Chapter 3: Belly Up

7:00 a.m.

The pop wakes you up.

It’s always a pop.

Not a magical chime or a soft whisper or some elegant wisp of smoke. No.

A wet pop, like a suction cup losing faith.

Then: muffled screaming.

You crack open one eye and look down.

A woman—brown hair, freckles, wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt that has definitely seen better days—is writhing against you in confused horror, her entire face mashed against your lower abdomen like she’d passed out hugging a radiator.

You groan. “Not again.”

Her voice comes out as a series of panicked grunts and wet consonants. It sounds like she is trying to curse you out through a mouthful of lint.

That’s when you recognize her.

“Oh no.”

This isn’t a stranger. This is Maddy. As in Madison Byrne. As in “your sister’s best friend since middle school.” As in the girl who used to come over to your house with Lisa and eat all your cereal and call you “buttface” until she went off to college.

And now she is glued—face-first—to your stomach. Her nose buried somewhere just below your navel, her arms pinned at her sides, her muffled voice vibrating directly through your core like she is trying to summon an earthquake from your spleen.

You panic. Not because she is stuck—that’s just Tuesday now—but because Maddy is a real person. With a LinkedIn profile. And probably a fiancé.

“Maddy? Maddy, listen—don’t freak out—”

She freaks out.

Her head shakes violently. Her hair tickles places hair should not tickle. Her forehead thuds against your solar plexus in a rhythm that can only be interpreted as “Let me go, you goddamn pervert!”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen!” you wheeze, trying to sit up. “It’s a genie thing! Technically this is my fault but not like—intentionally!”

She screams. Which you only know because you feel it in your pancreas.

7:41 a.m.

You give up trying to explain.

She isn’t calming down. Not that you can blame her. You are a shirtless man explaining mystical consequences to a woman whose face is currently absorbing heat from your belly like a flesh-based electric blanket.

You pull on a hoodie. Carefully. Like threading a very angry needle.

Then you type out a message on your phone:

“Sorry. Magic curse. Lasts 24 hrs. You’ll be fine. Don’t panic. Want toast?”

She doesn’t reply. But she does try to bite you. So you make toast anyway.

9:12 a.m. – At work

At this point, the staff has stopped asking questions. They just give you space. A wide, semi-circle of disgust and confusion. You have become the office’s radioactive curiosity—don’t touch, don’t look directly, and absolutely do not try to sit next to him at meetings.

Maddy makes tiny angry huffing noises every time someone looks at you.

You pass Linda in HR. She glares at you. “Still doing the whole… stunt?”

“It’s not a stunt.”

“Then what would you call it?”

“Unethical wish fulfillment with escalating consequences.”

She rolls her eyes. “Pervert.”

Maddy grunts in agreement.

12:30 p.m. – The Break Room

Jeremy from IT walks in, sees you, and freezes like he’s walked in on a pagan ritual. “...Is she okay?”

You sigh. “She’s fine. Just… not thrilled.”

Maddy groans, long and low, like a **** rattle through your bellybutton.

“You know what this looks like, right?” Jeremy asks.

You glare at him. “Yes. I’m aware it looks like she’s going to town on my torso like it’s an overpriced sushi roll. It’s not. Her mouth is literally on my abs, Jeremy.”

Jeremy nods solemnly. “You’re a brave man.”

You want to die.

6:09 p.m.

You’ve made it through work. Technically. If “making it through” means being shamed by a parade of coworkers, accidentally elbowing someone in the eye while trying to fill out a report, and ending the day with someone filing an anonymous ethics complaint titled "Hostile Pelvic Conduct.”

Now you are home.

Well—I am home. Maddy is still stuck to you like a resentful parasite with a grudge and no sense of personal space.

You stand in the kitchen awkwardly, shirt hiked up, trying to make pasta without splashing boiling water on her scalp. Maddy's head lolls against your stomach, her cheek pressed to skin, muffled sighs of exhausted defeat vibrating through your torso like an old car engine.

"You okay?" you ask.

"MRMFFHMHH," she replies.

You sigh. "That’s fair."

You had offered her a smoothie. She’d declined via aggressive snort. Now you are boiling pasta with one hand and trying to Google “how to emotionally support someone who’s been magically fused to your torso for 24 hours” with the other.

Spoiler: no helpful results.

8:42 p.m. – Netflix and Mutual Resentment

You queue up a movie. Something dumb. Something loud. You need background noise for the silence.

Maddy has shifted slightly. Her nose is still in your stomach, but her forehead now rests on your hipbone. An upgrade, if you squint.

You hold the popcorn bowl just above her hair. “Want some?”

She grunts.

You gently tilt the bowl. She snaps up a kernel with surprising speed. It is like feeding an angry otter strapped to your body.

“Hey,” you say after a while, “I meant what I said earlier. I didn’t choose you. This is some monkey’s paw bullshit. I wished for something dumb and horny and the universe turned it into performance art.”

A long pause.

Then she whispers—barely audible—“You were always weird.”

You almost laugh. “Yeah, well. You were always mean.”

“Better than being the kind of guy who wishes for… this.”

Fair.

11:03 p.m. – The Bathroom Situation

There’s no polite way to describe what happens next.

Suffice it to say: you have to pee. And Maddy is still attached to the front of you.

You negotiate. Badly.

She closes her eyes. You turn away. You aim. She whimpers. You try not to cry.

By the end of it, you are both traumatized in entirely different but equally permanent ways.

1:17 a.m. – The Bed Situation

Your bed is not designed for two people.

It definitely wasn’t designed for two people physically fused together at the waist.

You lay on your back, legs splayed. Maddy lay half-on, half-off you, her head still mashed into your torso like a very angry cat refusing to admit it needs warmth.

“You good?” you ask quietly.

She doesn’t answer. Just gives a soft, exhausted wheeze.

Then, just as you are starting to drift off, you hear her voice—barely a whisper.

“…this is gonna make Thanksgiving so weird.”

You **** out a laugh in spite of yourself. “You’re assuming I get invited to Thanksgiving after this.”

Another pause.

Then: “You better still bring pie.”

7:00 a.m. – Freedom

And then—like a whispered apology from a long-suffering universe—

pop.

She vanishes.

No goodbyes. No final insult. Just a cold patch where her cheek had been and a crumpled note on the floor that reads:

“You are the worst person I’ve ever known. Tell your sister she still owes me fifty bucks.”

Fair.