Another contraction starts before the last one fully leaves me.
I feel it building deep inside my body like a terrible inevitability.
My stomach tightens again beneath the man's hands, the round curve growing hard enough that it almost hurts to breathe. I bow forward against the pole with a helpless sound trapped in my throat while the babies push and roll inside the tightening pressure.
One kicks hard beneath my ribs while another grinds downward with crushing weight low in my pelvis. The movement is so forceful I can actually see my belly shifting under the fabric.
The man notices everything.
“Oh, there you go”, he says almost teasingly behind me. “Can't even stand up straight anymore, huh?”
The shame burns through me so badly I feel dizzy.
People are absolutely staring now. I can feel it. The overheated carriage has gone too quiet around me, the silence full of polite avoidance while this stranger openly holds my laboring stomach like I'm some spectacle unfolding in public.
I weakly try to pull his hand away.
Instead his fingers tighten around the underside of my belly, supporting the heavy weight more firmly while his other hand slides slowly over the front of it.
My face feels unbearably hot.
The worst part is that I need the support.
My body is failing under the sheer heaviness of the babies now. My lower back throbs violently. My hips feel pried apart from the inside. Every contraction drags the weight lower, and the pressure between my legs has become so urgent it frightens me.
I rub my belly again instinctively, desperate for relief, but his hand covers mine almost immediately.
“No, like this,” he says.
His broad palm presses upward beneath my belly while the other moves slowly across the taut front, kneading at the tightness while I tremble against the pole. The pressure makes the babies shift restlessly beneath his touch.
He chuckles quietly under his breath.
“They're fighting for room in there.”
A whimper escapes me before I can stop it - half embarrassment, half pain.
Overstimulated. Overwhelmed.
My belly sticks out so far now that I can barely see my own feet, a massive swollen weight stretched tight with moving life. The sweater can't conceal anything anymore. Every motion inside me shows. Every contraction turns my stomach into a hard aching globe beneath the fabric.
And his hands keep drawing attention to it.
“Look at you”, he says, almost admiringly, as another movement rolls across my abdomen beneath his palm. “You're so close.”
But another contraction crashes through me so hard my knees nearly give out.
The sound slips out loud enough that several people look over openly this time.
My entire stomach seizes tight beneath the sweater. The babies shove downward during the contraction with terrifying force, and suddenly the pressure low in my body becomes almost unbearable.
I gasp and spread my feet wider automatically.
The man feels it immediately.
“There it is”, he murmurs near my ear, voice lower now. “They really want out, hm?”
Tears sting my eyes from humiliation.
I'm trapped standing here panting against the pole while this stranger holds my throbbing belly in both hands, openly feeling the contractions, openly feeling the babies moving inside me while everyone around us pretends not to notice.
Another sharp movement presses visibly outward near the center of my stomach.
I can barely think anymore through the pressure.
My whole body feels overtaken by it - the relentless fullness, the weight dragging downward, the constant movement inside me. It feels impossible that my skin can stretch any farther. Impossible that my body can still contain all this life straining to be born.
I let out a broken gasp as pain tightens through my lower abdomen.
And the man just pulls me back more firmly against him, one hand spread possessively across the front of my belly while the other supports its crushing weight underneath.
“Easy”, he says softly. “You're going to make a scene.”
