Excerpt From: The Deviants

© Copyright Treva Harte, 2001

Chapter One

“Cheryl, I swear I’d be really happy if men were just swept up and sent to another planet.” Tory stared down at her glass of beer. Two other women at the bar overheard her and giggled. Tory lowered her voice. “I mean, this is the final humiliation. Can you believe that Jeff was lying to me? Jeff!”

“Well, we always said he was too good to be true.” Cheryl signaled the waitress for another tonic water.

“Yeah, but I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, I believed he was in love with me and that he was going to get around to asking me to marry him in a few weeks or so and—” Tory put her chin in her hands. “Well, I just did. Then I find out he’s been hot for some little clerk in his own office the entire time. He used me! He used me to make her jealous.”

“I don’t hear you saying you’re broken-hearted about the whole thing, though.” Cheryl didn’t sound too concerned. Then again they’d known each other a long time.

“Well, I ought to be.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Jeff may be the last heterosexual single male on the planet who seriously wanted me. I mean, who I thought seriously wanted me. I was working up an interest in him.” Tory tried not to sound defensive.

“Oh yeah. I could tell.”

“I was.”

“Don’t strain yourself.” Cheryl looked at her knowingly.

Tory began to laugh.

“I do love you, Cheryl. It’s too bad I can’t change my sexual preference. You’d be a great partner. You’ve got it all—you’re good-looking, you and I can talk together about anything . . .”

She grinned. “I’m six months’ pregnant with my husband’s child,” Cheryl reminded her. “My hormones may be out of whack, but this really wouldn’t be the time to turn to an alternative lifestyle.”

The two of them laughed. Cheryl patted Victoria on the shoulder. “You’re gorgeous. I’d kill to have that strawberry blonde hair of yours. Plus you have a great job and a good sense of humor. Don’t worry. You’ll meet the perfect guy for you.”

Tory smiled but wondered how often Cheryl had repeated that mantra to her over the years. She used to say the same thing to Cheryl once upon a time. But Cheryl had made it happen for herself years ago. Tory was twenty-eight and figured things were definitely not going according to plan.

“Listen I already kept you and the baby up late enough. Why don’t we call it a night?” Tory put some money down for a tip and Cheryl carefully got up from the barstool.

“My back is killing me, I must admit.” Cheryl rubbed it as they walked to the door.

They got to the little parking lot outside and Cheryl got into her Camry. Tory sighed. Cheryl even had a married woman’s car. She waved to her friend as she left the parking lot and then took her car keys and walked over to her Cabrio.

Tory looked at the car. She’d bought the Cabrio to make a statement. It stated she was single. Single women bought cute little convertible cars. Was that the right statement to make? She didn’t know any more. It didn’t seem to be getting her much in the way of action.

The two giggling women from the bar walked out into the parking lot behind her. Victoria put her keys in the car door and decided there was something wrong in the world when all these women couldn’t find dates for a Friday night.

“And we’re not the ones wrong. It’s men,” Tory said out loud.

One of the pair walked over to her and tapped her on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” The woman spoke English perfectly – maybe just a little too perfectly. She didn’t sound American. “We seem to be lost. Could you point us in the right direction on our map?”

The other woman held up her map, looking confused.

They were nice-looking women. She’d noticed them at the bar, sitting next to Cheryl. One was tall and blonde, the other petite and brown-haired. Tory decided to feel sorry for them as well. After all, they were as alone as she was on a date night. Any man ought to want them, she thought with a glower. In fact, he ought to want all of them.

Her eyes narrowed. Or at least there should be one man for each woman.

Yeah. That was it.

“Sure, I can probably help.” Tory walked toward them. “Where do you need to go?”

She felt a sharp prick in her arm and looked down. Was that a needle? Before she could figure it out she saw nothing but blackness and could feel herself pitching forward…

* * *

“Thank Zorah! She isn’t dead!” Tory heard a female voice say above her.

“Of course not, Mitzi. You always worry needlessly.” Another female voice said that. The voice sounded relieved, despite the words.

“Well we didn’t know how this one would react to the drugs. She isn’t one of us.” Mitzi’s voice sounded a little fretful then.

“She’s female, isn’t she? She’ll become one of us.”

“That remains to be seen, Amma.” Mitzi didn’t sound reassured.

“Nonsense. How could she prefer that land of hers? It’s a barbaric place.” Hands began to gently bathe Tory’s face with a wet cloth.

“Here now. Tory, isn’t it? Time to wake up now,” Amma told her.

“My arm hurts,” Tory grumbled, her mind groggy. “My head too.” She wasn’t sure if she should do what this Amma wanted, especially since it appeared the two of them had drugged her, but she didn’t know what else to do.

She glanced back and forth between the two women suspiciously. It also didn’t seem to be the right time or place to inform them that her real name was Victoria.

“I’m afraid the arm is a bit bruised. Amma was a little too enthusiastic when she jabbed you,” Mitzi told her. “And when you toppled over, you hit your head before we could cushion the fall. I am sorry.”

Tory opened her eyes then. Mitzi was the woman with the odd voice who had asked her for directions. The petite, fragile-looking one. Damn. They’d seemed so nice, too.

“Why did you do this to me?” Tory burst out. “I’ve never done anything to you. Did you rob me?” she ground out. “I don’t think I have more than twenty dollars with me. This doesn’t make any sense!”

She winced from the sound of her own yelling. Mitzi’s face crumpled at the noise too.

“Hey, don’t shout at her.” Amma wound her arm around Mitzi’s waist and glared down at Tory. “We did you a favor. After all, you asked for it.”

“I asked for it!” Tory’s voice rose again. “That’s what men have told women for years to justify horrible things. Now I have two women telling me the same thing! I didn’t ask for you to do anything.”

Mitzi whimpered and hid her head on Amma’s shoulder.

“But you did.” Amma patted Mitzi on the back. “You said you wanted men on another planet. Well, welcome to Tierra. Everything here is just the way you wanted it to be.”