Mother of the Year

Never thought I could have this much energy.

Though honestly, I stopped understanding where it even comes from a long time ago. The day’s nearly over, and I’m still sitting on the bed, wearing nothing but pajama shorts, the baby s***g on my breast with astonishing persistence, while my right hand mindlessly types up a report in PowerPoint — the client from Seattle wants everything by morning. Charts flicker on the laptop screen, and a warm little bundle with tiny fingers squirms on the pillow under my belly. My whole new existence has come down to these routine, intimately shameless details.

My name is Jessica Miller. Thirty-two years old. UX designer at a small but demanding IT company working under government contract. And yes — I’m a mother. A month ago, I gave birth to little Jake. Officially, on paper and in hospital records, I’d been pregnant for nine months. In reality… hell no, of course not, because I was a man all that time before. Yeah. I was a time intel agent, and my name was Max Riley my whole life — until this... this happened.

No one warned me that an emergency burst in 2049 could fry the coordinates and instead of returning to my own time, I’d wake up in a woman’s body in 2025. And not just any woman. A pregnant one. Eight months along. In the first few minutes, I nearly lost my mind when I saw the belly — it felt like I’d swallowed a damn watermelon.

She didn’t have a husband — or rather, I didn’t. He left Jess as soon as he found out she was pregnant. Classic. I should’ve been glad about that, but now I think it might’ve been better the other way around. I ended up in her body exactly three weeks before the due date. At first, I tried to leave, fight it, find a way out — but the hormones, the pain, the exhaustion… then the birth. God, the birth! That wasn’t hell. It was something beyond reason. After that, I gave up. Or rather, gave in.

Now — I am. Jessica. Alone in a rented apartment in Austin. Summer. Hot as hell.

— Mmm... — the baby S*s harder, the breast is almost painless now, but the feeling… that warm, hazy sensation, like all the energy is flowing out through the boob into this tiny creature, and at the same time it sends a barely noticeable tremble deep in my lower belly. That would’ve scared me before. Now… just another strange moment in this new life.

Jake’s s***g like his life depends on it — and hell, it does. And I’m reading my boss’s email with one eye: “Please double-check the menu structure on the confirmation screen, something’s bugging the client.”

Of course I’ll check. I’m a mother. I’m employee of the month. I’ve rented out my tits 24/7. I push the laptop a bit farther away, shift position to free up the left boob. Jake seems to have preferences — he clearly likes the right one. The left is a bit more sensitive, and every latch feels like a light electric jolt running down my spine. Unusual. Still is.

I remember being a man. Wearing heavy boots, drinking whiskey, fucking the secretary. Now on my nightstand I’ve got a container of blueberries, a water bottle with a straw, and some damn lactation vitamins. A picture straight out of a glossy magazine. Only I’m the one stuck inside that picture.

I glance at the mirror by the wall. The woman with messy chestnut hair, dark circles under her eyes and a half-exposed boob — that’s me. The flesh has gotten softer, the curves rounder. Nipples ridiculously sensitive. Sometimes I look at myself and think, ‘Max, how the hell did you even end up here?’ Then the baby coughs, and reality kicks back in.

Jake falls asleep right on the boob. I carefully detach him, lay him down on a pillow beside me, cover him with a swaddle. When I get up from the bed, warm milk shifts in my breast, pulling slightly downward — I instinctively press a hand to it, but it drips from the nipple — it’s so intimate that if someone told me a year ago I’d be feeling this… I’d have laughed in their face. I should clean up, order some food and...