Lady and the Space Tramp: A Space Age Fairy Tale: Celestial Mates Read online

  Lady and the Space Tramp

  Star Crossed Tales

  By J. M. Page

  Copyright 2017 J. M. Page

  Copyright J. M. Page 2017

  Cover design by J. M. Page

  This book is a work of fiction. All the characters in this book are fictitious and any similarity to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidence.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  “Ballok! In my office,” said the stern tone of Director Vaina. She pursed her lips, her shrewd eyes driving right through the cupid.

  Ballok cursed under his breath, trying to tidy his desk best he could before he hopped down from his seat. His eyes were at the same height as the top of the desk and as he trudged through the office of Celestial Mates Headquarters, he couldn’t help but wonder why they’d never taken into consideration the minute stature of their employees.

  Nevertheless, that was only a momentary distraction. If the Director wanted to see him in her office, that wasn’t good news for Ballok.

  Though, he’d be delusionally optimistic if he ever thought there was good news for him here. Since he’d been hired some time ago, Ballok had earned a reputation for himself. Where most of the cupids were naturally gifted at finding destined soulmates across time and space, Ballok… wasn’t.

  He’d not yet managed to successfully match anyone, and this was likely the talk he’d dreaded for months. The talk where he got fired.

  He swallowed, his short legs barely lifting from the ground as he walked. True, walking wasn’t necessary for interdimensional beings like himself, but it prolonged the inevitable, at least.

  Unfortunately for Ballok, it was inevitable that he’d arrive at the Director’s door and once he had, he was met with that stern soul-sucking gaze of hers once again.

  “Have a seat,” she said. A command, not a request.

  Ballok walked over to the chair, planted his palms on the seat, and hoisted himself into it where his feet dangled a foot off the ground.

  The Director considered him for a long moment before pinching the bridge of her nose, her eyes screwed shut as she sighed.

  “I just received a call from a very nice Earth woman wondering why we haven’t even proposed a match for her niece yet,” Vaina said, dropping her hands to her desk where she clasped them together, squeezing tight.

  “She told me that she put in the request three months ago and has never even had a preliminary visit, can you believe that?”

  Ballok swallowed, his mouth dry, his hands nearly dripping with nervousness. He wasn’t exactly sure what the Director was talking about, but he was clearly here for a reason and none of this seemed exactly celebratory.

  “She seemed quite concerned when I told her that our preliminary visits are typically within the first week after a request.”

  Ballok nodded, his ears whining like a radio trying to find signal.

  “Naturally, I assured her that we would have the perfect match for her beautiful niece by tomorrow, to make up for the inconvenience,” the Director said, leveling Ballok with a sharp gaze that made him squirm.

  “Imagine my surprise when I got off the phone and looked up the file, only to find the cupid assigned to the case is you,” she hissed.

  Ballok gulped, his throat raspy when he answered. “M-me?” Somehow, he didn’t remember the case in question, but he’d also already accepted that he was terrible at his job.

  Vaina nodded, her neck stiff. “Yes. You. We’re going to keep our promise to that lady, do you understand me, Ballok? You have until the end of today to find this girl’s mate.”

  His eyes went wide and he gripped the arms of the chair until the wood began to splinter. “So… You’re not firing me?”

  Vaina sighed heavily and shook her head, seeming to think it was a poor decision even as she said it aloud. “No, not yet. But fail me this time, Ballok, and you’ll be in the unemployment line with all the other unsuccessful cupids. There’s not a lot of work out there for your kind outside of this agency.”

  Ballok nodded, the message coming in loud and clear. This job was the only thing he had going for him. He couldn’t lose it. He had to do this right. “I understand, Director, I won’t let you down.” Even as he said it, there was an uncertainty in his voice.

  Vaina heard it too, but she didn’t acknowledge it at least. “I should hope not,” she said. “You’re dismissed.”

  Ballok warped back to his desk, not wasting time with walking now. He had a deadline and an impossible task. He dug through the stacks of files long forgotten in his inbox and found the case in question. “I hope you’re ready,” he said, flipping the folder open to read the intake form. “Melody Martin, I’m going to find your soulmate.”

  Chapter One

  Melody

  “Melody, it’s time for my medicine,” Aunt Ermine said from the other room. “And where’s the tea I asked for, Melody? My throat is so dry.” She coughed for emphasis, as if Melody couldn’t hear the rasp in her paper-thin voice.

  “It’s coming, I promise,” Melody called back, filling the kettle with water and dropping it on the burner as she bustled into the bathroom, making a beeline for the medicine cabinet.

  She opened the cabinet and an avalanche of pill bottles tumbled out clattering to the counter, the sink, and rolling across the floor. Melody ignored her aunt asking what happened, trying to clean up the mess as quickly as possible.

  She’d been staying with Aunt Ermine for almost three months already and still hadn’t managed to make any headway organizing anything. The old lady ran her ragged constantly with requests for this or that, but what could Melody do, really? She was sick and needed to be cared for.

  As she shoveled the bottles into her arms, she tried to just put them back in the medicine cabinet however they fit, but they wouldn’t all fit without some serious finagling — this is how she wound up with the avalanche in the first place.

  The kettle began to whistle and Melody squinted at the labels, trying to read the blurry characters in tiny print. It was no use, she needed her glasses to read these miniscule letters. Who did they think could actually read words that tiny? Were these pill bottles for ants?

  No, just Aunts, Melody thought, making herself smile at the silly joke. She had to amuse herself somehow — living with Aunt Ermine was a constant test to her patience. No internet, no cell signal, and fifteen miles from town, she’d been downright bored despite her aunt always having something for her to do.

  “Melod
y, the kettle!” Aunt Ermine called as the whistling continued.

  Melody sighed, dropping the bottles in her hands to tend to the tea. She poured a mug for each of them and bobbed a tea bag in each hand until they sank into the steaming water to steep.

  Now, where did she put those glasses?

  She didn’t need them often, only for reading things up close — without a computer or working phone, that wasn’t much of a problem — and she had a habit of taking them off and just… leaving them. Which, wouldn’t be a problem if she could ever remember where she’d left them.

  She looked all around the kitchen, coming up empty-handed, and made her way to the living room where Aunt Ermine sat in her recliner, watching the latest trashy daytime show inspired by Jerry Springer. As much as Aunt Ermine wanted to consider herself a lady of refinement and poise, she couldn’t resist the baby daddy drama and trailer park soap operas.

  Even Melody had to admit the shows could be engrossing in a train wreck kind of way.

  “What’ve you lost now?” her aunt asked, lips pursed together, her eyes silvery and sharp.

  “My glasses,” Melody said. “I thought I may have taken them off to watch TV,” she added, checking the coffee table and the couch cushions.

  Aunt Ermine clicked her tongue, shaking her head. “You know, this wouldn’t happen if you were more organized. A woman needs a system for her life. Organization and order. How else do you expect to run a household one day?”

  “Mhm,” Melody said, half-tuning her out. It had been almost non-stop lecturing about her poor life management skills since she’d arrived. Despite the day and age they lived in, Melody’s aunt still considered it a major failing to be single without a family at Melody’s age. By all accounts, she should be married off with little ones of her own running around by now, and Aunt Ermine didn’t waste an opportunity to remind her of it.

  “Though, I suppose you’d have to find a man who wants you to run his household first. You haven’t been on a single date since you’ve been here,” the old woman said with disappointment laced in every syllable.

  Melody was shoulder-deep in the couch when she felt the plastic frames just barely at her fingertips. “I haven’t… really… had time,” she grunted, reaching as far as she could into the couch, her shoulder pressed painfully against the metal frame, until she finally flicked the glasses closer to where she could grab them.

  Not having time was an easy excuse, but really, Melody didn’t feel the need to date and mate and settle down like her aunt wanted her to. She was still young, she didn’t know what she was doing with her life — other than caring for cantankerous octogenarians — and it didn’t really seem very responsible to bring someone else into the purposeless chaos of her existence.

  Responsible being the keyword lately. Melody never expected being responsible to backfire on her. She’d always done what she was supposed to, she worked hard, did well in school, stayed out of trouble and was the apple of her parents’ eye. Without any siblings, Melody got all the love and all the praise from her two overly-supportive parents.

  She loved her parents more than anything, but she’d been longing for a chance to spread her wings. Every time she gathered her nerve and tried to broach the subject, something came up and made her feel guilty again. She was her parents’ whole world. Leaving them just seemed cruel.

  That was until Aunt Ermine got sick and Melody saw her opportunity. Her old aunt needed help around the house and taking care of herself and Melody needed a little breathing room. It all seemed perfect — until she got there.

  Something furry wound between her ankles, a long tail wrapping around her calf. “Dennis, no,” Melody said sternly. Ermine’s cat was not very good at taking direction.

  Before Melody extracted herself from the couch, the cat jumped up, launching itself onto her back and promptly laying down there. Melody groaned, dropping her forehead to the paisley couch cushion. “Dennis, you have to move,” she said, starting to straighten, hoping he’d take the hint and jump off. Instead, he curled himself up into a ball and started to purr.

  “He likes you, dear,” Aunt Ermine said gleefully.

  “As much as I appreciate the sentiment, I can’t stand like this for his benefit,” Melody said, standing straighter still. For a brief second, Dennis started to slip, then he sank his claws in.

  Melody hissed and tried to turn so the cat fell off her back, but his claws only sank in deeper, ripping into her flesh as the cat scrambled for purchase. “Dennis, get off!” she screamed through her pain, finally managing to get him off of her.

  When she turned back to Aunt Ermine, the woman wore an expression that could be described as nothing short of horrified. “He’s only a cat, you don’t need to yell at him,” she pouted as Dennis hopped up into her lap and began purring like the picture of innocence.

  Melody repressed the sudden urge to roll her eyes, but plastered on an apologetic look instead. “Sorry Dennis,” she said. “Those claws hurt, though.” The cat opened his eyes, gave her a look that said very clearly he knew what he did, blinked once, and went right back to sleep.

  That jerk.

  “The tea’s likely cold now,” Aunt Ermine said as her show went to commercial — one of those annoying ads that Melody seemed to know the whole script but still didn’t have a clue what it was selling. If she didn’t leave the room now, it would be stuck in her head all day.

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” she said, slipping the glasses on and standing gingerly, her back burning where Dennis had scratched her. She waited until she was in the bathroom to lift up her shirt and examine the damage, but sure enough, when she carefully touched the sore spots, her fingers came back wet with her own blood.

  “Stupid cat,” she grumbled, washing her hands, quickly washing off her wounds, and grabbing Aunt Ermine’s pills in one hurricane of movement.

  She was back in the living room with pills and tea before the commercial break was over, but somehow, Aunt Ermine had gotten or made a call in that short time and the older woman’s ear was glued to the telephone as Melody walked in.

  “Oh yes, she’s been such a tremendous help around here,” Aunt Ermine gushed into the phone. “I don’t know what I’d do without her— Oh! Here she is now, why don’t you say hello?” Aunt Ermine thrust the phone toward Melody as she set down the tray and placed the pills in the other woman’s shaking arthritic palm.

  “Hello?” Melody answered, cradling the phone between her ear and her shoulder.

  “How ya doin’ cupcake?” her mom’s voice answered, a little less upbeat than usual.

  “Hi, Mom,” Melody sighed. “I’m okay, just…” She eyed Ermine and Dennis warily before walking into the next room. “Just overwhelmed,” she said.

  “I’m sure, but we’re so proud of you for sticking it out, dear. Your father and I are just so impressed with how responsible you’ve become and I know Aunt Ermine appreciates the company.”

  “Yeah,” Melody answered, plucking at a water spot on her shirt. How could she tell her mom that she was miserable here, that she wanted to go home, when they kept praising her for sticking it out?

  “I know Aunt Ermine can be a bit of a handful,” Mom said, her voice laced with sugary reassurance. “But I know you can handle it, Mels. I don’t know what any of us would do without you. Oh, your father wants me to give him the phone,” she said. Melody held the phone out at arm’s length as the cracking and thudding of the phone being handed over came through the receiver.

  “How’s my best girl doing?” Dad said in his forced cheerful voice. The same one he used when they had to visit old relatives for the holidays.

  “Fine, Dad,” Melody said, tidying up the kitchen in the downtime.

  “That old bat giving you hell?”

  Melody laughed, not sure if she was more surprised by the comment, or the truth of it. “Something like that,” she said with a chuckle.

  “Well, I know your mother won’t agree with me, but don’t let her push
you around. You’re there for her, sure, but for you too. I know your wings are itching for spreading,” he said.

  All of the sudden, a flood of emotion gripped Melody’s chest and she had to choke back a wave of tears. In one swift move, her father had gotten to the crux of the issue and left her open there, where even the air stung the fresh wound.

  “Not much time for that,” she managed, her voice only cracking a little. It was at that moment she was very grateful that Aunt Ermine still clung to the technology of a century past and her father couldn’t see her having a breakdown as they spoke.

  Dad clucked his tongue. “She was getting by alright with no help at all before you showed up, she can get by for a few hours if you need to get out of the house. Just think about it,” he said.

  Melody nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “We’re always cheering for you Mels,” he said, his voice warm and compassionate. Just the sound of it made her homesick, but he was right. It was time to spread her wings, to get away from the small town she’d grown up in — Aunt Ermine’s tiny hometown wasn’t any better — and to start living her life.

  Before Melody could say anything else to her father, the doorbell rang.

  “Oh, sounds like you’ve got company,” Dad said with a chuckle. “Don’t let me keep you, but remember what I said, honey. Your mom and I love you very much.”

  “Love you t—” she said, but the call was already dropped, her father having already moved on to something else.

  Melody dropped the phone to the counter and slumped there, resting her forehead against the cool linoleum surface. As much as she wanted some grand adventure and excitement in her life, Melody didn’t have the first idea where to start. Especially not when she was holed up here taking care of her sickly aunt.

  The doorbell rang again, this time twice in quick succession.

  “Melody, the door!” Aunt Ermine called, though she was much closer and not at all immobile. Melody lifted her head from the counter just enough to call back.