by Anthology
And then it was true. Stretched beyond capacity, her belly hurt. The last piece of dayfruit she swallowed lodged in her sphincter, holding it open. She strained, trying to push it in by sheer will.
Maja came down the line and touched her belly. She hissed appreciatively at the hardness. "Well done, Pimi-min. There will be a fine treat for you in the seraglio tonight."
"Let me rest a moment. I would like to finish this basket." Dayfruit still filled half of it and her throat tightened in involuntary protest.
Maja pushed again. The piece of dayfruit caught in Pimi's sphincter rose in her throat. She held down a cough.
"You seem topped off to me."
"But my skin will relax. It always does."
"Truth. Though if you can fit the rest of that basket in, I will be beyond surprised."
With a hand stained blue by the fruit, Pimi picked up a dayfruit and swallowed it, sending it into her primary stomach. "See. I still have space."
"You are a sweet girl, Pimi. Don't hurt yourself trying to make me proud." Maja glanced across the yard at Pimi's mother. "I wish all our repletes were so eager to please. If we'd known she was a matriarch..."
Pimi ate as slowly as she could, but still filled her primary stomach before the bottom of the basket. As she had hoped, her crop relaxed somewhat and she was able to get three more dayfruit into it. The rest sat in her throat, neither in her stomach nor in her crop. Her breath came in shallow gasps; it felt as if her entire body consisted of nothing but dayfruit. The blue of the dayfruit tinted her amber belly green. Maja looked down the line and Pimi swallowed another bite which sat in her throat, itching.
A guard checked Pimi's mother and unhooked the tube from her muzzle.
Pimi struggled to sit. "Maja, I am ready to go now."
From where she palpated Dama's crop, Maja did not look up. "When I finish here."
The guard wheeled Pimi's mother toward the door. Pimi could not wait for Maja or she would miss her chance. Putting her feet on the ground she pushed to stand. The weight of dayfruit in her crop, so much greater than the half-belly of stretching fluid, pulled her forward and down.
As she lost her balance, Pimi's sharp cry fell into a sudden silence between songs, cutting through the harvest crowd. Her distended crop smacked against the packed gravel ground.
The sudden force pushed the overabundance of dayfruit up her throat. She vomited blue juice and pulp down her front.
The girls nearest her shrieked. Baraida screamed, "Pimi's ruptured!"
Her mother raised her head. Horror bleached her features of all color.
Pimi scrabbled, trying to get her feet under her, trying to stand and get away from the mess she had made. Her own body was too heavy for her limbs. She was trapped on the ground as surely as her mother had been when the Abarine raiders had come.
In an instant, Maja was by her side. By the time she had ascertained that nothing beyond overfilling was wrong, the cart bearing Pimi's mother was gone. Pimi had to wait crouched on the gravel until a gurney was fetched to hoist her onto a cart of her own.
"What has happened here?" Councilor Hadan came to stand by Maja. Even at harvest, he wore his distinctive armor; the spirals of inlaid metal swirled across each overlapping horn plate.
"I'm afraid Pimi over-filled herself, Councilor Hadan."
Pimi nearly vomited again as he crouched in front of her. She had not been so close to him since she was captured. Pimi kept her eyes downturned, her stained tunic and belly filling her vision.
"Now why would you do that, little girl?"
Always, her size made people assume she was younger than her true age, but he was very nearly her height. In fact, with his amber and green coloring, Pimi had an impression of what she might have looked like had her mother wanted a boy and placed Pimi's egg in a cool part of the deep-family's hatching cave.
"Speak," he said, giving her permission to respond.
"I wanted to be beautiful for you," she whispered. "So you would pick me instead of Dama."
"And why would making yourself overfull do that?"
Pimi did not know how to answer him---to her, still, it seemed so obvious that a full crop was the most beautiful adornment a person could have. Though, looking at her stained and sorry state, she could not see any glamour in it.
Maja answered for her. "Pimi is from Aaropp-Yraarja."
"Like Kejari?"
"That is in fact, her matriarch."
"Sa-ha!"
"Did you know you'd claimed a Dynasty House in your conquests, Councilor?"
He was silent for a moment and the music twirled around them. "I did not. Well. I hope you are better behaved than your mother. She tried to claw my eyes out when they brought her to me." Hadan tilted her chin up. "You do not look much like her."
Maja hissed. "Were you ever in Aaropp-Yraarja, Councilor?"
"I've not had the pleasure, though I have heard much about their social season."
Maja waved a cart over. "Pimi is the sweetest girl you can imagine."
Hadan straightened. "Well, next time Dama is unavailable, send me Pimi."
Primped and scented and oiled, Pimi held still while Maja broadened her forehead spots with paint. Across the room, Dama writhed and groaned in the grip of sour crop. A doctor oversaw the tortuous task of draining the congealed clumps from her, while the other girls affected not to watch.
Pimi tried not to let the guilt she felt show on her face. Had she not slipped the cheese into Dama's mix, who knew when Hadan would have called for her.
Maja had wondered how Pimi had gotten rug burns on the bottom of her crop. Pimi had feigned ignorance. After all, if they thought a replete's crop was reason enough to not shackle a girl, who was Pimi to let them know that by sliding backwards she could still drag the weight of her belly across the floor.
The outer door of the seraglio opened and two attendants arrived to push Pimi's cart to Councilor Hadan's chambers. Her toes gripped the edge of her couch as if she were not anchored firmly enough.
Ornamented tapestries covered the walls of Hadan's apartment, finer than anything in the seraglio, which Pimi had thought opulent.
As he conferred with his fellow councilors, Hadan's voice carried from a room on the far side of the apartment in uneven waves. At times, it was an indecipherable murmur, at others she would hear words or whole phrases. "...other sorties might..." or "...stay within their borders...." And once, "...from Aaropp-Yraarja in the last raid."
Her toes curled tighter then.
When they broke the meeting and came to her, she kept her eyes downcast and lips parted as Maja had taught. Councilor Hadan ran a hand up her crop, over the crest and across the smooth dip where it belled from her chest. With his hand resting gently on her neck, Hadan said, "This is our newest prize gentlemen. A daughter of one of the Dynasty Houses of Aaropp-Yraarja."
One woman hissed in amusement. "I see you don't boast of having the mother."
Hadan fondled Pimi's chin. "We broke her before anyone realized that we'd taken a noble." He turned to the man nearest him. "You saw her. All puffed out like a Repp-Virji serving girl."
"Bigger than that." The man hissed. "I trust she's worth it?"
"Shall we find out?" Hadan lowered his head and put his mouth over hers. Pimi opened herself and disgorged in a smooth steady stream. Hadan grunted in satisfaction. He pressed on her crop, swallowing greedily as the flow increased.
He tapped her arm and stood, almost before she could stop disgorging. Bound up as it was, his crop formed a rounded mound at the top of his chest. It could not have held much more than a one-day belly. "Maja's created a fine brew in this one. Please, help yourself."
In all, Pimi fed each of his three companions. Hadan led them back into the inner room of his apartment, but did not call for the attendants to wheel Pimi away.
Left alone on her couch, Pimi shifted with impatience. She had not expected him to have company. Her slackened crop quivered in response to her movement. They must
have taken nearly five days out of her. She tried to stand and could almost raise her bulk. She hoped they had not lightened her too much.
As she lay waiting, she listened with half an ear to the conference in the other room. The words and phrases she heard hinted at another raid on Repp-Virja. She could gather no details, only the impression that it must be immanent if they were spending so much time discussing it.
After what seemed hours, the group filed out of Hadan's apartment, leaving her alone with the man. As short as Pimi was, she was almost of a height with Hadan.
Hadan said nothing to her and without his permission, she could not speak. He walked behind her, casually, as though she were a varamid at market. He ran a hand up the nape of her neck and fondled her bare scalp. Pimi shivered as his hands touched the delicate skin above her ear panels.
"Do you like that?" He leaned close, so that his breath tickled her skin.
Pimi nodded. It was expected that she would like anything that he did to her.
Sliding his hands down to her shoulders, Hadan tugged on her tunic, pulling it down her arms. Pimi shifted to let him slide the garment off. Her skin contracted in the cool air of his compartment.
Hadan reached around her and pressed his hands into the soft skin of her crop, leaning against her, so his hard leather armor pressed into her back. He nuzzled her neck. "Well, my exotic beauty. Tell me how they do this in Aaropp-Yraarja. Speak and teach me something new."
Pimi had been through Maja's training for the seraglio, but Hadan would know all those tricks. She prayed that he would find the love scenes from Opperad's play, The Brothel of Intention, exotic. If not, she would have to think of something else. "I would not presume to teach you, Councilor, but it is true that we do approach things differently in Aaropp-Yraarja. If you were my groom, I would want you filled to hardness, and to let the weight of my crop rest on yours as I straddled you." She turned her head and looked out under the edge of her eyelid at him. "I find it strange how skinny everyone here is. A man at home is not considered attractive unless he has at least a five-day belly."
"Sa-ha! Is that so?"Hadan slid his hand between her thighs. "So you find me unattractive?"
"I would not say so, Councilor." She took a breath and then a chance. "But I do think on how fine you would look without your truss."
Hadan nipped her hip gently. "You have succeeded in proposing something I have not tried. You intrigue me."
Pimi reached back to touch a buckle of his armor. He slid across the couch to let her undress him. As she peeled the leather away, his crop sagged. The single day of food made a sad lump in skin that hung to his thighs.
Taking his face in her hands, Pimi lowered her mouth. He opened wide for her and accepted her offering eagerly. The nectar flowed into him until he tapped her arm. She lifted her head and put her hand on his crop, half-expecting him to not allow the intimacy. She pressed and the surface gave slightly. "You can hold more than that, I am certain."
"You do not want me to overfill, do you?" He encircled his crop with his arms, as if amazed at his own girth, meager though it was to Pimi's eyes.
She blanched at the memory of her embarrassment at harvest. "No. That was foolish of me. But I want you to be hard with my gift to you. It is what brides do for their grooms in my country."
He let her push more food into him, until he broke gasping from her embrace. "Hell's frozen gates. I cannot recall ever being this full, not even when setting out on a long campaign."
Pimi slid a hand under his crop to the folds where his genitals were. She pulled the long forks of spiraling flesh out and held them, pulsing, lightly in her palm. Hadan stood to give her easier access, and staggered under his unfamiliar weight. He hissed. "How graceful I am. You see why we do not allow ourselves to be full. It would destroy us in battle."
"But we do not plan to battle, do we Councilor?" She stroked his spirals until they writhed in her grasp. "Lie down for me?"
He gasped and lay down on the floor, then groaned. "The pressure..."
"Do you like it?"Pimi asked.
"I am surprised that I do." He reached for her with a foot and curled his long toes around her ankle. "Show me what else they do in your country."
Pimi let him guide her to stand over him. Her crop, so loose that it hung almost to the ground, required both of them to maneuver it onto him. She could stand, but not walk. As the weight settled and wrapped around Hadan he moaned with pleasure.
Pimi tucked his spirals into the folds of her egg chamber. She would not trigger ovulation for him, but still, she felt his flesh screw into her as if he could line the chamber with fertile seed.
As Maja had taught her and as Pimi had seen at the theater, she stimulated Hadan until he spasmed in ecstasy. At last, spent and sated, he lay on the carpet with his eyes half-closed in drowsy contentment.
Pimi waited until he fell asleep, and then shifted to grip his ankles with her toes. Sliding forward, she pushed her crop in front of her. It slid off the mound of his belly to cover his face.
He woke. Pimi leaned on him as Hadan struggled to free himself. Even half-empty, she still outweighed him and his own unfamiliar bulk fought him. He heaved under her, trying to disgorge.
Warm and sticky, the nectar stung the rug burn on the bottom of her crop. She felt him gag on the pap sealed around him by the skin of her belly.
Pimi held tight to his ankles as she clung to thoughts of her mother, of Duurir, and even of Keria. She leaned on him until he stopped struggling.
Holding as still as a river in Deep Winter, Pimi tried to feel for any sign of life, for any sign that he was not dead, that she had not killed him. Pimi retched at the thought, but held it down. For the moment, until she was certain he was dead, she needed all her weight.
She did not know how long she waited, but at last she was satisfied and released his ankles. Standing, Pimi tried to drag herself off of him. Her posture and weight held her pinned firmly. Panic flared in her lungs before she realized that she could simply disgorge. No one would care if she soiled the carpet.
She leaned as far over as she could, to avoid spattering herself with the nectar she spilled. The carpet was wet and thick with pap before Pimi could pull herself off Hadan.
With the excess skin of her crop bundled up and hidden in the truss of Hadan's armor, Pimi strode with her best approximation of an Abarine warrior. Her legs trembled and cramped from the unaccustomed exercise. She would have to steal a varamid---two, with her mother---if they had any hope of escaping. She rested a hand on the satchel she'd taken from Hadan's room. With luck, the maps would help them find their way home.
In the lower replete chamber, Pimi found her mother in the third alcove she entered. Kejari closed her eyes and turned fear-red as Pimi crossed the room. Moaning, her mother pushed back on her couch as far as her crop would allow her.
"Mother?" Pimi whispered.
Gasping through her muzzle, Pimi's mother opened her eyes wide. Pimi undid the buckles and peeled the fetid leather thing off her mother's face. The skin underneath was pasty and stank like the dead leaves on a watervine.
"Speak, wraith-child. Why do you haunt me?" Her mother touched her thumbs together in the ancient sign to ward off foul spirits. Pimi had not made such a childish sign since she was an adolescent passing under the burial nets.
"I am not a wraith. I am your natural daughter." Pimi grabbed her mother's hand, trying not to flinch at the stubs of thumb and finger. "Truth. Feel the warmth in my bones?"
"But you ruptured."
"No. I over-filled and vomited." The rest would have to wait until they were away. "I need you to disgorge."
"Oh no." Her mother reached for the muzzle with her free hand. "No. It would make Councilor Hadan angry."
Pimi dropped the muzzle on the floor and captured her mother's other hand. "He will not hurt you again. That is truth."
Pimi did not have another set of armor for her mother, though she was able to fashion a truss from a hanging she had
brought from Hadan's apartment. Her hope was that her mother would be taken for an Abarine woman, perhaps a Councilor, but the hope was only a small one. In truth, she had thought of how to kill Hadan and find her mother, but the likelihood of her scheme succeeding had seemed so remote that she had been unable to imagine their actual escape from the compound. She knew only that on foot they did not stand a chance.
The sandstone labyrinth of halls threw the sound of every footfall back at Pimi, shattering her nerves with each blow. At her side, her mother followed with the blind trust of an infant.
Pimi stopped outside the pool of gaslight at the intersection of two halls. Behind her lay the replete quarters. The varamid stables were above ground and the hall to her left sloped up. In the absence of other clues, she steered her mother that way.
The light in the intersection blinded her to the dim hall beyond for a few steps. The man coming toward them might have materialized out of the wraithworld for all Pimi could see.
Toes clenching the floor with each stride, Pimi tried to effect the easy swagger of a warrior. Her legs trembled with every step closer and Hadan's swords slapped against her back as if mocking her. What could she do with a sword?
Then they were abreast.
The man inclined his head, as to a superior, but gave no other indication of her passing. For the length of the hall, Pimi listened for some sound that he had realized her deception. Only gradually did it occur to her that perhaps his nocturnal errand was also something he did not want discovered. There was little reason for anyone to be active in the quiet of night. Still, with that encounter past, Pimi felt more secure.
Three more turns, following slopes and breezes led Pimi to an exterior hall. Through the small rounded windows that pierced the wall every arm's span, she could see the fenced paddock of the stables. She slipped through the first door she found onto the Deep Yard fronting the buried city.
Her mother hung back at the door, staring up at the sky. Pimi glanced upward. What constellations would Duurir have seen there? "Mother, we must hurry." It would be hours before anyone visited Hadan's apartment---Dama was regularly gone until late morning on the nights that Hadan took her---but still Pimi did not want to stargaze.