Triptych

by J. M. Frey

  Surely Gwen wouldn’t…

  The soles are pointed at him, soft and vulnerable.

  “Gwen?” he says.

  “Hm?” She lifts herself out of the water. She is wearing a pair of wireless ear buds. Ah, the MP3 player is laying on the top of the toilet tank. “Kalp. Did you want the bathroom?”

  “Yes,” he admits. Then, “No. You did not answer when I knocked.”

  She touches her earbud. “I was trying to relax.” One hand drops to her belly.

  “Does the child pain you?” Kalp asks. “I could perform a muscle relaxation rub?”

  “No. No, the kid’s too small for that, now,” Gwen says. She rubs one palm over the little bump. “I just…had trouble sleeping.”

  Kalp closes the lid of the toilet and sits. He looks down through the murky water at Gwen. Once, there had been bubbles in the tub, but they have all popped, leaving only a thin film that makes human’s skin soft, though it always makes his fur matted.

  Kalp bends down, does something he’s never tried before. He kisses the soft, calloused parts of her clean feet. Gwen does not pull away, as Kalp fears she might have done as early as last night, and he takes it for a good sign.

  Kalp reaches out slowly, and brushes her damp hair off of her forehead. He runs a finger pad over her scar. It is the most intimate place on her body that he knows. He leans forward and kisses that, too. She closes her eyes, squeezing them hard, and a sob escapes. Kalp is startled. The tears that run between her lashes and over her cheeks are fat. They roll more than fall.

  “I had a dream,” Gwen says. She is crying so hard her shoulders are knocking against the side of the tub. “I had a dream that I drowned the baby. I don’t know what it means.”

  “No, no,” Kalp says. He sheds his house robe and crawls into the tub beside her, wrapping his arms around and around her shoulders. The water is barely above room temperature. Kalp wonders how long she’s been in the bathroom. “No, Gwen. It will be well. The baby, and you, and Basil. It will all be well.”

  “And you,” Gwen says, turning her face into his neck, digging her fingers into his fur, hard and desperate. “You too, okay?”

  This is the okay that means “well.”

  “Me, too,” Kalp agrees, and rubs the scent sac behind his jaw hinge across her own jaw, then leans down and leaves a smear of scent above her belly button, just where the baby pokes out of the water. “Me, too.”

  ***

  The next few months fly by in a flurry of pleasurable interaction. At first they tiptoe around one another, a complicated dance of three that Kalp has known before, but that is entirely new and strange to the humans. Slowly Basil and Gwen’s former tight choreography, the quick one-two, becomes a waltz.

  It is not easy, at first. It causes strain. It causes poor sleep and queasy stomachs and the consumption of far too much alcohol on the part of Basil, and the wish to consume far too much alcohol on the part of Gwen. But like any difficult matter, it becomes easier with practice. Easier with every affectionate pat, with every sticky night, with every shared trip and car ride and household chore. With practice, they become a newborn Unit, shaky on just-birthed legs, but confident and curious. Willing, wanting, to survive.

  Nothing that is worth having comes without practice.

  They move around one another in the morning, dropping kisses and reminders, teasing and nagging, trading clothes and barbs. Dinners are made, dishes washed, shopping done. They stand together in the little back garden in a thunderstorm, fingers wrapped in fingers wrapped in fingers. The world smells of wet pavement and fat earth worms. The sky rips open with light. Basil tells stories about a childhood spent fearing the thunder; Gwen speaks of the great awe-inspiring bolts of electric fire that danced over the cornstalks of her youth; Kalp paints the sky above their heads green with the stories of another that was far away, and a long time ago.

  Now, Gwen has two men to rub her sore feet. Basil has four hands on his tense shoulders. Kalp has twenty blunt fingers to brush the tangles out of the fur at the base of his back, where he cannot reach.

  They fight. They scream. They throw sofa pillows, and video game controllers, and sharpened words. All loved ones fight. But the fighters also love. They apologize and they work through the worry and the tension and they find newer, better ways to slot together.

  Kalp does not think of Maru and Trus so often any more. No, that is not true. He sees them daily in Basil and Gwen, but now it does not hurt.

  Gwen’s stomach gets rounder, more distended, and they must be careful when they perform intercourse in order not to make her uncomfortable. Kalp’s intercourse with Gwen is soft and tender, and with Basil it is fierce and strong, and when it is all three together it is a miracle. They cook and clean and work and sleep as they did before, only now when they make love, Kalp is in the bed with them. Basil continues to come to bed late, slipping between the sheets after finally abandoning his projects, his mound of electronic guts that he has been sifting through for the last few days on the dining room table. Basil lets in what feels like all the chilly air in the house at the same time. It annoys both Kalp and Gwen.

  And when Kalp cooks on Friday nights, he makes enough for four.

  One white, crisp afternoon so cold it is fit for nothing but snuggling on the sofa and drinking uncanny amounts of hot tea and chocolate, Kalp curls his fingers around Gwen’s belly and presses the flats of his ears against the sides and his left cheek just under her breast and he tells the baby a story.

  “In a place that is not here,” he starts. Kalp’s parents had told it like this. All parents did, where he was from. They started their stories differently on the other continent, but neither was better than the other. It was just a preference. Tradition.

  “In a place that is not here,” Kalp repeats, because the start is the most important part and bears repeating, “There was Vren.”

  “Who’s Vren?” Basil asks, sinking into the sofa on the other side of Gwen, clutching his mug of tea like a lifeline, like he always does.

  “Shut up,” Gwen says.

  “Vren was tall,” Kalp said. “And his eyes were very yellow.”

  “Is that usual?” Basil asked. “Yellow eyes, I mean? Or is it a…a, yunno, a signifier. A symbol?”

  Gwen elbows him. “Shut up, Baz.”

  Kalp does not lift his head. The story is for the baby, not Basil, and Basil’s questions will wait for later.

  “Vren had long strong arms and a long strong body and a long strong mind.”

  “How can a mind be long?” Basil asks. A glare from Gwen and Kalp both makes him roll his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, shut up Basil,” he says.

  “Vren was not wealthy. He was not High Status. He was not renowned for any particular trade. He was, however, completely and devotedly happy, and in those days, that was rare.”

  “Why rare? Yes, yes, shut up Basil, I gettit.”

  “Vren pitied all those who were not as happy as he, and so he set out to find a way to ensure that all people everywhere had the pleasure they deserved. He walked for many cycles, hardly pausing to drop into his unconscious phase, and when he ceased walking, he found himself in a small town where everyone’s ears drooped all day.”

  Here Kalp shifts his head to the other side of Gwen’s tummy, so Basil can hear better.

  “He raised his hands to catch their words and asked, ‘Why are you sad?’” Kalp recites, raising his voice into a light falsetto, the timbre of the heroes of all his childhood stories.

  Basil snorts tea up his nose and has to pull a tissue from the box on the side table to keep it from leaking down his face.

  “We are sad,” Kalp continues, this time in the lowered voice of the distraught, “because there is never any time for intercourse.”

  This time Basil howls and has to put the mug down to keep from splashing Gwen and the back of Kalp’s head.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he says, the tissue clamped firmly over his face. “Go on.”

  Kalp twitches hi
s ears in amusement, then lays them flat again. He knows now that mentioning intercourse around human males always causes some sort of strange gleeful, immature reaction. It is such a bizarre form of prudery.

  “Vren, who had always been very sufficient at self-pleasure, nonetheless could understand the villagers’ problem. He asked them, ‘Why do you have no time?’ and they replied, ‘Because the males must support the females after they have given birth and the females must attend the child, and those who have no Aglunate are not satisfied with self-pleasure but dread the hardship that will come of Aglunation.’”

  Kalp breaks his own narrative to look up at Gwen and Basil. “That was before prophylactics and medicines to prevent pregnancy,” he clarifies.

  “Oh, of course,” Basil allows, shoulders still shaking with suppressed mirth.

  “‘That is a hardship to be sure,’ Vren admitted. He looked at the harried mothers and he looked at the sex-starved fathers and he looked at the lonely singles and he counted. When he finished counting the people, he saw that there were exactly the same number of singles as there were couples. Deftly, he manoeuvred those with no Aglunates to stand besides the Mothers and Fathers and Children. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Now you are three. You may have intercourse with one another. One may go to earn your keep, and one may raise the children, and the other may care for you all. You will split your work evenly, and you will split your intercourse evenly, and you may be happy.’”

  Kalp smiles.

  “So some Aglunates were made of two females and one male, and some of two males and one female, but all loved each other and there was enough intercourse and enough affection for all, and from that moment on, no others were ever so happy as that village. Eventually, the wisdom of Vren’s edict filtered throughout the world, and everyone agreed that Aglunates were meant to be in threes.” He rubs his fingers along Gwen’s stomach, revels in the butterfly flutter in response. “And fours.”

  Kalp sits up.

  “What, that’s it?” Basil asks.

  “Did Vren have a Unit?” Gwen asks.

  Kalp shakes his head. “No, Vren did not. It is what you would call an epic, The Deeds of Vren, but none end so happily as that, and so are not so fit for unborn ears.”

  “Is it true?” Basil asks, ever the empirical scientist.

  Kalp performs the shrugging motion. “Does it truly matter if it is?”

  “No, don’t suppose,” Basil allows.

  “We call those myths,” Gwen says. “Histories that are fantasy.”

  “Myths,” Kalp repeats, committing the new word to memory.

  He wonders if one day someone will be telling myths about him, The Deeds of Kalp, the First-Aglunated of Earth.

  ***

  Kalp’s claiming Gwen and Basil for his Unit at the holiday celebration seems to act as tacit permission, and three other Aglunated Units form within the Institute within the season. It should be surprising to Kalp that Derx is among one, but Derx always seemed to be about single-minded selfish pleasure, so it is not.

  But, as with all joy, Kalp is beginning to learn, comes sorrow.

  Word gets to the media and press of Earth about the union between Kalp, Gwen, and Basil — a mixed-race Aglunate and polygamous marriage that makes several religious factions and parental rights groups absolutely furious. Kalp tries to point out to the first microphone shoved at his face, on their own door step, that they have not undergone the actual bonding ceremony yet, but Basil says “Not helping!” and drags him away from the camera as Gwen protects her belly and says, “No comment, no comment!” over and over again.

  They stay home from work for a week, hiding behind locked doors and drawn blinds. Basil has taken apart three different radios and their components have begun to vanish into a device that Basil takes pains to keep from the view of Kalp. They let the chickens out afternoons, so they may have some fresh air, and they must feed the chickens through a small gap in the patio doors. For three days the papers carry an absurd image of Kalp’s hand throwing bird seed into the back garden.

  Finally the police and the government manage to draw up suitable penalties for the reporters who hound the little house they share. Several are arrested, all are charged, and the reporters leave them alone, at least in person. The shirt vendor in Gabriel’s Wharf and the pub owner in London both sell their photographs of the trio to “gossip rags” for an obscene amount of money, but the people of their own village rally around the Unit and keep their lips sealed, and block the news vans deliberately with their own cars at intersections.

  The mayor pulls several prominent citizens together and the town holds a baby shower-cum-congratulations party to show their support of their local heroes. It is in the same small square that the Friday market occurs in and in gratitude, Kalp buys up whole flats of osaps and turns them into Daiquiris for the occasion.

  In an effort to curtail the pressure from the press, the Institute oh-so-gently suggests that Basil and Kalp make an honest woman of pregnant Gwen, and both marry her already. They decide on a quick and informal Aglunating ceremony, to honour Kalp’s contribution, and it is attended only by Institute employees and one conscientiously chosen team of a reporter and photographer. There is a splashy yet tasteful spread in the London and New York Times filled with full-page colour photographs and a quick write up about the history of Aglunation and triad families. Personal information is completely omitted, though it does not stop the lower rags from speculating.

  The British love their tabloids, and Basil’s mother calls the day after the article is published to say that she is making a scrapbook. Basil groans at the phone.

  Scandal sells papers, and once they are Aglunated and their humble speeches to the press have been recorded and run, Kalp’s Unit is no longer scandalous. Kalp learns the words “husband” and “wife” and rather likes the connotations of ownership that are implied by them.

  The world moves on to other, more sinful people. Anti-Integration protests move to Moscow, where a human and an alien have professed to trying to get pregnant together via in vitro. Basil or Gwen or Kalp’s faces periodically reappear in the tabloid news when someone with a camera phone catches them canoodling in public, but otherwise the fanfare dies.

  On those rare spotlight days, Basil spends hours on the telephone with his mother and sisters, reassuring them of his personal happiness and safety. In every conversation, Basil promises to visit his family with his Unit, once the media circus dies. Later, he promises. Always later.

  Kalp eagerly anticipates later’s arrival.

  Gwen always looks miserable when Basil hangs up, but walks out of the room when Kalp suggests she call her own parents; that they probably worry for her.

  Kalp wishes his parents were here.

  He thinks — he’s sure — they would be happy for him.

  Besides the ever diminishing picket lines at work filled with angry people waving rude signs at their car every morning, things start to go back to normal. It is now March and the world has ceased to be white, for which Kalp is immensely glad. Now he can forego shoes again. There are three more months before the baby is born, and Gwen is determined to continue to live normally until she absolutely cannot. She refuses a lighter workload, or the Institute’s offer to telecommute, and comes in every morning same as ever, only waddling a bit more now and taking far more frequent trips to the toilet.

  Kalp teaches Basil, lesson by lesson, how to massage Gwen’s feet and back in a way that relieves the pressure that the extra weight of the child adds, by demonstrating on Basil first. This usually leads to more intercourse, and Basil does not seem to mind. Kalp certainly does not. Basil tries to repay Kalp in kind and slowly gets better at the massaging technique, the more he practices.

  Kalp slowly learns about human bodies, about the different ways to press Basil into ecstasy, to rub Gwen into sighs, about little nubs of flesh, about orifices, lubrication, preparation and pouncing, and about what fits where. He is surprised at first that hum
an men have no pleasure orifice near their genitalia, but approves of the biological compromise that is the evolution of a prostate.

  Eventually the progression of her pregnancy means that Gwen cannot participate in intercourse as often any more. She complains of discomfort and aches and concern for the child, but enjoys the massages and professes that she is “just fine with watching.” Basil and Kalp are fine with it too.

  As a gift for Basil’s natal day celebration in late March, Gwen surprises everyone with tickets to see a live concert by an artist named Raquel Winkelaar. Kalp has never heard of her, and neither has Basil. Basil suspects that Gwen was given them by a press agent who wishes to cash in on their lingering celebrity, but she neither confirms nor denies the accusation. She smiles and calls them a surprise from a co-worker and nothing more.

  Kalp caught Gwen conversing in quiet tones with Agent Aitken yesterday afternoon in the cafeteria. He has a fairly good idea from whom Gwen received the tickets.

  Gwen is not so heavy now that she cannot manoeuvre herself into the concert hall under her own power, so she does not see why they cannot go. They do not know what kind of music it will be and agree not to look the artist up in order not to spoil the surprise. However, the concert is being held in a very posh symphony hall in London, so the men don the same suits they’d worn to the holiday party in December and Gwen wiggles into a red sheath dress that accommodates her stomach and makes her look surprisingly delectable.

  They are late for the opening act as a result.

  They sneak in as the curtains close to allow for an unseen equipment change. If the press was lying in wait, the hour at which they arrive seems to have sent them packing. March is still too chilly to wait around outside of a concert hall on chance for a few blurred, and now illegal, photographs.

  It is not until they’re seated in the auditorium and the first screeching wail of an overpowered electric guitar rips into the air that the three of them realize with horror that this is an electronica show. The curtains swoosh open to reveal a flashing metallic set refracting screamingly bright neon lights. Kalp claps his ears to the side of this head and whimpers. All of his fur stands on end and he can feel his skin rippling in an effort to get away get away get away.