Pregnant

short story

After years of my husband and I avoiding it, I’m pregnant. I can feel the alien creature inside of me. I loathe every moment of it. I’m trapped. My body will deprive itself and succor the thing within. My body will bloat until even the simplest tasks will prove difficult.

My husband is overjoyed. Why wouldn’t he be? But how do I dare tell him that it’s not his child? How long will it be before he suspects that I haven’t been to a doctor or until he decides that he’s going to come along on one of those fake appointments?

All those hours in the library researching everything under the sun about pregnancy. Those endless hours walking blindly as I contemplated my options or lack thereof.

I turn away from my husband when he tries to hold me in the night. His soft caress on my tummy sending shivers of fear down my spine so that I push him away and turn from him while I stare blindly into the dark.

I’m pregnant, and it’s not his child. Hell, it’s not my child! I wasn’t given much of a choice. My mind replayed the conversation.

“You must accept this child as it may be the last of its kind. Your race and ours are not that alien to be incompatible. We’ll take the necessary precautions to ensure your safety.”

“But how can you ensure my safety while you’re being hunted?”

He looked so forlorn and distant, “By hiding you amongst your own kind while we lead the enemy far away from you.”

I could still recall my panicked voice, “What you’re saying is, you may never return, and I’ll have a child that could devour me from within.” I think I screamed that part. My fear was rampant. I’d never wanted to be pregnant, and now by accident or fate, I was having a child, no, make that children. One of each sex to ensure that they could propagate their species. Two separate children by two separate fathers.

“They won’t eat you. Your pregnancy will be to outward appearances, normal.”

“Can you guarantee that?”

“He paused, “Invitro is not an exact science, but its success rate continues to improve. All the protocols will be followed. Your world will be safe once we lead your enemies away. Your world will be saved. Can you deny us knowing we are going to our deaths and it’s our one last chance to save our species so that a part of us will live on after the rest of us are gone?”

I couldn’t look at him. It was the fault of my people that his world had been destroyed while they were out on a space exploration mission.

“No, I will not deny you this. I’m just not ready. I never wanted children.”

He smiled enigmatically, “My mother said that to my father, and I know she never regretted a moment.”

I sized him up. His mahogany brown hair was foreign to me, as were his dual-lidded eyes. He was taller than most of the males of my kind, but he’d saved us, and we owed him; this human.

I nodded, agreeing to the procedure, knowing my life would never be the same. I smoothed down my green hair and brought my slim-scaled hand to his. My nictitating eyelids blinked twice. “We have an agreement.”