hugh. It happened mainly by luck: one assailant, as he lay on the floor, tried to jerk his leg out of the way, to avoid being stepped on. Instead, his movement caught Hugh by the heel and sent him sprawling. As my friend fell, the enemy swarmed over him, piling on, each new frog-man throwing himself onto the heap, pinning Hugh to the floor, more by their collective weight than by muscle.

In the end (but with great difficulty), they carried him off, still struggling, still shouting, using every muscle to resist his fate. It took ten of the frog-men to bear him away: six to hold his legs and four to restrain his arms. Several others stood by, ready to jump in if necessary.

Once Hugh was out of sight and out of earshot, other frog-men came and quickly cleared away their own wounded. In the end Deeny and I were left alone.

At that point, I was able to sit up and bend my legs.

"Oh, *now* you can move!" Deeny exclaimed, her voice full of scorn.

"I didn't see you helping him," I pointed out, peevishly, childishly.

"Help him how?" she countered. "The way he was wheeling his arms and legs, he could have kicked me across the room without even knowing it. Besides, you're a man, aren't you? That's what *you* should be doing."

The two of us lapsed into silence, shocked by the violence we'd witnessed, and stunned by the finality of Hugh's capture and removal. There was no need for either to point out that we were next in line.

I turned and dangled my legs over the side of the slab, flexing my toes to make sure they worked. Deeny hopped up next to me. Her sudden closeness confused me. At first I didn't know what to make of it, or what she meant by it. The side of her thigh pressed up against mine. I've never sat so close to a naked woman before.

That is, I've never sat next to a naked woman before. I didn't know the protocol.

I couldn't help but stare at her thighs and take in how good she looked. In particular, her skin. She had lovely skin. She was in great shape — I wanted to ask whether she worked out, or did Pilates or yoga or whatnot, but didn't dare. I was afraid of setting her off.

It wasn't until she started talking that I realized she was trembling. It was almost imperceptible. Then I understood: she was frightened. That's why she sat so close. She was frightened and she tried to hide it by talking.

"I have to say, your friend is well endowed," she observed. "*Very* well endowed. As I'm sure you well know." She gave me a wink. I've never liked winks, and I didn't like this one in particular.

"We're not a couple," I informed her, blushing as I spoke. "Hugh is gay, but I'm not."

"I see," she acknowledged, nodding, one eyebrow raised. "I guess that's why you're blushing."

"Look: we're not a couple. We're not lovers. Hell, we're not even friends! We only just met today!"

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks," she quoted.

Irritated, I shook my head. She grinned at me. She was only teasing.

I tried to change the subject, by going back to something she said earlier: "Hey, you mentioned Mariola. Is that where you're from? That's way on the other side of the state!"

"The other side of the state? What's that supposed to mean? Where are we now?"

"Well, Hugh and I were in the desert, near Robbins. It's, like, 300 miles from Mariola, I think."

"Yeah," she agreed. "More like 280, give or take... or let's say, 300. Whatever. Anyway, what I was going to say — before you jumped in — is that when I woke up here, I was alone, completely alone." She glanced at me before continuing. "At first I thought I was dead. Seriously. That I was in a morgue or a mortuary. Then I figured I'd been taken by some jackass serial killer and that he'd injected me with some drug to paralyze me.

"Then, after a couple of minutes, the big toad-guy in armor came in with his four friends. They just looked at me. I couldn't move. It was super-creepy. And I couldn't talk!" She kicked her legs a little, as if checking that she could move them now, then added, "After they left, you two popped up when I wasn't looking. That's when I figured this was all a perverted prank."

"Why?"

She gave me a look that asked What sort of imbecile are you? "Hello!" she exclaimed. "My clothes were gone. I couldn't move. My first thought was roofies... serial killers... perverts. And then I figured it was some asshole's idea of a prank."

"How did you go from thinking it was a serial killer to thinking it was a prankster?"

"The weirdos in their frog costumes. That was the first reason.

"Then, the way you two popped up— one minute you weren't there... a second later, you were. I figured it was some kind of special effects, right? That was the second reason.

"Then your buddy, Hugh, he comes to... and right off starts explaining everything to me. Which makes no sense, right? Because if the three of us were abducted by aliens, none of us would know shit! Am I right? Yet, here he was, with all the details..." She shook her head. "That was the third reason."

"That kind of makes sense," I agreed, "but there's this story, see..."

"You asked about Mariola," she said, interrupting. "What a hell-hole! It's all hypocrites and sheep! The tiny-town mentality: on the surface, it's all nice, all Norman Rockwell. Everybody smiles, like butter wouldn't melt, but no one is as nice as they seem. It's a vicious, judgmental little place! Everybody spends all their time watching each other, waiting for you to trip up... watching for the smallest mistake or indiscretion... looking for something to judge your for, something to gossip about, some way to one-up you... They try to push you in a box... put you in a cage... live the way they want you to live. It's ridiculous. It's toxic."

"If it's so awful, why didn't you just leave?" I asked. It seemed a natural question to ask. It was, unfortunately, the *worst* question one to ask. It really set her off. If she was ranting before, now she was afire.

She gave me a look that would have burned down a house. Her expression asked whether I was a fool, and not just a fool, but an offensive one at that. Offensive to her. Personally offensive.

She barked out her reply. "What — oh, *I* should leave, because I'm normal? Is that what you're saying? I should leave, when all I do is try to live my life without kowtowing to a load of silly rules and conventions? *I* should leave, according to you, because I'm awake, and not asleep? You think I should put on a pretty dress every Sunday and sing hymns with the rest of the sheep? What if I don't want to? Huh? What if I don't want to? I like the option of NOT doing those things. But, oh no! You think I should leave. Let them win. As if!"

She jumped down from the slab and scoffed forcefully. "Ha!"

"Did something bad happen in Mariola?" I asked her.

"Mariola, Mariola," she said in a sing-song whine, as if mocking the way I'd said it. "Yeah, something happened. I broke up with my idiot boyfriend." She grew angrier and angrier as she spoke. "We were engaged. To be married. But that's off! I sent that fucker packing! I threw his ring in a dumpster. The asshole! Let him go poking through a landfill, if he wants it back!" She scoffed loudly, disgusted. "I don't know why I ever said yes to him!"

Her jaw was set. Her fists clenched and unclenched. She was still trembling.

"Okay," I said, cautiously, neutrally. I didn't take her tone or her words personally. She was obviously frightened out of her wits. All her bluster and spleen was nothing but a cover.

"I've learned my lesson. I am *never* getting married. Ever. Why should I? Huh? Why should I? Better dead than wed, right?"

"Whoa! Uh — I've never heard that," I told her, taken aback by the acid in her better dead than wed.

"Besides," she said, "I already told you — told that armored toad — that I don't want to go back to Mariola. Weren't you listening? I wasn't about to let those fuckers *push* me out; I couldn't give them the satisfaction. I couldn't let them beat me. But look! now I'm gone." She grinned. "Three hundred miles away, or whatever! Now they'll have a little mystery! Now they'll be wondering, Whatever happened to Deeny?" She grinned at me, an aggressive grin — though her fear was plainly visible beneath her thine, angry veneer.

"Will they ever know?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said.

And then — with a sardonic smile, "Now I can say it: I am NEVER going back to Mariola! Never!"

"Okay," I said. "Good for you. I'm sure you know best."

She scoffed at me scornfully, in disgust. "You're one of those rabbits, aren't you? Afraid of conflict. You'd agree with anything I say, wouldn't you!"

"I guess so," I sighed, and paradoxically, my answer made her smile.

Then, "Hey!" she exclaimed. "Look what those fuckers left behind!" Her eye was caught by some items on an otherwise empty table by the door: two of the black boxes, the ones that resembled remote controls.

"Score!" she shouted, happily, "It's those orgasm things! Let's try 'em out! There's two — one for men, one for women, right?"

"I doubt—" I began, but she wasn't listening. She was examining the boxes. "There's only one button," she observed, "And the boxes look identical..."

She pointed one of the boxes (as it turned out, the detector) at herself and pushed the button. Nothing happened.

"I don't think you ought to mess with those things," I cautioned. "We don't know wh—"

She cut me off by turning the detector on me. I fell back onto the slab howling. A massive, overwhelming sense of sexual excitation abruptly filled every atom of my being. I couldn't stop shaking. My nervous system was on fire. When Mr Toad used it on Hugh, it had an equally violent effect, but only for a few seconds. Deeny kept going. She didn't seem to have any inclination to stop. She kept her finger on the trigger while I writhed and cried out. My heart pounded so violently, I feared I'd have a heart attack. "Stop! Stop!" I managed to painfully squeak. "Please stop!"

Laughing, she took her finger off the button. "Look at you!" she chortled. "It took you right up to the brink!"

I lay panting in a puddle of my own sweat. "Oh my God!" I cried. "Please don't do that again."

Ignoring my shocked state, Deeny walked over. "Try it on me," she demanded. "Maybe you can't do it to yourself."

I was too weak to move, so she put the little box in my hand, aimed it at herself, and pressed my finger on the button. Nothing happened.

"Crap," she said, setting it aside. "Fucking patriarchy, right? Here, try this other one." She pointed it at me, clicked it. Nothing happened. "This must be the woman one," she commented as she pointed it at herself and clicked.

I didn't feel it happen, but there was a sudden fundamental shift in the state of things. My vision of the room changed, by 180 degrees. It was like an out-of-body experience: I stood apart, looking at my body, which lay on the slab, slowly recovering from the powerful orgasmic shock.

What made it NOT like an out-of-the-body experience was that I was actually standing IN a body. A different body. A body not my own: Deeny's body.

"What the hell?" I asked, in her voice. I looked down at myself, at a pair of breasts, at a hairless body, a missing penis — and in its place, a mound of venus. Weirdly, the two details that struck me the most were (1) my intestinal distress à la Pizza Alright was gone, and (2) my appendectomy scar had disappeared without a trace. Due, obviously, to the body swap, but hey — we notice what we notice.

I have to say, my first impression of my new home was favorable — as wrong as it was — but I couldn't help but cry out (again in Deeny's voice), "What the hell happened, Deeny? What did you do?"

Even as I spoke, I understood everything, but I had an advantage over Deeny: I'd read the Iodine Story. So I got it in one: Deeny and I swapped bodies, exactly as Ross and Mayda had. I was now Deeny; Deeny was now me.

My body on the slab, my old self, moved, groaned, and asked, "Imposs... uh! Fuck! Did we just— Jesus!"

It was Deeny who asked, Deeny in my body — Mason's body, speaking in my voice. "Fucking box," she muttered, and picked up the male detector.

What happened next was decisive. It set both our fates, for an indefinite future, probably forever. When I replay these moments in my mind — as I have, many times — I believe that when Deeny picked up the detector, she meant to switch us back. She understood that one of the remotes had swapped us; she meant to use the same remote to swap us back again. But she was hampered, disoriented, by the swiftness, the seamlessness of the change. In addition, her mind was muddled by the violent effect of the detector, when she'd used it on me.

When she picked up the little black box, she failed to adjust for the fact that she wasn't in her own body. She thought she was still standing over here (where I was), and not over there (where she was). Her own body, me, still held the device that does the swap. But she couldn't make the paradigm shift. When she pointed the detector at me and clicked, she believed she was repeating exactly what she'd done before. She turned the device on herself and clicked, but naturally it did the other thing: it made her writhe with sexual stimulation.

I watched my old body rock, my face contort. I heard the strangled cry caught in my throat. I remember thinking, with absurd irrelevance, Deeny was wrong: you *can* use it on yourself. It was too much to bear. It was frighteningly strong, and for a second time today, I feared I might have a heart attack. I pushed her finger off the button. Her paroxysms stopped.

"We need to switch back!" I shouted to my old body. Idiot that I am, I should have simply done it. There was no need for talk or explanations. With two clicks, we'd each be back in the body where we belonged. Instead, I wasted precious seconds in talk. I wasted time in looking for consensus, or consent, or some such stupid thing.

"What tha wha?" I saw my Mason body ask — exhaused, befuddled, by the pair of electrical shocks.

Then, after wasting time in talk, I wasted time in fumbling: I almost dropped the switch. In retrospect, I can see that it might have been my subconscious, once again acting against my interest, as it does. In any case, for some foolish reason, I flipped the box so it was upside down and backwards. I looked it stupidly, turned it over, then spun it around to its correct position, pointing away from me. I stared at the button, about to push it... but... while my attention was wholly absorbed in trying to do the right thing with the right box in the right sequence of events, I didn't hear Mr Toad and his cohort enter the room.

"What in thunderation!" he exclaimed, making me jump. "You humans! You're like children! No, you're *worse* than children! We can't leave you alone for a moment!" He snatched the remote from my hand and picked up the detector from where it lay on the slab. "These precious devices aren't toys for you to play with! These are serious scientific tools, with galactic significance!" He fumbled with the pair of them for a moment before handing off one of the boxes to a member of his cohort. Then ("Just to confirm") he gave a quick shot with the male detector at Deeny-in-Mason's-body, who reacted painfully, but only for a moment. He nodded to his cohort, who picked up my still-writhing Mason-body, and began to carry it out of the room.

"Wait!" I called. "Stop! Will you wait a moment? Please! We accidentally swapped bodies! That's me that you're carrying out! Do you see? You need to change me back! Stop!"

"Ah," he said, with a deep rumble of satisfaction. "Do you see what comes when you lark about with things you don't understand? This is what you humans call a teachable moment for you; is it not?"

He paused dramatically, then turned the male detector at me. When he got no reaction, he said, "Do you see? Are you able to understand? It's no surprise, but I've been proven correct yet again. It's exactly as I told you, earlier. Do you see? Do you remember? I told you that you might be making a great fuss over nothing. You made your big declaration: You didn't want to come with us! You wouldn't take part in our zoo! Well, guess what? Now, you'll get your wish! You didn't want to listen, though, did you. No matter! No harm done! All is forgiven! We carry no grudges here! We'll return you promptly to your vehicle, and all will be well."

In a blink I found myself standing barefoot and naked in the desert, next to Hugh Fencely's car.

"Like Mayda," I said. "Or Ross. Whatever!"

It was night. It was cold. Damnably cold.