Summoning

Chapter 7

In the morning, Aaron felt exhausted and somehow both numb and overly sensitive at the same time. He was naked beneath the covers and the brush of his morning wood against the sheet sent shivers down his spine. Slipping his hand beneath the covers, he tented the fabric away from his stiff shaft. He wanted to just go back to sleep but, while the urge to pee was at the still ignorable level, there was a nagging discomfort throughout his abdomen.

His hand moved over his bloated belly and he shifted, trying to relieve the pressure: burp, fart, anything. But, since he felt neither nausea nor cramping, he wasn't surprised it didn't help. With a grunting whine, he rubbed and cradled his swollen abdomen as he lethargically rolled onto his back and then toward the edge of the bed. The shifting weight made the whine become a groan and though it was only momentarily on his bladder, the urgent feeling remained.

With another groan, he slowly pushed himself up and got his feet out of the blanket and onto the floor. Looking down, he caressed his distended belly for a few moments before he found the strength to stand. Skin and flesh protested the strain of this sudden, extra weight and pinched over his narrow hips.

Hissing with pain, he put his hand under the bulge and the other on the small of his back. Stretching, he relieved some of discomfort for a moment. Easing back, he grunted and kept his hand under his belly as he moved to the door. He used the other hand to open it.

It was late in the morning. His mother was at work so there was nobody to see him go down the hall naked. Once in the bathroom, he nevertheless closed the door. Habit. It was a relief to empty his bladder, though it did nothing to ease all the other discomforts.

After washing his hands, he put them back on his belly and looked at the door. Or, rather, at the full-length mirror on the back of the door. He looked pregnant. Maybe six months? It was something that should probably freak him out, but for some reason it didn't. It hadn't bothered him when he felt a firm mass in his belly these past few weeks, either.

For a little while he just stood there, massaging his belly and looking at himself in the mirror. There were, he thought, five distinct masses now. One was at the top, partly wedged into the apex of his ribs and resisted when he took a deep breath. One was at the foremost bulge of his abdomen, making a hard dome just above his belly button. Two were behind that one, he could feel them when he rubbed the sides of his belly. And the fifth was sitting in his pelvis, where it had always been, making his groin tingle when rubbing moved it.

His flesh was smooth, unblemished by the incredible stretching it must have done to accommodate this in one night. Fingers lingering over the shallow depression of his navel, he felt how taut his skin had become. And sensitive. His fingertips brushed up the sparse line of hair descending from his belly button and it nearly made him shiver.

Exhaling, he finally moved to open the door and return to his room so he could get dressed. He was starving.

***

It didn't bother his mother, either. In fact, it was like she was barely aware of it. Enough not to question why he was sleeping on the couch when she got home from work and to wake him up with the concern that he be awake enough to eat a good dinner. But not enough to make any comment about her son's sudden pregnancy or even look at it.

He was considering this as he showered. It was like an itch in the back of his mind, thinking he should find this alarming. And yet the itch was nearly forgotten as he stood in the hot water and massaged his belly. He might have stayed in there much longer, but that his mother walking by on the way to her room brought him back to the present.

Holding the towel closed with one hand and his belly with the other, he pushed the door of his room open with his shoulder. With the brush of familiar musk, the fog began to lift. Easing into the room, he was bathed in a red glow from the kerosene lamp, burning not with a flammable liquid but with the fires of the other world. As he pushed the door closed behind him, he took as deep a breath as the eggs allowed, welcoming the pleasing scent.