Dedicated to the hilarious LovelyLivvi.

03. Housekeeping

“Hey, stowaway, sheets and pillows requested in room 349 and clean 350.” The head housekeeper was a grey alien with big black beady eyes and bald head. She looked like the lady in the painting I'd seen in the foyer. She was probably a relative of the owner for all I knew.

“Got it.” I balanced the stuff in one arm as I opened the trolley and refilled the conditioners. I’d developed some mad skills in the last few days. I rolled my trolley into the service elevator.

I was in bed when I slipped out of my dimension. I always go to bed dressed. I have had several situations when I transfer to another dimension in the middle of my bedtime. One of those times I woke up on a beach sputtering and coughing out burning salt water to a very handsome lifeguard. Another time I woke up in a snowstorm while wearing night wear and bunny slippers. I almost froze my breasts off.

Basically an unpredictable chronic condition has encouraged me to live a perpetually prepared lifestyle. Like an OCD boy's scout.

This time I had slipped real hard and fallen into a rocket ship. A hotel that travels trans-galactic. The thing is long and wide like a cruise liner ship and chock full of aliens. Actual aliens.

It intercepted me just as I was slipping into another world. I woke up in the captain's cabin and was immediately questioned as to my appearance.

So I reacted with the obvious course of action... I pretended I had amnesia and couldn't remember who I was or what I did. They threatened me into this job. It was that or a drop off at the next police stop.

I decided to take the job. I wasn't going to be here long anyway. One day someone would come looking for me and find an empty bed and I'd be back to my own life to the people I love. Hopefully.

I made it up to the third floor and walked halfway down the corridor and stopped outside room 350. I was breathing heavy. Damn, these hallways are really long.

I knocked several times before using the master card to open the door. I started with the bathroom. To say it took a while would be an understatement. I spent most of my time holding my nose. I got out of the bathroom and tiptoed around the new doormat so I didn’t dirty it.

I went further into the room, spotted the sheets on the floor and sighed. Then I saw scales, green and long, like a… tail. Then I saw her. She was lying down on the floor, under the sheets. She was laid out on the floor, crying into her arms.

“Oh my god… I am so sorry. I didn’t know you were in. I’ll just—” I stopped because I realized she wasn’t mad at me, she wasn’t moving. “Do you need some help?”

I didn’t know what the protocol was, there was a sexy nude, reptilian alien lady weeping on the floor. What do I do? Does she even speak English? I tried Spanish.

“E…Estás…estás bein?” Okay I wasn’t great at Spanish. She turned her head to look at me. Aha! Spanish it is. “Sorry, muy no hablo español.”

She got up. The way she moved was graceful, it was like she was slowly gliding towards me. “Are all employees here so inconsiderate when it comes to privacy?”

Not Spanish, I was finding it hard to concentrate on her words.

“Uh, I, I’m sorry. I’ll leave. I didn’t mean to…” I was babbling like a fool, she was making me nervous.

Her buoyancy was incredible. She seemed like she was oozing with it from every pore. How could a woman look so vulnerable one moment and so confident the next? The way she collected herself was amazing.

She slid straight to the table; the sheet drew behind her like the train of a wedding gown. I couldn’t see any legs. She looked like she was floating wherever she went. She sat down at the table, poured herself a glass of champagne. I watched in amazement as her tail curled up around the back of the chair.

“Take a seat.” She presented to me, it was more of an order so I sat down quietly. “Have a drink.”

“I really should be getting back to my job…” I really didn’t care but sitting with her was making me nervous. But instead of doing anything else, I did as she told me. It felt as if she needed me to more than anything. I poured myself a drink and took a sip.

She smiled at me and it was the most gorgeous thing in the world. That light curl of her lips, that slow appraising blink of her lashes over silver eyes set my stomach aflutter. I’d never felt like this around a female before.

I didn’t like that. So I opened my mouth and broke the spell. “Why were you crying on the floor?”

She didn’t like that. Her face twisted into an irritated scowl. “I hardly thing it is any of your business.” Her accent was strange but it only appealed to me even more.

“You asked me to take a seat.” I noted as I relaxed a bit. “You wanna talk about it. Don't you?”

“Do you know what I am?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Never met anyone of your kind before.” I said, carefully picking my words, trying not to offend her.

“I am a Reptilio… We are the most vicious species you’ll find in the Rameydia galaxy. How do you recognise one of us? By the hideousness of our appearance. The uglier the better.”

“Wow, I’d make it great among your kind.” I muttered thoughtlessly.

She actually hissed at me in irritation.

“I am very sorry about that. I don’t know why I am saying this. But to be honest, if you’re trying to look ugly you’re failing miserably.” I slapped a hand to my mouth. What the hell is wrong with me today?

“It’s alright. It’s expected… you see, I am not completely Reptilio. The Reptilio would only accept mates of a stature compatible to their own if the species didn’t match, they consume their other half.” I shuddered at the idea but she simply inspected her nails. “My mother had an affair out of her species. She admired the rugged power of my father.”

“My mother was a traveller, a drifter. When my father came looking for her, she had already made it far away, little did she know that when she escaped, she escaped with two lives.” She looked at me intensely.

“What happened then?” My voice was barely above a whisper.

“Sirens are the most deadly maters out there. They attract everyone and anyone no matter who they are. Sometimes that’s bad, but sometimes it can bring you love lots of it. Of all kinds, shapes and sizes.”

“Well, in that case you’re not crying from a lack of love, I guess.”

Her expression showed unparalleled remorse. “My existence depends on absorbing others lower on the power chain to survive.”

I tilted my head to the side. “So if you wrote a song, it would go; ‘anyone that loves me ends up in my tummy’?”

Her eyes cut to me so quick I could feel whiplash till the next day. “You have very little control of your mouth.” She remarked in a scathing tone.

“None at all.” I told her. “You still haven’t told me why you were crying.”

“I just consumed my husband. My love of six years. I fought it so hard. He didn’t argue about morals or standards. He understood my compulsion and facilitated it. But tonight, even though he knew I was running dry, he tempted me. He forced me to… I warned him, I tried to stop it but—” Her tears pained me, I couldn’t stand it, I couldn’t stand her sorrow.

I shifted closer and took her hand. “I’m so sorry.” I whispered.

She looked at me with a pause, tears glistening. She leaned towards me and pressed her soft lips to mine.