Touched by an Alien

affect Martini.
    I shoved his head away. “Stop it, now!” I shifted my legs so my feet were against his hips and put my hands onto his shoulders, then pushed with all my might.
    It rocked him, but he didn’t really budge. “What’s the matter, princess? You trying to tell me you don’t like this?” He wrapped both arms around my back and pulled my breasts toward him. The thought that A-C men were as strong as they were fast flitted through my brain, but even a small woman can fight a strong man if she knows what she’s doing.
    Him calling me princess really helped, and I remembered I’d trained in kung fu for just this kind of situation. I wrapped my legs around his torso and started to squeeze. At the same time, I made an arrow point with my hand and shoved it into the base of his throat. I hooked my other arm around his shoulders to steady myself.
    His head jerked back, and he dropped me, but I was still squeezing. As he backed up, I let go and swung my legs down, shoved against his throat again, hard, and landed on the elevator floor.
    I backed away from him, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. “Stay away from me.” I wondered if there was an alarm on the elevator I could push.
    Christopher was against the other side of the car, and he looked dazed. “What am I doing?” he asked under his breath as he stared at my chest and rubbed his throat. I closed my bra, pronto. He looked up at my face. “I’m sorry.” He looked almost like Martini had just before he passed out. He slid down the wall, ending up in a squat with his head in his hands.
    It might have been a trick, but I was perfectly willing to ram my knee into his face, so I went to him and touched his shoulder. He jerked and looked up at me. “I don’t know why I did that. I mean, I never intended to tell you, let alone …”
    So he did like me. Then I had a good idea of why he’d gone all Kitty Does Roswell on me. I knelt down next to him. “It’s the memories, or whatever they are. They affected Jeff, too.” He winced at the mention of Martini’s name. “Jeff thought I was hating him when I wasn’t. It’s probably something like that.”
    “I don’t try to make love to someone I hate,” Christopher snapped. Nice to see he was recovering quickly.
    I chose to refrain from mentioning that what he’d been doing felt more like ravaging than making love. Not that I hadn’t enjoyed it. I had. A lot. But that wasn’t important now. “I don’t know what was being sent toward you, Christopher. Maybe it was giving off lust pheromones to you the way it was giving off feelings of hatred to Jeff. I think the memories are trying to do things that will cause you and Jeff to be out of control. Mephistopheles wants the two of you dead, after all.”
    He nodded. “Makes sense.” He rubbed his forehead. “Please don’t tell my father.”
    “I should think you’d be more concerned about my telling Jeff.”
    Christopher stood up and pulled me to my feet. “Jeff’s going to know the minute he’s around either one of us. He’ll just keep it between us, though; he’s not big on telling the authorities what really happened.”
    Considering Martini and Christopher were the authorities, this was funny. But I knew what he meant. “No worries, you stopped. I don’t see any reason to run to your father. Of course, you’re the one who usually tells on Jeff.” The last line slipped out, and I realized with horror that I wasn’t the one saying it.
    Christopher shot Glare #3 at me, but before he could say anything I put my hand on his mouth. “That wasn’t me. That was … him, I guess.” My hand shook. “Please don’t get mad, please don’t get amorous. Please help me.”
    The glare left his face. He moved my hand down and pulled me to him, gently. “Okay.” He stroked my back, and I leaned my head against his chest. “What does it feel like?”
    “I don’t know. I didn’t know I was going to say that until it came out.” The tears came, again without my being able to stop them. “It’s something emotional, I don’t cry all the time like I have been,” I managed to tell him.
    “I want to take you to the hospital section.”
    “No. We don’t have time for me to get examined, and if someone wants to hold me for tests, we’re all dead. He’s coming. I think he’s going to track based on me, and I’m here in the middle of your stronghold. And he has A-C blood, so that means he can see whatever you have cloaked.” I