FAT AGAIN
By Wilson Barbers
It'd been a nothing day until Pete arrived. Briant was sitting at the keyboard, working on bills, when the deli owner came knocking on his office door. Had to be something to get Pete walking two city blocks from Pete's Friendly Deli to Briant's office. Particularly on a day hot enough to toast a bagel. Briant turned towards the deli man, noted his flushed face and the sweat rimming his apron, as he rushed through the door.
"Ken, you gotta come down to the store," he panted. "We gotta situation."
"What? Word get out your lox ain't from Nova Scotia?"
"Just come with me, and I'll tell ya on the way!" He gestured towards the doorway, so Briant logged off and followed. Anything had to be more exciting than bookkeeping. If it turned out to be nothing, he could always get a cream soda.
Once they hit the street, the heat smacked into them.
"So what's the brouhaha?" Briant asked the deli man.
"Had a woman come in this morning, ordered half the menu, and when I handed her the bill, she just looked at me with this blank expression. Doesn't have any money or a wallet, and to top it off, she acts like she doesn't even have a name."
"What is she? Some kinda homeless dame?"
"Too ritzy lookin' for that, Pete said. "But I tell ya, the gal had an appetite. She ate enough to cater a small party, and it didn't even phase her."
"Chubby lookin' gal?" Briant asked, perking up at the thought.
"Check her out yourself," the deli man said, as they hit the entrance to Pete's Friendly Deli. He stood back and let Briant in first. The girl was easy to spot.
Seated at one of the small window tables, she was neatly dressed in a blazer and size 16 skirt. A professional woman perhaps, the kind who typically spent their business lunches nibbling on fat-free salads. Blond and slightly curly hair, cut for convenience more than fashion. Her nose long and elegant, neatly dividing her prominent cheeks and drawing attention to her full lower lip. She looked classy yet attainable, the kind of woman you saw in your higher-priced plus-size catalogs. A bit too skinny for him, but he could see what Pete was getting at: there was no way you could mistake this 'un for your usual wacko homeless bint.
Neatly piled on the table were the remains of empty sandwich baskets. Looked like she'd successfully worked her way through more than ten of them before Pete had started to get nervous and demand his cash. Quite an appetite.
She blinked at Briant questioningly. Her eyes were soft and brown. The kind you could get lost in.
"Do I know you?" she asked, picking at the remains of what had to be her sixth side order of rippled chips.
"Friend of Pete's," Briant responded. "He says you don't have any money or i.d."
"I thought I did when I came in, but when your friend came with the bill, I couldn't find my purse." She paused, looked off into space. "Don't know where I put it."
"Maybe it's back at the office?" Briant offered. "Or your apartment?"
"Could be," she admitted, "but I don't recall where either of those places are!" She frowned prettily, dimpling where the start of second chin became apparent. "I don't even know how I got here; all I remember is standing outside the deli, feeling famished." She looked over towards the deli display and unself-consciously licked her lips. It was that single spontaneous act that won Briant over.
"You have no idea who you are," he said, and the plump blond nodded her head.
"I know I should feel upset, but somehow I don't," she answered. "All I feel is hungry."
"Still?"
"Still," she said.
Briant went to the counter and bought two cream sodas. "What ya think?" Pete asked. "Should I call the cops or what?"
"If you were gonna call the cops, you wouldn't have come to me," Briant said. "Lemme take Miss Anonymous with me. I'll get back to ya by closing."
Pete agreed, so Briant carried his two sodas over to the mystery lady and offered her one. She took a long swig.
"Man offers me a soda, he should tell me his name," she said, smiling. In answer, Briant pulled out one of his cards. "Private investigator? You gonna find out who I am?"
"I'll try, if you really want me to," Briant said.
"If this isn't some sort of scam, you mean," she finished. She stood, and as she rose, he got a better look at her wonderfully wide hips. The lowermost button of her blouse had popped open--looked like her belly wanted to escape its confines. "Don't blame you for leavin' yourself an out. I would, too, if I were in your shoes."
They headed back to his office. Once there, Briant pulled out a bag of Doritos, handed it to his new client and phoned his contact in the P.D. to see if any women matching her description had turned up missing. No such luck, of course, but that didn't mean much since you didn't hit the miss list until you were AWOL two days. By the time he got off the horn, his client had polished off the 16 oz. bag and was licking her fingers daintily. God, what a sexy eater.
"No luck with Missing Persons," he told her, as she handed over her blazer for him to examine. Koko & Jacques, standard plus-size fashion. Nothing in the pockets.
"What do we do now?"
"One of two things," Briant said. "We can wait a day and see if your name hits the police vine. Or we can try and speed things up."
"How do we do that?" she asked.
"What do you know about hypnosis?" he answered, picking up the phone to buzz Doc Claudius.
"Only what I've seen in the movies."
Dr. Irwin Claudius had an office two floors down. The "Doctor" part was probably phony, but Briant had never pressed the matter; the guy was too useful. Claudius sold himself these days as an addictions hypnotherapist, and once you got past the psychobabble, his skills as a hypnotist were real enough. What's more, he owed Briant a favor.
"Just caught me with a free hour," Claudius said, after Briant had explained what he needed. Yeah right, Briant thought. "Bring the young lady down, and we'll give it a shot." Briant hung the phone up and lead his client to the elevator.
Claudius' office was dim, poorly air conditioned and unimpeded by any journals or technical books. Not very inspiring until you met the man himself. He had the graying look of an academic and the kind of voice capable of relaxing the most guarded visitor. Soon as Briant brought his mystery girl into the office, he felt her hand unclench. Whatever his credentials, Claudius was a canny people player.
"Come in," he said, stepping from around his desk. "Hungry? I've got a couple candy bars." He held a bowl of York Peppermint Patties and nodded as his client took a stack.
"You gonna help me find out who I am?" she asked, stripping the cover off a patty and plunking it into her mouth.
"We'll try," Claudius said. "And the first thing you need to do is relax. Sit back and let the chocolate get your endorphins workin'." He indicated a large comfortable chair.
Briant hitched himself onto the desk top and watched the show. Claudius reached into his corduroy jacket, pulled out another patty. Holding it eye level, silvery packet catching the light behind the chair, he directed the blond plumper's attention to it. The light slowly dimmed and with it the reflection. Before it extinguished entirely, her brown eyes glazed.
"I want," Claudius said, "you to go back. To a time when you weren't hungry. When you knew who you are. When you reach that time, I want you to nod once."
Ten seconds later, Briant's client nodded.
"Never thought it happened this quickly," he said, and Claudius shot him a warning glance.
"It doesn't. Usually," he whispered. "Whatever's goin' on in this young lady, there's a part of her dying to express itself." He turned back to his tranced-out subject. "Can you tell me where you are?" he asked her.
"Loft. Party," she answered. "Lots of people I don't know. Someone I'd like to know."
"Good," Claudius nodded. "Now listen. Look around, take a good look. Now move back and take a good look at yourself. What are you doing?"
"Walkin' across the dance floor to introduce myself to someone," she told him. And with that it was as if Claudius' muggy office were transformed into that loft, and all three of them were watching this fateful meeting. . .
A man in his late twenties. Slim, dark hair slicked back. The odor of Brylcreem. Dark suit, skinny tie. A woman ten years younger. Rubenesque, with plenty of upper torso. Tight sleeveless dress, size fourteen or maybe higher. Hair pinned up like Audrey Hepburn. A plate of hors d'oeuvres in her hand, slight dab of shrimp sauce competing with the dark red lipstick on her fulsome lips.
They met on the dance floor, but he quickly escorted her back to the buffet table. The first hint of how their relationship would be.
"Haven't seen you here before," he opened.
"My first party in town," she told him, sucking a shrimp from its shell, then pivoting back towards the buffet table to reload her plate. "My name's Ava."
"I'm Wesley Kenosha," the thin man said. . .
. . . and with that introduction, bells started going off in Briant's head.
"Hold it," he said, pulling Claudius off to the side. "I know that name. Got a building and this very street named after him. Died more than two decades ago, before this babe was old enough to walk. What is this shit?"
"Looks like she's gone back to a previous life," Claudius said. "Dunno why she's in an earlier incarnation, but it's gotta be significant."
"'Significant'?" Briant sputtered. "Nuts is more like it! What have we got here? Bridey Murphy at Tiffany's? This is just too California for me!"
They went back to their mystery girl and saw that she'd somehow left the party with her newfound friend. . .
The diner was brightly lit, busy for the hour. On the juke, Jerry Lee Lewis was moaning about the pleasures of a big legged woman. Cut back to take in Ava's own big legs, plump and curvy under the formica table. She was digging into her second double cheeseburger, pausing only to take a sip on a large vanilla malted. "Never seen a woman with an appetite like yours," Kenosha marveled.
"Always had it," she said between bites, "but most of the time I've worked to keep it controlled. For some strange reason, I'm lettin' myself go tonight."
"I'm the one encouraging you," Kenosha told her. "Soon as I saw you diggin' into that buffet table, I had to meet you. Don't feel like you need to hold anything back in front of me. Most ladies are too self-conscious about eating. It's a joy to see someone ready to overindulge themselves like this." He gestured to the waitress, tapped on the picture of a large banana split displayed by the napkin holder. The waitress nodded and bustled off.
"You wouldn't wanna see me if I did this every day," Ava said with a smile. "I'd be big as a house."
"Not my house," Kenosha replied. "And what makes you think I'd be bothered by a little extra weight? There are some men who find a fuller figure sexy."
"And you're one of them."
"I'm a man," he told her, "who finds the fullest figure sexy!" With that, he slid the banana split in front of her. Ava stared into his eyes, swallowed the last of her burger, then shrugged. She picked up her spoon and skimmed off some whipped cream.
"Isn't often a girl like me meets a man like you," she said. "Let's see where this whole thing takes us." With that, she lifted whipped cream to her mouth. . .
"A feeder," Briant whispered to himself. "Wes Kenosha was a feeder." Not the kind of info you got from any official city histories.
He pulled up all he could remember about Mr. K. Moneyed family. A fixture in the papers. Married in the early sixties, became less of a fixture. Died less than five years later. It was a mild scandal when the widow didn't show up for his funeral.
He rejoined Claudius and his subject, just as she was getting to Wes and Ava's wedding. . . .
By the time they married, Ava had grown accustomed to her unusual lifestyle. She'd been living six months in Foster hall, the mansion that had housed three generations of Kenoshas. And it really showed.
Wes employed three chefs to produce a variety of foodstuff for Ava, and they all grew skilled at catering to her weakness. She wasn't often without some form of edible within reach, and though there were times that she didn't care if she ate another bite, those times grew shorter and shorter.
Ava had always known she had a big appetite; she didn't realize how huge it could get once she let it loose, though. Her first weeks at Foster Hall, she'd restricted her dining time to three meals. But as the days passed, Wes scheduled their lunch and dinner earlier and longer until the time between them grew negligible. "To be with you as you eat is my greatest pleasure," he'd say, smiling as he perused her swelling body.
Some women have metabolism working against their growth. Wes, looking through several generations of Ava's family photos, knew that wouldn't be the case with her. Both maternal and paternal grandmothers were ample and had gotten that way without the benefit of a family fortune.
First time Ava was fitted for her wedding gown, it was somewhere in the mid-twenties; after two refittings, it was a tight thirty. Her breasts were in the upper fifties, a fulsome DD cup. Ava's belly swelled into the sixties when she sat, while her hips were only the slightest bit less impressive. Watching her in her wedding dress, waddling down the aisle, Wes knew that he'd made the right choice.
The wedding was a private ceremony: family and a few close friends who knew of Wes' inclinations. At one point during the reception, Ava's mother came up to them. Ava saw the impending chastisement in her eyes, but before the woman could say a word, Wes intervened and lead her out onto the dance floor, leaving Ava to her third full serving of reception dinner.
"You saved me from my mother," she told him after all the family had left. "I could tell she was gonna lay into me for gaining so much weight, but you headed her off and I never heard another word from her. What'd you tell her?"
"Only that I loved you," he said, "and that there was a condition in my will that you would not inherit a single cent if you ever dropped a pound below your present weight."
"Not much chance of that," Ava chuckled, patting her globular paunch.
"Can't be too careful," Wes said, and he took her into their bedroom where a three-tiered replica of their wedding cake waited. "With all the guests, I knew you wouldn't be able to get much cake," he explained, "so I had a second one put together just for you."
"How sweet," she said, settling onto the edge of their king-sized bed. "Bring it over, and we'll see what I can do."
Her wedding dress gave out long before Ava did. Deep into the second layer, crumbs spilled into her cleavage, breast tips smeared with frosting from leaning against the serving table, it split along her torso seams. Her flesh bulged into freedom, rending the dress up her underarms and then down the sleeves. Undaunted, Ava shrugged off her garment and finished off her cake.
Their honeymoon lasted six months, a gourmet's tour of Europe that added even more poundage onto Ava's frame. At four hundred plus, she'd gained most in her belly and mams. Seated, Ava's paunch spilled forward for the length of her upper legs, though her lower legs bulged several inches ahead of her nearly invisible knees. Her upper arms were now bigger than her thighs had been, a point that Wes gleefully noted the day they got home.
He'd been measuring her weekly, applauding every climb on the measuring tape. You could see him getting excited as he contemplated her growth. Over their honeymoon, Wes' measuring sessions had become a form of foreplay. "Imagine how big you'd have to be," he said one night, probing her folds with his erect member, "to have your upper arm exceed today's thigh circumference!"
"Maybe I should go on a diet," she teased. "Give you a more realistic set of goals. I don't think I could ever get as big as you ultimately want me to be!"
"Don't sell yourself short," Wes said, nibbling on the bulge ringing her diminishing neck. "Beside, I like to see you try and diet. . . ."
"Claudius," Briant said, tapping the hypnotherapist on the shoulder. "I take back everything I ever said about you. Something got this woman reliving her past life. That explains the humongous appetite. Any way we can shoot forward to find out what got her working on expanding her upper arm size today?"
"Whatever put this woman in the grip of her past life impulses," Claudius whispered, "it was probably something mundane and traumatic. I'd like to push her ahead to the last day she remembers, see where it leads."
"Push away," Briant said, and he returned to his spot on the desk. . . .
"What'd you bring me?" Ava asked from her bed. Dressed in a lightweight robe that barely covered her huge breasts, she was idly working her way through a tray of petit fours. Even when she wasn't hungry - which wasn't often - she'd gotten into the habit of plunking small pastries and candy into her mouth.
"Chinese," Wes told her. "Sixty-two ounces of Kung Pao Chicken, of Shrimp with Lobster Sauce, plus some Sweet and Sour Pork." He snapped his fingers, and two servants rolled in tray after tray of oriental fare.
"Any Crab Rangoon?"
"Three dozen," he said, and Ava licked her thick lips.
"Bring 'em over!" she yelled happily, so Wes carried the tray of crab and cream cheese appetizers to the corner of her bed.
Wes stood back and watched his eight-hundred-plus pound wife scoop the appetizers into her fat hand. When he was a child, he remembered being taken to the Ringling Brothers sideshow. Halfway into the exhibit, he saw the woman who would change his life: Celesta Geyers, a 560-plus pound fat lady who went by the stage name Dolly Dimples. The Divine Dolly was often billed as "The Most Beautiful Fat Woman in The World," and to Wes' young eyes, this was no exaggeration. She was mountainous, gorgeous. He kept her image with him through adulthood, had even tried to meet her. But by the late 1950s, Dolly Dimples had succumbed to the medical scaremongers and dieted herself down to a skeletal memory.
Even at her peak size, though, she was small potatoes next to Ava, who now matched the largest of the sideshow women. Contentedly chewing on her crab, her jowls jiggling happily, Ava was fully focused on the food before her. The act of eating had grown to consume her every waking moment; even when she felt her husband inside her, she flashed on images of heaping plates, of dinner tables groaning under their burden.
Eating to the point where she felt totally stuffed and incapable of movement got her hotter than any of Wes' worshipping touches, as wonderful as they were. On more than one occasion, she'd driven herself into orgasm just by hefting and massaging her paunch as she sat and ate, shifting the pressure on her clitoral mound by lifting the heels of her feet from the floor. She may no longer have been able to reach herself with her fingers, but other parts of her could.
Ava's face had grown round and moonlike; her dangling chins taking up more room than the space between her first chin and her mouth. Her upper arms had segmented into three progressive bulges, the widest pushing up front to where her breasts had once reached. As for her mams, they'd continued to fill out atop her paunch, two great gelatinous spheres the size of table-top globes that looked as if they were performing a precarious balancing act on top of her swelling belly.
It was that last, of course, that captured most of Wes's attention. Close to ninety inches in circumference when she stood, it widened to over a hundred when she was seated, an apron of flesh swelling past her fingers' reach. It was the first thing you saw when you came upon Ava - and rightly so. It surged almost a yard ahead of her body center.
He loved how her body swelled and segmented in new and exciting ways the larger she got. That fold from her navel, for instance, that turned the base of her paunch into two pendulous bulges. Those layers of thigh that flowed down the back of her legs, tautening her calves in the process. The way her mam fat had also spread to the sides of her torso, pushing her arms up.
He sat by her side as she dug through dinner. Just the sight of so much Chinese food gave Wes heartburn. But it was a minor inconvenience compared to the sight of Ava gorging herself. Her eyes had shrunk as her face grew fatter, but it didn't dim the excitement in them. She never looked more alive than she did stuffing herself past the limit. Damn, but she was gorge- -
A sudden flash of heat.
Heart/Burn.
Nothing further. . .
"What the hell is that?" Briant asked. He waved his hand in front of his client, who just sat and stared. She'd been that way for the past five minutes.
"Looks like we hit the end of her past life memory," Claudius said. He leaned forward, snapped his fingers, and sat back to let her slowly return.
"But what the fuck happened? She just stopped talking!"
"Darned if I know. Maybe I should put her under again and back up?"
"No one's putting me under," the blond plumper announced, "'til I hear what you got from me the first time!"
"Got another idea," Briant aid, standing and grabbing his client by the hand. "We're even, Doc!" he told Claudius. Off to the side, the hypnotherapist nodded. "I'll tell you everything on the way to Foster Hall. Maybe we can get the rest of the mystery cleared there!"
"Could we catch a drive-thru on the way?" Briant's client asked, as they headed for the door.
Why not? He could dig a good feeding scene just as much as Wes Kenosha. They hit the nearest Burger King in Briant's Metro convertible: she ordered two Double Whoppers, two large fries, and a shake. "Something to tide me over," she said, biting into her first burger. As she chewed, her nascent double chin became more obvious.
He gave her the Reader's Digest version of her session with Claudius. By the time he got to the finish, they'd reached Foster Hall.
The gates were closed but unlocked. She finished off her shake just as they reached the parking circle.
"Good timing," Briant said, holding the passenger car, catching a glimpse of torso flesh as she got out of the car. She'd rebuttoned her blouse once, but that belly was not going to be held in.
The front door way answered on one ring by a portly type in an apron and Hawaiian shirt maybe one "X" too small. "Yes?" he asked.
"We're here to see the head of the house," Briant rapped.
"And this pertains to?"
"The late Wes Kenosha," Briant said, handing over a card.
"Let 'em in, Chuck" a voice suddenly fuzzed over the intercom. Hawaiian Shirt raised an eyebrow, but the Jeeves act didn't go with the couture. A blast of cool hit them as they stepped through the doorway. Someone liked it chilly in Foster Hall.
"Come in. I'll take you to the lady of the house." He lead them down the foyer to a large dining room. There, they got to meet Ava Kenosha.
She was seated on a low, armless modular couch, surrounded by carts. A translucent sleeveless camisole covered the base of her fantastic breasts along with the top fourth of her paunch. She was dunking whole strawberries into a bowl of freshly whipped cream as they entered the room, using a long fork to make up for the width created distance between her hand and mouth.
The last they'd heard of Ava, she'd been in the 800's; she had to be twice that weight now. Her belly surged like a waterfall, pushing all the way past her legs, settling onto a set of cushions on the floor. Off to the sides, her legs swelled out from under her paunch, with only her toes fully visible. Her breasts had amazingly continued to bulge out on top, and each was almost as big as Ava's paunch had been. As for her upper arms, they would have sagged to the couch if her hips hadn't spread in the way. From what Briant could see, her rear had spread back about half as far as her front. It dangled over the back of the couch.
"Ava?" Briant's client said, and in that moment, he could have sworn he heard a deeper male voice layered over the blond plumper's female tones.
"Claudius was right," Ava Kenosha puffed. "I hear Wes' voice in her." She stopped to spear another strawberry, then gestured towards Briant's client. "You've got Wes karmically connected to you, I bet you could use something to eat."
"As a matter of fact. . ." Briant's client tentatively stepped towards a tray filled with fruits, nuts and cheese. Ava raised her massive left arm, waved her closer. It was an effort, Briant saw, for her to hold her arm up from its resting position. The two women locked eyes, then the blond plumper nodded and started eagerly helping herself to as much as she could eat.
"You know Irwin Claudius," Briant said, unsure where to keep his eyes.
"Only by rep," Ava panted. "He phoned here after you left the office. Had quite a story to tell about past life regression -packed with details only Wes could've given." She adjusted her head towards Briant's client, who had already dusted off about a half a pound of cheddar cheese cubes. "What's your birth date, dear?" she asked. When she got her answer, she nodded as emphatically as her voluminous lower chins would let her. Though she had to be in her fifties, her fat cushioned face masked her age. "Same day Wes died. Karmic balance. A man who's spent his entire life dreaming of fatter females comes back as an endomorphic woman."
"You were eating Chinese," the plumper said between handfuls of cashews.
"That I was," Ava agreed. "And Wes had a heart attack. Ironic that the thin half of the marriage would succumb to heart disease, but then I've always been pretty healthy. Exercise isometrically, and I never put a strain on my heart by dieting." She paused, took a long swig from a nearby carafe of soda, then sighed. "He died quickly, anyway."
She crooked her pear-shaped head towards Briant. Even this slight movement sent waves through her body. "Claudius thinks that if the little lady spent some time with me - got a good meal, let Wes see how successful he'd ultimately been with me - it might give her dominant personality a chance to re-emerge."
"Don't have anywhere else to go," the blond plumper said, tilting the last of her cashews into her mouth.
So Briant phoned Pete and stayed with both women through the night listening to Ava as she told them of her life post Wes.
"Stopped gainin' as quickly once he died," she said, brandishing a chicken quarter. "Guess his encouragement had been just as fattening as my eating." She had several lovers since that time, each one chefs devoted to the art of feeding her. She'd even married one, in fact: Hawaiian Shirt. But even he wasn't as special to her as Wes had been. "Wes was the one who allowed me to choose this life. Gave me the financial resources to maintain it."
Ava smiled at her new husband, as he trundled in another cart of roast chicken and orzo pasta. He winked at the mega-sized millionairess; she blew a kiss his way, then grabbed another chicken quarter. "Thanks, Chuck."
Briant's client was nearly done with her fourth quarter when she suddenly paused and told the room: "Emma. My first name's Emma."
The rest came back to her as the week passed. The more she ate, the more her memory returned; it was almost as if her past were tied to every ounce she gained. Briant came and went, and each time he returned to the mansion, Emma was both a little bigger and little more self-aware. By midweek, she was unable to fit into her old outfit - her skirt, in particular--but she didn't care. She finally knew her last name.
"Got some street clothes that'll fit you," Ava offered. "A bit retro, but you've got the look for 'em."
Ava was right. For as Emma started packing on the pounds they continued to enhance her curvy full body. In one of Ava's form-hugging size eighteen dresses, she looked like a walking distraction from an early sixties comedy. Pendulous 42DD breasts. Hips that were a couple inches wider. Taking this full-figured big-hipped bombshell out into the world, he felt like the hero in a Mickey Spillane novel.
Emma's apartment was in an older building, part of a not-yet gentrified neighborhood. Two bedrooms, one used as an artist studio. The smell of turpentine and acrylic. Paintings everywhere.
Turned out Briant's client was a commercial artist who worked for a chain store fashion catalog. But her own art was something else again: still lifes of food. Dark, gravy dripping roasts. Elaborately prepared steaks. Poultry. Fabulous cakes. Ice cream treats. And more. All rendered so photo realistically that they untapped your taste buds.
"Been paintin' these for years," Emma said. "Never knew why until now." She followed Briant into the kitchenette; they both spotted the broken coffee pot by the Krup machine.
"Looks like you blew a fuse when you got your jolt," Briant said, hitting the nearest light switch. He reached across the counter and unplugged the four-cup coffee maker. "Mouse or something got part of the wiring," he said, holding up the plug.
"Or something," Emma said, holding up a steak knife that she'd found in the sink. Look at the edge closely, and you could see some plastic curls. "Maybe I did it in my sleep. Whatever the cause, I got shocked, and the trauma was enough to make me an omnivorous amnesiac."
"Helped that Wes Kenosha was your last incarnation."
"Yeah. I can't complain about the end results, though." Patting her taut round belly, she reached for the cupboard to pull down an unopen box of Instant breakfast bars. As she searched for her purse, Emma put away a week's worth of breakfast. "Need to make a check out to both Phil and you," she said.
"Not to me," Briant told her. "Gettin' to know you's been payment enough." He took Phil's check, then he took Emma's zoftig body between his arms.
"You know," Emma said between kisses. "Even though I've got my name back, I've still got the appetite of a dozen other women." She grinned provocatively. Over the past week she'd gotten to know Briant's own inclinations very well. The look he got on his face when she wiped a plate clean and went for more. The glances he kept sending towards her thickening lower body, in particular. "Looks like I'm doomed to get fatter and fatter."
"I wouldn't say 'doomed,'" Briant grinned, pulling out a York. "'Blessed' is more like it." After he placed the unwrapped chocolate between her lips, they went to examine Emma's old bedroom.
Emma dropped her apartment, moved into Foster Hall, and Briant became a regular guest at the Kenosha estate. Ava Kenosha taught the blond artist all her secrets of healthy maximum weight gain. "It's like we're part of the same sisterhood," she'd say between courses. "A select group of women."
Under Ava's tutelage, Emma learned a series of low-impact exercises designed to strengthen her back and legs. "Nuthin' too strenuous, but it takes a good foundation to carry a body like this." With great effort, Ava was able to get around slowly, though most of the time she preferred to have her nonstop meals brought to her - a task that husband Chuck was more than willing to perform.
Emma no longer obsessively painted food. Instead, she turned to portraiture, capturing Ava from all conceivable angles then moving into a series of projective self-portraits, imagining herself at weights she hadn't yet reached. Ava purchased all of Emma's early portraits, placing them in the guest rooms of Foster Hall. With the money from her sales, Emma quit her job.
Six months later, the blond artist took Briant's last name. Her time spent as Ava's protégé had been productive: at 350 pounds, Emma was just starting to realize her pear-shaped potential. Triple chins. Belly into its second fold. Textured thighs that segmented and sagged in back. A butt that jutted out as far as her paunch.
Though Emma was one of those women who put more weight in her hips and butt, there really wasn't a part of her that hadn't benefitted from her accumulation. She was like a living Botero. Perhaps her former incarnation affected her metabolism; she seemed to be gaining at twice the speed of Ava.
"I hope," she whispered to Briant midpoint during the wedding reception, "that you're willing to take this as far as we can go."
Briant looked over at Ava, working her way through a fourth prime rib, jowls quivering happily, doting husband at her side. For her wedding present, Emma had been made an heir. The only condition: that Emma never willingly drop below her current weight.
"Farther," he answered, lifting a full tablespoon of strawberry mousse to her mouth. "If you're willing." Ava's husband looked over and nodded companionably at Briant. As chief cook and bottle washer in the Foster Hall kitchen, he'd grown fond of the young couple, particularly Emma with her appetite.
"Can't see living any other way," she said, after swallowing Briant's offering and licking her fuller lower lip. "And at this rate, I should still be a young woman when I reach Ava's size." She took a healthy bite out of a heavily buttered bun and chuckled. "Who knows how far we'll go from there?"
Who knew indeed?
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