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Description

This story is a sequel to "All in the Name of Science" and "Further Testing." It is suggested that you read these and other writings in this setting first. Although less-extreme than the other stories, similar content warnings apply.
  This story was written solely through the support of one of my Patrons, who graciously donated for me to write it. The support I get through Patreon really helps me continue my work, especially with everything going on in the world right now. Thank you all for your love and support <3
—
    Dr Kallie Chao let out a long and relaxing sigh as she sank back into the water. There was a lot to dislike about her job (the cold, the isolation, the lack of human interaction), but the C144 Research Site had its perks: namely, the plentiful hotsprings that dotted the area. Most of them were occupied by the Squiddos which populated the area, but there was an isolated pool up on the hill the research site was built into which was Squiddo-free (they avoided the hills) and the various researchers who had worked at the site over time had set it up to be a place relax.
    It was a long way from a spa, but a bluetooth speaker, some nice candles, and a bottle of wine did a great deal to class the place up.
    Kallie took a sip of wine and felt good about this evening.
    There was a small splash as something entered the water at the other end of the pool. She opened her eyes and watched as a familiar, dark shape crawled towards her beneath the surface.
    A tentacle grasped her ankle and the Squiddo pulled itself into her lap, wrapping its many limbs around her legs and waist, squeezing and rubbing her skin in a sign of affection.
    “Hey there, A77,” she patted the creature with her hand, and it clung to her as though looking to be pulled up out of the water. “Not hanging out with your friends tonight?”
    A77 spun around happily, splashing its tentacles in the water.
    Kallie wrapped her arms around it, holding it against her body. Squiddos were warm and smooth and felt good against the skin; though not exactly soft, they were great huggers (if you could get past their unusual appearance).
    A77, ever hungry for attention, responded by hugging her back and tickling her sides, causing her to laugh and squirm in its grasp.
    “Hey! Stop that!” she laughed, swiping at the tentacles to get them away from her ticklish spots. A77 switched to rolling against her, pressing its central body against her chest. As it did, the tips of its tentacles flicked and rubbed against her nipples, quickly hardening them into firm points.
    “What is with you?!” she asks, still laughing. She held its body away from her and it reached out, rubbing her face, neck, and chest with its tentacles. “Why are you always so horny? Your species doesn’t even have sex.”
    Still holding the Squiddo at bay, she picked up her phone and activated the voice recorder.
    “Note: Check blood for hormone-level differences pre- and post-physical social interaction. It’s possible such activity causes serotonin or dopamine release.”
    Setting her phone back down, she returned her attention to A77, playing with it as she often did. This meant mostly wrestling, A77 wrapping its many tentacles around her arms, hands, fingers, and flexing its powerful muscles to move and pull her, while she fought against it. A77 was strong but very gentle, and seemed to get a lot out of this kind of physical exertion, and Kallie enjoyed it, too. It was kind of fun, like playing tug-of-war with a dog, except you’re the toy getting tugged on.
    Fun, but extremely tiring. C144s weren’t much bigger than a large cat, but like an octopus they were all muscle, and very compact, A77 weighing a bit over 11kg and being mostly the size of a large microwave, if compressed (though, being all tentacles, it was difficult to get a meaningful size measurement).
    “Alright, that’s enough of that,” she said as she pulled free, signalling that play time was over. “I’m here to relax, not work on my upper-body strength.”
    A77 settled down for a little bit, resting in her lap like a bowling ball, content for the time-being to just be close to her.
    After awhile, A77 began to stir again, swishing its limbs about, doing that little thing where it pressed the narrow tip of a tentacle against her skin and swirled it in a little circle. It was almost-ticklish, and something Kallie knew very well.
    “Okay,” she sighed, knowing what it meant. She did her best to sound disinterested.
    Kallie re-seated herself, leaning back a bit and spreading her legs. A77 rolled down between her thighs and immediately wrapped its tendrils around her legs and hips, squeezing with a firm pressure that sent a shiver up her spine.
    A77 rubbed and massaged her, making strong, rolling motions with its tentacles up her sides and belly, wrapping the narrowed ends of limbs around her small, high breasts. The squiddo had a particular fondness of breasts and especially nipples, perhaps due to their relative uniqueness on the body and the way they warmed and hardened when fondled.
    Three tentacles, narrowed and intertwined, flicked against her labia, once, then again, then slowly played, spreading her and making their way inward. She felt them wriggling against her inner walls, coiling against her folds but staying in the shallows, not going deeper just yet.
    Kallie began to roll her hips, an instinctive response to the tingling almost-discomfort of light stimulation, trying to get a little more, a little more. A77 held her firmly in its tentacles, allowing her just enough motion to tease herself more, but not enough to rush ahead. For an asexual creature, it was a quick learner when it came to driving its lover mad, and things in the hotspring were quickly heating up.
    Tentacles entwined themselves with Kallie’s fingers, stroked against her neck and lips. She bent backwards, arching against the Squiddo’s ministrations as it pressed deeper into her.
    A77 forced a tentacle past the others, narrowed to a fine point, which gently probed around the end of her passage, finding the small entrance of her cervix and wriggling into it. This was a slow and practiced maneuver, one it had done many times before, and as it worked against her, Kallie’s body softened and yielded, and with a rush the tentacles bloomed within her.
    Her flat stomach bulged outwards, fluttering with motion as the tentacles squirmed against the walls of her womb. A77 filled her, pressing its core body against her clitoris with exciting pressure, and she responded eagerly, grinding against the sleek smoothness of her lover.
    The tentacles continued within her, sprawling and pressing, filling her, and the heat spread up through her like fireworks. She slipped, felt for a moment the ecstasy of falling, and then was lifted up and back to the water’s edge.
    She reclined in the shallows, lost in the sensations of her body and the heat between the two of them. The world was warmth and pressure and writhing life in and around her.
    With one last, great push, A77 filled her, and she blanked in orgasm, her entire being a radiant spike of electrifying sensation, dissolving her in its intensity. She was full and taut and satisfied.
    “You…” she panted as her eyes re-focused on her surroundings. “You little brat!”
    Rising up out of the water before her was the pale and uneven surface of her now-large belly, shifting and rippling as A77 settled itself inside her womb.
    Grunting with effort, she managed to sit up, her mind and body still heaving on the aftershocks of orgasm. A77 was definitely inside of her—fully inside of her—the bulges and waves of its tentacles visible through her skin. She looked pregnant—if “pregnant with a tentacle monster” counted—and even bigger than she had when she first carried A77.
    Muttering to herself, she managed to roll over onto her side, then get to her hands and knees, her belly hanging before her into the water and almost touching the ground. It jiggled and wobbled with movement, its weight pulling her womb almost-almost-painfully out from her body.
    She settled back, kneeling, and wrapped her arms around her belly tightly, helping to balance as she got to her feet.
    “Ugh, we’ll talk about this when I get back to the dorm.”
  —
    It was not an easy trek back. Normally, she got out and wrapped up in her towel before quickly stepping into her shoes and heading down the path to the research base’s entrance; it was a cold and unpleasant journey of about a minute and a half, but well-worth an hour relaxing in the hotspring for. This time, burdened as she was with A77 inside of her, it took quite a bit more time and effort.
    For one thing, her towel nowhere near fit around her anymore, her belly sticking out through a broad gap. The night air was freezing against her bare skin, especially the stretched and sensitive expanse of her stomach. The skin almost looked pink in the lighting she’d set up around the hotspring.
    Carrying 11kg (11.45 at its last weigh-in, actually) was doable, but having it hanging off her front just above her hips made balancing and walking an uneasy situation.
    After struggling for a few minutes to put her shoes on (she could not see her feet, and could not reach them without a great deal of effort) she wrapped the towel under her arms and tied the corners across her chest, meaning it at least covered her sides and back. Then, looping her fingers under the base of her belly to help control how it moved and swayed, she began to shuffle and waddle down the path towards the base.
    Her hips began to ache, A77’s weight settling down into her pelvis as she walked, each step jolting a little. Once or twice, her occupant squirmed enough that she had to stop and rub her belly until the Squiddo calmed down once more.
    Kallie was freezing and sore she got out of the wind and into the main hall of the base, although her belly remained warm, A77 acting as a little heater inside of her. She scanned her ID at the door and quickly shuffled inside to the warmth of the dormitory corridors.
    By the time she was laying in her bed, dry and cozy and wrapped (as much as she could) in her robe, and wearing (except where her oversized t-shirt could not stretch over her huge belly) her pajamas, it wasn’t so bad. A77 settled down inside of her and the mattress eased the pressure on her spine. She lay in her little bed, looking down at herself.
    She was huge. Had she missed this? Perhaps she had. There was a familiarity to it. Perhaps it was the sex, or something to do with hormones, but she was tired and her heart softened towards her intruder.
    “Okay, but just for tonight,” she sighed, stroking her belly gently. The tentacles beneath her skin moved in response, bulging out against her hand.
    She slept well.
  —
    “Get out!” Kallie said for the hundredth time, as though A77 would listen to her stern words. “AUGH!”
    She sat in her chair at the table, slouched back with her pelvis forward and her pajamas and panties pulled down past her knees. Her huge belly wobbled ponderously on top of her, shapes moving beneath the skin as A77 ignored her commands and continued to roll around inside of her womb.
    Kallie gave up. It was getting late and she had work to do, unwanted passenger or no. She’d given him until after she finished her bowl of cereal, but even after that deadline, no amount of poking, prodding, probing, or…fishing…could convince him to leave. The closest she got was a couple of tentacles wrapping around her fingers playfully.
    “Well, you’re not going to get any food until you come out,” she said as though she were dealing with a stubborn child. Kallie didn’t actually know if C144s experienced hunger in a meaningful way, or how long they could go without food after maturing, but she hoped they got very hungry and very quickly because carrying A77 inside her all day sounded exhausting.
    Resigned to her fate, she stripped off her pajamas and awkwardly started getting dressed. Thermal underpants, socks, thermal overpants, then her undershirt and thick over-jacket. The jacket was puffy, orange, and very warm, and her best friend during her daily tasks, as it protected her from the freezing winds that whipped across the plains during the day.
    The jacket, which zipped up the front, was too small.
    She tried sitting, tried standing, tried almost rolling around on the floor in frustration, but she couldn’t get the tips of the zipper closed over her big belly. It would only zip from the bottom up, so she was left standing—red-faced with effort—in front of her mirror, her big belly hanging out over the waist of her pants, her jacket hanging open to show her dark undershirt and quite a bit of bare flesh.
    Without time to find a better solution, she put on a bigger shirt which she stretched as far as it would go over her round belly, then grabbed one of her many scarves and looped it around herself, tying it off behind her back. Between the shirt, the scarf, and the stretch of her thermals, she was able to keep her whole belly covered, which she counted as her first real victory of the day.
    Slipping on her unzipped jacket, she grabbed her equipment pack and headed out.
  —
    Kallie was very popular with the Squiddos that day.
    Normally, much of her time was spent tracking down the individuals she was to handle (tracking them by implanted chips, since they all looked mostly the same except for size variations) before actually being able to administer tests or observe the subject or do whatever else was on the schedule for the day.
    At first, Kallie was grateful; no sooner had she waddled out to the hot springs where the Squiddos made their homes than a crowd began to form around her. Over a dozen of them—ranging from a little smaller than A77 to almost half-again as large—came up out of the water, or from the snow fields around, and gathered around her, some coming close enough to poke at her legs.
    For a moment, Kallie opened up the camera on her laptop (which was flipped over into Tablet Mode for field work), but then decided against reporting this behavior as there was no way to do so without raising uncomfortable questions.
    She waited for a few minutes, resting the tablet on her belly as she opened up several applications and switched over to tracking her targets for the day, and the crowd did not disperse, the Squiddos jostling each other as they pressed in a little closer. One even snaked a tentacle up her pant leg, making her jump awkwardly, which was enough to dissuade it from further intrusion.
    It was fascinating how they all seemed to know something was different; C144 sensory organs weren’t fully understood but it was thought that they might detect infrared in a manner similar to snakes; could they sense A77 inside of her? Kallie suddenly felt very exposed, and she put a gloved hand on her belly almost-defensively.
    A77 stirred, pushing up and forward and making her shirt slide up and her scarf slide down, revealing a large crescent of taut skin to the cold air. Her navel stood out to the crowd of Squiddos, and one reached a tentacle up to touch her belly.
    “H-hey, stop that!” she stammered as she awkwardly tried to adjust her clothes, still holding her tablet in one arm. The pale skin of her belly was quickly becoming rosey in the cold wind. “Everyone just calm down and—oh!”
    She felt a shifting inside of her—a sudden descent—and her knees almost gave out as a tentacle pushed its way out of her, at first coiling tightly around her thigh and then snaking up out the top of pants. Kallie awkwardly tried to grab it, but reaching around her belly made it difficult, and the whole situation was overwhelming her senses. Her fingers grasped the tip of the tentacle, and it wrapped around them, slipping in between them playfully. She couldn’t get a grip on it.
    Kallie sank to her knees, unable to stand any longer as the tentacle pulsed and tensed within her, rubbing as its actions caused minor movements in its base. Her legs bent out to either side, her big belly between her knees, resting coldly in the snow.
    Another Squiddo squirmed its way underneath her, lifting her belly up as she leaned backwards, and began playing with the tentacle emerging from her pants. The newcomer probed at her waistband, getting a narrow tip down into her underwear.
    “N-nope! No more!” Kallie panted, shoving one hand down to cover her entrance. A77’s tentacle retreated as the other Squiddo and her hand approached. “Occupado! No vacancy; I’ve got enough in me as it is.”
    Perhaps startled, the Squiddo quickly darted back inside, and the Squiddos surrounding her pressed in closer, touching her with their warm bodies. It felt nice, especially where her scarf had slipped down and her bare skin now touched the snow. A few slipped tentacles beneath her and began to lift, and with a little effort she was standing back on her feet, a little dazed.
    “W-where’s my tablet?” she muttered as she collected herself. “Oh, thank you.” A helpful tentacle held it up for her, and she took it, brushing hair out of her face trying to look composed.
    “Now where…where were we?”
  —
    Kallie didn’t quite make it through her to-do list for the day. As helpful as the Squiddos had been, she didn’t have the energy to haul herself all around the herd’s habitat, and by lunch time she’d had enough. It was Friday and now seemed like as good an opportunity as there would ever be to catch up on paperwork.
    She made a note on her report that the observations were left unfinished due to a twisted ankle, and that they would be made up on Monday.
    Now back in her dorm, Kallie was back in comfy clothes with a cup of coffee and her headphones on. “Paperwork” meant checking inventory reports and item orders, which she found she had trouble concentrating on, so she instead decided to start clearing out her email inbox.
    A notification dinged on the laptop.
    It was a message from Bisi, one of her project supervisors.
    “Do you have a moment to talk?”
    Kallie hesitated for a moment. There shouldn’t be any reason for her to not be able to talk; it was 16:40—past time for her to be done with her daily checklist, too early for her to be eating dinner, and really, what excuse could she leverage against talking with her supervisor?
    “Certainly” she responded.
    Five seconds later, her laptop was ringing for a video chat. That, she hadn’t anticipated. Most of her communication was done via text, given the questionable internet at the station, but Bisi had on occasion insisted on face-to-face conversation.
    Kallie accepted; she couldn’t really say no at this point.
    “Good afternoon, Dr Chao.” Bisi’s formal tone and rectangular, half-moon glasses triggered a special kind of anxiety in Kallie that came from dealing with her superiors.
    “Good afternoon, Dr Uwame.”
    “I had a few questions regarding your most recent report.” She had a slow, academic way of speaking that made it hard for Kallie to imagine her anywhere but behind a desk. “In the blood work, you reported that A31 had potassium levels two points above standard deviation, and yet you neglected to follow up on—”
    THUMP
    The table jumped as A77 lurched suddenly, kicking upwards hard enough to rattle the laptop and make Kallie yelp.
    “Ouch!” Kallie almost fell out of her chair as she instinctively pushed backwards, A77 continuing its gymnastic activities unabated.
    “Pardon? Is there something wrong, Dr Chao?”
    “N-nothing,” Kallie stuttered as A77 turned and stretched inside of her. “I just…leg c-cramped. Knee hit the table.” Her words came out in jumps and starts as she grabbed her belly, trying to calm her occupant and keep her stomach out of view of the laptop’s camera.
    “...I see…” Dr Bisi Uwame seemed confused, but not quite ready to change the subject. “So, the Potassium…”
    As Bisi continued to expound on the importance of investigating any and all deviations in C144 biology, Kallie scooted her way forward out of the chair, getting down on her knees (keeping her head in view of the camera) and trying to look casual and attentive in the webcam. A77 continued to wriggle and squirm, the tendrils moving in waves visible through her skin. Kallie felt a heat growing inside of her and had to bite her lip to keep from moaning.
    “Well, you see…” she began her half of the conversation, trying to stall while she thought of something to say. All this squirming was making her squirm, and thinking was getting more difficult by the second. “A31’s unusual—uhm—its unusual levels were marked in my notes, but I forgot—” A77 gave a huge lurch forward, pressing out hard enough to throw her off balance so that she bumped into the table, her belly briefly taking on a torpedo-shape. “—to mention in my report that I was scheduling follow-ups!” The last of the response came out in a rush.
    “...Dr Chao, are you feeling well? You look flushed. Perhaps you should visit the infirmary and check your temperature; it has been almost a month since you had some assistance, maybe we should send another colleague to help share the work-load.”
    “Oh, no,” she tried to sound casual, resting her head on her hand and her elbow on the table. “Don’t worry about me; I’m fine! I will go to the infirmary though. In fact, I’ll go do that right now! If, uh, if A31’s potassium was your only question.”
    “That will be all for now. And Dr Chao, do try to get some rest this weekend.”
    Dr Uwame disconnected and Kallie rested her head on the table, letting out a long sigh. That was one bullet dodged, at least. After a minute, she hauled herself up to her feet and decided that she would actually go to the infirmary; she’d gotten used to weird things happening for a while now and it had dulled her sense of natural curiosity.
    Throwing on her lab coat over the shirt and shorts she was wearing (to provide a little warmth in the hallway and because it had her access card clipped to it), she made her way out of the dorms and into the open-air hallway that separated them from the lab and infirmary.
    The cold outside air immediately sent a chill through Kallie’s body. She wasn’t naturally adverse to cold environments (no one living on the base so long could be) but her big, stretched-out belly was extra sensitive, and her shirt did almost nothing to cover it. Perhaps it sensed the cold, or perhaps it reacted to some subtle tensing of her muscles triggered by the chill, but A77 wriggled a little inside of her as if trying to find a more comfortable position.
    Kallie tried to tip-toe quickly across the hall (regretting that she forgot her slippers) but such agile movement was beyond her at this point, and she sort of just swayed wildly, threatening to topple over. She caught herself on the lab door and tapped her ID against the sensor, stumbling into the stale air of labs.
    It was never as warm here as in the dorms, and the hard tile had a sterile, unwelcoming feel to it. She wasted no time getting into one of the infirmary rooms and shutting the door, then turning on the space heater to try and warm things up a bit.
    It took two tries to haul herself up onto the examination bed, and from there she leaned over awkwardly to open a drawer and get out a thermometer. She was curious about the effects her “pregnancy” might be having on her body, and started filling out a record sheet which she did not intend to share with her superiors.
    Her temperature was slightly elevated, which was understandable given she was playing host to a foreign organism. Pulse and blood-pressure were also relatively normal given her current mental state.
    She sat on the examination bed, turning longways and adjusting it so she could sit in a comfortable position, with her legs apart and slightly raised while her back was supported. Her huge belly filled her lap, resting heavily between her legs. Occasionally, A77 would move, and she would watch the shape of her belly change, coils and ripples moving beneath her skin.
    It felt…nice.
    She pulled the ultrasound machine over beside the bed and began applying the gel to her stretched-out skin. She tensed a little at the coolness of the gel, and felt A77 tensing within her in response. Then, taking the wand, she pressed it to her belly and watched the display as the machine began to record.
    The screen was a beautiful storm of black and gray static, forming vast patterns of changing, interlocking swirls, moving and unfolding as A77 stirred at the pressure. It was hypnotic, mesmerizing, and Kallie felt a warm affection when she looked at it. There was a connection between the two of them, and she treasured that.
    She sat there for a while, watching and smiling to herself.
  —
    Stepping into the hot stream of the shower felt wonderful after a long and (frankly) exhausting day. The shower room was large and intended for multiple people to use it at once, with individual stalls lining the wall, and doors connecting it to the various bathrooms of the dormitories. Being the only one around, Kallie left the stall door open and brought a stool along to sit on as she washed.
    She hummed along with the music she was listening to, enjoying how the hot water loosened the sore and stiffening muscles in her legs and back, tired from a day of lugging around her “passenger.”
    “You’re gonna stretch me all out,” she said as she lathered her belly up with soap. “I’m surprised you didn’t the first time you were in me…” her voice trailed off as her mind went down a scientific rabbit-trail. “Once that bloodwork finishes processing, maybe I’ll find a hormone—something like relaxin. But if you release or stimulate the release of a hormone to ease the job of other creatures carrying you, then that implies it’s an intended part of your biology, which we haven’t observed occurring naturally…”
    By the time Kallie came back from her mental wanderings, she was done washing and had been sitting in the hot stream of the shower long enough that her fingers were pruny. She scooted over and turned off the water, then started the arduous task of getting back up on her feet. Her sore legs protested, and she ended up having to hold on to the soap shelf and haul herself up, made all the more difficult because her belly kept her at arm’s-length.
    After she was all dried off and back in her pajamas, she flopped into bed, ready to sleep. Her belly wobbled a bit as A77 got comfortable in the new position.
    “How long are you going to stay in there?” she wondered out loud, pulling the blanket up and draping it over her huge stomach. “You can’t stay in there forever, after all.” She yawned, and before long was dozing off.
  —
    Kallie awoke to a sudden and violent shifting inside of her.
    She felt sort of disoriented, not quite sure where she was or what was happening, but she felt a growing pressure within her and tentacles moving. Something pushed against her, and she quickly threw back the covers and started trying to wriggle out of her pajama pants and underwear as a number of tentacles began to emerge, blossoming between her legs. They wrapped themselves around her thighs and hands, tensing and pulling, quickly dragging A77’s body out and into her panties.
    The speed with which it all happened was shocking, and Kallie was left gasping for air, A77 rolling around between her legs before climbing up on her torso to snuggle. She held it, and waited until she recovered before doing anything else.
    It was 06:25; on a weekday she would be about to snooze her first alarm. It being Saturday, she’d normally sleep for another hour or two, but suddenly giving birth to A77 had taken all the sleep out of her.
    “You’re just always going to be a problem for me, aren’t you?” she said with an affectionate tone as she got up to make some coffee. Opening her laptop, she saw a notification: her blood work was done and the results were printed out in the lab. She put on her slippers and lab coat and—coffee in hand—made her way over to the lab.
    “Alright, let’s see what you’ve done to me…” She started to look over the blood test results, but she’d left her glasses in the dorm and her eyes and brain weren’t up to the task so early. She set them aside and prepped to draw more blood for comparison.
      As she sat on the bed, she noticed her belly still looking paunched, not fully-recovered from carrying A77 for so long. She pulled over the ultrasound machine to check for inflammation, and as she rolled the wand over her belly she noticed something odd. Inside her womb there were three small, round masses, each about the size of a marble.
    She jumped to her feet, staring at A77 where it sat in the corner, idly spinning the seat of a rolling chair.
    “You laid eggs in me?!”
  —

Description

This story is a sequel to "All in the Name of Science" and "Further Testing." It is suggested that you read these and other writings in this setting first. Although less-extreme than the other stories, similar content warnings apply.
  This story was written solely through the support of one of my Patrons, who graciously donated for me to write it. The support I get through Patreon really helps me continue my work, especially with everything going on in the world right now. Thank you all for your love and support <3
—
    Dr Kallie Chao let out a long and relaxing sigh as she sank back into the water. There was a lot to dislike about her job (the cold, the isolation, the lack of human interaction), but the C144 Research Site had its perks: namely, the plentiful hotsprings that dotted the area. Most of them were occupied by the Squiddos which populated the area, but there was an isolated pool up on the hill the research site was built into which was Squiddo-free (they avoided the hills) and the various researchers who had worked at the site over time had set it up to be a place relax.
    It was a long way from a spa, but a bluetooth speaker, some nice candles, and a bottle of wine did a great deal to class the place up.
    Kallie took a sip of wine and felt good about this evening.
    There was a small splash as something entered the water at the other end of the pool. She opened her eyes and watched as a familiar, dark shape crawled towards her beneath the surface.
    A tentacle grasped her ankle and the Squiddo pulled itself into her lap, wrapping its many limbs around her legs and waist, squeezing and rubbing her skin in a sign of affection.
    “Hey there, A77,” she patted the creature with her hand, and it clung to her as though looking to be pulled up out of the water. “Not hanging out with your friends tonight?”
    A77 spun around happily, splashing its tentacles in the water.
    Kallie wrapped her arms around it, holding it against her body. Squiddos were warm and smooth and felt good against the skin; though not exactly soft, they were great huggers (if you could get past their unusual appearance).
    A77, ever hungry for attention, responded by hugging her back and tickling her sides, causing her to laugh and squirm in its grasp.
    “Hey! Stop that!” she laughed, swiping at the tentacles to get them away from her ticklish spots. A77 switched to rolling against her, pressing its central body against her chest. As it did, the tips of its tentacles flicked and rubbed against her nipples, quickly hardening them into firm points.
    “What is with you?!” she asks, still laughing. She held its body away from her and it reached out, rubbing her face, neck, and chest with its tentacles. “Why are you always so horny? Your species doesn’t even have sex.”
    Still holding the Squiddo at bay, she picked up her phone and activated the voice recorder.
    “Note: Check blood for hormone-level differences pre- and post-physical social interaction. It’s possible such activity causes serotonin or dopamine release.”
    Setting her phone back down, she returned her attention to A77, playing with it as she often did. This meant mostly wrestling, A77 wrapping its many tentacles around her arms, hands, fingers, and flexing its powerful muscles to move and pull her, while she fought against it. A77 was strong but very gentle, and seemed to get a lot out of this kind of physical exertion, and Kallie enjoyed it, too. It was kind of fun, like playing tug-of-war with a dog, except you’re the toy getting tugged on.
    Fun, but extremely tiring. C144s weren’t much bigger than a large cat, but like an octopus they were all muscle, and very compact, A77 weighing a bit over 11kg and being mostly the size of a large microwave, if compressed (though, being all tentacles, it was difficult to get a meaningful size measurement).
    “Alright, that’s enough of that,” she said as she pulled free, signalling that play time was over. “I’m here to relax, not work on my upper-body strength.”
    A77 settled down for a little bit, resting in her lap like a bowling ball, content for the time-being to just be close to her.
    After awhile, A77 began to stir again, swishing its limbs about, doing that little thing where it pressed the narrow tip of a tentacle against her skin and swirled it in a little circle. It was almost-ticklish, and something Kallie knew very well.
    “Okay,” she sighed, knowing what it meant. She did her best to sound disinterested.
    Kallie re-seated herself, leaning back a bit and spreading her legs. A77 rolled down between her thighs and immediately wrapped its tendrils around her legs and hips, squeezing with a firm pressure that sent a shiver up her spine.
    A77 rubbed and massaged her, making strong, rolling motions with its tentacles up her sides and belly, wrapping the narrowed ends of limbs around her small, high breasts. The squiddo had a particular fondness of breasts and especially nipples, perhaps due to their relative uniqueness on the body and the way they warmed and hardened when fondled.
    Three tentacles, narrowed and intertwined, flicked against her labia, once, then again, then slowly played, spreading her and making their way inward. She felt them wriggling against her inner walls, coiling against her folds but staying in the shallows, not going deeper just yet.
    Kallie began to roll her hips, an instinctive response to the tingling almost-discomfort of light stimulation, trying to get a little more, a little more. A77 held her firmly in its tentacles, allowing her just enough motion to tease herself more, but not enough to rush ahead. For an asexual creature, it was a quick learner when it came to driving its lover mad, and things in the hotspring were quickly heating up.
    Tentacles entwined themselves with Kallie’s fingers, stroked against her neck and lips. She bent backwards, arching against the Squiddo’s ministrations as it pressed deeper into her.
    A77 forced a tentacle past the others, narrowed to a fine point, which gently probed around the end of her passage, finding the small entrance of her cervix and wriggling into it. This was a slow and practiced maneuver, one it had done many times before, and as it worked against her, Kallie’s body softened and yielded, and with a rush the tentacles bloomed within her.
    Her flat stomach bulged outwards, fluttering with motion as the tentacles squirmed against the walls of her womb. A77 filled her, pressing its core body against her clitoris with exciting pressure, and she responded eagerly, grinding against the sleek smoothness of her lover.
    The tentacles continued within her, sprawling and pressing, filling her, and the heat spread up through her like fireworks. She slipped, felt for a moment the ecstasy of falling, and then was lifted up and back to the water’s edge.
    She reclined in the shallows, lost in the sensations of her body and the heat between the two of them. The world was warmth and pressure and writhing life in and around her.
    With one last, great push, A77 filled her, and she blanked in orgasm, her entire being a radiant spike of electrifying sensation, dissolving her in its intensity. She was full and taut and satisfied.
    “You…” she panted as her eyes re-focused on her surroundings. “You little brat!”
    Rising up out of the water before her was the pale and uneven surface of her now-large belly, shifting and rippling as A77 settled itself inside her womb.
    Grunting with effort, she managed to sit up, her mind and body still heaving on the aftershocks of orgasm. A77 was definitely inside of her—fully inside of her—the bulges and waves of its tentacles visible through her skin. She looked pregnant—if “pregnant with a tentacle monster” counted—and even bigger than she had when she first carried A77.
    Muttering to herself, she managed to roll over onto her side, then get to her hands and knees, her belly hanging before her into the water and almost touching the ground. It jiggled and wobbled with movement, its weight pulling her womb almost-almost-painfully out from her body.
    She settled back, kneeling, and wrapped her arms around her belly tightly, helping to balance as she got to her feet.
    “Ugh, we’ll talk about this when I get back to the dorm.”
  —
    It was not an easy trek back. Normally, she got out and wrapped up in her towel before quickly stepping into her shoes and heading down the path to the research base’s entrance; it was a cold and unpleasant journey of about a minute and a half, but well-worth an hour relaxing in the hotspring for. This time, burdened as she was with A77 inside of her, it took quite a bit more time and effort.
    For one thing, her towel nowhere near fit around her anymore, her belly sticking out through a broad gap. The night air was freezing against her bare skin, especially the stretched and sensitive expanse of her stomach. The skin almost looked pink in the lighting she’d set up around the hotspring.
    Carrying 11kg (11.45 at its last weigh-in, actually) was doable, but having it hanging off her front just above her hips made balancing and walking an uneasy situation.
    After struggling for a few minutes to put her shoes on (she could not see her feet, and could not reach them without a great deal of effort) she wrapped the towel under her arms and tied the corners across her chest, meaning it at least covered her sides and back. Then, looping her fingers under the base of her belly to help control how it moved and swayed, she began to shuffle and waddle down the path towards the base.
    Her hips began to ache, A77’s weight settling down into her pelvis as she walked, each step jolting a little. Once or twice, her occupant squirmed enough that she had to stop and rub her belly until the Squiddo calmed down once more.
    Kallie was freezing and sore she got out of the wind and into the main hall of the base, although her belly remained warm, A77 acting as a little heater inside of her. She scanned her ID at the door and quickly shuffled inside to the warmth of the dormitory corridors.
    By the time she was laying in her bed, dry and cozy and wrapped (as much as she could) in her robe, and wearing (except where her oversized t-shirt could not stretch over her huge belly) her pajamas, it wasn’t so bad. A77 settled down inside of her and the mattress eased the pressure on her spine. She lay in her little bed, looking down at herself.
    She was huge. Had she missed this? Perhaps she had. There was a familiarity to it. Perhaps it was the sex, or something to do with hormones, but she was tired and her heart softened towards her intruder.
    “Okay, but just for tonight,” she sighed, stroking her belly gently. The tentacles beneath her skin moved in response, bulging out against her hand.
    She slept well.
  —
    “Get out!” Kallie said for the hundredth time, as though A77 would listen to her stern words. “AUGH!”
    She sat in her chair at the table, slouched back with her pelvis forward and her pajamas and panties pulled down past her knees. Her huge belly wobbled ponderously on top of her, shapes moving beneath the skin as A77 ignored her commands and continued to roll around inside of her womb.
    Kallie gave up. It was getting late and she had work to do, unwanted passenger or no. She’d given him until after she finished her bowl of cereal, but even after that deadline, no amount of poking, prodding, probing, or…fishing…could convince him to leave. The closest she got was a couple of tentacles wrapping around her fingers playfully.
    “Well, you’re not going to get any food until you come out,” she said as though she were dealing with a stubborn child. Kallie didn’t actually know if C144s experienced hunger in a meaningful way, or how long they could go without food after maturing, but she hoped they got very hungry and very quickly because carrying A77 inside her all day sounded exhausting.
    Resigned to her fate, she stripped off her pajamas and awkwardly started getting dressed. Thermal underpants, socks, thermal overpants, then her undershirt and thick over-jacket. The jacket was puffy, orange, and very warm, and her best friend during her daily tasks, as it protected her from the freezing winds that whipped across the plains during the day.
    The jacket, which zipped up the front, was too small.
    She tried sitting, tried standing, tried almost rolling around on the floor in frustration, but she couldn’t get the tips of the zipper closed over her big belly. It would only zip from the bottom up, so she was left standing—red-faced with effort—in front of her mirror, her big belly hanging out over the waist of her pants, her jacket hanging open to show her dark undershirt and quite a bit of bare flesh.
    Without time to find a better solution, she put on a bigger shirt which she stretched as far as it would go over her round belly, then grabbed one of her many scarves and looped it around herself, tying it off behind her back. Between the shirt, the scarf, and the stretch of her thermals, she was able to keep her whole belly covered, which she counted as her first real victory of the day.
    Slipping on her unzipped jacket, she grabbed her equipment pack and headed out.
  —
    Kallie was very popular with the Squiddos that day.
    Normally, much of her time was spent tracking down the individuals she was to handle (tracking them by implanted chips, since they all looked mostly the same except for size variations) before actually being able to administer tests or observe the subject or do whatever else was on the schedule for the day.
    At first, Kallie was grateful; no sooner had she waddled out to the hot springs where the Squiddos made their homes than a crowd began to form around her. Over a dozen of them—ranging from a little smaller than A77 to almost half-again as large—came up out of the water, or from the snow fields around, and gathered around her, some coming close enough to poke at her legs.
    For a moment, Kallie opened up the camera on her laptop (which was flipped over into Tablet Mode for field work), but then decided against reporting this behavior as there was no way to do so without raising uncomfortable questions.
    She waited for a few minutes, resting the tablet on her belly as she opened up several applications and switched over to tracking her targets for the day, and the crowd did not disperse, the Squiddos jostling each other as they pressed in a little closer. One even snaked a tentacle up her pant leg, making her jump awkwardly, which was enough to dissuade it from further intrusion.
    It was fascinating how they all seemed to know something was different; C144 sensory organs weren’t fully understood but it was thought that they might detect infrared in a manner similar to snakes; could they sense A77 inside of her? Kallie suddenly felt very exposed, and she put a gloved hand on her belly almost-defensively.
    A77 stirred, pushing up and forward and making her shirt slide up and her scarf slide down, revealing a large crescent of taut skin to the cold air. Her navel stood out to the crowd of Squiddos, and one reached a tentacle up to touch her belly.
    “H-hey, stop that!” she stammered as she awkwardly tried to adjust her clothes, still holding her tablet in one arm. The pale skin of her belly was quickly becoming rosey in the cold wind. “Everyone just calm down and—oh!”
    She felt a shifting inside of her—a sudden descent—and her knees almost gave out as a tentacle pushed its way out of her, at first coiling tightly around her thigh and then snaking up out the top of pants. Kallie awkwardly tried to grab it, but reaching around her belly made it difficult, and the whole situation was overwhelming her senses. Her fingers grasped the tip of the tentacle, and it wrapped around them, slipping in between them playfully. She couldn’t get a grip on it.
    Kallie sank to her knees, unable to stand any longer as the tentacle pulsed and tensed within her, rubbing as its actions caused minor movements in its base. Her legs bent out to either side, her big belly between her knees, resting coldly in the snow.
    Another Squiddo squirmed its way underneath her, lifting her belly up as she leaned backwards, and began playing with the tentacle emerging from her pants. The newcomer probed at her waistband, getting a narrow tip down into her underwear.
    “N-nope! No more!” Kallie panted, shoving one hand down to cover her entrance. A77’s tentacle retreated as the other Squiddo and her hand approached. “Occupado! No vacancy; I’ve got enough in me as it is.”
    Perhaps startled, the Squiddo quickly darted back inside, and the Squiddos surrounding her pressed in closer, touching her with their warm bodies. It felt nice, especially where her scarf had slipped down and her bare skin now touched the snow. A few slipped tentacles beneath her and began to lift, and with a little effort she was standing back on her feet, a little dazed.
    “W-where’s my tablet?” she muttered as she collected herself. “Oh, thank you.” A helpful tentacle held it up for her, and she took it, brushing hair out of her face trying to look composed.
    “Now where…where were we?”
  —
    Kallie didn’t quite make it through her to-do list for the day. As helpful as the Squiddos had been, she didn’t have the energy to haul herself all around the herd’s habitat, and by lunch time she’d had enough. It was Friday and now seemed like as good an opportunity as there would ever be to catch up on paperwork.
    She made a note on her report that the observations were left unfinished due to a twisted ankle, and that they would be made up on Monday.
    Now back in her dorm, Kallie was back in comfy clothes with a cup of coffee and her headphones on. “Paperwork” meant checking inventory reports and item orders, which she found she had trouble concentrating on, so she instead decided to start clearing out her email inbox.
    A notification dinged on the laptop.
    It was a message from Bisi, one of her project supervisors.
    “Do you have a moment to talk?”
    Kallie hesitated for a moment. There shouldn’t be any reason for her to not be able to talk; it was 16:40—past time for her to be done with her daily checklist, too early for her to be eating dinner, and really, what excuse could she leverage against talking with her supervisor?
    “Certainly” she responded.
    Five seconds later, her laptop was ringing for a video chat. That, she hadn’t anticipated. Most of her communication was done via text, given the questionable internet at the station, but Bisi had on occasion insisted on face-to-face conversation.
    Kallie accepted; she couldn’t really say no at this point.
    “Good afternoon, Dr Chao.” Bisi’s formal tone and rectangular, half-moon glasses triggered a special kind of anxiety in Kallie that came from dealing with her superiors.
    “Good afternoon, Dr Uwame.”
    “I had a few questions regarding your most recent report.” She had a slow, academic way of speaking that made it hard for Kallie to imagine her anywhere but behind a desk. “In the blood work, you reported that A31 had potassium levels two points above standard deviation, and yet you neglected to follow up on—”
    THUMP
    The table jumped as A77 lurched suddenly, kicking upwards hard enough to rattle the laptop and make Kallie yelp.
    “Ouch!” Kallie almost fell out of her chair as she instinctively pushed backwards, A77 continuing its gymnastic activities unabated.
    “Pardon? Is there something wrong, Dr Chao?”
    “N-nothing,” Kallie stuttered as A77 turned and stretched inside of her. “I just…leg c-cramped. Knee hit the table.” Her words came out in jumps and starts as she grabbed her belly, trying to calm her occupant and keep her stomach out of view of the laptop’s camera.
    “...I see…” Dr Bisi Uwame seemed confused, but not quite ready to change the subject. “So, the Potassium…”
    As Bisi continued to expound on the importance of investigating any and all deviations in C144 biology, Kallie scooted her way forward out of the chair, getting down on her knees (keeping her head in view of the camera) and trying to look casual and attentive in the webcam. A77 continued to wriggle and squirm, the tendrils moving in waves visible through her skin. Kallie felt a heat growing inside of her and had to bite her lip to keep from moaning.
    “Well, you see…” she began her half of the conversation, trying to stall while she thought of something to say. All this squirming was making her squirm, and thinking was getting more difficult by the second. “A31’s unusual—uhm—its unusual levels were marked in my notes, but I forgot—” A77 gave a huge lurch forward, pressing out hard enough to throw her off balance so that she bumped into the table, her belly briefly taking on a torpedo-shape. “—to mention in my report that I was scheduling follow-ups!” The last of the response came out in a rush.
    “...Dr Chao, are you feeling well? You look flushed. Perhaps you should visit the infirmary and check your temperature; it has been almost a month since you had some assistance, maybe we should send another colleague to help share the work-load.”
    “Oh, no,” she tried to sound casual, resting her head on her hand and her elbow on the table. “Don’t worry about me; I’m fine! I will go to the infirmary though. In fact, I’ll go do that right now! If, uh, if A31’s potassium was your only question.”
    “That will be all for now. And Dr Chao, do try to get some rest this weekend.”
    Dr Uwame disconnected and Kallie rested her head on the table, letting out a long sigh. That was one bullet dodged, at least. After a minute, she hauled herself up to her feet and decided that she would actually go to the infirmary; she’d gotten used to weird things happening for a while now and it had dulled her sense of natural curiosity.
    Throwing on her lab coat over the shirt and shorts she was wearing (to provide a little warmth in the hallway and because it had her access card clipped to it), she made her way out of the dorms and into the open-air hallway that separated them from the lab and infirmary.
    The cold outside air immediately sent a chill through Kallie’s body. She wasn’t naturally adverse to cold environments (no one living on the base so long could be) but her big, stretched-out belly was extra sensitive, and her shirt did almost nothing to cover it. Perhaps it sensed the cold, or perhaps it reacted to some subtle tensing of her muscles triggered by the chill, but A77 wriggled a little inside of her as if trying to find a more comfortable position.
    Kallie tried to tip-toe quickly across the hall (regretting that she forgot her slippers) but such agile movement was beyond her at this point, and she sort of just swayed wildly, threatening to topple over. She caught herself on the lab door and tapped her ID against the sensor, stumbling into the stale air of labs.
    It was never as warm here as in the dorms, and the hard tile had a sterile, unwelcoming feel to it. She wasted no time getting into one of the infirmary rooms and shutting the door, then turning on the space heater to try and warm things up a bit.
    It took two tries to haul herself up onto the examination bed, and from there she leaned over awkwardly to open a drawer and get out a thermometer. She was curious about the effects her “pregnancy” might be having on her body, and started filling out a record sheet which she did not intend to share with her superiors.
    Her temperature was slightly elevated, which was understandable given she was playing host to a foreign organism. Pulse and blood-pressure were also relatively normal given her current mental state.
    She sat on the examination bed, turning longways and adjusting it so she could sit in a comfortable position, with her legs apart and slightly raised while her back was supported. Her huge belly filled her lap, resting heavily between her legs. Occasionally, A77 would move, and she would watch the shape of her belly change, coils and ripples moving beneath her skin.
    It felt…nice.
    She pulled the ultrasound machine over beside the bed and began applying the gel to her stretched-out skin. She tensed a little at the coolness of the gel, and felt A77 tensing within her in response. Then, taking the wand, she pressed it to her belly and watched the display as the machine began to record.
    The screen was a beautiful storm of black and gray static, forming vast patterns of changing, interlocking swirls, moving and unfolding as A77 stirred at the pressure. It was hypnotic, mesmerizing, and Kallie felt a warm affection when she looked at it. There was a connection between the two of them, and she treasured that.
    She sat there for a while, watching and smiling to herself.
  —
    Stepping into the hot stream of the shower felt wonderful after a long and (frankly) exhausting day. The shower room was large and intended for multiple people to use it at once, with individual stalls lining the wall, and doors connecting it to the various bathrooms of the dormitories. Being the only one around, Kallie left the stall door open and brought a stool along to sit on as she washed.
    She hummed along with the music she was listening to, enjoying how the hot water loosened the sore and stiffening muscles in her legs and back, tired from a day of lugging around her “passenger.”
    “You’re gonna stretch me all out,” she said as she lathered her belly up with soap. “I’m surprised you didn’t the first time you were in me…” her voice trailed off as her mind went down a scientific rabbit-trail. “Once that bloodwork finishes processing, maybe I’ll find a hormone—something like relaxin. But if you release or stimulate the release of a hormone to ease the job of other creatures carrying you, then that implies it’s an intended part of your biology, which we haven’t observed occurring naturally…”
    By the time Kallie came back from her mental wanderings, she was done washing and had been sitting in the hot stream of the shower long enough that her fingers were pruny. She scooted over and turned off the water, then started the arduous task of getting back up on her feet. Her sore legs protested, and she ended up having to hold on to the soap shelf and haul herself up, made all the more difficult because her belly kept her at arm’s-length.
    After she was all dried off and back in her pajamas, she flopped into bed, ready to sleep. Her belly wobbled a bit as A77 got comfortable in the new position.
    “How long are you going to stay in there?” she wondered out loud, pulling the blanket up and draping it over her huge stomach. “You can’t stay in there forever, after all.” She yawned, and before long was dozing off.
  —
    Kallie awoke to a sudden and violent shifting inside of her.
    She felt sort of disoriented, not quite sure where she was or what was happening, but she felt a growing pressure within her and tentacles moving. Something pushed against her, and she quickly threw back the covers and started trying to wriggle out of her pajama pants and underwear as a number of tentacles began to emerge, blossoming between her legs. They wrapped themselves around her thighs and hands, tensing and pulling, quickly dragging A77’s body out and into her panties.
    The speed with which it all happened was shocking, and Kallie was left gasping for air, A77 rolling around between her legs before climbing up on her torso to snuggle. She held it, and waited until she recovered before doing anything else.
    It was 06:25; on a weekday she would be about to snooze her first alarm. It being Saturday, she’d normally sleep for another hour or two, but suddenly giving birth to A77 had taken all the sleep out of her.
    “You’re just always going to be a problem for me, aren’t you?” she said with an affectionate tone as she got up to make some coffee. Opening her laptop, she saw a notification: her blood work was done and the results were printed out in the lab. She put on her slippers and lab coat and—coffee in hand—made her way over to the lab.
    “Alright, let’s see what you’ve done to me…” She started to look over the blood test results, but she’d left her glasses in the dorm and her eyes and brain weren’t up to the task so early. She set them aside and prepped to draw more blood for comparison.
      As she sat on the bed, she noticed her belly still looking paunched, not fully-recovered from carrying A77 for so long. She pulled over the ultrasound machine to check for inflammation, and as she rolled the wand over her belly she noticed something odd. Inside her womb there were three small, round masses, each about the size of a marble.
    She jumped to her feet, staring at A77 where it sat in the corner, idly spinning the seat of a rolling chair.
    “You laid eggs in me?!”
  —