Hello my alien lovers,

This chapter marks the end of the first act of Perilous Love Stars. Exciting! There are 38 more chapters to go, divided into three more acts.

Also, additional exciting news: the full-length book will be published in November 2025 with new added content. That means I have to keep the weekly chapters going to stay on schedule!

As always, have fun reading this. Aliens are SEXY and fun to write!! 💞

If you're new to the story, start with Chapter 1

If you missed the last chapter, Previously on Perilous Love Stars

#FireMaple - Sign the petition!

I want to preface this by saying I have nothing against trans ppl (my sister is trans!!) or aliens (#AliensLivesMatterAsMuchAsHumanLives) or women (#FeminineDivine)… BUT I can’t stand Maple Defleuvier! She’s taken B&B on a disastrous path, and that has to stop.

I was willing to give her a chance but after seeing last night’s episode, I just can’t. Saturno is a JOKE and doesn’t represent aliens well at all! Evelyn would never fall for the son of a drug trafficker after what happened to her mom on that boat years ago!!! Pietrich must be turning in his grave thinking about his daughter kissing that man…. Disappointing! No respect for the original show and its great characters!!!

That’s why it’s time for Maple Defleuvier TO GO. Join me in asking Bōøbol to #FireMaple for the good of our beloved show! It’s time to get rid of her!

Sign the petition today!

Posted on Soapy Forever forum on September 2XX7 by FireM4ple34

“Why would someone try to kill me?” Maple asked but realized how futile the question was. She should be asking instead who was trying to kill her. The reason why didn’t matter, and she had a pretty good idea of what it could be.

Since she’d been announced three years prior as Betteraves & Betrayals’ new showrunner, the online hate and bullying she faced hadn’t quieted down. If anything, it’d increased over the past few months with the show’s audience plummeting to abysmal numbers.

It’d never been Maple’s idea to save the soap from cancellation by producing it on a sci-fi streaming platform, and she hadn’t been part of the conversations around the inclusion of alien characters in the show. Bōøbol had called with an offer, she’d just said yes. Thanks to her publishing success as a“sexy aliens romance” writer, Maple had been transformed into a figurehead for the representation of aliens in popular media. She’d quickly discovered that with increased visibility came great backlash. Anti-trans, anti-alien, and misogynist activists had all found common ground in their shared hatred for who they saw as the epitome of modern decadence.  #FireMaple and #NotInMySoap were regular occurrences in Maple’s social media mentions.

There were a lot of angry people out there who wanted Maple dead for a variety of reasons. Now, one of them had found her, and if she was to believe Salvatore, they’d almost succeeded in taking her out yesterday with the light. Or the sign that’d crashed on the car.

She was terrified. “Fuck.”

“I’m sorry,” Salvatore said. In a different universe, she’d rushed to his arms and let his embrace comfort her. In this one, she simply sighed.

“That’s why I used my power on you, Maple,” he continued. “I need to know what’s going on if I’m going to protect you effectively.”

“Well, now you know how fucked everything is—how fucked I am!”

She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, grunting. She hadn’t realized how angry she was. Everything was falling apart around her. She felt hopeless.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have raised my voice at you. You haven’t done anything wrong, I’m just…”

“Overwhelmed?” Salvatore’s voice was low and the smile on his lips was kind. She cracked an eye open to watch it. “It’s okay. I understand you have a lot on your plate. But you’re not alone anymore.”

She wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but the roll of a car interrupted the quiet bubble they’d found themselves in. Semoule’s Dodge Viper came into view on the lonely dirt road driving back to the studios.

“Why is he coming back?” Maple asked, watching the car.

Salvatore didn’t get to respond. Five news vans appeared, following the red car back to the parking lot, lifting a dust storm in their wake 

“Why are they here?” Maple asked out loud again, trying to make sense of the scene playing around her. “Who called the news?”

“I did!” declared someone behind her.

Marsha, the star of her show, strode onto the parking lot with purpose, an air of despair and rage clinging to her. She’d been crying, her makeup was a mess, and the silk kimono she wore was half-open to reveal a brat green brassiere that struggled to contain the actress’ gargantuan breasts.

Loretta, Cruz, Davenport, and Maurice trailed behind her, staring ahead with a mixture of confusion, excitement, and terror.

“Ay! Dios Mios!” Loretta said as she made a cross sign. 

Marsha stopped at a random spot in the parking lot. She shook her head, emitting nonsensical groans and moans. It was Maurice’s cue to roll in a cable trunk for the actress to step on.

Loretta, Davenport, and Cruz joined Maple who was eyeing with suspicion the news crews leave their vans. Semoule was using his car to block their access to the parking lot with little success. When it became clear the horde of journalists wouldn’t be stopped by a car, Semoule exited his vehicle, using his body as a wall.

Like everyone in the business of crafting drama, Maple had a complex relationship with the media. They were a necessary force behind every TV show but could also swiftly turn against you. Adding Marsha to the equation—the most volatile cast member and one of the less predictable people Maple had ever met—was the perfect recipe for a PR disaster.

More bad press could be fatal if Bōøbol was already contemplating cancellation, and Maple had spent her first year as showrunner brainstorming creative ways with Cruz, Loretta, and Davenport to keep Marsha away from substances during work hours. Marsha was a talented and hard-working actress who didn’t know how to say “no” to a little bit of fun, which often devolved into too much fun and hours of wasted production time when she disappeared on another one of her benders.

“What is going on?” Maple asked, pinning each of her crew members with a deadly stare.

Cruz shrugs. “We don’t know. Loretta called me to say Marsha had disappeared from Hair&MakeUp&Costume. I went to look and found her in her dressing room reading a letter. She was hysterical—”

A concert of “nope,” “not okay,” and, “ew” cut him off. 

He scowled. “What?” 

Davenport crinkled his nose in disgust. “It’s not the 1800s anymore, we don’t use that word to describe women when they’re emotional.” 

“Marsha was rolling on the ground, biting into a Louboutin shoe with tzatziki stuck in her hair. What do you call that?” Cruz glared at the group. 

Nobody had further time to debate the adequate use of “hysterical” as an adjective to describe Marsha’s mental state when she’d been reading that mysterious letter. Now that Semoule had definitively failed at containing the hungry journalists, a pack of them, at least fifteen, ran to Marsha with brandished mics and cameras ready to go. The actress was propped up on the cable trunk like a star on her podium. The light-on-wheels Maurice had dragged was plugged and aiming at her. The morning breeze grew and wind blew in her face, detangling her hair and pushing her kimono further open, showcasing to the entire world a delicate pair of Yu-Gi-Oh! panties. 

Marsha beckoned Loretta for a makeup retouch.  She was ready for her close-up.

Maple was powerless to stop any of it. “This is going to be a disaster,” she said to herself. “Where is Ermett?”

This was also his show. Where was he when Maple needed him? He’d been breathing down her neck for months following the show’s poor ratings, overseeing all of her decisions even if he had little hands-on knowledge of how complicated the show was to produce. Now that everything was seemingly going to shit, where was he?

No one had an answer for her. They were all in awe as the cameras turned on to film a majestic Marsha with flawless make-up and eyes filled with tears, her hair bouncing in the wind.

Davenport nodded to himself, impressed. “She’s really good.”

“She’s high,” Cruz said.

“She’s always high,” everyone else noted. 

Salvatore leaned in next to Maple to whisper, “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure it out.”

There was a buzz in her chest that felt like trouble. The actor’s plump lips were a constant invitation Maple felt less inclined to refuse every second she spent near him. Someone wanted to kill her, but not if her unprofessional attraction for Salvatore did the job first. She could never act on this desire or let him know how much she craved his mouth on her neck, his hands on her ass, his teeth playing with the tender skin above her collarbone. She was his boss, and that was that.

Marsha cleared her throat and motioned the journalists to step closer. The sky above rumbled. It started to rain.

Maple wanted to die.

“Thank you all for coming to this emergency press conference,” Marsha said, her voice strong and loud, carrying above the wind and rain. “I just received awful news and couldn’t wait to share it with all of you.”

“Not all of us apparently,” Cruz grumbled and this time nobody contradicted him.

Marsha brandished a piece of paper, one of these anonymous letters crafted with words cut from magazines and newspapers.

“I just learned that my lover—and by that I mean we mostly fuck, but I guess there might also be some feelings? I don’t know, I’m still discussing with my therapist—has been kidnapped.”

Everyone gasped, surprised and confused. Maple just rolled her eyes. How was any of this relevant to the show? Couldn’t Marsha call the cops first? None of this was necessary.

A journalist wearing a pale lavender suit, large square sandy sunglasses, and a perm that’d make the original cast of Dynasty jealous stepped forward and pushed his mic closer to Marsha’s face as he asked, “Who is your lover?”

Marsha paused and swallowed a sob. She looked down. When she raised her head again, she blinked, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Erm,” she said in a trembling voice. “My lover is Ermett Ersweld, and he’s been kidnapped.”