fucker deserved it

I’ve been thinking about times you shocked me. There are hundreds, for all sorts of reasons. This one in retrospect makes me smile.

It was quite early morning when you bust into my house and gave me a heart attack.

I was crossing the unlit living room by memory, dressed in dressing gown and holding a glass of water, when the front door slammed open. You strode in without hesitation, stomping violently.

(I realised the next day that despite what was going on you took off your muddy shoes before tracking anything into my living room. You knew even then that I worshipped the ground you walked on and wouldn’t have minded, but you still cared, and it made me fall in love with you little bit more.)

If you hadn’t cursed when your belly got caught in the doorframe I wouldn’t have known it was you. Adrenaline running through my veins I’d have attacked a perceived intruder and probably ended up next to your present meal. As it stands I nearly dropped my glass. “Raven?! What’s going on?”

You sounded furious and bitter. “A simple favour is what’s going on.” Then you slammed the light switch.

Okay so first up, you were gorgeous. But the entire right hand side of your face was steeped in blood, the gush apparently having also painted your entire chest. Your tight black long sleeved top was torn on the left like someone had clawed it open, and the arm on that side was missing. Your leggings weren’t bad but the short green jacket you were wearing barely qualified for the name: it has been burned, possibly melted, at the back. The stink of old fire followed you in.

“Oh my God. Are you okay?!”

Your eyes flashed, eloquently speaking of your foul mood. You made a strange hiccuping sound and (literally) tore off 99% of the ruined jacket, leaving bits of army green welded to your top and exposed skin. Your left arm had been gouged, three deep parallel red cuts shiny with fresh inflammation, and your shoulder bore what looked like the bite marks I’d seen you leave on your prey.

“Oh my God! Did someone try to—”

“The third one did.” You empty your pockets of keys and phone and throw yourself back onto the couch, sighing long and forced like someone after a day. You pat your belly and give me a strained smirk. “I had three mouths to his one, though. Dropped him in twenty seconds.” You burp under your breath, then make another odd hiccup/gulp.

Did I even know about your tendrils at that point? I would have let the puzzling comment pass, anyway. More pressing things were happening.

I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times, then finally managed: “Do you want a cup of tea?”

“Oh my God I could murder one.”

Into the kitchen I went, where I put the kettle on and returned with a first aid kit. You watched with detached amusement as I cleaned your wound fastidiously. “You’re going to want stitches for this.”

“Tell you what,” you said, laying your head to one side and looking up at me. “If it’s still there in two days, I’ll get stitches.”

The kettle boiled. I steeped tea. You’re used to it now but I take ages to make a cuppa. While waiting for it to steep I helped you carefully peel off the ruined top and bottoms. A sports bra pinged off with the top, clasp broken from where your meal had passed it by. You cursed as you saw it.

When I finally handed you your cup of tea you made another hic/gulp sound. To my questioning glance you gave a mirthless laugh.

“You won’t like it. Maybe find it cruel.”

“Try me.”

You frowned, then took my free hand and placed it on your immense belly. God, thinking back, you were so slight. I could feel every contour of your prey where he sat curled up in your stomach.

When he moved I startled and recoiled. Your grip held my hand in place and you raised your eyebrows, challenging me to work out for myself what you were doing.

If took a couple of seconds. “You’re swallowing air…”

A nod to confirm, and then more watching, as I looked back down to your stomach. Imagining what it must be like to be in there. Probably stewing in his own blood—you had mentioned three mouths.

I pictured him attacking you.. Even if you were the aggressor, even if he acted in self defence, I cursed with passion. “Fucker deserves it.”

You smiled but hid it behind the lip of your cup. Tea as scalding hot as you could stand it cascaded down your throat to trickle down the curled up, suffering form within you.

I knelt and kissed your belly. You seemed surprised when my hands began to roam over it, feeling where your dinner was getting mushy and helping your stomach muscles grind juices deeper into his body. You released and then trapped more air: ~guh-hssssskruuUurk / ng-glck~

My tea was cold by the time I remembered there might be more to life than tracing your beautiful, impossible curves; than chasing just one more tiny sound of satisfaction or gas from your throat.

You let me take care of you that night, running you a bath and dressing your wounds. Eventually your prey slipped away (I know now he was in fact merely caught more finally), but that didn’t stop me rubbing your bloated tummy. After the day’s violence it was a pleasure to lie back in freshly-changed sheets, to drift off with kisses and tummy rubs..

It was a pleasure for me too: one of the truest I know.