Author: R. J. Erbacher

I was holding hands with the ‘alien’ as we walked through the forest. I had been dating her for the past three weeks now and even though I had seen her naked she wouldn’t sleep with me. She was stunning beyond compare and I really wanted to be with her.

I had gone for a swim on a warm summer day, parked my pickup, stripped, took off my glasses and waded into a calm lake. I was about chest high in the water when I heard a small splash not far in front of me. I thought it was a fish breaking the surface but the displacement that ejected up went a good distance, meaning it had come from above. There were no overhanging trees or nearby cliffs and there wasn’t a soul for miles so nobody could have thrown a rock. And although the original splash wasn’t much bigger than the bobber at the end of a fishing line would make, from the height of the recoil it must have been heavy and fast. All I could figure was that something fell from space.

I waited for thirty seconds expecting something to bubble up. I began to feel a warm tingling as if a thousand fish were nibbling at the hairs of my skin. Then from the spot of the splash, the head of a woman rose slowly and began walking towards me. I scrambled back to the shore and yanked on my pants and fumbled for my glasses to make sure I was seeing this. When she emerged in front of me, she was naked and beautiful. I offered her my sleeveless flannel shirt, but she just gaped at it like I was giving her a Chinese puzzle box to solve. I helped her put it on and button it and she was unfazed by the process. She reached out her hand and touched the side of my head, and a hot electric charge sparked at my temple, yet I could not pull away. I felt a connection that was unmatched. When she pulled her hand back, I was in love.

She abruptly began talking as if we both just serendipitously sat down at a bar alongside each other and shared a laugh. Normal conversation, except that she wasn’t from the next county, she was just from another galaxy, and not afraid to tell me so. I decided to take her to town, bought her some jeans, a couple of T’s and a pair of boots at the Thrifty Shop and then we went to the diner. She’d been sleeping on my couch ever since. Well, at least lying down and pretending. I’d never actually seen her with her eyes closed. I asked her repeatedly if she would like to join me in my bed, but she always politely refused. It didn’t diminish my desire for her.

Tonight, I had one hand entwined in hers and the other holding a flashlight as we weaved in amongst the trees. She liked walking outside after dark and staring up at the stars. After a while we came upon an old barn and stopped to take a look. I found the courage to ask her what was on my mind.

“Do you have another form – where you come from?”

“Form? Yes, I suppose so.”

“Is that why you won’t be with me? You’re not all slimy with tentacles, are you?”

“No.”

“Do you have any superpowers that would hurt me?”

“I do have an unimaginable force.”

“Really? Can you… show me? Just a little?”

She sighed, took a few steps ahead, between me and the barn, faced me, spread her arms.

“Shine the flashlight on the wall and tell me what you see?”

I did as she said, and the side of the barn lit up.

“What am I looking for?”

“Watch.”

Suddenly the barn vanished. I blinked and adjusted my glasses. The barn was actually still there, it just didn’t have the light shining on it anymore. The light stopped at her figure. In fact all of the light was bending toward her, causing her to glow like she was a holy effigy.

“You’re… absorbing the light? Wait, only a black hole can do that.”

“There you go.”

“You’re a black hole?”

“A little one.”

“How can that be? They are the most powerful things in the universe.”

“Well, if I used all my force, I could absorb not only the light, but you, the barn, and three or four of the closest planets.”

“Whoa.”

“That is why you can’t ‘be with me’ because that would suck, in all senses of the word.”

Now, I wanted her even more. Yeah, she was a whole lot of woman.