This is 500 word excerpt of The Body Servant of Aleops by Ellen Lett. You can read the short story in full at Lillibridge Press.
The alien signal came in the middle of spring 2045, exactly one week after Jack had quit his job at School Nine in Olean. He had taught fifth grade science…and yes, he still missed it.
After five years together with Carter through ups and downs, Jack had thought things were okay. He had given his two weeks notice after he caught Carter in bed with another man. And well, after the whole scene—Jack walking into their bedroom to find them, a mass of tangled bodies sliding over one anther, hot and wet like pigs—he couldn’t see it anymore. Jack wouldn’t see it! Jack couldn’t believe Mrs. Lister’s husband carried such a big dick, and seeing Carter greedily sucking on his cock had smashed Jack’s belief in love. After all, Mr. and Mrs. Lister had been together for nearly twenty years. If they couldn’t stay together, who could?
Jack had watched them scramble, trying to cover themselves. As if two hundred thread count sheets could veil the lies each had been telling. Why had Carter pulled the sheet so tightly around his body? Jack now knew Carter had felt guilty, trying to hide his culpability. Jack ran from the room as Carter had yelled, “This doesn’t change the way I feel about you!” Jack had checked into a hotel that night; it was all he could do. He wished he only had to stop for the night, but how could he go back to their house; go back to where Mr. Lister had invaded? Had Carter and Mr. Lister continued their tryst over all these years? Had Mr. Lister moved in and left Mrs. Lister? Would she be alone until she died? Nothing could calm Jack's mind. Oh, it churned.
Jack ended up in Toronto, then Rochester, following Lake Erie back south again. And here he still was, in a small apartment on the west side of Buffalo. He had lost his job because of the recession; school budgets had flat lined. Maybe that was what had caused Jack to submit his name to the lottery. No, not just because he had caught Carter in bed with another man, but because Jack wasn't teaching anymore. And if he won the lottery he wouldn't be alone either—and wouldn't that be an adventure.
The real reason Jack wanted to win the lottery was because he needed to escape: escape this world in which he had lost something. If he could win, maybe he could be rid of the shadow that Carter had become. But could Jack be rid of his shadow? Carter had come into his life wanting love. And then, when Jack had finally opened his heart, Carter had ripped it from him like a blanket from a small child. He had truly betrayed Jack. Carter had said he loved him, but what had his love given? What was Jack left with? He was nearly forty. He wouldn’t find another man to love him, not at this age…not this broken.
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