Worlds Apart Pt. 02

"Okay, how does this sound? Thinly-sliced beef ribeye with onions and mushrooms, topped with provolone cheese, on a chewy hoagie roll."

"Like I want it inside me," she replied as she lounged in the cushions.

"How many sandwiches do you want?"

"As many as they're allowed to give me."

"The slider maxes out at six, so I guess you get six."

"Heh, slider," she muttered. "Hey, crank the thermostat while you're up, would you? It's fucking cold in here."

He did as she asked, the temperature in the apartment quickly rising to a more comfortable level. Liz shed her jacket, Jamie admiring the way that her breasts strained against the fabric of her shirt, gravity pressing them together as she lay on her side.

"What are you looking at?" she chuckled, rolling onto her back. Her boobs wobbled beneath her clothes, Liz lifting an arm to support them, preventing them from spilling free. "What's their delivery time?"

"Huh?" Jamie asked, tearing his eyes away from her chest.

"The delivery time," she repeated.

"Uh, they said twenty minutes, or your order is free."

"Then we have some time to kill, don't we?" she added with a sly smile. She reached down to grip the hem of her shirt, lifting it, letting her breasts slide free of its confines. He still wasn't used to their new size, it was a pleasant surprise every time he saw them. Sousa had said that an increase of one hundred and fifty percent during pregnancy wasn't unusual for humans, but he could have sworn that Liz had crossed that line by now. She reached up to cup one of them in her furry hand, letting its weight sink her fingers into her doughy flesh, her straw-colored fur contrasting with the caramel tone of her skin.

"Think we've got time for that?" Jamie asked eagerly.

"I could get you off in five minutes," she chuckled, eyeing the growing bulge in his pants. "Maybe I will, just to prove a point."

"Want to make it interesting?" Jamie added, Liz's round ears twitching curiously. He brandished his phone and brought up a timer, his finger hovering over the start icon. "If I come before the five-minute timer runs out, I have to clean the apartment. If I last even a second longer, you have to do it."

"Imagine making your heavily pregnant girlfriend do laborious household chores," she replied in mock outrage.

"What's the matter, don't think you can do it?"

"Cock out. Now," she said as she beckoned to him with a clawed finger. He hastily unzipped his pants, Liz smirking as he shuffled over to the couch. She was still lying down, apparently confident enough in her abilities that she didn't see any need to sit up. Due to the size of the couch, that put her at a rather comfortable height.

"Start the timer," she cooed, Jamie shaking his head.

"I'll count you down. Three...two..."

Liz beat him to the punch, her hand rising to cup his balls, her delicate fur tickling his skin as she gave them a teasing squeeze. Jamie hit the home icon in his surprise, and he fumbled to open the app again as she snickered at him.

"Cheater," he complained, starting the clock and setting the phone down on the coffee table.

"If you can't work a phone, that's your problem," she replied as she guided him closer. Her tongue parted her lips, winding its way towards him like a tentacle, a solid foot of glistening flesh on display. She gently brushed his glans with its velvety underside, Jamie's knees going weak. Maybe doing this while standing put him at a disadvantage...

The slippery organ coiled around his shaft, tightening enough to get a grip, maneuvering his throbbing member towards her mouth. She was still lounging in the cushions lazily, her demeanor nonchalant as she pursed her soft lips around his head, drawing on it gently. She slipped the tapered tip beneath his foreskin, swirling it around his glans, painting it with her warm saliva.

Her pace was slow, placating, and she knew precisely where he was most sensitive. He shuddered as he felt her satin tongue tease the underside of his glans, drawing shapes on his tender flesh, licking a bead of welling pre from his tip as she went. Slowly, she drew him deeper into her mouth, the length of slippery muscle encompassing him in its warm coils as she inched down his shaft.

Rather than take him into her throat, she pushed him into her cheek, Jamie watching it bulge outward. Its soft lining was like wet silk, her lips pursing around his shaft, Liz starting to nurse at his cock with a gentle suction. The fleshy coils of her tongue wrapped around him, stroking him with all the dexterity of a hand, the warm layer of drool that coated his skin making its touch slick.

She watched him with those green eyes, her lips curling into a smile around his shaft, Jamie's face warming as he became enraptured by her slow rhythm. She stroked his balls with her furry fingers all the while, tickling his skin with her delicate coat.

"Y-you're only supposed to use your mouth," he stammered.

"Says who?" Liz mumbled, her voice muffled as she talked around his member. The movements of her tongue and the vibrations of her speech make him shiver, her sordid chuckling further stimulating him.

She pushed him back into her cheek, his glans sliding against her smooth flesh, the silken underside of her tongue exploring every inch of his shaft. He felt its pointed tip follow a pulsing vein all the way down to his base, the pink organ circling his girth, the fact that he couldn't see what she was doing making him all the more sensitive.

Liz drew back until only his tip was still trapped between her lips, his shaft coated in a glistening sheen of her bubbling saliva, strands of it drooping to the couch cushions beside her head. She released him with a pop, wetting her lips.

"You're close."

"Am not."

"Are too," she said, reaching up to press a padded finger against his tip. She grinned as his member jumped, bobbing in the air in time with his racing heart. "I can feel you throbbing on my tongue, you can't hide it from me."

"You talk a lot of shit for someone who only has three minutes left."

"Oh, I can take my sweet time," she cooed, planting a doting kiss on his shaft.

She returned her lips to his member, crawling them all the way down to the hilt, Jamie gritting his teeth as he felt her throat close around him. Beyond the slick, hot flesh of her gullet, her muscles massaged him with each swallow. He could feel them gliding down his length, drawing him deeper, her prehensile tongue emerging from her mouth to lap at his balls. It felt like she was trying to drink from him, the suction making him gasp, the rhythmic rolling of her throat as she sucked making him reach out to grip the armrest of the couch to steady himself.

With huge lungs came a huge lung capacity, Liz able to hold her breath long enough that a human in her position would have passed out. Unable to resist the warm, undulating confines of her throat, he began to push deeper. Liz watched him with her feline eyes as he started to thrust into her mouth, his smiling partner relaxing, letting him set the pace. Winning the bet was far from his mind now, his thoughts fogged by lust, the way that her velvet flesh squeezed him when she swallowed the saliva that was pooling in her mouth all that he could focus on.

His eyelids drooped as her tongue cradled his balls, his rutting becoming erratic, Liz loosing a low purr that made her throat vibrate around his length. He was quickly reaching his limit, her muscles caressing him in waves, unbearably tight. It quickly became more than he could stand, the sweet pressure of his climax welling up inside him, too urgent for him to stave it off any longer.

Liz reached out to take a handful of his rear as she felt him swell, ensuring that he couldn't pull away, her lashes fluttering as a strand of his seed splashed against the back of her throat. She drew the next one out of him, gulping around his twitching cock, her gullet milking him with its ruthless stroking. Her lips kissed his base, her pink nose pressing against his belly, her claws pricking his butt as she drank down every last drop that he could give her.

She seemed to have been distracted by her desire just as much as he had, her eyes widening as she remembered their bargain. She suddenly let his member slide out of her mouth, reaching across to grab the phone from its place on the coffee table, the strands of drool that still joined her lips to his glans breaking with the motion. She stopped the timer with a padded finger, turning the screen so that Jamie could see it.

"Four minutes, forty-eight seconds," she declared with a toothy grin. "Better get your feather duster ready."

"Doesn't feel like much of a loss," he chuckled, giving her a drunken smile.

***

Another couple of weeks had passed, and Liz and Jamie were settling into their new routine. The embassy had been happy to renew Liz's contract to ensure that she would return once her pregnancy was over, and they were paying her a rather generous wage during her maternity leave. Jamie hadn't been able to return to his job at the supermarket, but he had anticipated that. At least for the time being, he wanted to stay with Liz and take care of her. He could look for another job later. His coworkers had welcomed him back with a surprise visit and had listened intently to the stories that he and Liz had been able to tell of their journeys.

The UAS had been quick to get back in touch with them, one of their representatives sending a message requesting that Liz undergo period checkups at the nearest clinic, where they would be stationing a qualified doctor. Jamie was amused to see that the address was the same as the clinic where he had initially been informed that splicing the DNA of two different species was impossible. He wondered if that same doctor would be on hand to witness the miracle that Sousa and the Jarilans had performed.

Liz was now entering her third trimester, and her belly was bulging noticeably. Its growth had been slow and steady thus far, but she was very visibly pregnant now, and it was starting to become troublesome for her. It wasn't that she couldn't carry the extra weight, but the change in her center of gravity and the new caution that she had to employ when moving around so as not to bang her belly on counters and tables had slowed her down a little. The birth was expected to happen in less than three months, and the closer the date came, the more real everything seemed.

***

"Ugh, I need to get some new shirts," Liz muttered as she tried in vain to pull her top down over the mound of her belly.

"That's what you get for wearing such tight clothes," Jamie replied, leaning on the kitchen counter as he took a sip from his coffee mug.

"I think you'd go on strike if I wore baggy clothes," she replied, eyeing him from across the living area. "I can still feel my abs," she added, prodding at her inflated stomach. "They're just...shifting around. It's so weird." She reached down and pinched the fat of her hip, her brow furrowing. "I'm putting on weight, though," she grumbled. "Equatorials aren't supposed to be fat. Am I gonna be the first fat equatorial?"

"You're not fat," Jamie chuckled, taking another sip from his mug. "You're putting on baby weight like you're supposed to."

"I can't even work out. I feel like I won't even be able to move around properly pretty soon. I'll just be sitting there on the couch like some kind of...immobile brood mother."

Jamie laughed at the image, shaking his head.

"Just a couple more months, right?"

"Then we'll have bigger problems to deal with than my expanding waistline," she replied with a smirk.

"I don't mind if you get a bit softer," Jamie added, glancing pointedly at her breasts. They had finally slowed their growth, and if he had to guess, they were near twice the size they had been originally. One of the first things they had done since getting back home was order some bras for her, as even if their weight wasn't more than she could handle, their size had become unwieldy. They used to be large enough that one of them would have comfortably filled his lap, but now, it would spill over his thighs.

"Oh, so now I am getting fatter?" she asked as she narrowed her eyes at him in mock outrage.

"Only where it counts," he chuckled.

"Be careful what you wish for. There might be more of me than you can handle at this rate."

"You almost ready to go?" he asked, Liz pulling on her leather jacket. She couldn't even zip it up now, not without putting an uncomfortable amount of pressure on her belly.

"Yeah, I'm ready," she replied. "Doctor Muller said that we'd be doing an ultrasound this week. We might actually be able to see their faces."

***

"The gel might be a little cold," the doctor warned, smearing some of the substance on the underside of his probe. It looked like an electric razor to Jamie, but instead of blades, it had a flat section on one end. The device was connected wirelessly to a holographic display that was mounted beside the examination table that Liz was lying on. Her shirt was lifted to expose her belly, the doctor moving to her side as he prepared the device.

She flinched as he pressed it against her stomach, her eyes following the probe as he started to move it around, leaving a smear of clear gel in its wake. The display began to project a three-dimensional image, but it didn't look like anything recognizable to Jamie, just a pulsing mass in grainy black and white.

"Keep watching," the doctor advised, the image gradually becoming clearer. Everything was in motion, it was hard to focus on any one aspect of the display, but a dark void gradually began to come into view. "That black area is the amniotic fluid that fills the womb," the doctor explained, the image shifting again as he moved the device around. "Sound waves reflect off solid matter, but they pass straight through fluids. There's one of the kittens..."

It took Jamie a moment, but he started to pick something out in the black and white mass. His eyes widened as he recognized a face in profile. He could see the round skull, the lips, a feline nose like Liz's. The kitten was curled up in a tight ball, its digitigrade legs tucked up to its belly, the bones of what must be its tail wrapped around itself.

"I can see it!" Liz exclaimed, the doctor freezing the image so that they could get a better look.

"I'm having a little trouble singling them out due to how densely the babies are packed together," the doctor explained. "I can't determine the gender just yet, but everything looks healthy at a glance. I'm not seeing any obvious abnormalities. I'll send these scans to the lab, and we'll go over them with a fine-toothed comb."

He turned to the display, swiping through the controls, the software sharpening the image until a tiny face came into view. Jamie had never seen a Borealan kitten before. He had met Liz when they were both around six years old, so she had been young, but not this young. Its facial features were those of a Borealan, just like its mother. Its eyes were tightly shut, and its little round ears were folded against its head. Human babies were usually born with sparse hair, if any, but this kitten was fully-furred. The resolution on the rendering was high enough to make out the tufts of hair that covered its body from head to tail. He knew that -- like their mother -- they would lose that coat by the time they became adolescents.

He reached over to take Liz's hand, the two of them admiring their growing child together.

"I wonder what color her coat will be," Liz wondered aloud, giving his hand a squeeze. "We're both blonde, but Doctor Sousa said that some recessive genes might express themselves. My mom was a redhead with light skin, a native Elysian, so we might get some combinations of those features."

"My mom had brown hair," Jamie added. "We might see some human genes thrown into the mix."

"I'll copy the files over to your phone so you can take them home when we're done," the doctor suggested, Liz nodding her head enthusiastically. "Now, let's try and get some imaging of the other babies if we can. This...might take a little longer," he added as he appraised her swollen belly with his probe in hand. "I'm only used to scanning one baby at once, twins at the most."

"Take all the time you need," Liz replied, waiting eagerly for the holographic display to start shifting again.

***

"I'm hungry," Liz complained, Jamie turning to glance at her from his place beside the kitchen counter as she lounged on the couch.

"We just ate lunch not long ago," he replied, stooping to place a dirty plate in the dishwasher.

"Well, I'm still hungry," she insisted.

"What are you hungry for? I could whip you something up."

"Meat," she replied.

Jamie made his way over to the freezer, opening the door to peer inside.

"We've got chicken, bacon, minced beef..."

"N-no," she replied hesitantly, chewing on one of her curved claws as she often did when she was being indecisive. "I want meat."

"You're gonna have to elaborate," he said as he leaned back against the fridge, crossing his arms.

"I just..." She hesitated again, seeming almost embarrassed. "I have this craving that I can't shake."

"Food cravings are normal during pregnancy," Jamie replied in an attempt to reassure her. "Sousa warned you this would probably happen."

"Yeah, cravings for asparagus dipped in strawberry ice cream and weird stuff like that. I want red meat," she added, her sudden enthusiasm surprising him. "I want it rare, juicy. I want to crack the bones and suck out the marrow."

"Well...maybe your body needs more protein or something," he suggested with a shrug. "You might eat large portions, but your diet has to be very different from what you'd be eating on Borealis, right? The way you describe their feasts, it sounds like ninety percent of their diet is just various kinds of roasted meat."

"It's like an itch," she added with a frustrated grumble. "One that I can't scratch."

"Delis exist, you know," Jamie added. "There's one a few floors down on one of the plazas. I could drop in, see if I can get you some steaks or something."

"Delis sell cuts of meat," Liz continued. "What I'm talking about is more like...God, the word carcass sounds really bad, but I want to chew meat off the bone. I want something pretty...intact."

"I mean, they have to be getting the cuts from somewhere, right?"

"Would you really go down and check?" she asked, her furry ears pricking up. "I'd really appreciate it."

"When I said I'd stay home and take care of you, I meant it," he replied as he made his way over to the door. "Besides, it'll stop you from eating the neighbors," he added with a wink as he closed it behind him.

***

Jamie rode the elevator down a few floors, stepping out onto the commercial plaza. The core of the high-rise was an open shaft that brought fresh air up through the center of the structure via natural convection, the breeze rustling Jamie's hair. The plaza ringed the central shaft, a platform that extended a good dozen meters from the interior wall, creating a vaguely circular walkway. Lined up along the wall were storefronts of various kinds where the thousands of people who lived inside the building could shop for necessities and services. There were bakeries, supermarkets, hair salons, conveniences that might not warrant a trip down to ground level. It was decorated with planters that added some much-needed greenery to the scene, and there were benches scattered about, reminiscent of a city park that had been blended with a mall.

He soon located the nearest deli, its neon sign in the shape of a cow, passing beneath a colorful awning as he made his way through the automatic door. Standing behind a glass counter was a portly man wearing a striped apron who greeted him with a nod, Jamie eyeing the various cuts of meat that were on display through the glass as he tried to decide how to approach the situation.