amfyoyo

When Sarah finally hauled herself into bed that night after discarding her ripped pants and pulling off her painfully tight bra, three distinct thoughts both troubled and fascinated her. The first was that she seemed to be unable to lay on her back. For maybe the first time ever, the weight of her own belly and everything that she had stuffed into it was too great. She felt it pressing down on her organs and spine. Her tits splayed out to either side of her chest but they too felt too heavy. She had become and expert at stuffing herself silly and eating to way way way beyond excess. She had gotten as fat as she had in a very short time and the feeling of being in a food coma was one that she had become very familiar with. But tonight, it felt different, like she had taken that one step too far. Too far. That had been the theme of her life for the last few years. Everything had gone too far, but she had never before felt quite so trapped under the weight of her excess. The second thing on her mind was the weird world that Katie had shown to her. She had been pretty high and engrossed in stuffing her face, but it didn’t seem like it was fake, What did this discovery mean for her? Anything. God, her gut ached. She couldn’t get comfortable. She rolled onto her side. The final thing on her mind, as the beer, weed, cake, and MSG did its work and she drifted off into fitful, uncomfortable sleep was how the fuck had she gotten to weigh more than four hundred fucking pounds, and how much over that dreaded number was she? Sarah had the next day off, so she slept as long as she could, gasping to life from a disturbing dream at around eleven o’clock. Despite the gorging of the day before, she was ravenously hungry and made food her first priority. She had discovered that she could fit three tubes of Pillsbury Cinnamon rolls onto one cookie sheet, and that was popped into the oven. While she was waiting for the rolls to cook, she added some heft to her own rolls with a box of Cap’n Crunch and a box of Fruity Pebbles. For a while, she had tried to make it easier to eat her fill of cereal by filling up a mixing bowl with the sugary treats and pouring in the vanilla soy milk- so much sweeter than whole milk – but that just make the whole thing soggy by the time she had finished emptying her trough. Now she just took the boxes and the milk to the couch and kept refilling them. Lumbering over to her favorite spot to eat, Sarah assumed the position that she had slowly resorted to over the last year as her ballooning had really taken off. As her gut had gotten really really big and her abs progressively weaker, it was harder and harder for her to place whatever she was eating on the table and lean over it. After sustained growth, her belly began to push her knees apart, and although her thighs pushed back, it wasn’t too comfortable, so Sarah eventually started to rock back and forth, scooping up food and then flopping back on the couch. That was too much effort and, even though it made her a little sick to do it, she started simply laying back into the cushions and putting whatever she was currently sucking down on top of her bloated gut. Obviously, this lead to a lot of spills on her dwindled wardrobe, so she just started eating without a shirt or pants, usually with a dishtowel draped over her gut. She took up this position for her first three bowls of cereal, but remembered that she wanted to use her laptop to see for herself what Kaie was talking about. She vaguely remembered some of it from the night before. She had said that what made Sarah special for someone of her size was, “You’re, like, big all over; you’re totally proportional.” Sarah had stopped as she crammed an entire egg roll into her mouth. Around a mouthful of fried fat, she had replied, “There’s nothing proportional about me, Katie. I’m fucking huge.” “No, no, no, like…I think it is amazing where the human body puts extra fat, right? I mean when a girl gets as big as you, there’s always, or usually, some part of her that really gets superfat, like she has a giant butt and tiny boobs, or like a massive gut, but relatively skinny legs. But you’re big all over, you have huge boobs, a huge belly, huge thighs, a huge butt…” “I…I get it. I’m huge.” Sarah interrupted, and then crammed in another egg roll. Sarah opened her e-mail to find that Katie had been sending her links the previous night. She gulped more cereal, finishing two boxes while the cinnamon rolls cooled and clicked through site after site. Jesus Christ. This was even weirder than it had seemed the night before. She was in shock, but also felt something like pride, or some kind of shared empathy or sympathy or something, something weird. Chomping her way through fifteen cinnamon rolls which she had iced with the icing in the package and a jar of Nutella, Sarah saw a new world . She didn’t know any women as big as she was and she barely knew how to dress herself, but blog after blog showed her that she didn’t need to be crammed into internet-ordered scrubs and gigantic, food-stained sweats all the time. She saw women who were proud of how they looked, posed in sexy ways or posted video of them wobbling their bellies. What was perhaps the most surprising was the amount of fandom that these women seemed to attract. There seemed to be tons of men who gladly paid to watch videos of them rubbing their bellies, or squeezing into tight clothes, or just eating. Sarah looked down at the pan to discover that she had the last cinnamon roll in her hand. Breathing heavily, she folded it into her mouth in one choking bite. She swallowed and immediately let out a monstrous belch that caused her entire body to wobble. From her reclined position, she could see the ripples on her huge breasts and belly. She sighed, coming to an inevitable conclusion: These women were fat, and beautiful, and men loved them and they seemed happy with who they were. There was a range to these women’s sizes, though, and if she was honest with herself, which was hard for her, she was in the upper range. For sure, some women were larger, topping out in the five hundred pound range, but she was bigger than most of them. And she was growing at an alarming rate. And she didn’t really feel like stopping. What did that mean? What she was immediately sure of was her need to get her expanding ass to the mall and buy some clothes that made her look less like…well, less like a woman who tried to cram herself into tightening scrubs and sweatpants; there were stretch pants in her future! Why hadn’t this occurred to her before? Maybe the weed was really starting to make her dumb. Fatter, she was somehow, sort of, becoming okay with, but she didn’t want to be any dumber than she already was. She felt pretty dumb when she tried to hoist herself off of the couch too fast and had to give it three tries before she could move her bulk into a standing position. Recognizing the wreckage on the coffee table, she sighed, knowing that she had overdone it, again. She felt less dumb, when she had the presence of mind to look up the mall’s directory and map on her phone so she knew which parking lot would cause her to have to walk the least. Her goal was Lane Bryant, and…wait a minute…really? Lane Bryant was right next to the food court? Was that some kind of joke? Ooooh, they had Auntie Ann’s Pretzles and Taco Bell. God, what was she thinking? She was still stuffed from breakfast, but the bowl she had smoked in the car ride over was starting to kick in and she couldn’t deny that she was starting to get hungry. This, she thought as she looked down at the glass pipe resting on her gut which was, in turn, pressing on the steering wheel is why you’re so fucking fat. The great thing about a weed addled brain is that it always gives the same answer: Oh well, no big deal… Sarah shoehorned her way out of her car in the parking lot and began to waddle toward the doors. It was funny, but now knowing that she had blimped out to over four hundred pounds made her knees seem to hurt more and her breath come shorter than she thought it had yesterday. Thank God she had parked close to the elevator. The smells from the food court wafted towards her sensitive nose as she emerged onto the main floor of the mall. She rolled into the store, expectedly empty for a weekday and was immediately greeted by a woman who seemed helpful and cheerful and chubby. Funny how this woman, Kelli, would be considered by most to be downright fat, standing in front of the perspiring, bulging Sarah, she seemed merely, and almost daintily plump. Sarah was dressed in the last pair of scrub pants she could get up around her ass and a sweatshirt that not only had food stains on it, but was stretched tight across boobs and belly, so that Sarah was sure she could feel a slight breeze on the bottom curve of gut as it surged over her waistband. As Kelli extended her hand to shake, Sarah leaned forward, dropped her purse, bent over to pick it up, and heard a rip as her scrubs split right up the seam. “Oh, come in, honey,” cooed Kelli, “We’ll take care of that.” Patting Sarah’s over inflated upper arms, she led her into the store. Two hours of the full attention of the three women working that day, several hundred dollars, and countless, tiring trips to the fitting room, Sarah emerged from Lane Bryant in a pair of leggings, wearing her same tight grey sweatshirt, but toting bags containing new clothes for all occasions. She felt, at once, confident but also shocked to find herself at the outer limits of some of the clothes available off the racks. Kelli, Mary, and Jolene were all sympathetic and stylish, and much, much bigger than average, but all of them easily clothed in the offerings of their employer. Sarah was bigger than all of them, and wanted, as some points to ask if they had women come in bigger then she. But she didn’t ask. She felt strange, so strange that she could hardly describe how she felt. Horror, certainly, that in a store for fat women, in a country full of fat women, she was at the upper end of the fat spectrum. But that wasn’t all, and it wasn’t total. These women – Katie last night, and the three women today – thought she was beautiful. Or, at least they said they did. And to be honest, looking at herself it clothes that didn’t feel like they were about to burst at the seams, she did feel better than she had in a long time. It would be too much to say that she felt attractive, but seeing those women on the internet, well, it could be her. She felt oddly powerful, like all four hundred and whatever pounds of her could be something that was desirable and something not so bad or weird. Sarah had little time to think these thoughts, because, just like she overdid everything, she must have overdone it on the pot on her way over, because she had spent way too much money and now she was totally, out of her mind starving. She surveyed the food court like a wolf eyeing a flock of blissfully unaware sheep. What should she eat? How could she choose which restaurant to stuff her face from? A small voice piped up from the back of her mind, “All of them.” All of them. She would eat something from each of the – she counted – thirteen restaurants. Once she had decided, she was committed. Strategy: a clockwise rotation through the food court. A real dish from each place. A challenge. She placed her bags at a table in the center and dragged two of the flimsy café chairs over to one side. She new from looking at them that she was going to need both. The first place served salad. Bullshit. Caeser with extra dressing and double crispy fried chicken. Down in minutes, even with the cheesy garlic bread. Number two was Teriyaki Town. She made an easy call of beef over fried noodles, not too spicy, but the portion was huge. It wasn’t as easy as the salad, but nothing she couldn’t handle. Next was Burger King. The Triple Whopper with a frozen Coke might have been a bit ambitious, especially so early in the game, but she managed it with a smile and several deep and resonant belches. Three down, ten to go. The chairs creaked as she wobbled to stand up. After downing two slices of Sbarro stuffed pizza, one of them Philly Cheesesteak and one Supreme, she was really glad that she was wearing one of her new pairs of leggings. After three grilled stuff’d burritos from Taco Bell, she reached down and let her aching belly flop over the top of them. Her sweatshirt, getting tighter by the second rode up and constricted. Five restaurants down, eight to go. Three rolls of prepackaged sushi, heavy on the soy sauce. She swore that she felt herself swelling out in all directions as she oofed and huffed her way off of her chairs to stumble to Chik-fil-a. With her deluxe chicken sandwich and waffle fries, Sarah trudged back to her seat, her hips brushing the chairs around her and her belly bouncing a little she felt almost too full to continue, but the sandwich was so juicy and so good and the fries we so salty, she couldn’t stop. Could she make it six more restaurants? When the last waffle fry disappeared into her ready mouth, she took stock. There was a pile of wrappers on the table and three huge bags from Lane Bryant on the other two chairs. There were two chairs under her massive butt. She placed a salty hand on either side of her hips; soft, squishy, huge. She swiped her hands up her hips to where her love-handles slopped over, also soft, squishy, and – holy shit – a lot bigger than the last time that she had squeezed them. She ran her palms around to the main event: the belly. It was taut but still soft and big, really big. She ran her hands around it some more, making small circles. Her nipples got hard. Rubbing her stuffed belly was turning her on. She looked down at her stiffening nipples and knew that as full as she was, she needed to eat more. She needed to eat a meal from six more restaurants. A roasted garlic, a sour cream and onion, and a pepperoni pretzel from Auntie Anne’s. Sarah’s breathing got heavy. As she stood transfixed by the rotating column of lamb at the Gyro shop, the sane, rational part of her brain that was still back there somewhere behind her headlong dive into abject gluttony, told her that she should stop. The part of her brain that was expanding as fast as her tits told her to get an extra-large. So she did and with tzatziki sauce running down one chin onto the next, she planned her approach to the final four. She knew these would be the worst to tackle at then end, the ones in which she would have the least control over herself. A pile of pork fried rice covered in General Tso’s sweetly fried chicken from Panda Express caused her to break out in a sweat. The liter of sweet tea she got to go with her basket of fried chicken from Popeye’s helped cool her down, but started her feeling some sharp jabs of pain from her gut. She pushed on. If there was a point of no return, it was when she took her first bite of the Five Guys bacon cheeseburger. She had piled the Cajun fries under the bun, so save time, and the flavors combined to help her forget the pain in the stomach, the sweat on her brow, and what might be the onset of dizziness. She almost stumbled as she cradled her belly and swayed up to the final ascent. The last stop that could make of break her: Cinnabon. And she wasn’t going to crawl over the finish line, she was going to sprint. “Can I (hic) have a (burp) box of six, please?” She tried to smile, but she wasn’t sure it was convincing. With box in hand, she painfully manoevered her bulk back to her chairs. Leaving the debris of her binge on the table, she picked up her bags and started the waddle to her car. She wasn’t sure it if was possible, but she thought she might actually explode and if she did, she wanted it to be in a confined space where no small children would be hurt. To say that the walk pained her would be an understatement. To say that squeezing her bulk back into her car was a challenge would also be an understatement. To say that the bowl she smoked in the parking lot was small would also be an understatement, but it calmed her waves of nausea and her nervous mind. And one bite at a time, she ate each and every one of the enormous, gooey confections, her sexual arousal growing with each bite until, as she stuffed the last morsel into her mouth, she felt the surge of release and reclined her seat in ecstasy, feeling very wet in her now too tight leggings. Her breath came in short gasps as she knew that something had changed, something had broken through, and she would never be the same again.

I was in the kitchen, washing up the mess from a particularly decadent breakfast, even by Janie standards: a pan of huge cinnamon rolls, a pile of scrambled eggs with cheese that had been cooked in the grease fro a dozen strips of bacon, while Janie herself lay beached on the end of the sofa closest to the air conditioner. Her huge breasts were barely contained in her bra and her panties looked like they were being enveloped on the top by her gut and underneath by her bountiful butt cheeks. She had begun preparing her breakfast in jeans and a tank top that didn’t cover up her belly, but she took them off as soon as she started to eat. I looked up from my granola and yogurt to see her struggling out of the top, squeezing her arms through the straps and causing her…well her everything to bounce a bit. Once she got it off, she waddled around the table to where I was sitting and stuck her swelling belly out to me. “Yes?” “Belt, please.” “Oh, yeah, sorry.” I started what was becoming a common move for us: I used my left hand to lift up her paunch, while flicking open her belt with my right. There wasn’t hard, as there was about a half inch of worn leather left beside the last emergency hole. “So, belt getting a little tight?” “Ummm…No, just making a little extra room. I made two tubes of cinnamon rolls!” She wriggled out of the pants and left them on the floor and bounced back to her seat. I watched her with mild fascination. God, she just kept getting bigger. It seemed like every time I looked up, she was eating something. And now she was plowing through two tubes of double iced cinnamon rolls and piles of eggs and bacon. And she ate it all and lumbered over to the couch where she planted herself by the AC and placed her laptop on her tightly swollen belly. I kept washing dishes, wondering where in the breakfast she had just eaten had she managed to hide a jar of Nutella…in the cinnamon rolls? No wonder she was getting so big. I started when she let out a squeal. “What?! Why are you squealing?” “The fair is in town! The next three days!” “And? You like fairs? Since when?” “I don’t like fairs. I want fair food! Listen to this, ‘bacon-wrapped turkey legs, deep-fried Twinkies”…she started to trail off as he eyes darted across the screen, “Basically, they have fried everything! Can we go, please?” “Sure. Should I bring your defibrillator, or do you think they have one there?” “Oh shut up! A girl is allowed to indulge once in a while.” She smiled when she said this, knowing that there was scarcely a time in the last few years when she had stopped indulging. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. You have really been wasting away lately.” “Oooooh, Asshole,” she laughed, “If I wasn’t so stuffed, I would come over there and kick your butt.” “That’s possible the most fatass thing you have ever said.” “Okay, that’s it!” Janie exclaimed and let the laptop slide off of her belly on to the couch. She began the arduous process of hauling herself up: gripping the cushions to get some leverage, wiggling her ass forward to the edge, and swaying sideways wither chubby arms flailing to get into a sitting position. Once there, she rocked three or four times, hands on her knees and groaned herself into a wide-legged stand. She was slightly red faced and her belly wobbled in front of her. I laughed and she smiled and waddle-charged towards me in the kitchen. I put my hands up in front of me in surrender and she grabbed them before bumping me with belly and breasts back against the wall. She leaned her not inconsiderable weight against me and placed both of my hand, palms down, on her quivering love handles. She turned her face up to look into mine. “Now, don’t pretend for a second that you don’t love my fat ass.” I squeezed her sides, noting how much flesh pressed in between my fingers. “Be honest,” she leaned harder into me and rubbed her breasts from side to side, “back when I was a skinny yoga bitch, you were not nearly as into my body as you are now.” She was right. The bigger she got the more I couldn’t keep may hands off of her. I squeezed harder. “See, you never used to squeeze me like that.” “Well, you didn’t have all of this to squeeze.” “Take me into the bedroom now, and then take me to the fair tonight.” And so I did. After we emerged and showed, I offered Janie some lunch, but she declined and when, shocked, I asked for the reason, she said she wanted to be able to eat everything at the fair tonight. “Remember that rat in Charlotte’s Web? That’s me tonight.” I accepted this logic, but couldn’t help but notice that after she ran some errands and came by the house to pick me up, there was some fresh McDonald’s trash in the car. “No lunch?” I asked. “Well, I got a little hungry,” she purred, stashing the trash in the back seat. “I only had a double quarter pounder…and fries…” “And…?” “And a shake.” “So why is there the trash from twice as much as that?” “Well, the first round was so good, I went back and had it again.” We both grinned. The fair was everything Janie hoped it would be. She had no interests in rides, livestock displays, games, or anything other than the food. She made no discrimination between salty, fried, or sweet; she just plowed down the food concourse and had one of everything. Deep fried snickers wrapped in bacon, funnel cake, footlong corndogs (one in each fist). She gobbled and smacked and slurped her way along without braking stride until she started doing a little moaning and burping. “Getting full?” “Not a chance.” She belched, “Nothing a fried turkey leg won’t fix, oooh, and a slurpee.” As both of her hands were full and she seemed to be slowing down a little but, I steered her into the booths in the next aisle. I looked around at hand crafts, Janie chewing and sucking at my elbow when suddenly she stopped short and belched in surprise. She pointed the turkey leg at a guy in a leather goods booth. I waited for her to swallow before she said, “That’s the guy I bought my belt from! That’s him!” “Are you sure?” Although the guy was unmistakable, maybe six foot six or seven and rail thin with a long gray ponytail and (of all things) and eye-patch. “Yes! Maybe he can fix mine.” “I don’t know if that’s possible…” But she was already tottering towards the table, turkey leg in hand, belly and ass swinging in her step. His one good eye looked her up and down as she began to tell him about how she had bought her favorite belt from him a long time ago and she loved it so much and maybe he could help her. He smiled and said, “Sure, what seems to be the trouble?” Looking around for a flat surface on which to set her giant slurpee and not finding one, she simply lifted her arms over her head, letting her shirt ride up and expose her belly. “Hmmm?” He raised an eyebrow, “I’m not sure.” “Oh!” Janie reddened, but smiling, jammed the turkey leg into her mouth and used her free hand to lift up her gut, leaning back so he could see the belt. “Um, maybe you should take if off, Darlin’,” he suggested sweetly. She turned to me, arms still up and turkey leg still jammed in her mouth. I executed the move I had done at breakfast, pushing up her gut (noticing how tightly it was packed) and flicking the belt open (noticing how much tighter it had gotten since I poked the final hole). With difficulty, as it kept sticking to her overhanging flab, I pulled it free and handed it over to the smiling leather goods man. The button on Janie’s jeans took up the tension and I would have sworn that I heard it creak in protest. Luckily she was stuffed so tight into those jeans that they didn’t budge. He examined the ridiculously worn leather and a sly, mysterious smile crossed his face. “This is one of mine, and a pretty nice one too.” He held the belt up to the light and looked over the roses and barbed wire stamped into the leather. “I used to make a lot of these.” He ran his fingers over the tail end, touching each of the holes, thumb on one side, middle finger on the other. When he got to the end, the hole mere centimeters from the end of the belt, he looked up at Janie, who had begun a new assault on the turkey leg. “Is this the hole you have been using, Miss?” Janie nodded, mouth full of friend meat. “And how were you hoping I could help?” She swallowed. I will confess that, at this point, I had no idea what was going to happen, what she would say or how he would answer her. “Can you stretch it out for me. It’s gotten a little…um…snug.” “Well, that happens sometimes.” Good answer, sir. “I don’t know that I can stretch it to your…um…needs,” Janie’s face fell, “But, I’ll tell you what I can do: We’re in town for the next two nights, and I can make you a new one. Exactly the same as this one, you won’t be able to tell the difference, only it won’t be so…snug. My workshop is right in my camper. How does that sound?” Janie did not want to hear that the belt was unsalvageable, and frowned a little. “Of course,” he continued, noticing her frown, “it will be free of charge. I stand behind my products.” He winked and there was that mysterious smile again. He looked quickly at me. “Oh, that sounds great, right honey?” I said. She agreed and we left the belt and our information with Lee (of Lee’s Leathers) and arranged to pick up the belt on the last night of the fair. We walked away from his booth as Janie got to the end of the turkey leg and stuck the bone in the empty slurpee cup. She looked sad to let the belt go. “Would something to eat cheer you up?” She nodded and by the time I wedged her back into the car, she had eaten almost everything the fair had to offer and had her jeans unbuttoned and her bra unhooked before I got around to the driver’s side. She moaned herself to sleep that night, rubbing her belly and hiccupping long after I fell asleep. The next day, some of her friend’s texted her to see if she wanted to go to the fair with them, maybe watch the demolition derby and have some fried food. She squeezed herself into some stretchy yoga pants and headed out. I wondered if, in front of her friends, she would show some more restraint, in terms of her appetite, but she rolled in the door in much the same condition as she had the night of our outing, and collapsed heavily on the couch beside me. The next morning, she woke up late and staggered into the kitchen with her hands on the small of her back, her belly jutting forward. “I think I ate the whole fair last night.” “So, no room for more fried gluttony when we go back tonight?” She looked at me blankly, “For the belt?” The snap of recognition was accompanied by a hiccup. “I think I can manage a bit more.” Janie was as good as her word, as soon as we entered the fairgrounds, she said that there was one more dessert at a booth that she hadn’t tried and wanted to get right away in case they ran out. I told her I would meet her at the leather booth – I wanted to spend as little time at the fair as I could. Lee was there and recognized me right away with that same knowing smile. From below the table he produced two coils of leather. One was Janie’s old faithful and another was its shiny new duplicate. As I held it up to inspect it, I saw that the design had been copied exactly and with great care. I also notice that it was much, much longer. Lee must have seen my expression as I unrolled the belt. “I put the smallest hole a bit further out than the last hole on the older. It looked tight as it was and I could get a pretty good sense of how things are going.” I looked at him quizzically and he laughed a little and nodded, picking up the old belt. “I can tell around when I sold this, cuz I put a small date under the frame flap, just so I can keep track of what’s sellin’ when.” He showed me the month and date. “And, this,” he moved his fingers to the smallest hole, “wasn’t original. I musta punched this for her here in the booth.” He fastened the belt in that hole and held it up. It was tiny. “So, I know, our blonde beauty had a waist about this big around about seven years ago.” With an expert’s hand, he opened the buckle and slid it through each successive hole. “I can also tell, from the wear pattern, that this…” He seemed to be considering his words carefully, “increase in girth…” He looked at me knowingly, I raised my eyebrows and smiled, “started off slow enough, but seems to have picked up the pace.” He pointed at the frame, worn smooth and shiny on top, “This kind of wear comes from contact with the oils in your skin, and as your darlin’ was willing to show me the other night, I am pretty sure this got worn from contact with her belly hanging over her jeans.” He looked at me and I nodded; it was true. “And, to be honest, if I may fall back on my wisdom of experience on the subject, I seen her here the last two nights hoggin’ out pretty good and there ain’t no health food at a fair. In fact,” he paused, “did she come with you tonight?” When I nodded, he said, “and she went to get something to eat?” I nodded again. “I know ‘em when I see ‘em. Come around the table there, I want to show you something. It felt weird, but I inched around the table as he pulled out his wallet. He produced an old photo in a plastic sleeve. The boy in the photo was obviously him, with two eyes in a tuxedo, and he had his arm around a beautiful slender blonde in what I imagined was a prom dress. She was gorgeous with a dazzling smiled, perky breasts, and cascading curls. “Senior Prom,” Lee said, confirming my assumption. He replaced the photo and then the wallet. He reached into his other pocket, took out a phone and flicked and tapped, then turned it towards me. He was there in the photo, same goofy smile at the prom picture, same string bean frame, but the woman next to him was enormous. With a mass of blonde curls piled on top of her head and a body like a busty refrigerator, it took me a second to recognize the dazzling smile. I twitched my head to look him in the face. “Yep,” he drawled, “same girl. Forty years, five kids, and, oh let’s see almost five hundred pounds.” I gaped at him and then looked back at the picture. She was still beautiful and she looked just as happy as she had in the picture of prom night, just as radiant. I had a flash of my future with Janie, how many fried Twinkies and nutella filled cinnamon rolls would she suck down on her way to becoming… Lee’s voice brought me back to the present, “So, when I said I had a sense of how things were going, I speak from experience. I also saw the way you two are with each other and how you took her belt out from under her belly the other night and I can tell you’re like me.” “I…” He cut me off. “I’m not saying anything, my friend. I didn’t know what to think at first myself, but as things progressed, I liked it more and more,” he took a pause and chuckled, “and more. I can see you’re in the same boat, that’s why I wanted to help you out. You have a beautiful girl there, make sure you take care of her.” I started to say something, but almost on cue, Janie appeared around the corner of the aisle clutching in each hand a lump of fried something on a stick. I stepped around the table. “Fried Nutella,” she gasped, holding up her left hand, “and fried Key Lime pie!” holding up her right. “Oooh, is that my belt?” She had powdered sugar on her cheek and chin, and I guessed she had made more then one stop on her way to find us. I held the belt up for her to admire. “Oh my God, it’s perfect. It looks just like the old one.” She turned to Lee. “Thank you so much. It’s beautiful. Hang on a second; these should be cool by now.” She bit into one of the fried globs, it must have been the Nutella as chocolate stained her cheek. Five bites to down that one and six more for the pie and she was holding two greasy sticks. She turned to toss the sticks into the trash, giving us a view of her expansive ass and wide blubbery hips. She had worn the jeans from her first night at the fair, but had left them unbuttoned. Wiping her hands on her super tight jeans, she reached for the belt and tried to put it on. Janie’s belly was too big for her to see where the belt loops began and it hung over her waistband too much to make it easy to actually get the belt in there. I watched her struggle for a beat before I walked behind her and wrapped my arms around her in a hug, lifting her belly up and squeezing it. With her gut out of the way, Janie was free to thread the belt along the loops, although she did need help once it got about halfway around. Sliding the tail end through the frame cinching it down to the last hole, which I knew was larger than the desperation hole on the last belt. She turned to face me and was beaming. “It fits!” I let go of her belly and the beautiful belt disappeared under its roll. I looked at Lee to see he was smiling too. We thanked him and as Janie began to walk away, he winked at me. “Honey,” Janie said as we walked away, “it’s the last night of the fair. Can I get a few more snacks before we head home?” “Of course,” I said and wondered how long this new belt could possibly last.

As Katie insisted on taking them both in her car, Sarah excused herself while Katie joyfully cleaned, to smoke some weed, actually more than she normally would at this point in a day, but her mind was spinning. She was immediately calmed and soon after that, hungry again. That was good. What was not good was that Katie drove a tiny Volkswagen and after a lot of protesting, convinced Sarah to squeeze into it. With the seat all the way back, she still had a hard time both getting low enough on her aching knees and then stuffing her bulk in. Katie watched with barely contained glee, but had to get out and slam Sarah’s door shut while Sarah rocked and pulled her own ass out of the way long enough for the door to click into the lock. When it did, Sarah surged back into it like a tidal wave of flab. She still spread out. When Katie walked back around to the driver’s side, she could have sworn that the little car was listing to one side. She got back in with a wide grin and a giggle, her elbow brushing whatever parts of Sarah were hanging over the center console. Sarah was starting to feel a little giggly herself, “I am too fat for your car.” “Yes, yes, I think you are,” Katie tried in vain to suppress a shudder. They crept down the street, Katie cutting sideways glances at the bulk of Sarah’s body wedged in her car as it bounced and wobbled with every small bump in the road. “Tell me about this stuff you were going to tell me about,” Sarah was aware that the weed was making her talk funny, but she didn’t care. That was the great thing about being high. She just didn’t care that. She didn’t care that she was in a car with a total weirdo whom she barely knew. She didn’t care that the same car was too small for her tremendously fat body. She didn’t care that after a day of sedentary gluttony, she had eaten an entire tabletop of cake. She didn’t care that she was getting hungry again. “Well, it will be better to show you, which I will do, but basically there are tons of people out there, men and women, who are really into fat, you know, like turned on by fat people, weight gain, all that stuff.” “No way,” Sarah slurred. “Yes way,” Katie giggled. Sarah’s mind drifted hazily back to the pizza store guy, but no, no that has just been a joke. She rubbed the curve of her belly absently. She must have been lost in this reverie for a few minutes because soon Katie announced, “We’re here!” Asian Garden All-You-Can-Eat Buffet. Sarah gazed up at the neon sign with a look in her eyes that seemed to express that all of her dreams had come true. Katie had the same look in her eyes. It took a lot of work and sweat to get Sarah out of Katie’s car, but soon they were into the restaurant and getting an appraising look from the hostess. “Table or booth?” she asked, almost sarcastically. Katie looked to Sarah who told the hostess, “Table, please,” before turning to Katie and whispering, “Most booths are a little tight.” To which Katie whispered back, “Ooh, just wait until you see what I have to show you.” The chairs at the buffet were wider and sturdier than the ones in the break room at work, so Sarah made due with one, although her ass hung over both sides and her soft back, enveloped the chair where it pressed into her. She didn’t care, though. The pot had worked her into a serious hunger and it didn’t even matter to her that she was still wearing pants that had split earlier that night. As soon as the waiter had brought their drinks -- water for Katie, beer for Sarah – and cleared them for the buffet Sarah was off, with Katie close behind her. Sarah filled up her plate with her favorite kind of Chinese food, the kind where fried things were covered with sticky sweet sauce. She had such a mountain on her plate, she was afraid it might topple as she speed waddled back to their table. She immediately dug in. Katie joined her a few minutes later, her plate the image of moderation. While Sarah shoveled in her candied, fried fare, Katie placed a plate stacked with egg rolls next to Sarah’s elbow. Without missing a beat, she nodded her thanks to Katie, snatched up and egg roll and demolished it in two bites. Katie pulled an iPad out of her purse, did some tapping and angled it towards Sarah. What she saw on the screen caused her to do what little else could, stop eating. With her mouth hanging open, she watched the video. A woman sat at a table in what was obviously a Chinese buffet shoveling food into her mouth much in the same way that Sarah had been doing moments ago. She was mesmerized. She recognized the look in the woman’s eyes. She was in the zone and loving every bite that passed into her mouth. And she was huge. While it was true that Sarah had a shaky, inaccurate conception of how big she actually was, she was sure that she was smaller than the woman on the screen. Well, maybe not by much, they were both well over what could be considered normal sized, but this woman certainly had more than a few pounds on her. She watched in fascination as the woman continued to eat and groan with pleasure and stare up into the camera almost seductively. “So, wait,” Sarah said, picking up her fork again, “someone taped this women in a restaurant and put it on Youtube?” “No, silly,” Katie replied gauging Sarah’s reaction, “She made it herself. And she didn’t put it on Youtube, she sells these. This video of her eating for,” Katie tilted the screen and tapped away, “for fifteen minutes costs twenty-five dollars to download,” Sarah almost choked on the syrupy, fried mass of chicken in her mouth. “What?!” She gulped down the piece of food and immediately stuffed in another one. “People buy this?” Katie nodded, biting her lip. “Wait,” Sarah continued, “did you buy this?” Katie bit her lip again. “Yes!” she squealed and then clapped a hand over her mouth, “I did,” she continued in a softer voice, “but, Sarah, you are like a thousand timed hotter and so much prettier. Sarah’s fork tapped the ceramic plate, signaling to her that she was done. She had barely noticed plowing through that pile of food. She grabbed another egg roll from the stack Katie had brought to the table and struggled to her feet, plate in hand. Burping gently and saying, “I’ll be right back,” she waddled back to the buffet, jiggling with every step. What the fuck was happening? Who was this chick? Was she insane? Where were those thick fried noodles? Ooh, and spare ribs? Sarah knew she probably shouldn’t have smoked so much, but now that the switch had been flipped, she couldn’t seem to stop. She huff and puffed her way back to the table as the waiter was bringing her a second beer. She plopped down with a creaking of chair and knees and picked up a rib. “Show me more, weirdo,” she said to Katie and fell to gorging again. By the time the mound of noodles and pile of spareribs had vanished into Sarah, she was almost out of breath, but she knew all about feeders, and gaining models, and she had seen photos that women bulging out of corsets and laying amidst piles of food had posted and she had seen the responses posted by hordes of men and women admiring their size, their gluttony, and their expansion. “Well,” Katie ventured when Sarah rocked back on her huge butt and wiped a little sweat from her forehead, “what do you think?” “I think you need to get me some more food,” Sarah said with some effort, “I’m not sure I can stand up right now.” “You…you…want to keep eating?” Sarah nodded emphatically, feeling her multiple chins compress against her neck. Katie looked like she might faint, but leapt nimbly to her feet and sprinted back to the buffet. She returned, balancing two plates piled high with any and everything from the steam trays. Placing them in front of Sarah with a huge grin, she hopped back to her seat, signaling the waiter to bring Sarah a fourth beer. She began to tell Sarah about herself, her life, her hopes, but she might as well have been talking to a wall. Sarah was so used to eating alone and so intoxicated, both by the weed and beer, and by her own endorphins pumping through the binge, she didn’t hear a thing Katie said. Every so often, she emitted a porcine grunt as an acknowledgement that she was still there, but other than that she focused on stuffing her mouth. Crab Rangoon, scallion pancakes, fried dumpling, sweat and sour shrimp, mushu pork, more egg rolls. As she finished her fifth plate, she felt as if she had eaten the entire country of China. She glanced down at her belly and if she hadn’t already been breathing so hard from the exertion of gorging herself, she could have gasped. She had honestly never seen it so big. It swelled past her breasts (no small feat) and out over her thighs, which were straining. She had slid her pants down below the swell before she sat down, but she could now feel the waistband digging in. She felt both excited and disgusted at the sight. She put one hand out onto it’s dome, the contents wobbling slightly and looked up at Katie who was staring, open mouthed, with a wild gleam in her eye. All of the stuff about people getting turned on by fat girls getting fatter swam back into her conscious when she saw Katie’s eyes. If she were at home, she would have just turned up the TV, smoked a bit more to distract her from the pain of her swollen gut and gone to sleep, sunken deep into her plush, sagging sofa. But she wasn’t at home. She was in public, gorged to a stupor, with a weird girl who she was pretty sure wanted to fuck her or hunt her for sport. And her car was back at the office. She needed Katie to get her back to her car. “I think I need you to help me up.” Katie paid the bill and with what appeared like a combination of lust and actual exertion, got Sarah standing up. She staggered out the doors and into the night air and when Katie opened the passenger side door for her, Sarah shook her head and pointed at the back. While it was tougher to maneuver into the back, she could spread out further in all directions. There was no way a seatbelt could have contained her belly, but with the way it was partially wedged in between the two front seats, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t fly out. Katie kept up a steady stream of chatter, but, through the euphoric haze that always accompanied eating so much, Sarah could only focus on each jolt in the road jostling her rock hard belly and jiggling the rest of her flabby frame. When the finally pulled into the parking lot and finally pulled Sarah out of Katie’s car, the pain had finally started to subside, but she still felt bleary. Katie softly grabbed her puffy forearm, “Can I ask you something?” “Wha..what?” “This is just something I am dying to know: how much do you weigh?” The question stabbed through the food and weed and beer euphoria and Sarah’s eyes shot open. “How much do I weigh?” “Yeah, I just really, really, want to know.” Sarah felt ice water in her veins. How long had it been since she used the mirror to read the scale backwards? Months, right? God, what was it that night, three thirty something. Shit, that number was probably long gone. She sighed deeply. “I just thought you might tell me, you know, we’re becoming friends, and I thought…” Sarah cut her off. “Honestly, Katie, I don’t know,” Katie looked crestfallen, “Wait, not that I don’t know if I want to tell you; I just don’t know. I haven’t weighed myself in a long time. I guess, part of my just doesn’t want to know.” Katie spread her arms wide and grasped Sarah’s padded biceps, her eyes saucers. “Oh, can we weigh you?! Please, please, please?” Sarah opened her mouth to say something, but Katie threw a pout, “We can just run in to the office, right now.” Sarah was feeling like she was about to enter into a full panic. But she wasn’t sure how she was going to get out of it. “Oh, okay,” she relented. With one hand bracing her lower back and one hand on her overstuffed gut, she waddled after Katie across the parking lot and (huff, huff) up the few stairs and back into the office. They passed her desk and she glimpsed the bowl of candy that she put out for patients, but which she emptied herself every couple of hours, and her new chair. She longed to sit down. She followed a giggling Katie down the hall, switching lights on as she went until they were in front of her old friend, the scale. Without bothering with her shoes – she couldn’t see them anyway, she clumped onto the scale. She almost had to lean back to keep her belly from hitting the upright. Katie’s hands moved to the weights, but Sarah said, “I can do it.” With sweat on her forehead and her bottom lip between her teeth, she set the larger weight to 300 and started sliding the smaller one up the numbers, only slowing after 30 the indicator stayed pinned to the top of the bracket. When she reached the end, which she knew in her heart she would. She heard a near-ecstatic Katie gasp. She moved the top slider back to 0 and moved the bottom weight up to 350. Then, with her back aching from standing and the sweat of panic beginning to roll down her back and form underneath her mammoth boobs, she started tapping the smaller weight upwards, slowly. 355. 360. 365. Okay, okay. Since she had started to accept her weight a little bit, she has started to feel better. But part of that acceptance was not knowing what her weight actually was. She knew she was so much bigger than she had been the last time she weighed herself, but seeing it for real made her a little queasy. She didn’t want to find out how heavy she was. And, in a way, she didn’t. To her increasing horror, as the smaller weight slid up – 370, 375, 380 – the indicator didn’t move. It didn’t occur to her until the top weight was at 50 and the bottom at 350 and the needle didn’t move that she weighed over 400 pounds. How much over, she had no idea.

Katie, the new girl, stood in the hallway facing Sarah. She was wearing a raincoat and had ear buds in. The vision in front of her was of her colleague, cake and frosting all over her chubby face and enormous tits, a white tank top riding up over her monstrous gut, looking slightly red in the face, probably as a result of just splitting her pants. Sarah sputtered, “I…(huff, huff)…I…I…” Kate’s face moved from an open mouthed gape into a smile that reached all the way up to her dark green eyes. “I knew you would. I just knew it! Oh my god, you…You’re just amazing!” As Sarah’s expression turned to a gape, Katie rushed forward, coming up short at Sarah’s ballooned belly. As if she were examining a rare an valuable antique vase, her hands hovered over Sarah’s girth, almost not daring to touch it. Then, she giggled gleefully and wrapped, or tried to wrap her arms around Sarah. “Ooooooh, be careful, there’s a lot of cake in there!” That was the only thing Sarah could think to say. Katie squealed and looked into Sarah’s face with almost manic rapture. “Did you…? No? You couldn’t have!” Katie dashed down the hallway and squealed again. Sarah was stunned, but she waddled confused down the hallway aware of the cake pressing against every part of her belly from the inside. “Holy shit, you did! You ate the whole fucking thing! And you drank that gallon of milk! Amazing!” Sarah’s mind was reeling, a little from the massive intake of sugar and dairy, but mostly at Katie. Why was she reacting like this? Sarah felt like she should be so embarrassed she could die, but she was mostly confused. Katie was staring at her and the wreckage of the break room, focusing suddenly on the chairs pulled up to the table. “Wait, did you sit on two chairs? No way!” Show me, show me, please!” She was practically jumping up and down, her tiny breasts immobile while her ponytail jounced up and down behind her. Sarah shook her head but relented when it looked like Katie was starting a pout. She oof-ed unconsciously as she slowly eased down, her ass – given a little more freedom since the splitting of her pants – fully covering both seats. As she settled, her tank top rode up and her belly pushed her thick thighs apart. Sarah had to admit it felt good to be sitting again, even if the chairs swayed underneath her. She sighed, in slight relief, confusion, and total gut-busting fullness. Katie moved around the table, still gasping; Sarah watched her an absently rubbed her huge belly. “Tell me you got this on video.” Katie asked, staring at Sarah. “What?” “I mean, you taped yourself, right?” “Why? Wait. Why would I do that?” “To keep track?” Katie looked at Sarah quizzically and pulled up a chair beside her and sat down. “Keep track of what?” Sarah asked. Katie looked confused. “Your gain.” As Katie spoke these words, Sarah became immediately self-conscious. She stopped rubbing her belly and became more aware of how much space she was taking up. Katie’s hand came to rest on her massive thigh and Sarah followed it up her slim arm to her narrow, almost pinched looking face. Katie was tiny and she was talking about Sarah’s gain. Sarah felt gigantic. She was gigantic. “Excuse me?” “Your gain. I mean, you are gaining right? You’re a gainer, aren’t you?” “What?” Sarah was totally confused. “Wait. Hold on a second. You’re doing this on purpose, right?” “Doing what?” Sarah blush deepened, and Katie stared at her. “You’re gaining weight on purpose, right?” Sarah stared at her and furrowed her brow. “Oh, shit!” Katie put a hand to her mouth, “Oh, wow!” Katie stood up abruptly. She picked up the empty, over-turned gallon milk carton and put it in the recycling. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? You don’t know about the gaining, feeder, FA scene? You don’t follow this stuff on line?” Sarah was totally confused. She just wanted to clean up the mess she made, go home and get stoned. Katie was starting to sound a little crazy and creepy. “No, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Look, I am really sorry and really pretty embarrassed by this situation, so I just want to clean up and go home. I’m sorry.” “Oh my God! Don’t be sorry!” Katie raced back to the chair and sat next to Sarah placing both hands on her thigh this time. “Can I tell you something? I bought it for you. I was hoping you would eat it. I love watching you eat. You’re so…I don’t know…into it. It’s really exciting. I just assumed that you were, you know, into the whole scene. You’re just so amazing.” She gazed up with adoration into Sarah’s face. “What the fuck are you talking about?” Sarah was honestly confused and not a little freaked out. Katie pushed the table away from Sarah’s chairs and knelt down in front of her. She put both hands on Sarah’s gut and dug her fingers into it. “You’re so big and you just keep getting bigger. In the time I have been here you’ve gotten so much bigger and the other girls told me you used to be small, like a few years ago. I just assumed you were doing it on purpose.” Katie got a crazed look in her eye, “It’s just so hot. You’re so fat. I just wanted to… I don’t know, be part of it. I mean, I’ve been following the scene for so long on-line and I think I just assumed that you were into it too, I mean, it just made sense…” “What scene? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “…and then I come back to get my wallet,” she squeezed Sarah’s belly harder, “and you ate the whole fucking cake! And you’re squeezing into the closet and then you split your pants!” She shifted her hands from Sarah’s belly and squeezed the sides of her ass than bulged onto the chair. “It’s been than the best fantasy fiction I have ever read “Enough!” Sarah blurted. “What are you talking about? I have no idea what you mean!” “That’s why I asked you if you videoed the cake. I was sure you had a website. I have been looking for it everywhere, but I assume that people don’t use their own names. Otherwise, I bet they would get stalked.” Sarah let her head fall back, causing her boobs to bounce all over. She placed her hands over Katie’s that were still on her ass. “Stop touching me and tell me what you are talking about.” “Really? You don’t know anything about FAs? Feeders? Gainers?” Sarah shook her head, cheeks jiggling. “Chubby Chasers? Weight gain fetishes?” “Weight gain fetishes?” “Oh my God, You have so research to do. There are places on the internet, and in the real world where you would be a goddess. Someone as big as you, who eats like you do, who gains like I’ve see you gain. You are perfect. First of all, you are gorgeous…” “No. No I am not. I am huge and I just keep getting bigger. Not gorgeous.” “I’m just going to have to show you to prove it to you. Here,” Katie stood up and grabbed Sarah’s bra and shirt from where she had flung them over a chair, “put these back on and I will take you out to dinner and explain everything.” She looked at Sarah hopefully, “Do you need help?” “No, no, thank you. I can do the bra, but” She slapped her belly for emphasis, “I am not sure I am getting back into that shirt.” “Oh, God, You have no idea how hot you are, do you?” Sarah did not.

It took ten days for the new chair to arrive and for each of those days, Sarah felt sure that the old chair was about to give way. She didn’t know to what weight it was rated and with good reason, she figured. Who thought about that sort of thing? What kind of person had to think about whether or not they would be too heavy for a regular chair? Well, she knew what sort of person: a really fat one and that’s who she was now and, really, it was fine. On the morning the chair was delivered, she was sure that she heard an ominous cracking sound as she sat down, but she had become hyper sensitive to sounds that she made when sitting down, what with chairs creaking, zippers spontaneously unzipping, shirt buttons popping off unceremoniously, and pants splitting along any number of seams. The Flash Furniture Hercules was a dream and as Sarah parked her ever-widening but on its supple and supporting seat, she felt confident in reaching for her giant McDonald’s milkshake. This chair would support her, she could keep eating, and eating, and eating. After all, it was rated to 500 pounds; there was no way she was close to 500 hundred pounds. Right? The new nurse, Katie, the one who had replaced her, stuck her head around the corner of the office door and called to Sarah, who stopped sucking on her mammoth shake to swivel around smoothly in her chair. “Hey, Sarah! It’s my birthday, and we’re having cake in the lunchroom.” The words hit all Sarah like a truck. Cake? And close by. For a split second, she considered if it would be acceptable to wheel herself down the hall on her new chair, but decided against it. Everyone in the office, aside from Janis, made an obviously point of ignoring her weight, but she knew that they gossiped behind her wide, blubbery back. She stood up, knees creaking and back protesting and lumbered down the hall. Everyone else was in the lunchroom already seated, but Sarah wasn’t about to try to squeeze into one of those chairs, so it was really better that she stand awkwardly in the doorway, trying to angle her body so that it didn’t look like she was filling the whole space. On the table was a absolutely enormous sheet cake; it almost filled up the table. There were only five women in the office and the cake looked like it could feed fifty. They sang and then, with a wink, Katie cut the cake and handed Sarah a heaping piece that threatened to buckle the paper plate. As several pairs of eyes watched her chubby hands accept the huge piece of cake and tiny plastic fork, the phone rang from her desk down the hall. Thank God. “Oops! Better go!” Although she had no intention of waddling fast enough to catch this particular phone call, Sarah didn’t want to have to stand up (she got so tired doing that) and eat (in front of her co-workers). She made her way down the hall, smelling the sweet frosting and finding herself salivating ever so slightly. God, it smelled great. When she was sure that no one was looking, she lifted the plate to her mouth and daintily took a small bite. Fuck! It was the best cake she had ever tasted in her life. She plopped down harder than usual, but was gratified that her new chair seemed sturdy and stable. Over the last year or so, since eating had become her major occupation, passion, and comfort, Sarah had gotten pretty skilled at cramming it in. But this cake, it was so unbelievably, fantastically delicious that she even outdid her usual speed. She inhaled it. And looked up at the clock. Ok, ok, ok, it was ten minutes to five. The office closed in ten minutes, that means that everyone was going to be leaving in ten minutes. If they followed standard office protocols, the cake would be left there for people to pick over for the next couple of days before the remainder was thrown into the trash. If her gut, stuffed as it was with a lunch of three foot-long meatball parm subs and topped off with an afternoon drive thru at McDonalds, could hold out for ten minutes, she could sneak back to the cake when everyone was gone. It felt like the longest ten minutes of her life. She felt an almost physical pull towards that cake and as she rubbed her big, round belly she felt distractedly aroused. Tick-tock, tick-tock. By five after five, everyone was gone. Even Dr. Williams who was usually the last to leave, after changing into his jogging clothes at the end of the day. Sarah waited another five minutes, want to make sure that no one would come back for a forgotten umbrella or cell phone and then she made her move. The huge cake still sat covering most of the table in the lunchroom. The others had barely made a dent in it. In fact, it looked like what they had removed from the cake’s vastness wasn’t even equal to the piece she had already eaten. They had probably had a laugh about that. There was a lot left; Sarah estimated that its original dimensions were something like two feet by a foot an a half. After retrieving the cake knife and a fork from the drying Sarah pulled a small, padded chair up to the table and sat down on it. Or rather, she sat down over and around it. Damned, that was uncomfortable, but she was too excited about cake to go and take her chair She got back up and pulled another, identical chairs next to it and sat back down, one giant butt cheek on each chair. She had made this move almost without thinking, but as she leaned back against two chair backs she thought, “Damn, two chairs?” Her shoulders slumped slightly and her belly rode further out onto her lap. She knew she should feel beyond depressed about how huge her ass had gotten, but there was cake in front of her. A lot of cake. And she was alone. And it was the best cake she had ever tasted in her life. She cut a piece and tore through it in seconds. Then another. The third piece she ate right off of the cake knife. Then she gave up thinking of it as pieces and just dove in, scooping it right into her mouth with the wide side of the cake knife. There had been a time when she needed to be stoned to reach these levels of serious, mindless, unstoppable gluttony, but no longer. Here she was, cold sober, after a day of sitting on her ass and eating in a full-out binge. Her breath came in gasps and she leaned her free hand onto the table as she leaned forward, but soon moved it to rub small circles onto her distended belly as she packed in more and more golden cake with white frosting. She moaned, leaned back and let out a loud belch. Her belly felt tight and when she looked down, it swelled obscenely in front of her, pushing her thighs apart below it and her breasts apart above it. Her shirt was stretched tight and her pants painful. Even her bra felt tighter. With effort and two hands placed onto the small of her back, she walked to the fridge and removed the gallon of milk the women used for their coffees. She unscrewed the cap and tipped it back, cold and bland against the sweetness of the cake. Then, she fell to her task again. Big ass on two chairs, one hand clutching her mighty belly, Sarah dove back into the cake, forgoing the knife and just using her hands to scoop it into her mouth. And that was how she spent the better part of the next hour, pausing to gulp milk, unhook her bra and squeeze out of her shirt when it became too restrictive. She sat with a white tanktop riding up over her painfully full belly, stuffing it tighter and tighter. She couldn’t stop. It hurt, and she couldn’t stop. And then it was gone, she was sweating, and had taken off both her shirt and bra, but she had eaten three square feet of cake. She was a mess, and so was the table and the floor underneath her chair…sorry, chairs, plural. Her stomach aching, Sarah looked around in the bleary haze. She had eaten the whole thing. What was she going to tell everyone? Could she blame the night cleaning crew? She would have to, but first, she needed to clean up the evidence of her gluttonous binge. She struggled to her feet and stumbled over to the sink area. Where were the paper towels? The rack over the sink had an empty roll on it. Shit. With labored breathing, she stooped to look under the sink. Nothing. She heaved herself up again, bumping her overstuffed, bulbous belly on the sink. Where were there more paper towels? Shit. Shit, shit shit! There were more in the supply closet. The tiny narrow one in the hallway. The one she had her office supplies moved out of because, as Dr. Williams had put in his stall e-mail, “accessibility issues”. The one with the door a third the size of a normal-sized closet door, and Sarah was easily three times a wide as a normal-sized person. The paper towels that she needed to clean up were in that closet. She felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her huge stomach. Well, okay, she thought, trying to calm her panic. If they were near the front of the closet, maybe she could reach them. She knew she couldn’t fit through the door, but if they were within arm’s reach of the door, she could get at them. Well, like so many other things in her life recently, there was nothing else for it. She had to do something. She waddled and wobbled down the hall towards the tiny door. If she couldn’t reach them, she would just have to squeeze into her car and go get some cleaning supplies. Oof, that sounded like a lot of work. She creaked the door open, it was probably just as wide as the cake she had just scarfed down. The light came on automatically and she saw them immediately, on a shelf to the left of the door. She could reach them. She could do it. On her first try, she came at the doorway head on. As it was usually the most prominent part of her forward profile, much more so now after the cake binge, Sarah’s belly squeezed into the frame, and was not able to squish far enough to even allow her breasts to get close, although she could see from angling her had down over her chins that she was far too wide to go straight. She popped her belly out and turned 90 degrees and tried to move in that way, her right arm stretched out in front of her to see if she could grasp the tantalizing close paper towels. Although she wasn’t sure what it said about her body geometrically, she didn’t make much more progress that way either. In the last few months, she had porked out to significant depth in her booty while blimping out in front as well. That’s not to say that as she became more sedentary at work, she hadn’t also spread widthwise as well, love handles pouring over the center console of her car and her shoulders padding out like a linebacker. With the side of her bubble butt and round belly pressing against the sides of the frame, she wondered if she was as thick as she was wide, or had one dimension begun to outstrip the other. Either way, even with as much sucking in as she was able to do (which wasn’t much) she was still just over a foot short of reaching the paper towels. She grunted, trying to push further through, but her belly was too crammed full to have much give. She shifted her weight back onto her left foot and for a split second, she thought she might be a little stuck. Fuck, that would be the worst thing she could imagine. It was one thing to be too fat to squeeze into somewhere small, but it would be another thing entirely to get stuck. Okay, she was starting to sweat, but she was determined. She was thickest where her belly and butt overlapped, but if she could squeeze her top half through the door and angle her stomach, she might be able to do it. Her breasts were huge and, front ways, wider than the door, but sideways, she could lift them up, each one way more than an oozing, squashy handful and twist…just a little….her shoulders and tits were through. Sarah shuffled her feet forward cautious, but with some force, until she felt the paddling fat around her left hip squeeze into the frame behind her while the left hemisphere of her belly made contact in front of her. She was leaning over farther then she would have liked, but with her blubbery midsection squeezed into the door frame, she was only a little worried about falling over. She stretched out her hand; the tips of her fingers were inches from the paper towels. If she could just squeeze a little bit more. She pushed with her powerful legs and engaged whatever ab muscles she had to try to suck in her gargantuan belly. “Huff, huff, huff….got ‘em!” She exclaimed. Squeezing her thighs against the doorframe, she pushed back. She was wedged in there pretty tight, but not stuck, she couldn’t be stuck. She grunted as sweat began to pour from her forehead from exertion and nerves. Her tank top rode up over her belly during this extrication and her tight scrub pants crept up her ass in an obscene wedgie. She hadn’t remembered pushing this hard to get in. Slowly, slowly, slowly her fleshy body slid out of the painted wooden frame, not a little slick with her sweat. She stood, panting and jiggling with her shirt exposing her belly, her pants in a ridiculous wedgie, and cake all over her face and tits. The paper towels slipped out of her hands and as she stretched down to grab them before they rolled back into the closet, she her her pants rip right down the seam. At the same time, she heard someone gasp behind her. Slowly and without a certain degree of dread and sweaty wheezing, Sarah stood up and turned around.

Bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Sarah tried to ignore the signs; she had become expert at this kind of delusion. Addiction and indulgence helped, but ignoring her increasing size, as impossible as it may have seemed to anyone observing her from afar, was harder and harder. Everything was getting harder. But she was taking a practical approach to most things. Walking was getting harder, so she did it less. She drove. But, squeezing into her car was getting harder. Fitting into her 4XL scrubs was getting harder, so she bought a few sets of 5XL, on-line, at some expense. But, they were getting a little snug. Facing those guys at the pizza place was hard, so she ordered her pizzas to be delivered; in fact, that was even easier. Now, she ordered everything to be delivered and had to leave her apartment more often. In fact, if you knew who to call, you could get booze and weed brought right to your door. All of this cost money, but Sarah made enough at work, which was also getting harder. As she got heavier – and honestly she had no idea how heavy she had gotten, although it had to be more that the 337 of a few months ago – everything at her job got harder. She was on her feet a lot and there was a lot of her pressing down on those feet, and ankles, and knees, and lower back. She sweated. She bumped her ballooning ass into furniture and knocked things over. She was constantly hungry and being with patients kept her from all of the snacking that she might have been doing. At the end of every day, she was exhausted and sore and ready to collapse. She loved her job, but she was suffering. So, on one of her days off when Lynette, who worked the desk, was out sick and Janice asked her to come in and spend a day doing her job, it was great. She handled the phones, she talked to patients, she made appointments, she answered questions, she filed – all of it sitting down, and all of it with food in easy reach. It was heaven, and, the next month, when Lynette announced she was retiring, Sarah asked for her job and got it. At the end of Lynette’s two week notice, Sarah got to work extra early so that she would be alone when she lugged in a dozen bags of non-perishable groceries to stash in her new office and rolled her armless chair from her old office. Carrying bags and wheeling a chair down the hall had caused her break out in a minor sweat, so it was with great relish and relief that she lowered herself carefully onto its creaking and wobbling seat, her wide ass spreading out and over, and opened her bag of Dunkin Donuts breakfast sandwiches. She huffed mightily in pleasure and took her first bite. As she chewed and swallowed, her newly measured H-cups bumped ever so gently on her gurgling belly. This was going to be sweet. And it was. Three months later, Dr. Williams got an e-mail titled “New Chair Request” with a link. He already knew what it was going to be before he opened it up. The Flash Furniture Hercules series, rated up to 500 pounds. He hit reply and asked Sarah to come talk to him about it after his appointments that day. A little after five o’clock, there was a soft knock on his door. When it swung open, there stood she stood in all her glory. She was a different woman. Gone was the svelte 350 pounder who had lugged those snacks into the office and gently lowered herself onto an armless desk chair and in her place wobbled a nearly spherical belly below breasts that refused to be contained in what must have been an industrial strength bra. Her hips were almost as wide as the doorframe with thighs that swelled even wider than that. Scrubs that looked painted on, straining at every stitch, stretched and bunched over every bulge. In a few short months, the unchecked expansion of the last few years had shifted into overdrive and the change was dramatic. The most dramatic change of all, however, was somewhere above the swollen double chins and deepening dimples: Sarah was smiling. “Hey Doc,” she chirped, “You saw my e-mail about the chair?” “Yeah, Sarah, c’mon in.” Dr. Williams said, as his employee did a little side step through the doorway. As wide as her colossal love-handles and hips were, when she turned even slightly sideways, her ass and belly were equally outsized and impressive. His eye did a quick once over to try to determine if her side step indicated that Sarah no longer fit through the doorframe head-on, but figured that he was imagining things. He gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk, but Sarah pulled up short and walked behind them to a bench by against the wall where he usually sat on to change his shoes. A pair of running shoes and rain boots rested beneath it. Sarah eased down onto the low bench and smiled up at him. Once she was seated, and he saw why she had avoided the chairs for the bench. Spread out against the bench, her hips were way too wide to fit between the arms of the chairs that faced his desk. Not to mention the enormous bulge of her gut that pushed her plush thighs apart. It seemed to swell out from under her and a little between her huge breasts and became almost totally spherical, straining her fabric of her top and barely moving with each inhale and exhale. It seemed that walking down the hall had left Sarah a little winded, but as she breathed a heavily, her packed belly barely moved. She made a movement with her arms that looked like she was contemplating trying to cross them over her chest, but then thought better of it and rested her plans on her squishy hips. This was not lost on Dr. Williams who noted that her upper arms were probably bigger around than his thighs. He was at a loss. Sarah had been a pretty good nurse, not terribly fast or productive, but she as an awesome office administrator. She was great with the patients, she had a wealth of nursing knowledge, and she was incredibly organized – as long as she was sitting down and eating. Which she was. Almost all the time. Sarah maneuvered around the small office adjacent to the reception area without really getting out of her chair. Or without wheeling more than a few feet away from whatever she was eating. In fact, things were so efficient with Sarah behind the desk, that he had gotten e-mails from both staff and patients about how great it was. There was only one small problem. Well, as she sat perspiring and filling up a bench in his office, Dr. Williams was forced to admit that it the problem wasn’t a small one. Since she had begun working at the office, Sarah had gained an almost inconceivable amount of weight. While she had never been slim, he himself could remember a time when she did some kind of roller-skating something-or-other. Back then, she must have weighted less than 200 pounds, but now she was easily double that weight. Yes, if you asked him, he would put money on Sarah pushing 400 pounds. If he saw that kind of change in a patient, over time, he would order some kind of battery of tests, but he had seen first hand Sarah’s eating habits and they more than explained her expansion. It seemed like she always had something in her mouth and never anything remotely healthy. At the rate she was going, he wasn’t sure that a chair rated to hold 500 pounds would be sufficient in a few month’s time. “So, before we talk about the chair, is there anything else?” Maybe, if he opened it up like this, the harder conversation would follow more easily. “Oh, there is something else.” He nodded for her to continue. “Well, you know the small supply closet? All of the office supplies are in the back, behind the cleaning and extra medical stuff. I was wondering if we could move them into the office area, rather than back in that closet. There is room under the desk in the front.” “Okay…” “Well, it would be more efficient if I was able to access the supplies more easily.” Sarah paused. “The closet’s not easy?” Sarah smiled a crooked smile and took her hands off of her hips and placed them, pudgy palms down, on either side of her belly, “You want to know the truth, Doc?” “Why not?” “The truth is that I,” she paused, rubbed her palms on her belly and gave it a few pats with each hand, “am having a little bit of trouble getting into the closet, lately.” “Okay.” “I guess you could say that it is basically the same problem that I am having with the chair.” Sarah moved her hands from her belly back to her hips. “Okay.” She smiled at him. He looked back at her, “Do you want to talk about that problem?” “Not really. What I would really like is that new extra-heavy load chair I e-mailed you about and to have the office supplies moved out of the closet that I am now too fat to squeeze into.” “You don’t want to talk about that? I don’t want you make you uncomfortable. I just thought you might want to talk.” She continued smiling, said “Nope!” and with some obvious difficulty, pushed herself from the bench and left the office at what could only be charitably described as a waddle. Dr. Williams was a nice guy. He was also a guy who was both sensitive to people’s needs and what was legal for him as an employer. In fact, it was probably his niceness that had allowed this situation to reach the point that it had. He didn’t know what to do or what he could do. One thing was for sure: he felt a little uncomfortable when he told a patient who was twenty percent over her ideal body weight that she was obese and then sent her to make an appointment to see a nutritionist with his receptionist who was probably three hundred plus percent over her ideal body weight – and growning.

As the door bounced off of her rounded ass over which flapped her never again to be buttoned coat, Sam leaned onto the counter and close to where John gaped at the closing door. “How much do you want to be bet that all five of those pizzas are for her? Jesus Christ! When she first started coming in here all the time, I thought she was pretty, a little chubby sure, but nice, big tits, and really sweet. Now? She’s fucking huge, she must do nothing but eat. Am I right?” He elbowed John, who started sharply, pulled back to reality. Sarah. Her name was Sarah. He knew from taking her orders and from running her credit card when she picked them up, almost always after a stop at the liquor store next door. “How else could she get so fucking fat so fast?” Sam continued. He always made comments on the women that came into the shop, and while his tastes tended to run towards the more traditionally skanky and trashy, he never failed to make a comment on the positive qualities of any of their female customers. As for John, there was only one whom he looked forward to seeing and luckily for him, he got to see her often and usually there was more to see. He was infatuated. He almost chuckled to himself at his choice of words. When he had first seen Sarah in the shop, he was enthralled, chubby blonde in a tight nurses uniform who wasn’t afraid to tear into a double order of mozzarella sticks while she waited for her order. He remembered those early days, taking long sideways glances at her almost willing her to eat more, to grow, to swell, to thicken. That was what he loved. And she didn’t disappoint. Not even the clearly fantastical accounts that he salivated over on the internet could have given him as much satisfaction as watching the object of his secret affection become the physical embodiment of his secret fantasy. Sam was right, she was getting fucking huge. He was more than a casual observer of this magnificent woman and he was pretty sure that tonight’s visit to the pizzeria had heralded a new milestone in his obsession. Often, not always, but often, Sarah would order some kind of friend appetizer to eat while she waited for her pizza…sorry, pizzas to be ready – she was up to ordering a minimum of five, loaded with toppings. Tonight, it was her favorite, a double order of mozzarella sticks, which John usually bumped up to at least a triple. He had them ready for her as soon as she wobbled in the doorway, pausing, a little out of breath to dig her wallet out of her long down jacket pocket. Although it was freezing outside, she never had the jacket zippered, and he knew why. Her ass bulged out behind her like the rear fenders of a car from the fifties, while her breasts and enormous belly rolled out in front. When she leaned against the counter, he heard it creak and watched the edge divide her voluminous belly into two squishy spare tires. She smelled faintly of something sweet and of weed and her eyes looked a little bleary – also not unusual. Smiling, she paid, took her fried cheese and waddled over to a booth. Watching her go, John thought that he might have to revise his recent estimate of her weight – all of his internet, plus-sized and gainer model research had lead him to guess she was in the low three hundreds at this point, but maybe, she was closer to 350 than he had thought – that or she had increased her ballooning since last week. The first moment that made John’s week came next. Sarah stood before the booth and made a slight huffing noise as she gently lowered her ass onto the bench. Not all of it fit on the bench, but she was able to get enough of it on there. She placed the steaming calorie bomb of cheese and grease on the table and started to wiggle herself into the booth. But, to John’s utter astonishment and over-joy, she realized in a moment of blushing and sucking in that she didn’t fit in the booth. With her ass pressed against the back of the bench, she didn’t have enough clearance to get her great belly in behind the table. From where John was standing it didn’t appear that she had a lot of room for her thighs under the table either. He had to work hard not to stare. She shifted sideways a little, turning herself back towards the counter so that her right arm, tightly packed into her jacket sleeve flopped over the back of the booth while the tabletop cut painfully into her blubbery side. All of this constriction had the effect of squeezing her considerable belly and breasts forward. She glanced around to see if anyone had seen her and after he ducked her gaze, he turned back to see her cramming the first mozzarella stick past her perfect pouty lips. As she released it into her mouth, she closed her eyes in a shudder of pleasure and wiped her greasy hand on the front of her shirt. When Sam called her order out, it was with difficulty that she slid herself forward and bounced up to the counter grabbing her pizzas and left. Sam’s comments jarred him out of his daze and he noticed something on the table where Sarah had been sitting – okay, trying to sit. It was a large, woman’s wallet. Her wallet. John dashed around the corner, snatched the wallet off of the table and ran out the door. He had seen Sarah squeezing and heaving herself in and out of her car in front of the shop to know it, and there is was, pulling away from the curb. Shit! He had missed a chance to talk to her. But, wait. He opened the wallet and saw her driver’s license. She only live a block and a half away. And yet she drove over here? And this piece of plastic said she weighed 170 pounds. The face in the picture was almost unrecognizable to the woman who wedged her increasingly corpulent form into his dreams at night. He would go. He would go to her apartment right now, and return her wallet. That wasn’t creepy, was it? Well, it would be creepy if he just showed up there after obsessing about her for h no pretense at all, but he was returning her wallet, that was legitimate. He told Sam he was taking his break and headed out the door. He wondered for a second if he should bring her something, no, no, no John, that would be creepy. Just the wallet. He made it to the apartment building in under five minutes, and saw her car parked in a space right by the door. As an elderly Asian woman was coming out, he was able to slip into the building without having to ring her buzzer. Thoughts flooded his mind as he walked down the hall to her door. What was he doing here? He could have just called her; they had her number from her endless ordering. What if she freaks out that he came down here, what if she has a boyfriend, Sam could be wrong, she could be sharing those pizzas with a big, hungry, jealous guy. Or girl. He fantasized about and idolized this bloated goddess but he knew nothing about her. She could be anyone. But when she opened the door quickly, she was just her, in a pair of skin tight sweatpants and a t-shirt that barely covered her. In one hand she held two pieces of pizza sandwiched together and it was obvious that she was sobbing. Her round cheeks were wet with tears and she jiggled a little as she tried to pull herself together. “Yes?” This was less of an inquiry as an impatient demand. As she said it, she seemed to recognize him. He seized that moment. “Uh, yeah…John,” he stammered, pointing at himself. Useless, idiot, she didn’t know his name. “Um, I work at the pizza place.” He pointed at the two slices in her hand and she flushed and gulped back a sob. “What?!” She barked as he stared at her. He held up the wallet, with what he imagined was a nervous look on his face. “You left this in your booth,’ he gulped. Her eyes widened. “I’m sorry, your address is on your license. You left it in your booth,” John repeated. Her lip quivered. “I don’t think you can call it ‘my booth’ if I don’t fit into it anymore.” She stretched her hand, palm up, towards him. He was transfixed by her breasts which strained the fabric of her t-shirt, totally obscuring whatever colorful logo has once been prominent. Seeing the flesh of her swollen belly exposed, sweetly stretch-marked and plump and pale was enough to make his head whirl and feel like he was drunk. Maybe that’s why he said what he did. “I think those booths are kinda small, actually.” With tears leaking out of her beautiful eyes, she actually smiled, took back her hand and tucked blonde strands behind her hair, then placing her palm before him again, she laughed. “That is sweet of you to say, John, but the size of your booths isn’t the problem.” “I don’t see any problems at all,” Wow, where had that come from? Who was this guys pretending to be a smoother version of John. Sarah crinkled her brow, in suspicion, or possibly confusion. He slowly put the wallet into her hand, allowing his fingers to gently brush her palm as he transferred the weight of the worn leather onto her hand. “In fact…” “In fact what, John?” Sarah took a huge bite of her pizza sandwich and stared at him. “In fact, I have wanted to talk to you for a long time. I…I think you are beautiful and I wanted to ask you to have dinner with me.” She laughed, opened the door wider, tossed the wallet somewhere into the apartment where it landed with a thud, stuffed the rest of the pizza into her mouth and chewed while smiling at him. “You want to have dinner with me? You don’t know anything about me. How do you know I am single? Why do you assume that I would be interested? About the only thing you know is what I eat for dinner…and you know that I already have my dinner.” “I know you are beautiful…” “Okay, stop saying that,” the smile had vanished. “That’s not funny.” “Wait…” “Too fat to fit in a booth does not equal beautiful, John. It equals really fucking fat, so you can go back to your pizza place and tell whoever put you up to this that you asked the fat girl out and she rejected you because she was too busy eating.” “But…” “I am, John.” “Are what?” “Too busy eating.” She shut the door. xx

It went without saying that Sarah never imagined that she could get this big. She placed both chubby hands on either side of the giant swell of her belly, her eyes pressed tightly shut. She flexed her fingers and felt them dig deep into the flab. She felt her body jiggle as she relaxed her hands. Sweat began to bead on her upper lip and along her hairline as she heard the small, insistent beep sound again. She had to face it. She had to get real. She had placed two obstacles, two necessary obstacles in her path, two obstacles that she had been avoiding with every ounce of her being: the mirror and the scale, one taken out of the closet and leaning against the bathroom wall and one beeping under her feet. Months. It had been months since Janice had weighed her Months of smoking, drinking, and eating. Snacking, indulging, stuffing, gorging, cramming handfuls of anything she could grab into her mouth, slurping, smacking, chewing, swallowing, and gaining. How much had she gained? She had no idea. She had been 256 that day, and in fucking shock at the number. She had blimped up to 256 and had just bought a pair of XXL scrubs. She had just peeled off a sweaty pair of XXXXL scrubs. She had just peeled off a pair of XXXXL scrubs and noticed that her constantly rubbing thighs were starting to wear through the fabric and that the XL hot chocolate she drank on the way home had spilled a bit on her shirt. She had had to hold the drink while she drove because the cup was too big to fit into the cup holder, especially since so much of her ass now spilled over the bucket seat, especially since she needed to wiggle her way towards the center console to accommodate the other side of her ass which wedged against the door. XXXXL scrubs were accommodating her titanic ass, and her ever-jiggling tits, and her ever rumbling gut, her wobbly biceps, and thundering thighs. For the moment. It went without saying that she never thought she would get this big, and she certainly never thought how easy it would be to get this big. XL became XXL became XXXL became XXXXL. 256 became… Well, she had no idea, but she was going to know. As soon as she opened her eyes, which she couldn’t seem to bring herself to do. As in all times of stress (and happiness, boredom, angry, sadness, and any other emotion) she was hungry. She tiled her head down, feeling her double or triple chins press against each other and opened her eyes. Only to see, past the two lobes of flesh that poured over her EE cup bra, an expanse of gut. Her fucking belly was so big, she couldn’t see the numbers. She shut her eyes again and remembered how her local Work’n Gear only stocked XXXL, anything larger, she would have to buy on-line or order specially. She swallowed dryly and opened her eyes again. Pressing her hands to the dome of her belly, the part surging out furthest in front of her, she pressed it back towards her body while she leaned forward. That didn’t work; there was too much belly in the way and as she leaned forward, her tits got even further in the way. Suck. Squeeze. Lean. Nothing. She tried again. Nothing again. Sweat was beginning to roll down in the usual places, under the arms, at the back of her knees, and in the rolls along her waist and below her bra straps. The voices of Ben and Jerry called to her from the freezer; she had tried, she had, but she couldn’t see the number, she deserved a pint of Chubby Hubby or two or three. No! It was that kind of thinking that had made it hard for her to squeeze into her car. The mirror was leaning against the wall behind her and the bathroom was not big. If she used the mirror, she could read the digital scale in the reflection. She twisted around, noticing how the most recent accumulations of chub had bulked up her hips and love-handles and that twisting wasn’t as easy as it used to be. She didn’t want to look at her reflection, not yet. She would, but first, she had to know. Angling the full-length mirror away from her feet, she caught a quick glimpse of the red stretch marks radiating out from her deep navel and saw her flesh wobble with the twist of her torso. She refocused. 33L? No 33 and then a backwards L. What? Oh, holy living fuck! The reflection was reversed and upside down! It couldn’t be! 337! 337. She felt faint and dropped the mirror. It bounced off of her belly and shattered as it hit the tile floor. Sarah staggered back off of the scale and stumbled against the wall feeling the cool tile twinge against the sweat on her back. She slumped against the wall, dropping all of her, fuck!, three hundred and thirty-seven pounds, onto her wicker hamper which creaked and splintered, sending her all the way to the floor. A shuddering wave flopped through her body as her ample ass slapped the tile. She was gasping. Her blubbery ass had absorbed the shock of falling and it didn’t even really hurt. Math, she had to do math. 337 minus 256 was. Was. Oh my God. Could she really be 81 pounds heavier than that day she had stepped on the scale in the office, how long ago was that? When was that? Ten, almost eleven months. 81 pounds in 10 months. Sarah sat on the floor with remnants of the destroyed hamper under her butt. There were no clothes in it because she had so few clothes that fit her anymore, and since she barely did anything aside from work and come back home to get stoned or drunk and stuff herself silly, she hadn’t bought a new clothes aside from her tent like scrubs and sweats. There were no clothes in the hamper, but there was always pot and food in the kitchen, and usually beer in the fridge. That was were her mind jumped immediately and she tried to get up to get there before any other thought could squeeze in. Sarah found that while hauling herself up from a seated position on her couch, where she spent most of her time was a wobbling, jiggle ordeal and lifting herself off her desk chair at work, hurt her knees and back, it had been a long time since she found herself sitting on the floor. She almost didn’t know how to start to get up. Her arms groped as far behind her as they could but there was nothing to push herself against as if her arms could have lifted all three hundred and thirty-seven pounds of her. Rolling forward and bringing her knees under her was not an option, no ab muscles, huge belly, fat legs. After a few minutes of creating no more motion than the undulations of her flesh, she accepted that she would need to roll onto her front and get up on her hands and knees. While this was not a most dignified option, so many aspects of her life had lost some dignity in recent times. Sarah rolled and rocked and finally, maybe for the first time in a long time, she felt the weight of her body in the pressure on her knees and wrists. She spent so much time and effort in avoiding confronting her weight, and so much time working her physical life around her swelling frame, that she could go for a while without really thinking about it – or if she did think about it she could put something into her body that stopped those thoughts. From her hands and knees, she brought her ass back onto her claves, the soft expanses meeting in a position they hadn’t enjoyed in a while. Her ass was so soft, it seemed to wrap around her calves and ankles. The next step was harder. Sarah grabbed the edge of the tub and, body quivering, started to stand up. It took a few tries and when she was done, she was sweating but she was standing. She looked around the bathroom, broken mirror, smashed hamper; so much for taking stock of her life. When she entered this room in what now felt like an hour ago, she had had an icy dread that she might weigh close to three hundred pounds. She was actively in denial, but she knew the struggles of her body everyday and she knew, vaguely at times, what she stuffed into it. She had two fifty-six in the back of her mind, but she knew it was much more, that maybe three hundred was looming on the horizon, behind a pile of cookies, a mountain of Chinese food, or cases of beer stacked like a Mayan temple. She knew this was possible, but to have shot past the barrier of three hundred pounds without noticing, that was a little devastating. Although, what had she expected, that while she was lounging on the couch one day, she would drop an Oreo into her chomping mouth an a voice would have announced from somewhere that she had just porked out to three bills. Yeah, but still, to have gone almost forty pounds past that fatass milestone, made her feel, well, she wasn’t sure how it made her feel, aside from hungry. Everything made her hungry. Knowing how fat that hunger had made her made her feel horrified and a little sick with some other emotion lurking in the background, a weird misplaced pride, perhaps. She lumbered into the kitchen, the number on the scale dancing in her head at each plodding step. The kitchen had a narrow galley arrangement and every once in while Sarah was reminded of her bulk by having to maneuver herself around it. She had to stand to the side of the fridge when she opened the door, because even with her ass pressed against the opposite counter, her belly didn’t allow enough clearance. She stepped to the side to open the recently stocked fridge and gazed in with a sinking feeling. Sarah had been so determined that she would weigh herself and take a good long look in the mirror (breaking it had saved her from that) that she had forgotten her intended trip to the liquor store and she needed booze. Although she hated to go back out, she needed to, especially after he recent shock. The liquor store was only around the block, and she could drive, or course. She pulled on skin-tight, threadbare sweatpants, clogs, and digging around in the pile on her bed, finally decided that she would need to put her XXXL scrub top back on, the one with the fresh hot chocolate stain on it. She grabbed her long down coat from where she had flung it on the back of a chair and struggled into it. The number 337 flashing in her mind. The coat hadn’t really fit last winter and this winter it would have been laughable to consider trying to zip it up. It might be a full sixteen inches from covering her belly. This wasn’t much of a problem, as Sarah spent so little time outside and drove herself almost everywhere, even the shortest of distances. When she did have to go outside, she hardly felt the need to zip it up as she was carried pounds and pounds of very effective insulation everywhere she went. She was far more often sweating than cold. The recent troubling development had been the tightness of her old coat around her biceps, but not now, not now. Now, she needed booze, possibly bottles and bottles of cider. With her meaty arms crammed into her coat, she crammed her meat ass into her car seat and headed down the block and around the corner. On the corner was a pizza place, right next door to the liquor store. The pizza place’s number was saved in her phone which seemed to be already in her hand and dialing. Four, no make that five larger meat lover supremes, and two orders of mozzarella sticks, for pick up. Fifteen minutes? Well, thank God she had brought a party sized bag of Cool Ranch Doritos into the car with her. Her car loaded with pizza and a case of Woodchuck cider, and her mind loaded with visions of her bowl full of weed and her couch, Sarah rolled away from the curb, around the block and headed back home. Eight hours later, with a whanging headache and a throbbingly full belly, Sarah woke up, rolled off of the couch, stepped over the pizza boxes, bottles, and candy wrappers and headed to the freezer. She grabbed two pints of Ben and Jerry’s. In her intoxicated sleep, she had dreamed an idea, and idea only someone with her particular desires and compulsions might dream. She tore the lids off of the Chuby Hubby and Phish food and threw them away. She placed both cartons in the microwave, its door splattered with traces of meals gone by. In one minute, she extracted them, the contents a softened delight. With one in each hand, she remembered what she had done in her dream and gently squeezed each carton until the softened ice cream crept over the edge. She gobbled it up before it could drip, moving both pints to her waiting tongue in sequence. Now she could eat two pints at once without a spoon! What an amazing dream! Sarah was glad that she remembered it. Something else tugged at her memory as the flattened cartons thumped into the trash and she pulled two more out. What was it? A number? The sugar was working to dull her headache as were the hits off of her bowl that she took while waiting for the ice cream to soften, but she couldn’t remember the number, only the vague sense of anxiety it had caused. The number didn’t matter anyway. When one is the sort of special young lady who falls asleep on her fifth empty pizza box and awakens from dreaming of how to double-fist pints of ice cream, it doesn’t really matter if you remember the number on the scale; it’s not going to stay the same for long.

Sarah’s breath came in short, gulped gasps, as it so often did in her recent memory, either from exertion or from being forced to work around a mouth full of food – or both. Right now, it was both. She had awoken from a fitful sleep having gotten into bed hours ago too stoned and stuffed to rest comfortably, but too drowsy to stay awake on the couch. Despite a particularly spectacular gorging session including her personal record for number of pizzas consumed, she rose from her bed ravenously hungry, feeling like there was a chasm inside of her, like she was entirely hollow. She had to fill it and she had to do it fast. She had started with cookies. She always had plenty of them in the cupboards and cabinets – or she always bought plenty of them and tore through them at an increasingly (alarmingly) rapid pace. As long as they keep making different flavors of Milano, she would keep inhaling them. Three bags vanished as she stood in the kitchen, eyes glazed over chomping methodically. She was rummaging in the upper cabinets, looking for something ready to eat, pushing boxes of sugar cereal, pasta, and cake mixes out of the way when it appeared to her like a beacon shining over the sea. A huge unopened jar of Nutella. And it was huge, almost a joke-size or a size that a Swiss boarding school would buy in bulk. She had seen it in the window of a specialty food store and had to have it. It was so fucking big, the white plastic lid had a handle. She slid it to the front of the shelf and grabbed it with both hands. Its weight surprised her and as she lifted it down, she felt a familiar burning twinge in her lower back. She had been standing up for too long. She opened a drawer to get a spoon, but they were all dirty, in the sink. She sidestepped through the narrow galley kitchen and stood over the sink to rinse a soup spoon. She worked the lid free, then peeled back the gold foil. Her back twinged again, so she leaned forward against the counter in front of the sink and taking a moment to observe and admire the smooth unbroken surface of the chocolate ocean spread before her, she began to eat. As the first heaping spoonful began its slow dissolve against her tongue, her heartbeat quickened and she felt a shiver sweep through her body. The pudgy arm that reached back down into the depths had goosebumps. Her breath came in short, gulped gasps as she repeated the motions: dip, scoop, past the lips, onto the tongue and roof of the mouth and dip back down again. She didn’t really have to chew and although she really loved the feeling of crunching, this was heaven. Her mouth had begun an unconscious dance, rolling her tongue and jaw around in opposite motion to smooth the Nutella on it’s way down her throat. After some time, her back began to protest again, and her locked knees began to ache. How long had she been standing there? How long had it been since she was able to stand for any period of time without her body complaining? The counter was cutting into her belly where she was leaning against it. She stuck the spoon in the jar and leaned back, bracing both hands against her wide, soft back and stretching like a pregnant woman might. Her back ached like it was on fire and the lower curve of her belly brushed up against the countertop, its bottom, almost clearing the lip in front of the sink. She looked down as she felt the contact between her pale skin and the granite countertop. The she did something that, to her, would have been unthinkable a few months before and the thought of which a year or more ago would have sent her into hysterics. But, just then, it seemed like the only thing she could do. She tucked the loose strands of her blonde hair behind her cute little ears, licked a glob of Nutella from her pouty bottom lip and, using both hands lifted up her gargantuan belly and placed it on the countertop. It immediately filled the space between the edge and the sink and ever so subtly poured into the sink itself, the cold metal hitting her like an electric shock. She stood there at three o’clock in the morning wearing only a pair of Lane Bryant boyshort panties that had long since given up the struggle of containing her massive ass and a tanktop that constantly rolled up over the belly and under her huge breasts (both articles of clothing that had fit, and fit well in very recent memory) with her belly resting on the counter, falling into the sink. And she picked up the spoon, dig deep and kept on eating. She was beyond full, beyond tired, her body beyond sore and overstressed and she kept on eating like it was all she knew how to do. And as things in her life got harder to do, it was still easy. And as things in her life felt bad, it still felt good. Every heaping, gooey spoonful felt so good. Even though it felt like so many things in her life were shrinking, her wardrobe, her car seat, the distance she could walk without sweating, her self-esteem, the pleasure from food seemed to grow without bounds. As she scooped and smacked and swallowed, she knew it was wrong, knew it was bad, knew it was hurting her. Her consumption of weed, alcohol, and food was out of control. Her weight was out of control. She was out of control. And she couldn’t stop. If she had looked up and seen her reflection in the window, would that have shocked her into ceasing? Would her vision of her own body made her stop? Her cheeks were flushed with exertion and excitement, with some beads of sweat having popped up near her hairline. Her hand had come loose from behind her ears and framed a face that was rounder and softer than it had ever been. With all of the chewing she did, one might think she would have some definition along her jaw, but it has softened and folded over into a double chin that threatened a third. Her shoulders had rounded, both with added padding and with sloping over having to carry her breasts, which just kept getting bigger, overflowing bras faster than she could afford to buy them. They made buttoning sweaters near impossible and buttoning shirts impossible. They were constantly in her way and seemed to never stop wobbling. The wobbling drove her crazy because her belly often wobbled in opposition tandem, depending on her activity. If she was walking slowly, they wobbled together, if she had to rush (which she did less and less) they might start wobbling in different directions, causing shirts and jackets to ride up, pants to pinch and leather belts to creak – or it caused leather belts to creak the last time she was able to cinch one around her midsection. Not that she needed a belt, the wide shelf of her ass held up most pants effectively, and even if it didn’t stick out behind her at an obscene angle, all of her pants were way too tight to fall down. In fact, if she was to be honest about it, which she rarely was, she had wobbled herself out of most of the casual pants that she had and the tightness of her scrubs had recently solicited some comments at work. If they got any tighter, she would wobble herself into a busted seam at an inopportune time. Her belly wasn’t wobbling now. Three pizzas, a six pack of cider, an order of onion rings, two bowls of Cap’n Crunch (before bed) three bags of cookies and this Nutella had stopped its wobbling for now. It surged out over the counter and onto the lip of the sink and over that lip. Each gasping breath, coming faster and faster now, barely caused it to move, let alone lift from where it lay stuffed full and tight, but still wanting more. The faint red lines that Sarah had noticed months ago were now prominent and multiplied, evidence of the binges and recklessness of the past few months. A single smudge of Nutella was on the upper curve of its dome, having falled from the spoon on one of its trips from the tub to her mouth. And still she kept eating and eating and eating. And then it was gone. All gone. The clock read 4:23 when the spoon scraped plastic at the bottom of the tub, but it was 4:38 when Sarah finished running her fingers around the sides and curves of the container to make sure she got every last smear, every last suck. She was fully sweating, after having single-mindedly gorged for almost two hours. Her breath came in short, gulped gasps of pleasure, pain, and disbelief. She had eaten the entire tub. She looked at the label; five kg, how much was that in pounds? She multiplied. Jesus, fucking, Christ, over eleven pounds. No wonder her belly ached. Shit! She had almost forgotten that it was still resting on the counter. She tried to pull back, but the heat and sweat had caused it to stick to the counter and edge of the sink. She put the tub down and lifted. With both hands, leaning back to brace herself. She was surprised at how heavy it was. Wait, it wasn’t an “it”; it was her. How was it possible to be surprised at how heavy a part of one’s own body is? She let her body take its weight, slowly releasing her hands. Her belly didn’t sag or bounce, it just seemed to sink, and her back and knees felt it, both sending out their familiar twinges of protest. She looked at the jar on the counter. What she had done tonight, this feat of gluttony was too much. She had gone too far, had eaten too much. She was getting too big. This had to stop. Janice had weighed her in at two hundred and fifty-six pounds four months ago and all she had done since then was get bigger. And bigger. And bigger. She felt her heart beat faster and her sweat turn cold when she tried to imagine how much she weighed now. This was it. This had to stop she had gotten too big, way too big. She was huge. She placed a had on either side of her swollen belly. Belly? She needed to top calling it that; this was a gut. She tried to wobble it, to shake some sense into herself, but it was too tight, too full to move. The rest of her obliged with a wobble that lasted longer than her original motion. “This has to end”, she said, “I can’t keep going like this.” She’d said that before…

Since she had had to drive to work, in order to buy her scrubs, Sarah figured that she would go grocery shopping on the way home. She had also done enough damage in her freezer, cupboard, and “wine cellar” the night before that she was probably due to some more food in the house. What she really wanted to do was go home, get high, and forget about her day and forget about the number. It would take a lot to forget about that number. When Janice had asked her to help her check to see if her scale was working, Sarah felt like she couldn’t say no, but she also didn’t do a very good job covering up how she felt about it. She felt her face immediately flush as she glanced around her office and her hands moved unconsciously to her jiggling belly as she held in a burp. While she smilingly followed Janice down the hall, her mind was racing. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Okay, okay, okay. It was April. Her physical was in, what, October? Yeah, October, she had been eating Halloween candy in the waiting room and had been immediately embarrassed by the wrappers in her pockets when she was weighed. 221. 221, that number had stuck in her mind. Shit, that was big. Too big. Fuck. Okay, okay. That was only six months ago and, yes, she had made some bad diet and exercise choices recently, but it was only six months. As she walked down the hall, following her petite colleague, she thought felt her body wobble slightly with each step. Only six months, how bad could it be? She parked her small SUV as close to the door to the store as she could. No need to walk further than she had to. It had already been a long enough day. It was after five and the supermarket parking lot was crowded. A few too many people around to get high, that would have to wait until she got home. She would also have to wait to get home to eat, or at least after she got back into the car. That would be painful; she was starving. Despite the incident this morning, she had had to eat her, by now normal, lunch of two meatball subs from Subway plus those Cadbury Eggs. There was no reason that she should be so hungry, or that her back should be twanging with spasms. She tried to stretch in her bucket seat –her back had been aching for most of the day – and found how much less room she had than she used to. Her legs were short, so she had to keep the seat pulled up close enough to reach the pedals. The measure the distance between the steering wheel and the seat was a fixed distance. However, the measurement around Sarah’s midsection was not a fixed distance. Neither was the one around her hips and ass. Over the last few years while she had gotten wider and thicker, her legs hadn’t gotten any longer. As she tried to stretch her back, her belly brushed up against the wheel. Her eyes shot down to where the soft, doughy expanse of her spare tire was touching the wheel. No, she was not dealing with this right now. She reached to unbuckle her seatbelt and tried not to notice that she had to squeeze the buckle out from under her hip in order to get it open. She had just too much belly and too much ass for the seat. She could barely afford new scrubs, there was no way that she could buy a new car because she was too fat. She could, however, buy groceries. As she pulled herself out of the car, the number popped into her head again, as did Janice’s question. Janice walked around the corner, Sarah trailing behind – waddling, really. She had recently noticed that she was developing a side-to-side roll in her stride. Okay, okay, she thought to herself. 221, it’s not far off 221. Damn, 221. That was really heavy. It shouldn’t be more than that. Well, six months. It can’t be that bad. Well, it’s not like she had lost weight. It’s not like she was trying, but it wasn’t going to be too bad. It was only six months. But wait, those six months had contained Halloween (for which she had already been stockpiling candy at her last physical), Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Shit, those were big eating holidays, and she hadn’t held back. In fact, since she made the discovery this year that one of her cousins was also a pretty heavy pot smoker, she had gone into most of the big family meals totally stoned and had probably stuffed herself silly. Shit, she didn’t remember exactly how much she had eaten at either meal, only that the one pair of dress pants that she had worn for Thanksgiving had to be unbuttoned before dessert and that they had to be worn unbuttoned to Christmas. Around Christmas was when she had really started smoking more, as well, partly to deal with the boredom of the winter, partly to deal with a job that was getting hard to do, and a body that seemed to ache and creak. That increased smoking had lead to increased snacking, and this sprang to her mind as she tried to slow her shuffle down the hall. As she came around the corner, she saw Janice bend down to place a small bathroom scale next to the large one that the used for the patients. Janice had a tiny ass. Sarah bet that she had never split a pair of scrub pants. Sarah tried to lean on the shopping cart to take some stress off of her back as she pushed it through the produce section. There wasn’t much in that section she was interested in. Next aisle: Cap’n Crunch, Count Chocula, Fruity Pebbles, CocoPuffs. Around the corner: Milanos (several varieties) Chips (corn, potato – different brands of each) Cheez-doodles. Boxes of Entenmanns (donuts, cookies, raspberry swirl Danish, pop-ems). Buy five pints of Ben and Jerry’s get one free? Yeah, ten pints and two free? Done. Frozen pizzas, pierogis, garlic bread, lasagna, mac and cheese. God, was she done yet? She was dying to get home. One more turn through the dairy case: cheese slices, cheese sticks, half-and-half, whole milk, cookie dough, pudding and – ooooh – those cheesecakes. On the way to the checkout, she passed the garish, cardboard Cadbury Easter display The teenage checkout girl looked at her with narrowed eyes and a raised eyebrows as she slid the calories across the scanner. $180. That was a lot of money, but fuck it, she was hungry. 180 wasn’t that bad. The number wasn’t that high. That number wasn’t going to stick in her mind once was stoned, drunk, and full of Chinese food, 180 wasn’t going to be the number she was thinking about. “Should I take my shoes off?” Sarah asked Janice as she felt a single bead of sweat run down her spine and into her butt crack. “Oh, honey, we both know that barely makes a difference. Besides, I only want to see if they read the same. Hop on up!” Janice patted Sarah on her shoulder and was surprised how soft and yielding it was. The springs in the car seat squeaked as Sarah stepped up and wedged herself back into it. She pulled out her cell phone and pulled up the number of her favorite Chinese place. “An order for delivery? Yes, a quart each of pork fried rice and beef lo mein. Four egg rolls. An order of crab Rangoon. Yes, that’s it. Wait, no. General Tso’s chicken. Huh? Oh, um, a large I guess.” Her legs hurt and her back was screaming as she brought the last bag of groceries into the apartment. With her stop at the liquor store for some hard cider, she had only a few minutes to change into sweatpants and a t-shirt. She didn’t really look for one that fit, none of them did, they all just hugged and tucked themselves into her various rolls and folds. Where was the Chinese guy? She ordered from the same restaurant at least twice a week and she tipped well. Well, she had time to get high. She managed to smoke an entire bowl while standing in her kitchen, downing one cider in a few gulps. She was in a euphoric haze by them time the buzzer rang and she paid and tipped, well, as usual. “Wait, before you step on. What are you?” “Huh?” “How much do you weigh, honey?” “Oh. Um, I’m not really sure. I haven’t weighed myself recently.” “Sarah, you really should know. Especially as you get older.” “I know. Um, the last time was at my physical in October.” “And?” “I was 220.” For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to say 221. The extra one pound over the round number seemed too shameful to bring up. “Okay,” Wow, she was heavier than Janice had suspected. How old was she? Not even 30 yet. “Thanks for your help, by the way.” Janice smiled sweetly. Sarah turned on the TV. Tonight “Law and Order” would provide the background to her dinner. She laid the containers out in front of her on the coffee table. Three steaming dishes, a white paper box of crab Rangoon and the four egg rolls in their wax sleeves. And six, no seven fortune cookies. Sarah smiled as she counted these. Whoever had packed her order had obviously considered this much food a meal fit for at least seven. In her stoned and rapacious state, that sort of felt like a challenge. With the chopsticks poised expertly in her hand, she flopped down on the couch, sinking deeply into the wide indentation that covered the entirety of the center cushion. Then she rocked herself forward, tucked a cloth napkin into the collar of her shirt and took a deep breath. Sarah took a deep breath. There was no avoiding this. She stepped up. Janice had already slid the large weight over to the 200 pound notch. She already knew that Sarah was over 200. Janice tapped the small weight up to 20, then past it. Sarah looked over her head, holding her breath. Further, further. 25, 30. Janice paused to see if the scale balanced. Sarah took a shaky breath. Janice tapped. 35. 35 would mean that in the last six months, she had gained 14 pounds. That seemed crazy. How could she have gained 14 pounds. But she hadn’t. The scale didn’t balance at 35. Or 40. Sarah closed her eyes and exhaled through her nose. Janice looked up and saw that her eyes were shut. Sarah heard the small weight slide back to zero. No. No, no, no, no. The big weighed clunked up a notch. Sarah’s heart clunked and she felt like something had dropped in her stomach. As the first syrupy, spicy, gooey chunk of the general’s chicken slid down into her belly, she knew she was approaching her moment of bliss. After that first bite went down, more followed, faster and faster. Different textures and different flavors filled her stomach heavily with warmth and, well shit, happiness. Her stomach felt like ice-water had been poured down into it. She wanted to open her eyes as she heard Janice start to slide the small weight again. Janice was experienced; she knew how to work the scale smoothly. Sarah looked down at where it rested. Six. 256. It was easier to eat the lo mein with the chopsticks if she held the quart container up to her mouth. So she did. It was easier to eat the fried rice with a spoon. So she did – while holding the container up to her mouth. “256,” said Janice matter-of-factly. Although her head was swimming, it wasn’t tough for Sarah to do the math. 256-221=35. She had gained 35 pounds in three months. She barely remembered stepping off and onto the other scale, which worked perfectly. 256. The episode of “Law and Order” ended and Sarah had barely noticed that it had happened. She had stuffed herself for 42 minutes and the meal wasn’t even gone yet. She hazily pressed play for the next and praised herself for bringing the whole six-pack of cider with her from the kitchen. She wasn’t sure she could have stood up if she wanted to. And she didn’t want to. In addition to the cider, she had remembered to bring the Mini-Eggs from the kitchen. Sarah was in shock. 256. Janice was talking to her, but she really wasn’t listening. She stared at the walls, not sure if she was going to cry or laugh. 256. She was brought back to the present when Janice gently placed a small, dry palm against the belly, sticking out beyond her huge breasts. Sarah flinched; no one ever touched her belly. “…do you know what I am saying, Honey. You’re so young; as you get older this,” she looked down at Sarah’s belly,” gets harder to manage. Honey, when will this end?”

Part 2 Janice glanced at the clock on the office wall when she heard someone fumbling with the waiting room door. Sarah was late again. Janice got up from her chair and straightened her crisp, clean scrubs over her thin, almost angular frame. Sarah was almost always late; and while their patients wouldn’t start arriving for an hour, there was still a lot of work to do, which Sarah usually didn’t do too quickly. She opened the door to the waiting room and found Sarah on the other side, laden with plastic bags and trying to wedge a huge Styrofoam coffee cup between her breasts and her chin. She wasn’t even dressed for work, dripping sweat and breathing heavily. “Thanks! God, I’m all over the place this morning. Sorry, I’m late, I couldn’t find a place to park. I had to do a little shopping on my way in.” She bumped through the door, her ass swinging close enough to Janice to make the small woman step back. As she watched her young colleague wobble down the hall in front of her, she noted that the black yoga pants --which had probably never seen a yoga class -- were doing their best to contain Sarah, but were failing at the attempt. When Sarah turned around to push her office door open with her hip, Janice saw that the worn-out t-shirt under her unzipped jacket was similarly failing, the bottom curve of her gut was visible, folding over the top of her pants. Through her shirt, Janice could clearly make out the bubble of flesh pressing out the cups of her bra. “I just gotta get changed, then I am ready to roll. I bought some new scrubs today,” Sarah intoned with what she hoped sounded like enthusiasm. Once she was in her own office, with the door shut, she dropped the cheerful expression as she dropped her bags, all except the one with the donuts and croissant sandwiches in it. Today, of all days, she had the incontrovertible proof in front of her that she didn’t need to be eating all the sugar and fat that was in that bag, but it was her comfort and she had had a rough morning. After her night of intoxication and bingeing, she needed to show up at the Work N’ Gear as soon as it opened to buy some new scrubs before work. She had struggled into a pair of obscenely tight, but thankfully stretchy, yoga pants and a tight scrub top. He belly was still stuffed from the night before and she found the shirt tight around the widest part her girth. Well, she probably needed some new shirts too. When it came to shopping for clothes, there were a few ways in which Sarah was able to justify her swelling over the years (slow and steady since high school, but increasing in speed in the last few years). One was that clothing companies always changed their styles and cuts, so that when a pair of jeans had to be replaced, of course the same size wouldn’t fit her, because Levi’s had switched to a slimmer fit since she had purchased hers. Another frequently employed rationalization was that different brands sizes were not all the same. An XL at American Apparel was not the same as an XL at The Gap. It’s not that she was an XL, it was just that a certain stores sizes ran small. In frustration and anxiety, she would hustle from store to store in the mall convinced that at one, she would find the pair of jeans that fit her in her size – whatever size she had decided should still fit her. But whatever size that had been (10, then 12, then…) eventually, nothing would fit her no matter how many shops she visited and she had to return to one of the ones she had left in a huff and ask for a larger size. Then came the day when she went back to Levi’s store and was told that they didn’t carry the size that would be large enough to accommodate her. After that, it was Lane Bryant, all the way. That had been about a year ago, and after she got over the initial shock of having to shop, full time, in the “big girl store” as she called it, it wasn’t so bad. In fact, it kind of made her feel better about her size; she was no way the biggest woman in Lane Bryant. And, if there was anything to be gleaned from the racks that morning at Work N’ Gear, she wasn’t the biggest woman shopping there, but, she was close. The scrub pants that she busted the seat out of the night before had been an XL, as was the top she found so constricting around her paunch. When she bought that set less than a year ago, she had had to play the game of looking for the brands carried by the chain that fulfilled her need of staying in the XL range while covering mountainous breasts, tree trunk thighs, and a belly approaching beach ball dimensions. The displays contained XL scrubs and she decided to give herself one more chance. After eyeing a few, she selected one that looked the biggest. Maneuvering into the changing room, she intentionally avoided the mirrors, another tool of her denial. The yoga pants clung doggedly to her thighs, but she got them off. She couldn’t get the scrub pants over the widest part of her thighs and pulled them off. Okay, she was okay. She wouldn’t be here if she still fit into the XL. Okay, back to the rack. The sections of the circular rack, divided by plastic rings, were not all equal in size. There were a lot of Ss, Ms, Ls; fewer of the XS, and XL; and even fewer of the XXL, XXXL, and 4XL. Sarah grabbed a few pairs of the XXL and went back to the dressing room. She moved around inside, trying to hang up the clothes and her purse. She bumped a few of the walls with her ass and when bending over, her breasts pressed up against the mirror, which she was avoiding looking at. God, why was this dressing room so small? Didn’t this store sell to big, tough construction guys? She put on one of the tops; it didn’t feel as big as she wished that it would; her belly and love handles kept it from making it down as far as it should around her ample waist. Her breasts pushed the fabric out, and although she tried not to look too closely, she could see that the bulge of her breasts out of their cups was visible. Shit, on top of the money she would spend here, she probably needed new bras. She pulled the top off and squeezed back into her t-shirt. As she straightened it, she saw the stretch marks for a fleeting second. The pants were another story. She had wanted to hope that the top would be too big, and it was big enough. While she held the same hope for the pants, she knew that their waist band would have to deal with both her bigger belly and the undeniable breath, width, and depth that her ass had take on, of late. She struggled into the first pair, the familiar sheen of sweat popping out on her forehead. The old pair of XLs must have done some significant stretching in the last few months because these smaller even than they had felt. The sweat on her forehead increased, out of panic now as much as from her being out of breath. She pulled them off hurriedly and tried the next. It was better, but not by much. She eyed the other two pairs she had brought into the claustrophobic, there was no way in hell that she was bigger than an XXL. When she kicked the second pair off of her plump feet, she felt her belly jiggle. She placed a hand on it and then reached around to touch her butt, which was still jiggling on its own. At that moment, as if to further demonstrate her body’s betrayal, her stomach gurgled and whined. She had felt too bloated for breakfast when she got up, but that had been about an hour ago and her hang-over was starting to beg for sugar and grease and her belly for anything that resembled cake. She grabbed the next pair and pulled them up. To her surprise, they slid up until the elastic band bumped under her belly. The elastic was stretched, but not to its maximum and when she cautiously performed her test – crouching down to test the seat – they were tight across her ass and there was a little butt crack out in the breeze. She had already forgotten her previous concern about the length of the tops and tugged and squeezed back into the yoga pants. The store had three tops in her size, but only the one pair of pants. The woman behind the counter said she could order them for her. She thanked and her paid, almost forgetting to give her number to be called when they arrived – when the relief of finding pants that would fit washed through her brain, the hunger and the compulsion to eat took over. She was already thinking of what she was going to eat. Thankfully, the mall had a Dunkin Donuts. On the way to it, she passed the CVS and saw their display of Easter candy. Well, they did only come out once a year. Now that she was in her office at work, breakfast for what should have been about four people on her desk and more Cadbury Eggs in a plastic bag on the floor, she rushed to get dressed. Pants with a waist this big were obviously intended for someone with longer legs than a woman of only five three. She rolled up the cuffs and dug around in the top drawer of her desk to find some safety pins. She didn’t have any. Sitting on her rolling desk chair, her hunger rolled over her and she grabbed the first croissant sandwich from the bag, the smell of sausage, egg, and cheese causing an almost ecstatic response. She stuffed it greedily into her mouth, folding over the last few bites to get it all in. She sighed contentedly. One would have to hold her for now. She walked across from her office to see if Janice had any safety pins without even bothering to wipe the croissant crumbs off of the shelf of her breasts. “Jan? Do you have any safety pins? I bought some new scrubs this morning and I gonna need to hem them tonight, but I don’t want to be tripping all day,” Sarah said with a grim as she sidled through the half open door across the hall from her office, inadvertently bumping the door with her ass. “Sure thing,” Janice replied absently, got them out of her desk and handed them over, “Six enough?” “Thanks,” Sarah made a move to sit down in the chair next to Janice’s desk, but noticed that unlike the two chairs in Sarah’s office Janice’s office had the chairs with arms and after an embarrassing moment at a meeting a couple of month’s ago. Sarah made a point of not sitting in any of the office chairs with arms. Once Sarah was back in her office, she shut the door and moved hungrily to the bag on her desk. Janie watched as her young colleague shut the door. It was about time the girl bought new scrubs. The ones she had been wearing lately, and she was pretty sure it was down to one pair, had been hanging on for dear life. And judging from the smells from those bags she came in carrying, this pair might not be long for this world. It was like the younger nurse didn’t know anything about nutrition or self-control or, shit, looking in the mirror. It seemed to Janice that since she had started working at the office she was constantly sneaking a snack: donuts, chocolates, bags of chips – never anything healthy. never an apple or a banana. And her lunches were almost always some kind of fast food from one of places nearby the office: McDonalds, Subway, or Taco Bell, or pizza, Chinese or fried chicken. Add to this a constant supply of sweet, creamy coffee, hot chocolate, soda, or milkshake. Janice couldn’t remember the last time she had had a milkshake. Before high school? And she was fifty-seven! And recently, it seemed to be accelerating. Actually, that was a funny word to use, Janice thought to herself. Sarah’s eating seemed to be accelerating and the expansion of already blubbery body had accelerated, but everything else seemed to slow down. She walked slower, showed up later, did her work slower, took longer breaks. She ate faster, it seemed, scarfing down foot-long subs and orders of fries at lunch; however, since she ate so much more, it took longer. Then she usually lapse into some food coma and remain there until someone pulled her back to reality. Janice sighed to herself. It wasn’t like she wasn’t a pretty girl, she thought sadly. In fact, she had the kind of figure on which you could imagine carrying a few extra pounds well. But Sarah wasn’t carrying a few extra pounds. A short woman with large breasts and a rounded butt was often desirable and Janice had known a lot of men who would choose that kind of woman. Maybe Sarah had been that kind of woman a hundred pounds ago – with that cute blonde bob and bright eyes - but now, her body seemed like an exaggerated parody of that curvy blonde that Janice could imagine. Her breasts were huge and were constantly attempting escape from her cups of her bras, either up and over the top, or squeezing out at the sides where her upper arms sweated through her scrub tops and and competed for space with the escaping boob-flesh. Janice remembered a few months ago that Sarah’s ass had gotten stuck in a meeting room chair and since that day, she had noticed that whenever Sarah sat down, she avoided chairs with arms. This also caused her to notice how much of Sarah’s ass and thighs hung over the sides of any chair she plopped down on. What had been arresting more of Janice’s attention lately was Sarah’s belly. It seemed to be growing more rapidly than the rest of her, stretched by each meal. It wasn’t uncommon for Sarah to rest her hand on top of it after she had gorged herself silly at lunch, or one of the office outings after work. After those meals, it shoved itself out in front of her, tight as a drum, but most of the time it had a consistent jiggle and wobble, that sometimes were matched by her ass. She was amazed that no one had started a rumor about Sarah being pregnant. Well, maybe she wasn’t that surprised. Anyone who spent any time with her would know that she wasn’t pregnant, just fat and getting fatter. How much had she gained in the last six months alone? That was the time in which Janice had noticed the greatest change in gorging, sweating, wobbling, and expanding. As she had thought when she gave the girl her safety pins, if she wasn’t careful, those new scrubs would soon be too tight. But what could she do? Sarah had seemed cheerful about her new purchases, even though they were obviously bought because everything else was too small, and she had come in with that big bag from Dunkin’ Donuts. She didn’t seem to care. Did she need help recognizing her problem? Janice knew she wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she had to recognize her own ballooning. Right? Suddenly, she had an idea of a way to get Sarah to talk to her and realize what she was doing to herself. Although the office kept a large mechanical scale in the hall between offices, she had a small digital one that she kept tucked under her desk to use with patients who were shy about being weighed out in relative public. She pulled it out, crossed the hall, and knocked on Sarah’s door. There was a mumbled reply and Sarah pulled open the door a few seconds later, giant coffee in hand, wiping chocolate frosting from off her plump lips. “Can you help me with something?” “Sure,” Sarah barely took a break from drinking the sweet smelling drink to answer.” “I have this scale in my office for anxious patients…” “Good idea!” Sarah enthused. “Yes…but I think it is a little off. Can I used you as a guinea pig to check it against the scale in the hallway?” Sarah gulped hard, almost choking on her coffee. “Um. Um.” Damn! How could she say no? “Sure, I guess.” She glanced over her shoulder at the empty bag of donuts, the croissant sandwich wrappers, and the tags she had just cut off of her XXL scrubs. As if by punctuation to this thought, her belly produced a large burp that caused her belly and breasts to bounce as she stifled it.

“Huff, huff,” Sarah panted as she trudged up the snowy sidewalk. She approached a trash can and stopped, tipping back the dregs of a painfully sweet Extra-Large Dunkin’ Donuts hot chocolate clutched in her right hand, the waxy bag dangling from her right containing the last two of her half dozen maple-frosted donuts. She pulled the two out and tossed out the bag. With both hands now free, she turned the donuts and pressed their frosted sides together. Between her heaving breaths, she consumed the donuts in five competent, practiced bites. She licked an errant glob of frosting from her thumb and tried to catch her breath in the cold. Although the sugar she had just consumed, combined with the exertion of the walk had kept her overly warm, to the point of sweating, the wind was starting to bite into the thin cotton scrubs she wore. As she spread her legs and shifted her backpack, she felt that wind sneak in between her wide, soft thighs, finding the spot where their rubbing had almost worn through the material. The next gust blew through her open jacket and cooled the sweat that begun to collect under her swollen breasts and her thick, squishy arms. She shifted the backpack again and grabbed the zippered ends of her fake leather jacket. Tensing up, she sucked in her stomach and pulled the zipper together. The sudden intake of air made her taste a cocoa and maple burp in her throat and she abandoned the attempt as her belly surged back out, folding over the waistband of her scrub pants and causing the top to ride up. She sucked in and squeezed again, succeeding in getting the ends to meet. The fabric squeaked as she pulled the zipper up over the outward curve of her belly. The jacket rode up, exposing the bottom of her belly to the cold air and pushing the waistband further down. She kept zipping up to the point below her breasts where the zipper diverged at an angle too wide to zip. Her breasts wobbled, puckering the scrub top and sloshing out of the tight cups of her constricting bra. Feeling a little out of breath from the effort and from the constriction that the tightly zippered jacket put on her already labored breathing, Sarah tried to pull up the folded-over waistband from where it had folded under her gut. She failed. They were just too tight, so she contented herself with pulling down her top from under her jacket to cover the inch or two of belly that had escaped underneath its hem. As a last adjustment, she un-zipped the side pockets, the opening gaps adding a little slack around the widest part of her girth. “That gets harder every time,” she thought. After a whole day on her feet in the clinic and the last few minutes of walking (and eating), she was starting to feel it. Her thighs felt raw where they rubbed together, her lower back – onto which the tight jacket had pressed her sweaty shirt – ached from holding up her belly and breasts all day. Her knees and feet ached from the constant weight they bore and the walk from the bus stop to her apartment – in addition to taking longer and longer – had started to give her shin splints, even though she was wearing padded, comfortable shoes. After a few minutes of waddling, her determined, sugar- swollen belly had succeeded in squeezing back out into the cold air. She just kept waddling and huffing. When she reached her front door, she was fully out of breath and a sheen of sweat has plastered some whisps of her blonde bob to her forehead. She groped around for her key and had a moment of panic as she remembered that the key was in one of the pockets she had unzipped to have room to breath. If she got locked out because his damned jacket had gotten too small, she would be really pissed. Ah, there it was, but in her panic, she dropped it. Quickly, without thinking, she lunged down to grab it and heard the sound that she had been dreading for several weeks as her pants split over her broad, wobbling ass. She ducked into the apartment, dropped her bag, and painfully pried off her shoes. With a lot of strained inhalation, Sarah got her belly under control enough to unzip her jacket which she tossed onto the backpack on the floor. She reached around as far as she could do to the thickness of both her upper arms and her bulging love handles, and tried to assess the damage to her scrubs. The part of her brain that was specialized in denial (and figuring out how to sandwich donuts together for maximum ease of consumption and that opening zipped side pockets gained extra belly-room inside of tight jackets) was trying to convince her that they could be salvaged. Even though they obviously didn’t fit (she had just ripped the ass out of them) they were the last pair that even sort of fit, part of the quickly dwindling part of her wardrobe that sort of fit – as distinguished from the pile of clothes on the floor of her closet that no longer fit over, on, or around what she was being daily forced to admit was her ever-expanding body. She went into the bedroom and performed the wiggling, wriggling maneuvers she required to extricate herself from her work clothes. She held the ripped pants up and gazed ruefully at the tag, the last pair of XL bottoms she could find that she could squeeze into and now they had gotten too small. This last obvious rationalization, and Sarah knew it. Nothing had happened to those pants to make them smaller. Some more contorting and a lot of wobbling and she was free of her overtaxed bra. As she lifted each breast to wipe the sweat from underneath each one, she saw the puckered, red groove that the straps had left on her pale, soft skin. The tag read 38DDD but she knew that that hadn’t been the right size for a while. Enough. She wasn’t going to think about it. She’d had a long day and her body hurt, she had a mild headache and, despite the snack on the walk home, she was hungry. She just wanted to relax, get high, watch TV and eat. In her backpack there were two jumbo burritos, three orders of chips (their grease soaking into the paper bags) and for the first time this year, Cadbury Mini-Eggs – her absolute favorite binge food. She had bough herself five one-pound bags, a move both dangerous and daring. While the prospect of buying XXL (or maybe even XXXL) scrubs filled her with dread, Sarah had no problem with an old XXL t-shirt from her in roller derby; it still fit with the sleeves cut off. She eyed a pair of her old booty-shorts from the same era and decided not to risk the pain of rejection she knew was coming if she tried to squeeze her cheeks into them at her current poundage. Her pinched and stretched granny panties would have to do. When her creaking knees lowered her onto the couch, she felt her body relax, her back muscles un-tensed and she could almost feel her ass spread out to practically cover the center cushion. With the old t-shirt tighter than she remembered, her big, heavy breasts were held in check and rested on top of her belly. As the burritos warmed in the toasted over (they had barely fit into it!) she took her first hits from her small glass pipe and was transported to a relaxed and centered place, a place in which she wasn’t worried about work, her back, her clothes, or how much weight she was putting on, a place in which she was mindlessly, insatiably hungry. Soon, her chomping on the greasy, salty chips became a natural and unstoppable process. She savored the texture and the crunch as much as the taste. As Scully and Mulder blundered through woods and warehouses in vintage X-Files on Netflix, Sarah mowed effortlessly through the bags of chips with gobs of bean dip. The crunch, crunch, crunch, swallow became a mantra. When the timer dinged on the burritos, she was almost startled and found she had to struggle mightily to heave herself up from the couch. Wobbling into the kitchen, she put the monster burrito onto a plate, uncorked a bottle of overly sweet, cold Reisling and, as an afterthought, she grabbed the plastic CVS bag with the five pounds of chocolate. Sarah continued to smoke as she chewed, swallowed, and gulped mechanically her hunger seeming to increase as she stuffed more and more into her chomping mouth and growing belly. She finished one hog of a burrito and then the other, extra-cheese and sour cream dripping down her chins and a dazed look on her face. When she tried to sit up and remove the warm belly from atop her mountainous belly, she found it too full and stuffed for her paltry abs to pull her upright. Holding the plate in one plump hand, she rocked from side to side until she could roll into a sitting position long enough to deposit the plate on the coffee table before her wide butt pulled her back down into the compressed cushioning of the couch. As she rocked backward, she snagged the bag of the chocolate, dropping it next to her as he blobbed back onto the couch, her own ass and love handles matching the cushioning of the couch in softness. If there had been less pot flowing through her or if she hadn’t been in a state of food-coma stupification, she might have realized that she had reached her magic moment, the moment that makes all the difference. Even though she had struggled with a short walk home with several body parts begging not to have to support a single additional ounce, and even though she had done that walk while eating a half-dozen donuts and an XL hot chocolate, and even though her jacket was centimeters away from giving up the ghost, and even though she had just split the last pair of pants that fit her, and even though she had just eaten what would be big meals for at least three people, she opened the bag of Easter candy and began to eat. More pot, more X-Files, and a pound of chocolate was crunched down. A second bottle of wine, more pot, and down went pound number two. She was drowsy, high, drunk, and breathing heavily, “Too much sweet,” she ruminated in only a way that a stoner can. Into to the microwave went a family-sized pan of macaroni and cheese. While she waited the six minutes for the mac and cheese to cook, a sleeve of buttery Ritz crackers chomped and crunched to their end. Her belly felt to heavy, she had to support it with one hand as she staggered back to the couch. She caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror as she walked past and her eyes leapt to her belly, exposed at some point where her t-shirt had ridden up during her binge – maybe it was too tight, after all. She saw the bloated swell of her belly and noticed the small but growing red lines that she had first noticed last week, haloing out from her deepening navel. She had noticed them last week, while high and wrote them off as a rash from the cheap cotton scrubs she had to keep squeezing herself into, but at work the next day, sober, she realized in a rush that they were stretch marks. She had to dash to the bathroom to check herself in the mirror to be sure. When she saw them tonight, the shock was dulled by substances and the aroma of melted cheese called her back to the deep crater she had been compressing into the sofa nightly. She shoveled the steaming mac and cheese into her mouth, hiccupping and taking hits from her pipe. The last thing she remembered before she drifted off to sleep was opening up the third bag of candy. The fourth and fifth bag were gone the next morning with only a few melted smudges on the sheets, the last survivors of a munchie, sleep binge. This was her second moment. If the moment the night before was the moment where she had passed the point of no return, this moment was the view from the bottom of the cliff. When she rolled over to hit the alarm clock, she heard the empty bags crinkle and she felt a creeping dread. She had fallen asleep on the couch, but she was in her bed; in the meantime, she had gotten up and eaten, again. Her hands went to her belly, taut and round and painful. She rubbed her hands over her globular rise and…wait, was this a Cadbury Mini-egg wedged in the canyon of her navel? As she grabbed it, the thin candy shell ruptured and the chocolate, heated to her body temperature by its insulated nest. Her fingers came away covered in chocolate. Instinctively, she licked her finger, “God, that was so good,” and swung her still aching legs around and placed her feet on the floor. It was worse than she thought. Next to the bed lay an empty carton of Chubby Hubby, its plastic seal cast aside – it had been unopened. Next to it lay a mixing bowl with a thin residue of what looked like, wait…Cap’n Crunch? Had she mixed Cap’n Crunch with Chubby Hubby and eaten it all? She turned her foggy head around and saw a big rubber spatula stuck to her pillow. Six months ago, at her physical, Sarah had stood five feet, three inches and weighed 221 pounds, the biggest she had ever been, 27 pounds heavier than her dad. That was six months ago, when she could zip up her jacket, before she had swelled out of her pants and overflowed her bras, before the stretch marks. In those six months, she had porked out of an entire wardrobe and her body had begun to protest in significant ways. Even though she waddled by one, umpteen times a day at work, she had been too afraid to step on a scale. A year and six months ago, at her physical, she had weighed in at 196 pounds, her highest weight at the time. She was still playing roller derby, but had begun to feel the stress of her rising weight and growing girth, needing a new, bigger uniform three seasons in a row. Two years and six months ago, she had been horrified and embarrassed at her physical to be told that she was 178 pounds. Her doctor had told her she needed to lose about 30 pounds. Two years later, she had gained 43 and now, well, now she had no idea what she weighed. That day, the 178-pounder, she had vowed to make a change, joined a gym, bought a scale, then never exercised or weighed herself. The scale was in a box in the bathroom closet. Wiping the traces of chocolate from her fingers onto the sheets she ooffed her way to a standing position, a hand on either side of her belly. Her shirt was caked with ice-cream run-off and was bunched tightly under her breasts. Sarah tried to pull it down over her gut, but she had apparently stretched her gut more than her shirt could accommodate. Damn, that was an XXL. She painfully pulled it off her breasts bouncing free –clearly well out of the DDD range.

Another short story, feedback appreciated I hate going to the doctor. They always have to weigh you, and I hate that. I am not fat, well, maybe I am, but I am trying to convince myself on a sliding scale of years that I am not. You know how it is; these things tend to creep up on you. You get a little thicker and thicker and you convince yourself that it isn’t so bad and you don’t go out to eat that much and you should have dessert and then the airplane seat is kinda smaller and you really are too hungry to wait until you get to the hotel so you have to have a snickers in the airport and maybe a bag of chips and a soda. Then you are trying to knot your tie over the unbuttoned collar of your shirt. I had to go to the doctor to get a physical because I was starting a new job with new insurance – and a new waist size. There was nothing wrong with me, I am in really good shape, but I am always worried that the doctor will give me a hard time about my weight – and I had eaten a whole box of Fig Newtons the night before. When I came into the waiting room, I was regretting the Dunkin’ Donuts breakfast sandwich. What the hell, I was here now. I had not been to the office in a long time and I noticed the new nurse as soon as I came in. She was perfect. Short and blonde and chunky with short hair and a big smile. All of the nurses wore similar uniforms, white pants and sort of shapeless tops, although her shape was not all that invisible. Her breasts were too big, not only for the bra that she wore, but for her shirt as well. From where I was sitting, I could see that she was popping out over her bra cups and the fabric between them was strained. Her arms also filled her sleeves and although she was smiling, she was nervously looking down and adjusting her shirt every few minutes. I could not help but staring at her, looking up from my Popular Mechanics. I heard her laugh and watched her eating a donut, than another, and then a third and fourth before she called my name. I followed her to the examining room and watched her big butt expose the stitches on her white pants. I love chunky blonde girls in tight white pants. She said her name was Jamie, as I shook her small hand. She smiled at me widely and made small talk while she drew blood and took my blood pressure, all good. She asked about my tattoo and I learned that she was not that new, and had been working at the office for eight months and she looked surprised that I had not been in for a check up for two and a half years, although she said with an odd smile that she would have remembered me if she had seen me before. “Stand up against this mark.” Five-ten “On the scale, please.” She slid the large weight from where it had been on 150 pounds up to 200, then to 250. I was looking at her out of the corner of my eye and she smiled wider when she pushed the weight to 250 and then her eyebrow popped up and her smile grew wider as she popped it to 300. Dear God, I though, not 300, at least not yet. She seemed to frown almost as she slid it back to 250 and then slid the smaller one up. “283, “ she said happily, not the reaction I usually expect at the doctor’s scale, especially when I was so much heavier than I had imagined, I was already regretting each scoop of Ben and Jerry’s and making plans for my new diet. Jamie started to make a note on my chart and flipped back a few pages and looked me over. “Woah, you’ve put on some weight since your last visit, almost thirty-five pounds.” “Yeah, it’s been tough to get to the gym lately.” I joked lamely. She smiled shyly. She reached over with the back of her pen hand and patted the side of my slightly bulging, alright, bulging belly. She drew her hand back, as if she was shocked at her gesture. “Hey,” she said, “look at me.” I already was, “Since I started working here, forget it.” Her shapeless shirt had hung straight down from her breasts, but she now patted her belly, which I could see was more bulgy than mine. When she patted its top, her shirt rose up and I could see the curve of her belly below the button. I also saw that her white pants were unbuttoned and that her belly was pushing the button from the button hole. It was tan and smooth. She must have seen me look at it, because she adjusted her shirt again and we both smiled, her chubby cheeks flushing. She opened the door to let me out and as I slid by her, I brushed her soft belly and she blushed again. The doctor did hassle me a little about my gain, but it wasn’t too bad. I was pretty shocked at it myself and totally drooling over Jamie. I smiled at her as I left and she waved over her giant Dunkin’ Donuts coffee roll I wished that I was not in such great health, so that I could go back to the doctor and see the vision of Jamie, but I was unfortunately healthy. The shock of my gain had worn off during dinner and drinks out and microwave dinners and business trips. I was getting rounder, it seemed like my metabolism was slowing down at an alarming rate. I split a pair of old running shorts, but I convinced myself that they were old and I had bent over funny and Oreo Double Stuffs had nothing to do with it. To be totally honest, I love eating and I really liked feeling full and actually sort of liked the extra bulk, which was getting harder to hide under my shrinking wardrobe. In the first week in December, I slipped on the ice in front of my house and hurt my ankle and had to go to see the doctor. I had not forgotten about Jamie in the five intervening months. I wore sweat pants and a knit polo shirt that bound unpleasantly around my belly. I came into the office early, hoping to be able to get to work on time and I had been annoyed to have to wait in the Dunkin Donut’s drive through behind some one with a huge order. I saw the car again in front of the doctor’s office and Jamie behind the desk. She was the only nurse in the office, so it must have been her in front of me in line at the d-squared. She had gotten huge. I could hardly keep from staring at her. Her face was swollen and round. Her breasts just seemed gigantic and I could swear that even though I was goggling at her lustfully, that I could see her nipples through the ridiculously tight nurses’ top. She came out of a door behind the desk eating a bagel sandwich with sausage and cheese. Her belly was definitely visible, big and round, stretching her shirt in the front and the sides. I couldn’t see her from the waist down, but she seemed really happy to see me and almost dropped her breakfast. I was the only one in the waiting room and she waved and beamed. “Hey, there! I was so glad to see your name on the appointment sheet.” She blushed, “Not that I am glad you are sick or hurt, but…” she stammered, “C’mon back, do you need help?” I said I could manage it, although I wanted to check her out. Her back end had grown in proportion, although someone had given her a new pair of white pants, although these seemed to have grown tight around her butt and thighs. She seemed to have developed a little more of a sway and roll as we moved down the narrow hallway. The pants even seemed to be pilling up where her thighs were rubbing together. I stumbled on my ankle and she dove to help me. I squeezed her upper arm, which was amazingly soft and I got to watch her big breast wobble in their confinement as she helped me into the exam room. We could not slide through the door together, so she sent me in first and I slid my arm across her belly which bounced back from my pressure. She did her now common maneuver of pulling down her shirt, over some reddening love handles. Gesturing to her big sandwich, “Don’t tell anyone about this, okay? I’m not supposed to eat back here.” She smiled devilishly, and popped me in the belly with her free hand, “So, how are you?” I could tell that she was attracted to me and that she was way too flirtatious for just a nurse-patient thing. We chatted for what seemed like a long time while she finished her sandwich, washed her hands, and started in with the normal doctor visit thing. She wore her hair pulled back today, so cute, and she pressed her very round belly against the table and my leg when she took my blood pressure. She smiled, like she knew it was driving me crazy. “Okay,” she said finally, “Hop on the scale.” When I stood up there she put a hand up to steady me and let it rest, squeezing my love handle, I reached around and put a hand on her shoulder, which was really soft. I though that it was probably against the rules to touch the nurse, but she touched me first, so I slid my hand lower down her shoulder to where her arm pressed up to her shoulder blade. She pushed the big weight to the 300 right away and the thing balanced. “Oh shit,” I thought and I started to do the math. She moved the small weight up to the 2 and it leveled out. Jamie made a small, almost inadvertent kissing noise with her tiny, pouched lips. She looked at me and wrinkled her cute little nose. “Let’s see, up almost 20 pounds, buddy.” “Hard to get to the gym?” I said looking right into her eyes, big and blue. We both smiled and she gave my love handle a big squeeze and I squeezed her arm back. “Almost 20, almost.” She winked. “But, hey, I’ve done well more than twenty. I love doughnuts.” “Me too.” “It’s terrible.” “I know.” We both laughed. This was a big flirt and I am usually not like this and the doctor did not mention my weight and gave me a plastic air cast told me to come back in two months. When I hobbled out on my crutches, Jamie made my new appointment sitting in a chair that didn’t really accommodate her size. As I was saying a smiley goodbye, two of the other nurses came in out of the cold and handed a wax bag from Dunkin’ Donuts to Jamie, I could see them both frown at her. “It’s terrible” she said again. I could not get any exercise during those two months and I got to work at home and I ate like a maniac and my metabolism hit its lowest point ever. I wore sweat pants all he time and I ordered a lot of pizza. Can I just say, I ordered a lot of pizza. When my two months rolled up, I was dying to see Jamie again, I didn’t know the protocols about coming onto the nurse at the doctor’s office, but I really wanted to. I also officially could not get into any of my non-sweat pants and I practically hung over all those. I was having a hard time convincing even myself that I was not fat. So, sweat pants it was, but I bought a bag of six blueberry cake donuts to give to Jamie, as a prelude to my conversation with her. She looked like she was getting on okay without them. The holidays and my not being able to get around had packed on the pounds, but Jamie must have done some serious work on her figure. I had gotten bigger, but she had gotten really bigger. She tried to pop up when I came in, but it wasn’t easy. She was wedged pretty firmly in her chair. Her butt was squeezed out under the arms and her sides poked out over the tops. She placed her hands on the arms of her chair and pushed herself out of it. She was much rounder than I remembered and it seemed that it would be impossible for someone to put on weight as fast as she was and I know about getting fat. She brushed powdered sugar off of her breasts and stared at my belly, which, I will be honest was bigger than I am comfortable with. I think she tried to stifle her enthusiasm at seeing me since there were other nurses around. Her hair was cut short again and styled really cool, with a little sweep up at the bottom. Her clothes were bigger, but they could not cover her growth. She was all smiles as I waited and I did not have the chance to give her the donuts. It was a busy day at the office and I waited for a long time. Then another nurse called me and took me back to the exam room. She left me there and, thank God, Jamie came in to check me out. “Check you out, big guy.” She smiled and her round face crinkled. “I’m glad to see you.” “I’m glad to see you too. I brought you a present.” “No!” “Well, actually six presents.” I brought the bag of donuts out of my coat pocket. “You shouldn’t have, really.” She opened the bag and looked at the contents. She pulled one out and sniffed it, “Mmmm, I love these.” She put the donut in her mouth and cooed with pleasure. “I really shouldn’t,” she said this through a mouthful of donut. “Over the holidays I passed gigantic and reached humongous.” I looked at her with what must have been obvious lust and tried to think of something to say, something not lame. “You look great.” She looked at me with her mouth full of her second donut, and smiled. “Okay, scale first for you. Hobble on up.” I lumbered up and Jamie placed her had as she had the last time, although now there was some more love handle to handle and she did, with a small pucker of her lips. I looked down at her cleavage, which I could see through the neck of her looser top, her breasts seemed to move with every deep breath. I did not look at the scale. “22, buddy.” She took her free hand and placed it in the center of my big belly. I turned to face her and our bellies touched, which was really so soft and so nice and I waned to lean over and kiss her, but she pulled slowly away, with a hand on her belly just where she had touched me. “That’s a total of 324, big guy. Good holiday?” “I didn’t get to the gym much.” She laughed out loud and ate the rest of the donuts while she was doing the rest of my checks. I could not take my eyes off of her but I could not bring myself to ask her on a date. She looked like she was waiting for me to do it and she seemed to think that my not doing it was cute. The doctor took off my air cast after she left with donut on her breath and did hassle me about my weight gain and seemed to give Jamie a funny look when she came back in to help me with my ankle. She pressed herself as close to me as she could and while she was bending over to pick something up, some of the stitches in her white pants protested. She stood up quick, giggling, and said, “You should not have brought those donuts, the doctor will kill me.” As I left the office, she was eating more donuts behind the desk to the scornful if not concerned looks of the other older nurse who was squeezed behind the desk with her. I felt like a dork as I hobbled home. I hadn’t gotten up the nerve to ask her out even though she had given me all the signals. I was supposed to walk as often as I could to get me ankle back in shape and I needed to get back into some of my pants, so I squeezed into my largest pair and walked slowly down to Dunkin’ Donuts, where I usually just drive through. I waddled up to the counter and bought a big breakfast sandwich and a huge coffee. I was just looking for a place to sit down when I heard a familiar voice, “Hey, big guy! Need a place to sit?” Jamie was wedged into a booth in the corner and it was almost a tight fit. She had her hair pulled back into two little pig tails and she was wearing a long patchwork skirt, , over a pair of tight jeans. She also had an obscenely tight t-shirt on, although I would guess that all of her t-shirts were tight at this point. The shirt was pulled really tight across her breasts and exposed her round belly at near her belly button. She had two sandwiches like mine in front of her with a huge coffee and a box of donuts. “I just can’t seem to get enough,” she shrugged, “Sit down?” “I only live a few blocks away, and I was going to go home.” Go for it, “Do you want to come?” “I thought you would never ask. I hate eating here.” She smiled and slid out of the booth. She gave me the biggest softest hug I have ever received and whispered in my ear, “Get some more donuts before we go.” I watched her big round butt bump the door open and she smiled back at me. http://amfyoyo40.deviantart.com/

This is my first post after a long time of reading. I would appreciate feedback if you want to give it. The Belt As I sat on the stool at my desk scrolling through my e-mail, I could hear Janie banging and bumping around in the kitchen. I had prepared and baked the double-cheesed lasagna, we had shared (although not equally, Janie taking second and third helpings), and Janie had been tasked with cleaning up. After running her knuckle around the rim of her dish, she wobbled her hips to the edge of the sofa and stood up, groaning slightly and holding her hands on the side of her belly. I knew this was just “fake-out full”. By glancing at the full-length mirror behind me, I could see that as soon as she was in the kitchen, she cut another, her largest piece of meat, cheese, and pasta to eat while she was cleaning up. She munched and washed, opened up another beer, and as she was spooning the remaining lasagna into a Tupperware container took a final huge bite from the serving spoon. Finally, I heard the dishwasher turn on. And the freezer door open. Janie walked through to where I was sitting, pulled the top off of a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and threw it away. “So, you’re done with even the pretense of moderation? No need to pretend that you’re going to put the lid back on that?” “Mmmph…,” she swallowed dismissively, “That reminds me, do you think you could do something about this?” She jammed the spoon into the pint and holding it in one hand, she slid her other hand down the bulging arc of her belly to pull her tight t-shirt up, tucking the fabric up under the bottom of her over-taxed bra. Her big stuffed-smooth gut swelled inches from my face, not even jiggling, it was packed so tight with food. It was almost the size of a beach ball, a testament to many nights of stuffing it with what could easily be called three normal dinners and God knows how many desserts. “Um…what seems to be the trouble?” She looked down. “Oh…sorry,” she put the ice cream down on my desk and used both hand to lift up her belly. As she did, she burped a small, dainty burp, “Excuse me. I mean this, can you see? My belt is the trouble.” What had been impossible to see earlier was now clear. Janie’s worn, brown leather belt was on its last hole and looked painfully tight. That last little hole – not one of the originals – was stretched and the leather around it was stressed and rubbed smooth. It was amazing that she had even been able to get the prong through the hole. “What exactly did you want me to do about this?” “Can you make a new hole? I think there is enough room.” “What? There’s less than an inch of leather left. You need a new belt.” “No, no, no. No way. I have been spending way too much money on clothes lately. I am not springing for a new belt. I just new a new, little hole until I lose a few pounds.” At this point, someone else might mention that for the last three years, Janie had been on a campaign of never getting any more exercise than walking from the kitchen to the couch, stuffing her face for most of her sedentary day, and expanding. The expansion was gradual at first, shirts riding up, love handles widening, that little bubble of boob coming up from the cup of her bra, jeans getting harder to button. I guess the slowly building speed of the expansion was what kept it from being noticed, or noticed and dealt with; however, the trash bag for Goodwill in the closet would occasionally be filled and dumped and newer, bigger versions of those old clothes would appear. Through this all, meals got bigger, six packs of beer disappeared faster, cookies, ice cream, candy and Nutella replaced fruit and vegetables in the grocery cart. A gym membership lapsed, a bike got cobwebbed in the basement and the old bathroom scale was moved, first to the wall behind the toilet, then under the sink and then finally to the basement next to the spider’s bike and the rusted rollerblades. Months of feasts rolled by, each bringing new reasons to gorge. Bra sizes ticked by like a stuttering kid learning the alphabet. Only a month or so ago, when the weather turned cold this year, last year’s winter coat, which had been new not twelve months ago, refused to reach around wide soft hips and ever-forward surging belly, another one was purchased without much ado. It is also worth noting that the first cold spell coincided with the first, audacious offerings of Egg Nog in the supermarkets. That too landed in the grocery cart and into the seemingly bottomless pit of Janie. The woman who used to bike to the gym for hot yoga and steam broccoli for a snack, the one who wore hip-hugging jeans and low-cut tank tops had slowly widened, swelled, softened, bulged, and expanded her way into rotund, robust, rippling omnivore whose hips wobblingly brushed the arms of movie theater seats and then chomped her way through an extra-large, extra-butter popcorn with a pound of peanut M&Ms mixed in for good measure. And one who needed to put down her full pint of ice cream because she needed two hands to lift up her swollen belly. I had been there through this Twinkie, margarita and cheeseburger fueled metamorphosis and, as it turned out, so had the belt. I sensed from the tone in her voice that this one item of clothing was crucial. She had without regret or even mention stuffed, gorged slurped and hogged her way through three or four wardrobes, through the sizes in the trendy stores, through the possibility of borrowing clothes from any of her friends, and then from the possibility of borrowing even a dress shirt or sweatpants from me. I don’t know what, but something in the twinkling blue eyes, scrunched behind rounded, chubby cheeks was determined that she would not have gotten too big around for this belt. As I looked from her beautiful eyes back to her bountiful waist, I saw the holes spaced evenly along the belt, each one worn and smoothed with a crescent permanently pressed into it by the warm metal of the silver frame. At the farthest end, almost disappearing under the sides of love handles was the first hole, not one that had come with the belt, but one that had to be quickly punched with a pocketknife at the county fair where she had bought it from the sketchy leather goods booth. It was more than a full inch away from its nearest neighbor, but it had done its job through the rest of that fair and its supply of fried ephemera that a skinny kid just out of high school can indulge in because she never gained weight. It almost wrapped all the way around her. The belt had preserved through those first months of college when the cafeteria trays got heavier with the course work. After Christmas of that year, when the prong had to be moved over to the next hole, it was her favorite. It held up whatever style of jeans Cosmo said were in, even a pair of acid- washed ripped ones on her twenty-first birthday; shortly after that, beer managed to make the move from the second to third hole smooth and pleasant. Even more pleasant was the summer job at an ice cream place and the move from the third to the fourth. The fifth hole was achieved on a trip around Europe after college. I think that it was around the sixth moth or so after we began dating that the belt was given a slight reprieve. I had watched her, barely chubby at this point, curse and sweat her way to the fifth hole and then, breathless, reach up to get her bra from the top of the closet door where it had landed during our dash for the bed and each other. At the top of this reach, her nascent belly squeezed up and over the belt. And there it stayed. Once the belly was freed, the belt fought on, although with every drive through supersizing, every grad school morning in a bakery and not on a treadmill, every large pizza ordered on a late night study binge, every five-cent wing night, and every handful of sour cream and onion potato chips, the belt was forced into a retreat, further under the belly which at times caused it to almost fold over itself. All you can eat buffets, Thanksgiving dinners, exotic foods on exotic vacations, the gift to herself of a deep fryer came and went like the tides pulled by the swelling moon. One recent October, when her calves became too much like cows, she brought her favorite tall boots to be stretched and while the cobbler couldn’t manage to stretch them any more, he was able to add more holes onto the trailing end of the belt. She may not be able to squeeze into those boots anymore, but her old belt was with her as she mourned their passing with pumpkin pie chased with pumpkin beer chased with a bag of Halloween candy. And now, her unstoppable appetite and untiring jaws had eaten their way through those holes as well. As there was much more of her, there was far less of the belt. It was almost a blessing that her belly covered it because she didn’t have to see what had become of her old friend, or rather what she had done to her old friend. For she had done it. Every ounce, every inch of her expansion had been her own doing. Every sip, every nibble had been a conscious act. Every gasp of delight as something passed her plump lips, every satisfied groan of overindulgence had been hers. Clothes and turnstiles, seats in restaurants, cars, doctor’s waiting rooms, and busses hadn’t gotten smaller; with every bite, every swallow she had made herself bigger. Bigger than she probably, deep under all of the cravings and hungers, wanted to admit. The evidence, the horizontal stratigraphic record of her unhindered burgeoning was written on her belt. Everything that had passed her lips was there. But while it still fit, while it hung on, she was fine. She was not too big. While it still fit, she could explain away bulges and binges, bigger bras and bigger appetites. It had to fit. It just had to. As she shifted her ice cream fingers on the monumental belly that was the sum of all her efforts – her secret stashes, fourth helpings, and reckless abandon – her blonde hair slipped over her reddening cheek and she bit her lip in uncertainty, I knew what I had to do. “Um, I think I can probably make another hole…yeah, sure, I think I have a Swiss Army knife somewhere around here.” She burped softly again. “Can you get it off?” She continued to hold her lasagna-packed globe of a stomach aloft and I reached under to release the belt. The tiny end of leather slipped through the belt easily, but when I had to cinch it a bit to get the prong out of the belt, Janie let out a sharp, “Oooh, ooh, ouch ouch ouch,” then, “Ahhhh…” As the belt end slipped through the frame, her belly lurched forward and then down. Her jeans, which where way too tight and starting to wear between her rubbing thighs had been unbuttoned all day, only supported by the belt. In fact, as the belt revealed, the button and buttonhole appeared to have not seen each other in some time. Now free of that tensile delusion, her midsection gurgled with relief and, tooth-by-tooth, drove her zipper down. The soft flesh was folded and red from the pressure and as Janie dropped the weight of her belly, she began to rub the bottom of its curve with tenderness. I slid the belt through the loops, catching it at both sides where love handles threatened to overlap its progress. She made an immediate grab for her ice cream and with her mouth already full, gave me a kiss on the top of my head, swayed over to the couch – picking up a bowl of Hersey’s Kisses on the way -- lowered herself ponderously onto its groaning springs and propped her feet on the coffee table, the bowl of chocolates next to her still red- marked love handle and the pint of ice cream on the dome of her belly. “Oh! Honey, I forgot to grab the remote, can you get it for me?” She smiled sweetly, ecstatically with just a hint of caramel and chocolate around her lips.