Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Hey, Lisa! What’s wrong with these shorts?
Do I have them on backwards again?” I shout from our bathroom.
Johnny moved in with us, and I’m not sure where he is right now, so I’m hesitant to step out of my steamy haven.
As much as I love wearing the real uniform for my job, short shorts still outsmart me.
This pair won’t button over my belly. The last time I couldn’t fit into a pair of shorts, I had them on backwards, but those didn’t have a button fly.
I can’t imagine how one buttons shorts with their hands behind their back, but there are stranger things in fashion these days.
“Jenny, take a chill pill!” Lisa calls through the door. “It’s a brisk morning. You could get away with the short-sleeved polo over stirrup pants.”
“That’s a great idea for after you cut me out of these. I think I’m stuck,” I wail as I crack open the bathroom door to let her in. Tears gather at the corners of my eyes as I imagine my best friend calling the fire department to release me from my shorts.
Her eyes go wide over the hand covering her mouth when she takes in my clothes. “Oh, girl, have you been drinking from the deep fryer?”
“Hardy har har,” I grouse, releasing the fly of my shorts. They’re suspended by my hips. Will I ever get out of them? “I can’t believe I’ve put on so much weight in a few months. It’s not like my eating habits have changed.”
“I told you to come to jazzercise with me. Maybe now that you’re a heathen, you will take my advice. You can’t hide your figure in a sack dress now!”
“But I ride my bike everywhere,” I say, turning to the side to examine my silhouette.
“That’s why your legs are still skinny. You’re shaped like a bird—big belly on stick legs,” Lisa says, tickling my belly until I laugh. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were pregnant.”
“What?” My eyes widen with dread. There’s no way. Well…maybe a little possibility that I’m carrying Var’n’s baby. But we’re different species. I didn’t even think to ask about birth control because we shouldn’t have been compatible.
“Yeah, suck it in,” she says, gripping the bottom of the shorts. She yanks them to the floor with a grunt. “I know you didn’t have the guts to do the deed with Jimmy—”
“We weren’t married,” flies out of my mouth as my conditioning takes over while my mind panics.
“Well, duh! I’m sorry I teased you. I know you’re sensitive about being a good girl outside of the church. There’s no such thing as a pregnant virgin. You know, Jimmy was too straight-laced and wimpy for you, right? You’re better off without him. For now, you can borrow my stretchy shorts—"
“Just because I never did the deed with Jimmy doesn’t mean I can rule out pregnancy. Lisa, I could very well be pregnant with…with…with someone else’s baby,” I cry. Sobs shake my shoulders.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry I threw you into a panic. I had no idea you weren’t a virgin. How many times did you have sex with this mystery man? I’m with you twenty-four seven, except when we’re at work or when you used to go to church—You weren’t sneaking out of church to bang the janitor, were you?”
“No,” I say as I weigh my next words. Do I tell Lisa aliens abducted me? She used to give me pitying smiles when I told her about my religious beliefs. Will I lose all my credibility if I tell her what happened? “I had a weekend away with him.”
“See? One weekend doesn’t mean a pregnancy. A pregnancy takes tons of trysts. They just say that you can get pregnant after one time to scare teens into abstinence, and I’m sure you used protection—oh, wait—you’ve never been on the pill. What about him? Did he glove up?”
I shake my head as I gaze at the floor. I’m so ashamed of my irresponsibility that I can’t meet her gaze.
Var’n didn’t wear protection because he had hoped that I would be bred.
He said so himself. How many times did he watch our mingled fluids drip from my well-used pussy?
The act seemed fun and exciting. Now, the memory fills me with dread.
Why didn’t any alarm bells ring when he told me his fantasies of my growing round with his children?
I can blame my abstaining-is-key sex education, but ultimately, it’s my fault for not thinking about this eventuality when I said I wanted to return to Earth…
or, more accurately, when I didn’t ask to stay. Those are the same thing, right?
“Don’t worry…yet. How long ago was this fling?”
“Two, three…about five months,” I say as I count on my fingers.
My heart pounds so loudly, it threatens to leave my chest. I rub my translator implant because it always seems to calm my galloping heart.
It’s as if Var’n were on the other end, sending me soothing vibrations.
If only I could feel his voice ring through the chip, I’d be more confident in myself.
If only I could call him…but what telephone wire reaches into space?
“Well, we know the pregnancy test will work,” she says, squatting in front of our bathroom cabinets.
My thoughts whirl in chaos as she sifts through the hot rollers, half-empty cans of AquaNet, and Caboodles overflowing with makeup.
“Ah ha! I knew I had one. Here, you can get me a replacement. We need answers now. Pee on the stick, then come out.”
Will this thing detect alien babies like human babies?
What if I get a false negative—omf, never mind.
The two pink lines are as bright as the stars on MTV.
No wonder my belly is so big, I’m carrying an alien with divided sentience.
I never asked Var’n if he was born with his tiny selves or if he sprouted them at puberty.
What if I give birth to one large alien and a dozen mini-aliens?
Will I be stuffed into an armored truck and transported to Area 51, like in the movie E.T. ?
“Will they take my babies?” I wonder out loud.
“Who? Your parents? The prophet? No way, honey, you are over eighteen. Nobody can take your baby away,” Lisa answers, not understanding how big my problem actually is.
My parents are the least of my concerns.
The worst thing they can do is disown me.
After I left the church, our relationship stretched to the point of snapping, but we came to a truce.
Which is good, because I will need their help to deliver the babies without a hospital—Lisa’s too.
This may send them over the edge, but they wouldn’t report their alien grandchildren to the authorities, would they? Would Lisa?
“I won’t be allowed to keep them if I have to deliver in a hospital,” I murmur, rubbing my swollen belly. I think it’s barely a baby bump, but my new shorts say otherwise. How long will I be able to keep my pregnancy a secret?
“That’s where you’re wrong. A material girl pays her own way, so she does what she wants,” Lisa says as she wraps her arm around my shivering shoulders.
“Being a material girl is how I got into this mess,” I grumble.
If I hadn’t thrown myself at Var’n, I would’ve been pleasured during his experiments and returned without his babies, like the other ladies on the tables.
But then I would have never felt his love…
and found my inner strength in my surrender…
“I may have left my church, but maybe they can still help me. Jesus wouldn’t allow a baby to be subjected to…
” I can’t finish my sentence without her questioning why anyone would run experiments on my supposedly normal baby…
“Starvation? Wake up, Jenny. We aren’t backpedaling to your upbringing. Instead of asking what Jesus would do, we need WWMD: What would Madonna do? And you know what? Her new song is exactly what you need.”
She drags me half-dressed from the bathroom to her room.
Phew, Johnny is too engrossed in football to sneak a peek.
I hug myself in misery, rubbing my translation chip, as Lisa fiddles with her boombox.
Using the cassette case’s song list, she rewinds and fast forwards the cassette until she finds the song that’s supposed to fix my life.
I highly doubt the diva has a song about being abducted by aliens.
However, with the popularity of alien movies, she might…
“I’m in trouble deep…” Croons Madonna.
“Not only is this song totally rad, but it sums up your life completely. If you’ve made up your mind, you can keep your baby. Keep your baby, ooh. Oh!” Lisa half-says and half-sings along.
If this were a normal human pregnancy, I’d agree.
I’d have options like moving back in with my folks, marrying Jimmy, an open adoption, or trying to raise the baby on my own.
However, birthing a horde of aliens that share one mind is another matter entirely.
I have no options. I’m trapped. What do I do?
The ballad that’s meant to give me strength does the opposite.
Tears pour down my face as my mind spins in chaotic panic.
In my old life, I would clutch my cross and pray, leaving my problems in the hands of a higher power.
I wouldn’t need to control my mind because my destiny wasn’t in my control.
There was a structure for me to operate, and not enough freedom for me to spin out of control.
When I bucked the tenets of my religion and boarded an alien spaceship, Var’n sensed my needs and provided structure, but he also introduced me to freedom in a way I had never experienced it before.
He kept me from floating away in the tornado of emotions that live within my brain.
Then I left him, too. If I’m honest with myself, I haven’t felt secure since I returned.
Even my newly found confidence is lost without set boundaries.
What am I going to do with babies when I can scarcely afford to feed myself?
I will have to quit my classes before someone asks about the pregnancy…
and the college finds a way to get rid of me.
They don’t want the scandal any more than I do. What will they say at the mall?
“Do you think he will claim the baby?” Lisa asks.
“He’s far away,” I say with a sigh. She gives me a look over her shoulder that could melt glass. “I don’t have a way to contact him.”
“You didn’t exchange numbers, yet you went away for a weekend together. Which weekend was it? Jenny, I don’t want to argue about this because you’ve got the physical evidence stretching your belly, but I don’t remember having the apartment to myself for a weekend.”
My jaw drops. I’m caught. During my jaunt around the Kuiper belt, we traveled at warp speed.
Days progressed for us, but on Earth, I was only missing a few hours.
In the time Lisa had a date, I had a multiple-day affair.
Think Jenny! I need to blind her with science while allowing the truth to leak out a little… but how?
“Hey! Hey, Lisa! Where did you hide the bottle opener? I can’t open this Coke with my teeth!
” Johnny’s pounding on the door couldn’t have come at a better time.
While I don’t particularly like the meathead, I could kiss him for interrupting Lisa’s line of thinking.
It was headed straight for a truth I’m not ready to reveal.
Lisa rolls her eyes and leads her helpless boyfriend to the kitchen.
Better sneak out of here before she returns with more calendar math and damning questions.
The click of my bedroom door’s lock is as loud as a judge’s gavel.
I’ll be condemned to my room in shame if I don’t figure something out soon.
While I wouldn’t mind carrying a human baby out of wedlock, despite the looks I would get in this town, I can’t carry the constant worry of my babies being taken by a secret laboratory.
My gut feeling is that humans won’t sedate them during testing and return them within a few hours… like Var’n did to his human subjects.
I rub my translator one last time before leaving the house to face the bike ride to the mall.
Before I can enlist my parents’ help, I must sell those dogs.
My list of expenses grows by the month with more mouths to feed, diapers to buy, and babies to raise.
This material girl can’t afford to wallow away in loneliness for the one who got away, not when he’s left his babies in her care.