#clothes ripping

Hello again, it’s been a while. I’m back and gained some extra pounds.

Rain tapped softly against the apartment windows while Mara stood in front of the open fridge, staring at the leftovers.

Not because she was hungry.

Not really.

It was habit now.

The cold light spilled across her body, over the soft curve pressing against the waistband of her leggings, over the oversized shirt she’d stolen from Noah months ago and never given back. She barely noticed the way the fabric clung to her anymore.

Behind her, the couch creaked.

“You’re doing the thing again,” Noah said lazily.

Mara rolled her eyes, though a smile tugged at her mouth. “What thing?”

“The standing-in-front-of-the-fridge-for-ten-minutes thing.”

“I’ve been here thirty seconds.”

“Mm.” He didn’t argue. “So you’re deciding between pasta or ice cream?”

She sighed dramatically.

“That obvious?”

“To me? Yeah.”

For a moment, she just stood there with one hand braced against the fridge door.

Six months ago, that comment would’ve made her defensive immediately. She would’ve laughed too loudly, claimed she’d eaten light all day, promised she was “getting back on track tomorrow.”

Now?

Now she just felt tired.

Tired of pretending she wasn’t hungry all the time.

Tired of squeezing into jeans that left angry marks across her stomach.

Tired of swearing every Monday would somehow be different.

Her fingers drifted unconsciously beneath the hem of the shirt, rubbing at the soft weight of her belly.

Noah noticed.

He always noticed.

“You want me to heat it up?” he asked.

The question settled over the room with dangerous softness.

Not judgmental.

Not mocking.

Normal.

That was the part that had changed her the most.

Not the teasing.

Not the comments.

Not even the weight itself.

It was the way he’d slowly stopped treating this like a temporary phase.

And somehow… so had she.

Mara closed the fridge with a quiet thump.

“Maybe just a little.”

Noah snorted from the couch. “You said that last night.”

“And?”

“And then you ate enough pasta for a family of four.”

Heat crept into her cheeks automatically, but it didn’t sting the way it used to.

She turned toward him with a tired glare instead. “You’re annoying.”

“You still want me to make it?”

A pause.

Then she exhaled through her nose and muttered:

“Please.”

That single word lodged somewhere deep in her chest.

Because it felt honest.

No bargaining.

No pretending.

No performance.

Just relief.

Noah disappeared into the kitchen while Mara lowered herself onto the couch carefully beside the warm indentation he’d left behind. The cushions dipped beneath her more than they used to. She noticed it automatically now. The apartment had become full of tiny adjustments like that.

How she sat.

How she crossed her legs.

How she leaned against counters for support after big meals.

Little accommodations.

Tiny surrenders.

She pulled the blanket over her lap as the microwave hummed.

Her phone buzzed on the coffee table.

A notification from the gym app she still hadn’t deleted.

We miss you, Mara!

She stared at it for a long moment before locking the screen again.

Noah returned carrying a steaming bowl and a fork.

The portion was enormous.

Mara looked up at him flatly. “That’s not ‘a little.’”

He sat beside her again, one arm stretching across the back of the couch.

“You say that every time too.”

She should’ve argued.

Instead, she took the bowl.

The first bite was still too hot, rich and creamy and comforting enough to make her eyes close briefly.

Noah watched the reaction happen.

That quiet little moment of satisfaction.

And God, she hated how seen she felt around him now.

Not because he exposed her.

Because he understood her.

Halfway through the bowl, her shirt had ridden up slightly, exposing the underside of her stomach where it rested heavily against her thighs.

Months ago she would’ve yanked the fabric down instantly.

Now she just kept eating.

Noah’s hand settled there absentmindedly, warm and heavy.

Mara froze for barely a second before relaxing again.

The touch felt familiar now.

Dangerously familiar.

“You’re staring,” she muttered.

“I’m appreciating.”

She snorted softly, but her fork slowed.

His thumb rubbed once against the curve of her stomach.

Not grabbing.

Not pushing.

Just feeling.

“You know,” he said quietly, “you don’t fight me anymore.”

Mara stared down into the bowl.

Rain whispered against the windows.

“I think,” she admitted slowly, “I got tired of fighting myself first.”

Silence.

Then Noah leaned closer against her side, warm and solid.

And for the first time in months, Mara didn’t feel guilt twisting beneath her ribs as she finished every last bite.

*

Saturday afternoons at the grocery store had become strategic.

Loose shirt.

Black leggings.

Long cardigan.

Layers.

Mara used to dress carefully because she liked fashion.

Now she dressed carefully because she was hiding.

Or trying to.

The cart rolled slowly beside her while Noah tossed things into it with casual confidence—frozen pizza, chips, fresh bread, two cartons of ice cream.

Mara watched another package of pastries disappear into the cart.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“You’ll thank me later.”

“I literally won’t.”

“You literally will.”

She tried not to smile.

The bakery section smelled warm and sweet, thick with butter and sugar, and she already felt too warm beneath her cardigan. The grocery trip had only lasted twenty minutes, but her cheeks were flushed, her thighs rubbed together with every step, and a dull tightness pressed across the front of her leggings whenever she bent the wrong way.

She knew these leggings were pushing their luck.

She’d known while putting them on.

But the larger pair was in the laundry.

And she refused to buy another size up.

Not yet.

Noah reached past her for a loaf of bread, his hand brushing lightly against her waist as he did.

“You okay?”

“Fine.”

A lie.

The waistband was digging mercilessly into the underside of her stomach now, compressing soft flesh upward beneath her shirt. Every breath made her aware of it.

Still, she ignored it.

That had become another habit too.

Ignore.

Adjust.

Keep moving.

At the end of the aisle, Mara crouched to grab a case of soda from the lower shelf.

The movement immediately pulled the fabric taut across her hips and thighs.

Too taut.

Her stomach compressed painfully against her lap.

And then—

rrrip.

Small.

Quiet.

But unmistakable.

Mara froze.

For one horrible second, she stayed crouched there, staring straight ahead while heat flooded violently into her face.

Noah stopped beside the cart.

“Mara?”

She swallowed hard.

“Oh my God.”

His expression changed instantly.

Not cruel.

Not even surprised.

Just immediate understanding.

“Mara,” he said carefully, “stand up.”

“I don’t want to.”

That made him bite back a smile, which only worsened her humiliation.

A couple passed nearby with a cart.

Mara stayed perfectly still until they disappeared around the corner.

Then, slowly—painfully—she stood.

The split ran along the upper inner seam of her leggings, stretched thin from months of denial and one too many “they still technically fit” arguments in the mirror.

Mara grabbed the hem of her cardigan instantly, yanking it downward.

“Oh my God,” she whispered again, horrified.

Noah looked at her for exactly one second before looking away politely.

That somehow made it worse.

“You were right,” he said mildly.

“I know I was right.”

“No, don’t do that,” she muttered miserably. “Don’t be nice about it.”

His mouth twitched.

“I’m trying very hard.”

She covered her face briefly.

The humiliation burned hot beneath her skin—not just because it happened, but because some awful part of her had known this was coming eventually.

Too many mornings sucking in her stomach to pull these on.

Too many waistbands leaving deep red grooves.

Too many quiet little warnings ignored.

Noah stepped closer, lowering his voice.

“Can you walk okay?”

“Yes.”

“Mara.”

“Yes,” she snapped softly. “I can walk. They’re not exploding off my body.”

His eyes flicked downward involuntarily.

That tiny glance nearly killed her.

Because there was no shock in it anymore.

Just confirmation.

His hand settled gently at the small of her back as they started toward the front of the store.

Protective.

Guiding.

Familiar.

Mara kept tugging the cardigan lower every few steps, face burning whenever anyone walked past them.

“Noah,” she whispered tightly after a moment.

“Mm?”

“I think this is officially the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“No,” he said calmly. “The worst thing would’ve been if you wore the jeans.”

Despite herself, a broken laugh escaped her.

“Noah.”

“I’m serious. We’d be calling emergency services.”

She shoved weakly at his arm, mortified and laughing at the same time.

And that was the dangerous thing about him.

Even now—even standing in a grocery store with split leggings and humiliation clawing up her throat—he made her feel safe enough to survive it.

That comfort settled heavily in her chest.

Because deep down, Mara knew what this moment really meant.

Not that her clothes didn’t fit anymore.

That she’d reached the point where both of them had expected it eventually.

*

The apartment was quiet except for the soft clink of takeout containers settling onto the coffee table.

Rain again.

It always seemed to rain lately.

Mara sat curled into the corner of the couch in one of Noah’s shirts and a pair of thin sleep shorts that pressed tightly into the tops of her thighs. The fabric had ridden up gradually over the evening, exposing more and more soft skin, but she’d stopped fussing with it an hour ago.

The grocery store humiliation still lingered faintly in her chest.

Not sharp anymore.

Just warm.

Heavy.

Noah dropped onto the couch beside her with a tired sigh, one arm immediately settling behind her shoulders.

“You survived,” he said.

“I barely survived.”

“You laughed.”

“That was trauma laughter.”

He grinned.

Mara tried to glare at him, but her expression melted halfway there.

Dinner sat half-finished between them. She was already full in the deep, aching way she’d once hated—stomach heavy, body warm, limbs sluggish with satisfaction.

Now the feeling just made her sink deeper into the couch.

Noah’s hand drifted absently down her side while they watched television neither of them were paying attention to.

His palm paused at her waist.

Then lower.

Resting fully against the curve of her stomach.

Mara inhaled quietly.

Even after all these months, that still did something to her.

Not shock.

Not embarrassment.

Something softer.

His hand fit there too naturally now.

The weight of it spread beneath his touch, soft and warm through the thin cotton of the shirt. His thumb moved once, slowly, feeling the shape of her.

Not hiding anymore.

Not sucking in.

Just her.

“You know what I realized today?” Noah murmured.

Mara eyed him suspiciously. “That I should never squat in public again?”

“That too.”

She groaned and covered her face.

But his hand stayed where it was, grounding her.

“I realized,” he continued quietly, “you stopped disappearing.”

Her hands lowered slowly.

“What?”

“You used to spend half your life trying to make yourself smaller around me.”

Mara looked away instinctively.

Because he was right.

Always tugging shirts downward.

Crossing her arms over her stomach.

Turning off lights while changing.

Apologizing for every bite she ate.

Noah shifted closer beside her.

“And now,” he said softly, “you actually let me look at you.”

The room suddenly felt very warm.

Mara swallowed.

“I don’t know when that changed.”

“I do.”

His fingers spread gently across her middle, palm curving over the fullness there like something precious.

“It changed when you realized I wasn’t waiting for you to become someone else.”

The words hit harder than she expected.

Months ago she would’ve deflected immediately with sarcasm or embarrassment.

Tonight she just sat there breathing quietly while his hand rested on her body.

Present.

Certain.

Adoring.

Noah leaned forward slightly, pressing a slow kiss against the soft slope of her shoulder where the oversized collar had slipped loose.

Then another near her neck.

Unhurried.

Mara’s eyes fluttered shut.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” he murmured.

The statement should’ve conflicted with everything she saw in the mirror lately.

The stretch marks.

The softness.

The body that had slowly outgrown denial, then resistance, then old versions of itself entirely.

Instead, exhaustion loosened something inside her.

Because he touched her like none of those things were flaws to work around.

His hand moved slowly over her stomach, appreciating the shape of it openly now, reverently almost, and Mara felt heat bloom across her skin.

Not humiliation this time.

Exposure.

Acceptance.

She leaned back against him with a shaky breath, letting her body settle fully into the couch cushions and into his touch with all its weight.

No hiding.

No strategic posture.

No careful angles.

Just softness.

Noah kissed her temple.

“You know what your problem is?” he asked quietly.

Mara huffed a laugh. “There are so many options.”

“You still think I’m teasing you because I enjoy embarrassing you.”

She tilted her head slightly toward him.

“Aren’t you?”

“A little,” he admitted easily. “But mostly I tease you because you still don’t understand what I see.”

His hand pressed gently against her stomach again, slow and warm and deliberate enough to make her cheeks flush.

“Mara,” he said softly, “I love this.”

The simplicity of it undid her more than anything dramatic could have.

Not obsession.

Not mockery.

Not fetishized hunger.

Just certainty.

She looked down at herself then—the heavy softness beneath Noah’s hand, the way her thighs spread against the couch cushion, the body she had spent so long fighting.

And for the first time, the sight didn’t fill her with panic.

Only a strange, aching vulnerability.

Noah pulled her closer against his chest as rain whispered against the windows again.

The takeout containers sat forgotten on the table.

The television glowed softly in the dark.

His hand remained warm over her stomach.

Amberpricefield Gets Monstar-Sized

An audio inspired by the Monstar transformation scene from Space Jam.

Video and Audio by me.

Music: James Newton Howard

The cockroach skittered across Ryan's desk just as he opened his mouth to speak. He hesitated, watching its spindly legs pause on the edge of his chemistry notebook—right over the half-erased doodle of Lily's name he'd been absently tracing all afternoon. His throat felt lined with sandpaper.

“I have to tell you something.” The words came out too loud, making Lily jump slightly on his bed where she sat cross-legged, her knees pressing into the seams of his thrifted Star Wars comforter.

“You’re gay aren’t you?” she blurted, then immediately clapped a hand over her mouth, her bitten-down nails catching the yellow glow of his desk lamp. Ryan froze, his pulse hammering in a way that had nothing to do with the confession he’d practiced.

Because the truth was so much worse than that.

“No, it’s—I think I might be an incubus,” Ryan choked out, his fingers twitching against his thighs like they were trying to claw their way back into his pockets. Lily’s eyebrows shot up, her mouth falling open slightly before she burst into laughter—sharp, disbelieving barks that ricocheted off the cinderblock walls.

“All I think about is sex and doing dirty things.” Ryan’s voice cracked, his fingers digging into the worn fabric of his jeans. The confession hung between them, thick and ugly, as Lily’s laughter died abruptly. “Dude that’s just being a normal guy. Congratulations! Your balls finally dropped.”

Ryan shook his head violently. “No. Every single day.” His breath hitched as he forced the next words out. “And lately…people around me just start acting…weird.” The unspoken accusation hung between them—her showing up at his dorm unannounced tonight, her pupils dilated, her skin feverish whenever she leaned too close.

Lily’s scoff died halfway as she inhaled sharply. His scent—something musky and electric—hit her like a physical blow. She moaned before she could stop herself, her thighs pressing together involuntarily. Her cheeks burned crimson as she gripped the comforter, her knuckles whitening. “What the fuck was that?” she hissed, but her hips rocked forward slightly against the mattress.

“Ungh your moan. I can’t fight this urge anymore!” Ryan growled as he grabbed her hips and dragged her closer to the edge of the bed. Before Lily could protest, his fingers hooked into the waistband of her sweatpants and yanked them down past her knees in one rough motion. His hot breath already ghosted over her damp panties as she gasped, her thighs instinctively spreading wider—whether to push him away or pull him closer, even she couldn’t tell.

“Ryan wait why… mmm yes don’t stop!” Lily arched off the bed as his tongue licked a hot stripe through her soaked panties, her fingers twisting in his hair—half shoving, half clinging—as the conflicting sensations short-circuited her thoughts. She could feel him smiling against her thigh, his teeth scraping lightly over the lace edge before tugging it aside with his chin, exposing her completely. The shock of cool air against her bare skin made her gasp, but the wet heat of his mouth closing over her clit drowned the sound in a choked moan.

Lily trembled violently, her legs locking around Ryan’s head as he sucked hard, swirling his tongue in tight circles that sent electric jolts up her spine. Her orgasm hit her like a freight train—sudden and brutal—her whole body seizing as she came with a strangled scream, her hips jerking uncontrollably against his face. Ryan groaned into her, lapping at her frantically as she pulsed around his tongue, her thighs shaking against his ears. She barely registered the warm trickle of his precum soaking through his jeans where he rutted against the bedframe, his own hips stuttering wildly.

“You taste so good Lily. I think I feel better now.” Ryan gasped against her thigh, his breath ragged as he pulled away—only for his entire body to suddenly seize up. His back arched violently as tendons popped like guitar strings tuning themselves, shoulders broadening under his stretched-thin t-shirt. Lily watched in mute horror as his biceps swelled against the sleeves, the fabric splitting at the seams with a sound like cracking ice.

And between his thighs—god, between his thighs—his cock twitched visibly through his jeans, straining against denim as it thickened obscenely, the zipper teeth groaning under the pressure. A wet spot bloomed wider where his precum soaked through, the scent of him—thick and heavy like ozone before a storm—making Lily’s mouth water even as her rational mind screamed.

“I’m going to fuck the shit out of you.”

Ryan’s voice came out deeper—wrong—as his jawline sharpened like a blade being honed mid-strike. Lily barely had time to process how his once-boyish features twisted into something predatory and devastatingly handsome before he flipped her onto her stomach, his palm pressing between her shoulder blades with terrifying ease. His other hand hooked into the waistband of her panties and tore them clean off with a sound like ripping paper, the frayed lace fluttering to the floor beside her discarded sweatpants.

Ryan thrusts as he loses his virginity—not gentle, not hesitant—but with a single brutal snap of his hips that buried him to the hilt inside her unprepared body. Lily screamed, her fingers clawing at the comforter as her back arched violently, her toes curling against the mattress. The pain burned white-hot for one excruciating second before dissolving into something else entirely—her walls fluttering around him instinctively, greedy, as if her body recognized what her mind couldn’t: that she was made for this, for him. Ryan groaned like a dying man granted salvation, his cock twitching inside her as precum leaked in thick pulses against her cervix.

They howl like beasts as Ryan fucks with no emotion—only hunger, only need. His hips pistoned into her with relentless precision, each thrust driving her face deeper into the pillow, her muffled cries lost beneath the wet slap of skin and the creaking protest of the bedframe. Lily sobbed as her second orgasm ripped through her without warning, her vision whiting out as her cunt clamped down on him in rhythmic spasms. Ryan barely noticed, his rhythm never faltering, his fingers digging bruises into her hips as he chased his own release with single-minded intensity.

Lily felt herself orgasm over and over as Ryan fed off her pleasure—his cock swelling impossibly thicker inside her with each choked whimper she made, his inhuman stamina fueled by the way her body convulsed around him. Her third climax came before she even caught her breath from the last, her thighs slick with sweat and arousal as Ryan bent her spine into a sharper arch, his teeth sinking into the nape of her neck. The sharp sting sent another wave of pleasure crashing through her, her scream dissolving into a broken moan as she came again—her body no longer hers to control.

Ryan’s thrusts grew erratic, his hips stuttering against her ass as his breath came in ragged, snarling gasps. Lily could feel the moment his control snapped—his fingers tightening in her hair as he dragged her head back, his other hand clamping over her mouth to stifle her screams. His cock pulsed violently inside her, flooding her with heat as he came with a guttural roar, his hips grinding deep as if trying to fuse them together. She felt every throb, every twitch—her own climax crashing into his, her vision tunneling as her body milked him greedily.

“You really are an incubus.”

"Wear the tights," he'd say, and she'd narrow her eyes because she knew exactly how this ended. It always ended the same way - his breath warm on her neck, his fingers impatient, the tights sacrificed to whatever dark and urgent god he prayed to.