Expecting as Marta (Patreon)

The small room on the outskirts of the little Slovak town of Žiar nad Hronom looked as though it belonged to a typical family of the period, although to a modern person, especially someone living in any major European or American city, it would have seemed rather poor. A single room, a kitchen, a bathroom with a toilet, and old Soviet furniture made up almost the entirety of the modest apartment, whose owners had grown so accustomed to it over the years that they barely noticed the worn varnish on the cupboards, the faded wallpaper, or the old rug covering most of the floor.

Owners was the key word. And yes, technically, the two owners still lived here together, just as they had for many years, although over the past few weeks the meaning of that word had changed somewhat.

— Yes, goddammit, yes! I told you I understood! — an irritated male voice came from the kitchen, followed by the dull sound of something hitting the table.

The woman, who until that moment had been sorting through some papers on the sideboard, gave a slight start. Then she slowly set the papers down on the table, took a cautious step back, and had already opened her mouth to shout, "KEEP IT DOWN," when another blow, this time against the wall, made the glass in the sideboard tremble almost imperceptibly and changed her mind. She froze with her mouth half open, then slowly closed it and merely pursed her lips in displeasure. Loud noises in this apartment affected her very differently now, and her body's almost instantaneous, utterly involuntary reaction irritated her nearly as much as the noise itself.

She lowered her gaze, as though trying to ignore it, and once again came up against the thing she had been trying to ignore for the past two weeks, ever since she had ended up in this body. The belly. Big, heavy, and absurdly out of place on someone who, until quite recently, had worn expensive men's business suits and could silence an entire room with a single word. Now that same person stood in the middle of a shabby Slovak apartment in a little pink women's dressing gown that clung tightly to the protruding belly, diligently pretending not to notice its weight or the way his lower back began to ache whenever he stayed on his feet too long.

She automatically rested a palm on her belly, more to support it than out of any tenderness, and immediately snatched her hand away in irritation when she noticed the gesture. Her breasts swayed slightly beneath the gown, but she no longer even noticed that, which only made her angrier. As though it were normal. As though she had always had breasts. As though there had never been an American named Richard Maverick, a CEO, investor, and one of New York's most eligible bachelors, who had believed it was all perfectly safe and stepped into an experimental apparatus alongside Professor Kováč, expecting to spend no more than a few minutes in another world and emerge with worldwide fame as a pioneer. A couple of minutes had stretched into a couple of weeks.

— They've got some fucking nerve! — roared a tall, bald, powerfully built man, walking into the room and flinging an old Nokia onto the bed. Old by our standards, that is; for the time they now lived in, it was a perfectly ordinary phone. It landed lightly on the soft bedspread, bounced a couple of times, and came to rest beside the pillow, while the man remained in the doorway for several more seconds, breathing heavily and staring somewhere past the young woman.

She said nothing. One hand merely drifted toward the back of her head, her fingers finding a strand that had escaped her hastily gathered hair and tucking it back several times for no particular reason. The big man reacted to her stare as though he could physically feel it.

— What the fuck are you staring at?! — he barked, finally meeting her eyes and jerking a shoulder irritably, as though her silence were the last thing he needed right now.

The young woman remained silent. She merely drew a heavy breath through her nose, keeping her tense gaze fixed on him, the very look Richard had considered a perfectly adequate answer to most outbursts of this kind just two weeks ago, and sometimes reason enough for the other person to look away first. But now that look belonged to a young woman's large dark eyes, and for some reason it failed to produce the effect he still expected out of habit.

The man merely frowned and stepped into the room, and Richard involuntarily took half a step back. Only a little, almost imperceptibly, but enough to feel himself do it. His heavy belly swayed with the movement, the gown's soft fabric pulled tight across his hips, and he had to set his feet a little farther apart to restore this unfamiliar body's balance. That made it even more sickening: two weeks ago, the man standing before him had been Professor Kováč, a thin, slightly stooped man of about sixty whom Richard routinely interrupted at meetings, and now a huge bald Slovak loomed in his place, the husband of the woman whose body Richard himself had ended up in.

— I asked you why you're looking at me like that, — Kováč repeated, a little more quietly now.

— I was wondering, Professor, — Richard finally replied, trying to speak with his old, cold deliberation. His voice came out higher and softer than it should have again, instantly spoiling the satisfaction of his own reply. — Wondering how someone with two doctorates has managed to spend two weeks coming up with nothing better than shouting at a phone and punching a wall.

But instead of reacting as Richard had hoped, Kováč suddenly raised his arm and drew back his fist, sharply, with almost no warning, as though he were about to hit her right in the face. Richard did not even have time to register the movement. His body acted before he could: his head jerked aside, his shoulders rose, his eyes squeezed shut, and both hands covered his belly of their own accord. He took another step back and almost tripped over the edge of the rug, feeling the weight of his breasts swing beneath the gown's thin fabric at the sudden movement, while his big belly seemed to drag the rest of his body after it a moment later.

The blow never came.

— Go on, keep being a smartass, — Kováč said, slowly lowering his hand.

Richard opened his eyes. For several seconds he simply stared at him, still standing with his shoulders raised and his palms on his belly, then seemed to realize only now what position he was in. His hands dropped at once.

— You... — he began quietly, then broke off, because his voice shook in a way he had not intended at all.

— What? — Kováč tilted his head slightly. — Still think you're in charge here?

Richard said nothing. The question was so cheap and crude that two weeks ago he would probably have done no more than smirk, but now his own silence felt far worse than anything Kováč could say. His heart was still beating too fast, and his body refused to believe the danger had passed: his shoulders remained tense, his fingers trembled almost imperceptibly, and even his belly seemed heavier, forcing him to shift his weight from one foot to the other again. The worst part was that Kováč could see it.

— Don't flatter yourself, — Richard finally said, slowly straightening his shoulders. — You just ended up in the body of a man who's used to settling things with his fists. That doesn't make you him.

— Oh, let's not start that again, — Kováč said with a grimace, taking out a cigarette and lighting it. — Or I'll remind you how you bawled your eyes out over some stupid melodrama yesterday, then spent half an hour trying to convince me it was all hormones and not you.

— It was hormones! Female hormones! And pregnancy on top of that! — Richard blurted, not noticing that he had begun to shout, then immediately winced in irritation at his own voice. — Besides, I have no idea what this woman has been watching for the past thirty years, or why her body decided that some idiot dying on a screen deserved three hours of sobbing.

— Two, — Kováč corrected him calmly, flicking his ash into a cup on the windowsill. — And not "this woman." You. That idiot was a businessman, and I think you simply felt sorry for him. Maybe you've finally found a character you can identify with.

— Pretty clever talk for a dumb thug, — Richard said through clenched teeth. — Who just threw a phone onto the bed.

— I'm not interested, — Richard replied automatically, then, after a second's pause, added: — How much?

Kováč smirked but said nothing. Richard looked away irritably and shifted his weight to the other foot again. Standing was becoming uncomfortable: the gown's belt pressed beneath his belly, his lower back ached, and the unfamiliar weight of his breasts dragged the fabric down in front. He automatically tugged the gown up over one shoulder, then caught himself making that small feminine gesture and froze.

— Exactly, — Kováč finally said. — So today we're just going to my "brother's," as planned. Put some makeup on, wear something decent, and try not to blurt out to anyone again that you're an American businessman from the future.

— I'm not putting on makeup, — Richard replied almost at once, although for some reason that seemed the most insulting part of everything Kováč had said. — And stop calling him your brother. He's this man's brother. You're a physics professor from Bratislava.

— Try explaining that to him, — Kováč said, taking a drag and blowing the smoke toward the window. — Just remember what happened last time, when you tried explaining to the neighbor that your real name was Richard Maverick.

Richard pursed his lips. It was difficult to argue with that: the neighbor had stared at him for a long time, then at his belly, before cautiously asking Kováč whether they ought to call a doctor. He irritably pulled the gown's belt higher, but the knot only pressed the fabric more tightly beneath his breasts, and he had to loosen it again.

— Do I have to go? — he finally asked, knowing the answer perfectly well and all the more irritated with himself for asking. Not long ago, the very idea of asking Kováč's permission would have seemed absurd, but here, for some reason, everything was gradually coming down to precisely these little things: whether he could stay home, where they were going, what he should wear, and how long he could remain on his feet before his lower back started aching again. Richard slowly ran a palm along his side, trying to rub it without being noticed, and almost immediately pulled his hand away.

— You do, — Kováč replied. — He's already asked why I've come over without my wife twice. And if we want to borrow the car for even a couple of days, we'll have to show him everything's fine between us. — He stubbed out his cigarette and, passing Richard, added curtly: — And wear the blue dress. The long one.

— I'll decide what I wear, — Richard said coldly, although the dress appeared in his mind almost immediately: too soft, too tight around the breasts, and utterly unfamiliar in the way it hung loose below the belly. Kováč had already gone into the hallway without even dignifying the objection with a reply, while Richard watched him for several more seconds before swearing quietly and looking down at his own dressing gown. — And I'm still not putting on makeup.

But he knew, knew it was a lie, and that made his own stubbornness seem almost childish. His "brother's" house was a long way away, they really did need the car, and after two weeks in this world Richard had already learned one simple fact: people here were far more willing to believe what they saw in front of them than any explanation he offered. And what they saw was the pregnant wife of a local thug. If that wife showed up at his brother's place with no makeup, her hair a mess, and started addressing her husband as "Professor," there would only be more questions.

He let out a heavy breath and went to the wardrobe. His belly forced him to move more slowly than he wanted, and his wide hips made the skirts of his gown sway slightly with every step. Richard opened the door and immediately saw the blue dress. He stared at it for several seconds, then irritably pulled it off the hanger and held it against himself. The soft fabric settled over his breasts and belly as naturally as though that were exactly where it belonged.

— I hate this place, — he said quietly, throwing the dress onto the bed.

— I heard that! — came from the hallway.

Richard turned toward the door.

— Good! — he shouted back. — Then you'll hear this too: I'm not wearing lipstick.

A brief chuckle came from the hallway.

Richard glared at the door for several seconds, then turned his gaze to the small mirror above the sideboard. A makeup bag lay on the shelf beneath it.

— God damn you, Kováč, — he said more quietly, reaching for it.

He sighed heavily, closed his eyes, and, once again trusting that stupid muscle memory, brought the lipstick to his lips as though he had done it a million times. His hand really did know better than he did. The lipstick touched his lower lip, glided smoothly from the center to the corner, then returned. Richard opened his eyes and discovered, to his irritation, that it looked almost perfect.

— Of course, — he muttered to his reflection. — I can't close two-hundred-million-dollar deals anymore, but I can put on lipstick.

He pressed his lips together, and his body made a little movement on its own, spreading the lipstick evenly. It felt so familiar that Richard froze for a second. A young pregnant woman in a pink dressing gown stared back at him from the mirror, her dark hair slightly disheveled and her lips already neatly painted. Even the irritation on her face somehow did nothing to spoil the picture; it only made it more convincing.

— Marta! — Kováč called. — Are we leaving today or what?

— I'm doing my makeup! — he shouted sharply, then froze as he heard his own words and realized how easily he had answered to the name "Marta."

The hallway fell silent, then Kováč laughed softly.

Richard slowly closed his eyes.

— I hate this place, — he whispered again, like a mantra, feeling the baby kick inside his belly...