2. Tummy Trouble

The next thing Simon knew, he and Jenny were sliding through an opening and then falling more, down into the darkness. They hit a liquid surface with a splash which stung at his skin as soon as he went under. Simon swam back up. It was dark and he could barely see anything, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

            “Jenny!” he called out.

            A short distance away, he heard her reply. “Simon! I’m over here!”

            He heard her splashing. “I’m coming, stay where you are!”

            Simon paddled forward, but everything around him was moving. Emma’s stomach was churning, trying to digest its contents. Trying to digest them.

            “Simon!” she cried out again, this time farther away.

            He swam harder faster. It seemed to take an eternity, but finally he reached her soaking wet figure and hugged her tight. The gastric acids were burning at his skin and hers, but they didn’t care as they held each other close.

            Simon didn’t know what to do now. It was all over. They were going to die here in Emma’s tummy. In all his time in the Rays Club, he and Tommy had never come across an instance of someone being eaten and surviving. Once you landed in the belly, it was game over.

            Jenny was terrified as he clutched her tightly, but he thought about the people that she ate. Francine and Drew didn’t deserve it, but once they slid down her esophagus they were just bits of food that she digested. The stomach didn’t discriminate against anyone: if it was digestible, it would be broken down and absorbed by the body. Francine and Drew gave Jenny the energy to continue to function and to go about her daily life.

            It gave her the energy to have sex with him.

            He wondered if he deserved it, being inside of here. He knew Jenny didn’t mean to eat those people and would have broken down in tears and never recovered if she knew, but he and Tommy had been so blasé about Francine’s death in Jenny’s tummy because they were so happy they had girlfriends that it pushed her boyfriend Bobby over the edge. And then he cheated on his girlfriend to sleep with her hotter best friend, even though his girlfriend was already nice and very attractive.

            Jenny was crying. Suddenly, he snapped back into reality.

            He couldn’t have that defeatist view. He couldn’t let the Program win and silence them. He had to get to the bottom of the conspiracy. And most of all, he couldn’t let Jenny die here. They had to make it out.

            Simon’s eyes had adjusted now, so he could see better. It was still very, very dark, but he could vaguely make out a lumped mass floating nearby them.

            “Come on,” he said and they swam in that direction.

            Finally, they reached it and grabbed on, hauling their stinking wet bodies up onto the object. It was gooey and disgusting and he realized he remembered Emma eating a big lunch of lasagna. This was the remains of that meal, all bundled and mashed up and being gradually broken down inside of her stomach.

            “Oh my god,” said Jenny, leaning next to him. “How are we going to get out here?”

            Simon leaned closer to her, kissing her wet cheek. “I don’t know, baby. I don’t know.”

^^^

Emma sighed and leaned against her desk, watching her tummy gurgle as she scratched it with one hand, the other hand propping her against the desk. Now that the latte was gone, she was already thinking about her next snack. She had told the girls to wait for her at the plaza across the street so that as soon as her detention was over, she could join them and they could grab a bite or two (or for Emma, three) to eat.

            Mr. Lawrence was sitting as his desk, going over his gradebook, but he glanced up every so often to look at her beautiful figure, particularly her belly. He was smiling to himself. Emma had no why he was so happy to see her stomach. Maybe she just had a really cute tummy? Emma smirked to herself, sure of that one.

            She began to pick her teeth. “So, Mr. L… When are the other students coming back from the bathroom?”

            He frowned. “I think they’re playing hooky. You know what, you’ve served your detention for the day. Go have fun.”

            “Thanks, Mr. L!” she giggled, on purposely acting this way. She ran up to him and gave him a peck on the cheek, then grabbed her empty thermos and purse and headed out the door.

            As soon as it shut behind her, Mr. Lawrence took out his phone and dialed a number. “This is Agent Lawrence. The job is done.”

            There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then, a voice spoke.

            “Good work, Agent. You just accomplished what not even the Huntress could do. Did it look like an accident?”

            “They’ll just be considered MIA after running off,” Lawrence said. “They’re really just inside this hot girl’s belly. I’ve got an idea for how I can be kicked out of my “teaching position”. I fuck that little brat, news gets out, I get fired and disappear into the woodwork but actually just go on to my next job for the Program, and that slutty bitch gets to have that hang over her head for the rest of her life.”

            “That it is an option for an exit strategy. Your efficiency on this operation may allow that to be your bonus.”

            “What about subject K-267?” Lawrence asked.

            “We have not spotted her yet. She will be taken care of by another operative.”

            “The Huntress?”

            “Actually, we still have not located the Huntress. She did another few assignments for us last month and then disappeared about two weeks ago. We are in the process of tracking her, but we fear she may have gone rogue.”

            “That could be dangerous to our other operations,” Lawrence said.

            “Don’t worry,” the voice responded. “We will have her dealt with.”

            And then they hung up.

^^^

Emma found her friends, just some girls from around school, waiting for her out in front of Starbucks.

            “Hey Emma,” a hot blonde named Rachel said. Emma remembered Rachel all the way back from Tina’s party at the beginning of the year. She had been there to witness Emma eat three whole pizzas to beat both Alexis and Cat, both whom she hadn’t seen in a while. She didn’t know why.

            Emma couldn’t wait to tell everybody about how Mr. Lawrence had eyed her scrumptious belly, but then she saw her. It was Claudia, talking to these girls. Her friends. How dare Claudia intrude, Emma thought. She has no right to be here.

            “Hey Claudia,” Emma said in an overly-cheerful voice.

            Claudia looked up from talking to Casey, a hot brunette girl, and the blood drained from her face.

            “Oh, hey Emma,” said Claudia. She looked timid, like she wanted to run away, Emma noticed. Like a puppy with its tail between its legs.

            Emma smiled.

            “You won’t believe what happened earlier this afternoon, Claudia,” Emma said, coming over. “You’re boyfriend and your best friend just got up and left detention. They snuck out.” Emma smiled, they waited for it. “You know, I bet there probably off somewhere having sex right now.”

            All of the other girls laughed.

            Claudia swallowed.

            Emma knew she had her right where she wanted her.

            “No,” Claudia said. “Simon would never cheat on me, he’s always been a faithful boyfriend. And Jenny’s been my BFF since middle school. They wouldn’t do that to me.”

            “I don’t know,” said Emma. “I mean, Jenny’s always been the hotter of the two of you. Maybe Simon just decided to fuck who really turned him on, you know. Have you even…” Emma put her fingers to her lips and gave a giggle, looking her up and down. “Gotten close to him?”

            Claudia took a step back. “What my boyfriend and I do is none of your business!”

            “I bet he got her to suck his dick,” Rachel laughed. “And I bet he did just for enjoyment because she was so desperate.” All of the other girls laughed too.

            “Oh I bet they went all the way,” said Emma. “I bet he fucked her because she was so desperate for his dick she practically forced herself on him over Spring Break. And then he decided she wasn’t that good, but she’s so stupid that he could get away with sliding into both her pussy and her hotter friend’s.”

            The girls laughed again.

            Claudia was slowly backing up, tears forming in her eyes. “No,” she said. “Simon and Jenny are…good friends.”

            “Friends with benefits?” Rachel snorted.

            Everyone laughed.

            Emma walked over to Claudia and put her finger under her chin, bringing her head back up. Tears were forming a lot more now and she was doing her best to hold herself together.

            “Poor Claudia,” Emma said. “She’s still crying like a little baby.” She leaned closer to Claudia’s ear. “Well, big girls don’t cry. Big girls have sex and boys want to fuck them. Like Jenny, not like you.”

            Claudia couldn’t take it anymore. She turned and ran away, crying. Tears streamed down her face and she couldn’t control the sobs. She just kept running and running, all her senses becoming disoriented around her. But deep down in her heart, despite everything that had just happened, she knew that Simon and Jenny would never do that to her.

            Emma and the other girls watched her go and had a laugh all around.

            Rachel walked up next to Emma to watch Claudia running off into the parking lot. “Where do you think Simon and Jenny actually went?”

            “Hell if I know,” Emma said. She let out a soft belch. “Whew, I’m pretty gassy today!” she said, rubbing her belly and looking down at it with a smile on her face. “Must’ve been something I ate earlier.”

^^^

Simon and Jenny sat on the ever-crumbling lump of food inside of Emma’s dank and dark stomach. Jenny was still leaning against him. He wondered if she had fallen asleep. Then he realized that he too had been drifting in and out of consciousness.

            Suddenly, the air around was sucked upward and he and Jenny felt momentarily lifted upwards, before being plopped back down on to the lump of digesting matter. Way above them, he heard the sound of Emma burping.

            “That’s it,” he said.

            “What?” she asked. “Burping?”

            “That was a small burp. Emma doesn’t have that much gas in her stomach. We’re breathing some of the last air in here that she must have accidentally swallowed while chewing gum or just while eating. When you eat quickly, you’re more likely to swallow air and Emma loves devouring her food, like her lunch we’re sitting on.”

            Jenny nodded.

            “If we could get her to give a really big burp, as long we were near the top of the stomach, we could ride the gas up and out!” he exclaimed. He was suddenly excited again. The prospect of getting them both out of her renewed his life with purpose. But then Jenny pointed out his idea’s biggest flaw.

            “How are we going to get her to do that?” Jenny asked.

            He thought for a moment. “Soda. If she drank a bunch of soda she could give a really big, gassy belch. But how to get her to drink soda?”

            Jenny’s eyes lit up in the darkness. “We could call someone. Tommy!”

            “That’s brilliant!” he said, kissing her on the lips. “Shit, wait… The phones would have short circuited when Mr. Lawrence put us in the latte or when we landed in Emma’s stomach juices.”

            “Wait, isn’t your phone waterproof?” she asked. “You were showing it to me earlier today.”

            He suddenly remembered. “Yeah! I’m not sure if that works on gastric acids, but it was in my pocket so let’s see!” He took out the smartphone and wiped it off with his shirt, then pressed the power button.

            It awoke from sleep mode and shined brightly, a little beacon in the darkness of Emma’s bowels.

            “Quickly, call him!” she said, shaking his shoulder.

            Simon brought up Tommy’s contact and tapped the dial icon. It kept ringing.

            “Come on Tommy, you bastard,” Jenny said. “Pick it up!”

            Finally, he did. “Hey Simon, what’s up? You and Jenny out of detention yet?”

            “Tommy, I need you to listen very carefully.”

            “Okay,” Tommy said, understanding. They had been through some weird shit together, so he knew when to listen to Simon.

            “Mr. Lawrence is an agent for the Program. He shrank us and put us in Emma’s drink and she unknowingly swallowed us. We’re sitting on a lump of food in her stomach right now, but we don’t have much time left. We need your help.”

            There was a moment’s pause. “Shit, Simon. You really do know how to give me the short version. What do you need me to do?”

            Jenny broke in. “Convince her to drink a lot of soda. Get her to do a really big burp. Dare her or something. Didn’t she used to like you?”

            “Not really,” Tommy said. “She kinda did, but that was more Cat’s thing. Anyway, I’m sure I can work the old Tommy charm on her. You mind if I flirt with her?”

            “Given the circumstances,” Jenny said, “you could fuck her so long as it got us out of her alive.”

            “Hey, hey, chill. Emma’s pretty but no one can replace you, Jenny,” Tommy said.

            She smiled, but deep down in her gut she felt horrible for that night over Spring Break. But she couldn’t think about that now.

            “Where is she?” Tommy asked.

            “I have no clue,” Simon said. “It feels like she’s walked around, but…”

            “Wait, I see her. I’m over at the plaza waiting for you guys and I see her and a bunch of girls outside of Starbucks. Any ideas on how to approach her?”

            “Well,” Simon began. But then the phone, still wet with Emma’s stomach juices, slipped from his grasp. He reached out to catch it, but it plopped into the slowly churning liquid and sank like a rock with a little splash. Simon leaned his arm down into the stinging substance after it, but suddenly part of the lasagna/lunch mass gave way beneath his knees and he toppled over the side, disappearing beneath the surface in a second.

            Jenny found herself alone in the dark, floating out in the lake-like body of liquid inside a teenage girl’s tummy. She didn’t know what to say, waiting for Simon to come back up at any moment.

            But he didn’t.

            “Hello,” she said softly.

            Nothing but the groan of Emma’s belly as its walls moved and its contents sloshed around responded.

            “HELLO!” she yelled. It almost echoed, but the noises of digestion masked it.

            Still, nothing came back up.

            She began hyperventilating. They had been so close to finding a way out and now Simon was gone. Slowly, she began hugging her knees and rocking gently back and forth as tears welled in her almond eyes and began to trickle down her face.

TO BE CONCLUDED