Thank you all for your patience. I'm not 100% yet, but doing much better. Thanks for the great reviews!
Incubation
Chapter 4
G and Sam sat on a dark teal love seat across from Linden and his team in the lounge.
For G, it was more like gingerly sat on the love seat and anything else in their private suite. Everything inside of him was still tender from the womb implantation. Yet, he was still filled with the euphoric feelings.
"Any questions you have for us?" Linden asked.
"Is this really permanent?" G asked. He hoped it wasn't and that he could change his mind whenever the urge came upon him to stop it all.
"If you're past the first thirty days."
G glanced sideways at Sam. He turned his head toward the team. "Meaning?"
"You've got thirty days to change your mind," Linden said. "With one exception and that's if a baby comes to life within the womb, thus making an abortion of the womb trickier."
"And how will I give birth?"
Linden said. "As the baby drops downward near your due date, an opening will start to appear just above your groin area."
G lowered his hands to the area above his groin and wondered what an opening would look like, let alone feel like. "Is it similar to a woman's…" He couldn't bring himself to finish that statement. Just the thought of something woman-like forming, growing, and then opening up inside and outside himself sent shudders throughout his body.
"Yes."
"Seriously? I'm gonna turn into a woman?"
"No, Mr. Callen, your body will be the same, but your abdominal area will change to accommodate the birth of your child."
"What about female hormones?"
"You'll only produce them during the time you're pregnant and slowly return to producing less as the evidence of an evolved womb fades."
"An evolved womb?" G asked.
"Yes, one which sustains an embryo, then a fetus, and ultimately delivers a baby," Linden said. "As opposed to one which does not."
"And the womb remains within my body… forever?"
"Yes, Mr. Callen, after the thirty days and barring no early embryonic development within the womb, the womb will permanently affix to your body."
"Has that ever happened to any of the rats?"
"No, however, humans are not rats."
"Well, at least most humans don't act that way," G said, smirking. He squeezed Sam's hand.
"There's a huge gap between what we've seen in rats and what we've seen in humans," Linden said. "And of course, you're the first human we've experimented on."
"I don't know if that makes me feel elated or freaked out." G shifted his weight on the love seat and placed his right leg over his left knee.
Sam moved closer to his husband. He whispered, "You okay?"
"Peachy," G said, lowering his voice.
Sam nudged his husband. "I know that position of your leg."
"Yeah."
"We're done for now with the question and answer session," Sam said. "G needs a break."
"Understood. This is a lot of information for you to hear and internalize." Linden and his team stood and left.
"I need to…" G stood and stretched, "take a walk on the beach."
"Venice?"
"Nope."
"Okay, you mean in your mind?"
"How did you guess?" G asked.
"How about a massage and you daydream about Greece?" Sam asked. "Lie down on the bed."
"Yeah, I'll bet that's what you've got in mind." G winked at him.
Sam stood and brought G into a hug. "I'm gonna massage your sexy body."
"Right and keep your hands to the 'right' places." G strode to the front door and locked it. "How about on the terrace? That way you'll be less inclined to progress toward your ultimate desires." He stripped off his clothes as he walked toward the full length windows. By the time he reached them, he was naked except for the cozy fleece slippers Linden had provided for them. He stepped out on the terrace and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on his body. A sudden sharp pain rippled through his upper abdominal area. G pressed his hands into the area with a deep massaging motion, hoping to quell the cramp-like sensations which alternated with sharp stabbing pains. Another round of alternating and worsening pain coursed through his abdominal area. G fell to his knees, clutching his body with both arms. He fell face first onto the rubber padded surface and quickly curled his body into a tight fetal position.
"G!" Sam hurried over to his husband's side and kneeled down next to him. He lowered himself to the deck and brought G's body onto his lap and stroked his face. "Sweetheart, want me to call Linden?"
G's lips formed a tight grimace. An intenser round of alternating pains shot through his upper abdomen. "No,… I don't know," he said between pants. G tried two pain control methods which worked before when he was pregnant; massaging the areas and short staccato breaths. This time, neither one worked.
Sam autodialed Linden's emergency number. "He's in a lot of pain."
#
Less than two minutes later Linden burst through the front door with his team following him. "Let's get him inside. Close those glass doors and turn up the heat."
All four of the team members lifted G's now semi-conscious body and settled him onto a teal blue sofa.
One of the team members had brought an emergency blanket with him. He wrapped it around G's naked body.
Another team member took a bag of intravenous fluid and heated it in the microwave. He brought it over and started an intravenous line in G's left arm.
"Bring more blankets, Mr. Hanna."
"Blankets?" Sam asked.
"I'll explain as soon as we obtain a specific body temperature." Linden scanned G's forehead once a minute with a thermometer.
Sam rushed out of the room and returned with the blanket and bedspread off their bed.
The team took them and covered G's body. Each of them monitored different aspects of G's care.
Twenty minutes later Linden stepped back from his patient. "Temperature achieved."
The three team members exited the room.
"Okay, what just happened? How come you didn't tell me about this part?" Sam asked, kneeling beside the sofa and stroking G's hair. "I didn't know he was going to suffer through this kind of pain."
"I didn't foresee this."
"Foresee what?"
"Early pregnancy."
"He's not pregnant."
"He is," Linden said, "and needs to be kept warm to incubate the embryo in the newly implanted womb."
"What the hell? Sounds as if were hatching out a baby chicken from an egg."
"Close to that, Mr. Hanna."
"Wait, how do you know he's pregnant?"
"I know the symptoms when I see them." Linden took a specialized wand and scanned the surface of his patient's upper abdomen. "But I'll confirm them for you, by showing them to you."
"The symptoms?" Sam asked.
On a small LED screen a tiny embryo was seen.
Sam's jaw dropped open.
"Confirmation enough for you?"
"But how's this possible?"
"I'm not certain, but I'd bet it has something to do with Callen already having been pregnant with the prototype womb about three years ago," Linden said. "That prototype may have given this new kind of womb a stronghold. I'd liken this experiment to the first experiment called Fertile Ground."
Sam sank to the floor beside his still semi-conscious husband. "And he'll stay like this for how long?"
"It takes about an hour before the core of the body is warm enough."
"So about forty more minutes until he regains full consciousness."
"There's a hot tub being set up in the exercise room right now," Linden said. "Callen needs to spend at least four hours a day in it. And the same applies when you go home."
"How long does this phase last?"
"Unknown for humans, but my guess is through the first trimester."
"But you're only guessing here."
"I don't have much to go on except what I observed in rats."
"Lovely." Sam stroked G's forehead, hoping he'd awaken sooner. The decision on whether to keep the living womb and the baby loomed closer than they both had imagined it would.
#
G opened his eyes and gazed into his husband's. "This feels better than a walk on the beach in Greece," G said. He glanced around the exercise room to see if anything else had changed. Only one thing; Sam cradled him in his capable arms in a very warm hot tub. "I don't remember a hot tub in the exercise room."
"That part of a long story," Sam said. "Right now, I'm glad you're awake."
"Awake?" G asked.
"You've been semi-conscious since you passed out on the terrace," Sam said. "Do you remember that?"
"Vaguely."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, all I remember is this intense pain in my upper abdominal area."
"Okay, let's talk then."
"Aren't we?"
Sam shook his head. "Okay, you've got me there." He leaned over and kissed his husband. "I've got some good news and some bad news for you."
"Which one do I want first?" G asked. "Is that it? Well, give it all to me."
"The good news. We don't have to do the 'insert the womb exercise' again."
"I like that news," G said, "I wasn't certain I could handle another round of it."
"We're in the next phase."
"The next phase of what?" G asked.
"You're pregnant."
G's jaw dropped open. "That's impossible."
"I saw the picture on an LED screen myself."
"Okay, wait a minute, back up," G said. "Where did the hot tub come from?"
"Well, Linden's team brought it in here for you."
"Okay, spill the beans already."
"This you aren't going to believe," Sam said. "I hardly believe it myself. I've got to help hatch your embryo."
G laughed until he saw his husband's serious face. "You're serious?"
"100%."
"I've never heard anything so… ludicrous."
"That makes two of us." Sam lowered down into the hot water, bringing G with him.
"So this is part of it."
"Your core body temperature needs to hover around 99 degrees F, and the thermometer has to read 99.6 degrees F."
"That is like an incubation of sorts," G said. "And the bad news?"
"You've got less days to decide about keeping the womb and the embryo."
"Why? I thought it was thirty days."
"Linden believes the time from has been altered because of the prototype womb you had within the first time we tried this." Sam released G and floated on the water's surface.
"Well, I'd say it's already altered something because I'm pregnant."
"And how do you feel about that?"
"If I get any more sharp pains like that, not good."
"Beyond that to what we discussed earlier today with Linden and his team," Sam said.
"Damn, that stuff, I'm… things have changed already and I don't know what to think." G dunked under the water and came back up. He floated on the surface. "Considering this development, I'm going for it."
"Remember once it's done it can't be undone."
"I can't kill something that's alive and living inside me," G said. He wasn't a pro-lifer, but he wasn't going to be a baby killer either. Losing one baby was hard enough, and he still wasn't over that. Children fueled something deep inside his psyche. "I thought I'd have more time to decide."
"You and me both." Sam lowered down into the water again.
"Okay, question, how do I know how long to stay in the water?"
"You'll need at least four hours per day which is to be adjusted to keep your temperature steady."
G grasped Sam's hand while they floated on the hot water's surface. "Have you thought about how we're going to do that in our puny hot tub? We can't float like this."
"My mind's been on that subject since Linden put this hot tub in here," Sam said. "I've put in a call to Hetty about our situation."
"And?"
"She told me there's a solution."
"Okay. And?"
"She won't go into it over the phone."
Sam brought a thermometer over to G's forehead and scanned it. "Perfectly roasted."