A shy, reserved high school kid meets his popular substitute teacher, who he's attracted to in unexpected ways.

Just a short idea I had one day that I had to type out. People keep telling me to do more mpreg and I sort of agree with them. I hope to do more short one-shot stories like this in the new year.

Icon used with permission from  white-ryce

Enjoy!
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The coffee from breakfast was starting to wear off by second period English and left me feeling like somebody dumped molasses all over my body. It didn’t help that Spring was coming early and hot, leaving almost every classroom feeling stuffy and sleepy. More than a few people in the back were taking naps through their classes, to the point I wondered whether they were getting any sleep at home or if they just stayed up all night. I grumbled and rubbed one palm over my face while scratching my head with the other. Maybe drinking a second cup in the morning wouldn’t be a bad thing, but the last thing I wanted was to graduate into energy drinks. There was a little hyena guy in my biology class that always bought a backpack full of energy drinks from the vending machines at lunch. He’d crack them open one by one by one in the middle of class and drain them like they were water bottles. By the time class ended, he’d be so hopped up on caffeine he couldn’t sit still. Just wait ‘til somebody shows him cocaine.

A couple football players built like train cars thudded down the aisle of desks and laughed back in forth way louder than was probably necessary, their books and backpacks conspicuously missing. They didn’t pay me any attention, but one of them stepped on my tail as they walked past, barely even noticing he’d stepped on anything. I winced in pain and bit my knuckle to keep from making a sound. My otter tail was thicker than most others’ with more muscle around it. It made it a lot tougher when people stepped on it, but it was also a lot less maneuverable. I stood and tried to shove it out of the aisle and under my desk, at least until class started.

I pushed hair out of my face (I was secretly growing it out as long as I could before Mom noticed) as I sat down and waited for the throbbing pain in my tail to go away. My notebook, pencil, worksheets, and book were all set out on my desk already, which probably made me look a lot more like a ‘good student’ than I really was. Honestly, I just set all of it out early so I wouldn’t have to worry about it later and I just wrote notes in class for something to do.

While still hunched over my desk, I stared around at the rest of the class, at all the faces that had grown familiar over the past few months, but hadn’t gotten any friendlier. Being the new guy makes you so much more aware of your image, how people see you. For you, the first impression might be the only impression you’re ever gonna give people. And it always went deeper than just the clothes you wore or how you looked. I spent most of the first semester getting up early to get dressed in nice clothes and part my hair the right way and brush my fur until it was shiny, but it didn’t help me make any friends. At the end of the day, some people belong and some people don’t. That’s just the way it works.

The second bell rang ten minutes after the first, which was the ‘get the fuck to class’ bell and about the time lessons actually started. But as the bell rang, I glanced up at the empty desk where Mrs. Blackfield usually sat long before either bell actually rung. Any break in the mind-numbing routine of class was way more interesting than it should have been, so I glanced around in mild confusion while waiting for the teacher to come in.

“Hey,” said the canine sitting in front of me to his friend across the aisle. “Where’s the old goat?” Mrs. Blackfield was a sheep, so the comment was either stupid or racist, but I wasn’t going to call them on it.
“I hadn’t seen her,” said the chipmunk in the other desk. “She might be gone today.”
“God, I hope so,” the canine sighed. “I haven’t even opened this damn book.”
“I have. It sucks. Just read the Wikipedia page about it.”
“I probably will.” He paused, then snorted and added, “Maybe she finally died.”
“That would be awesome,” the chipmunk snickered. He paused, then slowly glanced in my direction. I jerked my eyes back down at the desk to pretend I hadn’t been listening, but I don’t know if it was fast enough. In any case, they stopped talking completely.

Eventually, after the more optimistic in the class thought we might be going through the period without a teacher, the door creaked open in the back of the room and I turned to watch a tall, spiky-haired cheetah I’d never seen before shuffle inside.
“Mr. Luke!” Cried out an excited female voice from the back of the room. Half the class whipped around and excitedly began chattering at the sight of the apparently-familiar feline as he side-stepped through the classroom.
“Hey guys,” he said in a rich voice that carried easily across the room with little effort. He stopped a few times to clasp friendly hands with some of the girls and hi-five some of the guys he passed. I’d never seen a high school teacher get such a positive reception. His back was to me, so it was hard to make out any clear features of his face, but his hair was relatively long and stylishly spiked along the back of his neck, sort of like a mane some of the lions around the school wore, only with his yellow fur tipped in black. “You didn’t miss me, did you?”

“Yes!” shouted a girl near the front of the class. “Mrs. Blackfield sucks!”
“C’mon, no she doesn’t. She’s been doing this a lot longer than me,” Mr. Luke said in her defense. Once he made it to the desk, he set down his bag and pulled out a few papers and an expensive-looking Macbook covered in band stickers.
“She’s so boring,” groaned a male voice in the back. “And the books she makes us read are so bad.” I glanced around to see who was speaking and watched a lot of the students who normally spent the class sleeping sitting up to pay attention, which was as shocking as watching the sun set in the wrong direction.
“That’s not her fault. English teachers have to get you through certain books every year. It’s the rule.” Mr. Luke finished setting up his things on the desk and carried the familiar attendance sheet on a clipboard to the front of the class. Once he was finally up and facing my corner of the room, my jaw fell open in shock.

For one thing, Mr. Luke was gorgeous. He was in his late twenties or early thirties with long arms, broad shoulders, and sparkling blue-green eyes with slitted feline pupils. He was sleek and tall and moved very elegantly, as if dancing, even with just his hands and fingers. Despite his sharp features and very feline affect, he gave off an air of tranquility, his large eyes patient and kind. He wore a kind of sweater-vest, that he somehow managed to look stylish in, over a light blue button-up that he’d rolled up to his elbows, exposing the spotted fur on his forearms. He’d let enough of his chest fur grow out around his collar and it spilled over the v-neck of his sweater. His long tail swished and bounced behind him against the floor like it had a mind of its own. He was expressive and had the soft, but projected voice of an actor. Admittedly, I wasn’t paying attention to anything he was saying. In fact, after he’d stood up in front of the class, I’d stopped looking at his face altogether.

What stood out most from his thin body was the heavy, enormously pregnant belly around his waist. The pattern on the sweater-vest bulged outward and warped around the size of his stomach. While the fur poking out from the top of his shirt might have been intentional, the little tuft protruding from his exposed belly at the bottom probably wasn’t. He was very, very far along, with most of his body dedicated to his round, cub-heavy middle. As he read the roll call, he casually touched a hand to the side of his belly and rubbed it idly. I couldn’t help but stare at his hand as it made small circles around the tight globe, soothingly stroking the cub (or maybe more) inside him. I’d never seen a pregnant man in person before and no matter how much I tried to avert my gaze, my eyes would eventually migrate back to his belly, like they were drawn to it.

“Dylan?” said a very far-away voice I barely heard. I blinked and glanced around the room to find where my name was coming from before realizing it was from Mr. Luke himself, who was looking around the room just as inquisitively. “Dylan Stevenson?”
As I shyly raised my hand, his eyes fell on me with a look of surprise before smiling back with his toothy, friendly grin.

“I think you’re the only new face in here,” Mr. Luke said. He set down the clipboard on the nearby podium and braced his hands against his back, which had the unintended effect of pushing his belly farther out in front. I tried not to stare as the sweater rode higher up his middle. “I’m Mr. Adams, but mostly everybody calls me by my first name. Did you just move here?”
“Uh-huh,” I nodded, feeling blood rush to my face as I was made the center of attention. However, the friendly smile of the heavily pregnant cheetah was putting me at ease more than I would have been. I had to fight hard not to glance down at his belly, but I did anyway just for a second.

“I thought so,” Mr. Luke said as he migrated his hands to the upper swell of his stomach, resting them there idly. “Well, I’m usually the English teacher for your class, which is how the rest of these guys know me, but I took a year off to…well…” He chuckled self consciously while patting his heavy stomach. “Do some ‘family planning.’ I’m here to sub for Mrs. Blackfield while she’s out for the day. But only for today,” he said to the rest of the class. “Because I’m about to drop at any day now and I want to be at home when it happens.”

“Can we feel the babies!?” squealed a high-pitched voice from somewhere behind me.
“Maybe,” he said, pointing to a seat near the wall. “After class. If you’re good.” He paused, then turned back and nodded at me with a smile. “Glad to meet you, Dylan.”
“Y-You too…” I smiled back, brushing hair slightly out of my eyes. My heart was pounding hard enough I thought it was going to explode out of my chest.

“Okay!” He called out while walking back to the desk. I couldn’t help but notice the slight, rocking waddle to his hips as he moved, his belly sitting low. He must have been days from labor. “So what’s Mrs. Blackfield got you guys working on?” He leaned over as much as he could around his pregnant middle and snatched the stack of pages from the desk. “Hmmm…The Scarlet Letter? That’s a classic one. You guys should be about halfway through it, right?” He stood and read down the lesson plan, smoothing his sweater down around his belly, which from the side was shaped into a perfect oval, like an egg. “So, what’s the last thing that happened?”
He paused and waited for a response with an eyebrow raised. Mr. Luke folded his arms and began tapping his paw on the carpet.

“What, did you guys die while I was gone? Did the book kill you from boredom? What the hell?” There was nervous laughter around the room as Mr. Luke took the chance to curse around them.
“I think like…” one guy said near the front of the class, “Hester just moved out of the village and into the woods? I think?”
“Right, right. So she’s already had the baby?” Mr. Luke nodded. I noticed he wasn’t looking at the notes anymore. “Remember, it’s important to know that Hester didn’t just move out of the village, she was basically shunned and thrown out[/i]. In the early colonies, that might have been a death sentence, especially for a young single mother on her own. So Hester’s basically-” He paused and might a slight ‘unf’ of discomfort before glancing down at his belly. Mr. Luke rubbed a spot on the side of his stomach and cleared his throat before continuing. “So Hester’s been made sort of a non-person for the adultery, even though the priest, Dimmsdale, is just as much at fault. That’s totally deliberate.”

He paused and glanced around at the glazed looks at the rest of the class. A hand raised in the back and Mr. Luke quickly pointed it out.
“When are you due?” asked a female jaguar in the back of the class.
“In two weeks, Janice, but you’re trying to distract me and change the subject.” He paused again, then glanced at the paper in his hand. With a deep sigh, he leaned toward the desk and tossed the lesson plan aside. “Alright, I’ll be honest. I hate this book. It’s a complete chore to get through, so I feel your pain. But sometimes a book can be important and without really being very good. Just wait ‘til you get to college and some of you have to read Ulysses.” He sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Okay, be honest. Do any of you like this book?”

There was a thick silence in the room as people shuffled to look around. If anyone did enjoy The Scarlet Letter, the peer pressure was too heavy against them admitting it. I didn’t really hate the book, but the last thing I wanted to do was draw attention to myself, especially after spending most of class staring creepily at Mr. Luke’s pregnant belly.
“I thought so,” he nodded, absentmindedly drumming his fingers on his stomach and swishing his tail thoughtfully. Mr. Luke frowned and stared off into the distance for a moment, lost in thought. He scratched the scruffy patch of fur sticking out of the collar of his vest a moment before his mouth split open into a devilish, sharp-toothed grin. “Alright. I’ve got a better idea.”

Mr. Luke tugged down his vest over his belly and shuffled over to the desk before awkwardly sinking into the chair. As he opened his Macbook and began typing, I watched from my angle as his belly settled down into his lap while he sat, somehow rounding out even farther than before. His thighs were spread slightly apart, as if to make room for his pregnant girth, and it made him lean back in his seat so slightly that he probably didn’t even realize it himself. After a few minutes of typing and clicking, Mr. Luke’s smile returned as he plugged in a flash drive to the side of his computer, tapped his paw for a few seconds, then unplugged it again.
“Anybody wanna run this to the office to make some copies?” he asked, raising the drive in the air. “If I went, I don’t think I could make it back here before class ended.” The cheetah sheepishly patted his cub-heavy belly to a few scattered chuckles. A short mouse girl in the front row quickly stood up and took the drive from his hand and exchanged a few words before scurrying out the door in a burst of anxious speed.

In the empty minutes where we waited for the copies to return, Mr. Luke sat heavily in the chair behind the desk, chatting easily with some of his familiar students, some of which asked him excited questions about his pregnancy.
“Is it just one?” asked a girl sitting a few seats up from me.
Mr. Luke grinned and held up three fingers, sparking a chorus of gasps across the room.
“It’s not a big deal,” he said, rubbing both hands over his bump. “My mom had five. Litters run in my family. We expected more than one.”
“Do they move a lot?” another girl asked.
“They did, but not as much now,” he answered. “I’m close enough to term that they’re running out of room. Sometimes they push around each other.”
“Have you thought of any names?”
“You’ll have to ask Francis,” Mr. Luke said, referring to who must have been the other father. “I keep calling them different names every day, but it’s not like we can tell them apart from one another.”
“Did you miss us?” asked a voice from the back of the room.
“Eh,” he shrugged with a smirk. “Not really.”

While his attention was focused on the rest of the class, I turned my head down and pretended to be flipping through The Scarlet Letter while gazing at the expecting cheetah from beneath my long hair. He was already immensely attractive, but I doubt I would have been staring that much if he wasn’t pregnant. I was starting to feel faint from my heartbeat pounding so hard and my entire body felt flushed and hot. I’d never felt so on edge before, not even from an anxiety attack, but something about it felt good, too. I wanted to keep looking at Mr. Luke and his full-term belly as long as I could. After a while of silent, inward searching, I eventually found the core of what I was feeling and it came as a surprise: I was jealous.

I snapped out of my train of thought as the classroom door creaked open and a tiny gray blur of fur darted inside with a stack of freshly-printed paper and set them down on the desk in front of Mr. Luke.
“That was fast,” he said, chuckling. He braced one hand against the underside of his belly and the other on the desk and groaned while pushing himself out of the chair. His sweater slid up slightly over his stomach, revealing the yellow fur of his underbelly for a moment, before he tugged it down again and wobbled on his paws while regaining his balance.

“Okay guys,” he said, picking up the stack of papers and holding them up as a sign his lesson would continue. Once the room fell silent, he waited a dramatic second before asking, “How do you guys feel about eating babies?”
A shocked rush of gasps, muttering, and confused ‘Whats’ washed over the room. Some of the more sleepy, inattentive students in the back of the class perked up in surprise. Mr. Luke laughed loud enough to make his belly move slightly, then began passing stacks of paper down the rows of desks.
“This is an essay written by Jonathan Swift called ‘A Modest Proposal.’ Before we read it, I want to make clear that this is satire. Can anybody tell me the difference between a parody and a satire?”

A few confused glances between classmates prompted a few murmurs in response.
“That’s okay, it’s a good thing to learn.” Mr. Luke finished passing out the pages, then kept one copy for himself. “The difference is that a parody is a way of making things seem ludicrous for the sake of comedy or entertainment while a satire has a more directed goal of exaggerating an existing system to critique it and make it seem ridiculous. A satire can be funny, but it usually has a specific goal. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a parody. The Colbert Report is satire. Make sense?” He paused, then pointed to the first student in the row nearest the door. “How about you start reading the first paragraph, Joanne? We’ll see how much we can get done before class is over.”
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Surprisingly, our lesson on A Modest Proposal went over well, with the rest of the class growing more lively at at the subversive ridiculousness at what we were reading. I was able to pull my attention away from Mr. Luke long enough to read it myself and ended up enjoying it more than I thought it would. It was funny in a very dark way, especially knowing ahead of time the writer wasn’t being literal. We stopped early so the cheetah substitute could have time to explain some of the historical context of the work before class ended, but encouraged us to finish it on our own sometime. Amazingly, I thought most of the class would actually do it.

As the bell rang and we shuffled out of class, I lagged behind to keep away from the crowd. A small group of students were gathered around the seated Mr. Luke and were excitedly touching their hands to his rounded belly to feel the kicks of the cubs he carried while he smiled proudly. I stopped and watched for a moment, my heart pounding in my chest as I thought about approaching to do the same. Instead, my fear got the better of me and I ducked out of class before anyone could see me.

The rest of the school day continued on as boring as it usually did and I didn’t see Mr. Luke around after my one and only class with him. Still, it was hard to get the image of the mature, handsome cheetah out of my mind, much less his belly of triplets that seemed to draw my attention like a magnet. During a bathroom trip in the middle of the day, I sat in the stall and buried my face in my hands. Was there something wrong with me? What kind of bizarre sickness in my brain made me so fascinated with the man’s baby belly? I already knew I was gay; wasn’t that punishment enough on its own?

It was Friday, which meant the sound of the last bell was followed by a stampede of students shoving their way down the halls in an effort to get out and get home ASAP. Not wanting to get caught up in the riot, I stayed behind and waited in my desk for the school to thin out before leaving. But the last period’s teacher, Mr. Wells, apparently had somewhere to be and shut out the lights and closed the door early, forcing me to hurry outside with him. On my way to the student parking lot, I realized that I’d completely forgotten my backpack in the classroom. The door I’d just left the building from was already locked and I had to round the entire school to get back inside through the front entrance.

Once I’d finally arrived at room 218, I found it, too, was locked shut. While chewing on the tip of my finger, I glanced around for some teacher or janitor or coach or somebody around that might have a key, but I rightly assumed most of the building was already empty. Biology had assigned a dense workload of homework that night, so simply not having my books wasn’t an option. I slouched my shoulders and headed toward the front office to look for someone that could let me in.
It was hard enough trying to fit into a school where everybody already knew each other, but most of the teachers and workers in the office were just as friendly with one another, which made me feel like that much more of an outsider. Even though most of the faculty still had work to do, the ones that hadn’t left yet were sitting around the front office and chatting easily with one another, evidently caught up in the same Friday mood their students were. From the way the office was built, I could stand behind a wall and look out without being seen right away, which was about the only way I’d be able to stay inconspicuous with my height.

I wrung my hands together, pinching the webbing between my fingers while I tried to find someone I recognized. Even those familiar faces were of teachers who’s names I barely knew and I’d never spoken to before. Talking to them over others felt like the difference between climbing a skyscraper and climbing a mountain.
The door on the other end of the office swung open as someone backed in with their hands full. It was Ms. Dana, the guidance counselor, carrying a cup of coffee in one hand and a bottle of Sprite in the other. She was a skinny, short ferret with long hair and about ten or fifteen years the junior to the rest of the faculty. She was also the only person in the office I’d spoken to for more than five minutes and was the most friendly and helpful person for getting my school credits transferred over. Keeping my head down below my hair, I shuffled into the office and made a bee-line toward her office door, not stopping to address anyone I passed.

“M-Miss Dana?” I said, reaching my hand around the corner to knock on the open door before I even stepped inside. “I uhh…I got locked out of my last class and left my bookbag in there. Do you…”
My words trickled to a stop as I stepped into the small office. Ms. Dana herself was sitting cross-legged on top of her desk while her chair was occupied by none other than Mr. Luke, leaning back in the padded cushions and balancing the bottle of Sprite on his belly while he opened it.
“Oh, Dylan! Hi!” He said, his eyes brightening. He sat up slightly, but could only move so far forward over his rounded stomach. “What’s up?”

“Uuhh….H-Hi…I…Uhhm…” I stammered, my face feeling hot like I was staring into an open bonfire. I raised my hand to instinctively chew on one of my nails, but quickly lowered it again and simply kept squeezing the webbing between my knuckles. My tail was anxiously gliding over the floor behind me and I hoped they couldn’t see it. “I uhh…I l-left my bag in o-one of the rooms and it…it, um, it got locked and it’s…st-still in there and I…need a key…” The last words out of my mouth were nearly inaudible. Ms. Dana furrowed her brow and shot a glance to the pregnant cheetah at her desk, who shrugged.
“Which room was it?” Ms. Dana asked, climbing down from the desk.
“Tw-two eighteen,” I managed to stutter. “Mr. Wells’ room.”
“Right, right…I knew that,” She said, rounding her desk to open one of the drawers as Mr. Luke pushed the rolling chair away.

“Oh, Dana, I’ve still got the spare keys,” he said, reaching into his nearby bag to pull them out. Instead of handing them over, he grunted before heavily climbing onto his paws, his belly noticeably settling lower once he was standing. “Don’t worry, I got it.”
“Noooo, you don’t have to do that,” Ms. Dana said, backing away from the protruding swell of Mr. Luke’s middle. “Stay here, relax.”
“I’ve been relaxing for a month, I want to get up and move around at least,” he protested, side-stepping past Ms. Dana, who pressed herself against the wall, but not quite enough to avoid the cheetah’s belly from brushing against her. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna explode.”

“You sure about that?” Ms. Dana teased, thumping a finger against his taut middle.
“Not if you keep doing that,” he said, swatting her hand away playfully while grinning. He turned and glanced to me in the doorway, his tail swishing lithely, before looking me up and down with a look of surprise. “Wow, you’re a lot taller than when you’re sitting down.” I was very nearly at Mr. Luke’s height, give or take a few inches.
“I keep telling him to go out for basketball,” Ms. Dana added with a friendly grin. I smiled back, not willing to admit that trying out for sports occupied the same space in my mind that going to prison did.
“Only if he wants to,” Mr. Luke said, mercifully. He waddled toward the door, his movements front-heavy and awkward around his sizable belly. “C’mon, try to keep up. You know what they say about cheetahs, right?” This was obviously a joke, as he was shuffling awkwardly with the speed of a particularly lively toddler. As he neared the doorway, I leapt out of the way, maybe with a bit too much anxious energy, and let him waddle past me before following him into the hallway.

If I was feeling anxious before, it paled in comparison to the trembling mess I’d devolved into while walking beside Mr. Luke. I tried not to glance down at the shifting mass of his gravid belly, bouncing slightly with each step, but the effect was like trying to keep magnets apart. I stole looks at it when I thought he wasn’t looking.
“So how long you been here?” Mr. Luke asked, resolving to break the ice first. He instinctively rested his hand atop his stomach, a motion I couldn’t help looking at while trying to force myself to talk.
“Um…f-five months, I think. Maybe less. I don’t know.”
“So not a full semester? You probably came in the middle of the year,” Mr. Luke said. He sighed and nodded. “I did that when I was a little younger than you, in middle school. It’s hard, but you’ll adapt. Just give it time. Where you from?”
“Michigan. Little town not far from the lake.” Mr. Luke whistled.
“Wow, pretty long trip down here, huh?” he remarked. “At least you’re on the coast. Not too far from water.”
“Y-yeah,” I said, flatly. I liked water, of course, but the ocean didn’t really suit me. I liked mountain rivers and fresh water the most, but I wasn’t going to needlessly contradict Mr. Luke.

“I wish we had a swim team for you, but this isn’t a very big school. We’re lucky we have a track team.” I glanced up at him as he laughed, his eyes sparkling around his diamond-shaped pupils. “I may not look like it now, but I can be pretty speedy when I wanna be.”
I nodded then looked down at his round belly in what may have been the only appropriate time to do so. He tucked the keys into his pocket and slid both hands over his gravid body, as if measuring it.
“I was always pretty skinny, so it’s hard to get used to so much weight. I can’t wait to start running again once the cubs are born.”
“Y-yeah…” I said. I paused, swallowed, and felt words come out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying. “What does it feel like?”

He stopped in the hall to think, scratching the scruffy mane of fur around his neck.
“It’s hard to explain. It sort of feels different every day.” Mr. Luke took a breath, his belly rising as he did, and seemed to close his eyes for a moment. For all the energy he seemed to have, his face was much more tired. “Right now…my joints are sore and there’s a lot of weight on my hips and I can feel one of the cubs sitting back against my bladder. My legs and paws hurt, but it still feels better to get up and move around than just sitting around. The third trimester definitely isn’t my favorite part.”
“What’s your favorite part?” I asked. He paused for a minute, then smiled as he looked to the side, lost in thought while absentmindedly stroking his belly.

“When they move…when I can feel them poking me and shifting around in there, it makes it all feel worth it. I like laying down at the end of the day and just…being with them. When me and the cubs and Francis are all in bed together as a family…” Mr. Luke paused and seemed to forget where he was for a moment before blinking and glancing up at me. “Oh…well, those are the times I like the most.”
“Francis…is he your…uh…” I swallowed, feeling somehow awkward about saying the word out loud.
“My husband, right,” Mr. Luke nodded, resting a hand on his middle. “The father. Well, the other father. I don’t like to be called a ‘mother,’ even if I technically am…”
“What’s…um…what’s Francis like?” I never knew I’d be asking so many questions to this teacher I’d just met, but it somehow felt…safe.
“He’s a jaguar. Bulky and big, which probably explains this,” Mr. Luke smirked as he tapped the side of his belly. “But so smart, which I think most people don’t see. And sweet, gentle, patient. He’s been an angel through my pregnancy. I could stand here all day and say good things about him.” The cheetah pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the time. “We’d better get your stuff out of the room before they decide to close the building up for the weekend.”

“O-oh, right. Sorry. I uhh…s-sorry.” I swallowed and glanced down at my paws before turning and shuffling back down the hall. I was moving slowly enough that Mr. Luke’s awkward gait was able to catch up with me in seconds. I guess even a pregnant cheetah could still move pretty fast.
“Don’t be sorry. I like answering questions,” he said, brightly. “Why would I be a teacher, otherwise?”
“…Yeah. I guess so.” I nodded. I found myself thinking on the vague descriptors Mr. Luke had given of his husband and a figure of him started to take shape in my mind. I blushed under my fur while thinking about my imaginary version of Francis. “So he’s a jaguar?” I asked.
“Yep,” Mr. Luke nodded. “Some people say we look like brothers which…ew.”
“So uhh…they’ll be…” I gestured to his belly, but mis-judged the distance and accidentally tapped a finger against his protruding stomach. Jerking back my hand as if I’d just touched a flame, I swallowed in mortified embarrassment and mumbled, “S-Sorry.”

“Why? I’m not made of glass,” the cheetah laughed. “But to answer your question, they’ll be little cheetah-jaguars. I don’t…really know what that’ll look like, but they’ll be spotty little kids.” He paused and sighed again. “I’m ready to see what they look like. Only a few more weeks.”

I didn’t know how to respond, so I left Mr. Luke to his comfortable silence while we followed one another to the classroom. Once we were outside 218, I noticed how Mr. Luke turned to his side to unlock the door, as if would have been too difficult to reach the knob from around his belly. He pushed the door open and flicked the light on before standing to the side and out of the doorway. I slipped inside and headed for my desk and my abandoned bookbag.
After packing everything up, I noticed Mr. Luke shuffling heavily into the room, his hand on his back and wincing uncomfortably. When he noticed me looking, he returned a pained smile and waved his hand dismissively.
“I’m okay. Just a cramp. You get a lot of those.” He braced his hand on the desk and carefully lowered himself into a chair next to the wall, sighing in relief as he leaned back and stretched one of his paws far out in front of him. “Even just moving around isn’t all that easy when you’re this big.”

With my bag over my shoulder and my car in the parking lot, I could have easily just left and gone home. Instead, I stepped around the other desks and sat down in the one across from the heavily pregnant cheetah. He was completely fascinating to me, more so than any other teacher (maybe even adult) that I’d ever known. It felt stupid to pass up the opportunity to talk to him more.
“Are you only here today?” I asked.
“’Fraid so,” Mr. Luke nodded, drumming his fingers on his stomach. “I’m technically still on paternity leave, plus I’m officially on ‘labor watch.’ But I’ll be back next year. Thinner, hopefully.” He grinned at his own joke. “I hope I made a good impression. How did you like ‘A Modest Proposal?’”
“It was crazy,” I laughed. “I can’t believe somebody wrote that so long ago. It was funny, too.”

“It’s one of my favorites to teach. I always get a kick out of the reaction kids have to it.” Mr. Luke paused and glanced down at the belly sitting in his lap. “And I’m not blind to the irony, either.”
“Oh….oh...I didn’t really think about that,” I said.
“It’s fine. I don’t think anybody is gonna want to feed my cubs to the English aristocracy,” Mr. Luke joked.
There was a lull in conversation as I couldn’t think of what to say next. I glanced up through my hair and lost my thought gazing at the cheetah’s full, shapely belly, so full and healthy and ripe. After staring at it for nearly a minute, I blinked and glanced up to find Mr. Luke staring back at me.

“It kind of draws the eye, doesn’t it?” he said with a friendly smile. “It’s hard not to look at it sometimes, even for me. But I hope I didn’t distract you too much during class.”
My blood ran cold and my throat closed up. He’d noticed the entire time how much I was staring at him. I wanted to get up and hurl myself out the window in shame, but my knees felt too weak.
“…S-s-suh-sorry,” I stammered.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Dylan,” Mr. Luke said. He grunted, then sat up in his chair and leaned as far forward as he could. “I’m here if you want to talk, yknow.”
“…Um… well…I uh…” I swallowed and tried to look up at him, but felt too embarrassed and ashamed to do anything but stare at the floor between my paws.

“Hey,” Mr. Luke said, “you wanna feel ‘em move?”
My ears both twitched and flattened against my head as I snapped up and stared wide-eyed into the cheetah’s green eyes. He smiled easily, then turned slightly to the side and gestured to the left side of his belly.
“This one’s been pretty active lately. Go ahead.”
I swallowed, then instinctively glanced around to make sure the room was empty. Then, after wringing my hands together for so long my joints were sore, I sat forward in my seat and reached out with my right hand. For a moment, my palm hovered a few inches above his belly, but I finally worked up the courage to gently place my hand against the curve of his stomach. His belly was warm, almost radiating heat, but also unexpectedly firm and without much give. I hadn’t understood just how tight his belly was just from sight. I suddenly gasped as something poked my hand from underneath. I knew in my head that it was one of Mr. Luke’s cubs, but I was still reeling from the shock of feeling something moving inside the cheetah’s belly. Without asking, I reached out and felt with my other hand, exploring the round globe of his stomach and the moving cubs within it.
“Cool, huh?” Mr. Luke laughed. I felt the vibration of his chuckling through his belly. “You don’t really get used to it. But it’s nice. It’s like letting you know they’re still in there.”

“Th-that’s…it’s…hah…” I swallowed and stammered like normal, but couldn’t hide the smile on my face. “It’s really cool.” I realized I’d been sitting there for almost five minutes with my hands plastered to his baby bump, so I quickly pulled them back into my lap with another nervous lap.
“It’s been an experience, that’s for sure,” Mr. Luke said, poking his belly where my hands had just been. “You ever want kids, Dylan?”
“…Well…kind of. I think so.”
“You think you’d want to carry them?”
I paused. It was the first time I’d been asked the question, but I surprised myself by how quickly I answered.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Yeah, I uh…I think I’d want to.”

“I felt the same way,” Mr. Luke nodded. “It’s been hard, but…also totally worth every second of it. I’m happy I got to carry them. Got to be pregnant.” He smiled down at his belly. “When I was a kid, it wasn’t an option. It was only women, so I didn’t think I’d have any kind of chance. But I still wanted it. I couldn’t help it. So, when I met Francis and science sort of caught up to what I wanted…I finally got to live it out.”
I nodded, realizing how familiar it all felt.

“I…I think that…well…” I started to talk quietly before wringing my hands together even more. “I think I was…feeling just kind of jealous of you. I think…well…I am jealous. Because you’re the kind of guy I wish I was. You’re happy and you’re p-pregnant and you’re married and…out. And everybody just kind of loves you for it. I want that. I wanna be that. I can’t even look at myself in a mirror for too long without getting pissed off. I just want…” I bit my tongue, reeling at how much I’d let myself say. It was more embarrassing than even being caught staring at Mr. Luke’s belly. I pulled my hands back into my lap and stared down at my lap.

“…Dylan…” Mr. Luke sighed. I worked up the courage to look into his face and saw an expression of pity on his attractive, feline face. He seemed all the more perfect, the longer I looked at him. “…Did you know, when I was in high school, I tried to kill myself?”

My muscles tensed up and I stared back at him, at a total loss for words.
“I was about as miserable as you could be. Even on the track team, even with all my friends, I couldn’t stand who I was deep down inside. I thought I was broken, rotten. I couldn’t really trust myself or anything I thought because I was convinced that being gay made me defective inside. So I tried to end it. And Dylan…the best thing to ever happen to me was failing to commit suicide. Because if I’d done it, I wouldn’t have learned how to accept myself and just be with myself the way I knew I was. I’m not perfect and I don’t have it easy, but now that I know who I am deep down…well, look at me now!” Mr. Luke smiled, gesturing down at his pregnant belly. “I’m okay with it. I’m okay with who I am and I can wear it on my sleeve and be happy. I can be proud of having these cubs and not having to hide it. But I wasn’t born that way. Nobody is.”

Mr. Luke stared at me, stared through me. My mind was reeling, trying to process everything. I can’t remember the last time someone had talked to me for so long.
“I don’t know you very well, Dylan, but I see a lot of myself in you. I don’t want you to be ashamed of yourself, because you can’t find real happiness that way.”

“…Okay…” I said, trying to pin down my thoughts. After a minute, I took a deep breath, held it for a moment for solidarity, and said exactly what I’d been too afraid to admit.

“Mr. Luke, you are really, really hot.”

The cheetah burst into laughter, folding his ears back against his head and grinning wide enough to show every single one of his sharp teeth. He gripped his belly with both hands as it shook with his laughter, which was contagious enough to spread to me.
“Well uh...heh...that’s really nice of you to say, Dylan,” Mr. Luke said after his laughter had died down. “I hope the uh…the belly doesn’t get in the way of that.”
“No, you’re hotter with it,” I said, speaking through a high of confidence that I’d never experienced before.
“That’s a new one,” the cheetah said, patting his cub-filled stomach proudly. He groaned as he pushed himself out of the desk and wobbled uneasily on his paws. “I think so, too.”

I slung my backpack over my shoulders and followed him out of the room, where he shut off the lights and pulled the door shut behind him.
“Come help me to my car,” Mr. Luke said. “I’m walking for four, after all.”