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They open on a Tuesday.

I’m out at the hives with Hattie when it happens. She’s sitting on the little stool I built her, round and heavy, bundled in a shawl, telling me which frames to pull. The sun’s warm for the first time all year. And I feel them go. All at once, a soft prickling all down my shoulder and across my chest, and then a smell, sweet and green and heavy, rising off my skin.

Hattie stops talking.

I look down. They’re open. Dozens of tiny white flowers, clustered all over my shoulder and down my chest, petals soft and thin, swaying a little in the breeze.

And every bee in the meadow turns around.

I watch it happen. One second, they’re minding their own business in the clover. The next, they’re coming at me. Hundreds of them. They don’t sting. They land on my shoulder and my chest and crawl straight into my blossoms, humming so loud I feel it in my teeth.

I stand there, covered in bees and fucking flowers, and look at Hattie.

She’s laughing so hard she’s wheezing. She’s holding her belly with both hands, doubled over on her little stool.

“Oh my God,” she gasps. “Oh my God, they’re eating you. They’re eating my man.”

“They’re not eating me.”

“Rowan, you’re breakfast!”

“I’ve been breakfast before. This is not new.”

She howls.

I stand there for an hour while the bees work. There’s nothing else to do. You can’t argue with bees. I’ve tried. For centuries. They don’t care that I’m a man now. They remember me. Hattie pulls her frames and checks her brood and keeps looking over at me and losing it all over again.

When the bees are finally done, she waddles over and stands in front of me. She leans in and smells the blossoms on my chest. Takes a long, slow breath.

And her eyes go dark.

“Rowan,” she says, in a very different voice. “You smell so good.”

I feel it through the bond before I smell it on her. That hot, sudden, heavy pull, rising up from her belly and pouring into my chest.

Then I smell it on her too.

“Hattie.”

“I know.”

“You’re nine months pregnant.”

“I know, Rowan.” She grabs the front of my shirt. “And you’re standing in my meadow smelling like that. So what are you gonna do about it?”

* * *

I carry her inside.

She’s heavy now. Round and full and soft, her belly so big she can’t see her feet, her breasts so full they ache. Every step I take, she’s kissing my neck. Nuzzling into the blossoms on my collarbone. Breathing them in like she can’t get enough, and every time she does, I feel it go through her body and straight into mine. If she keeps that up, we’re not making it to the bed. I’ll take her on the kitchen floor, nine months pregnant or not, and the aunties can find us there.

I lay her down on our bed. Gently. On her back, propped up against every pillow we own, the bitten bee on the headboard right above her head.

Then I just look at her.

She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Her dress is hiked up over her belly. Her braids are spread out on the pillows. She’s breathing hard, and her nipples are hard and dark through the thin cotton, and there’s a wet spot between her thighs already. Her belly’s high and round and tight, and as I watch, something moves under her skin. A little foot, maybe. A hand.