Stories from the Savvy Simmer - Chapter 7: A Growing Sixami

Stories from the Savvy Simmer

Pinups' Place: Emily Doll

Chapter Seven: A Growing Sixami

Just a few short weeks following Norman and Emily McSims' wedding, Mrs. Doll-McSims figured she'd better wax domestic and try to max out her cooking skills. She'd been doing the stay-at-home thing for awhile, and Norman was supporting her. The least she could do was figure out how to feed him without putting that desperate look on his face every time he ate. That look that said he wanted to die just a little bit, and did humans really eat this? Much to her surprise, the first time she made ice cream, it turned out pretty good. She found a recipe for caramel ice cream and garnished it with cinnamon sticks, and when Norman smiled at her and said it was "delicious," she thought for once she could believe him. 

She found a recipe for caramel ice cream and garnished it with cinnamon sticks.

"Why is it," she complained to Cherry over the phone one late afternoon, "that I can make sweets no problem, but the second I try to fix up a hearty main course, it's like something died in the food right after I made it?"

"You've been watching way too much Simthia Child," said Cherry through the speaker, and Emily imagined she could hear her friend rolling her eyes. "You're worried about the way she does everything and not thinking about coming into your own groove."

"You're way too confident sometimes, has anyone ever told you that?"

"And you're not confident enough," Cherry argued. "Why don't you get into your baking thing, and once you've mastered that with confidence you can try cooking again?"

"I can't just do that," Emily disagreed. "Norman still has to eat dinner and stuff."

"You have that nice grill right out there on the patio, Em. Tell him to use that if he wants dinner."

"Would you tell Jackson that?"

"Oh, all the time."

The women laughed together, but Emily sighed shortly afterward. "I don't know," she lamented. "Maybe it's me."

"What do you mean?" Cherry asked.

"I mean, lately, all I want to eat is sweet stuff, anyway. Ice cream and baked goodies and all that. Norman loves when I bake."

"You should start your own business," Cherry insisted. She was still thinking like an entrepreneur and couldn't seem to get off that little train of thought. Emily, on the other hand, was on a whole other train entirely...

"Listen, Cher. I don't know for sure, but I think I might be pregnant."

There was a long silence on the other end of the line, and then Cherry finally said, "...What do you mean, you don't know for sure?"

"I mean I still have to take a pregnancy test. I mean, I've never been pregnant before, but I feel...different."

"How long have you felt 'different'?" Cherry pressed, her voice rising a bit.

"I don't know, a couple weeks."

"For the love of Will Wright, you need to pee on a stick, Emmy. Right now. Right now."

"I can't just pee on a stick right now!" she hissed.

"Why not?" Cherry argued. "Is Norm home?"

"No, he's at work, but I don't even have...oh, look at that. There's one right here, in my inventory."

"Yeah. You're totally pregnant."

"Would you shut up? I still have to use the thing to be sure."

"Well, hurry up!"

There was a long, awkward pause during which Emily used the bathroom. She was still on the phone with Cherry, but the redhead had become a good friend of hers, a friend who didn't seem to mind in the least. In fact, she seemed every bit as eager for the results as Emily was.

There was a long, awkward pause during which Emily used the bathroom.

Suddenly, she looked up and confetti was showering her out of nowhere. Then she looked down, and noticed a tiny bump underneath her oversized striped pajama shirt.

"I'm..eating for two, I guess!"

"Oh my God," she whispered into the receiver. She'd forgotten she was even on the phone.

"What?" Cherry squawked. "What, what, what?!"

"I'm...eating for two, I guess!"

"Oh my God, you're pregnant!" 

Emily didn't have to screech with excitement, because her enthusiastic friend did it for her. Of course she wanted to know how Em was going to break the news to Norman, but she hung up with Cherry. She needed some time before Norman got home, to figure out how to tell him she was going to have a baby. And with everything she knew about Norman, she needed a lot of time just to think. Again.

How were they going to do this? Was an alien baby growing inside of her? Would it even be able to grow to full term inside a human womb, if it was? Would it be taken away from her? Would it kill her? All these thoughts spinning through her head made Emily worried and fretful, and she finally fell into an exhausted sleep sometime after midnight. 

Norman tried to creep into the bedroom without waking her when he got home from work, but Emily was suddenly a much lighter sleeper than she used to be. The slightest noise could wake her now, and she had not slept well at all while she waited for him. "Hey, baby," she greeted Norm with a tired smile. "How was work tonight?"

"Work was good," he told her, peppy and enthusiastic. That was his way, probably a big reason he got promoted all the time. "They told me to keep it up, today. That's exactly what I plan to do so I can install that basement. I want another bathroom down there, and a little living room area with a flat screen TV on the wall. Maybe I'll have a personal gym in one corner, you know, like with a punching bag and a treadmill and a weight machine. Maybe another flat screen to put in front of the treadmill so I don't get bored. I could put an office down there with one of those huge fish tanks, I've always wanted an aquarium."

"Norman?"

"I want my own bar with a speaker in the wall, and a little corner with a personal steam room. We could have a yoga mat on the floor and--"

"Norman!"

"Yeah, babe?"

 "All that sounds...wonderful..." Emily made a face and clapped her hand to her mouth. She ran to one of the upstairs bathrooms as fast as her legs could carry her, and Norman distinctly heard the sound of her retching as she wrecked the porcelain toilet. Good thing he hired a maid. He never really expected Emily to take care of cleaning this whole huge house from top to bottom by herself. Good thing, too, because he also knew she just wouldn't have. Even a tiny little whirlwind like his wife could use a little help now and then. Actually, now that Norman thought about it...

"You look exhausted, honey," he called to her through the bathroom door. "Have you been waiting up?"

"No," she called back, sniffling. Her voice was thick as though she'd been crying, but he knew it was from forceful vomiting. "I'm just not sleeping well. Your work boots sound like an elephant parading through the bedroom."

"I'm sorry, Em. I took them off."

She opened the door and walked back to their room, and he followed her. He sat down on the bed and looked at her expectantly, but she couldn't sit down beside him. Now that he saw her without the covers pulled up to her chin, though, something began to dawn on him. "You look a little different..." he said slowly.

What she said was, "I'm pregnant." No bells and whistles. And no ifs, ands, or buts, obviously, because he could see the bump under her shirt, evidence of a growing baby. 

Norman didn't say anything...mostly because he wanted to avoid saying something stupid. What he said was, "How do you know?"

And he wished he hadn't, because Emily looked at him like he was the biggest idiot on the planet. "I had sex with you. And then I peed on a stick and it told me we've created offspring, and sooner or later I'll be shoving it out."

"That's...graphic."

"Well, you weren't complaining when we got naked, were you, Blue Man Group?!" She rushed from the room, sobbing hysterically.
Leaving Norm still seated on the edge of the bed, wondering what the hell just happened.

"I'm pregnant."

 

After a moment of bewildered silence, he sighed, heaved himself up, and went off down the hallways of his house in search of his wife. He should not have been surprised in the least to find that she was back in the bathroom, hurling and crying intermittently. Norman knocked softly on the door.
He was met with a forceful, "Go...away!"
"Emily," Norman said softly, not giving up, "you're overreacting. When did I ever complain?" He tried to reason with her. "I just asked how you knew, which was a stupid question, I guess. I'm happy about this! Aren't you?"
He heard nothing from the other side of the door, so he tried again. "Aren't you?"
After a minute, the bathroom door opened and he took a step back. Emily's pale cheeks were flushed a warm pink; she had her hands on her hips and she was watching him like she was trying to X-ray any lies right out of his head. "Really?" she asked. She tried not to sound quite so suspicious, but her lips were pursed and she couldn't really help it. Her hormones were on overdrive.
Still, he did not hesitate to reassure her. "Really. I'm happy. How could you think I wouldn't be happy? I can't wait."
"Really?" Emily sounded like a broken record again, but she was slowly smiling despite herself.
"Of course." Norman put his pale human arms around her and kissed her, and she found her smile widening against his mouth - but it quickly died on her own lips as she pulled away.
"But, Norm..."
"Hm?"
"I'm...I'm pregnant with an alien baby, aren't I?"
"I've...never procreated with another species before..." Norman sounded a little awkward as he skipped over this little bit of information. "...but logically we can assume that the baby will be half Sixami, yes."
"Sixami?" Emily tried the unfamiliar word out on her tongue.
"You asked about my race before and I made that stupid Blue Man joke I'm starting to regret." He paused to purse his own lips, but continued on. "I'm Sixami, meaning 'of, or from, the planet Sixam.'"
"Why didn't you tell me that before?"
"You pissed me off," he said simply. "Now that you'll be giving birth to a member of my race, you should probably know what we're called. And stop referring to that dumb joke, because it wasn't that funny to begin with and it's getting old now."
Emily sighed and moved past him, shuffling back to the bedroom in her bunny slippers. Life seemed so normal and humdrum on the surface, to anyone who chanced a look through the windowpane...but there were layers upon layers underneath it all, and she was beginning to wonder if her situation could possibly get any more complicated. Oh, if she only knew...