Chapter 4 - the shack

CHAPTER FOUR

Noah heard the crunching of gravel from outside, then Charlotte calling from another room, "Mia's back. Let's help her unload!"

Noah went to the front door and onto to deck that led down in three steps to the gravel driveway. Charlotte was popping the trunk and pulling out bags while Mia was shuffling towards the door with a bag in each hand, eyes straight down on the ground. As she came towards him, he noticed how she had one of his hoodies on, a black zip-up he'd left in the car.

"Hey," he said as she got nearer, "Is that one mine?"

Then she looked up at him in this funny way that made Noah pause. Her eyes flicked down, and then up at him again, and down at the ground once more, very evasive like this. "Sorry, I thought I could use it," she muttered.

"It's okay, I just--"

But Mia had gone right past him, Noah turning to watch her. What was she wearing his hoodie for? It was like, 29 degrees Celsius in the bloody outback. Why had she taken all day? Why was she walking so awkwardly?

Emma, Elijah and Mallory had just emerged from the shack. They thanked Mia as she passed, and then marched towards the car boot. Noah blinked, raised an eyebrow in brief contemplation and went after them.

In a couple of minutes they had transferred the monster load of groceries inside, and had begun packing them away in the kitchen. Re-stocking was done in under twenty minutes, and then everyone went about their day again.

"Nah, pff, don't worry about unpacking," Elijah had told Mia, "you've done enough today."

So Mia had then left, but in this kind of odd waddle. Noah had watched as she left like that. He hurried after her to retrieve his hoodie.

He found her in the lounge room about to turn left to go down the hall to her room but Noah stopped her and said, "Hey, do you need that hoodie?"

Mia turned around to face him, standing as if she was holding some imaginary thing between her legs. Did she need to pee or something?

Noah frowned. "You alright?"

"Yeah!" Mia said, nodding, smiling. She sounded out of breath, looked like she was hurting. Noah suddenly got second thoughts about asking for it back. "Actually... uh, I guess you can keep that hoodie. No biggie. No big deal."

"Oh, no," she stuttered, "no, it's yours, I'll um, I'll give it back to you, sure."

"Well alright."

She paused. "But... just wait a second. Let me, uh... I need to go to the toilet quickly." She turned around and waddled off.

Noah scratched his ear and sat down on the couch. He waited, messing around on his phone, browsing facebook and other social media sites where people were spewing the same old shit about the same old life problems and rehashing their daily activities to look important and productive. Righto then. Blah.

When Mia returned, she was in her own hoodie, one of those thick baggy ones that takes away the shape of whoever wears it. His own hoodie was draped over her arm. She extended it for him to take. He received it and saw how straight her back was, how she was holding herself so rigid. He asked, "Do you need to sit down or something?"

"God, yes."

"Long day, was it?" he asked as she went to the opposite couch and began to sit down. She went to it as if she were pregnant, kept throwing suspicious glances at him. "Long day," she said. "Feeling a bit, uhm... sore."

"Oh." Noah began to think he knew what was going on. "I'll just leave you be, then."

"Okay. Thanks."

Noah got up and left through the doorway, thinking she was on her period.

A few moments later he turned back. He poked his head around the corner, about to thank her for doing the shopping today -- but he paused.

He saw Mia reclined, slumped on the couch in profile to him, just as she stopped sucking in. She let go of her stomach with a huge breath of relief, Noah saw her stomach inflate into a bloated mound, assuming its original size even under that loose woolen hoodie.

Noah, he was a little like us. His sexual preferences revolved around shit like this. Seeing her so bloated and full made him forget how to breathe for a moment.

Then Mia caught him staring. Her eyes widened, face went hot red and she sucked in quick-smart. Must have hurt. Her mouth was open as if to speak, but Noah spoke first. He barely managed a weak murmur. "Thanks for doing to grocery run."

And then he vanished around the corner, aroused, bothered by it, and walked away fast before he did, or said anything stupid.

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CHAPTE R FIVE

Over the next few days, Mia couldn't get it out of her head, that moment Noah caught her so bloated. She projected her embarrassment onto the situation like a blanket. All she could believe was that he felt nothing but disgust towards her, after catching her so gorged and immobile on the lounge room couch.

On the other hand, Noah had started trying to get closer to her through small kind gestures, an outward friendliness he thought was more than enough to get his message of interest across to her. But Noah's every effort seemed to drive him into a dead end where Mia just did not seem to be receiving him and his signals of desire.

The day she had eaten those donuts or the first time, she had been forced to retreat to her room, pretend she was sick, and then never emerge for the rest of the day. Noah had watched with growing suspicion. And then in days, hopes grew, and then after that, fantasies flourished. On both their parts. If only they knew how mutual.

Out of sight and alone, Mia had been able to strip off and lay in bed spread-eagled, breathing deep, even breaths with her hard-packed gut let free to stick up in the air. It felt good to let it all out for all the empty room to see, air running across sore, bare skin. She'd put a hand on her stomach and ran it across, feeling its solidity, it's smoothness that didn't yield. ...If only it did. The unnaturally rapid expansion of her stomach lining had made her skin faintly pink with tension, like a blush. and in places her stomach muscles felt bruised like she had been punched in those spots. All those abnormally heavy calories were inside her now, weren't they? She wondered how she hadn't ruptured some vital organ inside of her yet. it felt like it.

The donuts had proven difficult later on as she sat bending double on the toilet. At night when she was trying to sleep, the pressure inside her stomach was still causing heavy aches, so she had to lay on her back. But it only settled all the weight on her spine, and made her squirm to look for comfortable positions -- of which there were none. It was about four o'clock a.m. when she finally passed into a deep and sore sleep. She remembers dreaming of Noah's face, how it scrunched with disgust whenever he looked at her.

But so be it. Those donuts were going to put a hole in her metabolism. Surely. That was worth anything. Tomorrow she'd wake up to find herself changed. She would finally have results.

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CHAPTE R SIX

It's just that she never did.

Mia sat up on the edge of her bed with groggy mind and smeared vision, rationality reawakening and her mind putting the pieces of itself back together.

She yawned, recovered, set to feeling herself for any changes. She put three fingers underneath her chin to feel for anything, ran them down her neck. Nothing seemed different... She placed her hands on her modest breasts, ran them down, fingers catching the sudden bump of her rising nipples. She cupped her breasts, decided she felt no difference there either. Her hands slid down each side of her rib cage, feeling firmness, the contour of ribs. There was... nothing there either. Her hands came to stop at her stomach. It was still faintly bloated, probably from eating those donuts. She grabbed at it with her fingers, waiting for them to grope a roll of fleshy fat, or even a small pinch of it, no matter how small, it didn't even matter, she only wanted something other than firmness.

But there was nothing.

The first pangs of disappointment began to kindle. Mia rubbed at her eyes, blinked until all the sleep came away. Then she looked down at her body and tried to pinch at herself. Maybe she couldn't feel it, but see it instead. But no, there was simply nothing there. Just skin. Measly thin skin. She could even see the tone of her muscles beneath the sheath of it all, still there, tight as the plastic of a medical glove.