by Lyn Gala
Max stopped swimming. Immediately Rick was there at his side, tentacles reaching out, but Max swam backward. “You had better tell me that there are a lot of nutrients on this ship, because if these children eat each other, I will not be happy.” Max’s stomach rolled at the idea. At least now Max knew why the computer had included cannibalism in a lesson that had defined herbivore, carnivore, and rock-eating. At the time, Max had suspected that some bored linguist had been fucking with newcomers. Apparently not.
“Offspring being cannibalized is not optimal.”
“If you had any other opinion on the issue, I would take two of your tentacles and tie them in a knot,” Max said. Then he pointed at Rick. “And I would pick important tentacles.”
Splashing, Rick made a comical production out of shifting his tentacles to a more protected position on the other side of his big bulbous head. However, he couldn't feel too threatened because he continued to float right next to Max. “Pool has excess of nutrients. Arrival of two offspring will not result in lack of nourishment.”
Max frowned. “Query. Is there enough nutrition for three offspring?”
“Nutrients in sufficient quantity for three offspring.”
Max didn't need a secret decoder ring to figure out what Rick wasn't saying. The two bulges in his stomach were enough to suggest there was a problem. Max lacked subtlety so he came right out and asked, “Query. Is third offspring large enough to survive?”
“Unknown.” The computer’s translated voice sounded so unemotional and factual, but Rick's tentacles drew up into spiral curly fries of unhappiness. Max had never planned to have children, and if he had, adoption would have been choice number one, with surrogacy and fostering two and three on the list. Alien impregnation was not something he had ever contemplated. But now that he was pregnant, he was surprisingly upset at the idea that one offspring was too small. “Query. Will small offspring remain inside?”
“When two offspring arrive, digestive tract is wide and flooded with hormone signal to arrive arrive arrive,” Rick said. His words grew faster. “Third offspring may arrive early.”
Max caught the edge of a filter island and pulled himself upright. “Do you have medical equipment for a premature birth?”
“Translation matrix failure. Clarify.”
“Birth. Clarify. The arrival of offspring. The pain involved in arrival of offspring.”
“Query. Why would human females continue to carry offspring if to carry offspring is to suffer pain?” Rick asked. It was a classic change of topic, but Rick’s refusal to answer told Max what he needed to know. His guts ached. He didn’t want any of the children to die, but if Rick didn’t know how to help, there wasn’t much Max could do. But upsetting Rick even more didn’t seem kind, not when his tentacles were all kinked and curled.
“Humans like sex,” Max said. He immediately corrected himself. “Almost all of us like sex. It's fun.”
Rick stopped circling and started his undulating version of a dog paddle. “The creation of offspring is entertaining?”
“Very. And women like to be entertained just as much as men.”
“The value of entertainment is greater than the distress of pain. Interesting.”
“And untrue,” Max said. “The pain is greater than the entertainment.” Max wasn’t sure if that was true for women, but he found that his one blissful and erotic encounter with Rick’s eggy tentacle didn’t make up for months of gas, stomach pain, vomiting, cramping, and general misery.
“Carrying offspring is illogical.”
“But people like offspring. They want offspring. If the only way for you to have offspring was for you to carry it yourself, wouldn't you?” Max asked. Rick didn’t answer, and it occurred to Max that Rick might not have the right equipment. If Max ignored Rick’s many tentacles, the trunk of his body was significantly smaller than a human’s. His walking tentacle was so long that Rick appeared to be larger, but his body was small. He might not have a digestive tract long enough to give the children space to grow.
“I am unsure,” Rick said. “Offspring cause pain. I would rather compensate another.”
Max rubbed his largest bulge. “I can see why. Your children are large.”
“Yes. The size of offspring and manner of incubation is gross and distasteful to other species.”
Considering that Max had defined gross as involving bodily fluids, Max chose to ignore that part of the statement. No doubt Max's body contained all sorts of alien fluids, but denial was his happy place right now. “Do other species bear their own offspring?”
“Many prefer external fertilization and growth within protective barriers.”
“Eggs,” Max translated. “They lay eggs. Right now, I'm thinking that might be a biologically smart move.” A stronger cramp rippled through his gut, and Max clung to the water circulation island.
“Offspring come,” Rick said. Tentacles wrapped around Max’s limbs. Max might have complained, but the strongest cramp yet hit him. Max cried out and curled his legs up as white-hot pain seared his nerves.
Chapter Ten
Max groaned as Rick helped him onto the table. “On your stomach will make exit easier for offspring to exit.”
“I don’t think I should lie on my stomach,” Max said, but he didn’t make any other protest as Rick encouraged him to roll over. Much to his surprise, the cramps didn’t get worse as he settled on his stomach. “Query. Is it supposed to hurt this much?”
“No.” Rick hurried to the nook and pulled out several instruments. They were quickly leaving the land of kinky porn and approaching horror flicks. “Offspring may be struggling to get free. Human intestines are anomalously circuitous,” Rick explained.
Circuitous. That was not a term Max would've ever chosen, but it communicated a clear and terrifying reality. “Clarify. By struggling, are you suggesting that your offspring is about to rip my intestine?” Max held his breath.
“Negative. Offspring do not damage the carrier,” Rick said immediately. Maybe Max was imagining it, but he almost sounded offended. “They may sometimes hurt the carrier,” Rick then admitted. “I can ease the way for the offspring to minimize pain.”
Max pressed his forehead to the table and clutched the edge as pain rolled through him. “Minimize pain. That would be awesome. Do that.”
Tentacles pulled Max’s legs apart, but he didn’t care. Shame and titillation both vanished under the need to focus through the pain. Max panted as the tentacle slid inside. “I shall attempt to avoid activating reproductive system,” Rick said.
Max gave a rough bark of laughter. “Oh trust me, there is zero chance of my reproductive system getting activated.”
Rick paused, and Max arched his back as Kohei made his presence known again. If he kept this up, Max was taking the snot-nosed bastard off the Christmas card list. Rick’s tentacle slid inside again, stretching Max’s hole. This time the uncomfortable feeling was nothing more than a welcome distraction. Rick said, “Clarify. I believed I had triggered reproduction when I implanted offspring.”
“You did, but touch alone does not activate the reproductive system,” Max said through clenched teeth. Part of him wanted to tell Rick to shut the fuck up, but another part wanted some distraction from the pain in his body, and awkward conversation qualified as something. “When I'm in this much pain, I have no interest in any sort of reproductive entertainment.”
“Human biology is confusing.”
“You are the species that puts offspring in other species, so I don't think you get to call me strange.”
“Species of mine is strange as well.” Rick made an odd huffing noise. “We do not gain approval from others.”
Max was proud of himself for not pointing out that a certain subset of humanity would approve of Rick's whole reproductive scheme. They bought tentacle sex toys like the one that had sent Max running the opposite direction. He’d gotten into a fight with his ex about that damn toy, and now Max had dirty little fantasies about what
Rick could do if there weren’t children up there. Maybe Max would have been more adventurous if his other partners had shown half of Rick’s patience.
“Get in there and help the offspring out,” Max said.
“I shall.” Rick had a strangely formal cadence to his voice, even in his weird belchy voice. “Try and relax.” Rick devoted a couple of tentacles to rubbing Max’s lower back.
“That's try to relax, and that's not easy when baby octopuses are doing gymnastics routines in my large intestine.”
Rick continued the tentacle massage. “The computer suggests that you use the additive conjunction and more often than the directional preposition to after the word try.”
Max narrowed his eyes. “Are you giving me shit about my English? Seriously?”
“I am most often serious.”
Laughter burst out so unexpectedly that Max snorted. He hadn’t pulled that sort of dork move since middle school, but luckily aliens didn’t recognize goofy laughter. The largest cramp yet hit, and Max arched his back and bit back a scream as the skin over his side rippled. Someone’s tentacle had hit a sensitive spot. “Oh God. Oh God. I think I'm about to have an accident on the floor.”
Rick’s tentacles tightened around his waist. “I shall not allow you to fall.” It took Max several seconds to realize that Rick had misunderstood.
“Clarify. In this context, accident means something gross.” Max was grateful he had already defined that word.
“If bodily fluids appear, it is an involuntary reaction and not an accident as you have defined it, unless humans have more control over bodily fluids than other species.”
“Clearly not because I'm about to poop on you.”
Rick’s calm, “That is highly unlikely,” was oddly comforting. However, Max had suffered some pretty gnarly diarrhea lately.
A cramp rippled through his stomach and he cried out as something wet flowed down the back of his legs. “Oh, shit.”
“It is not shit. It is nutrient fluid absorbed from the swimming.”
Max struggled to look over his shoulder. “I absorbed the pool water?” Rick had a tentacle all the way up Max’s ass, and if it weren’t for the horrific pain, Max would have considered the image some nice wank material, right up there with Sherlock and John getting themselves handcuffed together before going on the run from the law.
“Clarification. The offspring absorbed fluid and created a nutrient pouch. But the membrane has ruptured and the offspring must come out.”
Max mentally translated that to his water had broken. Then he arched his back as another series of cramps seized his body so he couldn't speak. One of Rick's tentacles slid across his face, cooling him.
“They better come out soon.”
“They will can. I regret the pain my offspring cause.” Rick hesitated. “I regret the pain I caused in overfeeding my offspring.”
“As long as everyone separates without anyone being torn in half, we can call it good. Now please help them out.”
Rick went to the wall, his tentacle slipping almost all the way out of Max’s body. Despite Max’s earlier comment, his cock did notice that. Luckily another cramp hit before the moronic organ could do something that would humiliate him. The air over Max shimmered before displaying alien text that floated in space.
Rick returned, and Max gasped as the tentacle pushed back inside. “The largest offspring is nearly out now.”
“Oh shit.” The pressure against Max’s asshole was like nothing he'd ever felt before. Skin stretched and stung and muscles strained until every instinct Max possessed told him to push. But his butt was not a vagina. Max suspected that pushing would do serious damage, so he fought the urge and forced his legs to relax. “Hurry up.”
“The first offspring is bulky.”
“I do realize that.” Max’s voice first rose to an unmanly squeak and then broke. He had to take a deep breath before continuing. “However, I can't control my muscles forever.”
“Query. Clarify control muscles.”
Max’s ass burned like the first time he'd experimented with a butt plug and hadn't known that if a young idiot left it in and allowed the lube to get absorbed, pulling it back out would become an exercise in masochism. “Clarification. I want to bear down and tighten all the muscles around the obstruction. I’m thinking that’s a human reaction to having something too large pass through. Just clench the muscles and it all gets compacted tighter.” Max had no idea if that was true or not, but it seemed plausible because his body was screaming at him to clench hard.
“I shall endeavor to expedite the offspring,” Rick said. He pushed his tentacle in, and Max squealed. “Observe. Offspring is nearly past the last bend.” Rick changed the holographic image above Max. It now showed a grayscale close up of his intestines, but there was a small, round head with huge eyes, undulating its way down the lower part of Max’s large intestine. Stubby little tentacles allowed it to crawl forward. Kohei.
“He has your head,” Max said.
“He possesses his own appendages,” Rick responded.
Max honestly didn't know whether that was a translation failure or Rick’s sense of humor. Sometimes it was difficult to tell. However, he broke out in near-hysterical giggles. He was a fucking officer and fighter pilot, but he couldn’t seem to stop fucking giggling. Kohei looked like a little stuffed toy version of an octopus, but the sight of that bulbous little creature crawling its way toward freedom gave Max the strength to breathe through the pain and ignore his instincts.
The scanner caught the edge of another little tentacle, and Rick reduced the magnification. A second offspring wriggled much more quickly than his bulbous brother. And then he spotted the third one. It was half the size of the middle sibling, and it appeared to be swimming in the fluid around his medium-sized brother rather than crawling. That was not good. If it still had room to swim, it had to be tiny.
“Query. Can you stop the third offspring?” Max asked.
Rick’s tentacles curled. “I cannot reach past Offspring One to touch Offspring Three. To save Offspring Three would require dismembering Offspring One.”
Max closed his eyes and let his head thunk onto the cold exam table. Rick’s tentacles offered comfort in the form of small strokes, which made Max feel even worse. Rick might lose a child. He shouldn’t be the one offering comfort.
Max watched the children. Kohei was wriggling now, desperate to get free, and Max felt the strain in his entire body. If he hadn't been able to see Kohei, he wasn't sure he would have the strength to avoid pushing. Offspring Three swam like a jellyfish with all his tentacles flowing out before they all rushed back together again. He wasn't getting anywhere because he didn't have the room inside what appeared to be his brother’s birth sac, but he was sure trying. His little tentacles kicked and twitched and curled, and Max felt sick to his stomach. “Query. Could small offspring survive being born now?”
“Unknown.” For long minutes, Rick said nothing. Kohei’s first few tentacles reached the exit ramp, and Rick pulled his tentacle out right before Max felt small slapping movements against his ass. “Survival requires a body large enough to maintain internal warmth and limbs strong enough to maintain movement. Nutrients are absorbed through movement in water,” Rick said.
Max looked at the smallest offspring with those tentacles madly kicking, and he had to hope that Offspring Three could survive. Suddenly all the pain vanished. The sense of having a butt at all vanished. Half of Max’s body disappeared.
“Offspring three has ejected the....” And Rick’s sentence ended with a series of ear-splitting shrieks.
“Translation matrix failure,” Max said.
Rick’s tentacles uncorkscrewed a little. “Offspring eject hormone to relax host muscles. You may be gross after offspring appear, but birth will move quickly now.”
“Wait, what?” Max propped himself up on one elbow. His body was still there. Thank God. But Max couldn’t feel anything as a mini-Rick, smaller than a football,
slipped free of his body. The stubby tentacles waved in the air and curled, but it was silent. Unlike his father, he lacked any red markings and his body was mottled gray and beige.
“Query. Is offspring healthy?” Max asked, slurring the words. His elbow slipped and he would have face-planted onto the table, but Rick’s tentacles caught him and eased him down.
“Offspring One is healthy.”
“Cute,” Max mumbled. It was. Its eyes were huge, and sure there were too many, but that couldn’t counteract the frilly mantle that wrapped around the bottom of his head or the stubby tentacles or the oversized head. It was absolutely adorable.
“Earth people are weird,” Rick said, but then the world started fading away. Max dimly realized that word the translator had missed was some sort of general anesthesia. Max fell asleep as Rick was telling him something about Offspring Two.
Chapter Eleven
When Max woke, he was in his bed alcove in the tiny space he thought of as his bedroom. The thin sheet was tucked around him and any evidence of bodily fluids had been removed. Rick had been busy.
Max sat up and winced as his ass complained about the abuse it had suffered. He touched the puffy entrance. It was sore, but no worse than if he had overindulged in some vigorous sex while drunk. He never used enough lube when he was drunk.
Max swung his legs over the edge of the bed and cradled his head in his hands for a couple of minutes. He was strangely woozy, which he hoped was a simple case of hunger. He was thinner than he had been. It made sense that the children would create some sort of membrane around them and store up liquid, but for some reason, that hadn't occurred to Max. He had thought alien food had too many calories, and he’d been trying to run off the paunch he had developed.
For the first time in his life he had those Adonis creases over his hip bones all the male models had in gay magazines. Max had wondered if they only appeared through the magic of photo manipulation. Not even the gym rats on base had them.
