Worlds Apart Pt. 02

"Are you looking for something in particular?" the storekeeper asked, probably wondering why Jamie was taking such a long time to speak up.

"Yeah," he began, trying to think of the best way to phrase it. "Do you guys carry any large cuts?"

"How large?" the man asked, cocking a bushy eyebrow at him. "What exactly are you going to be using it for? What kind of meat do you want, and how are you going to be cooking it? You'll have to be more specific."

"Uh, red meat, something that can be eaten rare. Ideally, right off the bone."

"And you want large cuts?"

"Yeah," Jamie replied with a nod.

"Well, we don't butcher the meat on-site," the man continued. "You won't find us hauling entire cows up and down the service elevators. What we do have are mutton and pork shanks, that's the upper leg of the animal, and those usually come on the bone."

"That sounds good," Jamie replied.

"What's this for?" the shopkeeper wondered. "Are you throwing a party?"

"A dinner party, yeah," Jamie replied. "I want an impressive spread, you know?"

"In that case, how about a suckling pig?"

"A suckling pig?" Jamie asked, cocking his head. "What, like with the apple in its mouth and everything?"

"A suckling pig is a whole animal, usually roasted on a bed of vegetables," the shopkeeper explained.

"That sounds great, but...I don't think I'd be able to fit an entire pig in my oven."

"They're actually piglets, so probably quite a bit smaller than what you're imagining," the shopkeeper continued as he leaned on the counter. "Usually somewhere around thirty or forty pounds. But, if cooking it is an issue, I can roast it here and have it delivered to your apartment. When's the dinner party?"

"Uh...now," Jamie replied sheepishly, the man giving him an incredulous look.

"In that case, we actually have a roasted pig in the back. We use them for fresh sandwich meat. I could sell you that right now."

"I'll take it," Jamie replied. "Some shanks, too."

"You must have a lot of guests to feed," the shopkeeper said as he made his way towards a door that led to a back room.

"It's a party of five," Jamie called after him.

***

Liz turned to glance at Jamie as he stepped into the apartment, the automatic door sliding shut behind him. He set down a plastic bag and a large cardboard box with a carrying handle on the top, rolling his shoulders.

"You found something?" she asked eagerly, her nose twitching as the scent of roast meat reached her.

"Did you ever doubt me?" he replied. He picked up the bags again, taking them over to the kitchen table. Liz rose from her seat, steadying herself for a moment before joining him. She watched with wide eyes as he unpacked the cardboard box, revealing the suckling pig. It was a piglet, about thirty pounds, curled up into an almost sausage-like shape. The shopkeeper had offered to de-bone and prepare the meat, but Jamie had declined. Liz had asked for a carcass, and this was about as close to one as they were going to get outside of a slaughterhouse. It still had its snout, its ears, its trotters, its crispy skin now the color of bacon. It was still warm, the scent making even Jamie's mouth water.

"You found an entire pig?" Liz asked in disbelief. "I was expecting you to come back with some frozen chicken drumsticks or something."

"I also got these," Jamie said as he removed four shanks from the plastic carrying bag. "They're mutton and pork shanks, still on the bone. You can eat the pig right now, it's pre-cooked, but I'll have to roast these for you."

"Look at my brave hunter bringing home the bacon," Liz cooed, wrapping her arms around him and drawing him into her bosom. His face sank into the ample cushion of her breasts through her shirt, her flesh spilling over his shoulders, her comely scent making his head spin. "Who needs a pack when I have you looking after me?"

She released him, turning her attention back to the pig, wetting her lips hungrily. This was probably as close to a Borealan feast that she was going to get right now.

"You want some cutlery for that?" Jamie asked, watching her lift the pig out of its cardboard box.

"Nope," she replied, flexing her clawed fingers. "Borealans come with cutlery included."

She set it on the table -- they had no plates large enough to accommodate it -- and pulled up a seat, her inflated belly meaning that she had to sit a little further back than usual to avoid bumping it against the edge.

Jamie watched as she prodded at its crispy skin with a claw, then sank it deeper, scoring its flesh. She carved out a piece from its back, the meat beneath the surface a paler color, popping it into her mouth. He could hear the skin crackle as she began to chew, the expression on her face telling him everything that he needed to know.

"I'll get the shanks cooking," he said, Liz nodding her head as she sliced off another piece. Not for the first time, he considered how deadly those claws could be and how careful Liz was with them in everyday situations. Unlike domestic cats, Borealans couldn't retract their claws at all, yet he couldn't remember her ever accidentally scratching him. He still bore the scars down his back from the first night they had made love, yes, but that didn't really qualify as accidental...

Jamie set the rest of the meat to roast, then joined Liz at the table, watching as she slowly dismantled her pig. She had started on its back, systematically removing the layers of muscle, fat, and skin to expose its ribs and spine. Every so often, she would pause to lick her fingers with her prehensile tongue, using the barbs to clean away the grease from her fur. This was how Borealans ate on her homeworld, their normal table etiquette. It wasn't hard to imagine one of their feasts, the long banquet tables stacked high with exotic meats, entire packs of Borealans devouring whole animals like a pride of lions eating a zebra.

All things considered, as absurdly large as the pig had looked to Jamie, it wasn't all that big when compared to the five-hundred-pound alien. To Liz, it was more the equivalent of a human eating a rotisserie chicken, which wasn't unusual at all. Just what caliber of animal would it take to completely satisfy her? A sheep? A horse?

"Man, this is good," she sighed as she began to carve off the pig's hind leg. "This is exactly what I needed. You want some?" she added, but Jamie shook his head.

"One lunch is enough for me, thanks."

He was curious to see what she would do with the bones, watching as she stripped the flesh away from the pig's femur. When there wasn't so much as a tendon left, she raised the pale bone to her mouth, clamping her jaws down on it.

"Whoa, watch your teeth," Jamie warned. Ignoring his plea, she bit down, a cracking sound filling the apartment. Once it was broken, she spat out a few shattered shards, giving him a toothy grin.

"Don't worry, the cooking process makes it brittle."

Placing her lips around the break, she began to suck out the marrow, Jamie resisting the urge to make an off-color joke.

By the time the pig was little more than a skeleton, the head still mostly intact, the shanks were ready. Jamie presented her with a tray stacked high with more meat, her appetite still paradoxically unsatisfied, Liz's eyes lighting up like a kid opening a Christmas present.

The bones were much larger than those of the piglet, and when she was done with the roast meat, she seemed to relish the challenge of breaking them open. She cracked them in her powerful jaws with such confidence, while Jamie would have feared breaking a tooth.

"The marrow is the most prized part of the animal," she explained as she gestured with one of the broken bones. "It's full of nutrition, and so tender. After coming back from Borealis, it drives me crazy to see people treat them as waste."

"Did that scratch the itch?" he asked as she raked one of the bones with her barbed tongue to clean away the last vestiges of clinging meat.

"Yeah," she sighed, leaning back in her chair. "I feel so much better now. That nagging voice in the back of my mind is finally quiet."

"I guess Borealan kittens need a lot of protein," he chuckled.

"Half-Borealan," she reminded him, giving him a wink. "Don't downplay your contribution."

***

They were watching a movie late one night when Liz lurched suddenly, almost dropping the drink that she was holding. Jamie was on her in a second, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"What is it?" he asked hurriedly. "Is it a contraction? You're supposed to have a couple of months left, at least."

Liz glanced at her stomach with a surprised expression on her face, reaching down to lift her shirt a little more, running a hand across her swollen belly. Again, she lurched, blinking in alarm.

"N-no, it's nothing like that," she replied. "One of them is kicking. Hard."

"Really?" Jamie asked, his anxiety washed away by a fresh wave of excitement.

"Here," she said, taking his hand in hers. She guided it to her stomach, placing it on her warm skin, Jamie holding his breath as he waited. Suddenly, he felt something rise from beneath his palm, pushing against his hand. It was like a gentle tap, just hard enough to feel through the layers of flesh.

"There!" she exclaimed, lurching again. "Did you feel that?"

"I sure did," he chuckled, grinning from ear to ear.

"One of the little bastards wants out."

"He's so strong," Jamie added, eagerly awaiting another kick. "I didn't think they'd be able to kick that hard so long before your due date."

"They're getting restless," she said, the couch creaking as she shifted her weight. "I feel them moving around sometimes. It's like they know the time is coming."

"I think he's done," Jamie said, withdrawing his hand. "Little guy is all tuckered out."

"It could be a she," Liz added. "The doctors think that there are two females and three males, remember?"

"I guess we won't know for sure until the big day," he replied. "How large did they say they were going to be?"

"A Borealan kitten is about ten pounds," Liz said. "Not that much bigger than a human baby. They grow fast, though."

"I'll bet," he mused, glancing at her belly. "To go from ten pounds to five hundred, they're gonna have to."

"I have to say, I'm glad to be living in low gravity," she continued. "I'm built for Borealis, but even on Earth, I'm still feeling the effects."

"Are they that heavy?" Jamie asked.

"It's not that they're heavy," she replied, "but the extra weight is doing weird stuff to my body. I feel it in my lower back, in my ankles, in my joints. It's not debilitating, but I get the impression it would be a whole lot worse on the homeworld."

"They use AG fields for therapy, you know," Jamie added. "I was reading about it the other day. You can go into a gravity chamber and have them turn down the Gs so you can exercise more comfortably, take some of the pressure off your joints. They say that working out can help reduce the pain during labor," he said, trailing off as she flexed a bicep as large as his head. "Yeah...I guess you don't need to work out anymore..."

"Let's go to bed," she said, leaning over to push her feline nose into his hair. She nuzzled affectionately, Jamie's heart starting to quicken at the prospect. "Unless you want to watch the rest of the movie?"

"Nah, we can finish it tomorrow," he replied.

He helped her out of the couch -- even if he was too small to actually support her weight -- and followed her to the bedroom, where she sat heavily on the edge of the oversized mattress. It was night, and the view from beyond the wall-length window that took up one side of their bedroom was spectacular. It was never truly dark on Earth like it was on Jarilo. As much as he missed seeing the field of twinkling stars in perfect clarity above the treetops, the city had its own light show, which played up and down the facades of the skyscrapers. The rivers of golden light that marked the streets far below, the innumerable pinpoints of windows in shades of white and yellow, the neon glow of so many flashing signs and billboards -- it was all so mesmerizing.

"Are you gonna stare out of the window all night, or are you gonna come to bed?" Liz asked. He turned to see that she had already disrobed, her heavy breasts gathered in one of her arms as she supported their weight. Their supple flesh was spilling over her furry forearm, their size never ceasing to draw his gaze.

He returned to her side, Liz reaching out to cup his face in her hands, drawing him in for a slow kiss. Jamie had expected their sex life to go on hiatus during the latter months of her pregnancy, certain that she would find it uncomfortable or that she would lose interest. But ever since she had discovered her newfound sensitivity back on the Magellan, along with the relief that lovemaking gave her, she had been even more eager than he was used to.

"I want the usual," she said as she drew back, smiling at him. "You start this time, though. Washing the lotion out of my fur is a pain."

He eyed the bottle that was sitting on their bedside table next to the lamp, his heart starting to quicken. He snatched it, then popped the cap, upending the container into his hand. A viscous, clear substance poured out in a thick rope, pooling in his palm. It was a massage oil that doubled as a personal lubricant, one that they had been making extensive use of over the past few days.

Jamie set the bottle back down, then rubbed his hands together, Liz watching eagerly as she released her breasts. It was incredible how pert and firm they still were, despite their enormous size, her body built for far higher gravity than Earth's. Her stomach was so large now that it spread them apart, the heavy globes of flesh resting atop it like a shelf.

He reached out, starting to slather her breasts with the liquid, the substance making them incredibly slippery to the touch. It clung to her, making her dusky skin gleam in the low light, Liz shuddering at the coolness of the oil. His fingers delved into her yielding fat, sinking up to the knuckle, his gentle squeezing making her shiver contentedly as he spread the liquid around liberally.

This had become their routine, both an act of intimacy and one of therapy. Even though her boobs seemed to have slowed their steady growth now, she still complained of soreness, and a little erotic massage went a long way towards relieving her. It was also doctor-approved, as it was supposed to help boost the supply of milk and ease the pressure on the mammary glands. What's more, she couldn't have done it herself if she had wanted to, not with those wicked claws.

It took him a good minute to coat all of her skin, then he began to press deeper, his digits sinking through the butter-soft flesh in search of the firmer tissue that lay beneath. She was so sore, so sensitive, his every squeeze making her shift and gasp. Gradually, she began to push out her chest in encouragement, discomfort giving way to pleasure.

They were so large now that he could scarcely lift them with two hands, the wobbling meat of her bosom simply spilling over them, like trying to lift a bag of sand from below. Her nipples had darkened a little from their usual pink hue, but the doctors had told her to expect that. Jamie gently pressed down on one of them with his finger. They were so firm, so engorged with lust, Liz gritting her teeth as the wonderful sensation assailed her.

"Let me know if I'm applying too much pressure," Jamie said, Liz shaking her head.

"No, no, you're getting so good at this. It's...bordering on ridiculous..."

"We don't have to stop once you have the babies, you know," he chuckled.

"Oh, I know," she cooed as he slowly circled one of her swollen nipples with his fingertip. "This is your day job now. I hope you're aware of that."

He cupped one of her breasts in his hands as best he could, struggling to keep her slick flesh from escaping his grasp, kneading it like dough. He could feel the subtle bumps beneath her skin, but they were just the milk-producing lobules, there was no cause for alarm. On the contrary, they were full of connective tissue, Liz arching her back as he probed them.

As he stroked her, he noticed that a white substance was welling at the end of her nipple, Liz opening one eye to peer at him when she realized that he had stopped.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I think...you're lactating," he muttered. Liz pressed a finger against her nipple, pulling it away to see a white droplet clinging to her pad.

"Huh," she mumbled, examining it. "I think you're right..."

"Should I keep going?" he asked.

"It's alright," she giggled. "You won't squeeze it all out of me if that's what you're worried about. Keep going, it feels nice..."

He did as she asked, resuming his massage, Liz starting to breathe more heavily as he rolled her delicate fat between his digits.

"It's not actually milk," she explained breathlessly. "Not yet, at least."

"What do you mean?" he asked, giving one of the firm nubs of flesh a soft pinch.

"I-I won't start producing milk until a few days after the birth," she said, pausing to chew on her lower lip lasciviously. "This stuff is called colostrum. It's kind of like the honey the Jarilans gave us, in a way. It's full of nutrients and antibodies. It prepares the baby's gut biome so they can start digesting the milk when it comes in."

"I didn't know that," he replied, Liz's lashes fluttering as he outlined her areola with his thumb.

"Don't make fun," she chuckled. "Okay, I think that's enough prep. Come to bed before I lose patience and pounce on you."

He began to disrobe eagerly, Liz watching him with a smile, his erection bobbing in the air as he slipped off his shorts. She reached out and gripped it in her hand, her downy fur caressing his skin, the sensation making his heart race. She gave him a few teasing strokes, then lay down on her side, Jamie admiring the way that her breasts spilled across the sheets.

"Remember not to roll onto your back," he advised, climbing up onto the Borealan-sized bed. "The doctor said that the weight of your uterus could put pressure on the veins in your pelvic region."

"I know," she giggled, gripping his wrist in her tail and tugging him closer.

Jamie knelt beneath her on the mattress, Liz tucking her knees up near her swollen belly to give him easier access, her hips so wide that the right one was level with his chest. Before him was her impressive rump, so large and round that it brought to mind images of two exercise balls being squashed together. She had put on weight during the pregnancy, making it a little fuller than it had once been, but the muscle definition that made it so springy was still visible.

He reached out to take a handful of her cheek, filling his palm, feeling the taut muscles beneath the cushiony layer of fat tense as he squeezed. She gasped as he gave her butt a tap with the flat of his hand, Jamie watching the ripple pass through her flesh, like the surface of a calm pond disturbed by a pebble.

She gave him a playful whip with her tail in return, Jamie laughing at her mock outrage.

"Stop fucking around and start fucking me," she insisted, Jamie more than happy to oblige.

He shuffled closer, repositioning himself, his pulsing member hovering a scant inch from her loins. They were flushed pink, glistening with desire, just as swollen and as needy as he had come to expect. Liz uttered a stifled groan as he gently brushed her rosy vulva with his fingertip, sliding it between her fleshy lips. She was more than ready, so he took his member in his hand, pressing it against her soft loins. Thanks to her meaty ass and thighs, he had to press close to stand much chance of penetrating her, Jamie leaning on her soft rump as he thrust forward.