Jo stared at her reflection in the mirror and sighed. Her once trim figure, girlishly slender and pert-breasted was swollen and rounded, obvious signs of her burgeoning pregnancy. The flatness of her belly had ballooned into a taut hemisphere, the dimple of her navel now a protrusion, almost like a wart or a grotesque pimple marring the smoothness of her skin. Her breasts, previously firm and proud, sagged aching with the weight of milk collecting within them. Occasionally, her tender nipples would ooze a few droplets of milk, staining her bra and blouse and scenting the air with a sickly sour aroma.
Even worse than the loss of her figure, the swelling of her belly and the gradual droop of her breasts, were the mercurial changes to her temperament. One moment unable to stand the gentlest, most seductive of caresses and the next burning with lust, so powerful that her knees trembled and her panties clung to the oozing droplets of moisture that seeped between her thighs. At these moments she wanted to scream, to beg her husband, anyone, to take her and quench the infernal need that consumed her.
Not that her husband, Martin, would dream of touching her gravid body. She had seen him glancing at her nakedness, as she eased herself out of bed to use the bathroom, or to take her morning shower, and she had noticed the barely concealed moue of distaste at the sight of her. Instead of blossoming and feeling womanly and wanted, she felt unclean and neglected, some sort of deformed freak whom not even her spouse could desire.
Tonight, though, things had changed. Tonight Martin was staying over at a hotel, almost one hundred and fifty miles away, socialising with his colleagues and Jo had taken to her bed. At the moment, her bed was empty but in a moment she would be cocooned within the crisp cotton sheets and, a moment after that, James would join her.
James had always been a friend to Martin and Jo, almost an opposite of Martin, good with his hands, quiet and watchful. His grey eyes and dark brows gave him a sort of brooding good looks and his quiet calm seemed to surround him with an aura of quiet and gentle confidence. Jo had, lately, been watching him as he helped Martin hang a door or both of them paint the small room that was to become the nursery. It seemed that, every time she had glanced in his direction for more than a moment, he had been watching her.
Earlier that day, Martin had phoned James and asked him to look in on Jo, particularly since he would be away. James had agreed, fighting to keep from betraying his unseemly eagerness. Almost as soon as Martin had left, he had tapped on the door, fidgeting nervously as he waited for Jo to unlock it and invite him inside. He had smiled to himself as she closed the door behind him, locking it just as she always did. They had sat in companionable silence, hands wrapped around steaming mugs of hot tea, almost close enough to touch.
"Jo, Martin asked me to look in on you while he was away," James began, "and I can't help noticing that you have been a bit, short tempered lately. Is everything ok?"
"Everything is fine," Jo sobbed, "Doesn't every women want to feel like a bloated whale and be so ugly that even her husband can't bear to touch her?"