I’m now in my third trimester.

When I walk, it is with an ungainly, awkward waddle, a laborious process that more often than not leaves me cradling my tight, swollen belly with one hand. Nanaki enjoys seeing me lurch about and gently teases me over it, to which I sometimes lightly bop him on his nose or ruffle his mane. More often than not, though, he leans into the crook where my breasts meet my belly, purring, or gifts me with small, delicate licks on my belly that drag so very sweetly on the taut skin. Sometimes when he does this, our young squirm and tumble in response, and I rest there with one hand in my mate’s fur and the other gently caressing my tummy, basking in their movement.

But I rarely walk, now. Instead, I prefer to rest in and around the den. Right now, I am sitting on a flat stone by the nearby book. Nanaki is padding through the nearby flower field, and it would be a perfect afternoon were it not for the scientists on the far end of the glass, observing and cataloguing our movements.

I try to banish them from my mind. There are more pressing matters to attend to. My breasts—which are nice and swollen, at least a full cup size from what they were before—ache. They’ve been tender throughout my pregnancy, as to be expected, with certain days being worse than others. But the past half-week or so has been a never-ceasing, mounting tide of tenderness that refuses to abate. Now there’s a pressure in them that won’t go away.

Nanaki finishes his activity and pads over to me, his tail swishing in concern. “What’s the matter?” he asks.

I eye him, trying not to hiss at the aching sensation as I gently knead my breasts. “They’re so—sore,” I say, grunting. “I can’t—a-ah…”

He huffs a heavy breath out his nostrils and then pads closer to me. “I think I might try to help,” he says. “If…”

“Do it,” I hiss, and he complies.