Gut Reaction
One day I noticed that my belly had got so large that it appeared to be a separate person grafted onto the real me. I wondered how I knew so little about this stranger I was carrying about. I knew he must be very shy, for he had never introduced himself, or even shown his face. I had seen him quaking when something funny had happened, so I surmised he had a quiet sense of humour, but what had led him to bond with me? Was he hiding from the responsibilities and expectations thrust upon us all by a judgmental world?
I shouted to him – nothing too confrontational, obviously; but he just seemed to stiffen a bit and I thought he wanted me to stop.
I asked my mother if she knew anything about my belly, but she was busy wrestling wet sheets and just dismissed my enquiry with some disparaging remark about him. And right then I understood why my belly was so shy: no-one who saw him could resist giving voice to their derision, especially if they were children or Catholics.
I recalled with a shock that I had, myself, addressed my mirror image in a gratuitously abusive tone, when I could no longer pull off the deceptive postures of earlier times. Little wonder this poor fellow was catatonic!
I resolved to help him.
I rubbed him comfortingly and told him in intimate tones that I cared about him and that he could trust me. No vindictive diets or brutal gym programs for me! I undertook to cease sleeping on him (though I have to admit I broke this impetuous promise immediately).
I stopped crushing him with tight clothes, and (what a masterstroke!) I began making him appear in public, between my pants and top. This gave him a tan, but he gave no sign of coming out. I was disappointed at this until I hit on the idea of rubbing him against other such unfortunates, but of the female persuasion. This changed our lives. We discovered that an astonishing number of Rubenesque women wanted to share their belly issues with us. As an icebreaker, this was way better than a dog or a baby, offering as it does, immediate navel engagement without the forensic complications of what the French call “frottage”.
My belly and I turned a corner; we went viral on social media and very soon we had a cult following. Everyone wanted to try it, though of course, skinny people just came off as try-hards.
These days, my belly and I are comfortably off, what with appearance fees, endorsements and the lecture circuit. It turned out that our partnership is not uncommon and people were sick of feeling bad about it. I should have foreseen that the LGBTHRTSA (or whatever the hell it is) community would get jealous of our coming out so…lucratively, but so far there has been no talk about marriage rights for people and their bellies.
I’m often pressed on the moral philosophy which informs our little movement. Since we never thought much about what we were doing, but don’t want to appear shallow, I usually mumble something about spiritual bonds transcending the flesh, and wave vaguely in the direction of the global village. This sort of stuff really flies with the pseudo intellectual mags.
So that’s it. It’s a simple story that turned out well – like fast food and corporations. There’s a lesson there for all of us.