Trickling

I looked like a blimp. Felt like one too. There was this sickening lurch in my stomach as I leaned forwards into the mirror to touch up my lips. The dress hitched in all the wrong places; it helped obfuscate some of the mass, but I still looked heavily pregnant, and very uncomfortable.

I pressed in on my earpiece. “Captain, tell your men they need to stop moving. I’m liable to puke otherwise.”

“This isn’t their first infiltration, ma’am; you do your part and we’ll do ours.”

Snatching up my bag, I near barged a mother and daughter off their feet. The heels I wore eased my hips into a pendulous swing that rocked my buttocks beneath paper-thin fabric. I needed every edge I could manage. “I’m the one that takes the fall if this goes south,” I growled. Security were already looking at me, scoping across my tight belly before devouring my other curves.

I smiled sweetly, packing my things into the little tray. My phone, and my Bluetooth, buried beneath my handbag and the shawl with the little buckle that’d keep the chill off my shoulders once we reached northern Russia.

“Just through here, miss,” said the guy leaning on the metal detector.

I did so, keeping my eyes on him and lowering my head ever so slightly. “I have a replacement rib on the lower left side,” I told him as the siren betrayed me. Immediately he was up with the wand, predictably excited. True enough, as it passed across the upper regions of my abdomen, a smaller blip confirmed the lie.

His hand brushed a little too hard, though, and I felt my insides squelch peculiarly. He didn’t seem to notice. “Alright, go on through.”

“Thank you.” I smiled sweetly and trotted off to reapply my effects. Only briefly did I need to pause, composing myself as an airy hiccup disrupted my breath.

Almost as soon as the piece was back in my ear, “Sarah? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, we’re through. Bit of heartburn.” I had a small bottle of water in my bag that I took a quick draught of. I didn’t have a huge amount of time to get to the boarding gate, so I took off again as fast as the brewing nausea would allow. My middle was heavy, and growled angrily at the acid-resistant bag filling out my belly.

“Sarah, regroup,” came the voice, more elevated than usual. “Need you to sit down somewhere. Slowly.

“Captain, no time. Plane leaves in ten. Whatever it is can wait.”

“Sara-!” I cut him off, handing over my passport to the man on the desk and making my way down towards the runway. I couldn’t wait to put up my feet and relax for the next ten hours.

The steward looked almost as if he would rush to help me as I struggled up the stairs, but I waved him off. With every other part of me looking toned and lithe, there was no mistaking my belly for fat. “Are you due soon?” he asked awkwardly.

I huffed, “Very.”

He checked my ticket and directed me down the aisle. It was cute. The scary part was done; all I had to do now was settle in for a long, boring flight and be a good passenger plane. Crossing my legs compressed my stomach in the worst way and I barely covered a gross, “GuhwoOourp!” with my fingers. That sound made my heart constrict. I wiped the drool from my lips and gently probed my tummy with my palms.

There was far, far too much squish.

I reopened the call. “Captain, what’s the situation?”

There was a long, cold few seconds of silence, before. “One of the men reported water trickling on the inside of the bag.”

I swallowed. “Ar-are they sure? Maybe…Did any of them check?”

“I ordered them to cease any extraneous movements; especially considering you wouldn’t.”

“Do not pin this on me,” I snarled. “What’s happening?”

Another brief pause before the audio crackled, and switched to a bubbling cry underpinned by the churning of stomach muscles. My stomach muscles. I laid a hand on my gut, and felt it growling. While the plane took off, I lurched with nausea born in part by the fact that people were dying inside me. I could feel them struggling if I was really still.

“Mission failed, Sarah. You’re dismissed.”

My eyes prickled, and my lips had dried. “I-I can get them out. I’ll go to the bathroom and…”

“There’s no time, ma’am. You’ve been digesting them for almost half an hour. At that size, ten minutes is lethal. Just…” he sighed. “Get some rest. We’ll fly you back at the first opportunity. And, uh… enjoy your meal.”

“Meal? Those are real soldiers in there, Captain! Fuck you, I’m…” I struggled upright, but another belch confirmed the worst. I stared vacantly at my midriff, softening and pudgy as its contents mulched into a thick soup. I had no idea how much equipment I was destroying, but around thirty special operations agents were meeting their end in their colleague’s guts all because of a tiny split in a rubber bag.

No flight had ever felt so long. I was aware of every crunch and groan. The pregnant dome softened into sludge and pooled in my waist, admittedly making the silly dress a tad more comfortable. The love handles, I was less thrilled about. Getting fat wasn’t exactly part of the mission briefing.

On the other side in a small hotel in Saint Petersburg, I released my victims, teary-eyed, in a private ceremony. I felt them crown and slide, before breaking with a crude plop. They stunk. If it wasn’t for the miniaturized equipment and the sheer amount waste, you might not have been able to tell they were people at all.

Their helmets and their vests, at least, had been somewhat digestion-resistant, but that was a fat lot of good when all they protected now were the thick brown cast of my gut. I rested my buttocks back against the sink for a little while and just looked. They steamed with my body heat. Thirty soldiers. All that time and training, the lives they’d led…

I flushed them away and threw myself on the bed. It’d be a few days before I got to go home. Hopefully, by that point, the paperwork would have been done and I could just get back to work. I played with my bare belly, stroking and jiggling it with my fingers.

It had been merciless with them. Gurgling with all the intensity of a small forest stream, it had swept away the lives pressed into its care without thought. Now, I felt it clench and burble. “I’ve done my job, Mummy,” it seemed to say, “and now I’m hungry again.”

I shook my head, and ordered room service.