Chapter Nine
After he had the cast removed, a beige Hidden one escorted him to an ameba-shaped room with enough mirrors to make its function clear.
“Max Husband!” Rick cried out from an open doorway from the opposite side of the room.
He came gliding in with a half dozen parcels attached to his tentacles.
Kohei followed with more. Oh lord. They’d been shopping.
Max knew they had a welcome home ball tonight, so he knew formal clothes were on the agenda, but now that the moment had come, he was terrified.
Hidden ones considered hats the primary form of clothing, leaving the rest of the body naked, and Max didn’t want to see what his husband had bought him. Nope. Dress blues were bad, but whatever Rick had in those packages might be so much worse.
“Max Father. You have a lack of external structure supporting your leg bone.” Kohei raised several tentacles not weighed down by packages and shook them in joy.
“The doctor said I have to be careful, but the leg is healed.”
“If you must be careful with internal tentacle bone, then bone is not healed,” Rick argued. He had a point, but Max could walk and even run without a cast, so he was calling it healed. The doctor had told him to avoid heavy impacts, and Max did that anyway.
“So, what did you buy?” Max asked with more than a little trepidation.
“Max Father, look at magnificent results of shopping,” Kohei sang with an obscene amount of glee. He unfolded the fabric envelopes to reveal piles of... stuff. Max inched closer.
“Is that a necklace?” Max asked as he spotted a pile of pearls connected with silver links.
“Head lace!” Rick trumpeted.
For a second, Max thought he heard “head lice” and blinked as his brain conjured an image of a giant pile of alien lice. “Did you say head lice or head lace?”
“Head lace!” Kohei lifted a silver net with long strings of irregular pearls in pale shades of champagne, pink, beige, and blue. “Rick Father has medallions, but Max Father has no medallions of culturally accepted accomplishments, so we purchased head lace of much value.”
“Great,” Max said weakly. He was going to look like an extra from a cheesy historical drama about Cleopatra. Rick dropped his packages and darted across the room, claiming the head lace.
“Max Husband undress so I can place new purchases on your body,” Rick trumpeted.
What followed was an uncomfortable discussion about why Max absolutely would not change clothes in front of his son.
If he thought that would save him, Max had miscalculated because Kohei left, which allowed Rick to push, prod and manipulate Max into alien clothes.
Rick had them tailored for him, but that didn’t make them appropriate.
Once Max was dressed and pushed to a spot in front of the mirror, Rick dashed to the door, swinging it open so Kohei could come in.
Meanwhile, Max stared at the mirror and tugged the neckline of his new shirt.
He felt like he was wearing a Star Trek dress, one of those micro minis that had made the original Star Trek such a hit with teenage boys. “I need to wear pants with this.”
Rick pressed against Max’s back and curled tentacle around his waist. “Pants are nontraditional.”
“Pants are nonnegotiable,” Max countered. “My reproductive tentacle is damn near visible. If I bend over, I’ll show it off to the room.”
Rick shimmied happily. “Like mine!” He lifted his own reproductive tentacle. Sometimes Max questioned his sanity in marrying an alien.
“It is traditional for my people to keep all reproductive organs covered. I need pants.”
Rick's free tentacles curled a little tighter, and guilt gnawed on Max's soul.
Maybe the outfit bordered on indecent exposure, but this was Rick's homecoming ball.
He could do this. The tie-dyed green and brown dress, the beads of pearls threaded into his hair–he could do this.
He looked at himself in the mirror. Yeah, he could not do this.
“I need pants. I'm sorry, but I need pants.”
Kohei twirled and blew bubbles before sliding forward. “I informed Rick Father,” Kohei said. “I know Max Father. I predicted preference for pants.”
“Preference can be overridden for significant cultural reasons.” Rick’s tentacles tightened around Max’s waist.
“The only culturally appropriate reason for not wearing pants in public is that my parents have recently caught on fire,” Max said.
“And even then, I would be trying to put on pants as I ran to them.” He tried hard to respect that Rick had a different culture.
He did. But he wasn’t willing to ignore his kids to encourage independence, and he wouldn’t sashay through a formal ball with his dick swinging in the wind.
He didn’t have high standards, but his standards weren’t so low as to allow that.
Kohei lifted a package that had been tucked under a smaller tentacle.
“I retrieve pants for Max Father.” Kohei was the kindest of their children, but he had an edge of bubbly meanness in his voice.
Max wondered if he was making fun of the ridiculousness of pants or taking the piss because Rick hadn’t understood the human attachment to pants.
“Thank you.” Max unfolded the velcroed fabric that functioned like a shopping bag and revealed what appeared to be flesh-colored corduroy leggings. Those words should never go together. Max stared at them in horror.
“Culturally appropriate pants have asymmetrical pattern,” Kohei helpfully pointed out. Instead of having straight lines like human corduroy, it had irregular waves like a subtle topographical map.
“Awesome,” Max said weakly.
“Pants are appropriately colored for walking tentacle,” Rick admitted. “Still untraditional.”
“What? Don't you wish they had some red on them? Maybe some red shoes?” Shoes. Shit. It only now occurred to Max that these fancy clothes Rick had gotten him for their grand entrance had not included shoes. Then again, Rick’s shopping trip hadn’t included pants either.
Max looked at Kohei. “Did you get shoes?”
“Displaying red where no red exists is the display of inferiority and insecurity,” Kohei said.
“I don't need to have red shoes. I am not concerned about the lack of red, because humans don't come in that color. But I would like shoes.” Max wiggled his toes.
“If Max Husband is unconcerned about color, why request shoes?” Rick asked.
“So my feet don't get cold.” Max shared many things with his family, but their tolerance for cold floors exceeded his own.
“Max Father will step on tentacle tips,” Kohei said.
“I will not,” Max objected.
“You will,” Rick said. “Communal celebrations of Hidden ones are crowded. Shoes introduce much danger. I will accept pants of asymmetrical design and appropriate color, but shoes are unacceptable.” Rick’s voice got louder with each word.
Max’s brain stuck on one word, though. “How crowded are we talking about?”
“Exceptionally,” Kohei said. Max stared at his son in horror. Exceptionally crowded. So crowded that he would have trouble walking without stepping on someone’s tentacle. Oh, this was getting better by the minute. He needed pants.
While Max shook out his corduroy leggings, Kohei twirled until his largest eye was pointed at Rick.
“Rick Father missing medallions of greatness.” He raised a tentacle to poke the excessively elaborate hat Rick had donned.
It was a riot of ocean colors–blues and greens and violets all swirled together with pearls and gems strewn throughout like a bedazzled school of fish floating through the ocean.
Where Rick normally had tools tucked into his hat or dangling from straps attached to the bottom, this hat had irregular shaped squat spirals, each decorated with a different color palette of jewels and each bearing unfamiliar symbols.
But Kohei must not approve of Rick's clothing. Max buttoned his pants while he watched Rick and Kohei square off. Any time two Hidden ones put their largest eyes facing each other, fireworks were sure to follow.
“I wear badges of appropriateness,” Rick bellowed.
“You lack badges,” Kohei trumpeted, and he darted around Rick so fast that Rick couldn't twirl fast enough to keep up with him. Kohei always had been their little athlete.
“You are missing a badge of planetary defense.”
“Planetary defense instigate conflict with outsiders.”
“Planetary defense greatest technological achievement. It forces outsiders to recognize Hidden one greatness,” Kohei countered.
“Planetary defense inspires outsider meanness and cheating. It puts Max Husband and children at disadvantage in trading.”
“It prevents outsiders from claiming our planet. Wear with pride.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
With each word, the voices grew louder. Max wondered if this is what his mother had felt like when he and Petey used to fight over the last popsicle. If so, he now understood why his mother yelled so much. “Hey! Don't shout at each other.”
“We are expressing firmness of decision,” Rick said in a volume loud enough to give Max a headache.
“Don't shout at me,” Max insisted. “I’m the innocent bystander here.”
“I am being firm in decision,” Rick shouted.
Rick would not compromise, so Max turned to Kohei.
“I think Rick should show off his accomplishments, but he has a right to dress however he likes. If I get to wear pants,” Max glanced down at the tight new leggings that felt plastered to his body.
His junk made an impressive bulge in the front of his pants and he still felt half naked.
He cleared his throat and started again.
“If I get to wear pants, Rick Father gets to leave an accomplishment off his hat.”
Kohei sank down, unhappy with the decision. However, the children were good about listening to Max when he put his foot down. Quite frankly, he was terrified for the day that that wasn't true. “So, is there any chance I can get shoes?”
Both Kohei and Rick bellowed “No” so loudly that Max winced. Right, he was attending his first alien ball wearing a sparkly Star Trek minidress and skintight leggings with no shoes. He hoped his family appreciated the things he did for them.
Despite all the finery draped over Rick’s hat, Kohei wasn't wearing anything other than the simple hats that the children had taken to wearing around the ship, so Max was surprised when Kohei announced, “We must leave to attend the celebration of Rick Father.”
“Are you dressed appropriately for that?” Max asked.
Kohei slowly twirled. “Max Father attends as husband. Rick Father attends as one honored. I attend to ensure no careless Hidden one breaks bones of my family. And if bones are broken, I intend to remove offending tentacles.” That did not sound like a joke.
Hidden one jokes tended to be more bubbly.
Humor and judgmental assholery were both bubbly in Hidden one language.
Then again, Max figured that wasn’t all that different from human humor.
Max looked at Rick, waiting for him to explain the utter inappropriateness of this. Instead, Rick shrank down two or three inches as his walking tentacle went all squiggly. Then he turned his largest eye in the opposite direction. Coward.
Taking a deep breath, Max said, “I do not need my kid defending me. I am fine attending a party with your Rick Father.”
“Two tentacles of tool use are not appropriate match for many tentacles of tool use,” Kohei said. “Boned tentacles of tool use are not equivalent to muscled tentacles of tool use.”
Max was fairly offended by that comparison. “I have muscles too, you know.”
“Max Father has muscles attached to bones creating weak spots. Hidden ones contain unattached muscles of strength. I will ensure Max Father is not injured by ignorant muscled ones.”
“Would you like to tell our son that I don't need a babysitter?” Max demanded of Rick.
Rick's tentacles curled miserably. “I will not limit opportunities of genetic offspring. Genetic offspring choose path of choice.”
Max sighed. The desire to give the kids the freedom to choose their own path was admirable, but sometimes Max was frustrated at how firmly Rick held onto that tenant of parenting. It was a little obsessive.
He turned to Kohei. “By guarding me, you imply my inability to care for myself.”
Instead of curling his tentacles in misery and shame the way Max intended, Kohei’s tentacles stiffened and he stood taller.
“I defend Max Father who could not defend his own leg bone without a maintenance hook and lethal action which would be inadvisable on Hidden one planet. I attend ball and I damage tentacles of anyone who breaks Max Father.”
Sadly, that was logical. It didn’t make Max happy, but it was logical. “I won’t win this fight will I?”
“No,” both Rick and Kohei answered. The refusal to look at each other with their largest eyes suggested they were still angry with each other over the whole medallions of honor thing, but apparently they weren't so angry they failed to gang up on him.
Max slumped. “Fine,” he said in his crankiest tone. Instead of acknowledging the sacrifices Max made to keep his family happy, Rick caught him around the waist and pulled him toward the exit.
“Much with hurrying! We’re late, we’re late, for very important not-date,” he said in a sing-song that did not match the actual music that went with those lyrics. Max was half pulled down the corridor, Kohei following as Max’s bare feet slapped the cool metal floors.