“Funny one this one, though. You’ve got to laugh.”
“Really?’ Greg asked. “What did he do?”
“Strangled his girlfriend. Not an uncommon one, gotta admit. But it was what he said to deny it which was bizarre. He said that his dick killed her. Jumped right out his pants and wrapped itself round her neck. He said a witch’s curse made it grow to a massive length and then it killed her.”
Greg laughed. “Aw that’s a good one. I mean, I feel bad for laughing but that is a good one. First time I’ve heard that one. It wasn’t me governor, it was my tallywhacker that done it!”
They both laughed loudly. Gregg laughed until his face went red and he had to bend down and regain his breath.
“But that wasn’t even the funniest thing,” John said. “Wait till you hear this. We gave him a medical when he came in. He stripped off, you know, the usual routine.” Greg nodded.
“But when we checked him, his dick . . . it was the smallest one I’d ever seen. About the size of a baby prawn. That dick couldn’t wrap itself round an ant’s neck never mind a woman’s!”
They roared with laughter.
NATURAL GROWTH
By M.B.Vujačić
"So, Mrs. Shane," Dr. Kramer said, leaning back in his chair, "I've been told you're interested in the Natural Growth Program."
Sarah straightened in her chair. "Umm, yeah," she said, and gave a tiny grin, her eyes sweeping across his office. It was all wood and leather and earth tones, the walls adorned with dozens of framed awards, diplomas, and certificates. Kramer watched her from behind an ornate desk. He was a small, clean-shaven, fifty-but-looking-forty type, clad in a business suit and a hundred-dollar haircut. She licked her lips. "Sorry, ah, I'm kinda excited."
The doctor smiled.
Greg chuckled and gently squeezed her hand. "It's okay, honey." He looked at the doctor. "We found an article about it on the internet. It sounded great, so we decided to give it a shot."
Kramer gave a slow nod. "A good choice. Natural Growth Program is not as swift as the traditional method, but I think you'll find the final result well worth the wait."
He opened a drawer and took out the largest, thickest brochure Sarah had ever seen. He leafed through it until he found a page showing the side view of a woman's breast, with five pink Xs marked around the areolas. "The hormones are introduced directly into the fatty tissue and the mammary glands. The procedure is performed wholly via infusions," he tapped the Xs with a pen, "with no more discomfort than what would be experienced during, for instance, a blood donation. The procedure consists of five major infusions spread over three months. The patient is closely monitored during this period to ensure everything goes well. The risk of scarring, rupturing, or infection is minimal, and there's no need for additional interventions."
Kramer turned the page. The next two pages displayed six photographs of a woman's naked torso. On the topmost photo, the one with Before written under it, the breasts were little more than nipples on a flat chest. The second picture showed the same nipples perched atop strong A cups. Week One was printed beneath it. The third, marked Week Four, displayed large Bs.
"And the best thing? They are all yours." He spread his arms. "We implant no outside agents like silicone. We merely give your body a nudge and it takes care of the rest on its own."
Sarah barely heard him. She stared at the sixth photo, the one with Week Twelve written under it. It showed the kind of gravity-defying Ds that not only didn't sag, but also looked completely natural. The only time she'd seen their like outside of TV was in high school. They belonged to one Mona Jackson, an unassuming girl whom everyone liked but nobody invited to parties because she commanded the attention of every guy in the room.
"Honey? You with us?"
Sarah blinked, looked at Greg. "Oh. Yeah. I was just, umm . . ."
Kramer smiled, offering her the brochure. "Please, take a look. The available sizes are listed at the back."
Sarah leafed through it. There were more photos of successful procedures, not all of them ending with Mona Jackson-size Ds. Some women had stopped at Bs or small Cs, while one had had her already-strong Cs grown into Fs so bulky they bordered on vulgar.
Greg ran his hand over his mouth. "I gotta ask, doc, how is this so cheap? I mean, it costs less than implants at some clinics. I thought you guys would want to milk it while it's still new."
"Actually, that is precisely why it's so affordable," Kramer said. "The public tends to mistrust new medical procedures. Since we do not yet have the funding necessary to hire a famous actress or a model for promotion, we feel it's crucial to keep our prices as reasonable as possible."
"But it's all safe, right?"
"As with every procedure, some small complications may arise, but I assure you we're equipped to deal with them. We don't have a single unsatisfied customer and we intend to keep it that way." He looked at Sarah. "So, Mrs. Shane, do you prefer any size in particular? You do not have to decide right away, of cour—"
"D cups," she said, grinning so hard the corners of her mouth itched. "I want D cups."
"So what do you think?" Sarah said.
Greg smiled. "I still don't get why you wanted them so much. You were perfect just the way you were." He looked her up and down for the hundredth time in the last minute. "Not that I'm complaining."
"But they're lovely, aren't they?" Sarah said. She stood in front of the bathroom mirror, naked above the waist, holding one of her breasts. It felt warm and heavy, and it could barely fit in her hand. She couldn't have kept the grin from her face if she tried.
"They're awesome, baby."
Sarah's grin widened.
"How much longer is it going to take?"
"Eight weeks," she said. Round white patches, no bigger than shirt buttons, were glued to her breasts, three under each nipple, covering the spots where the syringes had punctured the skin. "Two more infusions."
"I read about those things they experimented on to make the hormones," Greg said, leaning against the washing machine. "Did you know they can lay, like, a million and a half eggs? Maybe you'll start laying eggs, too."
"If that's how it went, we'd all have tails by now from all those rats they use in labs."
Greg hugged her from behind and kissed her neck. "I just want you to know, I married you because I love you, and that's not gonna change. Not even if you grow a tail."
She giggled.
His hands slid up her belly and cupped her breasts. "They're so warm," he said. After a moment he made a puzzled face, then pressed his ear against her left breast. "Oh, weird."
"What?"
"It's like I can hear two heartbeats. One's faster than the other." He put his ear to the other breast. "Same here."
"What does that mean?"
"Nothing. There's probably a vein there and I'm hearing both its pulse and your heartbeat."
"You sure?"
Greg shrugged. "What else could it be?"
That night, Sarah had the first of what she'd come to think of as her baby dreams. In it, she walked on a seabed, lost in an aquatic landscape. Everywhere she looked she saw corals sticking to underwater reefs, jellies swimming in great swarms, and roe clusters hidden within forests of algae, but none of that fascinated her nearly as much as the two babies in her arms. She couldn't tell if they were boys or girls, and didn't care. They stared at her with bright blue eyes, same as her own, their lips mouthing a single word repetitively—mama, mama, mama. They asked her to promise she'd do something for them and, seeing no harm in it, Sarah gave her word.
By the time she finally woke up, her pillow was wet with perspiration and for a few moments afterward everything smelled of brine and rotten clams. Worst of all, her breasts itched. She tried scratching them, but the itch went too deep. It kept her up all night and didn't pass until noon.
Sarah mentioned the itch to doctor Kramer during the weekly examination. He told her not to worry, it was likely just a side effect of her skin stretching to acc
ommodate her growing breasts. She left without telling him about the twin heartbeats, as that was something the babies had asked her not to do. Sarah didn't understand why she felt the need to keep a promise she'd made to a pair of imaginary infants, but there it was.
Oh well, she could always tell him next week.
"Oh, honey," Greg muttered, "oh, baby."
He lay on top of Sarah with his face buried between her breasts. His tie hung loose around his neck, his shirt unbuttoned, his lips purple from all the wine he'd drank. "I love you so much," he said into her flesh.
"Ow, you pinched me."
"I'm sorry, baby, I'm sorry," Greg said through a mouthful of nipple. "God, I love you."
Sarah giggled and ran her fingers through his hair. They'd just returned from a party at the factoring firm Greg worked at. It was an annual charity thing, held every year so his boss could show off to the investors. Although just a financial analyst, Greg had to attend and drop a little something into the charity box, and boy, oh boy did he hold a strong opinion about that. But not this year.
Sarah had read somewhere that the difference between a regular woman and a great one was that the great woman knew how to make her man feel powerful. She wore an unassuming black dress to the party, the kind you could wear to a funeral without being called disrespectful, but even so she made Greg feel very powerful indeed. He absolutely enjoyed how everyone—well, his boss, mainly—watched him with a mixture of envy and respect. He constantly smiled and laughed and cracked jokes, telling his bachelor colleagues a good wife was worth more than a thousand harems.
Sarah thought about her mother and sisters, and how they never noticed the way everyone—not just men—ogled them when they weren't looking. But she did. Skinny little Sarah, the one daughter in the family who never shared her bras with her sisters because they were too small for them. She'd always wondered what it felt like to draw such attention. Well, now she knew, and it gave her an unconscious smirk that stuck to her face like a tick.
"I love you, I love you, I love you," Greg said as he entered her. "God, how much I love you."
The sex was short and sweet, and ended with Greg falling asleep with half his body still on top of a satisfied Sarah, his hand laid over one breast. She let him sleep like that for a while, feeling way too mellowed to get up just yet. Eventually, the heaviness in her eyelids became too much and she went to the bathroom to remove the remnants of her makeup.
Sarah was standing in front of the mirror, wiping her face with a moist towel, when something moved inside her right breast. It was just a slight shift, but it produced a lance of pain so sharp it made her stagger and fall on the toilet seat with enough force to leave a bruise.
Second one this week, Sarah thought after the pain abated, and it's only Friday. Doctor Kramer had warned her rapid movements might cause a nerve to be pulled or skin to be stretched, but it had been six weeks since she'd finished the Natural Growth procedure, and these spasms still happened.
As for the babies, Sarah dreamed about them every night now. She'd fall asleep and find herself drifting in the murky depths, the twins side-by-side in her arms. She'd look at their blue eyes and hear them call her mama, and it'd disarm her so thoroughly she'd be unable to deny any of their requests.
One of the things they made her promise she'd keep to herself was the odd heaviness in her new breasts. Not only did they seem to weigh ten pounds each, if you squeezed them hard enough you'd come upon bone-hard matter. As if she carried rocks inside, hidden under all the soft flesh.
Also, something had begun to drip from her nipples. Sarah didn't notice it until five weeks after the therapy was over, when one morning she discovered brown smudges on the insides of her bras. At first she thought they were sweat stains. Then she washed them and realized they wouldn't come out no matter how hard she scrubbed. The babies begged her not to tell anyone about this and, though it worried her, Sarah just couldn't say no.
Not long after, she woke up to find brown stains on the inside of her nightgown. By the end of the week, her breasts were oozing brown liquid every night. Just a trickle, but it frustrated her to no end, doubly so once she realized how much it reeked. You couldn't smell it unless it was right under your nose, but it was there—a stale, salty odor reminiscent of filthy seawater and rocks slimy with algae. It embarrassed her so much she decided she'd tell doctor Kramer about it during the next examination, and to hell with the dream babies. In the meantime, she washed her breasts as many as five or six times a day. Greg never noticed anything wrong.
Sarah washed them again before returning to bed. She donned an old black t-shirt—that's what she slept in these days, to keep from ruining any more nightgowns—and snuggled next to Greg. He snored in big raspy wheezes, like he was coming down with the flu, so she gave him a nudge and he stopped. Sarah closed her eyes, yawning, and—
—and opened them to find the room flooded. The bed, the lamp, the night table, it all floated in what had to be at least two feet of water. Moonlight shone in through the window, but instead of blue it painted everything green. The babies sat at the edge of the bed, staring at her, muttering: Mama, mama, mama.
Sarah looked at them. "What is this? What are you—"
Something bumped the underside of the bed, right beneath where she was lying. She looked over the edge and saw long insect legs squirming just under the water's surface. They were covered in a jagged carapace, like that of a lobster.
"Oh God! Greg!" Sarah grabbed his shoulder and shook it, but there was no strength in her arms. "Jesus, Greg, wake up!"
The bed rocked, and then one of the insect-legs burst from the water and clamped its pincer on Greg's arm. Sarah shrieked and tried to push it away, but another one splashed out and bit into Sarah's thigh and she started screaming screaming, SCREAMING and—
—and then it was day and she was in her bed, facing the ceiling. Greg still lay there, asleep, his back turned to her. Her pillow was soaked, her hair sticking to her forehead, her breasts so sore the slightest touch made her wince. She shut her eyes and slowly pulled her shirt over her head.
"No," Sarah shrieked. "No, no, no!"
Black veins crisscrossed her breasts, branching out from her nipples and reaching all the way to her collarbone. They looked painfully swollen, as if the slightest bump might cause them to burst in a spray of black goo.
"Greg," Sarah said, crying. "Greg! Greg, wake up! Help me!"
He didn't move.
She dug her nails into his shoulder and shook it. "Greg, please!"
He still didn't move.
Screaming, "Waaaake uuuupppp," Sarah grabbed him with both hands and yanked, rolling him over. His eyes were already open. They stared straight ahead, glazed and empty like the eyes of a mounted animal. His mouth brimmed with brownish-red foam. It spilled over his lip, sticking to one pale cheek.
It reminded her of a dead slug.
Sarah saw the light.
It was a big white circle, with six little glowing circles inside it, like the wheel of a revolver. People, all of them dressed in surgical masks, medical caps, rubber gloves, and what appeared to be raincoats, all of it turquoise, stood around it, staring down at her. Machines, attached to her via a series of tubes, loomed within arm's reach of the bed, beeping and blinking. She was naked but for a turquoise medical cap and a pair of white panties the nurses had given her.
A nurse placed an oxygen mask on Sarah's mouth, and told her to count down from ten. Sarah tried, but her thoughts kept returning to the day she'd found Greg dead in their bed. The first thing she'd done was call 911. Driving to doctor Kramer's clinic was the second. When the woman at the reception asked her if she had an appointment, Sarah simply raised her shirt. Ten minutes later, while Kramer was holding an ultrasound stick against Sarah's left breast, the attending nurse gasped and said: "Oh my God, are those legs?"
Doctor Kramer gave the nurse a withering look, then gestured at Sarah with his free hand, waving it up and down as if to tell her to stay pu
t.
"Legs?" Sarah said. "What legs?"
"Set Mrs. Shane up for an MRI," he told the nurse. He sounded as calm as ever, but his face had gone ashen and his Adam's apple kept twitching. "Full chest scan. The standard tests, as well."
"What legs is she talking about."
Kramer took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. "It, ah, it appears your mammary glands didn't react to the therapy as we intended. I . . . We need to do more tests to—"
"Jesus Christ, what legs is she talking about?!"
His mouth became a slit. He turned the ultrasound screen toward her and pointed at half a dozen segmented lines sprouting from and curving around a dark smudge.
"That doesn't look like a leg."
"I'm afraid it does."
"No, it doesn't. Where's the knee? Or the foot?"
"A moment." He took his cellphone, tapped its screen for a few seconds, then showed it to her. It displayed a photograph of an Asian man holding the largest bug Sarah had ever seen. Its armored body was bigger than the man's head, each of its six limbs five or six feet long. Its front limbs had pincers that looked vicious enough to shear an arm off. "This is a Japanese Spider Crab," Kramer said. "Look at its legs. Then look here." He indicated the ultrasound screen.
"What do you . . . Oh . . . Oh my God."
His forehead glistened with a thin film of perspiration. "I . . . I don't know how this could happen, but we will—"
"Are they alive?"
"No. Not truly. I can't tell for sure without additional tests, but I'd say they're equivalent to benign tumors."
"Tumors? You gave me cancer?"
"Uh, forgive me, poor choice of words. Parasites would be a better comparison. They live off your body's resources, but they're not a part of it. The excretions you experienced, the ones that poisoned your husband, they—"
"Poisoned? They fucking killed him," Sarah said. "No, you killed him. Your goddamn therapy did. And now you're telling me I have fucking cancer?"
Year's Best Body Horror 2017 Anthology Page 40