Page 38 of My Human Wife

(Five Months Later)

I open my eyes to Rae’s quiet movements in my chambers. She’s preparing to wake me up. Everything is calm and stable in the harem. But being a pet in Kamos’s harem is a strange way to live. While I’m in the harem I feel almost free. I have everything I could want and I’m even able to choose the food I eat and the clothing I wear. Although there’s a particular fashion and hierarchy I must adhere to within these locked doors. However, when I’m in other parts of the palace, I’m treated as a beloved, non-sentient pet. It’s during those times I wonder if I have a split personality. How can I endure being treated like a sex object with no higher thoughts or emotions and then hours later talk about the meaning of life with other human women in the harem? I don’t know the answer to this.

In the first weeks at the palace, I felt uncomfortable and disappointed in myself for accepting this double-sided life. But as my Imperial has become more fluent and I developed relationships with the other women both Imperial and humaninside the harem, I’ve accepted these mirror images of myself without questioning it too much. I tell myself that I’m less critical of my behavior because I’m leaving. I tell myself that if I were staying, I’d fight more for my independence.

But I know in my heart I don’t know how I’d really feel if I didn’t have a greater purpose here. The luxury and the back and forth with sentient and non-sentient roles has even muddled my mission. I’m not as determined as I was when I first arrived. And some days I even forget I do have a mission. But it’s an easy thing to do. The women in the harem don’t really want to be rescued. They’ve even said that if Gael the Returner were to come and open the harem gates they’d refuse to leave. So it makes me wonder what I’m doing here? These women don’t want to be saved.

Many of the human women talk about their previous lives on Earth and some of them don’t miss Earth at all. They tell me I was lucky to be taken so young. I retort with the movies and books I watched growing up but they tell me it’s all fantasy, that for most women on Earth being a pet in Kamos’s harem is better.But that can’t be true, can it?

The longer I stay in the harem, the more I question myself and my promise to Gael. It’s so peaceful here and the only decisions I have to make are what to eat and who to spend my day with if not summoned by Kamos.

Except nudging always in my mind is the term, ‘Stockholm Syndrome.’ I remember Gael mentioning it to me. And I think I may have it, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to have when I’m safe, sound, and warm behind the harem gates.

A loud crash rips away my serenity. I hear more commotion and then loud voices. Ava is yelling which is very unusual. I jump outof bed. Rae and I rush out to the main common area where the head guard is trying to take Ava’s daughter, Mei, but Ava won’t let go of the little girl.

“No, she’s not ready to go! She needs me. She’s so young.”

“She’s of age. She’ll be well looked after,” the head guard is saying emphatically. “She doesn’t need her human mother anymore.”

“I’m her only mother,” Ava cries frantically. “Don’t take her from me! Just one last day! Please!”

“You knew this day was coming, Ava. You know how this all works. Say goodbye to Mei. She’ll have a good life..”

Two more guards come to hold Ava back as a crying child is carried out screaming wildly, “Mommy! Mommy! Don’t let them take me from you! Mommy! Mommy! No! Mommy!”

Ava is fighting against the guards who hold her. “Mei! Mei! Mommy loves you! Mei!!!” The guards finally let go of Ava when the head guard has left the harem. Ava cries on her knees. “My Mei. They took my baby. My Mei. She’s gone.”

It’s difficult not to be affected by this. I was only a little older when I was taken from my own mother. I rush over to Ava but she throws me off. “Stay away from me! I just want Mei,” she screams and begins sobbing again. Her whole body quaking with her sorrow. “My Mei.”

I realize that I was not only looking to comfort Ava, but myself too, and I feel guilty for being so selfish. I watch with tears in my own eyes while Ava collapses on her side and howls primitively with heartbreak. I can do nothing for her. For all the luxury these women talk about, I think this emotional price is too high.And maybe they have such bad Stockholm Syndrome, they don’t realize that the price of their captivity is too high. Or am I weak? Is this how life is for Imperial and humans and I’m the weak one? It doesn’t matter because I’ll never be able to see this from any different angle than my own and I condemn this.

I look around. Coco is nowhere to be seen. Not surprising. She doesn’t want to witness this truth. She will be the one on the floor in five years, crying uncontrollably as her child is ripped from her arms.

I touch Ava’s shoulder and say, “I am so sorry for you.”

Ava, of course, doesn’t even feel my hand or hear my words. It doesn’t matter. I had to say something.

Rae and I return to my rooms.

“Where is the child going?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you could guess.”

“Lora it’s a nearby city. She’ll be raised by Imperials now.”

“Then what?”

“Maybe she’ll become a servant like me,” Rae says sadly. “Maybe worse.”

I hug Rae and she hugs me back. “How are we all caught in this? Where are the goddesses now?” I asked that rhetorically.

“We are in the darkness,” Rae responds. “Born and raised in the darkness.”

My only response is silently to myself to do my duty to Gael and save as many people as possible. Any feelings I had that living in this harem was better than being free just vanished and will never be revisited. I turn my ring from Gael and focus again on trying to find that teleportation suit. What have I been doing wasting my time with frivolities, sex and gossip?

Kamos

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