“—AND THEN what if they grow up to be murder twins? What if twenty years down the road, we have to testify against them in court after they’ve killed and eaten sixteen people to feed their carnal twin rage? What then, Otter? You know the courts are going to find some way to blame me. And then they’ll make a movie based upon our lives and I’ll be played by someone like Anne Hathaway, because you know they’ll make me a woman because American audiences are stupid and can’t handle a stable, loving homo relationship. Stupid fucking America with your guns and your bibles and your men who jack off to lesbian porn, but god forbid there be two men holding hands!”
“Wow,” Otter says. “Just when I think you can’t go places I won’t expect, you end up talking about guys jacking off to lesbians and Anne Hathaway.”
I blink. “That’s what you took away from that?”
“Also, why are our children always murderers when you get like this?”
I narrow my eyes. “What do you mean when I get like this?”
“I love you,” he says.
“That’s cheating,” I say, scowling at him. “But I love you too.”
“I know. We’re here, by the way.”
I look up and see we’re in the parking lot of a strip mall. “What? How did we get here already? We just left the house.”
“An hour ago,” Otter says. “You’ve been going for an hour.”
“Huh. Well. I have very serious feelings about our kids.”
“I can tell,” he says dryly. “And I think you’re worrying about nothing. We’re not going to have murder twins. Or serial killers with tails.”
“Says you,” I mutter, folding my arms over my chest.
“That’s right. Says me. Now, are you ready to go and learn how to breathe like a pregnant woman?”
Yes, yes I was. We didn’t have to be a part of this. In fact, we were told that we could have as little or as much involvement in our surrogate’s pregnancy as we wanted. I hadn’t expected that and had actually been somewhat horrified at the thought of the couples who didn’t get involved at all. We hadn’t gone to every doctor’s appointment Megan had had, but we’d been at the majority of them. If she needed anything, she knew she could call us, even though we were an hour away. We didn’t want her to be giving us such a gift and going through it alone. I worried initially that she’d think we were too involved, but she laughed when I’d told her that, telling us that she wanted us to be by her side just as much as we thought was right. “I’m doing this for you,” she said. “It’s a gift, you know?”
But today would be the first time we’d be involved in something like a Lamaze class. She’d been going without us, but then she said she thought it’d be good for us to attend a class with other parents too.
Otter and I jumped at the opportunity.
I may have had ulterior motives, though, in that I knew she’d be bringing her boyfriend with her and that we’d be meeting him face to face for the first time. We’d talked with Marty briefly on the phone, but that had been it. I wanted to scope out the man that was sticking it to the woman I’d gotten pregnant with my super sperm.
I told Otter this.
He’d put his face in his hands for a long time.
So yes! We were going to do this. We were going to show the entire world that we would be the most amazing fathers. We were going to—
“—turn this car around right now and go home,” I demand as we stare up at the sign for the building we’re walking toward.
Otter sighs. “It’s supposed to be funny.”
“It’s a pun, Otter.”
“I think it’s funny.”
“That’s because all you do is tell dad jokes now!”
He scowls at me. “I do not.”
I point at the sign for the Lamaze clinic.
Lamazing Grace.
Otter giggles.