up as white-hot pain seared his nerves.
Chapter Ten
Max groaned as Rick helped him onto the table. “On your stomach will make exit easier for offspring to exit.”
“I don’t think I should lie on my stomach,” Max said, but he didn’t make any other protest as Rick encouraged him to roll over. Much to his surprise, the cramps didn’t get worse as he settled on his stomach. “Query. Is it supposed to hurt this much?”
“No.” Rick hurried to the nook and pulled out several instruments. They were quickly leaving the land of kinky porn and approaching horror flicks. “Offspring may be struggling to get free. Human intestines are anomalously circuitous,” Rick explained.
Circuitous. That was not a term Max would've ever chosen, but it communicated a clear and terrifying reality. “Clarify. By struggling, are you suggesting that your offspring is about to rip my intestine?” Max held his breath.
“Negative. Offspring do not damage the carrier,” Rick said immediately. Maybe Max was imagining it, but he almost sounded offended. “They may sometimes hurt the carrier,” Rick then admitted. “I can ease the way for the offspring to minimize pain.”
Max pressed his forehead to the table and clutched the edge as pain rolled through him. “Minimize pain. That would be awesome. Do that.”
Tentacles pulled Max’s legs apart, but he didn’t care. Shame and titillation both vanished under the need to focus through the pain. Max panted as the tentacle slid inside. “I shall attempt to avoid activating reproductive system,” Rick said.
Max gave a rough bark of laughter. “Oh trust me, there is zero chance of my reproductive system getting activated.”
Rick paused, and Max arched his back as Kohei made his presence known again. If he kept this up, Max was taking the snot-nosed bastard off the Christmas card list. Rick’s tentacle slid inside again, stretching Max’s hole. This time the uncomfortable feeling was nothing more than a welcome distraction. Rick said, “Clarify. I believed I had triggered reproduction when I implanted offspring.”
“You did, but touch alone does not activate the reproductive system,” Max said through clenched teeth. Part of him wanted to tell Rick to shut the fuck up, but another part wanted some distraction from the pain in his body, and awkward conversation qualified as something. “When I'm in this much pain, I have no interest in any sort of reproductive entertainment.”
“Human biology is confusing.”
“You are the species that puts offspring in other species, so I don't think you get to call me strange.”
“Species of mine is strange as well.” Rick made an odd huffing noise. “We do not gain approval from others.”
Max was proud of himself for not pointing out that a certain subset of humanity would approve of Rick's whole reproductive scheme. They bought tentacle sex toys like the one that had sent Max running the opposite direction. He’d gotten into a fight with his ex about that damn toy, and now Max had dirty little fantasies about what Rick could do if there weren’t children up there. Maybe Max would have been more adventurous if his other partners had shown half of Rick’s patience.
“Get in there and help the offspring out,” Max said.
“I shall.” Rick had a strangely formal cadence to his voice, even in his weird belchy voice. “Try and relax.” Rick devoted a couple of tentacles to rubbing Max’s lower back.
“That's try to relax, and that's not easy when baby octopuses are doing gymnastics routines in my large intestine.”
Rick continued the tentacle massage. “The computer suggests that you use the additive conjunction and more often than the directional preposition to after the word try.”
Max narrowed his eyes. “Are you giving me shit about my English? Seriously?”
“I am most often serious.”
Laughter burst out so unexpectedly that Max snorted. He hadn’t pulled that sort of dork move since middle school, but luckily aliens didn’t recognize goofy laughter. The largest cramp yet hit, and Max arched his back and bit back a scream as the skin over his side rippled. Someone’s tentacle had hit a sensitive spot. “Oh God. Oh God. I think I'm about to have an accident on the floor.”
Rick’s tentacles tightened around his waist. “I shall not allow you to fall.” It took Max several seconds to realize that Rick had misunderstood.
“Clarify. In this context, accident means something gross.” Max was grateful he had already defined that word.
“If bodily fluids appear, it is an involuntary reaction and not an accident as you have defined it, unless humans have more control over bodily fluids than other species.”
“Clearly not because