Jump to content

The Grey Frame


Jentera

Recommended Posts

I posted this on DeviantArt and FF last year, but I never got around to posting it here :)

Part 1 (https://www.deviantart.com/jentera/art/The-Grey-Frame-Part-1-Weight-Gain-857831295)

As yet another distracted shopper barged into her shoulder, Emily wondered to herself: why the hell would anyone willingly subject themselves to a shopping mall?

Teenage nostalgia was her best guess, and hers was in short supply. Growing up in a small town, the appearance of big chain stores was viewed as a novelty at best, and a threat at worst. The mere suggestion of a trip to the mall would have probably sent her dear old dad into cardiac arrest - so to be working in one felt like an even deeper betrayal of her roots. But moving to the city hadn’t been cheap, and she couldn’t afford to be picky. Work was work, and she’d tell her parents that when she was good and ready, thank you very much.

“Still, it’s not all bad,” she thought to herself, weaving through the crowded halls. “At least I’ve got that lunch break cinnamon bun to look forward to.” The mid-shift indulgence was probably the reason her work pants left an angry red line around her middle by the end of the day, but she figured that was a small price to pay to keep this place from driving her totally insane.

Her excitement turned to horror, however, as she came face to face with what had been Demitri’s Doughy Delights. The familiar pink facade has been painted an unappealing shade of black, the windows had been filled with dusty-looking books, and a new sign hung above the door: Chloe’s Curiosities. A day’s worth of sugar cravings blotted out all common sense, and before she knew what she was doing, Emily had stormed into the store. “What did you do with Demitiri?” she blurted out.

Behind the counter, a dark-haired woman looked up from behind a magazine, and adjusted her glasses to focus on the intruder. Between the rounded shape of her face and her double chin, it was clear that she was on the larger side, but it wasn’t until she stood that Emily realized the sheer scale of the shop’s owner. Her stomach dominated attention, two thick rolls stretching the fabric of her black dress to its limits, pressed up against the countertop as if threatening to flip it over. Her arms were enormous pillows, zigzagged with faint stretch marks as if to try to tell the tale of how someone could possibly become so huge. A silver pentagram hung delicately around her neck. She was the largest woman Emily had ever seen, and she had the smaller girl fixed in her sights. After a few moments, she finally spoke.

“Oh, you mean the old dude from the bakery? He’s opening a new store downstairs, something about needing more kitchen space. I swooped in as soon as his lease was up.”

“Thank god,” Emily said, breathing a sigh of relief. She turned back towards the door to escape, as well as to hide her increasingly red face. “Sorry to bother you, good luck with the new business, bye-”

“Hey, hold on! If you’re going to accuse me of kidnapping your baker buddy, the least you can do is have a browse while you’re at it,” the shopkeeper smirked. “I’m not exactly being swarmed with customers so far, help a girl out.”

Emily paused, unsure of what to say. The woman sounded friendly, but it was almost as if her words were commands, rather than requests. “Maybe. What’s for sale?”

Chloe leaned in, the counter creaking under her weight, and gave her would-be customer a deadly serious look. “Ancient occult artifacts.”

“...if you’re just going to mess with me, I’ll go to the food court instead.”

“I would never ‘mess with’ a potential customer!” the proprietor said, in faux outrage. “Have a look around. If you don’t find something that takes your interest, I’ll buy you that lunch myself, deal?”

---

As the end of her lunch break approached, Emily couldn’t help but feel like she’d been had. Far from finding ancient treasures, she’d mostly just found dusty old books, and she had plenty of those cluttering her apartment since the move anyway. But just as she was about to turn and leave, a sparkle caught her eye from the top shelf. Reaching up on her tiptoes, she carefully reached for the source.

It was an ornate picture frame, albeit a small one, with a painstakingly detailed painting displayed front and center. The picture looked classical in its style, but the subject of the portrait looked modern enough to be jarring - it was a young blonde woman, clad in a t-shirt and ill-fitting black trousers, holding a picture frame. Emily’s blood ran cold as she realized she was looking at herself, as if viewed through someone else’s eyes. She stomped over to the front desk and set the picture down in front of Chloe.

“What happened to not messing with your customers?” Emily huffed, hands on hips. Unseen to her, the picture mimicked her move, as if it was repainting itself in real time. “I’d never met you until today, and yet you’ve got this weird renaissance painting of me?”

The shopkeeper simply smiled. With a slow, considered motion, she reached out one of her pudgy fingers, pressed it against the frame, and turned it to face her customer. As the real Emily watched, her painted doppelganger began to change - or more specifically, to grow. It started slowly, her slender middle swelling into a rounded ** belly. Then without warning, she exploded outwards, a thick roll of fat spilling out from under her work t-shirt, and then another. And the rest of her was keeping pace; where there had once been ample empty space on either side of the picture, her hips and thighs had begun to greedily take up that room, paying little heed to the limits of the clothing containing them. Her chest wasn’t content to be outdone either, the outline of her bust clearly making a bid to escape her bra in every direction. In the blink of an eye, she’d nearly doubled in size, and it was showing no signs of stopping. Just when it looked like the store uniform was about to burst, that too began to change, morphing into a perfectly tailored black dress, much like the one Chloe was wearing. Exactly like the one Chloe was wearing, Emily realized, as the figure’s hair faded from blonde to brunette, cascading down to their shoulders. When all was said and done, it was not her in the picture anymore - it was the store’s owner.

“Pretty neat, huh?” Chloe grinned. “It seems to bind to the image of the last person that touched it.”

“But… how? Why?”

“Beats me, I just sell the things. The dude I got them from said they ‘suspend sin in their image’, whatever that means. The guy also had a tattoo of an alligator on his forehead, so I’ll let you be the judge of whether he’s a reliable source.”

“An alligator?”

“He was very upset when I called it a crocodile, nearly blew the whole deal. So, do you want it?”

Emily bit her lip, and gave the frame another prod. Sure enough, the image began to shrink down, the enormous body melting away to reveal her own lithe frame. “Doesn’t seem very useful. If anything, it just creeps me out.”

“Fair,” Chloe snorted. “I can’t exactly ask you to buy something when I can’t even tell you what the damn thing’s for. How about some market research? Take it away and see if you can figure it out. If you want to keep it, we can decide on a price then - if it still gives you the heebie-jeebies, I’ll buy you a cinnamon bun for your troubles.”

“You’re not worried I’ll just run away with it? Or call the pope, or something?”

“You work like 5 meters from here. I know where to find you if you do!” The words were spoken in a sing-song voice, but they sounded more like a threat.

“Okay… deal. But I’m holding you to that cinnamon bun.”

Part 2 (https://www.deviantart.com/jentera/art/The-Grey-Frame-Part-2-Weight-Gain-857879309)

“That’s it. If I eat another bite, I’m going to explode.”

Sarah slid her plate across the table and slumped back in the wicker chair, resting her hands on her swollen stomach.

“Suit yourself,” said Emily, returning from the buffet with another plate stacked high. “I’m getting my money’s worth.”

It had been a few days since her encounter with the mysterious shop, and her deal with the proprietor had largely slipped her mind. Sure, she saw the picture on her desk when she woke up, the image shifting and moving in a faintly unsettling way. But that was pretty much all it had done, and the novelty had started to wear thin. Besides, there was something much more important for her to focus on today - it was her best friend’s birthday, and that called for a long overdue girls’ night out.

“Jeezus, Em,” Sarah giggled, watching her friend dig into the pile of food. “Usually after one plate you’re acting like I’m gonna have to roll you out of the place. What’s that, your fourth?”

“Maybe?” said Emily. Usually she would have stopped when she’d felt full, but the familiar feeling was still yet to arrive. She’d spent the last few plates firmly in the middle ground - not starving, but not so stuffed as to not be tempted back for more. “I dunno, I sorta... lost count. Wow.”

“And yet I’m the one looking like I’m about to deliver twins. Some girls get all the luck, huh?”

The blonde girl swallowed her mouthful, and looked down at herself. She saw Sarah’s point - Emily’s midriff had remained totally flat throughout the entire meal, despite her stuffing her face for upwards of an hour. It almost seemed in defiance of the laws of physics, as if a black hole had opened up in her stomach. Not that she was complaining, of course; she’d always been a bit of a buffet lightweight, tapping out without trying all the foods she’d had her eye on. If her body was feeling unusually co-operative tonight, she wasn’t going to squander it.

“What can I say? Work keeps me on my feet, I guess. Now, come on, my turn to buy the drinks!”

Sarah grinned. “Well, I suppose I could make room…”

---

The evening continued in much the same manner, the two women hopping from bar to bar, Sarah watching in amusement as her friend ate and drank everything in sight. Yet even as Emily staggered through her front door, the clock well past midnight, she still didn’t feel close to being full. In fact, she’d even had to resist the temptation to make a snack as she’d passed the kitchen. An uneasy feeling lingered in her chest; something weird was clearly going on for her appetite to suddenly become so voracious. Not that she was in much of a state to ponder whatever quantum mechanics were going on inside her stomach, though - while they didn’t seem to be taking up much in the way of space, the cocktails had definitely made their way into her bloodstream.

As she pawed at her bedroom lightswitch, the shimmer of the enchanted picture frame caught her eye from across the room. Even in her addled state, she could tell something seemed different about the image, even by its usual strange standards. Her bed beckoned to her, but she couldn’t shake the curiosity.

As ever, it was her painted on the canvas, every bit of her appearance replicated with uncanny detail. The face was the same, the hair was the same, the outfit was the same. But the figure in the picture was no longer matching her pose, and it quickly became apparent why - she was bloated beyond belief, jeans inelegantly unzipped, hands softly cradling her belly as it strained against the buttons of her blouse. But she didn’t look pained or unhappy; in fact, there was a look of deep satisfaction written across her face, almost verging on pride. It wasn’t an expression she’d ever known herself to make before, and it definitely wasn’t how she’d react to looking like that. She felt more sober by the minute.

“Did… did I do this?” Emily wondered aloud, going to pick up the painting for a closer look.

She realized her mistake the second her fingertips brushed the frame. A strange, tingling warmth shot up her arm and spread throughout her entire body, sending her staggering backwards onto the bed. It was a strange sensation, neither painful nor pleasurable, like bolts of electricity ricocheting through her frame. It wasn’t until the ripples of energy began to focus around her midsection that she began to realize what was coming next.

Sure enough, her stomach began to slowly push outwards, at first into a curve, then a dome, then an orb, the consequences of her earlier indulgences finally manifesting. Within a matter of moments, she’d grown a food baby that would have put an expectant mother to shame - and it didn’t seem ready to stop, judging by the pressure building around her waist. Remembering what she’d seen in the painting, Emily frantically scrambled to undo the button of her jeans, but it was too late; it flew off with a crack, embedding itself into the plaster of the bedroom’s ceiling like a bullet from a gun. She had more luck with the blouse, the buttons popping free just in time to save the garment from pulling itself to shreds.

And then, at last, the strange sensation stopped. Emily lay on the duvet, taking slow, shuddering breaths as she massaged her aching belly.

“Me and Chloe need to talk.”

Part 3 (https://www.deviantart.com/jentera/art/The-Grey-Frame-Part-3-Weight-Gain-858061979)

By the time she got to work the next day, Emily’s middle had mercifully receded to its original size, saving her from an awkward encounter with her co-workers. But the shift was unproductive even by her standards. How could she possibly focus, after what she'd experienced the previous night? The painting had clearly done something unnatural to her when she’d touched it, and there was no way of knowing what after-effects might be around the corner. In a lull between serving customers, she ducked into the changing rooms and lifted her t-shirt, half expecting to catch her belly in the act of expanding. But no - it was the same old pale stomach, albeit perhaps a little softer for her previous overindulgence. The second the second the clock hit lunchtime, she was out of the store like a shot, storming straight over to Chloe’s Curiosities.

Its namesake was less than sympathetic.

“Oh my god, that is priceless,” wheezed the giant goth, almost doubling over with laughter. “I figured something weird was going to happen, but you blowing up like a balloon would not have been what I’d put my money on.”

Emily was significantly less amused. “Well, I’m glad someone found it funny, because I definitely didn’t,” she said with a pout. “For a good few minutes, I thought I was going to explode - that’d be blood on your hands, I hope you realize!”

“You’re fine now, aren’t you? And look on the bright side - it’s given me some valuable intel.”

“Intel?”

The shopkeeper leant on the counter and steepled her plump fingers in a businesslike fashion. “So, the guy that sold me the paintings said they ‘suspend sin’, right? Your little buffet binge makes me think of one sin in particular - gluttony.”

Emily raised an eyebrow, looking the enormous woman up and down. “Bit rich coming from you, isn’t it?”

“Hey, no judgement here. That’s my favourite one of the sins,” Chloe grinned. “So, here’s my theory. All the negative side-effects of your gluttony must have gotten absorbed by the painting. You got none of the shame, none of the discomfort - none of the things that’d usually keep you from going overboard. So you just kept eating, even past the point any sensible person would have stopped. Then, when you finally touched the frame, boom, it all got fired straight back at you.”

It made sense - at least to the degree that any of this made sense. While Emily had definitely acted out of character the night before, at no point had she felt like there was any kind of unnatural force pushing her to do so. The feeling had been one of pure, unfiltered freedom; years of small-town body shaming forgotten, if only temporarily. Not that there was much comfort to be found in that; in fact, it was almost more unsettling to realize that such primal urges had come from within.

“So what do we do now?” she said. The grin she received in response was faintly terrifying.

“The way I see it, you’ve got a golden ticket here! As long as you don’t touch the painting, you’ve got free license to be as much of a hedonist as you like, with none of the consequences. That’s what we in the business world like to call a ‘win-win’.”

“That’s what we in the real world call ‘too good to be true’. No way, I’m quitting while I’m ahead.”

Chloe sighed, rolling her eyes. “Fine, your loss. I’m taking the picture back if you’re not gonna use it, though.”

With a nod, Emily opened up her bag and extracted the painting, which was still dutifully replicating her slender visage. She instinctively winced as she touched it, afraid there might be some residual energy lurking from the night before - but the tingles never came. With a sigh of relief, she placed it down on the countertop. Once again, the shopkeeper made a showy motion of pressing her finger against the frame, and the two waited for the image to change.

And waited. And waited some more.

“Looks like this thing has taken a shine to you,” said Chloe with a smirk. “I think you’re having that golden ticket whether you like it or not!”

“Ugh, fine,” Emily huffed, shoving the picture back in her bag. “Not like anyone else is going to want to buy a painting of me, I guess. How much do I owe you?”

“Let’s call it a gift. Since the terms of your trial unexpectedly changed, doesn’t seem right to stick you with the bill. But you gotta keep me posted on what that thing does.”

“Let me guess, ‘market research’?”

“Nah, morbid curiosity,” Chloe said, with a shark-like grin.

---

The transaction concluded, Emily set off back in the direction of work, the weight of the picture frame in her bag feeling heavier by the minute. The shopkeeper had tried valiantly to convince her it was a blessing, but the memories of her unexpected expansion made it feel more like a curse.

“Stay calm,” she whispered to herself as she descended the escalator, taking a deep breath. “Nothing to worry about. Just cause you have the painting doesn’t mean you have to use it. Just have to have some self-control.”

As if on cue, a garish sign scrolled into view.

Demitri’s Doughy Delights reopening Monday!

“Shit,” she muttered under her breath.

---

After fighting her way through the throngs of customers on opening day, when she finally bit down on that long overdue cinnamon bun, the moan that escaped her lips was enough to make Demitri blush. She couldn’t tell if it was the long wait, the new kitchen, or simply the influence of the painting, but the sweet snack tasted ten times better than she remembered.

Before long, her mid-shift sugar cravings were back, and they were back with a vengeance. With each passing day, the temptation grew stronger, and Emily’s orders grew more extravagant. Her lunch break was half an hour, after all, and one measly cinnamon bun wasn’t nearly enough to fill that time. Yet her colleagues remained unaware, no evidence of the cashier’s indulgences visible to the outside world - save for the time she returned to work with a big smear of frosting on one cheek.

There was, however, one unexpected development. The painting, usually so accurate in its depiction of Emily, had slowly but surely begun to change. She first noticed it as she was getting ready for work one day, the glint of the frame catching her eye as she sleepily pulled on her clothes. Her work shirt, which hung so loosely over her slender torso in the real world, seemed to fit much tighter on her doppelganger, the faint indent of a navel visible through the fabric. Cautiously, Emily lifted up the hem to show her flat stomach; sure enough, the painted figure mirrored her action, revealing a small but perfectly formed ** belly, jutting out over the waistband of her black trousers. Her lower half had kept pace - while the real Emily was narrow, almost boyish in figure, the image’s hips had developed a slight roundness, and the gap between her plump thighs had shrunk to a miniscule size. The doppelganger gave her owner a proud grin.

It wasn’t entirely an alien sight. In fact, she’d seen that exact ** belly once before, a few months into her first college semester, the freshman 15 hitting her like a ton of bricks. She hadn’t minded; she was having the time of her life, staying up late, partying, meeting new people, experiencing all of the things her country upbringing had denied her. But of course, her first trip back home had put a stop to that, snide comments from her family putting her straight back aboard the diet train. The way they’d looked at her, anyone would have thought she’d grown an extra limb, rather than put on weight. But as Emily looked at the curvaceous figure in the frame, she couldn’t help but feel like they’d made a mountain out of a molehill. She looked fine - good, even! A little disproportionate in the midsection, maybe, and of course none of the extra weight had gone to her chest; but she was far from the freak her family had described her as all those years ago. She felt a pang of anger in her chest.

“Okay, mini-me,” she said, kneeling down to look her distorted image in the eyes. “Let’s see what could have been.”

The painting smiled, and nodded.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Part 4 (https://www.deviantart.com/jentera/art/The-Grey-Frame-Part-4-Weight-Gain-867856666)

A few weeks passed, and true to her word, Emily reported back to Chloe on the latest developments with the painting. But in place of their usual clandestine meetings in the dingy shop, they opted to take a stroll down to the food court instead. This had been the smaller girl’s suggestion, and it came with a dual purpose. Firstly, it was a nice change of scenery - while she’d never admit it to Chloe, the store still gave her the heebie-jeebies. Secondly, and most importantly, it meant Emily could eat and vent at the same time.

“...and it just makes me so mad, you know?” she growled, taking a bite out of a burger the size of her head. “Everyone told me I was hideous when I was heavier, and I believed them, like an idiot. But look at me; I rock those curves, right?”

She gestured at the center of the table, where the picture frame was neatly propped up against a small mountain of empty food wrappers. While it was enclosed in a ziplock bag (to prevent any ‘accidents’), the image was still clearly visible through the plastic - and what an image it had become.

As Emily’s daily binges had continued, so too had the slow and steady expansion of her doppelganger’s figure; the familiar freshman 15 giving way to a senior 30 she’d never had the chance to see for real. The chubby little belly that had given her parents heart palpitations all those years ago had filled out into a thick spare tyre, greedily spreading into her lap whenever it got the chance, as if it were rebelling against all of its years in captivity. Her frame had rapidly begun to balance itself out in other places, too; her thick thighs pressed tightly, both against each other and the sides of the cheap food court seat, and there was a fullness to her chest that she only could have dreamed of in the real world. She was, in a word, an hourglass, albeit one with most of its sand in the bottom half. That wasn’t how Emily would have ever expected to describe a version of herself, real or imaginary. The only thing that somewhat spoiled the image was its insistence on matching her choice of clothing, which was rapidly becoming insufficient to cover the thickening figure. But despite all these huge, sweeping changes, there was one difference that was more noticeable than the rest put together: the painted girl looked absolutely, incandescently happy.

Meanwhile, Chloe had not opted for such an extravagant meal. In fact, much to the other girl’s (and the cashier’s) surprise, she’d picked the smallest item on the menu, a choice entirely incongruous with her enormous size. It made Emily wonder just how the shopkeeper had gotten - and remained - so intimidatingly, awe-inspiringly fat. Surely she’d need to be eating every second of every day to maintain such a feat? Then again, she’d already proven to have one item with gluttony-amplifying powers in her possession; what was there to say that there wasn’t an equally supernatural explanation for Chloe’s size as well? Whatever the secret was, the shopkeeper was keeping it close to her chest.

As Emily pondered, the other woman looked back and forth between the painting and its subject with a grin - but for the first time since they’d met, it didn’t seem entirely devious. Just mostly. “Well, good for you, girl. But you know what my next question is gonna be, right?”

“What’s that?” came the muffled reply, through a massive mouthful of burger.

“If you like that look so much, why not try it for real? All it’d take is a touch.”

“What?!” Emily shouted, almost ** on her food. Once she recovered, she shook her head vigorously. “No way, never! It’s fun to imagine what could have been, but I can’t get that big for real. I can’t! For one, how would I explain it to my coworkers? Oh yeah, whoops, I put on two stone overnight because of my magic painting!”

Chloe threw her head back and guffawed, the too-small chair creaking in protest. “Well, that’s just a lack of imagination on your part! Take some time off, say you’re going on a cruise. Everyone knows what those package holidays are like, they’ll probably say you came back skinnier than they expected.”

“God, you’ve put way too much thought into this. Okay then, what about my parents? They’ll rip me to shreds if they see me at that size.”

“From what you’ve told me, they do that plenty as it is.”

Emily opened her mouth to respond, but she had no rebuttal. It was true - no amount of diets, or shapewear, or baggy clothes had ever been enough to stop her parents’ snide remarks. She’d always been fat in their eyes - would it really make that much difference if they were right for a change? She felt a tingle of a thrill run up her spine at the thought of going to such lengths to stick it to her family.

The shopkeeper smirked and smugly folded her arms, knowing she’d hit the bullseye. “Now come on, be straight with me,“ she said. “What are you afraid of, really?”

“I’m not afraid,” the other girl sighed. “I’m just… unsure. I’ve spent so long listening to what other people think I should look like, I have no idea what I really want any more. What if I go through with this and I regret it? I mean, the girl in that picture looks happy, but for all I know, that could be part of the illusion too. It’s not like I really know what she’s feeling.”

The spark of an idea lit up Chloe’s eyes. “Say no more,” she grinned, heaving herself to her feet. The flimsy plastic chair took a few seconds to get the memo, valiantly clinging to the shopkeeper’s rear, before dropping to the ground with a clatter. “Drop by the store after your shift, and we’ll find out.”

And with that, she was gone, before Emily could say another word - or point out the untouched meal on the other side of the table.

“Oh well. More for me, I guess.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Such good writing. Every time a cliche was possible, you dodged it to write something that not only makes more sense, but adds depth and intrigue to the story. It subverts expectations in a smart way, more like Game of Thrones and less like The Last Jedi.

My gut tells me she’s going to touch the mirror and fall in love with her new body, but I know it won’t be that simple

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, >_< 0_0 said:

Such good writing. Every time a cliche was possible, you dodged it to write something that not only makes more sense, but adds depth and intrigue to the story. It subverts expectations in a smart way, more like Game of Thrones and less like The Last Jedi.

My gut tells me she’s going to touch the mirror and fall in love with her new body, but I know it won’t be that simple

This means a lot to me, thank you very much! I liked TLJ though...

There's always a bit of an element of predictability to these kinds of stories (people wouldn't read them if they weren't reasonably confident someone was going to get fat eventually 😛), but I'm trying my best to keep it grounded in how I feel like these characters would react to the situations they're in. Any feedback or suggestions would be appreciated, as I'm not particularly experienced at writing this kind of thing!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Jentera said:

This means a lot to me, thank you very much! I liked TLJ though...

There's always a bit of an element of predictability to these kinds of stories (people wouldn't read them if they weren't reasonably confident someone was going to get fat eventually 😛), but I'm trying my best to keep it grounded in how I feel like these characters would react to the situations they're in. Any feedback or suggestions would be appreciated, as I'm not particularly experienced at writing this kind of thing!

I like TLJ when I watched it the first time, but the second time I started thinking “the dialogue is pretty witty, but these plot twists come out of nowhere and Ryan Johnson’s written himself into a corner.”

My advice is to maintain tension. Unless you want the protagonist realizing she likes being fat for real to be the end of the story, there should be an additional plot element to make things complicated. Examples: the mirror does other things. The shopkeeper has a hidden agenda. There are other shop trinkets. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Part 5 (https://www.deviantart.com/jentera/art/The-Grey-Frame-Part-5-Weight-Gain-868117744)

Soon enough, the sun began to set, and the mall began to empty, a sea of shoppers and staff flooding back towards their cars. But, of course, Emily wasn’t among them - she still had unfinished business to attend to. It took some pushing and shoving for her to fight against the tide, but eventually she arrived back at the dingy little shop where she’d first found the frame.

As expected, it was a ghost town. You would usually see at least one or two customers lingering in a store past closing time, locked in indecision over their final purchases, but Emily had the sneaking suspicion that this place would be lucky to get one or two customers, period. This place has got to be some kind of insurance scam, she thought. That, or a front for the mob. More strange still was the fact that the owner was nowhere to be seen.

“Hello?” she said tentatively, voice echoing down the dark aisles of the store. “Chloe, it’s me, where are you?”

Suddenly, there was a tremendous thud just inches to her side, as the shopkeeper’s enormous frame came sliding down a ladder from one of the towering shelves, a dusty tome clutched under one flabby arm. The impact was enough to make the floor quake, the various trinkets on the adjacent racks rattling and bouncing around violently - and Emily didn’t fare much better herself, reeling backwards in shock. She clung to the counter to steady herself.

“Jesus Christ”, she shouted. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Chloe snorted, slamming the heavy book down on the counter. “You’re still a jumpy little thing, aren’t you? Come on, pull yourself together, I’ve got something to show you.”

Without waiting for a response, the goth began flicking through the pages, a focused look on her face. Emily peered over her shoulder to get a better look, but it didn’t do her much good - the pages all appeared to be written in a foreign script, unlike anything she’d ever seen. The closest thing she could compare it to was Japanese; all strokes, lines and symbols in place of letters. But something about it seemed even more exotic than that, almost alien. Then again, not that she’d know - the closest place she’d come to Japan was the sushi bar in the food court.

As the smaller woman pondered, Chloe finally found what she was looking for. She spun the book round to face Emily with a triumphant 'a-ha!’ - and then, seeing the blank look on her customer’s face, let out a sigh. “Okay, guess I’ve got to translate,” she said, inverting the book once more. “You said you wanted to know what the girl in the picture was feeling, right?”

“...I guess?”

“Well, this is going to let us find out,” Chloe said, with a knowing smile. “C’mon, you’ve got the frame with you, right?”

Emily obliged, pulling the plastic-wrapped picture out of her backpack and propping it up on the counter. For once, the image didn’t seem preoccupied with its growing gut - instead, it matched the owner’s uncertain expression.

Slowly, the shopkeeper reached out and rested one plump hand on the dusty tome, and began to recite in a strange, unfamiliar tongue. As she did so, the glyphs began to glow a bright blue, and detached themselves from the page, floating up into midair as if they were caught on the breeze. They hung there for a second - then, before Emily could protest, the symbols flew into the frame, which seemed to absorb them hungrily. The image of her fattened self was drowned out by that same blue glow, the light becoming so bright that she had to avert her eyes. After a few moments, it began to die back down, and as she turned back to face the counter, she heard a familiar voice call to her.

“Hello, Emily.”

The painted image had changed. Instead of a too-small work uniform, she was now dressed in a figure-hugging red dress; the curve of her hips and stomach plainly visible through the tight fabric, and a plunging neckline showing off her newly-developed cleavage. And instead of matching her counterpart’s pose, she’d moved closer to the frame - and was talking.

Emily turned deathly pale. “D-did you do this?” she stuttered, spinning round to face Chloe.

The other woman smiled deviously. “You wanted to know how she was feeling - now you can ask her yourself! Well, I say ‘her’; it’s more like a direct line into your subconscious than anything. But, po-tay-to, po-tah-to. Either way, be quick about it, this spell only lasts a few minutes.”

“Aw, that’s all?” the frame said, with a pout. “Best get a move on, then. How can I help you, me?”

It took a few moments for the smaller girl to even know how to respond - Freud would have had a field day with this situation. “Okay,” she said, slowly. “Are you happy, being... that way?”

“Fat, you mean?” the painted girl grinned. “It was scary at first. Of course it was, we’ve spent our entire life being told to fear being this way - that we’d be ugly, unlovable. But where has listening to them ever gotten us? We try and we try to live up to their standards, and it’s never good enough. And you know the secret, don’t you? It’s because they’ve never cared about how we look - not really. There’s only one thing they really care about, and you know as well as I do what it is.”

Emily bit her lip. Direct line, indeed, she thought. “Control.”

“Exactly. And this,” - the image grabbed a handful of her gut, giving it a fierce shake - “this is us taking control. So yeah, I am happy. Every extra inch, every extra pound, we chose it.”

“Did we, though? I would have never considered being like you if I’d never found the frame. How do I know that you’re not trying to control me?”

“You said it yourself,” the fat Emily shrugged. “You’ve never felt like you were being forced to eat, right? Besides, you could have just left me face down on your desk, or thrown me in the trash, and carried on like you always have. You’d have been able to go your whole life without gaining a single pound, as long as you didn’t touch the frame. So why are you spending every evening staring at me? I must have tried on everything in your wardrobe by now.”

Emily flushed red, hearing the store’s owner snigger in the background. “Because… because I wanted to see what it’d be like to have confidence. To be you.”

“You can be me. It’d only take a touch.”

The slender woman let out a shuddery exhale. “But what if I’m not like you? What if I decide I don’t want to be fat?” she whispered. Or what if I decide it’s not enough?

“Then you can change that - but it’ll be on your terms. If you never try stepping outside your comfort zone, you’ll never really be free. You’ll just spend the rest of your life staring at pictures, wondering what could have been.”

Emily took a deep breath - then nodded. “God, you’re right,” she said, popping open the ziplock bag surrounding the frame and peeling it away. “I’ve just been waiting for someone to give me the answers, but there’s only one way I can know for sure if this will make me happy, isn’t there?”

Slowly, tentatively, she extended one finger towards the edge of the frame, and prepared herself for what was to come.

Then the bell above the store’s door rang. With a gasp, Chloe grabbed hold of her customer, pushing her down below the counter before she could make contact with the painting.

“Ow! Hey, I’m getting mixed messages here,” Emily shouted, but the other woman just shushed her in response. For the first time since they’d met, her face looked deathly serious, and it was enough to stop the still-skinny girl’s complaining instantly. Satisfied her customer was sufficiently hidden, the shopkeeper ran out to greet the unseen intruder with far more agility than seemed natural for a woman of her size.

"You came all this way to see little old me?” Chloe said, in a saccharine tone.

“Well, you made it necessary. Again.” the unfamiliar voice replied, with a sigh. “I need to talk to you - and yes, preferably ‘little old’ you, not this ridiculous form you insist on taking on Earth.”

As Emily peeped over the edge of the counter, she watched in astonishment as the obese woman nodded, arched her back, and closed her eyes. A blue glow surrounded her, the same colour as the glyphs from before. Her clothes faded out of existence, leaving her naked for a split second, before they were replaced with a regal white dress that seemed entirely at odds with her usual style. And Chloe’s body began to shrink, her enormous form melting away to reveal a lithe, toned figure that showed no hint of its previous size; not a single blemish or stretch mark on her pale skin.

“Anything for you, Sister,” she said.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Part 6 (https://www.deviantart.com/jentera/art/The-Grey-Frame-Part-6-Weight-Gain-868653046)

Now that there was significantly less Chloe to block the view, Emily finally caught a glimpse of their unexpected guest. It was clear that ‘sister’ hadn’t just been a term of endearment - between their sharp features, raven-black hair and piercing blue eyes, there was no doubt that the two women were related. If they are women at all, she thought to herself.

“Thank you,” the intruder said, with a heavy sigh. “I know the nature of our work requires certain… compromises. It makes sense for you to be a little bigger than the average human, I get it. But you really don’t know when to stop.”

Chloe snorted. “Don’t act like you’re any different, Catherine - feels like every time I see you, you’ve gone up a cup size.“

“That’s different,” the other woman snarled, one eyebrow twitching involuntarily. She folded her arms over her sizable chest, and with that same bright glow, it slowly shrank back down to a more modest size. “I choose to look the way I do because it gets results. I can’t see what benefit you could possibly get from being that size.”

“Yeah, well that’s why hedonism is my domain, and yours is lust. I don’t tell you how to do your job - don’t tell me how to do mine.”

This seemed to hit a nerve; with a huff, Catherine stormed over to the counter, forcing Emily to duck back out of sight. She looked on in horror as the frame was carried out of reach, her fattened image disappearing into the distance.

“I wouldn’t have to tell you how to do your job if you didn’t pull stuff like this,” Catherine shouted, waving the picture in front of Chloe. “It’s bad enough just showing divine artefacts to humans, but you’re giving them away like cheap trinkets!

Her sister just shrugged. “Goddesses are supposed to inspire people’s desires, right? Some people just need a little extra push.”

“Yeah, well, find another way!”

Before either the shopkeeper or her customer could react, Catherine threw the frame at the wall with inhuman force. It exploded into millions of fragments of glass, wood and canvas, which hung in the air for an unnatural amount of time - before disintegrating into blue particles, floating up and through the ceiling as if it wasn’t there. Without another word, the angry goddess ascended in the same way, and the two friends were left alone.

“Shit. That could have gone better,” the shopkeeper sighed, still looking up at the roof. Once again, she arched her back, and her body began to swell, the round outline of a stomach pressing out through her tight white dress. Unlike before, she made no effort to spare her clothes from the effects of her expansion; she went from thin to plump to fat in the blink of an eye, seams popping and fabric tearing to reveal each growing roll, and before long the shredded garment fell to the floor, dissolving into that now-familiar cyan mist. She reached her original size, paused for a moment, and then defiantly pushed her gut out a few extra inches.

“Start talking, now!” Emily shouted as the glow dissipated, crawling out from behind the counter. She grabbed a broom and pointed it at the naked goddess, as if to warn her to keep her distance. It was probably a futile gesture, given the display of strength she’d just seen, but it was all she could think to do. “Who are you? What are you?”

Chloe slowly raised her hands, her old black dress phasing back into existence as she did so. Despite her slightly larger size, it still seemed tailor-fit. “Okay, let’s chill,” she said, motioning for her customer to lower her guard. “My name is Chloe, but that isn’t the only name your people have known me by. The Greeks called me Hedone, the Romans called me Volupta, and so on and so on. I am the personification of hedonism and pleasure - a goddess, if you like. My brothers, sisters, and I appear to those who want a little help fulfilling their true desires.”

“So what, you just decided I needed you to come and fatten me up?”

“I didn’t ‘decide’ anything,” said the goddess, with a knowing smile. “This is the busiest mall in the state, and there’s never been a soul in here except you - doesn’t that strike you as strange?”

“Well... yeah,” Emily said, hesitantly. “I just figured it was because this place was shady as hell. Don’t think I was wrong about that much.”

“It’s because no-one else can see it. And neither would you, if you didn’t choose to. You would have come up here looking for Demitri’s, and you would have just seen an empty storefront like everyone else. Like I said, I appear to those that want the help.”

The human opened her mouth to protest, but couldn’t find the words. It was true, and the frame had told her as much: at every point since she’d met Chloe, she’d chosen to go deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole, ignoring every opportunity to quit while she was ahead. As much as she wanted to blame supernatural intervention for her newfound desires, she knew their roots laid much deeper within than that. After all, her first feelings upon seeing the frame smash hadn’t been relief, or even fear. It was disappointment. She’d come so close to breaking through her boundaries, taking a step into the unknown, only to have it taken from her at the last second.

With a sigh, Emily lowered the broom. “So… what happens now?” she asked, looking over at the spot where the picture used to be. “Am I just back to normal?”

“Beats me,” Chloe grinned. “I’ve made my sister mad before, but never mad enough to smash a relic. We’re in uncharted territory now.”

The broom went up again. “What do you mean, uncharted territory?! You’re a god, shouldn’t you know these things?”

“Well, if your soul was going to shatter with the frame, it’d have happened by now. Is that any consolation?”

“Souls can shatter?” the cashier groaned.

“Never mind.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is even better than the last one! First you turned the whole “free magic shop trinket” on its head, and then another goddess just smashes it to pieces! It’s been years since I’ve seen a story I have no idea on where it will go. We’re in uncharted territory. Thank you for writing this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...

Part 7 (https://www.deviantart.com/jentera/art/The-Grey-Frame-Part-7-Weight-Gain-884753804)

Sorry this took so long! I haven't really been in the mood to write recently, and didn't really know where to take this story next, but I finally have a bit of an idea in mind :)

---

As Laura looked out at the queue of customers snaking through the store’s aisles, a singular thought filled her head.

“Fucking Emily.”

From their first shift together, the two cashiers could tell they weren’t going to get along. Their attitude to the job was just too fundamentally different - Laura was determined to make assistant manager someday, while Emily seemed to resent being there at all, content to just coast along and pick up paychecks with as little effort as she could muster. Things had gotten even more fraught in the past few months, however - people had always taken certain liberties with the store’s lunch break policy, but lately Emily had been vanishing for upwards of an hour and a half, leaving her co-workers to pick up the slack as the afternoon rush began.

At first, Laura had tried to take the excuses at face value - the long queue at the food court, the old friend that wanted to chat, the urgent phone call that just couldn’t wait until after work. But it wasn’t long before her nosey nature got the better of her. On the rare shifts where there were other cashiers working the tills, Laura would skulk along behind Emily, to see where she could possibly be spending all that extra time. And every time without fail, the same strange sight would meet her at the destination - her ultra-skinny co-worker, ordering enough food to feed a small family, and proceeding to devour it as if it were a light snack.

There were a multitude of reasons why this made Laura furious, but as she leaned over the counter to hand yet another customer their shopping, she got an unwelcome reminder of one of them - a sudden jolt of cold as her pudgy stomach touched the table, a sliver of soft tanned skin exposed as she stretched. She watched the bemused shopper’s gaze flit downwards for a split second, and gritted her teeth.

“Thank you - NEXT!

Yes, loathe as she was to admit it, she was more than a little jealous of her lazy shiftmate. While Emily stuffed her face on company time without gaining a single pound, working at the mall had slowly eroded Laura’s college athlete physique. She wasn’t huge, by any means; but that wouldn’t stay true for long at the pace she was outgrowing uniforms. As she tugged at the hem of her overstretched shirt, the cashier bitterly thought to herself: what the hell is her secret?

Hello? Come on, I’ve been waiting an hour, do they pay you to space out?” the next customer huffed, rapping on the shop counter with her fake nails.

Laura clenched her fists, and turned on her best fake smile. “I’m sorry, it’s been a long day,” she said in a saccharine tone. “What can I do for you, miss?”

The customer held up a garish dress. “My size isn’t on the rack - can you check the back?”

“If it’s not on the rack, we don’t have it,” the lone clerk said, knuckles turning white.

“Oh no, you’re not giving me that after I’ve queued up all this time. You won’t know unless you check, will you?”

Laura sighed. “Fine. Be right back.”

---

‘The back’ was, in actuality, down a hallway and up several flights of stairs. By the time Laura reached the dingy storeroom, she was thoroughly out of breath, and even more incandescent with rage than before. Not that she had much energy to show it.

“I’m going… to kill… that bitch...” she puffed, slumping against the wall for support. The plump woman pawed around in the dark for the light switch, eager to get this over with as quickly as possible. But before she could find it, she was distracted by a yell from the floor below:

“Yeah, well, find another way!”

There was a crash, and out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a faint glow. It was coming from the floorboards in the centre of the room, which were slowly getting brighter and brighter, illuminating everything in an eerie blue light. One by one, bright sparks of cyan began to rise up from the ground, hovering in the air as if they were uncertain about where they should go next. Then, all at once, they made their decision - flying towards Laura like a swarm of hornets. She let out a yell, holding up her hands to prepare for impact…

And then watched as they flew straight past her, crashing into a nearby mannequin and sending it hurtling to the ground. It lit up with that same blinding blue light, dazzling the cashier; through squinted eyes, she watched as the inanimate figure began to change shape, expanding outwards with force.

“Oh shit,” she yelled, diving behind a stack of boxes for cover. But the explosion she was expecting never came - after a few tense minutes, the glow faded, and silence fell. Tentatively, she felt her way along the wall, finally finding a switch and flipping it on.

“Oh, hello there,” came a familiar voice.

Laura immediately felt her anger return with a vengeance. “God, Emily, I should have known this would be your fault someho-”

She turned around, and her snarls trailed off. Standing in the center of the storeroom was an enormously fat blonde in a tight red dress, testing the weight of her stomach with her palms, as if she’d only just noticed it were there. Despite the drastically different figure, the softer jawline, the rounder cheeks: it was unmistakably Emily.

“B-but how are you…” the smaller woman stuttered, breaking out in a cold sweat. “I saw you an hour ago and you were skinny… h-how is this possible?”

Without a word, the woman in the red dress strode over towards Laura, slowly backing her up against the wall with her giant sphere of a gut. “I can tell you, but you’re not going to believe it,” she grinned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

Part 8 (https://www.deviantart.com/jentera/art/The-Grey-Frame-Part-8-Weight-Gain-898487226)

one day I will get better at regularly updating

---

“So, any questions?”

 

Laura let out a derisive snort as Emily finally gave her some breathing room. “Yeah, I got a few,” she said, folding her arms. “Like, where are the hidden cameras, and how much are they paying you to wear that fat suit? Come on, I’m not stupid enough to be fooled by a few pyrotechnics.”

 

The beefy blonde giggled, ‘fat suit’ jiggling in a way that seemed uncomfortably realistic. “Oh come on - do you really think Emily’s organized enough for something like that? She’s been late for every shift she’s ever worked.”

 

“I’m well aware,” Laura growled, through gritted teeth. “Still makes more sense than the bullshit you’re coming out with.”

 

Ignoring her co-worker’s mutterings, Emily began rummaging around the storeroom, carelessly throwing the carefully organized stock left and right. After a few minutes, she came bounding back with a wide grin on her face, like a puppy playing fetch. Before the other girl could protest, she pressed a small black object into Laura’s hands.

 

Upon closer inspection, Laura realized it was an old smartphone, screen covered with cracks. This wasn’t the first time she had seen it, either - a customer had thrown it down on the store’s counter a few days ago, demanding a refund. It had taken every ounce of the cashier’s self-control (and a stern look from the store manager) to not tell that customer exactly where he could shove his clearly-dropped handset, and to instead smile and give him his money back.

 

“Okay, so, here’s the deal,” the larger woman said, expression turning serious. “Chloe’s sister destroyed my vessel, but ‘cause she’s more tits and muscle than she is brains, she didn’t bother to dispel the enchantment first. That’s why I’m still here - for now, at least. If we work fast, I can still merge with the real Emily before I fade away.”

 

“What do you mean, ‘we’? And what the hell does a busted iPhone have to do with anything?”

 

“I need to conserve my energy. If I keep maintaining a form of this size, I’m not gonna last the night - which is why I’m gonna do this!”

 

There was a bright flash of light and a loud pop, and suddenly, Laura was alone in the room once more. “For fuck’s sake - where’d you go?” she shouted. As if in response, the phone in her hands buzzed and lit up. She looked down instinctively, and nearly dropped the handset in shock. Peering through from the other side of the cracked screen was Emily; slightly pixelated, slightly distorted by the damaged glass, but still just as large as she had been in the real world a moment ago.

 

“Ta-da,” the image said in a sing-song voice. “This should buy us some time. Now all you’ve got to do is tell Emily to touch the phone, and then-”

 

Before the virtual voice could finish it’s sentence, Laura gripped the volume slider hard. “Oh, I’m going to talk to her, alright,” she muttered, stuffing the silenced device in her pocket.

 

---

 

Emily let her plastic fork clatter against the food court tray, and let out an over-dramatic sigh. After the previous night’s ‘excitement’, she’d gone to bed hoping desperately that she’d finally be able to draw a line under everything, and go back to being a normal woman with a normal metabolism. But no such luck; it was lunchtime the next day, and even after her now-traditional mid-shift binge, her stomach was still just as flat as ever. The magic was clearly still just as powerful as it had been before - only now, she had no clue how to undo it. And perhaps more worryingly, it seemed like Chloe didn’t, either.

 

“Is there really nothing you can do?” the cashier whined. “I mean, you’re a goddess, right? Can’t you just… un-cast the spell?”

 

Chloe gave a noncommittal shrug, plucking a tomato from her salad and popping it in her mouth. With the extra pounds she’d petulantly added onto her frame after Charlotte’s visit, her plastic chair was having an even more difficult time than usual, the legs creaking and bowing outwards with every adjustment of her posture. “Easier said than done, now the frame’s gone. Until the magic wears off by itself, I think you’re just kinda stuck,” she said - before her lips curled into a devious grin. “Never woulda thought I’d see you so eager to start putting on weight again, though. I’m better at my job than I thought.”

 

Emily immediately looked down at the floor, face turning a deep shade of red. “Hey, don’t put words in my mouth,” she muttered. “I still don’t really know if I want to be fat. I’d just appreciate having a choice, for once in my life.”

 

“Sure seemed like you’d made your choice last night.”

 

Before the skinnier girl could open her mouth to retort, the loud scrape of a chair on the tiles cut her off. She turned to look for the source - and came face to face with Laura, who had taken a seat at one side of the table.

 

“How’s your lunch break going? Guessing pretty good, seeing as you’ve left me on the tills alone for an hour,” she sneered, before turning to the goddess. “Nice to meet you, by the way. Funny that Emily never bothered to introduce us.”

 

Chloe folded her arms on top of her enormous stomach, leaning back as if to survey their unexpected guest from top to bottom. “Pleasure’s all mine.”

 

“What’s up, Laura? Sorry, I was, uh... just about to come back to work,” Emily stuttered, trying to surreptitiously rearrange the empty fast food wrappers so they weren’t all on her side of the table.

 

“Oh, don’t rush! I was hoping the three of us could have a chat,” the chubbier checkout operator said, with an ominous smile. “See, I think I’ve got something that belongs to you. So let’s talk about my finder’s fee, shall we?”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.