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“Mr Butts can hunt and feed himself. Mr Butts keeps small vermin at bay. Mr Butts…”
She goes on for some time, listing the many fascinating facets of Buttface’s purrsonality. None of them really matter, because though cats are clearly very different from babies, she treats her cat like her baby.
“Fine,” she sighs, a light going on in her eyes when she realizes she’s found an angle she can argue with me. “If cats are like babies, how are you going to look after a baby if you can’t handle Mr Butts?”
“Buttface is not my flesh and blood. And the baby is not going to piss on my boots.”
“Well. It might. Babies are urinary terrorists. They have no control of their bodily functions for years.”
“That’s what nursemaids are for.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said that’s what nursemaids are for.”
“You think I am going to have a baby for you, and then you are going to take the baby and leave it with a woman who will let it be murdered if a horny guy comes along? You have got another thing coming, mister. I may not be a natural mother, but I’m not going through all this for that.”
She’s wrong. She is a natural mother. Whether she likes it or not, she is strong, resilient, creative, and most of all, stubborn. Oh, and caring to a fault.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she snaps, holding Mr Butts like the baby she insists he isn’t. “Just because Icanmom, doesn’t mean Ihaveto mom.”
I can imagine she might have lived a long and happy life with Mr Butts as her only child if I had not interrupted her with the needs of my seed. But fate has a way of bringing mating beings together. You could say life, uh, finds a way.
“True, in an ideal world, where I had not purchased you and did not need you to grow me an heir, you might very well never mom at all.”
An interesting expression passes over her face. I think she has come to terms with the fact she will soon be pregnant and bear my child. I think she may even be coming to anticipate that day, though it may frighten and confuse her, as it was never part of her plan.
“Yes,” she says. “That’s true. Babies are stupid.”
A lot of the vinegar has gone out of that statement. She used to express that kind of sentiment with fire and certainty. Now she sounds less definite. I’d tease her, but I know she is struggling with the concept, even though she does not resist our mating which can only inevitably lead to pregnancy, given enough time.
She yawns. She’s been getting tired a lot lately. We have been working hard on the farm, so I am not surprised.
I get up, sweep her into my arms, Buttface and all, and carry her up to bed. I am feeling a sense of cozy satisfaction. Everything is going according to plan.
* * *
BOOM!
A sudden explosion in the night pulls us both from slumber. Ava and I rush to the bedroom window, which, being located over the front of the porch gives us a good vantage point on the absolute chaos unfolding below. The night is lit up almost as bright as the day due to the bright illumination emanating from the ships.
The crops we so carefully tended have all been crushed beneath the landing gear of three of the Leonids’ finest warships. The fences we built together are splintered into a thousand pieces, completely unsalvageable.
“Who the fuck are they?” Ava asks the question, but it’s not really a question. She mutters it under her breath while moving away from the window. I assume she’s taking cover like a sensible person. I will very shortly be proved wrong on that front, but for now I answer her.
“AZLAN!”
My name is roared in three voices, each deep and resonant. They’re calling for me.
“My brothers.”
She wasn’t really asking the question, and she isn’t stopping to hear the answer. She is pulling on boots with her nightshirt and she is making for the door, uttering a string of curses that do not translate into general galactic speech, though somehow I understand them all perfectly, nonetheless.
“Ava!” I call her name, but before I can stop her, or overtake her, Buttface decides this is the moment to dash across the room from the bed to the window, tripping me up and nearly making me smash my face against the hardwood frame of the bed. I may be nearly six hundred pounds of leonine fury, but I am helpless against a handful of Earth cat.
While I am recovering, Ava has rushed downstairs, holding a long stick that I suspect is not a walking stick. It looks like an antique human weapon. I know I have to stop her before she does something stupid.
“Ava! Get back here!” I yell after her, but she’s already gone.
