by Dex Bass
Walking anywhere, even just through the OmegaCheck parking lot to the building door, wasn’t comfortable for very pregnant and very ankle-swollen Os. But of course he had to. And the modeling gig would be fun, would help omega pride, and of course would make him some money.
Alan scanned his entry card. Os hesitantly pushed open the thick steel door. Immediately, a woman’s voice announced, “We finally get to meet Alan Archer’s handsome omega boyfriend!”
“Hey, Debbie,” Alan said. “Debbie is someone in this department I actually know. Debbie, this is Os. My boyfriend, my lover, my omega mate, the co-father of my child.” Alan gently patted Os’s pregnant belly.
“Os! Our superstar model! Come with me!” She led Os to a wardrobe room with dress shirts, dress jackets, t-shirts, sweaters, even tuxedos, all with a pregnancy-accommodating bulge in the front. “So we’re going to do a bunch of scenes, some just you, some with Alan, all for the OmegaCheck product of course.”
“Great,” Os said. Alan was bringing up the rear, looking unsure about whether he should follow Os and Debbie. Os waved behind him to invite Alan to follow. Alan was an alpha, in his own workplace, and Os was giving him permission to follow him. Maybe Os really was coming into his own as a man.
Debbie shuffled through the shirts, pants, suits, and tuxedos on the rack. “Some of these are for the alpha mate, no pregnancy bump,” she said, smiling at Alan. “He’s normally known around here as Doctor Archer. He’s known as Os’s alpha mate for this photo shoot, I guess.”
“Cool. I don’t get to dress up much beyond business casual,” Alan said, entering the dressing room.
“Can we start out in tuxes?” Debbie asked, already pulling out a selection of tuxedos and laying them on the table before Alan or Os had a chance to answer. “You guys would look amazing in tuxes.”
“Never worn a tux in my life,” Alan said, laughing.
“Neither have I. But I’m only nineteen,” Os said, playing up a bit of young omega innocence.
“Oh.” Debbie seemed puzzled. “So you guys haven’t —”
“Oh yeah we have!” Alan said and patted Os’s pregnant belly. Os did his best to smile at Alan’s slightly salacious joke.
“Not that!” Debbie shook her head and clicked her tongue in reprimand. “I mean you haven’t officially gotten married yet?”
“Nope,” Os said matter-of-factly.
“We haven’t gotten around to it, with all the hassle I went through, we went through, at the university. Actual wedding kind of took a back seat,” Alan said.
“Well.” Debbie chose one tux with a pregnancy bump, one without and laid them out in front of Os and Alan. “You guys would look amazing in tuxes. All I’m saying. And you should give it a try right now for the photoshoot.”
“Do Os and I get to share a dressing room?” Alan asked. This must have been his jokey, slightly lecherous, pull-my-finger persona at work.
“You do get to share a dressing room, Doctor Archer,” Debbie said with a sigh. “But you’ve got five minutes flat to change into those tuxedos, so no funny business ok?”
“Are you accusing Os of being a pervert?” Alan asked.
“No, but I’m quite certain you’re a pervert, Doctor Archer, no accusations required.” Debbie laughed and waved as she left the dressing room and shut the door behind her.
Os held his pregnant belly in dull pain and sat down on the sofa. Alan hovered over him and helped him change, while still sitting on the sofa, from his t-shirt and sweats into the tuxedo. Os had never worn clothes like these before. Alan got up and changed into his matching tuxedo. Then he held out his hand to help Os stand up. They looked into the full-length mirror together. Alan took his phone off the table and snapped a photo of the two of them in the mirror. Os took his own phone and did the same.
“Your five minutes is almost up! Stop doing whatever you’re doing!” Debbie announced from outside the dressing room door.
“We’re just taking pictures,” Alan said, mock-wearily. “And not those kinds of pictures either.”
“Can I come in, just to make sure?” Debbie asked.
“Sure. Come in,” Alan said. Debbie started opening the door. “Check out our cocks!” Alan yelled. Debbie shrieked and closed the door again. Alan shook his head and laughed. “So easy to scare you women. Our cocks are safely stowed away in our tuxedos.” Debbie came back into the room, her head shaking even more vigorously than before.
“This is perfect,” Debbie said. “Do you mind posing for photos in a wedding mockup in those tuxedos? And then you can wear more casual clothes for some honeymoon shots?”
“Our magic honeymoon at the OmegaCheck warehouse?” Alan asked with a laugh.
“Set design. The magic of set design.” Debbie waved at the mockups of beaches, mountains, and cities that sat around the room, ready for shooting ads. She waved Alan and Os to a set resembling a wedding hall or church, with realistic mannequins in the audience.
Alan and Os took their places to be pretend-wed. Debbie called over the photo and lighting staff. The stage lights were hot on Os’s face.
“When we do this for real, can we do it without the stage lights?” Os asked Alan.
“Sure. Even sitting down would be fine, since you’re pregnant,” Alan said.
“Sitting down?” Os asked. “We can get married sitting down?”
“It’s our wedding, isn’t it?” Alan smiled at Os. “And you’re pregnant. Very pregnant. So we can get married any way we want.”
“That actually sounds wonderful,” Os said. He’d been hesitant to bring up the wedding to Alan because he didn’t know whether he could make it through an entire wedding standing up in a tuxedo, and he didn’t want to disappoint or embarrass Alan. Now the pressure was off. “I’m sorry I didn’t mention a wedding earlier. I just thought I couldn’t make it standing up all the way through. Stupid reason, right?”
“Husbands, kiss!” Debbie yelled, as a flurry of camera clicks started around them.
“Yes, ma’am,” Alan said, sounding just like a dejected kindergartener. Alan leaned into Os and gave him a kiss for the ages, a kiss to be remembered, a kiss that maybe wouldn’t make it into the OmegaCheck ads. He dove into Os’s mouth with his tongue and lips and ran his hands up and down Os’s back and under Os’s pregnant belly. Os kissed him back just as fiercely, running his tongue all over Alan’s tongue and teeth and lips, then giving Alan’s nose a small love bite.
Alan pulled away slightly from Os and asked Debbie, “How’s that?”
“Oh my,” Debbie said, theatrically fanning herself. “I didn’t sign up for that, but I think our target market of horny omegas might enjoy it.”
“So there’s a bonus for Os?” Alan asked Debbie.
“Sure,” Debbie said. “As if being your boyfriend wasn’t enough of a bonus.”
Alan reached out and held Os’s hand, and smiled and posed for a few more photos. “Can Os sit down sometime soon?” Alan asked. “He’s very, very pregnant.”
“Do you guys wanna just do your beach honeymoon photoshoot in your tuxes? I think it might be fun.”
“Sure, if it means I can sit down sooner,” Os said. His extra pregnancy weight, combined with pregnancy exhaustion, combined with sore feet and ankles, combined with lack of sleep — he really just needed to rest.
Debbie led them to a cheesy photo set depicting a “beachside,” with beach loungers, fake sand, a tiki hut, and cardboard blue ocean waves in the distance. Os sat down in a beach lounger as soon as he could, and exclaimed “aaahhh.”
“Ham up the beach thing a bit,” Debbie said. Os laughed. Alan sat down in the lounger next to Os’s. Os held his arms up to enjoy the imaginary ocean breeze. Alan kicked imaginary sand. Cameras snapped. Debbie laughed.
“Alan. I can’t wait until our real wedding,” Os said. He was confident about his relationship with Alan, for the most part. About 99%. 1% of him was still the shaking, unsure omega who wasn’t sure if he was good enough to be loved by
a man like Alan. The wedding would just be that last part that would confirm away that 1% of doubt, that would cement their love deeply in Os’s always-doubting subconscious.
“I can’t either,” Alan said. He leaned to the side to plant a kiss on Os’s cheek, and instead sent the prop-grade plastic lounger collapsing to the ground. Even more cameras clicked and Debbie and the photographers laughed.
Alan smiled at the cameras and gave a thumbs-up from the floor of faux-sand he was sitting on. “I did that on purpose,” Alan announced, leaning up against Os’s lounger, then theatrically kissed Os’s hand. Debbie and the camera crew applauded.
They hammed it up a bit more, with an inflatable beach ball, a toy sailboat, and a big plastic fish. Os knew that OmegaCheck’s magazine ads were often tongue-in-cheek, and this photoshoot seemed to fit perfectly.
After that photoshoot, Os was ready to collapse to sleep. Alan walked him out to the car, sat him in the passenger seat, and let him sleep. Os was asleep before he even remembered Alan pulling out of the OmegaCheck lot.
A quiet beeping awoke Os. Alan was taking a phone call on his Bluetooth headset. Os kept his eyes closed and vaguely listened to Alan’s side of the phone conversation, as best he could through the road hum and his own sleepiness. Alan was speaking quietly, almost whispering, either not to wake Os or to keep his conversation confidential. Either way, Os could make out most of it.
“Hey, dad.”
“Yeah, still with Oswald. Yeah, that student. I’ll send you another pic.”
“Dad. No.”
“Dad. We’ve been over this.”
“No, he’s not anybody famous. Last name? Offenbach. You won’t find him in the Society Register, sorry.”
“I know that’s what you want. That’s not what I want.”
“This isn’t fucking Game of Thrones, Archer edition, Dad. I don’t have to marry for your strategic whims.”
“Yes, I know they have an omega son who’s single. I’m not interested.”
“You’ll meet Os at our wedding, Dad. You’ll understand then.”
“I don’t care. I still am.”
“Well I’m still marrying him.”
“No date set yet. Maybe sometime in May. We’ll invite you if you’re good.”
“Well then you can go fume about it in private and don’t bother me.”
Os looked at Alan through a one-eighth-opened eye. Alan shook his head, sighed, and took off his Bluetooth headset and tossed it in the storage cubby. Still half-asleep, Os put out his hand, palm up, and lay it on the center console. Alan put his hand into Os’s. Os held Alan’s hand firmly. He didn’t know exactly what the conversation was about, but he knew that if Alan had always, always been there for him, he also needed to be there for Alan, to the best of his meager abilities.
Os woke up again, cool air conditioning blowing over his face. The car was already in the garage. Alan stood at the passenger door, helping Os out of the car. Os lifted himself and his pregnant belly up and out of the car, and Alan held him up so he wouldn’t do an unintentional skating performance on the concrete floor and fall down in his bunny slippers. That skating Os did on the floor outside Alan’s office seemed like it was centuries ago, even if it was only seven months back.
Alan walked Os to the bedroom. Os couldn’t resist asking about the phone call.
“Your dad doesn’t want you to marry me?” Os mumbled.
“Archer family stuff.” Alan sighed. I’ve always had to deal with it. “They’re old society people. They always think it’s Game of Thrones, I have to marry some family ally or something.”
“You don’t have to — you don’t have to marry me.” Os said it in a voice that was half asleep, half joking, and either way, totally disconnected from here-and-now.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Alan said, laughing. “But FYI, I love you and I want to marry you, and only you.”
“Really?” Os stumbled toward the bed as he asked.
Alan helped Os lie on the bed, and lifted up his t-shirt to kiss his pregnant belly again. “Really.”
Nine
“I’m going to be honest with you,” Alan’s father, David, said from the podium. “I didn’t even understand exactly how male pregnancy thing works. I am, as my son would say, bamboozled. And then my son became one of leading researchers in the field. How’s that for funny?”
Mild laughs and applause came from the wedding audience.
“And the other thing I’m going to tell you in complete honesty,” David Archer continued, “Coming from the Archer family — you know, with our family crest and everything,” David grinned and pointed at the family crest hanging on the wall in the wedding hall. Alan visibly rolled his eyes.
“Coming from that kind of background with the family crest, I always thought I’d be setting up my son for marriage. Marriage with an ally or an enemy or something like that. You know, Game of Thrones, Archer family edition.” The audience laughed. Os laughed especially enthusiastically, bunny slippers and all. Os was finally beginning to trust Alan that their relationship was real and that even Alan’s family approved of it — and that Os was indeed good enough for Alan.
“But my son, Alan, convinced me, that his husband-to-be, Oswald, is wonderful. And I’ve met Oswald and it’s definitely been concerned. And who could say no to a man wearing bunny slippers?” Os looked down at his bunny slippers and laughed, standing off to the side together with Alan and watching the proceedings.
“Without further ado, and not because we’re paying for this venue by the hour,” Alan’s father said, “let’s marry these two lovebirds!”
Alan put out his hand for Os. Alan helped Os walk down the aisle, as he helped pregnant Os do everything, always. The processional music started: “Walking On Sunshine,” Katrina and the Waves. That song had come on the radio more than once when Alan was driving Os to and from Springville State, and Alan associated it with his relationship, and now with his wedding.
Os walked arm-in-arm with Alan, being held up on him, ever-so-slightly trying to walk down the aisle in rhythm with the song. At the front of the aisle was a royal blue sofa. Senator Orlando Osborne stood in front of it, ready to administer the wedding vows.
Alan lifted Os into the air and turned to the crowd, cradling him in his arms. Applause and cheers. Alan gently, lovingly set Os down to sit on the sofa, and sat down next to him himself, for the wedding.
“Friends and family,” Senator Osborne began. “As you can see, these wedding vows are going to be just a little bit unconventional. The grooms will sit on a sofa instead of standing. But we are here to confirm that love is love, and that marriage is marriage even if the grooms are sitting on a sofa, not standing up. Because, excuse my language, pregnancy is a bitch.” Senator Osborne chuckled to himself. Alan glanced around the room for the expected share of grimaces, shocked looks, and laughs. At least Alan’s and Os’s parents were laughing.
“And also because pregnancy is a bitch, and causes swollen feet and ankles,” Senator Osborne continued, “our pregnant omega groom, Oswald Offenbach, is wearing bunny slippers today.”
Alan had helped Os rehearse this move every day for the past week: do a turn seated on the sofa, and hold his feet with bunny slippers high into the air. The bunny slippers would bring big laughs and make these wedding vows even more memorable than they already were.
Alan nodded to Os to do the bunny-slipper pirouette. Os nodded and leaned back on the sofa, then energetically threw his feet up into the air. It was more like a double-footed soccer kick than like a pirouette. “Bunny slippers!” Senator Osborne announced again, staying perfectly on-script.
The bunny slippers flew off of Os’s feet. Both went flying into the crowd, to cheers. They must’ve thought it was planned that way.
Then a crack. A crunch. A pool of water all over the sofa. This definitely wasn’t planned.
“Oh shit!” Os yelled, then covered his sort-of-innocent nineteen-year-old mouth.
“That’s not sh
it. Your water broke,” Alan whispered, half-laughing.
Panic took over Senator Osborne’s face. “Do you, Alan, marry this man, blah blah, we don’t have much time?”
“I do,” Alan said.
“Os, your water just broke. Do you marry Alan?” Senator Osborne’s eyes were scanning between Os’s face, the pregnancy-fluid-stained couch, and the exit door out to the parking lot.
“I do,” Os howled in half panic, half exuberance. His face was joy and pain all at once. “Got a contraction!Got a contraction!” Os yelled.
“You’re married now! Let’s get you to the hospital!” Senator Osborne gave a perfunctory goodbye wave to the assembled wedding crowd and led Os and Alan out to his SUV. Os was barefoot; they didn’t have time to try to get his bunny slippers back from whichever wedding attendees were treating them as a souvenir. Senator Osborne helped Os and Alan climb in the back, then turned on his emergency flashers and drove them to MPreg Hospital.
Os was breathing quickly. “Ow ow ow!” he yelled out periodically.
“Well, you know from class that’s your pregnancy contractions,” Alan said about as calmly as he could speak about his own husband giving birth to his own daughter.
“Yeah, I know that from your class. Doesn’t make it not hurt like a motherfucker. Owwwww!” Os grumbled.
Alan held Os’s hand in his own, kissed Os’s cheek silently, then smiled and took out his phone. “I’m gonna try to call in a favor.” He dialed and talked to someone quietly. “Ok, good. Doctor Adam Albright is an old friend. He agreed to do your delivery,” Alan said to Os.
“Doctor Adam Albright? The famous guy? The inventor of male pregnancy medicine?”
“Yeah, I guess, the famous guy,” Alan said with a smile.
“He’s going to do my delivery?” Os asked.
“Keep in mind that your husband is a famous guy, and helped launch Albright’s career. Yeah.” Alan smiled again.
Senator Osborne pulled the SUV into the waiting double doors. He’d go back to the wedding to wind things down and be polite, while the grooms were busy delivering their daughter.