“Rick, what’s wrong?”
“I will return with appropriate accessories,” Rick bugled, then the hospital door swung open on its pivoting hinge. Max grabbed the shirt Rick had stripped off him and covered his groin, but luckily there wasn't anyone passing in the hallway. Still, by the time Max had recovered from his shock, the door had closed, and he was alone with his broken leg, his shirt draped over his come-splattered groin, and a head full of suspicions and no way to figure out what his idiot husband was hiding from him.
Great. Just great.
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 ridiculousnessof 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.
