Chapter 6. Trouble

After Tahti went to the kitchen to “learn how to cook,” I stayed in the living room to check on the damages. Damages meaning I had to reevaluate my mental state because the alien was driving me crazy. First she came to this planet saying I was her bride. Then she attached herself to me and even followed me home. Now she was invading my thoughts. Damn you alien girl and your hotness!

Wait. Did I just refer to her as hot? No! No! No! Alena get a hold of yourself. She’s a woman and you have a boyfriend who loves you. Don’t let the alien screw your mind. That’s it! That was probably Tahti’s way of manipulation or their modus operandi for invasion. First comes the contact, aka she landed here on earth and chose a victim- me. Then she was doing the mind control by forcing me to be lesbian. Pretty soon I’d be her pawn and she’d have a successful mission.

Dang Alena. Now you sound like a complete freak. See? Tahti’s plan was working already. Before I could even think more weird thoughts, the doorbell rang for the second time today. “Tahti!” I called out, rolling my eyes. “Did you make another online delivery?”

“No,” she said from the kitchen.

“Well who is it?” I muttered under my breath. Pushing off from the couch, I made my way to the door, opening it widely.

“Hey Alena!” A little girl hugged me at my waist.

“It’s so good to see you. Come in.” Pushing the door shut, I steered my small companion to the living room. Tahti was already there, wearing a hot pink apron that immediately made me recall her undergarments earlier. My face matched the color of her attire. “Do we even have an apron?” I asked, attempting to hide my blush with a question.

“No,” Tahti answered. “I also bought this online.” She turned to the little girl beside me. “Who is she?”

“I’m Mimi. I’m 7 years old and Alena is my auntie.”

“Oh.” Tahti turned to me with a questioning stare. “She looks a like the small version of mother, except for the hair because mother’s hair is gray and hers are black. Why didn’t I see her back at the inn?”

“My adoptive sister lives here in the city,” I sighed. “Her name is Sarah and she’s very busy with her career. Mimi here is her daughter. Sometimes Sarah drives Mimi over. At other times, the babysitter does that.”

“There is a person in this planet that sits on a baby?” Tahti gasped, placing her hand over her mouth in surprise. “That is very cruel.”

“You’re funny,” Mimi laughed, walking to Tahti. “And weird. But you’re also very beautiful. Like the girls on the magazines and TV. Are you a star? Do you know who Glace and Dulce are?” The girl bombarded her with questions after questions.

“Mimi,” I scolded, yet I couldn’t get mad at my cute niece. “It’s rude to ask too many questions at once.”

“Sorry,” she apologized to Tahti.

“You have done nothing wrong little one,” Tahti said with a surprisingly endearing smile that made my mouth open. Chill Alena. Dang! “Questions are one of the many signs of intelligence,” she continued. “And no I am not a star. Stars are incandescent matters in the space made from helium and hydrogen. No little one, I am not made of those things. Rather, I’m what you refer to as an alien.”

Mimi’s eyes shined in wonder, while all I wanted to do was to either smack something or someone in the face, or simply vanish from where I was standing. Sadly, both didn’t happen.

“Is that true?” Mimi asked loudly, looking from me to Tahti. “Are you really an alien?”

“No,” I said, just as Tahti said, “Yes.”

Mimi placed her hands against her waist. “Well who is telling the truth?”

What do I tell the kid? Well Lies. Duh! Before I could speak, the alien beat me to it. “My specie always tells the truth,” she said. “Forgive Alena for lying. I read that in a book once. It is what they speak of as the term in denial.”

“Tahti,” I said in a warning tone.

“What? I was merely stating the fact,” she said with a poker face.

“Oh my God,” was all I could reply, wondering how I could ever win an argument with this kind of being.

“God is not yours alone. Now come Mimi.” She held a hand. “Would you like to learn how to cook? It is a skill that one must learn how to master early on.” When the little kid nodded gleefully, the two of them made their way to the kitchen hand-in-hand, leaving me alone while feeling a little guilty for lying to the kid and at the same time, shaken at Tahti’s way of getting into my head.

Twenty minutes later, Mimi called loudly, “Alena, it’s time to eat.”

Walking to the kitchen, I saw that new plates have been laid out already, together with roasted chicken, which I love, and spaghetti. “Let me guess,” I muttered as I took a seat at the head of the table. Tahti and Mimi sat side-by-side. “You also bought that from the internet?”

“Just the tableware,” Tahti said, scooping a healthy serving of the dish for my plate. “Everything else I made from scratch by watching Giada and reading from a book.”

I took a bite from the chicken. It tasted surprisingly good. Could she not be more perfect? I thought bitterly. Five minutes into the meal, Mimi and Tahti began their strange conversation. “So if you’re an alien,” Mimi began. “What are you doing here with Alena?”

Tahti sipped from her glass. “Your auntie is my bride. We’re going to get married and do the joining.” She smiled widely at Mimi.

“You’re a lesbian,” Mimi blurted with a knowing smile. I was shell shocked and couldn’t speak. Were kids nowadays that informed? Dang.

“Yes little one, you are correct,” Tahti supplied.

Mimi nodded. “Lesbians are cool. I hear they like to play a game of sitting on each other’s faces. Is that true?”

I choked on the spaghetti I was eating and quickly gulped down on my glass of water. Tahti frowned at the question. “I’m not really sure about that. It didn’t come up on my research.” The alien glanced at me. “Is it true Alena?”

“Don’t ask me,” I mumbled, my face reddening. “I know nothing about lesbians.” Man! What were they asking me? Even my own sex life was non-existent. My boyfriend didn’t even kiss me in the lips. How was I supposed to answer that?

“I guess it will be a mystery to us,” Mimi said with a shrug. “Wait. If I have a crush on a girl, then am I lesbian Alena?”

“Well,” I answered carefully, my mind going into overdrive. “I think not. In my opinion, if you’re a lesbian then you have to be attracted deeply to a girl, like more than a crush. You have to love her.” I wasn’t about to say to a kid that the attraction should be on a sexual level.

“Then do you love Tahti? Because she said you’re going to get married.”

Tahti turned to me with an expectant look. Oh Dang. I cleared my throat. “Mimi, you know I have a boyfriend right? You met him a lot of times. His name is Niko.”

Mimi’s face turned into a scowl. “So you are cheating on Tahti?”

“No,” I said forcefully. “I’m not cheating on anyone.”

“What is cheating?” Tahti asked Mimi.

“Cheating is when you have someone and you also have another one at the side. Kind of like what auntie Alena is doing to you, and believe me girl, it’s not a good thing. First the person is so lovey-lovey. The next thing you know she is asking for divorce. I know because my dad did the same to mommy.” Mimi shook her head, placing her fork on the table. “I don’t approve of this Alena. If you have to choose one, choose the Alien.”

Tahti frowned. Staring at me she said, “You are cheating on me Alena.”

I face palmed myself. “Look, we’re not even together okay.” I was about to say that I didn’t have feelings for her but somehow, my mouth refused to say it. Weird. It was like my heart would turn to dust and it was the biggest sin I’d commit in my life. Must be all the confusion at their questions, I dismissed.

Just then, my mobile phone began to ring. I stood up from my chair. “Excuse me,” I mumbled. “Continue eating without me. I’m done anyway.”

As I began to walk out of the kitchen, I heard Mimi say to Tahti, “See? That must be her guy right now. She’s totally cheating on you.”

Without sticking around for the continuation of their speech, I jogged to the living room and grabbed my phone from the sofa. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” Niko answered. “Just checking if you’re okay.”

“Oh hi. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“Well that strange girl is with you,” he said. Basing from his tone, Niko didn’t trust Tahti one bit. Or at least he was irritated with her. “By the way, how are things? And what are you reading?”

My face warmed at his question. “Oh nothing. Just a random book about someone kidnapping a princess. You wouldn’t know it.” I bit my lip in embarrassment. It was actually a lesbian book that I picked up from the net recently. I didn’t even know what I was doing reading in that kind of genre. Ever since I’ve met Tahti, I’ve been searching for those kinds of novels. Totally unspeakable. “Anyway, Mimi is here and I’m kind of busy. Talk to you in school?”

“Sure!” Niko said cheerily. “I love you.”

I couldn’t say I loved him back. Even after 2 years. “Take care.” Pushing the end call button before the gnawing in my stomach turned to something else, I went to my room to take a nap. Mimi was with Tahti anyway, and the kid knew that she shouldn’t leave the house without me, so it wouldn’t do any harm if I closed my eyes for a second.

The next time I opened it, the clock already read 6 pm. Boy! I was sleeping more and more these days. Going to the modern living room, I found Tahti by herself, looking at her tablet. “Where’s Mimi?” I asked with a yawn.

“The person who sits in babies faces took her already.”

My eyes rolled automatically. “It’s called a babysitter Tahti, and they don’t literally do that.”

Tahti glanced at me. “Alena will you take a bath with me?”

Her question made me speechless for a moment. “No way!” I blurted after a while. “Why did you even ask that?” A blush began to make its way into my cheeks. Damn you alien. I wasn’t even a blusher to begin with. Now it was like second nature.

“Your cheeks are red,” Tahti observed with a scrutinizing look. “What are you feeling right now?”

I’d have to die first before I told her that I was embarrassed. A big N to the O. “I’m not feeling anything,” I lied. “Why are you even asking me to take a bath with you?”

Tahti answered with a straight face. “It said in the book I read that it is perfectly normal and healthy for two girls to take a bath together. Plus you said that you are not lesbian so it should be alright with you. You did say that right or were you lying and you really wanted to look at me?” She motioned to her body.

“What? No way!” I puffed my chest, though I didn’t know why I did that. “Let’s go to the bathroom so I can prove that I’m not affected by you at all.” Before I turned my back to her, I noticed Tahti’s small smile, but it disappeared so quickly that it must have been my eyes playing tricks on me.

Fast forward to five minutes later. I was standing outside the door of my own bathroom, listening as the water sloshed down on the bathtub. Tahti was already inside, doing her business while I was there, hesitation gnawing at me as I held the towel wrapped around me consciously.

What are you waiting for Alena? I asked myself. It’s just the alien inside, there’s no need to panic or feel insecure. Ha! As if insecurity was the real issue here. I frowned at my own thoughts. Well if I wasn’t insecure, then what was I afraid of? Surely she couldn’t be right. Swallowing the lump on my throat, I began to open the door.

As I stepped inside, steam from the warm water engulfed me, warming my body. The sight of Tahti’s nakedness beheld me. She was standing in the middle of the moderately sized bathroom, her pale skin more noticeable because of the blue tiles. I was careful not to concentrate on any of her body parts, though my peripheral vision still indicated that she was sexy and oh so yummy. Damn! Damn! Damn! No way did I say that.

“Shall we enter the bathtub?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.

“I don’t think that’s the way to do it,” I said, focusing my eyes on the tiles.

Tahti didn’t say anything. Instead, she went to the tub, carefully dipping one of her foot in the water to test out the temperature. When she was satisfied, she got in, sat comfortably, then motioned to me. “Well?” she said. I couldn’t answer for a while. Seeing her sculpted ass made me stop and stare. Ugh!

“Okay, here goes,” I murmured, peeling the towel away from my body and running straight to the bathtub so she wouldn’t have time to ogle anything. It was so wrong in so many places. Didn’t anybody ever teach me not to run inside the bathroom? I thought as I slipped and fell on guess where? Her front, that’s where.

“Urk!” I said as I flailed my hands wildly, feeling like I’d drown not because of the water, but due to the twin peaks that were suffocating me. I splashed and gasped until Tahti helped me sit properly in front of her, our legs almost tangled. It was the single most embarrassing thing that happened in my life, and I was only 17! There was more to come, I thought in horror. Good thing there were bubbles everywhere so I didn’t see things in detail.

“Sorry. It was an accident,” I said hurriedly, my heart dying a slow torturous death one beat at a time. My stomach was no different.

“Right.” Tahti smiled. “Be careful next time.”

I decided to ignore her teasing tone and just settled for an, “Okay.”

A few seconds later, Tahti asked, “Can you please wash my back?”

“Why not wash your own back?” I asked in a high pitched voice. Gosh. It didn’t sound like my voice at all.

“Because it will be better if you do it.” Tahti turned around quickly before I could object and waited, her back in front of me.

“You owe me for this,” I grumbled, taking the loofah on the right and squeezing body wash on it before carefully placing it against her porcelain skin. Tahti leaned back towards me. It was really strange. The scent of the soap in the water was there, but Tahti’s overpowering scent of spring still lingered in my nose. It was nice. More than nice, it was perfect and enticing. And nice. Did I say nice already?

Glancing at her skin, I saw the softness and smoothness. It was all I could think of when I began kissing her neck before I could stop myself. “That’s right Alena,” she murmured as I dropped the loofah and trailed my hands on her back.

“You’re so soft Tahti.” I turned her face to me so I could taste her lips.

Just when I was about to, the door to the bathroom slammed open. “Burglar!” I screamed, covering my chest with my hands, though I knew the bubbles protected it. Two figures got inside. Two females actually. Both about as tall as me and Tahti, with very beautiful faces. One looked like a French girl with flaming red hair, dark brown eyes, a straight nose, and a sophisticated air in her. While the other appeared to be Asian with her tanned skin, big eyes, and black hair. A sun-kissed beauty.

Both of them took one good look at us and kneeled on the floor. They began speaking in a language that was so familiar, yet I knew it was the first time I heard it. Kind of like an elfish tone to it that I only heard in the movies. Strangely, Tahti began speaking to them in the same manner. I didn’t understand a word.

Tahti appeared to be surprised at first, though I knew she recognized the two. Then her voice began to take a kind of scolding tone, and the two strangers seemed to bow down lower. When everything calmed down, Tahti spoke in English again. Thankfully!

“Introduce yourselves to Alena,” she said with a straight face.

The French looking girl stood up and bowed. “I’m Jorge.”

The other one also got up. “Hello, my name is Gina.”

Their eyes twinkled the same, though they had very different features. Both smiled at the same time. “We’re aliens from a different planet. Nice to meet you Alena. We heard you are our leader’s bride.”

“Huh?” was all I could say, my mouth agape.