That wasn’t like him. He never ate blueberry pancakes for breakfast, or any pancakes for that matter. The carbs were a no-no on his diet. He had to keep trim for the movies he starred in. Nobody wanted to watch a guy have sex with a pudgy Santa. Or maybe they did, but that wasn’t on-brand for him.
He sat down again and covered his face with his hands. “I’m sorry, but I can’t believe any of this.”
“You need to believe it. In three tri-seasons, you will go into labor and give birth to our baby.”
“This is insane! Look, as much as I like you, maybe…maybe you should go. Call your parents, like you said you needed to get a ride back to your planet.”
“I cannot,willnot leave you here to have my child alone!” Gorg seemed aghast at the thought.
“You’re wrong. Come on, admit that you could be wrong. On our planet people have false alarms all the time. I’m a man. I cannot have a baby!”
“With knotting there is no false alarms, and I have already explained the physiological changes the knotting brings. You will be having a baby.Mybaby.”
Ebenezer jumped up again, shaking his head, and began to pace the length of the kitchen. “I’ll go to a doctor and prove it to you! Even though any doctor I go to will think I’m fucking insane!”
Gorg stood in front of Ebenezer, blocking his path. “Listen to me, Ebbie. You are havingmybaby. If your doctor takes a scan of your abdomen, and thereisa baby inside, what do you think will happen to you? To our child?” He wiggled his tentacles, waving them in front of Ebenezer’s face.
Ebenezer felt weak and grabbed onto Gorg so he wouldn’t fall to the ground. “Tentacles? I’m carrying a baby with tentacles?”
“Truthfully, there’s no telling how our genetics will mix, but the probability of our child having at least a couple of tentacles is high.”
Ebenezer groaned and sat down again. “They’d think the baby was some sort of freak. Then, if they did further testing, they’d find out it was part extraterrestrial. They’d lock us both up in a lab somewhere.” He shook his head again. “No, no, no! I refuse to believe any of it!”
“You need to believe, Ebbie. You’ll be feeling movement soon. It’s a miracle, not a curse. You’ll see.”
“I cannot believe what you’re telling me. How can I? It’s impossible!”
“Any more impossible than an alien landing in your backyard and knotting you during sex?”
Ebenezer didn’t have a response for that, other than his original thought that Gorg was a delusion, but too much had happened between then and now for him to still put faith in that explanation. Too many people had seen him, including Allan.And look what he’d done for Pete! No, Gorg was real, and what he was telling Ebenezer, as crazy as it sounded, might just be real, too.
“What happens next?” Ebenezer asked in a small voice.
“If we were on my planet, we would have a celebration of life,” Gorg said. He smiled in a dreamy way and sighed. “Everyone would come and bring gifts for the newborn-to-be, there would be food and laughter, and our entire family would dance the Great Pregnancy Dance together.”
“The Great Pregnancy Dance?”
“Yes. Would you like me to describe it to you? It involves us joining hands, stamping our feet in time to the chanting of our parental units, and dancing naked around the Sacred Penis Statue.”
Ebenezer moaned. “Sacred Penis Statue?”
“Oh, yes. Every home has one.”
“Of course they do. Why wouldn’t they?”
“Next to Bloober Day, it’s the closest thing we have to a holiday.”
“Great. Another reason to hate the holidays.”
“How could you say that? Our child is growing inside you as we speak, and you talk of hate?” Gorg’s expression was stony.
Ebenezer had never seen him so angry, not even when Allan yelled at Ebenezer. “I…I just…”
“You really are the most selfish person in the universe!”
“No, I’m not! Please, you have to understand — I just need to adjust to all of this. I mean, Gorg, I really like you. I think there’s room here for something deeper between us, but it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight. I need time. Can’t you give me that?”
Gorg sighed again, deep and heavy. “I suppose that is reasonable since you didn’t know about any of this before ithappened. But please know I didn’t know we would knot, either. It comes as much of a surprise to me as it does to you.”
