Page 46 of My Human Wife

l.“I know I overheard Kamos say he bought some very young children and sent them to you to return to Earth. That you’d both profit from it.”

g.“Yes, we are two sides of the same coin. We both are criminals in the galaxy. I break the laws by abducting humans and returning them to Earth. He breaks the laws by providing Imperials with every illegal thing they want including humans. But we are more than just business acquaintances. Our relationship is much closer.”

l.“I’m not following. Did you used to work for Kamos?”

g.“No. It’s closer than that. Lara, Kamos is my father.”

l.“No! No! No!” I shake my head. “That’s not possible. Why would you send me to be your father’s sex pet? That’s not right Gael. That’s insane. How could you do that? No wonder you never wanted to touch me after our marriage at the Fertility Temple.”

g.Lara tries to move away from me, but I hold her tight as she screams into my chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to make it any more difficult than it already was. I knew if you knew the truth and I acted selfishly and acted on my own desires to treat you as my true wife, which is what I always wanted, that you wouldn’t go.”

l.“You’re right I wouldn’t have. It’s incestuous. It’s wrong.” I wipe my hands down my arms and step away from him.

g.“It’s not like my father and I shared you at the same time. You’re my wife. I’m never going to share you.”

l.“But you have and now I’m pregnant with your father’s child!”

g.I just thought she had gained weight from all the delicious food on offer at Kamos’s palace when I saw her naked in the transport. “You’re sure it’s Kamos’s?”

l.“I only had the kind of sex that makes you pregnant with your father while I was there. He was quite determined. How did you think I was able to get all the codes and steal the teleportation suit? I feel like vomiting.” I walk towards the door.

g.“Where are you going? The toilet is over there.”

l.“I’m going to the medical center to take something out of the equation.”

g.“No. Don’t abort her. She’s my step-sibling and you’re her mother.”

l.My heart hurts a little when he uses the default feminine pronoun because the galaxy is a matriarchy. The truth is, I, of course, would want to have a daughter. “You want me to keep a child with you fathered by your own father?”

g.“Yes.”

l.“And you don’t find this whole situation incestuous?”

g.“We are keeping it in the family, but, Lara, all families are messy in the galaxy.”

l.“And when this child asks who her father is?”

g.“Where would her curiosity come from unless someone told her? Who knows you are pregnant with Kamos’s child?”

l.“Kamos. The whole palace. You and Hela. That’s a lot of people.”

g.“Kamos won’t come for you if you’re with me. He respects me as a worthy adversary. And he won’t say anything because it’ll make him look bad. There’ll only be rumors.”

l.Something’s not right here. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Then I ask, even though I don’t know if I want to hear the answer, “Did Kamos give me to you as some kind of gift?”

g.“Why would you ask that?”

l.“How did you know the transporter suit would go there? How did you have the antidote to the poison bracelet? How could we escape from Kamos’s private prison?”

g.“Inside information.”

l.“From Kamos? I have to know Gael. Tell me.”

g.“Once Kamos found out we were married he contacted me to discuss the situation. He at first thought it was as you said, but when I wouldn’t annul the marriage it didn’t take him long to figure out what was going on.”

l.“And?”

g.“We came to an agreement.”

---