Page 9 of My Wild Pet

“If women really cared about each other they would have tried to cover themselves because it’s only making it worse for you. They’re doing this to you on purpose. They know if I see them naked and then you’re here I’m going to have to rape you.”

“Are you trying to cover yourself up for modesty?” I ask Big. Then I turn to Tiny and Slender. “Are any of you trying to cover yourselves? No, of course not, so why should they? Your logic is the most juvenile, man-baby, caveman piece of shit, I’ve heard in a long time.”

“Oh shut the fuck up. You covered your tits and pussy whenyouentered,” Slender points out, “because you know it’s different for women.”

“Yes, because I was thrown into a cage with three naked men and I was trying to avoid being raped.” I make eye contact with Big. “Because as a rule, until I speak to men, I always assume they’re predators. But those women,” I gesture to the blonde women, “have nothing to fear from you, so they, just like you, arein their natural state. And it amazes me that you three can’t even look at a naked woman and control your sexual desires.”

“I can,” Slender says.

“Oh big fucking applause for the pick-me boy in the corner, who did nothing when I was being attacked,” I retort.

Tiny laughs.

“It’s not my fault,” Big continues to defend himself. “Look at them,” he points to the naked blonde women. “They’re purposely acting like strippers.”

“They are fucking naked!” I say losing my temper and feeling bad for all the strippers who actually are good dancers but those skills are apparently lost on men who think that naked women standing in a cell are the same as strippers on poles. “I feel like we are seeing two different things. I see regular women trying to survive. They aren’t trying to seduce you. That’s all in your mind,” I say and give up talking to my cell mates for a while.

After a long stretch of silence, I ask Big, “Have you seen any people leave this place? I mean besides the ones you said you killed.”

“Yes,” Slender replies. Of course,hereplies. “Some of the women in the other cell have been led out with leashes. Sometimes a few return, but we can’t talk to the women, so we don’t know what’s happening and they haven’t tried to tell us what’s going on.”

“Have you tried to ask?”

Slender shakes his head.

“Of course you haven’t.”

“None of us men have ever left this cage alive and returned. That’s all we know,” Slender says ignoring my observation.

My eyes drift across to the women in the other cell again. Some of them are sleeping, others talking, and some are watching us. I make eye contact with a woman and we hold it for some time. I stand and move as close to the forcefield as I can.I hold up my hands questioning and mouth the words, ‘What’s going on here?’

She stands and then she mouths a word to me, but I can’t for the life of me understand. It looks like she’s saying, ‘set.’ Set? Is she trying to tell me to be ready? For what?

She stops mouthing the word as two handler aliens enter and have what I can only assume is food and water. Just like Slender said, Big takes all the food and the water, hoarding it in the corner. My stomach grumbles as I listen to him smack and slurp.

After he’s finished, he gives some to his sidekick, Tiny. When there’s only the smallest amount of food left, he says to Slender and me, “There’s only food left for one of you. So I want you to fight each other for it.”

“I’m not fighting a woman,” Slender says and honestly, I’m shocked he has any decency for a fair fight.

“Only because you’re worried she’d kick your ass,” Tiny says.

“Well, she’s not going to get it by default and neither are you,” Big replies. “I need some entertainment. You fight her or you starve.”

“I don’t want it. You take it,” I say to Slender.

My comment annoys Big.

“Women! She thinks she can trick us into feeling sorry for her,” Big announces. “That’s not going to work on me. I know all the little tricks women use to manipulate men.”

I laugh because it’s so absurd. Even when I’ve been abducted by aliens I still have a man explaining my actions to me. “Why don’t you explain my behavior to me a little more? I’d love to hear your thoughts on women’s orgasms, periods, and childbirth,” I say, my voice dripping with an invitation to fight again.

Next thing I know, I’m flat on my back after being knocked across the face by Big. My ear are ringing. Everything sounds like I’m deep underwater. I’m in so much pain.

Big his hovering over me. His pungent smell making me nauseous. He kneels on my arms, pinning them painfully to the floor and then puts his stinking erect penis in my mouth.

Having nothing to lose now, I bite down as hard as I can and don’t let go. I imagine myself a gator in the bayou. I remember the documentaries I watched about alligators latching on to prey and then taking them down to the dark river bed to drown them.

I am a gator and Big is my prey.

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