[EXCLUSIVE/UNFINISHED STORY] Rock-A-Belly

(So. This story is a bit of a mess, lol. It was based off a very simple concept: What if a rockstar hottie belched really loud on stage one time, and decided to use it in her music afterwards? From there it unraveled, and turned into a whole thing about this dude who is in love with her, and, quite frankly, too much damned detail into shit that just doesn't matter. It was also supposed to be my first realistic stuffing story, and was written before any of my other OC stories. So, technically, it's also my first OC story. I doubt it'll ever be finished, but if you guys like the concept enough and think I should give it another go, let me know. I hope you find some kind of enjoyment out of it nonetheless, lol.)

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Ed sat in a nearly empty pub, sipping on his rum and coke with his back hunched over, his elbows propped up on the bar in front of him. It was around ten-thirty last he’d checked, around ten minutes ago if he had to guess, and this drink was probably gonna be his last one. Hard to drum with a nasty hangover stabbing you in the brain.

He wasn’t even at the bar to get drunk in the first place. He just enjoyed the atmosphere of this dingy, run down bar operated by a woman who looked like she could kick his ass in about seventy different ways. It was better to wind down after a show and watch some garbage TV here than in his spotless hotel room if you asked him. Even if most of his other bandmates would’ve already gone to bed by now.

One hadn’t, though. Ed was sure of that, it was the reason he’d been bothering to pay attention to the television at all. Coming up after this shitty dime-a-dozen cop show was the “Too-Late Show” with some clean cut celebrity that Ed had never bothered to remember. Normally Ed wouldn’t have cared about such a show, and would’ve just retired back to his room like the bassist and rhythm guitarist had. But Ed had special interest in the starring guest of tonight’s program.

The show began just how Ed had expected it to, with roaring applause from the audience, no doubt due to a light telling them to cheer just off camera, followed by a few minutes of stand up style “Comedy” from the middle aged woman on the screen. Seeing Ed’s grimace, the bartender offered to change the channel. Though Ed quickly informed her that he actually wanted to watch the screen he’d been scowling at, and with a confused look, the older lady sat the remote back down behind the bar.

Ed pushed through a few other segments and interviews with influencers and big name celebrities, then the host finally announced that it was time for the special guest to make her appearance. She pushed her way past the red velvet curtains blocking the soundstage from the rest of the production, wearing the band’s signature getup of a pinstripe suit and pants, both of which hugged her curves in a way that Ed couldn’t look away from. Fuck, he felt like slapping himself for that. That was his lead singer, Natalie Ramone; he should’ve had a more professional, or at least friendly, view of her in his mind.

Ed hadn’t been with Devourer for long. He’d been brought in to replace their former drummer, who split with them amicably in order to pursue a solo career. The fandom’s reception to a wild, vibrant haired, young and spry drummer being replaced by an older one with slicked back, black hair and a full beard had been… Mixed, shall we say. That was Nat’s reason for going on the show in the first place, to assure the fans that their sound wouldn’t be changing even if their drummer had.

Or, at least, that had been the plan. From the looks of it, Nat had downed a few before going on air. It wasn’t like she was a mess or anything, but she’d stumbled on her walk over to the plush chair next to the host’s desk, and it took her just a second too long to respond to her questions.

A few had been related to the band, sure. If they were planning on changing things up with their new album, how they’d picked Ed out from all of their potential candidates to replace the last drummer. But the interviewer seemed more focused on getting clips out of Nat than she did actually asking her any meaningful questions.

Things like if she’d had any fun stories from this tour so far, her favorite restaurant she’d eaten at on the road, how she managed to stay so gorgeous despite traveling all around the US on a bus with shitty AC. Nat’s eye twitched subtly at that last one. Ed might’ve been new, but even he knew that asking Nat about things like her makeup or making a point of talking about her beauty at all, really, irked her to no end. She preferred to talk about what came out of her lips, not what shade she was wearing on them.

It seemed that Nat didn’t mind answering, since she was on live TV in front of millions of people, but she still had a bit of a grumble in her voice as she spoke.

“Well, ahem.” She cleared her throat and sat up straight in her chair, lightly gripping its armrests. “I really do my best to get some good sleep in. It can be pretty dam- dang hard to do when you’re sleeping on a bunk with a big hairy dude snoring right below you, but it’s important if you wanna look your best in front of a crowd of thousands of people.”

Said hairy dude would be Ed. The tour bus they’d often sleep in had two bunks in the back on each side; which meant that no matter what, someone would always be sleeping on top of somebody else. Ed had always been a bit of a bad bedfellow, and now everyone in America knew it. He tried his best to hide his blush by raising his glass to his lips and taking a long swig.

Nat brushed a crimson highlight of her mid-back length hair out of her eyes, then continued on. “So, I do things to help me sleep. I don’t drink, take sleeping pills, none of that stuff.” Nat chuckled for a second, shooting the audience a look before continuing. “Uh, some of you more attentive fans out there might’ve seen a clip of me burping into the mic on stage.” Nat covered her mouth with her hand, letting a little laugh out into it as a few audience members followed in her footsteps.

Saying that “A few” of them might’ve seen it was an understatement. It had been a slow news day following the night of the burp incident, and so Nat’s jet-black-and-red haired face had been plastered all over every TV and smartphone screen in the country as she belted out something other than their typical punk rock lyrics. Nat hadn’t really been too embarrassed by the coverage, and even played into it by chugging a beer on stage at their next show. The resulting belch had been even louder than the original one, and led nicely into one of their songs which started out with a growling screech. Ed didn’t think he’d ever heard an audience cheer louder.

“Well, that happened because of one of the things I like to do. I was pregaming that night, but still, anyway. I kind of, like… Eat myself to sleep, if that makes sense?” Nat looked over to the host, who responded with a nod. “Basically, after every show, I have the organizers come and bring a fuckton of takeout food and stuff to the dressing room. Then I just kinda pig out until I get sleepy and burn the calories at the next show.” Nat hadn’t even registered that she’d said the “Mother of them all” until the audience began “Oooooh”-ing. Once she did, she laid her ringed fingers back over her lips. A muffled “Whoops.” came out afterwards, followed by a swift cut to commercial break.

Ed chuckled, finishing off his drink and paying the bartender, with a little extra bit of a tip for letting him watch nearly twenty minutes of trash TV in order to get to that golden moment. He stood and began to walk back to his hotel, which was only a few blocks away. He was quite the burly man–having played the drums for a living since he was fifteen years old–so he was confident that no wannabe punks would be coming around to try and mug him on his way back through the dim streetlight.

He got to thinking about what Nat had been saying towards the end of the interview as he walked. She would always take the dressing room for herself after every show, true. But Ed always assumed that she’d done it in order to take off her makeup, change out of her suit and tie, that sort of thing. The thought that she’d be in there pigging out on a ton of chinese food hadn’t even crossed his mind. Though, if it helped her sleep through his bear-like snoring, he didn’t mind having to walk all the way back to the bus or hotel in order to change.

Something soft suddenly wrapped itself around Ed’s arm, and he began to jerk it away before he caught a glimpse of a streak of red just below his chin.

“Hey dork.” Nat said, staring up at him. Ed just loved that nickname, given to him because of his uncharacteristic affinity for a good campaign of D&D. “That sucked.”

“Seemed like it.” Ed responded, looking down at her without bowing his head. “You mind letting go? You even wearing a bra under there?”

Natalie scoffed. “Of course I am! What, you think I’m just gonna walk out on stage and bounce around like some fuckin’ bimbo? Here,” She hugged even tighter onto Ed’s arm, her twins wrapping around his forearm. “Feel it now?”

Ed just rolled his eyes and shook his head, letting a hearty laugh break from his lips. According to their bassist, Jeremy, Nat just loved messing around with the new guys. Ed had been with Devour for just around three months now, and he’d already woken up with cat whiskers drawn on his cheek, had the salt in the shakers replaced with sugar, and received a bunch of texts of Nat wearing his clothes and calling him a “Fucking neanderthal” as they hung limply off of her. Also according to Jeremy, Nat had never done anything like that last “Prank” before.

Nat smirked at his laughs, then backed off of his poor arm. “Told you.” She sighed and kicked her feet against the concrete as she walked. “You mind if I tag along with you back to the Hilton? Have a big strong man around to protect me on the way?”

Ed blew a raspberry. Yeah right; as if he hadn’t seen her break two noses in one night after a couple of “Fans” decided to make a moshpit at a post-punk show and group up on people in the audience.

“Whatever you say lady.”

• -

Nat allowed Ed to open the door to his room for her, and slid past him with a nod. Apparently, somehow, their dogshit booking company had managed to only reserve three rooms. Which meant that Nat and Ed would be bunking up yet a-fucking-gain. Nat wouldn’t have minded if they hadn’t also forgotten to tell the organizers to order the food she needed after she’d finished with that embarrassment of an interview.

Holy shit, she needed to cool off. Nat was good at keeping her emotions bottled up, but she was sure that at least her eyelids were twitching or something by now. She walked over and planted her ass on the bed, undoing the buttons on her suit jacket and letting it fall off her arms and onto the bed behind her. Edd approached just as soon as she was finished, a can of beer in one hand, a soda in the other. She took the soda and cracked it open. Beer was gross, made her belch too much.

“So I’m taking the…” Ed paused to look around the tiny room, finding that the only other piece of furniture in the room was a desk chair seated in front of the aforementioned desk. “... Floor, then?”

Nat pulled the soda away from her lips, shaking her head slowly and holding a burp down. “Fuckin’ pricks… I’ll give you the pillows at least, not letting you sleep on that dirty-ass carpet.” Natalie was one-hundred percent going to have a long talk with their record label on their bus ride tomorrow.

Grrrrow…~

Natalie groaned, resting a hand on her stomach and grimacing. She hadn’t eaten since lunch in anticipation of her big, food-coma inducing meal at the end of the day. She was kicking herself for that now, but what was she gonna do about it? Go out at midnight and pick up some takeout from all of the shops that would surely still be open? Eat a fuckin’ pillow?

“You hungry?” Ed asked, wiping his beer mustache away with his sleeve.

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock…” Nat said, and immediately regretted. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that to come off so bitchy. It’s just…” She sighed again. “First I mess up in front of millions of people, then I come back and find out that we’ve been royally screwed over. Plus, I’m hangry as hell.” Nat took another long swig of her (Root) beer, then sat it on the nightstand and flopped backwards into her jacket. “Just wanna go to sleep.”

“Aw, come on now.” Ed sat next to her, patting her on the knee a couple times. “The interview wasn’t that bad. Hell, they’re probably the ones who’ll end up getting in trouble for not bleeping you.”

Nat’s eyes shot open and she sprung upright. “T-They didn’t fuckin’ bleep it?"

Ed just chuckled and shook his head with his lips pursed. Nat didn’t know whether she should be embarrassed or proud. On one hand, she’d just broken a bullshit rule that was outdated by about sixty years. On the other, she’d be getting DMs from zealots telling her how she was trying to turn their kids into devil worshippers by saying the fuck word on TV for months.

She collapsed back again, letting out an extended grunt and folding a forearm over her eyes. Slowly, however, the grunting and groaning broke into laughter. “Fuck, I’m so stupid! I even caught myself when I was about to say 'Damn' and everything. That’s not even the part of “Goddamn” that they bleep!” Nat whined while she laughed, with Ed graciously accompanying her.

Rrrrouuu…~

“Shut up.” She said, poking a finger into her concealed belly. It squished in just a little; Nat never claimed to be a skinny girl. Though she was internally grateful that most of her fat had settled in places that most guys and gals would enjoy.

“I can go out and get you some stuff.” Ed said, crunching his empty beer can.

Nat peeked out from behind her arm, expecting to find him smiling at her. Nope, straight faced. Not joking.

“Nah man. It’s like, almost twelve-thirty. We gotta be on the road in like six hours.” Nat’s tummy seemingly disagreed with her, letting out a hollow sounding, airy growl which reverberated off of the small room’s walls.

“Nat, I watched the interview. I heard what you said about my snoring.” Natalie went pale, a sharp pain hitting her in the chest. She slid her arm off of her face and used both of them in order to prop herself up. She knew that she shouldn’t have said that. Damn her drunk brain, even if the walk over had sobered her up. “I heard what you said about eating enough to conk out too. Kind of a weird way to go about it, but if it works, it works.”

Okay, at least he didn’t seem mad. Natalie was worried that she’d have to spend the night not only with a man whose normal voice sounded like he was imitating a bear's growl, and whose snores sounded like the real thing, but that she’d have to spend the night with him upset with her as well. Having him mad at her was the last thing she ever wanted, and not because she was scared of him; she wasn’t. Natalie puffed a sigh out of her nose in relief.

“I don’t mind Nat, really. I’ll just go walk around for a little and see what I can find that’s still open. And even if we’ve gotta be up soon, it isn’t like you’re gonna be getting much sleep otherwise.” Ed laid a gentle hand on her thigh, though Nat had enough time to see it coming in order to keep her breath from hitching. “You can even get some shuteye while I’m gone.”

Nat wanted to say no. She really did. It would’ve been shitty of her to make him go out this late for her. But he was right, she wouldn’t have been able to sleep, and she was too anxious to go out alone at night in a big city. She thought about telling him to just forget about it, that she didn’t mind staying up. That was an obvious lie, and she knew he’d respond by saying that their frontwoman needed her sleep.

“Fine. But I’m paying for it, take my-” She reached into one of her pants pockets, finding it empty. “Uh.” Then the other; same thing. “Shit!” She scrambled off of the bed, sticking her hands down her interior back pockets, making Ed turn his head. Nothing. Her wallet wasn’t there, she’d left it on the damned bus.

Ed chuckled, standing from the bed and pulling his own wallet from his pocket. “So I’m payin’ then?”

Nat stared at him for a moment, her hands still down in the ass of her pants. She quickly pulled them out, not wanting to look like she was fondling herself in front of him, then crossed them underneath her chest.

“Yeah, you’re fuckin’ payin’...” She said, defeated, then plopped back down on the bed. "Sorry, stupid rookie mistake. Can't believe this shit…"

Ed turned with a smile. "Don't worry about it, I don't mind. Lucky for you, your elder can keep track of where he leaves his shit." He said with a bit of a mocking tone, then walked over to the door, waving goodbye with his wallet and peeking over his shoulder in order to speak to her. “Be back in a bit!”

Nat flipped him the bird. “Oh, please hurry back!” She said, in her best “Damsel in distress” voice. “I’ll miss you so much!”

Ed rolled his eyes with a smirk as he passed the threshold. A second later Natalie heard the door clicking shut. She waited for a moment, then grumbled to herself and gathered up her jacket. She took it and hung it on the back of the desk chair, then dove onto the bed as if she were a professional swimmer.

“Fuckin’ dork…” She said with a smile, resting her head against a pillow and allowing her eyes to close… Just for a sec…

• -

Nat felt something touching her arm. Her eyes were shut tight, and she didn’t really feel like opening them. But when the thing started shaking her, it crossed a line. Her eyes flew open, staring down at the hairy hand on her upper arm. Connected to it was a heavyset, burly man wearing a black button up and pinstripe suit pants. He had a short yet thick beard on his face, hiding his lips almost completely, and his hair would’ve been on the longer side for a dude if he hadn't kept it slicked back all the time.

Natalie’s eyebrows curled in anger at being woken up, then promptly uncurled once her eyes registered that Ed had returned. Seemingly empty handed.

“Mornin’, sleepyhead.” Ed said, crossing his arms as his bassy voice tickled Nat’s inner ear and sent a slight shiver down her spine. “I’m back with your stuff. Though, uh, I don’t know how happy you’re gonna be with it.”

Natalie rolled over onto her back and quickly sat up, blowing a few stray strands of hair out of her mouth. She sat cross-legged on the bed, looking around to see what Ed had so kindly ran out and gotten her. It only took a few seconds for her eyes to lock onto the convenience store bags taking up every last bit of space on the table diagonally facing the bed. She held back a disappointed sigh, though the emotion came out instead as a long blink as she looked up into the much taller man’s eyes.

“Thanks. But, like… Those are Seven-Eleven and Wawa bags.” She pointed to them, as if Ed hadn’t been the one to haul them into the room in the first place. “I know this is kinda a smaller city, but are you really telling me they don’t even have a fuckin’ McDonalds?”

Ed shrugged. “They do, of course. Can’t go two steps in America without walking into one of those clown houses. But the one I went to was backed out the door.” Ed walked over to the chair and grunted as he sat down in it. “Wanna guess whose shirts the people in line were wearin’?”

“Ours, yep, got it. Makes sense, I guess. There were a fuckton-” Nat took a second to cringe as the word left her mouth. “-Of people at the show. Makes sense that they’d go out for a quick bite after the fact.” She scooted over to the bottom edge of the bed, unintentionally taking the comforter of the bed with her due to the fact that she refused to lift her rump from the mattress. “Even still, no takeout places?”

Ed shook his head at that, and Nat scoffed. “Believe me, I looked. Searched on Google and everything. Boggles me how this place can have a full on stadium, and yet no chinese or indian places in sight.” He reclined in his chair, letting one arm hang off the back of it. “This was the best I could do, I promise you.”

He did seem genuine… And for all of the “Pranks” that Nat had pulled on him, he’d never even tried anything in retaliation. She doubted that, if he was willing to go out in the dead of night in order to get her something to eat, he’d also intentionally get her the shittiest stuff imaginable on purpose. Ed just wasn’t that kinda guy. With a slight smile, Natalie pushed herself off the bed. The resulting pop from her knee made her wince for a second. She was only twenty-five; was her body really already falling apart like Ed’s? Ed was old! He was, like, thirty!

Ed smirked at her as she had a bit of a momentary internal crisis, tapping his fingers against the back of his chair and blowing an amused huff out of his nose. She growled at him, rolling her eyes. “Shut it, dork.” She walked right past him, grabbing as many of the bags as she could and turning-

Oh fuck. They were heavy! So goddamn heavy! Nat was used to carrying around hefty loads: what with being a guitarist, and the four-pound weights strapped to her chest. But these bags felt like the type of shit she’d see those tryhards at the gym struggling to lift. She huffed, pursing her lips and doing her best to not let Ed see her fighting to stay upright. It obviously didn’t work, as he quickly scooped the handles of the bags out of her grip and walked out in front of her.

He’d also grabbed up the ones she’d left behind on the desk. In total there were five, three in his dominant, right hand, two in his left. It was no easy task for him to carry them either. The veins on his arms were popping out, the definitions of his muscles bulging through his skin. He grunted, then lifted them higher in order to sit them in the center of the bed. After all was said and done, he clapped his hands against each other and turned to Nat.

“Sorry about that. You shoulda just let me carry them. Y’know, ‘cause…” He paused, flexing his right arm. Though the cracking of his elbow betrayed the machismo he was trying to pull off, causing him to grab it and break into pained laughter. “Ah-hah-ow, fuck me.”

Nat blew a raspberry, then drank up the schadenfreude from seeing this big, manly man~ be brought low by a simple bone popping. “Aw, my heeeeroooo!” Nat skipped over, patting him on the back while he remained hunched over in pain. “I dunno what I’d do without you, dork. Things would definitely be a lot more boring.”

“Yeah, yeah, yuck it up. Five more years and you’ll be falling apart just like me. Don’t think I forgot your knee’s little squeal of pain.” Ed smiled up at her, though she just waved him off.

“My knee popped because- fuckin’, look at me!” She backed away, then quickly twirled around in order to give Ed a good 360 view of her curvy body packed into a button up and suit pants. “If you had to lug all this shit around all day, your bones’d be creaking all the damn time!”

Ed finally straightened his back, reminding Nat that he was a full head-and-a-half taller than the 5’2 punk that she was. “Dude, I weigh like a hundred pounds more than you do. I don’t think you get to play that card.”

Nat was about to say something witty about how he was calling her fat proportionally, but couldn’t manage to break through the fog that having him towering above her had sent pouring into her mind. Instead, she just let out a smug “Hmph!” and dropped back down onto the bed. One of the bags tipped over once she had, spilling out a bunch of snack-sized chip bags and various candies. Most of it was your standard fare; though one, tubular shaped thing caught Nat’s attention, pushing a gasp up her throat as she dived right for it.

“Oh my god, are you shitting me? I thought they stopped making this stuff when I was a kid!” In her trembling hands she held the nectar of the gods.

In sour apple form.

It was a gooey, thick candy that she remembered fondly from her early years; she'd even incorporated it into the lyrics of one of their songs. She remembered it being made by some gum company, and this definitely looked like an off brand. But she did not give a shit in the slightest. She unscrewed the cap on the “Ooze Tube” with her teeth, then stuck the bulb-shaped opening into her mouth and squeezed.

“Mph!” She squealed, her eyes rolling back, the corners of her mouth curling upwards just a tad. It was every bit as good as she remembered. The sour from the sour apple was palpable, but not overpowering the sickly sweetness that came from what was almost surely just flavored corn syrup. It coated her teeth, stuck to the roof of her mouth, hid underneath her tongue, and she was loving every last second of it.

Memories of spring break, her mom giving her a couple of bucks to go walk down to the nearby Marathon and pick out any snack she’d like in return for doing all of her chores before she got home from work, road trips with her brothers… It was odd how little things could affect her in large ways.

But just as it had begun, it ended. Nat found herself rolling the tube as if it were toothpaste, desperate to get just a drop more out of the holy receptacle. Alas, it was for naught. Nat chose to be glad that she’d gotten to take a trip down memory lane with her favorite candy ever, instead of being sad that she’d run out of it. That made it even more special, she supposed.

Now that the tube was dry, she tossed it away, letting it slide off of the opposite side of the nightstand and into the carpeted floor. Nat sighed, shaking her head. “I could drink ten gallons of that stuff, and still want more.”

“So I take it you’re not upset anymore?” Ed cocked an eyebrow at her, having watched her down the entire tube before making the decision to retire back to his chair.

“Remains to be seen. If these bags’ve got more shit like that though, I’ll let you take the fuckin’ bed.” She giggled, then grabbed up another bag and rooted around for more.

Cheetos, chex, little cups of cereal, Slim Jims and beef jerky abound… Instant fucking mashed potatoes? “What? Who stops at a gas station and says ‘Oh, yeah, I’d really like some goddamned mashed potatoes right now?’” Nat cracked up, tossing the mini-mash cup aside and looking through piles of instant noodles and mac and cheese.

Eventually, she settled on a bar of bland, waxy chocolate. People liked to say that pizza was like sex. “Even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good” and all that. Well, Nat had suffered through some pretty damned lousy sex, and pizzas that had both olives and pineapples on them; but if the saying was about chocolate, she would’ve been more inclined to agree.

“In case you couldn’t tell, I kinda ended up shooting myself in the foot by not asking you about the kinds of stuff you like.” Ed said, scratching the back of his neck. “I didn’t wanna text or call and wake you, so I just bought a bunch of shit. Nearly one of each snack and shitty instant food those two places had, I think. There should be some drinks and stuff in there too: those Smirnoff things you like and all that.” Ed chuckled. “Didn’t even have to card myself, the kid working the register knew who I was. Gave me one hell of a death-stare too…” His head dropped in order to let him get a good look at the shitty carpet of their tiny room.

Nat swallowed the last square of chocolate just as Ed had finished talking. She felt bad. Really bad. They’d handled Ed’s joining of the band terribly. First came the rumors that their last drummer had left because he and Nat had broken up, when they’d never been going out in the first place. Then, once they revealed Ed as the replacement, people started saying that he was the guy she’d cheated on the former drummer with.

Obviously, none of that was true. Nat may have teased around with the others in the band, but she never once made an actual advance on them before Ed joined. To her, the rumors were offensive, nonsensical, and mean spirited. So she, and thus the band, chose to ignore them, hoping that the fire would burn itself out. But over time, the quiet voices became louder, and the fire spread as if it had ignited a pile of dead grass. This whole tour was really just an excuse to try and crush the gossip with their sound, and it seemed to be working. But hearing stories like that from Ed, which were far more common than she’d like, still hurt.

Ed suddenly looked up at her. His eyebrows drooped, and he leaned forward in his chair. “Uh, Natalie? You alright girl?”

Nat sniffled. Fuck. She’d gotten so caught in her own head that she hadn’t even registered the tear rolling down her cheek.

“Yeah, I’m good.” She wiped it away, taking a deep inhale and dragging the bag over to sit beside her thighs. “Just, y’know. Allergies are killing me. Didn’t you hear Suzi talking about how bad the pollen is here?”

Suzi was the rhythm guitarist of Devourer, Nat’s half sister, the runt of both her family and the band, and she had infamously terrible allergies. They’d needed to stop a show for a bit one time because Suzi kept sneezing and fucking up her strums. It had become a bit of a running gag in their fandom that any time a show had to be delayed or canceled, it was because of Suzi’s allergies.

Nat’s weren’t quite as bad, though they were still present. And luckily, Ed seemed to buy the excuse. “Shoulda told me. They had Claritin or some shit at the Walgreens I went to.”

Nat pulled a bag of Funyuns free from the overstuffed bag and popped it open, then cocked her head at Ed with a smirk. “Walgreens? Fuck kinda food were you trying to buy at a Walgreens?”

Ed shook his head, sitting back in his chair. “Nah, I just forgot to bring some condoms from the last place. Left them in the hotel room.”

Nat froze with a ring halfway in her mouth. She flushed a tiny bit as she bit down into it and began to chew. “O-Oh. I shee.” She said with her mouth full, her lips corners threatening to twitch into a grin.

Ed nodded solemnly a few times, then began to crack up. He chortled for a bit, then sighed. “I’m just fucking with you. I wanted some Tylenol, bought some of those little travel packs.” He crossed his arms. “No time for that kinda stuff on the road anyway. And besides, who am I gonna get with? I wouldn’t dare touch most of the chicks who come to our shows, most come driving their parents’ car.” And thus the deep, rumbling chuckles resumed.

‘... Me?’ Nat thought; though she would have preferred a bolt of lightning to come from the heavens and strike her dead rather than to say it out loud.

“Yeah, you got me. Your turn to do the yuckin’.” She placed the corner of the small bag against her lips, then upturned it, letting the crumbs and broken bits pour into her mouth. Then she giggled when a lightbulb flashed in her head as she chewed. “But yer not gunna be doin’ any fuckin’!” She was proud of that one. Good rhyme, good timing, contextual: good all round.

Ed didn’t mind it either, another huff coming from him, his smile barely visible through his beard. His arms relaxed, then dropped to rub his knees. “What are you, twelve?”

“Plus seven, baybee! Fuck yeah, I love math.” She had to wait until she was done chuckling in order to swallow.

“Uh… You know that’d make you nineteen, right?” Ed paused as Nat finally finished gulping down the last bit of onion flavored mush. “Pretty sure your driver’s license says you’re twenty-five. Or did you just flash your tits at that bartender the other night? Y’know, when you got that whole bottle of Fireball for yourself?”

Nat scoffed, crumpling up the bag of Funyuns and tossing it at Ed’s head. “Prick.”

Though he did have a point. Math had never been Nat’s strongest subject, but if 12 + 7 somehow = 25 in her mind, then those Jager shots she downed before the interview might not’ve been out of her system yet after all.

Nat knew a good way to get them gone, however. Salt, protein and carbs had worked like a charm to kill any drunkenness she’d ever had in the past, and it was a good way to prevent a hangover too. So, after taking stock of her options, Natalie gathered up a bowl of instant noodles, a huge Slim Jim with an equally huge stick of processed “Cheese,” and some kettle cooked potato chips. Then she headed to the tiny kitchen to work her culinary magic.~

• -

Ed had watched Natalie try to chop up the Slim Jim and cheese with one of the plastic forks he’d brought back, only to give up and tear them apart with her bare hands. Then he’d watched as she assembled her hellish creation. She crushed up the chips a bit, then poured the salty, potatoey bits in with the uncooked noodles: immediately following that up with the torn up bits of overly processed meat and cheese. After shooting him a shit eating grin upon noticing the look of disgust on his face, Nat poured some hot water into the cardboard cup and set the microwave to go until the noodles would come out al dente.

“What? Did you forget that I was a college kid before Devourer of Norms got picked up?” Nat dropped to the floor, sitting with her legs crossed and rocking back and forth like an impatient child. “I’ve got all kinds of bootleg ass recipes in here.” She said, tapping her temple. “You don’t even wanna know about toilet nachos man.” Nat shuddered, though her stomach growled hungrily. Seemed it remembered them more fondly than Nat herself did.

“Uh, nah. If it’s anything like that mess you just ruined the microwave with, then probably not.” Ed cocked an eyebrow, noticing a foam of some sort forming in the rotating bowl inside of the nuke machine.

Nat clicked her tongue with a smirk. “Suit yourself man. You don’t know what you’re missing until you’ve had plain tortilla chips covered in pinto beans and american cheese.”

“Didn’t I just say I didn’t wanna know?”

Nat stood as the microwave began whining for attention. “And when has that ever stopped me before?” She stirred the horrendous looking and smelling mixture with her fork, then brought it over to the bed with her and used the nightstand there as a makeshift dining table. She brought a few noodles to her lips and slurped them up, sending them down without chewing at all. “Mmh, still as good as I remember!~ I was worried it wouldn’t have the same effect without boiling water in a kettle, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t.” She noticed Ed’s unbroken stink eye directed right at her and raised her fork to him. “Want some?”

Ed scoffed. “Not if it was the last thing on earth.” He paused, watching her slurp up more noodles coated in melty, plastic cheese. “Well, maybe if the only other thing left was a Twinkie or something.”

Nat grumbled with her mouth full of noodles, quickly bobbing her chin upwards in order to help her swallow faster. “Dude, I fuckin’ love Twinkies. You’d better put some respect on Hostess’ name right now.”

Ed shook his head. “Of course you love Twinkies. Eating a whole box of those things right after a show seems like just the kinda shit you’d do.”

Nat froze with a bite in her mouth after hearing this, quickly slurping up a noodle that had been sticking out just past her puckered lips. “You been peekin’ in tha dresshing roomb, fugger?” She said, then swallowed. Her stomach groaned after she did, dearly wishing that its owner would chew her food before making it its problem.

“What? No, I didn’t even know what you were doing in there before you talked about it with Sara-What’s-Her-Face on her plastic late night show.” Ed uncrossed his arms, sliding them in his pockets. “You always keep ‘em locked anyways, couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

“Mmh!” Nat pulled the bowl she’d been slurping soup out of away from her grinning lips. “How’d you- Urp!~ -know it was locked then?” She gave no attempt to excuse herself whatsoever. “D’you try the door?~ Huuuh?~”

Ed just scoffed and looked away from the succubus sitting across from him. Though he couldn’t conceal the little bit of redness on his cheeks.

“Oh my god! You did! Ha- Ourp!~" Nat's coy, teasing demeanor was undermined by a sudden gassy interruption. "Ough, Jesus. That was a rough one." Ed began to crack up at Nat's expense right away. "S-Shut up! Goddamn, you're so annoying." Nat growled, though Ed caught a glimpse of her slips curling into a smile just before she put the bowl back to her lips and drained what little remained of its contents.

When she lowered the empty bowl, she let a muffled burp puff out her cheeks, then slapped her free hand onto her stomach. It looked like it had rounded out a bit underneath Natalie’s form fitting button-up, like she’d cut a bowling ball in half and stuck it under her shirt. Though Ed could see that it wasn’t quite as solid as a bowling ball, rippling the tiniest bit as Nat softly patted it.

“Haah.~ The melty cheese sticking to the noodles, the beef jerky giving it just a little bit of a smokiness, and the kettle chips…” She paused, pursing her lips. “Well, honestly, the kettle chips don’t do much. They get soggy kinda fast. But at least they’re filling.~” Nat smiled down at her own stomach, drumming her fingers against it in a rhythm, one after the other.

“You look like you’re enjoying yourself.” Ed said, leaning forward. “So you’re full then? Guess I bought a little too much, huh? Got kinda carried away.” He nodded to the still-full bags of goodies he’d brought back from different gas stations and convenience stores and frowned. Nat turned her head to them as well.

Rrrroooowww…~

“Nope, still hungry.” She reached for the bag she’d been eating out of, cooing in delight when she found a package of sour straws waiting for her. “Oh hell yes, just what the doctor ordered.” She tore open the package with reckless abandon, causing sugar to go flying all. She dusted it off of her gothicc-professional styled clothing, then held one of the straws above her lips and slurped it in like the noodles that had come before it. Though, these would’ve been a bit too difficult to swallow whole, what with the crystalized sugar and citric acid coating them. So Nat took her time chewing it, then stuffed another in her mouth before she’d swallowed the first.

“Damn. I see why you need the dressing room all to yourself now. You’re too embarrassed to make an absolute pig of yourself in front of the rest of us.” Ed sat back, crossing one leg over the other. Natalie didn’t respond, too preoccupied with stuffing her face to care.

Once she’d finished off the sour snacks, that changed. “Yeah, well, at least I’m not the one trying to perv on girls who he should be looking up to.” She snapped, smiling all the while. “So why’d you try it anyway? Thought you’d catch a peek at my ass while I change out of these pants?” She slapped her ass lightly for effect, her stomach gurgling due to the impact as Ed averted his eyes.

“As if.” Ed said, tapping his foot to an imaginary, incessant, annoyed beat. “I lost a bet with Suzi. She bet that I couldn’t do a drum roll faster than she could strum. I agreed to the bet, we counted them up, and she beat me by ten.”

Nat tore open and poured a bag of jelly beans into her mouth, though the stupid, gorgeous grin on her face was still plain as day. Really shouldn’t be thinking of her like that, Ed… “You took a nineteen year old up on a bet? How old are you again? ‘Twelve?’” She said, imitating Ed from earlier in the night. It didn’t take long for her to move on from jellybeans to a small pack of cookies. “Bought a lotta sugary shit, Eddy. You tryin’ to plump me up? That how you like your women?”

Ed didn’t dignify that obvious tease with a response of any kind. He simply pumped his eyebrows at her and moved on. He rather enjoyed these little play-arguments they often shared. No one came out of them hurt, though there did always seem to be some kind of tension lingering in the air after each one. It was thick, like Nat’s thi- Fuck. Did it again.

It wouldn’t take much longer for her to fill up, surely. Her stomach was audibly gurgling through everything she’d already eaten; all the carbs, salt and sugar she’d apparently need in order to knock herself out. It visibly swelled outward just a hair when Nat finished off the cookies. Her shirt was starting to look a little tight, not to mention her pants. She had gained a muffin top from how much she’d eaten. It was pushing out against her belt and waistband, her upper belly poofing over it just a little bit. If Ed didn’t know any better, and couldn’t see how solid it was getting from the way it rippled less and less with each of Nat’s pats, he would’ve thought she was full on chubby instead of curvy.

Nat sighed, tossing her empty containers onto the nightstand and digging through a different bag. “Aha! Finally.” She pulled out one of those Smirnoff Ice drinks, the kind that were popular with white women from all societies and cultures. She popped the cap off of it, with help from her sleeve, then shoved the entire tip of the bottle past her lips and pointed it skyward.

The sweet liquid flowed out of its container like a whirlpool had opened up at the bottom of it–which wasn’t far from the truth. Nat was swallowing every few seconds, letting her cheeks bloat up with liquid before chugging it down in one big, audible gulp. She took big, heaving breaths through her nose, grunting involuntarily with each swallow.

It wasn’t long before she’d completely emptied the glass bottle, and she held it to her stomach along with her other hand in order to clutch both of its sides. Her gut was now sticking over her waistband by a few good inches–bloating out underneath her waistband a noticeable amount as well. She winced as a particularly nasty, wet sounding gurgle filled the air.

GurRooUoUuuuublh!~

She hiccuped right after, and Ed saw a concerning look in her eyes. He’d seen it hundreds of times in his life, especially whenever he and his pals would go out for drinks. Something was coming up Natalie’s throat, and it was too late for her to stop it. He bolted out of his chair, preparing to dash off and grab the garbage can from the bathroom, when-

BWAAAAAAAAAARP!~

-Natalie’s throat decided it couldn’t hold it anymore, sending the belch shooting up and out of her mouth and making her sound like some sort of demonic sheep. Ed broke up right away, walking over and sitting right next to Nat. It took a few seconds of rubbing her upset tum for Natalie to join him, but she eventually did.

“Damn, girl! We should’ve been recording that, could’ve played it at our next gig.” Ed poked her in the side, feeling how firm it was and drawing an unpleased groan from Natalie’s stretched insides.

“Careful dude. Contents under pressure here.” She giggled and patted her stomach for emphasis, the sound the impact of her hand made resembling a kickdrum. “God, I actually thought I was gonna hurl there. Don’t let me chug anything else, please.” She slid the bottle across the nightstand where it knocked off the empty tray of cookies like she was playing shuffleboard.

And her belly resembled one of the pucks you’d find in that game as well. If only they were larger. And a bit squishier; her pants were still digging into her... Still, the roundness was correct, at least. Even if it was a shitty metaphor.

The two of them shared some good laughs together, with Nat taking the time to relax her belly and allow it to settle. Once she’d gotten some good burps up, and mentioned that she didn’t quite feel like her pants were about to cut her in two anymore, she went back to digging for the good stuff.~