Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel, Thor, or anything else. I'm reasonably sure Disney owns those now… Not sure how I feel about that… Yeah, anyway – not mine, don't sue. And if you're underage, you can read this chapter, but then you have to go away. This is getting smutty FAST.

Prologue

It started as a reasonably normal evening for the young woman. Work had been a nightmare, of course. Working waitstaff had to be the closest thing left to legal slavery in America, she decided. People would be ashamed of themselves if they could see, like on camera, just how they treated servers. Hell, she'd had one guy threaten to smack her because he didn't have enough mustard! And where was her protection? It wasn't like she could call the cops or anything – she'd get shitcanned in a minute if she tried that! It pissed her off cos that was supposed to be a nice place she worked at!

Well, nice-ish. Somebody honked their horn at her and she realized that she was just pissing herself off again. Waitstaff sucked, there was nothing she could do to change that, and she just had to live with it. Hopefully she'd have enough money soon to pay two or three months' rent in advance. Then she could try something a step up, like retail maybe. Ugh… nobody ever hired college students, even in a college town. So she turned up the volume on the Wicked soundtrack and continued belting "The Wizard and I."

Still heartily pissed off, she pulled her junk-ass car into the apartment's lot and skidded damn near sideways into the nearest space to her own front door. Grumbling, irritable, and smelling strongly of fryer grease, she yanked her keys and their many key-chains out of the ignition. With a grumpy sight, she manually flicked the lock lever closed as she opened the door. The strap of her purse caught on the emergency brake handle. She swore out loud, drawing stares, and quite nearly shut her long brown ponytail in the closing door.

After kicking the car once more for good measure, she stomped to the front door.

Fumbling through so many keys and key-chains had her distracted. If anyone might be watching her, she neither noticed nor cared. Her front door, swollen from humidity, required a kick as well before it opened. She threw her purse down on the couch, disturbing her cat. The fat gray creature flumped down off the furniture and retreated to the bedroom. Rolling her eyes, the young lady followed the cat and, once in her own room, began shedding clothing. She sniffed herself and grimaced – being nose-deep in grease made her crazy.

Stark naked, she kicked a path through her cluttered bedroom to the attached bathroom and set her cell phone on the counter. Mom had always told her to keep that close, in case she fell or something. Then she bent over and turned on the tap over the bathtub. Stoppering the tub, she turned to the mirror and studied herself with a critical eye. Hmm… With summer on the way, she'd have to do something about those tan lines. Working as a waitress made her look so tired, she observed with distaste.

Still, she didn't see all "bad" in the mirror. She had pretty rockin' hips, if she did say so herself. Not crazy about her thighs, but then what woman was ever happy with her own thighs? She flexed her left arm, then her right – yeah, she was fuckin' strong! Lifting goddamn trays all day and half her nights, she thought bitterly. Huh, she could stand to do a few more crunches in her off-time, but guys liked a bit of softness, right? Right – crunches could wait until after bath time… or tomorrow even. And hell, to top it all off, she had freaking AMAZING boobs. That much she could admit. She didn't even know 32DD was a bra size until that random trip to Vicky's Secret.

Okay – she shook herself back down to Earth and grabbed the nearest clean towel. Next, she fumbled round for a hair-tie and pulled that long ponytail into a rather messy knot at the back of her head. Bath products wouldn't do for her length of hair. Her ambition was to grow it out to classic-length – then she'd look like a mermaid. Giggling at her silliness, she shut the cat out of the bathroom and stepped into the tub.

For once, she'd gotten the temperature really close to exactly right. Not too hot – matter of fact, it could stand to be a little warmer. So she turned the knob up and leaned back. Ugh… It was not right to work servers ten hours at a time. "Double shift" her ass! If they ever pulled that crap again, she was calling the Better Business Bureau! Not that it would do any good… But she let the unpleasantness slip away from her as she relaxed into the hot water.

After a few minutes, her overactive mind kicked back on and she had to find something to do with her hands. She found her favorite bath sponge, one of those white poofy things, and the soap she got at her last Renaissance faire. It smelled earthy – she couldn't name what all was in it. So she lathered up and started scrubbing the diner's grime from her shoulders. It should have ceased to surprise and disgust her, how much ick from the place got through her clothes. Yet somehow, it still made her wrinkle her nose and wish the whole chain would just burn itself to the ground spontaneously.

She rinsed her shoulders, enjoying the sensual repetition of letting water spill from her hand down her tired skin. Closing her eyes, she imagined for a moment that she was someplace else, like a Turkish bath or a Japanese hot spring. For that kind of relaxation, she wouldn't mind sharing water space with a monkey… Then she moved down to her breasts. Yeah. She totally had the best rack of any girl in the diner – not that she'd mention it to anybody. And those too, she enjoyed letting warm water stream down over.

Her arms got finished quickly. She found herself growing hot and bothered, eager to curl up with Cosmo and finish her evening with some personal time. But she still needed to do her legs. They made all the servers wear pants – probably because they didn't want them cleaning up in tips from wearing skirts. Either way, she needed to do a bit of feminine maintenance before proceeding. So she found the can and her razor and started lathering up her left leg.

That's when she noticed the eyes in her bathroom mirror that did not belong to her. Flat eyes… Grayish-blue eyes… Creepy eyes!

Thankfully the razor had not touched her skin yet when her hand jolted horribly and she dropped it in the bath. The shave gel can went flying as she scrambled to cover herself. But then she checked herself – obviously she was just tired, she told herself sternly. It wasn't uncommon for a young lady living alone with her cat to just spook herself and have a fit over nothing, right? There were NO eyes in her mirror and she should return to her normal activities. Right? Right.

So she fished up her razor and started on her left ankle, determinedly not looking at the mirror. Last thing she needed on her day off tomorrow – planning on laying out and all – was a band-aid tan from a shaving cut. She finished her left leg with methodical precision and started lathering her right. But before she even picked up her razor again, she peered suspiciously at the fogging mirror. Just to be on the safe side, she closed the commode lid, leaned out as far as she could, and set her cell phone on it.

Still rolling her eyes at her jumpy moment, she ran her razor up her leg just as she had before. Then, as she was just rinsing the blade in the bath water, her eyes drifted to the mirror again and this time she screamed.

EYES. There could be no doubt this time about what she had seen. There were eyes – creepy, flat, grayish blue eyes – staring back out of her. To make matters worse, now there was a swarthy, wrinkled face that these eyes belonged to. The young lady expelled all the air in her lungs in one quick sigh. But then she took a deep breath and looked away from the mirror. She had to be seeing things. So she stared at her razor as she fastidiously went over every inch of her right leg. There! Finished!

She grabbed her towel and wrapped it round her body with a bit more primness than she might otherwise. Shaking her head furiously, she told herself she was seeing things and that was that! But then the ugly old face spoke.

"I apologize, maiden, for disturbing your bath," it said. "But you see, it was almost pointless to let you finish. There are much finer bathing chambers where we are destined."

The young woman swung around, clutching her towel to her chest and eyes blazing angrily.

"Look old man, I don't know who you are or how you got in here, but I'm calling the cops," she told him, grabbing her cell phone.

"Maiden, I fear I must tell you," the old man's voice turned gravelly and vaguely threatening. "You will be summoning no one tonight. You see, you have been chosen as concubine for the god Thor…"

"Chosen, my ass! Don't try getting all spooky with me! Thor… really!" she yelled at him, frantically typing in '911' on her phone. "You chose the wrong girl to try and rope into human trafficking! I'm calling the cops and your old ass is going to wind up in jail for this crap!"

The phone barely rang when a lady picked up.

"911, what is your emergency?" the voice on the other end asked.

"Yeah, my name's Maria Barsi and I live out at University Place," the girl sputtered quickly. "I dunno how he got in or anything like that, but there's a crazy man in my apartment and he's trying to abduct me. Said something about the god Thor…"

The lady on the other end of the phone went "Huh!"

"No ma'am, I'm not on drugs or drunk or anything! I swear to God! This is real!" the young lady practically screamed into the phone, growing frantic as she sensed the woman didn't believe her. "No really! He's not a 'figment of my imagination' or anything!"

At the same time, the old man did the unthinkable. The girl's eyes widened as this figment of her imagination stepped out of her bathroom mirror. One of his wizened old hands reached out for her.

"Maiden, panicking will only make this unpleasant," he told her warningly. "You cannot defy a royal order and you have been selected for the god Thor…"

The young woman tried to fumble for the bathroom doorknob, but it had… what? Locked itself! She yanked at the knob, trying to break down the bathroom door, still screaming into the phone. The woman on the 911 end of the phone had obviously taken the call for a prank. She sounded upset. Still, the young lady tried to convince her.

"Please ma'am, don't hang up! I swear to God! There's this old nut-job in my apartment and he's trying to-"

Without further warning and with surprising speed, the old man's hand shot out and clamped round her upper arm. The phone went flying and the 911 operator heard a struggle. The young woman had been serious, she realized.

"AAAARGH!"

On the other side of the door, the cat hid under the bed, meowing furiously. The phone had shattered on the wet floor. In the 911 call center, the operator clicked furiously, attempting to trace the call. It took her a moment to place the complex and she still couldn't narrow it down to the exact apartment. But she picked up her land-line phone and got in touch with the dispatcher. What in all hell had just happened?

The young woman's world had gone black.