“At your apartment,” Debbie said.
I opened the door and there they all were in the living room: My boss, my girlfriend and my alien lover. I stared.
“It’s too late to run,” Ben Rosenwald said. “We’ve already seen you. You might as well come in and close the door.”
“Okay,” I said, closing the door. “I give up. Someone tell me what this is about.”
“I’m killing the story,” Rosenwald said.
“What?” I said. “Why? I got myself sent to the hospital twice for this story, and now you’re going to kill it?”
“It was never going to run,” Rosenwald said. “Sorry, Charlie. It was a cover all along.”
“A cover? A cover for what?” I asked.
“For her,” Claire said, pointing at Jaaanta.
I stared at Claire. “You know what’s going on?” I asked.
“Not until about an hour ago,” she said. “I came home for lunch and they were waiting here for me.”
“To explain what was going on,” Jaaanta said. “And to show my appreciation.”
“For what?” I asked.
“For making my pregnancy possible,” Jaaanta said.
I gaped.
“Relax, Charlie,” Claire said. “You’re not the father.”
“To begin, my name isn’t Jaaanta,” Jaaanta said. “My real name is Ruthant Gornst Ud.”
“And since you’re probably not keeping up with Durang politics,” Rosenwald said, “It helps to know that Ruthant is heir-designate to the Durang crown. Indeed, as is custom, she’ll ascend to the throne after she produces her own heir.”
“And there was the problem,” Jaaanta who was now Ruthant said. “Some time ago my consort had an accident while playing sports. He fell badly and injured his nerve cord. Outwardly he looks fine, but it left his tentacles very weak. He was too weak to drum on me. Artificial fertilization is out of the question for various reasons. And I couldn’t have another Durang drum on me to begin the fertilization process; to work his organ would have to be in my receiving tentacle, and that’s adultery.”
“And what we did isn’t?” I asked.
“Not legally,” Ruthant said. “Durang law doesn’t recognize cross-species sex as valid.”
“Just like Alabama,” Rosenwald said.
“Performing the mating ritual with you allowed me to prime the physical pump, as it were,” Ruthant said. “Once you started the ovulatory process by drumming on me, I was able to mate with my consort. I’m happy to say I was fertilized almost immediately after you left my apartment. Which, actually, wasn’t my apartment at all. It was just a time-share Ben borrowed for me.”
I turned to Rosenwald. “And you know her how?”
“Actually, I didn’t,” Rosenwald said. “But I know the Secretary of State. Skull and Crossbones, back at Yale. The Durang court needed this done and asked Bill for help, and he wanted it done outside the usual channels in order to keep it quiet. And he knew I had contacts with other embassies because of our monthly alien story. I could make it look like one of my staff was doing another alien story; Ruthant could be snuck on-planet, the deed could be done, and she could sneak off-planet and pregnant with no one the wiser.”
“You’re not worried that someone will figure it out?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m sure someone might,” Ruthant said. “But accusing the heir-designate of adultery is one thing. Accusing her of mating with a human is quite another. There would be riots. And no one would believe the accusation. That is, as long as the humans involved were to keep quiet.”
“And now you know why I’m killing the story,” Rosenwald said.
“You know, you could have just asked me to go along,” I said. “If I knew what was going on I would have said yes.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Claire said. “Because you’re involved with me. Your boss was telling me how he had to bribe you with a dinner at Little Gino’s in order to get you to take the story at all. You didn’t tell me he paid for our dinner, incidentally.”
“Sorry,” I said. Claire waved it off.
“We thought it would be best to keep you in the dark as long as possible,” Rosenwald said. “It wasn’t exactly fair to you, but we figured we’d worry about that later.”
“Then I don’t know why you’re telling me at all,” I said. “I know I would have never made the connection.”
“Because I felt guilty,” Ruthant said. “You really are a nice guy, Charlie. And I feel really bad about the strain all of this has put on your relationship with Claire.”
“Not to mention the whole thing with the rash,” Claire said.
“Yes, there’s that, too.” Ruthant allowed. “Also, to be blunt, you’ve made it possible for me to ascend the throne. That needs to be rewarded in some way. And you can’t be rewarded if you don’t know what the reason is.”
“A reward,” I said.
“Well, a combination reward and hush-up money,” Rosenwald said.
“How much?” I asked.
“We were just discussing that with Claire before you came in,” Ruthant said.
I turned to Claire, who had a small smile on her face. “She’s bought a lot of hush-up, Charlie,” Claire said. “Enough for the next two lifetimes.”
“So now you’re okay with this,” I asked Claire.
“‘Okay with it,’ is not the phrase I’d use,” Claire said. “‘Relieved,’ is a little more accurate. If two planetary governments and your boss were actively conspiring to mess with your head, I feel a little better about the fact you were taken in. It says to me that it’s all right that I still think you’re usually a smart guy.”
“Thanks, Claire,” I said. “I love you, too.”
“So we have a deal,” Ruthant said.
“Not yet,” I said. “I have a condition of my own.”
“What’s that?” Ruthant asked.
“I want to finish the story,” I said.
“I already said I was killing it,” Rosenwald said.
“Don’t kill it,” I said. “People will want to know why you spiked it, and it makes me look bad as the new guy. I’ve visited three other embassies and went on three other dates. We can run with those and just leave out her part of the story.”
“I don’t know,” Rosenwald said. “Only three dates will make for a slim story.”
“So we’ll set up one more date,” I said. “There are lots of alien embassies. Someone will say yes.”
“I don’t know how I feel about this,” Claire said.
I turned to Claire. “And I’ll make you a deal, Claire. Let me finish this story, and then do me the honor of marrying me and being my wife. And then I swear to you I will never date another alien again, so long as we both shall live.”
Claire put a hand to her mouth. I thought it might be because she was overcome with emotion, but then I heard her laugh behind her hand. “Charlie, you moron,” she said. “You just proposed to me in a way we can never tell anyone about. My mother is going to kill you. Your mother is going to kill you.”
And this is why when anyone asks, I tell them that I proposed to my wife Claire on the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, on the trip that we took to celebrate my very first published story in NWM magazine. It’s not true, but it sounds romantic, and at least when we got to the Eiffel Tower I remembered to bring the ring. So it’s true enough.
So why am I telling you the truth? Because I think our child should know how it actually happened. It’s too soon to tell you, of course. We’ve only just seen you on the ultrasound. But one day you’ll want to know the real story. Here it is.
Don’t tell.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Information
How I Proposed To My Wife: An Alien Sex Story
John Scalzi, How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story
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