Matthew

Note: This is a story-prompt for Amara Rose.

Prompt Directory

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Matthew yawned as he walked into the kitchen that morning, absently scratching his bloated stomach. He took a seat at the rectangular table, groggily eyeing his three younger siblings who were already at it with their constant bickering. Matthew tried his best to shut out their voices, as he felt terribly drowsy still. He hadn’t been getting quality sleep for the past couple of weeks, always tossing and turning, sometimes suffering weird cramps. And lately he found that he was continuously hungry. All day and all night.

“Hey, give that back!” cried Kimberly as she tried to snatch her doll away from Brian.

“Make me,” Brian retorted.

“You guys are so dumb,” Hannah remarked.

Matthew’s siblings were eight, nine, and ten, respectively. They had not been adopted, like Matthew had been. For the latter three children, his parents had elected to go with surrogates. They had probably learned their lesson from what a screw-up Matthew had turned out to be.

“Will you guys shut up?” inquired Matthew, his right hand covering his eyes against the bright light beaming down from the ceiling lamps.

“You shut up,” Brian countered, annoyingly.

“You’re fat,” Hannah added.

Matthew’s stomach grumbled.

Matthew wasn’t going to deny that he had put on some weight. He knew it would melt away when summer started, like it usually did. His summers were always spent at the beach, swimming, partying, or just admiring the inventory. God, it was good to be bi.

Then Harrison walked in. Matthew briefly caught the man’s eyes, then looked away.

Harrison was Matthew’s stepfather. Yes, Matthew had an adopted stepfather. He couldn’t have been more removed from the parental figure. As such, Matthew treated Harrison indifferently, and was honestly impressed with himself for not being rude most of the time. It was decidedly tough to get along with some guy who was fucking one’s mother. Not that Diane could really be called a “mother,” exactly.

“Good morning,” Harrison offered his kids with no earnest. As usual, he was cold and detached from those around him. Nevertheless, Harrison could not be accused of forgoing his parental duties. He began to set dishes of food onto the table — eggs, bacon, juice, pancakes, milk, cereal, toast, and some other miscellaneous breakfast items. Lately, Harrison had really taken to cooking.

Matthew dug in immediately, serving himself from the large platters of food Harrison had set so close to him. As soon as he swallowed the first bite, Matthew felt the anxiety drift away, and he was suddenly able to think again.

Matthew continued eating. The situation was shameless, really. He was an adult child, having flunked out of college for too much partying and too-little studying. Now at nineteen, he had moved back into his childhood home, mooching off his parents, sometimes even coercing his sister Hannah to do his laundry.

What did it matter? His family was loaded, after all. His mother spent her days traveling, so wrapped up in her indulgent adventures, she didn’t even know what had happened between Matthew and Harrison a couple weeks earlier. Not an inkling.

Matthew’s fork connected with an empty plate. It was like he had been in a fugue state. Yes, he had observed the seven pancakes, the pile of bacon, the huge bowl of sugary cereal, and what had to have been six scrambled eggs he had gobbled down in no time. But he had not really registered the cyclic actions of shoving food into his mouth, excessive as it was. This wasn’t the first time it had happened. Matthew grimaced in discomfort, his three siblings looking at him with varying levels of disgust.

“What a fatso,” Brian remarked.

Kimberly giggled but kept quiet. She had always been kindest.

“Time to go,” said Harrison, as he lowered the medical journal he had been perusing. The laconic scientist was always absorbed in his studies in one way or another. He finished off his coffee, then stood. “You guys better not miss the bus again.”

Matthew watched Harrison shuttle the three adolescents out of the house and to the bus stop just on the corner. Matthew was still busy clutching his stomach and containing his groans, the curve seeming even more distended than before. He couldn’t believe he had done this again. God, he was a bottomless pit lately. His hands rubbed over the tight round bump as it ached and seemed to tighten further.

Five minutes later when Harrison returned, Matthew was still seated unhappily at the table. Harrison retrieved his medical journal as he gave his stepson a long, thoughtful look. Matthew was expecting a scolding, but what Harrison said was more puzzling.

“I’m impressed.”

Matthew blinked in confusion, still rather hunched in on himself as he tried to get his pressurized stomach to relax.

“I suppose it’s time to come clean,” Harrison continued, impassively. “I experimented on you, Matthew. You were the perfect subject, and I couldn’t resist. When we had sex, that completed the first stage. And it worked. You’re pregnant.”

Matthew continued to stare. Was the older man trying to be amusing? “Funny,” Matthew deadpanned. A fat joke. Original.

Harrison just smiled at him, which proved eerie. It wasn’t something that he often did. “Clean this up, Matthew,” Harrison said, nodding to the dirty dishes littering the table. “Make yourself useful for once.” Then he refilled his coffee mug (he took it black), walked off to the living room, and went down the stairs that led to the basement to resume whatever he did down there. His experiments.

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Matthew could hardly remember why he had hooked up with his stepdad in the first place. Matthew had been buzzed, admittedly, and probably bored, and horny. Likely, there had been some resentment towards his mother involved, on top of Matthew’s frustration with himself over being expelled from college.

It wasn’t as though Harrison was unattractive. Stiff, stern, and older, but not ugly by any means. It had been late, and lonely, and Mathew had stumbled into Harrison in the living room while coming home from a keg party. The two met eyes, and Matthew had figured, why not?

“You’re not drinking, man?” Chad asked.

Despite his recent expulsion, Matthew found himself at a frat party that evening. He was wearing a baggy shirt, hoping it would hide the true extent of his bulging stomach. Lately, alcohol just made Matthew feel truly awful for some reason. As an alternative, Matthew was hanging out by the large pile of pizzas, eating slice after slice as he nodded to music.

He was just so fucking hungry. Even as his stomach filled, then ached and tightened, and Matthew started feeling nauseous from being so overly stuffed, he just couldn’t stop. He chomped his way through another slice even as he grew red in the face from the strain.

Around 3 AM, a couple more of his friends came by, giggling at him. “What the fuck, man?” Greg pointed to where Matthew’s stomach was bulging even more than before. He honestly did look pregnant, and Matthew might have found it funny if he wasn’t in so much discomfort.

Matthew was clutching the swell, groaning and grimacing, while fighting the impulse to eat yet more despite feeling as though he might burst. “Nnnghhh…ahhhh…I have to go,” he managed breathlessly as he finally forced himself to step away from the food table. He felt strangely hot and horny, his body pulsing. And still hungry. Fuck.

“See ya man,” Greg chuckled, his arm slung around some girl in a bikini top.

Matthew didn’t even say goodbye as he staggered off, grunting in discomfort.

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