digesting a chinese

That night you rouse past midnight to feel me resting my head on your belly. Your own arm rests on my shoulder. We must have fallen asleep like that.

I stir. Perhaps your breathing changed.

When we first slept my cheek was resting on a tight cannonball of digesting meat and takeaway. Without any external change, my head slowly sank further and further into your flesh as the night went on. Your guts pumped them deeper, your stomach emptying into passages mere inches from my sleeping head.

Was it the child, or the takeaway, or Tracy herself that shifts dangerously in your lower bowls. You frown into the dark of the room and clench. Whoever it is announces themselves in a fart that starts high and squeaky and ends low and rumbling.

I stroke your belly with a free hand. If I weren’t awake, I am now. You feel that, and after a shift of my head, kisses trail from rib fat to underboob to nipple. Everything is set in motion. Your flesh responds to the tiniest fragment of affection with soft, warm jiggling.

You tangle your hand in my hair and gently guide me up, over collarbone and neck, till I’m facing you.

In the mostly-dark I see your mouth opening as a deeper shadow growing in shadow. You feel me freeze. With your tongue rolled out this is exactly the pose you took that encouraged me to slide the newborn inside…

A rumble in your chest gives away what’s coming. You belch softly as my face hangs inches away. I inhale, while the burp progresses through a patch of rough gurgling at around the level of your heart, and then finally stops with a satisfying ~braaup~

No sooner do your lips close than I am kissing you. You moan back and settle voluminous arms around me.

We sleep, eventually.