Miriam peeked over the top of her menu.  Alicia, like a sudden ray of light, burst into the lobby.  After chatting up the Maitre’D, she scanned the dining room, spotted Miriam and headed her way, bejeweled by a smile, waving an outstretched hand.  No surprise, every eye in the room zoomed in and locked on, the men aimed at the sculpted curves beneath her crimson leather mini.  Even straight woman in the dining room were drawn to her, casting glances aside to check if their male companions had fallen under the spell of the siren's sashay.  To a man they had, including the gay wait staff. 

"Vincent said you just got here.  Thank goodness!" Alicia gushed, "You know how bad midtown traffic can be."  She leaned over and brushed lips with Miriam before she sat down.  Within Alicia’s inner orbit, her aroma could drag you under--Chanel, overpowered by a sweet blend of pheromones unmistakably her own. 

Miriam smiled, fairly sure how Alicia would answer the question she was about to ask.  "Why do we have to go out to lunch?  I see you almost every other day,” she said.

"Is the accounting business so hectic that you can't go out for lunch with your best friend once every bluish moon?”  Alicia countered.  Miriam tucked in her grin, decided she shouldn't fall to it.  Alicia knew the moon wasn't really blue... therefore it must be bluish. One of the first things Miriam discovered about Alicia: it wasn’t worth the effort to try and correct her, much better for all concerned to just let it go.

That the two were close was a decade-long coincidence created by the Wellesley College Student Housing Center.  Unlikely roommates, Miriam was intentionally inconspicuous and happy to keep it that way while Alicia flashed through life like an orb of balled lightning.  Somehow, they clicked, rooming together during their final three years at school, the last in an off-campus apartment.

Alicia and Miriam had better live together--if Alicia was ever going to make it through Wellesley. 

Alicia was being less than truthful with her casual tone and the 'lunch out once in a while' routine. She had a pattern and would invite Miriam out somewhere whenever she had something personal to unload, evidently finding comfort in a crowd.  In the past, it had almost invariably meant man trouble.  "Is there something wrong, Alicia?  I mean, at home?"  Miriam took her best shot. She placed her hand over Alicia's and looked to find her eyes.  Alicia cut her off. "Why don't we order," she said. She swung in her chair toward the lobby, pretending to hunt down a waiter.  Miriam was sure her worst suspicions were true, a shame since Alicia and Ben seemed so happy, so committed.  If Alicia had man trouble and Ben was the man, someone must be having an affair. 

Their waiter, Enrique, ran down the specials and took their drink order.  Alicia asked for a Pina Colada; Miriam a Bombay Sapphire martini--extra dry with French vermouth, shaken.  "And a tiny twist of lemon," she added, getting an Enrique nod before he danced off. 

The two exchanged small talk until drinks arrived.  Ben's name never came up, unusual for Alicia and another sure sign of trouble.  Enrique carefully, almost ceremonially, placed down their glasses.  Miriam let her hands fall to her side and her shoulders droop.  She glared at her drink: a wide-brimmed frosted glass, perfumed vapors of gin, but four huge twists of lemon suspended within the ice-cold crystalline liquid.  "I asked for a twist of lemon, not four," she whispered to Alicia.   

"This is La Côte Basque... one of the best restaurants in New York, if not all over," Alicia pointed out, "You ask for a twist, they give you four.  Maybe even more.  More is better, isn't it?"

"It ruins the drink.  I only wanted a hint of lemon.  If I wanted lemonade I would have asked for it." 

"Well… we'll just take them out," Alicia suggested, reaching across the table toward Miriam's drink.   

"It's too late," Miriam snapped, though she began helping Alicia fish out the slices of lemon rind, regardless.  "The strong lemon taste is in the oils of the skin and they dissolve easily in alcohol."  With the four pieces captured and exiled to a bread plate, they clinked glasses and sipped.  The entire hollow of Miriam's mouth puckered and her saliva glands kicked painfully into overdrive.  "Oooo..." cooed Alicia, no doubt reacting to the lemon-twisted look on Miriam's face.  “  Send it back, for chrissakes," she said.  "This is the goddamned La Côte Basque, after all."  

Miriam thought about it for a second, decided not to.  "Never mind," she said, "Too much trouble.  I'll just nurse it."  Alicia took a sip from her drink and set it down on the lacy cocktail napkin.  With a second-thought look, she raised it to her lips for the third time and another healthy swallow.  Miriam would have to draw out whatever bee was buzzing around Alicia's half-empty bonnet.  "Forget my drink," Miriam said, leaning toward Alicia, using a softer tone.  "I know there's something bothering you.  Just come out and say it, dear.  We're friends, aren’t we?" 

"I'm so ashamed," confided Alicia, a tear-filled whisper, her voice about to break.

Miriam felt she had to force Alicia more to the point if they were ever going to get through this.  "You're having an affair, aren't you?"

Alicia turned away, deciding what to say or how to say it.  "Not exactly an affair, Miriam,” she sighed.  She put her hands on her lap and looked down at the table.  "You know how we've become so close... you and Joey...  me and Ben..."

"Your our dearest friends.  Like family to us," Miriam broke in.

Alicia put her right elbow up on the table and lowered her head to that hand to cover her eyes. "Damn it," she cursed, "I might as well just come out with it.  I’m so sorry, Miriam...  but Joey, Ben and I have been seeing each other."

"What do mean by 'seeing each other'?"  Miriam had half-yelled it, drawing stares from a couple seated nearby and Enrique, facing toward Miriam while taking their order.  The aftertaste of lemon began to sting and the blood rushed from her chest to her face.  Alicia looked frightened and pushed back in her chair.  "I didn't mean for it to happen... didn't want it to happen.  It was an accident, just one of those things that happens.  I can understand if you're upset, though."

"Upset?  You whore.  You'd spread your legs for a snake, assuming there was someplace on Fifth Avenue you could rent one." 

"It wasn't my fault.  Ben and Joey had a plan.  About three months ago, while you were away on that last Columbia trip, Joey was over watching the game with Ben and stayed for dinner.  They got me really drunk and stoned and came on to me, both at once."

"I can't believe you screwed my husband, Alicia." 

"Joey said it would be okay... said he talked to you about it.  I didn't realize until later how much he lied."

"Later?  Is this still going on?"

"I'm so sorry, Miriam.  The thing is, Ben and Joey seem to like screwing each other more than they like screwing me.  This is what upsets me most... that I might have had a part in that."

Miriam wasn't sure why she reacted the way she did, at while least out in a public place.  The empty feeling in her lower abdomen was new to her, as was the brewing rage, untouchable and beyond reason.  She picked up her martini and drained it, raising the stem toward the ceiling to slide down the last drop.  A chemical burn followed the liquid down the back of her throat and the fumes stabbed at her nose.  She held herself motionless, closed her eyes and tried to fight off an urge to tear Alicia’s face off.  "I need a cigarette," she said, and reached down for her Louis Vuitton. 

"You're not allowed to smoke in here," bawled Alicia.  She had turned to rubber, a pile of wet, whiny latex.

Miriam searched through her bag with nervous, twitching fingers and found the shape of what she craved most.  A split-second's hesitation, a sudden change of plans; she took a stab toward a different part of the bag, deep down near the bottom.  She ripped the small canister of pepper spray off its Velcro holster, sprang from her chair and rushed Alicia, hitting her dead between the eyes with a thick, hissing spay.  Miriam kept the nozzle steady just a palm's width removed from the up-turned tip of Alicia's perfect nose and held it there until the spray ran dry.  Alicia fell over backwards in her chair, screaming and writhing on the floor, her hips pumping in a grotesque copulating rhythm made worse by a skirt hitched up around her waist.  Alicia had 'forgotten' her underwear again. 

Nearby diners scattered, tripped and collided, upsetting furniture in a chain reaction that melted the entire room into chaos.  Miriam grabbed the edge of the table with both hands and flipped it hard on its side toward Alicia, now with her hands clawing at her eyes and her body unprotected.  She took the edge of the tabletop hard across the upper chest and let out a groan that nearly drowned out the crash of breaking glass and shattering china.  When all of the air had fled from her lungs it left her mouth agape, her fast-swelling lips formed to a silent scream. 

Miriam swung around into a running backpedal as she fled toward the door.  "Hope I broke your implants, you stupid bitch," she yelled.  On her way through the lobby, bystanders backed against the wall or dove behind the potted plants, too afraid or too in awe to challenge her. 

Out the revolving door and onto the street, she quick-timed it, heading west on 55^th toward the Avenue of the Americas and the Park, blending in with the midtown lunch crowd and keeping as far as possible away from the curb.

It was a stupid thing to do, macing Alicia.  The police would be called.  If they caught up with Miriam and questioned her, they'd no doubt find the two kilos of coke taped to her waist before she could sweet-talk her way out of an assault charge.  She slipped off her grey pinstriped jacket and folded it over her arm inside/out to expose the cream-colored lining.  She pulled her sunglasses from the inside breast pocket of the jacket and eased them on.  Using the tiny rearview mirror in the upper right inside corner of the right lens, she kept an eye out behind her for signs she was being followed: a head in the crowd keeping constant space between them, or a vehicle breaking traffic rules to keep up. 

Alicia may never know how lucky she was it was only pepper spray, though after what Miriam would do to Joey even someone as dim as Alicia should be able to figure it out.  Within that hitch of hesitation before grabbing the mace, Miriam had her palm around the stock of the 9mm, her finger on the trigger and a killing rage from places deep within clawing its way up through her heart.  The sensation, the lack of control, was unbearable!  Husband Joey, the bi-boy, would fare far worse than Alicia Miles. 

Miriam had paid it little mind when Joey screwed other men and tactfully looked the other way whenever there were signs, but Joey would pay full price for doing Alicia.  If he happened to be still at home, she'd cut off his balls and watch him bleed to death.  There would be a fire--a really bad one.  

There were a couple of things Miriam needed to do before doing Joey.  First, find something, anything, to rid her mouth of the lemon taste.  The quick rush of gin and citric acid seared her mouth and it was making her gag.  Next, a little privacy; someplace she could do something about the drugs and put an end to this madness. 

She was sure there was a coffee shop halfway up the next block, at least there was around six months ago.  Miriam picked up the pace and stretched out her steps to just short of a run. 

Fortunately, the coffee shop was still a coffee shop though the name had changed.  After a quick check behind her, Miriam ducked in, fell onto the back of the order line and kept her head down while paying for a liter of spring water.  The cafe was lunchtime packed, a combination of business types, shoppers and tourists, a strong aroma of summer sweat and fresh ground coffee.  She wove through to the back and waited outside the single-stall women's room until a young mother came out, guiding a smiling toddler in front of her.  After she securing the deadbolt, Miriam rinsed one large mouthful at a time until the bottle of water was nearly empty then waited a half-minute and drank the rest. 

The taste had been driving her mad.  She stepped out of her skirt, slipped off her pantyhose and thong and unbuttoned her blouse.  Four strips of two-inch wide duct tape, four plastic bags of Grade-A Columbian product lashed to her waist.  With a quick flick, she snapped open the Russian shiv, slit the tape down the front and peeled off the bags, one by one.  She slit the ends, shook the contents of all four into the toilet and flushed.  Once the tank refilled, she flushed a second time, tossed in the empty bags and the tape, waited for the tank to fill a third time and flushed again. 

Miriam picked up her handbag, holding onto the thick leather straps by two hands as she sat down on the toilet.

It had all gone wrong, everything.  The all-male crew on the support ship had turned slave to the various addictive white powders of earth, at least as much as Miriam/Kai-ili had become dependent on fine British gin and French cigarettes.  Worse, a steady increase in illegal forays to mate with human females had put their mission and perhaps even their lives in jeopardy.  With sperm wands as big as human baseball bats they used to pummel and penetrate, it was only matter of time until the humans captured an Atha-ili male in the act.

It might as well have already happened.  She pulled her wallet from her bag, found and unfolded a clipping torn from this morning's Times.

It was only a matter of time, and Kai-ili no longer wanted any part of it.  It had to end, no choice.  She slid the tip of her right pinky finger along the stitches on top of the strap.  After the scan processed, a small hidden door in the handle slid open, exposing a metallic tube a little smaller than the aerosol canister of pepper spray.  She put her bag to the floor, positioned the shiny case in the palm of her hand and slid out its inner workings.  The device vibrated to life; at the far end, eight tiny flashing violet lights arranged in an octagon with a small red dot at the center.  As soon she centered her eyes and fixed them on the array, there was an instantaneous flash as the device began to beam its instructions onto her visual cortex.  Kai-ili struggled to recognize some of the more complex meta-glyphs.  She had apparently been on earth long enough to begin to lose her Atha-ili standard.  Fortunately, there were plenty of diagrams.  After one pass through the tutorial, she repeated two key sections at high speed. 

It all seemed clear, easy enough.  She rose from the toilet to a shallow squat, bowed her legs open and positioned the blunt end of the device just inside the outer lips of her vagina, angled-up.  A tiny whir, a sense of pressure, it began to extend.  She could feel it well enough.  Human females could.  The octagonal display changed from violet to blue to green as the probe eased deep inside her, then passed quickly through yellow and orange to red, the flash rate steadily increasing.  When the display finally brightened to a solid, bright pale gold, a section around the circumference expanded to fix the tube in place and a tone signaled the probe ready to terminate the fetus, awaiting her final confirmation.  All Miriam had to do was picture the lights in the octagon flashing white and the probe would do the rest.  

Motionless, holding herself rigid, Miriam waited, sensing a spear of warmth deep inside her, along the full length of the probe.  She knew she couldn't hold on forever, and someone had just tried the knob on the restroom door.  She let go of a breath held in since the lights began to flash, took a deep drink of air and then another.  The probe held state, ready for the act of will that would instantaneously reduce the pre-child human to a liquid she could expel, wipe clean, and flush.

How naive she had been, to volunteer--one of the first Atha-ili to be inserted into a human mind, to control it from within.  Her purpose?  To bear a child that would be the equivalent of a thrill-ride at Disneyland for Atha-ili elders seeking a much-needed vacation from their nearly interminable rabbit lives.  They wanted a clean slate of experience--fresh human babies--and would pay dearly for it.  For the Tourism Secretariat, this promised to be an extremely profitable business. 

The abort device was only to be used in an emergency--some adverse medical condition or accident.  The accident turned out to be the wave of jealousy that swept over Kai-ili, coming from the part of her that was still Miriam.  Primal jealousy, not merely that of a woman scorned, but rooted to instincts of survival and care for the child she carried.  The Athas-ili, over time and in response to their hedonistic tendencies, had utilized genetic science to wipe away most of their emotional responses, nearly all of their empathy, thousands of years ago giving up all natural means of procreation.  They were blind to what it might mean to feel human, and had therefore neglected any way to control it. 

In a logical sense, she was Kai-ili of Lesser Atha.  In any emotional sense, human chemistry claimed the day and she might as well be Miriam. 

All it takes is a simple picture to trigger the device, an image created in the mind of eight bright lights.  Joey's child would be gone, a child that only this morning Miriam had wanted so much.  Damn Alicia. 

The jealous rage began to rise again to reclaim her, bringing up bile and a sour lemon sting to her throat.  Strange, maddening jealousy.  A mindless panic Kai-ili never knew could exist, bearing thoughts she could only imagine just a year ago when she became Miriam.

It was on the day she met Joey, Miriam’s perfect genetic match.

Love was an unexpected complication, jealousy an unpredictable trap.  Kai-ili knew if she ended the life of the child, her anger would force her to kill Joey.  If she kept the baby alive and bore it into the world, there was still a chance she could find a way to forgive him. 

She brought an image to mind the device would accept, though not the eight bright lights needed to activate it.  It was an image of the lights turned off, the command to cancel the procedure.  Deep inside, she felt the girth of the tube shrink and the sensation of pressure ease.  It began to retract, the lights near the base flashing three times a bright red before fading.  The last few millimeters of the tube withdrew with a tickling sensation as the retracted end of the suppository broke free.  She retook her seat on the toilet, dropped tube on the floor and crushed it under her heel.  If Kai-ili didn't want to be found, no one could find her.  It wouldn’t be difficult to kill the crew and take the ship. 

The son of Miriam and Joey Carpenter would be born to another purpose, at least one human being who would escape the fate of the living dead.  Kai-ili wept, broken-hearted.  It was too late for Miriam.  All that remained were her feelings.

She wiped herself, rose and dressed, then swept the remnants of the human pregnancy termination device into her bag and unlocked the restroom door.  A half-dozen women and girls were waiting outside, lined up against the wall, most of them with their arms folded.  "Sorry," she mouthed, and excused her way toward the exit.  After a quick glance in both directions, she headed toward Central Park. 

While standing in line to buy another bottle of water off a street vendor, she felt something deep inside, a tiny flutter.  So that’s what it feels like, the baby moving.  A tingling rush climbed her spine and a newfound power pulsed with the beat of her heart. 

Miriam filled her with joy and Kai-ili so loved her.