Halloween 4: Shyamalaned (Patreon)

Shyamalaned

“Don’t you want to stay the night?” Cheryl lay sprawled out on the bed, a shirt wrapped strategically around her sweat sheen body, her cheeks and nose flush.

“I gotta get up early for work,” Andy mumbled as he pulled on his jeans.

“But what about all that stuff about a connection?” Cheryl asked. She sounded hurt but had a smirk on her face.

Everything about this woman weirded Andy out. She acted two ways all the time- interested and bored, cold and hot. He’d had no intention of staying from the minute they’d decided to hook up, but then the sex had been off, she had been strange and he just needed to get the hell out of her weird ass apartment with all the pentagrams, the incense and the candles.

“I’ll call you,” Andy said, pulling on his shoes.

Cheryl laughed, a cold, laugh like daggers of ice.

Andy hated being called out on his bullshit. His temper flared. “If I say I’ll call you, I’ll call you.”

“Hahahahaha...”

“Okay. Fine.” Andy headed for the door.

“Be good, babe.”

Andy paused, hand on the doorknob. She’d been all giggly and flirty when they’d met at the bar, but as soon as they’d gotten to her apartment, she’d talked down to him like he was the chick. He almost turned around to put her in her place, but no. No. He’d just be playing into her weird game, and besides— the sex had been so odd. He left without another word.

As soon as Andy left, Cheryl began laughing, and laughing and laughing as the glamour she’d used to mask her true face melted away.

Chapter Two

Andy collapsed into bed, slept fitfully, his mind tormented. He woke feeling guilty, ashamed. As he got ready to work, images from the night before kept flitting through his mind, and he cringed remembering what she’d made him do. Why did I go along with all that? He brushed his teeth, gargled with Listerine, trying to get the taste of her out of his mouth.

Yet, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He’d be sitting in a meeting, tuning out the room, but instead of sports he’d think of her— those fierce green eyes, the way she smiled at him, like a shark about to feed…. It made him tremble, and he pushed the thought out of his mind…

But here she was again as he worked on a report, putting her hand to his chin, tilting his head back…

He looked at his phone, mouth dry. Maybe I should call her? Maybe we can hook up again? But the thought of hooking up with her didn’t feel right, or good, or exciting.

It felt like sickness.

Chapter Three

“I don’t know,” Andy said, sitting on the edge of his bed, feeling humiliated. “Maybe I’m sick.”

Alice was getting dressed, looking annoyed and disappointed. “It happens to all guys once and awhile,” she said, robotically. “Don’t worry about it.”

“It doesn’t happen to me,” Andy said.

“Maybe some other time,” Alice said. If Andy had any awareness, he would have heard it in her voice. She wondered if it was her, somehow. But he was too absorbed into his own failure to even think about her feelings.

In fact, Alice was gorgeous. Perfect skin. Bombshell body. Sweet and feminine as could be. And Andy was burning with passion, aching with a need for release.

But his guy just— sat there. Wouldn’t respond. He paced. Took a cold shower. He wouldn’t be able to sleep until he got rid of the pressure. He looked at the phone. Thought about Cheryl. A memory flashed through his mind— him on his hands and knees, Cheryl, strap on glistening on the darkness.

He felt himself getting hard.

Chapter Four

Weeks passed. Andy stopped dating after his second “failure to launch.” He stayed home, watched porn. He was trying to recalibrate his brain, because he found he could only get turned on now when he thought about Cheryl, and the way she’d… used… him.

Andy stood in front of the room, clicker in hand, working through his slide presentation. “So,” he said, click, ”as you can see, our fourth quarter projections look—-“ He stopped as a wave of nausea swept over him, his gut clenched. He put a hand to his mouth and tried to steady himself.

“You okay?” Max, the manager for their division said.

“Yeah just—“ And then Andy spun, just making it to the corner garbage can before he puked up his breakfast of eggs and sausage.

Andy was excused from the meeting. He went to the bathroom and washed his face, rinsed out his mouth. Great. Just great, he thought. That’s going to be the talk of the office for a week.

It was. Andy took the good-natured ribbing, joked about it. But, he was really not pleased being known as “Pukey Guy.”

Chapter Five

Andy felt tired all the time, but he forced himself to put on his shoes and head out to the grocery store. He bought five packages of bologna and some Wonder Bread. He was just dying for some bologna sandwiches, which was totally weird because he never liked the stuff. Back home, he made the gross new food obsession— bologna on white bread, lots of mayonnaise— another thing he never liked, and then he curled up on the couch, gleefully munching, thinking he really needed to get his diet under control. He felt bloated and heavy and was suffering headaches. It had to be this gross food, and he was determined this was the last time.

He’d learned to anticipate his pukey moments, which seemed to come at random times. Morning, afternoon, night. But he didn’t embarrass himself too badly at work because he could sense them coming and make an escape to the bathroom, though more than once he wasn’t alone in there.

It was his boss, Max, who pushed him to finally see a doctor. Andy, like most men, had an aversion to doctors. But Max kept hearing about his being sick, and he gave Max a day off and insisted he get it looked into.

Max sat on the examination table in his underwear. The doctor checked his blood pressure, his reflexes. When he started to check Andy’s lymph nodes, he put his hands on Andy’s chest and pressed. Andy winced, gasped.

“Your chest sensitive?” The doctor asked, noticing that nipples were protruding slightly.

“A little,” Andy said. “Any idea what’s wrong with me?”

“Let’s get your blood tests back and take it from there.”

In fact, Andy’s symptoms were very clear, but it never entered the doctor’s mind to consider what he might be experiencing.

Chapter Six

Weeks later.

Andy had to buy new clothes. He’d developed a pot belly that hung out over his belt line. His face looked puffy, and he hated the sight of himself. But, he was so hungry. He couldn’t stop eating, and his back and feet ached, and he was itchy. Constantly itchy. Standing in front of the mirror he looked in horror at the red welts—  stretch marks on his belly.

Around the office, he was no longer puke boy. People had started to call him Duck because of the way he waddled when he walked. Getting out of a chair was becoming a struggle, and he couldn’t help but put his hands on the small of his back when he was hanging around the break room. He couldn’t see it, but one day he was standing there, hands on the small of his back, and Cassie, who was expecting, was standing there the exact same way. The women around the office started to joke about it.

And Cheryl. She haunted his thoughts, his dreams. He thought he saw her everywhere; he longed for her smell, the sound of her voice.

The doctor said there was nothing wrong. But this had all started that night— that terrible night with her.

He finally picked up the phone and sent her a text. “I want to see you.”

He put the phone down and waited for an answer.

Days passed. He texted her again and again, more and more frantically. No answer. No answer. Andy’s head began to swirl, rage, regret, shame and fear. His emotions took over. He spent nights crying, eating bologna, chocolate. Then, suddenly, flying into fits of rage.

Chapter Seven

More weeks pass. Andy has to buy more clothes. He shops in the Big and Tall section, but nothing really fits. All his weight seems to be going to his belly and butt, so the clothes both hang and cling. His ankles have swollen. There is no sign of the lean athlete he once was, and he is disgusted, wants to just hide from the world, but he needs a job, so-

He’s sitting in his office chair with his hands folded on his belly, talking to Marcia about a client, when he feels it: a punch, a thump from inside his body. Andy’s mouth drops open and he sits up, staring down at his belly.

“What is it? You okay?” Marcia says.

“Um, yeah,” Andy says, laughing. “A little—“ another thump-- “Indigestion.”

He finishes the conversation with Marcia, though he is not present. He just robotically responds, because all he can think about is a terrible new thought— there is something inside him.

Andy fires off more angry, terrified texts to Cheryl. He makes an appointment and goes straight to the doctor after work. He is in tears. “There’s something in me,” he hisses. “There’s something growing inside me.”

The doctor is perplexed, but he is thinking about Andy’s symptoms now, beginning to contemplate the impossible. But no. That makes no sense. Andy is a man? And then he sees wet spots forming on Andy’s shirt. “Andy?” He says, gesturing.

Andy gasps and covers his puffy chest with both arms, blushing furiously. After some calming talk, he admits that his nipples have been leaking at times.

Andy is on the examination table on his back, as the doctor spreads some goop over his belly. And feels relieved and terrified. The doctor had believed him; there is something inside him. He imagines something like a lamprey, some parasite with razor teeth, some killing machine Cheryl has infected him with. He wants it out!

The doctor begins the sonogram, and Andy cranes his neck to see the screen, to see—- “What is that?”

“Well,” the doctor says. “I would have thought this was impossible, but that’s a baby.”

Andy’s eyes go wide, and he shakes his head. “A what?  No.”

The nurse covers her mouth. Something about a man being pregnant amuses her, and the horrified look on his face only more so. She thinks what’s she’s feeling might be wrong, but she feels it anyway.

The doctor knows Andy is a man, or at least has a man’s parts. But now his science is telling him Andy also a womb, ovaries. He is pregnant, and there is no other way to see it. “Mr. Baker, you are pregnant.”

There are tears and denials. Andy doesn’t want to believe this, can’t believe this. He storms out of the office— or waddles, rather, and the staff watches him go. Word has already spread of the pregnant man, and they are wondering if this could maybe lead to them being on television.

Chapter Eight

“Cheryl!” Andy screams, pounding on her door. “Cheryl! I know you’re in there!”

The door swings open, but it isn’t Cheryl.

“Janice?” It’s Andy’s ex-wife.

“Hey, honey,” she says, glancing down at his belly. “You are showing and popping!”

“What’s going on? What the hell did you do to me?”

“Come in,” Cheryl says. “Sit.”

Andy comes in. He puts a hand to his belly. He feels the thumps, fast now, repeated, and he winces.

“Is she kicking?” Cheryl asks.

“No,” Andy lies, though he is starting to wonder, starting to come to the point where he might consider believing.

“Sit,” Cheryl repeats. “Please. You need to take it easy in your delicate condition.”

Andy lowers himself into a chair. His back aches, and his feet are sore. Cheryl finds it comical watching her pregnant ex-husband struggling to sit, with his big, baby belly. His face is all puffy, and she can see he is developing breasts. If we could ask Andy right now why he is sitting instead of screaming, he could not tell us. He waits, expecting an explanation.

Cheryl takes a sip of wine. “I would offer you some, but as an expectant mother—“

“Just cut the crap,” Andy finally snaps. “So, what, this is some kind of payback?”

“Yes,” Cheryl says. “For the way you treated me. The way you abandoned me.”

“Well, enough is enough. Okay? Just— undo whatever you did.”

Chery shakes her head. “Whatever I did? Andy, you must realize you’re pregnant, right?”

“That’s not possible!” Andy barks. “Men don’t get pregnant. Now, I am telling you to — fix this— or I will sue the hell out of you.”

Cheryl is surprised. She didn’t expect this. She thought at this point Andy would have come to terms with his condition, that he would have come to beg her to save him from motherhood— which she would gleefully refuse to do. But his denial throws her off her game, and she finds herself concerned. “Andy, I need you to understand something. That night? The night we had sex?”

“Don’t remind me,” Andy says as the shameful memories flicker through his mind. He, on his hands and knees….

“I made you my woman,” Cheryl says. “It was a spell. I’m the father of your child, Andy. You are going to be a mother.”

“This is bullshit!” Andy screams, struggling to get up out of the chair. “I’m not a woman! I’m not pregnant. You’re sick, Cheryl. I’m not a woman. I’m not.”

“Andy, you know there is a baby…”

He feels a thump

“inside…”

Another thump

“…you.”

Tears start to pour down Andy’s cheeks. He’s been emotional for the past few months, and the hot tears shame him even as he feels something warm on his chest, and he realizes his breasts are leaking, and he feel more of the baby’s kicks— no, the thumps- and he gets to his feet and waddles to the door.

Cheryl watches him, and she is confused and annoyed because she had imagined this moment for so long, how she would mock him, torment him, the pregnant man, and instead she feels— worried for him. Concerned. She feels she needs to protect him, help him.

She wants him to have HER baby. She throws her glass against the wall, and it shatters into a thousand fragments.

Chapter Nine

Andy starts to wear layers of t-shirts. He tapes cotton bandages over his nipples. He can’t risk a leakage. He overhears a couple women joking, wondering when he is “due”, and it sickens him. He keeps forgetting things. Feels fuzzy-brained and distracted all the time.

He feels the thing inside him move sometimes, wiggle or turn. It’s terrifying to him, to know this thing is growing inside his body, and at the same time he is compulsively cleaning his apartment. He thinks it’s to distract himself from Cheryl and what sick joke she has played on him, but he is actually nesting.

He imagines a monster, a jellyfish, an alien.

Finally, Friday after a tough workday, he sits down at his computer and he does a search for “stages of pregnancy.” It’s all there. Everything he has been experiencing. As he reads he senses the baby inside him, feels it and accepts it for the first time, and his cheeks flush as he remembers the image on the Sonagram, and a warmth fills his heart, and he is crying again as he falls in love with his baby.

Andy is back on the examination table, glowing as he looks at his baby on the screen. “We’re going to need to do a c-section,” the doctor is explaining. “You don’t have a birth canal.”

Andy nods. He trusts the doctor. Andy is scared and nervous and worried and he asks a lot of questions. The doctor has seen this before. It’s common with new mothers, and he knows what Andy is really asking for is assurance.

It’s humiliating to go public, but Andy thinks only of his baby now. He needs to make sure his baby will be covered by his insurance plan, so he has no choice: he goes to HR and tells them that he is an expectant mother, and he asks them his questions and makes sure his baby will be protected.

When he leaves work to find television crews waiting for him, he fights off the urge to run and hide, and instead politely answers some questions, making sure to mention that he is starting a GoFundMe page to help with childcare. The next day everyone at work is fascinated. They congratulate him, ask him his due date, and the women organize a baby shower. Andy registers and puts together his wish list— all the things he will need for the baby, and it’s hard for him not to just go out and buy them, but he likes the idea of the whole community being involved. He read it takes a village to raise a child. When the day of the shower comes, Andy is no longer embarrassed, though he is so ready to get this baby out of him. In a room full of women, talking about pregnancy and motherhood, Andy realizes he is one of them now. Whatever other biology he has, he has a baby inside him, and that bonds him forever with the females.

Men just can’t understand what they go through.

Chapter 10

Andy is sitting up in his hospital bed, cradling his baby as she suckles. He is smiling down at her- so little, so tiny. “You’re so beautiful,” he says. “Mommy loves you so much.” The baby wiggles, and Andy is sure she knows what he is saying, how he feels. He has never loved anyone as much as he loves little Eislyn. “Little Eislyn, my pretty dream..” He sings softly…

“Andy.”

It’s Cheryl.

Andy pushes the call button, then holds Eislyn more tightly, protectively. “Get out,” he says. “Get out of my room.”

“I just want to see my daughter,” Cheryl says. She has become obsessed with this child, and she wants to be part of her life.

“You have no right to be here.”

“I’m her father.”

“Try convincing a judge of that,” Andy spits.

“Andy, stop acting crazy…”

“I’m NOT CRAZY,” Andy hisses, worried he will scare his baby.

The nurse arrives. “Please get her out of here,” Andy says. “She’s upsetting me and the baby.”

“Miss?” The nurse says. She and the other nurses have rallied around Andy. They love that he has embraced his motherhood, that he is so caring and attentive to his child. They wish more men would be like him and not just wait until their kids can throw a ball to show an interest. But, of course, he carried the child, so they know he has a special bond with his baby no other man will ever comprehend.

“I’m his ex-wife,” Cheryl says. “I just want to…”

“Do I need to call security?”

“Fine,” Cheryl spits, leaving, glancing back. She is consumed with jealousy for Andy, resentment, hate. As she leaves the hospital, she sees news crews out front. Andy has become famous and much loved. His GoFund me page has raised over 200,000 dollars, all earmarked for Eislyn’s education. Cheryl hates it. She hates it all.

As she walks down the cold, empty streets outside the hospital, she has never felt more bitter and sad and hopeless. She is only just beginning to realize that while she thought she was cursing Andy, she was actually cursing herself.

A flash. A cloud of smoke, and there stands Lucifer in female form, wearing tux, glass of Champagne in hand. She is gorgeous and dangerous, looking much the same as she did when Cheryl first met her at the support group for divorced women. Of course, at first she just called herself Lucy.

“You!” Cheryl spits. “You screwed me! You tricked me!”

“Pardon?” Lucifer says, chuckling. “I came here to celebrate with you. I gave you everything you wished for. Your ex-husband, pregnant, and now a single mother, held up before the entire world to see.”

“He was supposed to be miserable! Humiliated! Everyone loves him! They think he is some kind of saint because he had a baby! Bitch!”

“Oh, dear, you didn’t specify any of that “humiliated misery bit” in your wish. And it is quite unfair. Once again, a man gets all kinds of credit for doing what women have been doing for millennia. So unfair.”

Cheryl is crying now, broken. None of this is how she imagined it. “I want another wish… “

“Sorry, luv. Just one wish, since you only have one soul.”

“I never thought I would feel so….”

“Small? Petty? Well, you know the old saying? Be careful what you wish for…”