Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
And that freaked me out for a variety of reasons. It would, anyone, but it freaked me out particularly because I’d never exchanged those types of fluids, in that way, with anyone. So, this meant I got to lose my v-card to an alien man on another planet. Or else die. Talk about pressure.
Tanya Smithers finally loses v-card, but only under threat of death.
They were vague about the meet and greet. No one said it would be a bunch of aliens scrambling like looters snatching up women as if we were televisions. When Jetta snapped about how ludicrous it was, they said we’d have a meet-up in a few days to address any concerns, not expanding further, doing what I can only describe as distracting us if our questions got tough. They kept making it seem like we were rescuing mourning men by coming to be matched with them. Mail-order Earth brides. And we should be thrilled and feel honored to have been chosen. But we weren’t given a choice in the matter. We were tricked. And whenever one of us tried to get out of it (I hadn’t tried, because I knew it was pointless), the girl would be shown the contracts she’d signed. Only, I hadn’t signed them. And yet I didn’t point that out. Instead, I watched, I listened, I took it all in.
I lived alone. I had no family left. My mom (I never knew my dad) had passed away a few months ago due to a massive stroke that took her without warning and way too young. I had a very small circle of friends; I’d always been an introvert. I’ve spent my life with my nose in books. That’s how I’d spend my time even if I weren’t a librarian. When I’m not at the library smelling books, touching books, recommending books, and shelving them, I’m at home reading them.
Why am I still a virgin at 26, besides being a shy bookish type? I’ve had one boyfriend, Giorgio, and we dated for a long while and broke up three months back. We’d never had sex. He didn’t seem to have a sex drive. At first, it was a relief that he never pushed. I’d concluded that he was either traditional and planned to wait until he got married or that he was sort of A-sexual. And our relationship was more like best friends who held hands, than anything. Giorgio was attractive and masculine, but he had a secret. Not long after my mother’s funeral, I figured it out when I found man-on-man porn on his phone by accident. I didn’t confront him about it. I just finally broke up with him using the typical “it’s not you, it’s me” since my mom had died, and I told him I wanted to just be friends. He readily agreed and seemed relieved, even. Up until my leaving, we still met up once a week. He still held my hand, hugged me copiously, and snuggled up on the sofa when we watched television. I told him about my ‘transfer.’ I didn’t tell him about the sexual harassment. He was happy for my new adventure.
Giorgio was good-looking and muscled in a Clark Kent bookish way and he asked me out after spending months being friendly whenever he came to the library my first year working there. On our second date, he took me home to meet his very religious and traditional parents, who seemed completely relieved to meet me. From there, we fell into a pattern of comfort. I didn’t date anyone else. He didn’t seem to date anyone else, though I have no idea if he did. We spent most Saturday nights together. We held hands. And… that was it.
Me, comfortable having a guy who was a bestie, who I didn’t have to have sex with because he never tried to pursue it. We’d groped one another once when I had too many banana daiquiris and got amorous, but he put the brakes on, and I’d never complained. I just rolled to put my head on his lap and cried a little, apologizing, while he stroked my hair until I passed out. We never discussed it afterwards.
I was afraid of sex so at the beginning, his lack of sexual interest was welcome. I had to admit, though, in the past year it’d started to nag at me, make me feel undesirable.
Bottom line, though, no one would miss me being gone from the face of the Earth. My small group of friends would forget me easily.
Being so shy and having had a bad experience at fifteen years old when a drunk neighbor very nearly sexually assaulted me made me afraid of sex.
That’s why it was so difficult for me to talk to HR at work when Mr. Derringer found more reasons to spend time at our branch, more reasons to delegate things to me, and took every opportunity to sexually harass me. As a powerful politician’s nephew, my guess was he pulled strings to make the problem of my report go away. Away, as in, leaving the planet. I guess it could’ve been worse. He could’ve had me killed. I was almost certain Marsha from HR had met an awful fate. I knew stuff like that could happen when you got in the way of a powerful person’s agenda.