Rolman stood in grime and violent rain next to his giant government-issued trash can, which rested in its place in line behind rows of stacked apartments.
Dark mud flooded down to where the alleyway dumped off in its center. Scraps and husks of tissues and other refuse stuck to pavement, failing to be swept along and out by the dingy current.
Rolman stared at the astonishing creature he had just watched careen with massive force off the tops of two garages opposite his. It lay still in the central dip and filthy water, unmoving. The creature had the upper body and head of a striking, handsome woman, slightly too long and tall to be human. She was naked. Her lower half was the body and legs of a horse.
Her eyes opened suddenly and were the bluest and fiercest he had ever seen.
Rolman watched as the stunning centaur scurried to her feet and immediately advanced. Her human half swooped down. He found it almost casual the way she darted in to clasp his wrists.
He knew right away he was completely in her power. Though her smooth, tan arms were slender as broomsticks, Rolman felt a brute strength to her grip and manipulations far beyond any he had ever known.
She slung him over her head like a laundry sack and held him high in place behind her human back.
Next came a gentle whir of blinding movement. Rolman saw streaks of rain and chaos like passing stars or snow closing in until all went white and still.
The centaur spoke, saying only, “I will return you.” Her voice was loud, twangy, and yet somehow carried a quiet note of timidity and care at its core. Maybe she was shy about speaking to humans.
Rolman realized his eyes were closed. Squinting slowly, what he began to see gave him the sudden urge to bolt away in panic. Her face hovered inches from his. She seemed to be studying him. Her massive, piercing eyes were now twin blue flames, so close. Though her head and face were small . . . smaller than his . . . Rolman felt the immensity of her whole form in the way her unseen parts surrounded as if to hold him fast in place.
He glanced sideways, seeing confusing signs of alien customs and designs. Yet all appeared clean and new, almost radiant in insectile beauty.
He closed his eyes again.
There was a lifting, and a general sense of gyroscopic spin.
He felt himself being turned, thrown, and then pressed down.
Then jostled sideways.
Then hoisted up.
Then pinned back down.
Nothing hurt. He was never uncomfortable.
There was a flood of warmth, along with a quick sense of release happening close by…
Rolman reopened his eyes. All was quiet in this, the centaur woman’s strange and pristine lair.
He blinked.
In another string of strong, constant motion, Rolman felt himself being dangled from his captor’s human back once more as she again held him helpless and dashed her way along through space.
Rolman fell to his knees back in the alley by the trash.
The rain seemed to float along and away as he began, for no apparent reason, to relive dim instances of a particular session with The Psychologist. It might have been the one with all those other people there. But he could have sworn Mrs. Rolman had been at the session he was remembering. He heard The Psychologist saying in his mind, “If your wife asks your son, ‘Do you think daddy wants so-and-so to be your mommy instead of me,’ your son will take the question at face value instead of reading between the lines the way adults do. So, the boy will likely be quite scared and not know how to answer.”
Hadn’t someone suggested learning the hard way might be good for kids at times, and even help them grow? But Rolman had no idea. And their son was hardly a kid anymore.
I don't know anything 