Belinda Burpwell won the burping contest twelve minutes ago, and now her stomach has locked up tight as a fist. She is sprawled on her back across a low slab of stone topped with a crystal pane, the kind of platform people set out for winners to rest on. Her green belly rises in front of her like a hill. A paper plate of victory cake sits on top of it, untouched. She belches, long and flat, and does not say excuse me. The cake does not move. This is the problem. Belinda wants to keep eating. She always wants to keep eating. People telling her to slow down only makes her hungrier, and the contest crowd told her plenty. She ate two whole trays just to spite them. Now her gut has clenched so hard she cannot swallow a crumb. If she cannot fix it, the cake wins. The crowd wins. The cousin who pokes her belly and calls it a superpower wins by default, because Belinda will have stopped. She rolls her head sideways. Across the trampled grass stands a curved kiosk with glowing shelves, stacked with little bottles in every color. A remedy stand. She has seen people limp up to it after eating contests and walk away loose and grinning. Belinda sits up halfway. Her stomach punishes her for it. She burps again, sharper this time, and a cramp twists under her ribs. She lies back down on the platform and waits for the spike to pass, the way she always does when her belly hurts. The waiting is not working. She flags down a boy carrying empty trays and points at the kiosk. "The amber one," she says. "Fizzy. For cramps." He comes back with a small vial of bubbling orange liquid and a cold bottle of burp soda. She pays him with the coins tucked into her sports bra. She thumbs the glass stopper off the vial and drinks it down in one pull. It tastes like ginger and metal. She chases it with the soda. For a long moment nothing happens. Then her stomach gives, all at once, like a knot pulled loose. A burp rolls up from somewhere deep and comes out of her for what feels like ten seconds. The people nearest the platform clap. Belinda does not look at them. She reaches for the cake on her belly-shelf and takes a bite. It goes down easy. She takes another. Her stomach accepts it without complaint. She finishes the slice and looks back at the kiosk. There are more bottles on those shelves. There is more food on the contest tables, already being packed away by hands she does not know. Belinda swings her legs off the crystal platform and stands. The plate stays balanced on her belly. She burps once, loud, and starts walking toward the tables before anyone can clear them.

Belinda walks toward the contest tables with the plate balanced on her belly. She makes it three steps before the crowd closes in. A woman grabs her elbow. A man steps in front of her with both hands up. More press in behind, six or seven of them, pushing her sideways until her back hits a tall black slab. The stone is veined with bright pink and green light that pulses where her shoulders touch it. She burps into the woman's face and the woman does not let go. "Slow down," the man in front says. "You're going to hurt yourself." Behind him, an older voice says she should sit. Someone else says she has had enough. A boy near the back holds up a small pocket watch on a chain and taps the cracked glass, as if her eating can be measured in minutes. Belinda burps again, longer. The plate trembles on her belly. The cake slides but does not fall. She plants her bare feet on the grass and sets her shoulders against the lit stone. The crowd has her boxed in against a fractured platform off to her right, its cracks pooled with shining liquid that drips onto the trampled grass. People lean their hips against the platform's edge to get closer to her. One woman climbs up on it to see over the others. Belinda counts the hands reaching for her plate and decides she is done being polite about it. She grabs the wrist of the man in front. He flinches but lets her move it. She drags his palm down and presses it flat against the curve of her belly, under the paper plate. His fingers go stiff. "Feel that," she says. "That's room for more." Then she leans forward until her face is close to his, opens her mouth, and burps straight into him. It comes up from deep in her gut and lasts a long count. His hair lifts. His eyes water. He staggers back into the woman behind him. The pocket watch drops from the boy's hand and lands in the grass with its chain coiled around it. The woman holding Belinda's elbow lets go and wipes her mouth like she tasted something. The crowd peels off the fractured platform and the lit slab and gives her a clear half circle of grass. Someone laughs, high and nervous. No one tells her to slow down again. Belinda steadies the plate on her belly and steps over the dropped watch without picking it up. She burps once more, softer, just for herself. The contest tables are still ten paces off and the hands packing them up have stopped to watch her come. She picks a tray of fried dough at the near end and aims for it. Her belly leads the way. Behind her, the lit veins in the black stone keep pulsing, and the crowd stays back.

Belinda took the tray of fried dough off the contest table and set it on the slope of her belly. The crowd watched her chew through the first piece without interrupting. She walked off the field with the plate balanced and the tray on top, burping every few steps. The grass thinned into a paved walk that led between low buildings. Halfway down, an elf boy in a green coat stepped out of a doorway and into her path. He had pointed ears and brown hair past his shoulders. He looked at her belly first and her face second. "You're the one from the contest," he said. "I watched. You eat like you mean it." He nodded at a building behind him with wide glass windows. A sign above the door read pet care. Inside, glowing pods lined the walls. "It's empty after hours. I work the back. Come sit and I'll rub your stomach while you eat. No tricks." Belinda burped at him. He grinned. Outside the door stood a ring of stone pedestals topped with bright crystals, the kind of setup people built when they took a craft seriously. Beside it sat a woven basket packed with bottles and wrapped parcels. "Mine," he said. "For you. If you sit." Belinda looked at the basket. She looked at the boy. "Aldric," he said. She told him her name and walked past him into the clinic. He shut the door and pulled a padded bench out from between two pods. She lowered herself onto it. He set the basket at her feet, uncorked a bottle, and handed her a meat pastry. Then he put both hands on her belly and pressed slow circles into the side. She ate. He rubbed. A burp came up and he counted it out loud. She finished the pastry and reached for another. He shifted his hands lower, kneading under the curve, and a longer burp rolled out of her. He counted that one too. She drained the bottle. He passed her a second. The plate from the contest sat forgotten on the floor. Her belly grew tighter under his palms and he kept working it, pushing the gas up in steady waves. She burped, ate, burped, ate. He did not tell her to slow down once. Through the front window, a woman stood on the walk and watched. Dark hair, white dress, a round belly of her own pushed out in front of her. She did not move. She did not knock. She watched Aldric's hands on Belinda's stomach and counted along with him, her lips moving with each burp. Belinda saw her and did not stop eating. Aldric had not noticed yet. Belinda swallowed the last of the pastry and let out a burp that fogged the glass. The woman outside flinched, then set her jaw and started toward the door.

Belinda set the empty bottle on the slope of her belly and pushed Aldric's hands off. Her stomach felt like a drum someone had overfilled. The next pastry sat in his palm. She did not take it. The dark-haired woman was at the door now, one hand on the frame, watching. Aldric finally noticed her and froze. "I'm done in here," Belinda said. She burped into his face. It came out long and wet and rolled his hair back. He blinked. She did not say sorry. She stood up off the bench, swayed once, and steadied a hand on her belly. The basket of bottles still sat at her feet, half full. She picked it up by the handle. She walked past Aldric and past the woman in the white dress without looking at either. At the threshold she let out a fart that lasted three steps onto the walk. The woman made a small sound behind her. Belinda kept moving. Her belly was packed so tight she could not bend at the waist. If she did not get some gas out, she would have to stop eating, and she was not going to stop eating. Across the walk stood a row of metal pods with sliding membrane doors. A sign above them read for waiting. She pressed the panel on the nearest one. The door peeled open. Inside sat a padded orange chair shaped to hold a body leaned back. She lowered herself into it, set the basket on the floor, and the door sealed shut behind her with a soft hiss. She dug through the bottles in the basket until she found a folded paper tucked between two of them. The header read Gas Mastery Formula. The steps were short. Sit back. Press both palms flat below the ribs. Push down in slow counts. Open the throat. Let each burp run its full length before starting the next. Belinda leaned the chair back, planted her hands, and pushed. The first burp came up loud and long and shook the pod wall. She did not close her mouth until it ended. She pushed again. Another rolled out, longer. She kept the count. Six. Ten. Fifteen. Her belly softened under her palms an inch at a time. When she stopped, the drum was a sack again. She could bend. She could breathe. She uncorked a bottle from the basket and drained half of it in one pull, and a fresh burp came up clean and easy. She picked up a wrapped parcel, peeled back the cloth, and bit in. The pod's light glowed orange around her. Outside, somewhere past the membrane door, Aldric was probably still standing in his clinic with his pastry in his hand. Belinda chewed and reached for the next bottle.

Belinda finished the last bottle in the pod and pushed the door open. Her belly led her out, round and tight again from the new round of drinking. The basket swung from her hand. She wanted more food, and she knew there was a row of stalls down the path. She started walking. A few steps in, a flower-draped arch rose over the path, and under it stood the dark-haired woman in the white dress. The woman planted her boots wide and crossed her arms over a belly that matched Belinda's own. "You don't pass without paying," the woman said. "Toll's a bottle. Or a burp. Your pick." Belinda kept walking. She did not slow down. She did not answer. She stepped right up until the curve of her belly met the curve of the woman's belly, and she pushed forward an inch. The woman's stomach was solid. Belinda's was solid. They met like two drums pressed face to face. The contact squeezed gas up Belinda's throat and she let it out. The burp hit the woman square in the face and rolled her hair back. At the same moment the woman burped too, hot and sour, straight into Belinda's mouth. The woman's cheeks went red. She stepped back half a pace and wiped her chin with the back of her hand. "You bumped me on purpose," she said. "That is rude. That is the rudest thing a stranger has done to me in a year." Belinda grinned. She liked the taste of the other burp on her tongue. She liked the press of belly on belly. She set the basket down at her feet and put both hands under her stomach and lifted it an inch. "Thank you," she said. "Here's another for you." She leaned in, pressed her belly into the woman's belly again, and pushed down hard below her ribs the way the paper had taught her. The burp came up long and wet and loud. It washed over the woman's face and did not stop for a full count of six. The woman's mouth hung open. Her arms dropped to her sides. Her own belly gave a small answering gurgle that she did not try to hide. She looked at Belinda for a long moment. Then she stepped sideways out of the path and pointed down it with one hand. "Go," she said. "Just go. I'm not standing here for more of that." Belinda picked up her basket. She walked under the flower arch without looking back. Behind her the woman sat down hard on the stone base of one column and pressed both hands to her own stomach. Belinda burped once more for the road, soft this time, and kept moving toward the stalls. The path ahead was clear. Her belly was loose. She was going to eat again.