Fulfilling a request while my body kicks COVID to the curb. ✌️Let's revisit Tuscany, though we'll find ourselves navigating something a little different.
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Hurried footsteps echoed through the halls of the great house. The local lord, il Asino--so named for his stubborn temperament--was throwing a feast for his son. The boy had been knighted and brought incredible honor, and conceivably wealth, to the house. As such, every noble for miles around had been summoned to dine at this estate. Toasts had been made, the table was groaning under the continuous weight of the bounty, all were gorging and in a perpetual state of drunkenness. All but Aurelia and the rest of the staff, who were busy within an inch of their lives.
Aurelia closed her eyes and felt her eyes flutter shut for a moment as she rested her back against the cool stone wall. Her chestnut hair was coming loose from her braid and headscarf in messy flyaways, no matter how she tried to tuck them in.
"Don't let Cenni catch you like that."
Aurelia gasped, pushing herself forward from the wall. Pia leaned against the doorway, dark eyes shining with mischief. She dropped her voice into a mocking, gravelly growl.
"Andiamo! There is too much to do for you to be napping!"
The two women said the next part in unison, Aurelia exasperated where Pia was humorous.
"If you are sleeping, the lords aren't feasting!"
Aurelia sighed. "And if the lords aren't happy, who is? But I am dead on my feet today, Pia! I could not give two figs about Paolo's knighthood, filling the wine cups, or standing still for another drunken toast from Signor Guidobaldo."
"Ah, but if we survive today, whatever the lords do not eat is ours for the taking!" Pia said, wiggling her eyebrows.
Aurelia frowned, finding it hard to remain optimistic in the face of her fatigue. "Like they would risk leaving anything for the likes of us."
Her friend could not be deterred. "They have been eating continuously for the past three days. Some of these lords will need to be rolled out like the barrels of wine we brought in." She snorted as they found their path back to the kitchens to bring another set of trays back to the great hall. "I would be surprised if some of them would be able to sit on their horses. If they eat any more, they will have to fast in order to ride through the gates of their great houses!"
Aurelia shushed her as they hurried into the kitchen. Cenni, the majordomo, had sharp hearing and a short temper. He had no patience for any kind of disrespect for il Asino, his family, or his guests. While he didn't raise a hand to any of the staff like Aurelia had heard servants from other households complain about at the market, he wouldn't hesitate to give Pia extra chores, and they were both running ragged as it is.
Both maids quickly filed into the kitchen, just in time for the next course--the last of four--to be brought out. Aurelia felt her stomach clench with longing. When had she last eaten? She had been so busy...
An airy, high pitched growl--not unlike a flute--sounded off behind Aurelia. Her head whipped around to see Pia's face go pale.
Pia must be starving too.
Aurelia fought to keep a flush from creeping up the back of her neck and to her cheeks. Truly, she pitied Pia and the discomfort her hunger must bring her, but the sounds that her friend's belly uttered in such moments were blissful. She could almost time her day by the beastly noises that rattled forth from Pia's stomach. Several of the other house servants joked as much, telling Cenni that they'd heard Pia's belly wamble so it was time for vespers, or for a midday break. As the sumptuous smells from the feast continued to drift under their noses, Aurelia heard Pia whimper. A louder, lower, longer growl echoed from behind her, and Aurelia felt a mixture of empathy and a strange warmth--a different hunger--start to burn in her own belly.
"Aurelia! My belly--it would be a terrible embarrassment for il--for Signor! It implies we are not fed enough!!"
They paused at the door to the great hall briefly, the silence punctuated by another poignant whine from Pia's stomach. Aurelia's belly harmonized with a deep, bassy moan.
"Well, maybe we aren't. Cenni knows how loud your belly is, everyone knows. Maybe he's trying to prove a point about how overworked we are."
Pia stomped her foot. "Must he use my embarrassment to do so?!"
Both ladies quickly composed themselves and moved through the door, waiting by the edge of the room until the other dishes arrived. Aurelia could fairly feel Pia's tension rising with each moment that passed. Her traitorous stomach was at greater risk of declaring its emptiness the longer they stayed, and the mouthwatering smells of the feast were becoming tortuous. Out of the corner of her eye, Aurelia saw Pia suck her stomach in, hoping its tightness could dampen its cries. They were approaching the table, moving between the lords to place the food down...
An ear-shattering groan split the room. Aurelia felt her heart crumble as she recognized the green of Pia's bodice right next to the ear of a local knight. All the color had drained from Pia's face as she froze, mid placement, unsure of how to proceed. Her eyes were gently lined with silver, embarrassed. There was silence.
The knight, who most certainly was now deaf in one ear, chuckled and patted his own stomach.
"I beg your pardon, my lords. My body could not contain its joy and thankfulness at the bounty before me and sought to sing the praises of our host."
At this, laughter rang out throughout the room. Nobody but Aurelia noticed the knight wink at Pia, who quietly thanked the knight and slipped away, unnoticed. Aurelia followed her out into the hallway, then grabbed her arm.
"I thought we were damned. Well and truly. Your damned stomach, Pia!"
Pia leaned against the wall, both hands pressed firmly against her middle, her eyes closed. Aurelia placed a gentle hand on Pia's cheek.
"How long since you've eaten, mia vita?"
Pia gripped her belly more tightly, talking through another hollow growl.
"A day and a half, I think. It's been so busy. I keep telling myself I can eat all I want in just a little while longer. I can eat until my belly is fit to burst..." At imagining all the food she would consume, Pia groaned as her pitifully empty stomach dragged her back to reality with another set of deep, pleading growls.
Aurelia took her friend's hands from her stomach and placed them in her own.
"Cenni said this morning that after we served the last course, we could rest. Let us go rest until it is our turn to eat. You'll only torture yourself here."
She led Pia by the hand up to their quarters and sat down on her bed.
"Drink a little water for now. See if it helps your belly to forget its anger for a little while."
Aurelia handed Pia the earthenware pitcher she kept close to their beds, in case they were thirsty in the middle of the night. Pia drank long, eager gulps. Aurelia felt her face heating against her will--she imagined it must be like a waterfall, emptying into a drought-ridden rock pond. It happened sometime after the summer sun was high. Pia's belly must be like a dry riverbed now, still unfulfilled but bubbling like so much thick mud. The heat in Aurelia's belly flared again.
Pia gasped for air and set the pitcher down with a dull thunk. A frog-like, drawn out gurgle bubbled from her middle, making Pia laugh.
"Oh, I am so woefully hungry! But now I feel rather like a storm cloud, caught with thunder and perhaps a little rain"
Pia lay back on her bed, another thick and low growl tearing its way through.
"Thank you for reminding me that water sometimes helps with hunger. I still remember I am quite impatient for food, though the water in my belly has dulled its ache."
"I am glad for you," Aurelia said, still a little dazed. The water had only accelerated the noises tumbling from Pia's middle, turning the occasional hungry churn into a constant onslaught of sound. Pia had noticed.
"Though I do apologize for how it continues to wamble. My belly feels like it is boiling inside. Do you think perhaps hunger is a curse, and that is why it boils and burns when we have naught to fill our bellies? Come, feel!"
Before Aurelia had time to react, Pia had reached across the narrow space separating their beds and yanked Aurelia's hand to rest on her stomach. True to what Pia said, it did feel like it was boiling with hunger, rattling and bubbling as it complained aloud. Aurelia felt her ears start to burn to match her cheeks, and butterflies turned circles within her middle. Another hollow groan shook underneath her hand.
"Does it sound different close up, do you think?" Pia asked.
"I-I don't think I would know..." Aurelia stammered, "I've never..."
Pia quickly but gently pressed Aurelia's ear up to her bodice as another growl tore through her system. Aurelia gasped. For every growl she heard, there were three more that weren't audible.
"This is probably close to what that poor knight got. I must find who he is and thank him."
"Do you think it will sound different when I've eaten? I plan eating so much I make a fool out of myself. You'll have to tell me if you feel a difference, if I don't die from overeating and go straight to third circle of hell."
"I'd be in the second circle first." Aurelia blurted.
"Did you mean third? The second circle is for lust. Third is for gluttony."
"I cannot lie to you as well." Aurelia sat up, unable to meet Pia's gaze. "I don't know what has come over me, or where this feeling has come from. But the noises of your body, the feeling of them against my hand and my cheek, they make me feel a fire within my soul that I cannot keep from you. It wouldn't be decent, and I cannot deceive you into letting me put my head on your belly and continue to listen and be so affected. Not without telling you."
At this, she risked stealing a glance at Pia. Her cheeks were tinted pink, her eyebrows were raised. But she didn't look disgusted. Perhaps startled.
"The rumblings of my belly are...pleasing...to you?"
Her friend's eyes glinted. "My belly is lustful to you?"
Aurelia sighed, flushing red with embarrassment "Ye-esss."
Pia tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Well, this shall be quite fun. I imagine, then, that I can lay back and conjure in my mind all sorts of sumptuous feasts while you simmer in your lust. Of course, this means that your next confession to Father Giorgio will be devastatingly embarrassing. What's the penance for lusting after a belly, do you think? Ten hail-Mary's and a tighter bodice?"
By the end of this, Aurelia was laughing in spite of herself. Pia patted her middle, which was still gurgling at an embarrassingly loud volume
"Well, come on then. If I am to be complicit in your sin, and you my discomfort, we may as well make the most of it. And you know that later, I shall tell you to imagine the belly of that stable hand you like all empty after a day of work and growling like mad."
Aurelia shrieked. "Stop it!!"
But her giggling turned to quiet blushing as she nestled back down on Pia's stomach as it burbled at a fever pitch. Aurelia bit her lip.
"I can tease you too. Imagine what they're eating down there, Pia."
A plaintive groan ripped from Pia's belly and rattled Aurelia's cheek.
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