Erica’s heart races, its drumming in time with her rapid footsteps. Blue afterimages dance across her retina, like she stared into the sun. Maybe she really did—plants were supposed to grow better with sunlight, after all.
“No. Nononno,” she breathes, frantically looking left and right. Blueberry nail polish. Blueberry fitness bars. Everything reminds her of the incident.
Her eyes water, and she suspects they’re slipping from her natural brown into a rich azure. She pretends they’re watering from the supermarket’s cheap fluorescents.
“I shouldn’t have gone out,” She whispers. Her hands fumble for her phone. “I wasn’t ready. I don’t. I can’t.”
Erica knows that she isn’t making sense. She knows that noting has made sense since that fateful tour. She doesn’t care. Her fingers tremble as they tap a familiar number.
A faint stab of regret clutches at her heart. Doctor Thomas will be disappointed in her. But at least he’ll know what to do.
“Hello?” His voice sounds tinny through the speaker. “Miss Murphy? Is that you?”
“I’m having an incident,” she says into the phone. She wants to say more. She wants to say how she was doing so well, until coming across the produce aisle. She wants to say that she can’t stop thinking about fruit.
“Stay calm.” His tone tells her that she already knows. “Remember your mantra.”
Her breasts rise and fall as she struggles to catch her breath. It feels like it’s rising more than it’s falling, and Erica whimpers.
“Stay calm. We’ll be there soon,” Doctor Thomas speaks reassuringly at first; then slower, as though he’s lecturing a child. “Remember… Your…”
“Mantra,” Erica finishes for him, steadying herself. Her chest rises, and this time she’s sure it won’t fall. Still, she tries to hold the changes back. She tries to hold the berry at bay.
The phone clicks, and she is left alone near the pharmacy. For a second, she can only hear her quiet breathing.
Her belly gurgles.
“I am a girl. I am not a berry.” Erica’s voice is defiant, despite the tremble to her tone. She doesn’t want to relapse. “I don’t roll. I don’t swell. I don’t feel full or funny.”
Her belly rumbles, more insistently. The sound is echoed by her butt and by her thighs, and they jiggle, and they swell. A small snap marks the death of her thong. She feels it flutter past her thighs, past her ankles.
Erica mewls pitifully, reaching behind herself. Her callipygian frame lifts her skirt, showing off a creamy pale backside that’s slowly becoming blue. Like food coloring dropped into a glass of milk, the cool-shaded ink swirls beneath the surface of her skin.
“I am a girl. I am not a berry.” As she speaks, her hands wander towards her breasts. They’re larger, heavier, and softer. Her thumbs press against her nipples, which stiffen even beneath her taut bra. The last blue creeps across her cheeks in time for them to flush. Given her current skin’s tone, the expression looks purple.
Two months. Two months on two legs. Already she craves a return to simplicity with each breath in, and dreads it with each breath out.
Breathe in. Swell. Breathe out. Whimper.
Her clothes dig into her bigger body, for but a moment. Then small runs dance across the fabric, exposing soft, eager, blue skin.
“I… I don’t roll. I don’t swell. I don’t feel full or—” She hisses through her teeth as a particularly pleasurable jiggle gives her a muffin top. Her belly pokes over her waistband, and the kiss of air against her stomach nearly sends her to her knees. “Fuh… Nghee…”
Erica breathes in and out, in and out. Each breath in seems to linger, puffing her up wider and wider like a balloon. But she knows it’s not air. Air doesn’t slosh like a snow globe.
More snaps. More pops. Fabric flutters to the ground around her.
“Immagirlnotaberrynorollnoswell,” she rushes through the first part, and grits her teeth. Her palms press against her taut, swelling stomach. “I. Do. Not. Feel. Full.”
It’s a lie. It’s a weak lie, and Erica knows it. Worse, her body knows it. There’s no time to finish the mantra, not before her body swells more. She becomes round, all trace of the feminine hourglass now replaced by a fruity globe.
Her arms lift. Her legs spread. For a moment, she looks like she’s stretching. Then she falls pussy-first onto the ground. She wails in pleasure and self-loathing, realizing that her yoga bod now resembles a yoga ball, realizing that she secretly loves it.
“I am a girl. I am…” Erica pants raggedly, hyperventilating. Her blue eyes spiral as she slips back into the world that once so claimed her. “I am a berry. I don’t roll yet but let me swell please!”
When did her voice get so loud? When were there so many people at this supermarket? What are they talking about? Why are they all staring?
Erica blushes, but can’t stop herself from rocking back and forth, gliding her sex against the tattered remains of her clothing, soaking them in blue. There’s a taboo thrill that comes with being watched like this, and she drinks it in.
“I feel funny!” Tears trail down her cheeks, no longer of sadness but now of pleasure and sweet relief. She’s finally done it, she’s admitted everything that she is and everything she’s ever wanted to be.
“I’m not a girl! I’m a berry!” Her hands flap, giving her turgid body enough momentum to rock back and forth. Pleasure claims her, the simple bliss that comes from blue. “I want to roll I want to swell I want to feel full and funny please!”
Erica tenses, from head to wiggling toe. The moment stretches, just like her old outfit.
Just like her old outfit, the moment shatters, and yields to unending ecstasy.
And Erica surrenders once more to the berry within.