by Wilson Barbers
Renee adjusted her apron to maximize her slight cleavage, tightened it against her flat stomach and nervously smiled into the camera. Fifteen minutes until the filming of her television debut: she didn't know whether to be happy or nauseous.
All around her, technicians were working to make the kitchen of teevee's "In The Kitchen With Carla" look both sparkling clean and well used. Somewhere out of sight, the show's hostess with the mostess, Carla, was working her way through one of her between-meal meals. According to the crew, this was all that Carla did between set-ups. Amazing, Renee thought.
The super-sized chef had one of the largest male followings of any basic cable broadcasting personality. Where most on-air folk sweated every ounce of fat on their body, Carla seemed to take pride in her gluttonous lifestyle and ever-growing frame. She'd publicly scorned each weight loss program that had foolishly solicited her involvement; she'd actively ridiculed what she called the "cult of denial." To her devoted fans, both her size - somewhere in the realm of six-hundred-and-fifty pounds - and her lip-smacking appetite were part of an overwhelmingly sexy package, the contents of which eluded Renee.
What made it even more boggling was Renee's poor showing in the male/female realm. Look at her from across the room, and you saw the kind of woman who was frequently described as "leggy and stunning." Lithe, long gams. An effortlessly athletic frame. Long, dark hair and a face that combined full cheekbones with a girl-next-door sexiness. Yet she'd never been able to make it all fully work for her.
Fact was, Renee may have had a model's shape and looks, but she was unable to carry them off for any length of time. Dynamite on-camera. But what looked exotic and exciting in two dimensions came across pinched and neurotic in real life. What, she wondered, did Carla have that she didn't?
She worked to keep herself trim. As both food writer and caterer, Renee was constantly surrounded by tempting calories. She never gave into them, though. the act of creation was where she got her greatest rush. Sure, there were days when she had the urge to scarf down servings for two. But, unlike Carla, she'd never let herself succumb to it.
"Renee?" a soft voice suddenly said. "Been looking forward to meeting you."
A young, pudgy male in a sports jacket and animal tie stood on the other side of the fake kitchen counter. Hanging back was a younger, portlier business type with an eager look in his eyes.
"Ozzie Smithe," the first man was saying. "Carla told me you were on her show today, and I had to get in touch with you." He pulled a card out of his jacket and handed it Renee's way. Our Mr. Smithe was vice-president for some kind of publishing company. His companion, Jim Branch, was an editor.
"A publisher," Renee said, putting on her best public smile. "Just the man a starving free-lance wants to meet."
"Hard to imagine that a cooking writer as good as you would be starving," Smithe chuckled. "Though I'm glad to hear you speak of book projects. Have a small proposition to offer you. Something that very well could lead to bigger things."
"I'm listening."
"A collaboration," Smithe said, "between the best food writer in the business and the best-known lady chef on television! Cookin' In The Kitchen With Carla and Renee!"
Good thing those cameras weren't x-rays, or they'd have seen her heart sink.
"A collaboration," she repeated, to keep from having to say anything else, then she quickly put her smile back on. "Always wondered why Carla didn't do a book on her own," she said. "Would've thought you'd have signed her up years ago!"
"Can't say they haven't tried," a breathy voice interjected from off-set. "But I'm no writer!" And with that, Carla waddled into sight.
She was dressed in an apron dress tailor-made for her massive and shapely body. Her wavy blond hair was done in a retro fifties style vaguely reminiscent of the sexy housewives you saw on kinescoped commercials. The eyes atop her bulging cheeks were mischievous and knowing. As she held one fat handshake out to Renee, it barely made it past her tremulous belly.
"Good to finally meet you," she said. "I've admired your columns for some time now."
"Really?" Renee asked, flattered in spite of herself.
"Such a relief to read someone who appreciates food as food," Carla continued. "Not something to be charted or measured, just consumed. You let the recipe take you where it's supposed to go, don't try and squeeze it into something it isn't. I like that. S'why I wanted you on my show."
"Glad to be here," Renee replied, and as she said it, she genuinely was. It wasn't just Carla's kind words: in person, the teevee chef was almost overpoweringly inviting. Perhaps she'd pick up some clues on how to better package herself if she spent some time around Miz Carla. "I'd love to be your collaborator."
With those words, Smithe grasped the shoulders of both women and exclaimed, "Great! This collaboration'll make you a big woman in the cooking biz, Renee!"
She took the remark at face value. A month later, when filming for Carla's sixth season had ceased, Renee taxied over to the woman's townhouse to commence their cooking opus.
It was a dry summer day, the kind of weather that called for sandals, skort and a tee-shirt. The heat must have been brutal on a woman Carla's size, so it was no surprise to find the air conditioner going full blast at the townhouse. She was surprised to see Jim Branch answering the door, though.
"Get yourself a new job?" Renee asked the young editor, who smiled anxiously as he let her in. No, he told her, he was there to meet her in his capacity as editor. The company, he continued, was so committed to their project that it had brought in its own word processor and supplies for them.
"This is new territory for us," he said, as he led Renee to the dining room. Carla's townhouse was expensively designed, with comfortable fat-friendly furniture throughout. "We primarily publish more - um - esoteric texts, and Ozzie wants to make sure that we keep on track with the project." He took her to the dining room table, which was set up with computer, printer and modem; the keyboard had a name she didn't recognize.
"What kind of program have you got?"
"Couldn't tell you what it's called," Branch confessed. "Ozzie had it designed to go with Carla's project. The word processing format should be familiar to you, though, if you know Word Perfect."
She did, and as she sat down on the Carla-width dining chair, the editor switched on the monitor, bathing the room in a bright green glow. After quickly dimming it, he called out to Carla, who waddled into the dining room carrying a tray of coffee and pastries. Renee broke away from the monitor - for an instant, it was almost as if the light had radiated through her - and acknowledged her collaborator's presence.
"Eager to start, I see," Carla said, placing the tray within reach and pouring them all cups of Jamaican Mountain blend. "Good." She stirred in a large dollop of real cream into her cup. "Thought we could try one of my recipes today, see what format you want to put it in, then go from there."
"Sounds promising," Renee answered, watching Carla as she handed a second cup to Branch, pressing her side against him deliberately. The pudgy editor backed off and flushed with embarrassment. Good to see Miss Teevee Personality wasn't infallible, Renee thought.
"Got a personal favorite," Carla said, shrugging, "that we could start with. It's a version of Fettucini Alfredo that's just marvelous!" That figured: it was one of the single-most fattening platters that you could think of.
"Let's do it," Renee agreed. So Carla pulled out the first of many index card holders and rifled through it. While she did, Branch showed Renee the ins and outs of the computer.
"You need to save often," he told her when he'd run through all that she needed to know. "Don't want to lose anything." Renee nodded, and with that, the editor left for his office.
"Just us now," Carla said, waggling an 8-by-10 card in front of Renee. "Shall we get started, or would you like another pastry first?"
"Another?" Renee asked, and she looked to the side of hr keyboard to see a small china plate scattered with crumbs. She didn't remember eating anything, but it looked like she had. Must've been good because she felt like having another. "Sure," she decided, so Cara smiled and handed her a plate of homemade cinnamon rolls. "We must do the recipe for these," Renee decided once she bit into a roll.
"Sure thing," Carla said, pulling up a second chair then taking her own full bite of pastry. Mouth full, she started to read off the ingredients from her recipe.
"How many does this feed?"
"Group of eight," Carla told her. "Unless they're my friends, then you're probably talking four at the most." The recipe sounded yummy; typing it in, it was almost as if she could taste it. "You saved yet?" Carla suddenly asked.
No, Renee realized, she hadn't. Hitting F10, she sat back and took a sip of coffee. The screen flashed bright green once more, then went back to normal.
"Don't know if I'm gonna like it doing that every time I save," Renee thought. Once again, the green flash had her feeling slightly disoriented.
"Mention it to Branch," Carla said, leaning in toward Renee. On the free-lancer's breath, she noted with satisfaction, was a detectable whiff of cheese sauce. "Maybe he can get the program fixed." She looked at the screen, scrolled through the recipe, then decided out loud, "Y'know, maybe we should adjust the serving level to six. Make it less daunting to the reader."
"Makes sense to me," Renee agreed, so they worked through the recipe a second time, formatting it as they went, and she saved its revision. This time, she shut her eyes to the screen, but it was still like a wave of light washed through her. Standing back from the table, she belched lightly, and a moment it was almost as if she was tasting fettucini.
"Where's the little girls' room?" she asked, and Carla took her through the kitchen - as opulent and high tech as you'd expect - to the nearest bathroom. Carla watched Renee and nodded to herself. Time in front of Smithe's computer was already starting to reap its dividends: her thighs had more jiggle than when she'd first arrived. Her belly seemed to be pushing against the front of her jeans, like she'd just finished a banquet-sized meal. In a way, Carla thought, she had.
"You know," she told Renee once the writer had returned from freshening. "There's another version of this I'd like to amend to the recipe." Grabbing two large bags of chips and cheese puffs, she led her collaborator back into the dining room. "Let's see how it looks, and maybe then we can do lunch."
Carla's variation got saved three times, and each time she noted a change in Renee. Most obvious was in the writer's belly, which grew more prominent as she sat in front of the glowing green monitor, though the rest of her started to fill out, too. Her thighs were dimpling where she sat, while her calves also looked fuller. Renee's prominent cheekbones were less striking now, but to compensate, they'd turned apple colored.
For lunch, Carla made two large pasta salads, while Renee watched from a kitchen stool with a rapidly diminishing bag of cheese puffs in her lap. She continued eating after lunch, with little awareness of what was in her hands, as Carla brought an ever more caloric line of appetizers into the dining room. Carla's second highly fattening recipe (Braciole) went through six revisions, and each time it was if the entire dish were ingested by Renee. She ended the day feeling both stuffed and famished.
"See you tomorrow?" Carla asked, and Renee nodded as the chef led her to the door. At day's end, her collaborator looked about twenty-five pounds heavier than she'd been. Her skort and top hugged her rounded form like melted cheese on a pizza. The extra poundage looked good on her, Carla thought. Made her more shapely. She returned to her kitchen to pick out more suitable recipes for Renee.
As for Carla's collaborator, she went home, stripped out of her confining clothes and collapsed on the couch, bloated belly rising toward the ceiling. Renee felt full, though all she could remember eating was that pastry and the salad for lunch. The rest of the time, she'd been focused on the monitor, on Carla's wonderful recipes. Easy to see how the teevee chef had grown so huge. Just listening to her describe her dishes, they became so real, it was almost if she were eating them herself.
Still pondering Carla's gift, Renee fell asleep on the couch.
Second day of their collaboration, the two women worked on four highly fattening dishes, Carla coaxing her to save every small change. She never reminded Renee to do this when they were in the midst of a half-formed recipe. The one time she did, the screen inexplicably didn't brighten.
Renee left nearly sixty pounds heavier. She still had her camera-friendly model's looks, though they were more suited to plus-size catalogs than the anorectic mainstream. She'd worn a loose sun dress to the townhouse that morning, but by day's end, it was plastered on her.
Renee's torso had widened on both breasts and belly, developing folds on her side underneath her mams. Her upper arms widened to match her growing front, while her once angular face was round with the beginning of an extra chin. Though she caught her reflection several times during the day, she never noticed anything different about it. She was too focused on the project.
This time when she got back to her apartment, Renee shot straight for the refrigerator. Though a voice in the back of her head said she was full (from what, she didn't know), she also felt ravenous. As a result, she sat up past twelve in the kitchen, cooking and devouring everything quick that she could.
The third day, Carla decided to pull out the dessert cards: bread pudding in creamy brandy sauce, Oreo cheesecake, German chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, coconut cream pie - and, of course, those cinnamon rolls. Renee must've saved each one a dozen times, and by mid-afternoon, she'd gained more than she had the first two days. Without even thinking about it, she'd put on the loosest dress she owned, but even that had quickly grown too small for her. It gapped disastrously between every button down the front, threatening to reveal all at any moment.
"I was wondering," she said to Carla when she'd done her last save for the day, "why you set this computer up in the dining room. Must be awfully inconvenient. Don't you have a study?" She reached for her fifth apple strudel, fat upper arm jiggling as she stretched. Beneath the table, a button suddenly dropped onto the floor.
"I do," Carla answered, licking glazed sugar from her fat fingers, happily watching her protegee stuff the pastry into her mouth. "But it isn't roomy enough for both of us. Besides, I like the idea of you realizing my recipes in the dining room. Just like I'm serving 'em to you."
"You are a consummate hostess," Renee said, grabbing yet another strudel. "I'd like to learn to be as good at it as you."
"Believe it or not, you already are," Carla told her. "I wasn't always like this, y'know. Five years ago, I was an exercise-addicted bitch, only interested in one thing: feeling superior to every woman the least bit heavier than me. Fortunately, I wised up." She paused, took a sip of carbonated grape juice. "I've still got several closets of my old clothes," she finally offered, "that I think might fit you, if you'd like to check 'em out."
Renee did, and it became a part of their working routine, a means of capping off the day. By week's end, she was up to four hundred pounds, with a belly that hung halfway down her thighs, breasts that swung halfway down her torso, a second chin that entirely concealed her neck. She was starting to fill Carla's dining room chair. Though Renee didn't know it, Carla's goal was to get her collaborator to the size where she'd be needing two of these super-sized thrones.
Friday evening, Jim Branch showed up just as they were about to call it quits. He, too, had been charting Renee's growth, and when the two women stood to make their way to Carla's closet, he invited Renee to dinner.
"We'll need to get you something sexy to wear," Carla said, and within the half hour, Renee came out in a form-fitting sleeveless dress with cleavage like she could have only dreamed about a week ago and a slit up the side showing half of a massive thigh. She was lightly made up and swinging a gym bag that contained a change of clothes.
She'd never felt this sexy before, and for the first time in her life, Renee was certain that this was also coming across to a man. With this knowledge, the first real awareness of her transformation was seeping into her consciousness. She waddled up to Jim, pecked him on the cheek and asked, "So where we gonna go to eat?"
"A private club," he said. "Nothing but the best in food and plenty of it!" They rode a chartered limo to a small hole in the wall just five blocks from Carla's townhouse. Once they got inside, Renee was immediately enraptured. She let herself be led to a nearby table and took in her surroundings.
The diner's club was a large , softly lit banquet hall with tables for two that ordinarily fit at least six. One look at the humongous helpings spread across each table and the size of most of the diners, it was clear that this was no ordinary gourmet's club. Both Jim and Renee were two of the thinnest people present; there were folks so vast in size that it was a wonder they'd been able to motorvate themselves through the double doors.
They ate the night away, and Renee couldn't remember when she'd ever had a better date. She could really grow to like this guy, she thought. The portly editor started out shy but grew more talkative as the night progressed. But when he took her home, and she made a move toward inviting him into her apartment, he became shy once more. "Not yet," he said. "You'll know when we're both ready." He gave her a long kiss, then turned toward the elevator. "Did you know that Carla sometimes cooks for the club? I bet you could do it someday, too!" With that, he dashed off.
Carla, she saw, had left a message on her answering machine. "Think you can come in this Saturday?" it asked. "I still feel inspired and don't want to risk it wearing off."
No problem. Renee went in on both Saturday and Sunday, and when she waddled home to watch "Sixty Minutes," she was up to 530 pounds. Seated, her belly had a circumference of seventy-six inches, while her breasts sagged in the eighties. She never thought to look at her old clothes in her bedroom, which was fortunate since her old skort could have barely fit around one of her thighs.
They were zipping through the recipes on their second week, doing up to ten a day. That made for less saves per dish on Renee's part, but with the increase in variety, she still was gaining plenty. On Monday, Carla offered to let her collaborator stay in the townhouse until the manuscript's finish. "I'm between guyfriends at present, so you won't put me out," she reassured Renee.
Tuesday, Renee was one "X" larger than her hostess, though she never thought to question the fact that Carla had even bigger clothing in her wardrobe.
Jim Branch started spending most of his days and evenings in the townhouse, working to keep Renee's newly insatiable appetite satisfied. She was entering everything on the keyboard one-handed; her other hand was seldom without something edible in it. By the second week's end, she'd grown to anticipate Branch's presence by her side.
Halfway into their manuscript, Renee was over a thousand pounds. Seated in a bodysuit that would've fallen down around Carla's fat-ringed ankles, she had to strain to get past her front to the keyboard. Her belly hung over her sandaled feet, occasionally sinking to touch their tops when she shifted forward.
Her widest circumference was at least 130 inches. But it was difficult to tell which was the largest part of her because this depended on how she was positioned. Standing, which admittedly was not a pose that you often saw her in, her breasts jutted forward a good six inches ahead of the rest. Seated, both her spreading hips and paunch were dominant. She was close to filling two of Carla's armless chairs.
One night, Renee woke from a dreamless sleep to find herself feeling incredibly hungry. Hoisting her 1,250 pound body out of her king-size guest bed, she slowly stood and made her way into the kitchen. Though she was twice the size of other women bedridden by their weight, Renee was still able to laboriously carry herself across a room, though any longer treks required regular stops to catch her breath.
Finding a full-cooked whole chicken and several pounds of potato salad, she returned to her usual spot in the dining room. The computer, inexplicably, was running. On the screen, in photographic clarity, was the image of a large serving platter of breaded stuffed mushrooms, one of the items they'd been working on that day. It floated in cyberspace, fully cooked, and as Renee watched, the dish melted into nothing, only to reappear with mozzarella melted on top of each mushroom. Then it did a similar vanishing act.
What was this? She watched the computer go through three drafts of the same recipe, then change to the next item in their manuscript. Maybe there was a manual that explained this, she thought. Hefting herself from her chair - though not before finishing off her chicken and potato salad - Renee went in search of Carla's study.
She found it, though it took some time to make her way around the townhouse. Behind double doors, the study was filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves and an empty computer table. First place she looked was the desk, and then the shelves. What she found were food books by every name in culinary history, several copies of the same exercise tape ("Jumpin' With Jeanie'), and a host of books by her publishing company. Jim Branch hadn't been kidding when he said they specialized in an esoteric line.
Renee's publishers mainly went in for occult books, titles with names that she didn't recognize: Ceres' Riches, The Power of Gluttony, Magical Abundance in Primitive and Modern Cultures, Fast Majicke and Techno Spells. Looked like Carla took this stuff seriously: the volumes were obviously well-thumbed. She pulled off the techno magic book, started a passage that read:
"For it is only in the Obese State that the body can attune itself to the myriad forces around it. Only the truly massive have the capacity to receive the full vibrations of Real Majicke. . ."
Sounded like gobblegook to Renee, so she placed the book back on its shelf. Turning, she saw a tremendous fat woman.
She was dark-haired, in a massive night-shirt that only covered the top half of her body. Her belly divided vertically at the navel, hanging in double bulges at least a foot below the hemline, quivering and covering most of her lower legs. Her calves had swollen to the size of a plump woman's belly, developing two folds in the back to support their growth. Her multiply-bulged arms were so huge that it was a wonder she could raise them toward the bookshelves. With that thought came the realization. Bookshelves? The woman was her!
The study door were mirrored on the inside, and for the first time since the start of her collaboration, Renee really noticed her reflection. She studied herself curiously, pursing her fat lips and posing, patting herself and watching her mounds of avoirdupois react. It shimmied all around her, and for the first time since her growth, she fully experienced its quivering reality.
Where once she would've reacted in horror at the sight of herself so huge, she knew somehow that her new size was linked to the sense of self-confidence and well-being she'd been feeling. The old Renee had been slight and ephemeral; this mammoth figure was as sexually enduring as nature itself. She was twice the woman that Carla was.
Maybe there was something to this magic stuff, she thought as she reluctantly pulled herself away from her reflection. Returning to her sagging guest bed, she felt her voluminous body spread across the mattress. Visions of Jim and images from the monitor both danced in her head.
Next morning, Renee woke certain that it wouldn't be long before she resolved things with her editor. The plump Branch had to be in on what was happening to her - it was, after all, his company's techno magic. Well, she wasn't going to let the guy just feed and run.
As they neared the end of their project, she started to pay more attention to Branch. She took some flirting tips from the Carla Textbook and grew provocative with the young man. He loved it when she used the food he gave her coquettishly, holding it in front of her sensualist lips as if she was unsure that she wanted to taste it, then winking and deliberately biting into it.
This behavior may have slowed down the project, but eventually they put together enough recipes to justify a book. It was Branch who finally decided when they'd collected enough material. He announced it to both collaborators five weeks after the project had begun.
"Can't get it all in one volume," he told the duo. "You want 'em coming back for more, after all." Carla nodded happily, then stood with Jim to take Renee in.
The transformed writer was seated on a mega-sized futon that Carla had brought in several days before, keyboard elevated above both her breasts and paunch. Hanging from the ceiling, the monitor continued to bathe her in its transforming light. On the floor was a massive pillow of the type you saw in Arabian Nights harems; her belly and lower legs both rested on it.
Weeks of time in front of that glowing screen had turned Renee into a ton-plus beauty. Her massive belly pushed at least two feet past her long legs. Her nipples had grown out of reach, while her ballooning breasts spread apart atop her globular torso into a cleavage that could've accommodated Carla. What little of her legs that were visible sagged against the cushion; the only parts of her feet that weren't enveloped in drooping lower legs were her ball and toes.
It was good that she'd grown adept at one-handing the keyboard, for Renee's width kept her from more traditional use. Her multiple chins swelled ahead of her face, the lowest bulging back up on whichever side she wasn't currently favoring. With her blubbery cheeks and jowls, her face was wider than its height. Thanks to Carla, she kept herself subtly made up, though she'd started tying her hair back to keep it from getting caught in the folds of her shoulders and upper arms.
Renee was so big that she'd outgrown many of the rooms in Carla's townhouse, the study included. She'd taken to wearing gauzy muumuus that adhered to her mountainous body with a hemline that barely covered her cavernous navel. Days before, she'd given up on any underwear, which tended to roll up under her hanging flesh, anyway. Even with the air conditioning at its highest, she could break out into a sweat simply rising from her seat, so she kept such movements to a minimum.
Jim Branch thought she was the most marvelous woman he'd ever seen.
And, what's more, Renee knew he thought this.
"Introductions tomorrow," Carla said, "then the index. No more recipes."
Branch handed a two gallon mug of homemade jamocha milk shake to his voluminous love and grinned when she started sucking on its straw, jowls jiggling happily. He'd come to the company in pursuit of his ideal - a woman of unlimited size and appetite - and here she was. "Now that you're near the end of this book, Renee, I'd like to talk to you about a different kind of collaboration."
"If you're talking about what I think you are," she said around long sips, "I'm interested." Behind the wall of her drooping mid-section, she could feel herself growing warmer. "Maybe we can talk about it over dinner?"
She didn't confront Jim Branch about his part in her magical change until the day of their wedding, a very non-traditional ceremony with many non-traditional guests. The day after they delivered their completed manuscript, she'd moved in with the young editor and found his place to especially commodious to a woman her size. Almost as if he'd always known she was going to live there.
Renee quickly grew to love her life with Jim. He had ways of reaching her sexually that she'd never have dreamed possible at her size. Under her tutelage, he also became an accomplished pair of hands in the kitchen, putting together the Renee-ready dishes that she demanded throughout the day. He brought most of his work home, so he could do it as he cooked for her. There were times when just the sight of him penciling his way through a manuscript at the dining room table - while she polished off the third of her servings for eight - this sight sent waves of happiness through her.
The day of her wedding coincided with the publication of Cookin' In The Kitchen With Carla. It was Renee's idea to leave her name off the text, though Carla didn't protest too awfully much. "I owe a lot to you," she told the sorceress as they both watched wedding guests arrive. On the sidewalk below, Ozzie Smithe was helping his wife Stella, a great barge of a woman with breasts that regularly rose in front of her face, out of their van. "And to Ozzie's program."
Carla smiled with pride. Just seeing how beautiful and at ease the massive Renee had become brought her back to the time her own mentor had introduced her to the world of magical obesity. From all she'd seen of Renee's unfettered appetite, it was clear the girl had a big future ahead of her. One thing was certain: she'd get a lot of support from her new hubby.
It would be Carla's task to introduce Renee to the rest of her new world. She looked forward to doing this.
"Got any plans for when you get back from your honeymoon?" she asked the bride, who was soothing her pre-wedding jitters with a five-pound box of Turtles.
"Only one," Renee said, biting into the last of her candy
with a wink. "Got a contract to put together my own
cookbook." She patted her sides happily, reveling in the
layers of womanhood surrounding her. Then she hefted her
paunch up from the floor and took a deep breath. What she
said, half gasped, as she majestically swayed her way into
the wedding chamber sent a glow of satisfaction through
Carla:
"And Jim's got the program for it!"
Revised Version - Copyright © 1999 Oakhaus Designs