When I awoke in a strange bed on my first day at Bliss’ house, my emotions quickly cycled from confused to panicked before finally settling back on despair. I laid there for some time, wondering what I should do with myself. I no longer had any responsibility or direction, and my only desires were floating in orbit, miles out of my reach. Would Bliss come for me? Was I allowed to wander the house myself? I wasn’t sure. 

Eventually, my need to piss grew strong enough that I made my way to the bathroom. After relieving myself, I decided that as long as I was up I might as well risk stepping out of my room, if only to investigate the sounds of movement coming from downstairs. I made my way down to the kitchen, where I was greeted with the smell of spices and the sound of minor key music. There was a woman there, cooking something in a pan on the stove as she hummed to the music. She was short and chubby, with purple hair and pentagram-covered pajamas.

She noticed me and for a moment I felt terror grip me. Would she be frightened? Would she be angry? I shouldn’t be here.

But she just smiled and said “Oh, hello. Want some fake corned beef and hash?”

She was acting like everything was normal, so I decided to do the same. “There’s fake corned beef?”

“I found it at the health market. I hope it’s not disgusting.” As if to punctuate her reply she broke off a piece of a candy bar sitting on the counter and popped it in her mouth. “I’m Anise.”

I started to respond with the name my Queen had called me, but halted myself. I would need to return to using my Earth name. “I’m Ross.”

She smiled again. “It’s nice to meet you.” Then she filled a plate and placed it on the table.

I sat down and took a bite, my first time in ten years tasting Earth food that wasn’t a fabricated copy. The spices were at once strange and familiar. I knew that I had tasted them, I knew that I had loved them, but I couldn’t remember when I had tasted them. It was like finding an old treasure I hadn’t realized I had lost.

“So who were you with?” Anise asked. “A succubus or something?”

I looked up at her, confused.

“I mean, you were a lackey like the rest of us, right? A loyal follower to some powerful person with grand designs? An assistant or a second-in-command, maybe even a servant? I was a vampire’s thrall. With an outfit like that, I imagine whoever you were with was pretty sex-obsessed.”

I suddenly became aware of what I was wearing. In space, where I was the only human around, the way I dressed never mattered. Since the aliens preferred a warm environment, I had taken to wearing a sarong-like garment and nothing else. On Earth, however, I was a man wearing a skirt. There were, I suddenly remembered, few things so humiliating.

“An alien,” I said quietly, trying not to let my panic show. She was going to make fun of me. I was sure of it. The next thing she said would be something that would cut me to the core.

“I don’t think I’ve met any aliens. I’m pretty sure Normalcy tries to keep them off the planet.”

A small amount of the tension that gripped me relaxed. Maybe she didn’t care. There had to be a few people around who wouldn’t make fun of a man for wearing a skirt. Still, I knew she had to see how ridiculous I looked. She was probably just holding back her comments out of politeness. I needed to get new clothes as soon as possible.

“I lived on her ship,” I explained.

At that moment, Bliss entered, greeting us with a quick “Good morning.”

“No work today?” Anise asked.

Bliss shook her head. “Called in. I need to help Ross get settled in. He was dropped off at the enclave with nothing.”

Anise put a hand to her mouth in a slightly exaggerated shocked expression. “That’s horrible. He’s lucky he found you.”

After breakfast, Bliss took a plate of food upstairs for the other housemate, Celeste, promising that I would have an opportunity to meet her later. Then she led me out to the garage, where there were two sedans, a shiny green hybrid and a rusting yellow two-door with chipped paint and a broken tail light. We took the latter.

As we drove, I sank low in my seat, terrified of how people would react if they noticed me. Thankfully, clothes were at the top of Bliss’ itinerary and we went to a thrift store first. Bliss led me inside and I simultaneously tried to avoid catching the clerk’s attention while checking to see how he reacted to me. Thankfully, he seemed more interested in his phone.

Bliss gestured to one part of the store. “Shirts and pants are over there.” Then she gestured to another. “Skirts and blouses are over there, if you prefer those.”

“Of course I don’t,” I snapped.

Bliss held her hands up appeasingly. “Hey, that wasn’t a judgement. Guys who wear skirts are awesome.”

Feeling my face redden, I quickly walked over to the pants and started to look through them, quickly realizing that I didn’t remember my size. Thankfully, Bliss was there to help me pick out a few pairs that seemed right to try on. I quickly chose a button up, as well, and made my way to the changing room. Once I was properly dressed, I was able to take my time and pick out additional clothes that I actually liked. Unfortunately I soon remembered that finding clothes I liked was a near impossibility. I had never been particularly passionate about fashion, and shopping trips with my parents had always been painfully boring searches through endless amounts of dull clothes to pick out a few articles of clothing that completely failed to stand out from the rest. The only difference now was that I was permitted to move at my own pace, choosing a few t-shirts, button-downs, jeans, and slacks in just a few minutes.

Once I had a decent, if still somewhat small, selection of clothes, we moved on to several other stores to purchase shoes, socks, underwear, and toiletries. As we stopped for lunch at a deli, Bliss considered what else I would need.

“Entertainment, I suppose,” she said between bites of her B.L.T. “There’s the TV in the living room; we have a few different streaming services. If you’re into video games, good luck. Celeste keeps all the consoles in her room. I guess we could stop by the used book store. Then there’s work.”

I felt my stomach tighten. I would need to work, of course. Everyone had to on Earth and not wanting to was childish. But a full time job was forty hours a week. Not to mention lunch breaks and travel times. The idea that so much of my life would be dedicated to work was absolutely abhorrent to me. But without an alien queen to take care of me, what else could I do?

My terror must have shown on my face because Bliss quickly added “You don’t have to worry about that right away. Let yourself get adjusted to life back on Earth first. It would just be nice if you could help out with the bills at some point. Right now I’m the only one working. Did you have a job before you were abducted?”

“I was training to be a vet tech.”

“But you weren’t qualified yet?”

“No,” I replied, trying to hide the fact that this was a relief. I wasn’t sure if I could work with animals without crying over the ones I had lost.

“Well, I’m sure we can find you something,” Bliss said. “I could even put in the good word for you at my job, if you don’t mind data entry.”