I was sitting in our living room with my wife when the ghost appeared.
Mind you, it wasn't... well... it wasn't a human ghost, as near as I could tell. It looked, vaguely, like a cat, mixed with a rabbit. With teeth.
In a corner of my mind, somewhere on the edges of hysteria, I wished for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
Even though our visitor didn't seem all that material, this ethereal nature was implied by seeing it hovering in front of us, and, topping off this hallucinatory moment, we heard a voice in our heads.
"We've come to audit your tax payments to the Galactic Empire."
There was a moment, here, when I wondered whether ergot had somehow infected our bread, but, looking over at my wife, she looked at me. She appeared to be seeing the same thing.
It was while my wife and I stared at each other that the words of this... thing... finally registered. A galactic empire? And we humans were enough a part of it to be paying taxes? Like the taxes we already paid to the pricks in Washington DC weren't enough?
The ghost just floated there, staring at us, and my wife was the first of us to recover the power of speech, asking our visitor "This is the first we've heard about a galactic anything. Why are we being audited?"
Our visitor sighed. "Your particular group of humans are living in a preserve... and your taxes are a payment in kind to stay here. You're in arrears, now, because you've not kept the (unpronounceable howl-whine-pout) from spreading."
"The... what?" I asked, venturing into the fray.
The ghost didn't solidify but I could tell he-she-it-whatnot was not pleased. "There is a species that lives in this portion of the galaxy. They're a nuisance whenever they show up in the rest of the galaxy, so we try to keep them contained in a nature preserve over two hundred parsecs in diameter that your planet happens to be near the center of. These... beings... have an annoying effect on several of the useful species within the galaxy, most especially humans. In order for you to pull your weight within the galaxy by living here on a very pleasant planet, you are supposed to keep them fed and happy here and not leave them hungry enough to wander away from here."
My wife laughed. "So? And... fed? What do they eat?"
The... bunny... grinned. It was a scary grin, full of teeth and fangs. "They feed on passion. Lust. Love, too, especially when it is combined with sexual lusts. Most of all, they require females to reach orgasm... and we've seen your cultures stupidly work to keep your females from enjoying sex enough to reach orgasm."
I stared at my wife. She stared at me. I could see some irritation on her face and she spoke to me "All right, Jack, what are you trying to pull on me?"
My mouth dropped open. What the fuck was she thinking? "I haven't done anything !"
"Well you keep reading that stupid science fiction bullshit and this sounds like something you are perverted enough to try to pull over on me. How are you doing this?"
We would have gotten into an argument if we didn't hear the sound of something... awful... clearing it's throat. We turned to the... thing, my wife snapping "What now?"
"We have discovered why you humans are in arrears in your payments... you keep inventing religions that interfere with the arousal cycle in your females. This has kept you from being honest and open about enjoying sex... which protects the rest of the galaxy. We'll be removing most of those influences from your world and putting them to work elsewhere to cover their keep."
My wife stared at me and I stared at her, then, turning back to our visitor, I stammered out "and we humans are supposed to have sex to keep the... whatever... fed?"
"Yes. Your species is, of the myraid species in the galaxy, especially susceptible and attuned to those life-forms who feed on sexual passion, and, in fact, your species' ability to feed them so well is one of the reasons that this is, for the most part, a human world. There are other species here on earth, aquatic ones, that do well, too, but we haven't fully understood why their population has been falling off."
My wife asked "So... how are you going to fix this?"
I could sense the voice in my head smiling as I heard "We've decided, as a punishment, to make those of you humans who are least interested in sex, far more sensitive-- and easily inflamed-- to the libidos of those around you."
Laughter rang out from my wife. She finally said "Like that is going to make a difference!"
Our visitor smiled again. "If we don't see the (name) begin to cluster around the earth again in the next five of your years, we will have to trade you out for humans that will handle what we need. We've done this in the past... and can do it again."
My wife's chuckles stopped, suddenly as I suddenly had a flash-back to Bill Cosby's "Noah" skit.
"Beyond those we're removing from your world, this broader change will fade in over the next week. I bid you adieu."
As this apparition started to fade I asked "Wait! What will this do to us humans?"
"You will all just have to adapt. If you don't act as a great enough lure, we'll have to stock this world with new lures. We don't like to have to do this... like the last time."
My wife and I stared at each other.
It wasn't long before we learned that we weren't alone in being visited; everyone on the planet had a story of such a visit.
Well, except for those who'd been deducted from the human race. A lot of religious leaders vanished, as did anyone who could "push the button" to end the world.
And, for the first time in years, my wife chased me to bed.
I could enjoy paying my taxes this way.
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Author: Jack C Lipton Title: Alien Deduction Part: Universe: Family Values Summary: Why are we REALLY here? Keywords: humor ScFi Revision: $Revision: 1.3 $ Archive: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/CupaSoup/www/ Mailing List: FAQ: RCS: $Id: alienDeduction.x,v 1.3 2007/08/11 13:48:40 jcl Exp $