by Pepper Pace
“Not now.” She folded her arms and rested them on her belly as if it was a shelf. “You nearly died. I didn’t know if you would wake up.”
Bilal frowned, and when she reached to pick up the basket, he rushed forward.
Carmella jumped back.
Bilal reached down and hefted the basket for her. “I’ll carry it for you,” he said.
She blushed. “Oh.”
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
He trudged up the stairs and waited for her at the top, concerned that she seemed out of breath by the time she reached him. Was the child pressing against her lungs? Maybe it was growing too big. This was his first time creating a child, and the mother ship had much to do with what resulted. He wasn’t completely sure it would turn out the way that was optimum.
Carmella gestured down a hall lined in closed doors toward her bedroom. She watched his naked, muscled back and the way his pants hung low on his hips. She knew what lay beneath those pants. She’d had to clean him, and yes she did look. The sight of a naked man had unsettled her.
Not that it stopped her from looking.
Bilal glanced around the neat room and placed the basket on the bed. His shoulder throbbed, but he hid the pain and turned to her. “I don’t know what to call you. In my mind I call you ‘the human’ or ‘the woman.’ But that’s not right.”
In her mind she wanted to complain that she was his baby’s mama, but at the last minute she bit back the retort. She stared at him. “Carmella.”
A smiled touched his lips. It was so perfect. Carmella. She was Carmella.
Carmella’s eyes widened at the look on his face. She reached for the clothes in the basket and placed them on the bed to sort his from hers. She pushed some pajamas in his direction. “I found these in the house when I moved in. I just put them in the basement. I should have thrown them out but couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was too much trouble, but it didn’t seem right to get rid of them. They ought to fit you. There are more clothes in the basement if you want to sort through them. There’s a coat and maybe some shoes will fit.”
“Thank you. I was making plans to go into town for clothes and provisions before winter.” He looked at her belly. “The child will need provisions as well.”
Carmella frowned. “What … is it?”
“It is a baby.”
“No,” she said. “Is it going to be like you were before? A Centaurian? An alien?”
“No,” he said softly. “I tried to give you a gift. A child. A human child. He’s a boy.”
She sucked in a sharp breath and fingered a folded piece of clothing that lay on the bed. She shook her head. “My son died …”
“Yes. But this child will be your son as well.”
Carmella’s eyes stung as she picked up some of the clothes and put them away in her chest of drawers.
“And I suspect that the infant will come sooner than I expected.”
She stared at him. “What? When?”
“I don’t know.” He looked at her belly. “I won’t know unless I can examine the baby.” He met her eyes. “I need to do that.” He rubbed his shoulder and looked at the clothes designated as his then picked up a shirt and slipped it carefully over his head. “But first, I have to go. I have to get provisions.”
“Go into town? You’ve been out cold for three days. And my wolf nearly killed you. There are more wolves out there, wolves that won’t be talked down by their angry mother. Besides …” She moved to the door, silently willing him to follow her.
Bilal followed her into the hallway, and across the hall from her bedroom was a closed door. She opened it and stepped inside, and Bilal followed. He looked around, his mouth dropping open.
It was a nursery. It wasn’t an old nursery of cobwebs and torn wallpaper like he’d seen in other abandoned homes over the years. No, this nursery was new. He looked at Carmella. She had prepared for this baby. He felt elated as he stepped inside and studied the crib, the rocker, and the wall hangings of colorful alphabet letters and pictures. She did want this child, or at the very least, she was preparing to care for him.
“Do you have everything that a baby would need? Is there anything else that the child will need?”
For some reason she couldn’t meet his eyes and the room felt too closed-in. She didn’t like the feeling and fiddled with the mobile hanging above the crib. She shrugged. “I don’t know if the powdered formula is any good anymore, but I got tons of it. I got bottles and diapers and … I have everything I need.” She looked into his eyes. “I was kind of worried about how sick I might be afterwards. I guess … that’s all.”
“I’ll be here, Carmella. I do need to check the baby. May I?”
She folded her arms defensively in front of her body and looked away. Eventually she nodded.
Bilal moved to her, deliberately not making any sudden gestures as he gently touched her elbow. He led her to the rocker. “Sit, please.”
She did, tensing at his proximity and watching him warily.
“I’m going to touch your belly with my fingers. Is that okay?”
She nodded.
He placed his palms flat against her belly. He met her eyes when he felt the child moving actively within her.
“It … he moves a lot,” Carmella said. “Kicks and stretches.”
“Are you in any pain?”
She shrugged. “I’ve been pregnant before. Nothing I’m not familiar with.”
He concentrated on the feel of the baby’s movements. “Carmella, do you remember when I placed my tentacles against your wolf? When I was in my previous body and healing him?”
She nodded.
“Within my tentacles are sensors, filaments that burrow into the body. It doesn’t hurt, and it’s barely noticeable. They allow me to manipulate cell development, to heal, and to see inside.”
She had known that the tentacles were doing something like that, though she had not known the extent of his ability.
“I don’t have tentacles any longer, but I still have the sensors.” He opened his mouth and showed her his tongue. It was pink like any other tongue.
Carmella gasped. From the tip of his tongue slipped a thin filament that waved in the air like the tongue of a forked snake. Two more joined the first, and it looked as if thin gray worms were pushing their way out of his tongue. She wanted to get up and run. It was horrifying!
He closed his mouth. “Carmella, I need to connect with you through those sensors. I need to connect with the baby.”
“Uh … what? How?” She thought about those filaments traveling up her vagina, and she wanted to bolt out of her seat.
“I only need to touch your belly. That’s all.”
She studied his face and nodded her consent.
He knelt and lifted her shirt until her brown flesh was exposed to him. It was stretched tight, nearly too tight. He placed his hands against her flesh, fingers splayed. After giving her a quick look, he lowered his head and placed his lips against her belly button.
Carmella grimaced and gripped the arms of her rocker. He was kissing her. Oh my God! She was being kissed for the first time in years and didn’t know what to think or how to feel. She stared down at his lowered head, his face obscured by dark hair. She closed her eyes to block out the sight of it. She thought about Jody. Oh God, Jody. She wanted to cry, and she wanted to scream, but she stayed as still as she could.
Bilal’s lips pressed against her warm brown skin where her bellybutton had once been. It had disappeared over her stretched flesh weeks before. He held her firmly in place and pressed the tip of his tongue against her. The sensors pushed into her belly, so thin that they were barely there.
But she felt them. It didn’t hurt, and strangely it didn’t cause any pain.
Bilal closed his eyes and “saw” through his sensors as he allowed them to connect through her nerve endings and travel through her umbilicus to her unborn child. In this way he got to see his son for the first time sinc
e he had implanted him within his mother’s womb. Bilal connected to his son, and his son recognized him. It pleased him. He tested his son’s blood and found that it was rich with the necessary nutrients, and his body functioned normally though his lungs were still not fully developed. He took a few more moments to transfer information to his child before he allowed his sensors to retract and return to his own body.
Bilal lifted his head, leaned back on his heels, and looked at Carmella.
“Well?” Carmella asked.
“He is good. He is comfortable and well-fed. He is anxious to meet the world. But I told him it’s not yet time.” Bilal smiled. “I believe he is impatient so he may kick and toss and turn, but he is quite comfortable despite the tight confines. He rather enjoys it.”
Carmella widened her eyes. “Are you shitting me?”
Bilal shrugged. “No. Centaurians communicate through means other than words.”
“You were talking to him?”
“In some ways, yes. But without words.”
Carmella pushed down her shirt and covered her stomach with her hands. Somehow it made her feel strange knowing that the two could communicate. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the baby, but she was sure she didn’t like the idea of the two of them bonding.
Chapter 15
~I am not Alone~
Carmella transformed the broth into a luscious vegetable stew. She and Bilal sat at the butcher block kitchen table and had it with the fresh baked bread.
Carmella watched as Bilal spooned soup into his mouth. “How did you …” She gestured to his body.
“Become human,” Bilal said.
She grimaced. He wasn’t human because he had some man’s body. What about that crazy skin? When he was sick it had a distinct gray undertone, and now it was purple and pink like a soft bruise beneath the more normal looking bronze.
He noted her distaste but didn’t allow it to bother him. Despite her obvious disdain, he knew she would not be sitting across from him if he was in his old body. He gripped his spoon. “It’s complicated, more complicated than I could explain to you. But essentially I linked to the mother ship and allowed it to alter my physical makeup.”
She let her mind digest that for a while. “So, can you become Centaurian again?”
“No.”
She spooned soup into her mouth. “Why? You changed once.”
“The part that was Centaurian is gone, not suppressed.” He eyed the bread before reaching for another slice, chomping on it before continuing. “Imagine a human male undergoing a sex-change operation. The parts that are gone can never return.”
“Ah …” She nodded. “So, do you … miss it?”
“I did when your wolf was attacking me.”
She grimaced. “That shouldn’t happen again.”
“And it’s been cold outside at night. I cannot regulate my body temperature in this human body.” He met her eyes and thought he detected some guilt. He didn’t know why since none of this was her fault. “But I have no regrets, at least not about my body.” He returned his attention to the soup and finished it. He leaned back in the chair and rubbed his eyes. “How are the animals? I should check on them.” He stood.
Over the weeks that Carmella had watched Bilal in his human form from her window, she had gotten used to him. She didn’t acknowledge this, but Bilal had become the focal point of her life. He had become her entertainment as she plopped down in her armchair to watch him each day. She relished cooking again and seeing him enjoy the meals she prepared. She wondered about his intentions, his thoughts, and why he seemed so human. Other than his chameleon skin, he didn’t seem much different from any other person. She had lost her fear of him. He was polite and handsome in a nerdy Asian way, but she could also sense that he really did not mean her any harm. Besides, he’d done all of the chores for weeks without complaint.
She shrugged and waved her hand dismissively. “I already took care of it. Besides, if you even think about lifting anything, you’re going to open up that wound in your shoulder. You also just woke up after being unconscious for three days.”
Bilal blinked.
Carmella frowned. “Who do you think has been doing the work out there before you showed up?” She pointed to her stomach. “This isn’t going to stop me.” That wasn’t quite true. She couldn’t cut the wood or shovel or haul anything. For some reason she didn’t want to admit that.
Bilal didn’t know how to respond, so he kept his mouth shut.
She pulled herself up to her feet and gestured for him to follow her. She led him down the stairs to the lower level and a fully finished basement now used mostly for storage. There was a big screen television and nice sectional sofa. Once upon a time a family used to gather here for something like Tuesday movie nights. Bilal’s imagination tried to picture what human life must have been like in a house like this, but all he could think of were re-runs of old television sitcoms. He knew enough humans to realize that real life was nothing like sitcoms. He longed to know firsthand, but he only seemed to experience life from the outside looking in.
Carmella opened a box on a side table and began pulling items out of it. “You can see if these will fit you.” She handed him some of the clothes.
“Thank you, Carmella,” he said as he examined a pair of jeans. They might be a bit big, but he could make it work.
“Whatever you can find in here you can keep. It’s all men’s clothes.” She reached for another box.
Bilal pulled it down from a stack and placed it on the floor. They stood side by side as she dug through it and pulled up a nice parka.
He smiled. “That will do fine.”
She stared at his smiling face. For the first time it struck her that she was in the presence of another person, uh, a semi-person. She was talking and being talked to. She almost couldn’t grasp the concept of it.
I am not alone.
Carmella felt overwhelmed and looked at anything but him. “Um, this is pretty comfortable down here. And winter here can be brutal, so if you want you can crash down here …”
“Crash?”
Carmella cleared her throat. “You can sleep down here.”
Bilal raised his eyebrows.
“Soon it will be too cold for you to sleep outside,” Carmella said. “It’s too cold now. Besides, I can’t let you die before you can help me deliver this baby.”
“You are being sarcastic,” Bilal said.
Carmella looked away. “Sort of.”
“Thank you, Carmella. Thank you for the room and the clothes, and thank you for helping me to get better.”
There was a cold glint in her eyes as she headed back up the stairs. “Don’t thank me. My motivation was purely selfish. I need someone here to help me deliver. If not for that, your ass would be wolf shit right about now.”
“You are being sort of sarcastic again,” Bilal said.
“Not this time.”
He watched her disappear up the stairs. It is good not to be wolf shit, he thought.
“The couch pulls out into a bed,” Carmella called out. “Get some rest. You look tired.”
Bilal smiled. She needs me, he thought. She wants me to rest. He looked at the couch. I will sleep well tonight.
Chapter 16
~First Bath~
Carmella sat on the edge of her bed staring at the floor. She was trying to figure out how she had gotten to this place. She was pregnant, and an alien was in her basement …
She rubbed her face. Had she made a mistake? No. There was nothing that she would have done differently. She would not have allowed her wolf to kill him, and she couldn’t allow him to go hungry when she had food to spare. And she definitely would not watch him freeze out in the barn.
So then why did she feel so unsure? She closed her eyes and let her mind drift. A long time ago she had known a young man named Jody, and Jody believed the Centaurians were travelers who wanted to share knowledge. He never believed they meant humans any harm. Bitterness filled
her that he was taken from her, but then the bitterness disappeared. Jody had never hated anyone or anything in his short life. If he was here and she was long dead, she believed Jody would study this alien as much as the alien apparently wanted to study her.
She smoothed the wrinkles from the covers of her bed and went downstairs. No matter how much she disliked them, events were moving in a direction she could not control. And as much as she hated to admit it, she needed the alien to be here. His presence was security. He did the chores that would be difficult for her, he understood the life that was growing inside of her, and he seemed to be intelligent, non-threatening, and conscientious of her fears. He didn’t Bogart his way around her.
She went to the top of the basement stairs. Bilal scared her, but her fear was no longer because he was an alien. She feared him because he was another intelligent being, and it had been a long time since she’d had someone else for company. When there had been no other voice, no other face to gaze upon for years upon years, just about anything was welcomed.
She sighed and peered down the darkened stairs. “Bilal?” She felt strange about giving him a name other than “Blob” or “Alien.”
“Yes, Carmella?” He came to the foot of the stairs.
“I need to know something.”
“Yes?”
“How long are you going to be here?”
His mouth formed a grim line, but his eyes didn’t move from her face. “I will be with you and the child for five years.”
Her mouth parted. “What?”
“My intent is not to interfere with your life. Once the child is born I can go away and leave you to your life. But I won’t be far away. I can’t go far.”
“Why? I mean, why are you doing this?”
He took a deep breath. “Because it was the only way that I could rectify the mistake I made.” His eyes moved briefly to her belly. “Carmella, please believe that my intention was never to rape you. Raj says that what I did was rape. I am truly sorry. At the time my intentions were good, but … ”