by Wilson Barbers
Illustrated by "Mamet" (a.k.a. Vic Martin)
Bob and Ann didn't think of themselves as small-town types. But a transfer had sent them to the middle of corn country, and it looked like they'd have to try and make a go of farm town living. Bob worked for the state, had gotten a promotion to a small regional office and was looking forward to the chance to grow into his new position. Ann did some free-lance writing to confession mags but mainly had her heart set on cooking and housewifing. The new house was one of three on a short dead-end skirted by someone's cornfields. A white two-story, it came with a large remodeled kitchen and a good-sized downstairs bedroom. Having lived in apartments all their married life, Bob thought they'd have some difficulty filling up the whole house. But this too, they'd grow into.
Their home was on the end of the street. They moved in on a Saturday and met their neighbors on the left that evening. They were seated in the living room, Bob struggling to hold in a dust sneeze as Ann went from box to box trying to identify each one's contents. He was admiring his wife's plump butt, the way it was packed in her much-washed jeans, when the back doorbell rang. Pulling himself off the plastic covered chair with a groan (he'd been slacking off at the pool for months but didn't care), he walked through the kitchen and opened the door to the spring night and the Casses.
Holding a box with cake and two covered plates with steam rising from them, they were the largest couple he'd ever seen. She was dressed in a mammoth gray frock, the cake box in her pudgy hands, and a smile on her round fresh face. He was wearing jeans and a checked shirt that spilled over his pants. They looked to be in their mid-thirties, but for all Bob knew they could've been older. Those jowls and chins could've hidden a lot of wrinkles.
“You're the new neighbors,” the man said, gesturing with the two plates in his hands. “I'm Will Cass. Becky here says you've moved all your stuff in. We thought you might be a little hungry, and I just know you ain't had time to prepare anything.”
“Come in,” Bob said, and he led the duo in to meet his wife. The Casses owned a local restaurant in town, and if the food they'd brought over was an example of the fare, it wasn't surprising they were so huge: two fried boneless pork chops apiece, potato slices with sour cream and parmesan cheese, a wonderful pasta salad. As Bob and Ann dug into their meals, the Casses enthusiastically described the area. Becky Cass had a soft low voice and a wicked sense of humor that cast aside all provincial farm type stereotypes. Seated on the couch, her bare full legs planted out before her, her great round belly swelling out, Bob felt a strange excitement watching her. He'd never seen a woman look so large and yet so beautiful. The sight was enough to have him flushing guiltily.
They split the cake four ways, and when they finished, the Casses took their leave. “You're probably goin' to spend tomorrow getting unpacked,” Will said as they reached the door. “Why don't you come over tomorrow evening for a real meal? We'll invite Tom and Jeanie - they make up the rest of our small neighborhood - and you can meet 'em.”
“Sounds great,” Bob said, hoping he didn't sound too eager. Ann echoed the sentiment. They set the time for five: early, but as Becky explained it, “We're slow eaters.”
That night in bed, Bob asked Ann what she thought of the neighbors. “Nice,” she answered, “but do you believe the size of 'em? They look about maybe five years older than you or me, and they've gotta be over twice the size of either one of us.” She paused, lying on their flannel sheets, and he admired her nude form, its sturdy womanliness defined by a slight plumpness that paled in comparison to his new neighbor's voluptuousness. “I used to worry about being fat,” she said, poking into her rounded tummy, “but not anymore. Would you still love me if I weighed over 300 pounds?”
The image of Becky Cass was already bouncing around in his head. “Of course,” he said.
That Sunday they walked over to the Cass' ranch house, a bottle of Riunite D'oro in Bob's right hand. From within the house came the sound of sixties rock music. They rang the bell. A heavy tromping sound came from the other side, and the door was answered by a man they hadn't seen before. From his size, however, he could've been a member of Bob Cass's family. “You must be the new neighbors. I'm Tom Reinne.”
He led them in through the living room into the kitchen in back; festooned with all manner of cooking appliances, the kitchen looked a set from a PBS gourmet show. There, they met Tom's wife. She was as weighty as the rest, the type of woman who gains most of it in her bottom half, gargantuan thighs and hips dimpling under a pair of polyester slacks, her great mounding rear grabbing all attention as she leaned over the stove stirring gravy. She turned and looked Bob and Ann over appraisingly but said nothing.
With very little small talk they were soon all in the dining room. The room was snare but for the table and six chairs, plus a pair of speakers mounted on the walls playing something by the Chocolate Watchband. The table was packed with eats - groaning with chicken and pork, a variety of potatoes and cheese-filled vegetable casseroles, homemade breads and rolls - an elaborate spread of basic country cooking. “You got a good house,” Tom Reinne said, as the six sat themselves around the table.
“And some good neighbors, it looks like,” Bob finished. They toasted themselves with the wine, and the Reinnes told the newcomers about Tom's job as chief salesman for a local seed corn company. The dinner lasted for hours, and Bob, who'd been dismayed by the amount of food when he'd first sat down, was amazed to find himself keeping up with the progressive servings that were offered him. (Of course, he hadn't had much for lunch and had been doing an uncharacteristic amount of hauling today.) Even Ann, despite her protests over proffered thirds, seemed to be holding her own. As dinner wore on, Tom's wife seemed to warm to them, as if their stamina at the table had been their proving. A farm wife, Bob thought, she spends all day working on dinner and, of course, she expects her food to be eaten. He snuck a look at Becky Cass, her round face silently beaming as she savored her meal. He was getting aroused under the table.
When dinner ended, they retired to the living room, an array of large furniture (it had to be large to seat this bunch! Bob thought) placed in circle in the room to accommodate conversation. The stereo was still playing esoteric sixties music (was that the Strawberry Alarm Clock?); Will and Beck were probably onetime hippies. “You really know how to make a couple feel welcome,” Bob said once they'd all gotten seated, plates of strawberry shortcake with whipped cream before each of them.
“Are you kidding?” Will said, “We do this all the time. One thing I've learned in the restaurant business; it's cheaper to cook for a group than it is to cook for two. We've pooled our moneys and energies for years on dinners - and Tom and Jean here are small partners in our restaurant. We had the same arrangement with the Bakers, the couple who owned your house before you.”
“Really?” Ann said, fork full of cake nearly dislodging before she could get it to her mouth. “You eat dinner every night together?”
“Not every night,” Becky answered, licking a smidgeon of whipped cream off her lower lip. “We've always saved Tuesdays and Fridays for our own homes. And privacy.” She added that last with a saucy grin.
“And Wednesdays,” Will added, “we eat at the restaurant.”
“Sounds like you're really close knit,” Ann said with a tone of interest in her voice that frankly surprised Bob.
“No more than any other neighbors with similar loves,” Will answered. “We're not so close that we wouldn't welcome someone new. You interested in becoming part of our little neighborhood group?”
“Well. . .” Bob started.
“Don't decide now,” Jean interrupted. “You can come over for a while until you make up your mind.”
They left it at that and turned to discussing pop music. Will was the big lover of old rock in the group; both Tom and Jean tended toward country. But they all felt that good music was an essential part of meals and companionship. That Monday Bob left for his new job and Ann spent the afternoon at Jean's house, watching and learning in the kitchen with the two big women. That Wednesday they went to Will's restaurant, The Downtown Inn, and dined the evening away. The Inn was known throughout the county for its channel catfish and its homemade breads - as well as an inexhaustible salad bar. The sounds of an oldies station in the background, Will held forth on the food spread out before them. His days were spent, apparently, preparing food to be cooked at night. “Beck and Jean made the bread at home,” Will told them as Bob bit into a thick slice of rye.
“Ann helped on this batch,” Becky put in.
“Did you now?” Will said. Ann nodded, smiling with pride.
“Looks like we've got a new pair of neighbors for our group,” Becky said gleefully between bites of a sweet roll, her chins quivering as if they shared the excitement.
And so they were in. For the next five years, Bob and Ann were a part of the dining sextet. They ate and cooked together. In spring and summer they'd eat out in the backyard of whoever's house was supposed to host the evening's dinner, a trio of picnic tables groaning with grilled foods and potato and macaroni salads, beer and wine in coolers alongside the tables, music sailing into the country air. They brought a love of good jazz and blues with them, and as they learned more about their friends (Tom, for example, was a lover of classic mystery novels), the conversation never flagged.
Bob and Ann grew close to all four of their neighbors, and if Bob still carried a secret lust for Becky in his heart, he also rediscovered an even stronger one for his growing wife. For as the years passed, the pounds began to pile on them both, his wife becoming rounder and fuller by the month, her plump thighs and rear becoming huge and spreading out enticingly, her belly pushing out before her as she waddled into the room. Her face had rounded into a sculpture of apple-sized cheeks, a relaxed and knowing smile over her triple chin, a glint in her eyes.
Their sex life had grown more exciting with every pound they out on, as they found more to explore in each other, feeling between every roll with their tongues and fingers. He especially enjoyed tasting the underside of her upper arms, which hung so fully when she raised them, swinging slightly with their free weight. She enjoyed feeling the hang of his huge belly, often just walking up to him and cupping it in both fat hands as they pressed against each other, their layers of flab flattening and widening and straining against their tops. The first few years of their relationship with the neighbors, they wore a lot of their hand-me-downs. But now, Bob thought with a certain measure of satisfaction, they matched either couple in girth. Ann, he was sure, had even started to surpass the voluminous Becky.
But after five years, the sextet was about to be broken up. The Reinnes, thanks to a merger at the seed corn company, were about to move, and so their house was out up for sale. The farewell party was a weekend long blast of dining and more dining, but on Monday they had to say their adieus. As Jean heaved her great bottom into the mini-van, scraping both sides of the doorframe before she could settle onto the groaning springs, a sadness washed over the group. “We'll never have friends like you,” Jean said as they prepared to drive off - which was probably unfortunately true.
With the Reinnes gone, dinners went on as a foursome, but it just wasn't the same. They kept cooking the wrong proportions of food, forced into packing uneaten portions into barely used Tupperware, guiltily eating way past the point of bloated discomfort because - well, because the food was there. “If we don't find a new couple or get the new servings down,” Ann fretted, one Monday after dinner, “then this might become a chore.” Bob agreed. The best nights in the past, they'd eat the evening away as a prelude to sex, but lately they'd been feeling too stuffed to try. And then there'd been the night when they didn't cook enough for all four. . .
But, finally, two and a half weeks after the Reinnes' departure, they saw a van driving up to the empty house. A young couple - just a couple - got out and started unloading boxes. That night at the restaurant, they decided Bob and Ann could make the first move of meeting the new neighbors.
They carried their meals, two covered plates of the inn's best catfish and chips and a cherry cheesecake, over to the house. “Do I look alright?" Ann asked Bob before they rang the door. In the porch light, a sweater framing her pendulous breasts and the massive stomach that they rested upon, her fleshy face asking him for all his love and support (and that's quite a body to support! Bob thought), she looked lovelier than he'd ever remembered.
“Yes,” he said, leaning over their respective bellies to kiss her. He rang the door. Within a minute a young man, in his late twenties with short hair and love handles on his dust-covered frame, answered. Just an average looking guy, Bob thought, the way he himself had once been five years back. He looked promising.
“Hi,” Bob opened, “you must be our new neighbors.”
Corrected version copyright (c) 2000 - Oakhaus Designs
