Chapter 3: The Fantasy Deepens
Kira’s hand was a brand through the thin cotton of Mathilda’s shirt. Her fingers didn’t move aggressively, but with a terrible, possessive gentleness, tracing the plane of her lower stomach where the cramps still echoed.
Mathilda froze. Her breath hitched, trapped in her throat. The clinical coldness of the procedure had been one thing—this was something else entirely. This was intimate. Violating.
“Stop it,” Mathilda said, but it came out as a weak exhale.
“Why?” Kira whispered, her green eyes fixed on the place her hand rested. “It’s just biology. Cells dividing. A little colony setting up shop.” Her thumb pressed down, just shy of painful. “But it doesn’t feel like just biology, does it? It feels like a violation. Like you’ve been marked.”
“Get your hand off me.”
Kira ignored her, leaning closer. Her voice was a husky, thrilling thing in the quiet room. “I keep thinking about what she said. ‘Very slight.’ She’s watching you, Mattie. Studying you. Like you’re a rare, fragile insect. I think she’s fascinated by the possibility that you might actually… work.”
The words coiled in the air, toxic and seductive. Mathilda felt a traitorous heat spread beneath Kira’s palm, a shameful physiological response to the terrifying imagery. Her body, betraying her. Growing. Stretching. A visible, permanent testament to this transaction.
“You’re sick,” Mathilda breathed.
“I’m curious,” Kira corrected, finally lifting her hand. She examined her own fingers as if they might have absorbed some secret. “We’re in uncharted territory. Our bodies are these unknown landscapes. We’re mapping them for cash.” She looked up, a sharp, glittering smile on her face. “And my map is better. More fertile ground. But yours… yours is the mystery. The cliffhanger.”
Mathilda shoved herself upright, putting distance between them. The patchwork quilt tangled around her legs. “It’s not a mystery. It’s my life.”
“Is it?” Kira tilted her head. “What were you doing with it before this? Sketching me. Working your shitty café shift. Hiding. At least this has stakes. At least this means something.”
The truth of it was a needle to the heart. Mathilda had no retort. Her life had been a series of faint pencil lines on paper, easily erased. This was indelible ink.
A soft, authoritative knock sounded at the door.
Both girls went rigid. It was the kind of knock that belonged to the house itself—precise, expectant.
Kira’s expression shifted in an instant, mischief morphing into alert interest. “Speak of the devil,” she mouthed silently.
The door opened a few inches, and Mrs. Gorham stood in the hallway’s dim light. She was always a study in composed contrasts: severe grey hair styled flawlessly, but her eyes held a disarming, avian softness. She held a small ceramic tray with two mugs. The scent of real chamomile and honey washed into the room, momentarily overlaying the scents of sweat and anxiety.
“I thought you might like some tea,” she said, her gaze sweeping past Kira to settle on Mathilda’s pale, strained face. “After the procedure, it can be… unsettling.”
Kira recovered first. “That’s so sweet of you,” she chirped, her voice all bright innocence. “I was just checking on Mattie. She’s feeling a bit fragile.”
Mrs. Gorham entered, placing the tray on the crowded desk. She moved with an economy of motion that made the cluttered room seem even smaller. “That’s to be expected. The body is adjusting to a new potential.” She handed a mug to Mathilda. Their fingers brushed. Mathilda flinched at the warmth, at the dry, papery texture of the landlady’s skin.
“Thank you,” Mathilda whispered, clutching the mug like an anchor.
Mrs. Gorham’s eyes lingered on her. They weren’t judging. They were… assessing. Measuring the faint tremor in her hands, the shadows under her wide blue eyes, the slender column of her throat as she swallowed nervously.
“The first time is the most psychologically challenging,” Mrs. Gorham said, turning slightly to include Kira, though her attention remained fixed on Mathilda. “It’s the confrontation with intent. All the subsequent times are merely… maintenance.”
Kira let out a light, practiced laugh. “I found it kind of empowering, honestly.”
“Did you?” Mrs. Gorham’s smile was a faint curve. “That’s a useful perspective.” She finally looked directly at Kira, and the softness in her eyes seemed to harden, just at the edges. “Confidence is, of course, an asset. But conception is a deeply physical, often whimsical process. It favors preparedness over pride.”
The air tightened. Kira’s smile didn’t slip, but it froze solid on her face.
Mrs. Gorham turned back to Mathilda. “Rest, Mathilda. Be kind to your body. It is undertaking a significant task, whether it succeeds or not.” Her gaze dropped, just for a fraction of a second, to Mathilda’s midsection before meeting her eyes again. “The process requires a certain… surrender.”
She left as quietly as she had entered, closing the door with a soft, definitive click.
The silence she left behind was electric. The comforting aroma of tea now felt cloying, medicinal.
Kira exhaled, a sharp, frustrated sound. “‘Surrender.’ What the hell does that mean? Is that her professional medical opinion?” She stalked over to the other mug and snatched it up, taking a defiant gulp. “She talks to you like you’re a porcelain doll that might crack, and to me like I’m an overconfident gym teacher.”
Mathilda stared into her steaming tea. The word echoed. Surrender. It felt less like advice and more like a diagnosis. It was what she had always done. It was her default state.
“Maybe she’s just being kind,” Mathilda said softly.
“She’s not being kind. She’s being strategic.” Kira set the mug down with a thud. “She’s playing on your nerves. Making you hyper-aware of every little twinge. Turning you into a paranoid little nest-builder.” She walked to the door, her earlier playful menace replaced by a brisk, irritated energy. “Forget the tea. Forget her. It’s a numbers game. My numbers are better.”
She left without another look back.
Mathilda sat alone, the warmth of the mug seeping into her cold hands. She replayed Mrs. Gorham’s look, the precise weight of it. It hadn’t felt like kindness. It had felt like being seen—not as a person, but as a landscape. A field being evaluated for a harvest.
Slowly, she placed her free hand on her own stomach, where Kira’s had been. She tried to imagine surrender. Not as defeat, but as a passive, yielding state. A quiet field accepting rain.
A sharp, distinct twinge pulsed deep within her, different from the earlier cramps. It was a quick, internal pinch, there and then gone.
She jerked her hand away as if burned.
Her eyes flew to the door, then to the ceramic mug on her desk. The chamomile stared back, dark and depthless. Outside, she heard the faint, precise click of Mrs. Gorham’s heels ascending the staircase to the third floor, where she lived. A rhythm that was now the heartbeat of the house.
The numbers game had begun. And inside her, something unknown had just stirred.
Then Kira came Back and Said;
We'll do it together. Imagine the liquid inside us both. Warm. Alive. Swimming toward a target.' She presses her forehead to Mathilda's, their breaths mingling. 'My womb is ready, open, waiting. Yours is tight, resistant, but it will yield. I can feel it softening, accepting.