A Restaurant Romance
by Wilson Barbers
The initial spur came from Glinda's family.
She'd brought her boyfriend home for the holidays and as Tony was unloading the car the inevitable sleeping arrangement question came up. Perhaps she leapt into it too quickly, but Glinda suspected her dad would've blown a fuse even if she'd pretended to be totally chaste. The old man was a master of the old-fashioned overblown reaction, though at least he'd waited until Tony was out of the room.
“If yer gonna go around acting like a, like a. . .” The right word momentarily eluded him. “Like a floozy, then perhaps we're wasting our money sending you to college. What are they teaching you at that school, anyway?”
“How to be open-minded,” she'd shot back, her plump mother hovering in the background. Though the young couple wound up sleeping in separate bedrooms, the tension didn't diminish the whole visit. Underlying it all: her father's implicit threat to cut her college support if she didn't quit “acting the floozy.” By the time they returned to campus, Glinda knew what she had to do.
“I need a job,” she decided.
Rising from her boyfriend's cramped dormitory bed, she made this announcement the morning after their visit.
Tony stared at her blankly. He wasn't very good first thing in the morning, and in this case his exhaustion was compounded by their catch up the night before.
“Dad thinks he can control me because he has the purse strings,” Glinda explained. “But if I was working, that control'd be gone.” She stood before the curtained window, her ripe hourglass shape teasingly silhouetted in the leaking light, her wavy blond hair catching shards of sun.
“Goin' to school and full-time work eats up a lotta time,” Tony responded between yawns. “Sure you're up to it?” He rolled over to admire her form.
“I'll cut back on a class or two,” Glinda thought, heading for the closet. “Maybe take an extra semester. Don't you think I can do it?”
Tony knew better than to throw a damper on her enthusiasm.
“Of course you can. You just need to find the right place to work.”
“You're gonna mention the restaurant, aren't you?”
Tony's uncle was the manager of one of the city's five-star restaurants, Antonioni's. It was a small, modestly decorated eatery with the best Italian food in the city. Tony's aunt-by-marriage was the restaurant's owner; she'd met Tony's uncle when she inherited the place.
Their first date Tony had taken Glinda to this family institution and shown her off to everyone. Uncle Jake had looked her up and down appreciatively then fed them both on the house. The dinner had been wonderful, but afterwards Glinda made Tony swear not to plan many regular visits to the family's establishment. Too many meals like that, and she'd be big as a house.
Stepping into her underwear, she pursed her prominent lips and examined her five-and-a-half foot frame in the floor-length mirror. Glinda had one of those ripe bodies that were only a few pounds shy of fatness. Full-breasted and hipped, with lushly shapely legs and the slightest trace of extra midriff, she had to work to keep the inches stable. And while exercising did not come easy to her, overeating definitely did.
At home that hadn't been much of an issue: though she perpetually fought her own battle of the bulge, her mother's cooking skills were somewhere in the realm of mess hall chef or school lunch lady. At college, however, Glinda had already become intimately acquainted with the Freshman Fifteen.
What would she be like, working in a place that served real food?
“I can see what you're thinking,” Tony opened, “but hear me out. Uncle Jake's looking for a new waitress, and if you want it, you've got an inside track. Salary's good, and it's a lot less exhausting than working fast food - or boxing plants at the local nursery.”
Glinda shuddered. They both had friends who worked at the nursery - prime employer of college students in that part of the city suburbs - and she'd heard the on-the-job horror stories. Perhaps Tony had a point.
“I'll go talk to your uncle,” she finally decided. “But if I start gaining weight, we're gonna have to talk.”
“Deal,” Tony grinned, reaching up to pull her back down onto bed and out of her underwear.
Glinda wore her classiest outfit - a black velour dress that hugged her voluptuous form - for her meeting with Tony's uncle. The interview itself was short and snappy. It took place in the manager's tiny office, Glinda seated with her fulsome legs crossed for maximum display effectiveness as Tony's uncle perused her résumé. The restaurant manager was attractive but at least twenty years her senior.
“I see you're a year younger than Tony,” he noted, slapping her references on the desktop. “Got at least two more years of college to go. Any plans after that?”
“To be honest,” Glinda told him. “I still haven't definitely settled on a major. I've been taking a lot of business courses, though.”
“So it's possible that you could be staying with us even after you graduate?” he continued.
“It's possible,” Glinda admitted - though damned unlikely, she thought.
“Good,” Uncle Jake said, slapping the résumé on his desk. “Get yourself a TB test, and you can start Monday.” He rose and shook her hand. With that simple businesslike gesture, her earlier qualms eased.
First night on the job, Antonioni's was fairly quiet. Glinda arrived in her one good dress and was greeted by Jake and an ultra-buxom figure in a clinging strapless dress and blazer. Round-faced with lushly dark hair, the woman had full-fed Italianate looks and a cleavage that rivaled Glinda's. Her name was Sofia, and she was the restaurant's hostess. Not to mention: Glinda's supervisor.
“Sofia's getting married next week,” Jake explained, “to one of my most talented assistant chefs.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” Sofia said, smiling sweetly. She had a soft voice to match her countenance. Once they started going over Glinda's job responsibilities, though, it was clear she was no pushover.
“A good waitress is here not just to serve food,” she said, as she led Glinda into the kitchen area, “but to share it with her customers. If you wish to wait at Antonioni's, you need to be intimately familiar with everything we serve.” They stepped into the kitchen, and Glinda was immediately barraged by appetizing scents. A pudgy male in a chef's outfit immediately rushed up to Sofia with a questioning look on his full face.
“My fiancé Sal,” Sofia explained. “Sal, this is Glinda. Tony's girl.”
“I remember her from the night Anthony brought her in,” Sal said. “Always said that boy had a good eye.” He quickly backed away to grab a small plate then spoon four small raviolis onto it. “Just a second,” he offered, turning to a large kettle, which turned out to contain a red sauce. The finished sample plate slid down the counter to Glinda, who looked over to Sofia questioningly.
“Tonight's special,” she told Glinda. “Ravioli with gorgonzola and walnuts in a marinara sauce. Go ahead, take a bite.”
Glinda hesitated then cut off the corner of a single pie. Spearing it with her fork, she dipped the piece of ravioli into the sauce and took it into her mouth. The blend of sauce and stuffing was exquisite: she quickly forked two full raviolis and bit into them. This was nothing like her mother's canned ravioli dinners.
The journey of a thousand pounds begins with a single bite.
“Very good,” she told Sal, finishing off her plate. He happily acknowledged the compliment.
“It's his first night in charge of the kitchen,” Sofia explained. “I'm proud of him.” Sal blushed slightly then swiveled back toward the rest of the kitchen help.
“Gotta get back to work,” he told them both, turning to a young man who was diligently kneading pasta dough.
“Us, too,” Sofia said, kissing him on the neck. She brought Glinda over to a closet where a row of coats and aprons were hanging. “What size're you?” she asked. “Eight?”
“Twelve,” Glinda admitted.
“Just barely,” Sofia thought. “But, hey, Marilyn Monroe was a twelve.” She pulled an apron off a hanger and handed it to Glinda. It was so big that it began to wrap around her a second time in the back.
“A bit large, isn't it?”
“It's the smallest one we've got left,” Sofia told her. “Wear it tonight, and we'll find one that fits you better tomorrow.” She pulled out two safety pins and fastened it in the back. Stepping back, she examined Glinda critically. “Own many dresses?” she finally asked.
“This is it,” Glinda admitted. “I was planning on getting some more.”
“No need,” Sofia reassured her. “I've got some skirts that'll fit you in my closet. I'll never wear 'em again, and they're just taking up space. I'll bring 'em in tomorrow.”
Glinda was dubious, but as a struggling undergrad, she knew you never overlooked potential freebies. “Okay,” she agreed, visions of Italianate peasant skirts in her head. Sofia was at least two inches shorter than her; she hoped the hemlines weren't too high.
“Let's introduce you to some of the regulars,” Sofia said, as a slender dark-haired girl bustled through the double-doors. “And your fellow waitress, Lisa,” she added.
The slender girl looked up at her name, gave Glinda a perfunctory smile, and reached for a tray with two plates of lasagna on it. Each slice was decidedly healthy, Glinda noticed. They stepped back out into the dining room, and Sofia led her to the table Lisa was serving. One look at the occupants, and it was clear that those large-sized helpings of lasagna were not excessive.
Both man and woman were super-sized, though the woman was considerably more so than her companion. She sat with her massive belly and breasts pressed against the table, thoughtfully but methodically relishing bite after bite of her meal. The woman had to be at least ten years older than Glinda: had she always been so huge?
“Jeri's a restaurant critic,” Sofia explained in a whisper as they moved to a neighboring table. “That five-star review over the register was by her.”
“Looks like she enjoys her work,” Glinda observed.
“Nothing wrong with that,” Sofia agreed. She smiled at the elderly couple splitting a plate of angel hair pasta with calamari.
When they got back to the kitchen, Sal had another small plate waiting for her - lasagna this time.
“Piece is too small to serve at night,” he explained. “Thought you might want a sample.”
Now was the moment Glinda could have turned away from her fate. But in visiting the dining room tables - witnessing the way each customer appreciated the food they'd been served - she'd found herself wondering how each item tasted. It's only a tiny portion, she told herself as she raised the plate from the counter. Just a sample.
She had three more such “tiny portions” over the course of the night - a plate of baked ziti, one of fettuccini alfredo, and a third of spaghetti carbonara. Each helping was a couple of tablespoons bigger than the previous, but Glinda didn't notice. When you're surrounded by kitchen portions, such incremental changes appear insignificant.
She didn't serve a single table, just spent the shift observing Lisa, listening to Sofia as she laid out the restaurant's considerable history, and hanging out in the kitchen. Antonioni's, she learned, was part of a restaurant empire; Jake's wife had inherited three restaurants plus a pair of pizzerias from her Uncle Dom, and she followed his approach to the business. At least once a night, Tammy Meches phoned each of her restaurants to order something from the menus: Jake ensured that each dish was delivered fresh and warm to his wife. The kitchen staff would spend the rest of the night nervously waiting for her verdict.
“She's been very complimentary about Sal's work lately,” Sofia confided. “I may be biased, but I think she's right.”
Much of the kitchen staff in Antonioni's was related, either directly or through marriage. Each December, Jake and Tammy held a big family blowout in the restaurant that was the envy of good food lovers everywhere.
Halfway into the shift, Sofia took a brief break for her own dinner. Waiting in the kitchen was a large plate of pasta with clams, zucchini and paranzola; the serving was at least twice the size of the customers'.
“What can I say?” Sofia explained, once she saw the look on Glinda's face. “I love my fiancé's cooking.” In addition to the Americanized fare that most of their customers favored, Antonioni's served three or four genuine Mediterranean items every night; it was all Sofia ate. “Sal's spoiled me.” She smiled, her facial dimples deepening as she did. “You want dinner?”
“Don't think it's necessary,” Glinda backed off. “With all the sampling I've been doing, I'm good for the night.” Sofia nodded and tucked into her meal, sliding a basket of bread and olive oil within the new waitress' reach. Absently, Glinda nibbled her way through a half dozen pieces.
She got into the habit of grabbing a couple of slices of bread each time she returned to the kitchen, eating more than half a loaf (and about a cup of olive oil) over the course of the night. By the time Tony arrived to pick her up, she felt weighted down by so much carbohydrates.
“How was your first day?” he asked, as Glinda adjusted her passenger seat to stretch out.
“Pretty slow,” she yawned, letting him feel her left thigh through the fabric of her dress and apron. The university was just a short jaunt away - she could've walked if she didn't feel so tired - but she almost dozed off before getting back to her room. Kissing her boyfriend goodnight, Glinda trudged upstairs to her dorm bed, collapsed and dreamed of banquets.
The rest of the workweek passed in much the same fashion. Lisa carried responsibility for most of the tables, and those few that Sofia assigned to Glinda were more often empty than not. The disparity was almost embarrassing.
“Wait 'til the weekend,” the hostess said whenever Glinda started feeling guilty out loud.
“I just want to carry my weight,” Glinda told her, swirling a slice of bread into her plate of ultra-rich olive oil. She was careful not to drip on her blouse, one of the new additions to her wardrobe.
“You will,” Sofia reassured her.
When Friday came, Glinda no longer felt bad about her light workweek.
The place was packed as lovers of good food from city and suburb descended on the small five-star restaurant. Glinda grabbed her meals in quick kitchen stops - a couple spoons of spaghetti Bolognese here, a quarter slice of lasagna there - and had no way of gauging how much she ate over the course of the night. All she knew at the end of the shift was her feet were killing her.
“You did great,” Sofia told her once they'd shooed the last night's customer. Sitting with Lisa and the zaftig hostess, Glinda stretched her legs and looked questioningly at Sal as he plopped a large serving plate brimming with rigatoni and eggplant.
“Leftovers,” Sal explained. “Any of you ladies hungry?”
“Not me,” Lisa yawned, and she rose to untie her apron.
“I swear that girl hasn't eaten a real meal since 1998,” Sal confided to Glinda. “Some days I wonder how she could even be my sister.” He took two large serving spoons and filled a mountainous plate for his fiancé. Then he turned to Glinda. “What about you?” he asked. “You worked pretty hard tonight.”
“I'd love a plate,” she heard herself answer. “Only not so large.” Sal beamed happily and started spooning out a serving.
Saturday night was a reprise of Friday, only with plates of penne pasta with sausage, raisins, cauliflower, and pine nuts as Sal's Leftover Finale. Glinda ate a full plate and was even considering going for a second helping, when Tony showed up in the kitchen doorway. Instantly embarrassed, she dropped her fork and rose from her stool.
“Having dinner?” he asked. “Don't mind me. Take your time!”
“I'm done, anyway,” Glinda told him, oblivious to the look of disappointment on his face when she walked away from Sal's still formidable offerings. Sofia shrugged her shoulders out of Glinda's eyesight and smiled at Tony. The way Glinda had been snacking all shift, she knew it wouldn't be long before the girl ceased turning down second helpings.
There were, Sofia knew (and she knew because she was one of them), women and men who took to dining with a zeal that approached the spiritual. Place them in front of an offering of good food and they focused on it to the exclusion of all else. With rare exception (i.e., Sal's sister), the women connected to Antonioni's - from its owner on down - were all religious gourmands. Sofia believed that Glinda had the potential to become a member of this select group.
She was righter than she knew. For that night, on their way back to campus, Glinda asked Tony to make a quick stop at an Amoco Food Shop; once there, she leapt out of his car and bought an armload of over-priced snack food along with a liter of Cherry Coke. This they both carried back to her room.
“Something to tide me over the week,” she explained, as Tony quizzically watched her stack two bags of Lay's potato chips in her closet. A third 32-ounce bag remained on the bed. When she finished stocking her larder, she offered the sack to her boyfriend. When he shook his head, she shrugged, sat on the edge of her bed and tore the bag open with her teeth.
“It was a hard night,” she told him, midway into her sack. “Thought I'd get my strength back before the two of us tried anything too energetic.”
“Makes sense,” Tony said thoughtfully, watching his girlfriend open and directly swig a two-liter Coke bottle. His girlfriend had only been working at the restaurant a week, but it looked like she'd started to gain some weight in the middle. Her top wasn't as free flowing on her breasts and midriff as it would've been a week ago.
It was even less so a week later.
Though she may have shown some small resistance to the idea of restaurant work at the start, Glinda quickly grew to love the place. Weekdays were low-key and friendly - regulars mostly who came different nights for the specials that they knew by heart. Fridays and Saturdays were more work, but in a way those two hectic days provided an excuse for the sitting back and snacking that she did the four other days.
“Eat up,” Sal would order as he'd drop two teeming plates before Glinda and Sofia. “You never know when you'll get another chance to relax.” The two women always followed this advice.
Though her initial fears were being borne out, Glinda momentarily forgot them. Between work and classes, she had little time for self-examination - and most of that free time was taken up by her boyfriend.
Tony was delighted by the change he was witnessing. Raised in an old world family where womanly lushness was the norm, where meals were multi-coursed and meant to be appreciated in long and languorous fashion, watching Glinda eat was like something out of his deepest adolescent fantasy.
By the time he'd left for college, Tony had been certain that the woman of his dreams belonged to another generation. In the university world - where anorexia is practically a college minor - a girl capable of approaching food with a modicum of comfort was a rarity. Yet here was Glinda, with a face and hourglass shape that would make most girls envious, eating like there was no tomorrow.
From the moment they'd met, Tony had dreamed of bringing her into the family business - now that he had, he wanted to prolong the experience as much as possible.
He phoned his Uncle Jake for advice.
“From what I can see,” his uncle said, “you don't need to do much. Your girlfriend has a healthy appreciation of good food, and I don't see her turning her away from it. Best thing you can do is show your appreciation of the way she looks. Particularly if she starts to get too down on herself.”
“Easy to do,” Tony said, and he was telling the truth. For as Glinda started to pack on poundage, her body blossomed ever more beautifully. At the end of two weeks, she'd gained seven pounds: not a tremendous amount of weight but certainly noticeable on a woman as well developed as Glinda. You could see it in the way her breast flesh rose around the edges of her bra cups. She began to borrow his XXL tee shirts for class but otherwise said nothing about her weight gain.
By the end of the month, it became much more difficult to ignore. Over the month, she'd eased into two full nightly meals at Antonioni's, the second at the end of the shift, and there was no way she could work off all that eating. A good twenty-one pounds heavier than when she'd started, Glinda had gone from ripe and womanly to strictly plump. Her shape was the same - at least a third of her gain seemed to have gone into her breasts - but it had become more shape than most men wanted. Fortunately, Tony was not like most men.
Heeding his uncle's words, Tony grew a lot more attentive to her, so much so that Glinda's new borne pudginess lessened from problem to irritation. There were times, in fact, when the pleasure of eating good food supplanted everything else, even such minor concerns as maintaining a culturally accepted body type. She'd look at Sofia, so fat and yet so satisfied, and know that even the pretense of dieting was a thing of the past.
It wasn't a question of will as much as priorities. When it came down to it, the enjoyment that Glinda got out of eating was far more powerful than the satisfaction of staying at some arbitrarily assigned weight. The small stabs at restraint she'd made in the past had always been half-hearted, so what was the point in pretending otherwise?
Glinda worked full-time through the rest of the semester, and as the months passed, the pounds accumulated. Occasionally, she'd look down at herself - at her slightly pooching belly and even more pendulous breasts - her newly formed double chin creasing in the process, and think I've got to cut back a little. But these thoughts carried little conviction. They dissipated once a full plate was placed in front of her.
Sofia continued to regularly replenish her wardrobe. The dresses showed more leg than they did on Sofia but otherwise fit better than expected. By spring's end, Glinda's days as a size twelve were irrevocably gone. Even with a thirty-nine inch waist, she retained her hourglass, however.
She started carrying a big purse with snacks to all her classes. If she didn't, she found it impossible to concentrate on the lectures. With a couple of Hershey bars to tide her over, she could still her demanding belly.
At least momentarily.
Graduation night, Tony announced that he was going to work at Antonioni's. Though this was not entirely unexpected - for months, he'd been dreaming out loud about the things he could do to the Meches' Empire with his Business degree - Glinda was a little surprised to see him start as a dishwasher/bus boy.
“I need to begin from the ground floor,” her boyfriend explained as they drove to the first night of his job. “Sort of like an internship.”
Glinda swallowed, nodded agreeably and scooped another handful of Cool Ranch Fritos from the bag between them. She still had senior year and wasn't planning on going home that summer; it'd be fun to work with Tony over her last year of school, she thought.
They moved in together that summer, and while Glinda had no intention of telling her father of this arrangement, It was clear that Tony's family had already accepted her. At his graduation party, all of his relatives - slender men and more-than-plump wives to a one - made a point of coming over to tell her how glad they were that their boy had found a girl like her. As if to emphasize this, they each brought her something yummy: an array of cannoli, crushed amaretto cookies in a whipped cream/espresso mixture, multiple helpings of spumoni ice cream and soft chocolate cake. Not wanting to appear rude, she accepted it all and in the end had little trouble eating all they'd given her.
By the time Tony's widowed mother - a short globular figure who appeared even wider than her height - arrived with her dessert offering, Glinda had eaten enough pastries to stock a bakery display case. She smiled happily at her son's robust looking girlfriend, particularly when Glinda used her fingertips to wipe the last of her mocha sauce off her plate.
From June through August Glinda worked full time, eschewing classes for daytime in bed with her roommate. The apartment was small but neatly furnished with hand-me-downs from Tony's aunt and uncle. Their kitchenette was well equipped, and their refrigerator was always fully stocked. There were always snacks within reach of the bed.
Tony began to experiment, working up affordable variations on Antonioni's basic menu and using his girlfriend as his personal critic. It was like adding another two meals to her day, but as with her early initiation to the restaurant's offerings it built so gradually that she barely noticed. All she knew was she was eating less convenience food, which had to be a good thing.
It was just as fattening, of course.
By summer's end, Glinda returned to school an extra fifty pounds heavier. She was over 275 pounds: a blond twin to Sofia, if still more generously endowed on the upper level. Her hourglass had filled in substantially - there was only a few inches difference between her 54-inch breasts and her waist - but she knew she'd long passed the time for regrets.
“Don't have any more hand-me-down dresses,” the restaurant hostess told her one night over plates of veal marchella. “How'd you like to take over as hostess?”
“What?”
“You'd look good in my hostess outfits,” Sofia explained, swirling a medallion through some cream-based sauce, “and I've got some new priorities on the way.”
“On the way?” Glinda repeated with her mouth full. Then she realized what Sofia was talking about. Jumping off her stool, she hugged the new mother-to-be. Across the kitchen, both Sal and Tony watched the two fat women embrace. The sight of both soft bodies mashing up against each other was undeniably provocative.
Glinda's move into hostess position proved a boon in more ways than one. Not only was the pay better, the job was less physically taxing - which made her coursework easier to complete. Though she burned fewer calories as a hostess, it wasn't all that worrisome. Once she graduated, she'd be out of the restaurant business, anyway.
At times, her bigger body caught her by surprise. Sitting back on her stool in the restaurant, her fuller calves would bump against the legs; pulling on her clothes, she'd feel her bra strap rub against the underside of her upper arms; nestling with Tony on the couch, she'd suddenly be startled by the sight of bulging flesh in the gap between her borrowed tee shirt and sweats. These observations bothered her much less that she would have expected.
Her family gave her surprisingly little grief when they finally saw her at the start of the school year. Perhaps her father viewed her fatness with a kind of relief. As a teenager, Glinda's body had been so voluptuous it was an invitation to trouble - or so it seemed to Glinda's father. Fat, he thought, she was less likely to attract exploitive jerks like that Tony kid she'd brought into the house last Christmas.
Needless to say, Tony had been nowhere around the day of her parents' visit.
Glinda's boyfriend was plenty busy, anyway. He divided his time between bussing and waiting tables, even taking over his girlfriend's old weekend shifts. While Glinda sat behind the hostess podium, he regularly brought out extra plates of whatever he was serving and placed them on a shelf within the back of the stand. He was especially generous with each night's specials.
As the weeks passed Glinda developed an appreciation for a variety of Mediterranean items: cavetellis sautéed in garlic and olive with peppers, mushroom and asparagus; broiled scampi over linquini in a tomato cream vodka sauce; rigatoni with veal meatballs.
Her palate was growing with her appetite.
She also developed a vocabulary to critique his meals, thanks to her budding friendship with Jeri, the restaurant critic. The super-sized regular began to tutor her in the subtleties of gourmet dining, ruthlessly criticizing each platter even as she always finished each one completely.
“A gourmet meal can be one of life's most exquisite pleasures,” she explained to her pupil at one point. “But even an average dish can be great in the right company.”
And so the young restaurant hostess continued to develop in her new position. She outgrew Sofia's dresses in less than a month, but fortunately, the expectant mother was once more there to help. One night when Glinda showed up for work, she found a shopping bag waiting for her behind the podium. The note on top of the two barely worn dresses read:
“Sal told me you might be needing these, and they already don't fit me. If they don't work, send them to Goodwill. Sofia.”
The dresses were both size thirty. They lasted Glinda through the end of November.
Thanksgiving night was especially busy in the restaurant - surprising since she typically considered the holiday a home-and-family event. Yet for Glinda, Antonioni's had become more of a family than the one that claimed her by birth. Sofia was like the big sister she'd never known. When the former hostess came through the door of the restaurant that Thanksgiving night, it felt like a mini-family reunion.
Waddling up to the podium, her belly looming before her grandly, Sofia smiled and handed two sacks of dresses to her successor. It was the first time since her resignation that Glinda had seen the mother-to-be, and she was astonished by how big the woman had grown. Her hands, Glinda noticed, barely cleared her forefront. Sofia was clearly one of those women susceptible to major weight gain during pregnancy: she made Glinda feel skinny.
“Sof',” Glinda beamed. “It's been months!”
“I've been taking it easy,” Sofia said. “Putting my feet up, eating for two.” She patted her belly proprietarily then smiled, creasing her triple chin. “Maybe more than two,” she added.
“You miss working?”
“A little,” Sofia sighed. “I do miss some of the regulars.” She scanned the restaurant, waving at the familiar faces. (She was almost as large as restaurant critic Jeri, Glinda noticed.) “Sal brings each night's specials home, though, so at least I don't miss that!” That explained those buffet-sized trays that the plump chef was carting out of the restaurant each night, Glinda thought.
Easing into a booth that had obviously been designed for a super-sized figure, Sofia placed both hands on the edge of the table and said, “Looks like I brought your new dresses just on time. This 'un looks a bit snug.”
“It is,” Glinda admitted. “You don't think I'm getting too fat, do you?” Unselfconsciously, she indicated her statuesque frame, which exceeded sixty inches at both hip and bust-line and broached fifty-eight at her waist - heedless of the fact that all three measurements had been surpassed by Sofia.
“Not in the least,“ the super-sized mom-to-be assured. “What does Tony think?”
“That boy,” Glinda whispered, as the lad in question approached the table with a menu and a basket of bread in hand, “probably wouldn't be thrown if I was twice my present size.”
“Comes by it naturally,” Sofia twinkled. “You don't believe me, wait 'til you meet his aunt! She used to visit this booth nightly - until she outgrew it.” She winked at Tony and waved away the menu but, of course, kept the breadbasket. “Sal knows I'm here: he's already got my dinner ready.”
Two new customers were arriving, so Glinda returned to her post. Periodically, she'd check in with Sofia. The globular ma-to-be sat in her booth the whole night, eating slowly and appreciatively. Sal's servings were larger than Glinda had ever seen them: so full and opulent that she couldn't help feeling more than a little jealous. The night had been so hectic that Tony had been pretty spare with the extra plates.
“Busy night, eh?” Sofia sympathized once the night's last customer had left.
“You said it,” Glinda sighed. Her stomach cried out hungrily like a neglected dog whining to its distracted master.
“Let's go back in the kitchen,” Sofia said, and she led the young hostess back to the site of her first real introduction to the glories of Antonioni's fare.
There they found a spread on the center counter that exceeded Sofia's servings. Glinda's heart leapt at the sight. Tony and Sal beamed at her happily.
“Hungry, babe?” Tony opened.
In answer, Glinda pulled up a stool and slid a tray piled high with eggplant parmigiana in front of her. All night long, she'd been feeling famished and unfairly ignored: now she gave into her ravenous hunger. She grabbed a large metal serving spoon and cut into the first layer of sauce and cheese. As she brought her first large spoonful to her ready mouth, a dollop of sauce fell onto her right breast. No big deal, she decided: the dress was obsolete, anyway.
Glinda managed to surpass Sofia's intake in less than half the time. As she rode back home in the post-Thanksgiving night, feeling beyond stuffed, it was clear that she'd turned a corner in her relationship with food.
Where once Glinda saw herself as a woman who no longer chose to diet, she now was openly and admittedly gluttonous. This shift from the negative to the affirmative was seductive and irrevocable.
She upped the number of full course meals in a night and directed Tony to stop off at the nearest family pizzeria on their way home. (Fortunately, it was conveniently located outside the university.) Once back in their apartment, she'd lay in bed with her boyfriend, polish off a medium-sized pizza then go to sleep without a trace of indigestion. She'd grown both physically and emotionally attuned to a gourmand's life and felt no regrets about it.
As the anniversary of the holiday visit that spurred her life change approached, Glinda became even more aggressively voracious. Sofia's super-sized maternity dresses shrank on her frame as she broached another hundred pound marker. Her more demanding belly edged past her other measurements, subsuming her hourglass shape. Her legs and arms both thickened to keep apace with the demands of her torso. She was finding it increasingly more difficult to fit into the formed desks at school. There were times when the burden of carrying this new bulk got to her. But, as usual, this didn't last long.
The invitation to Tammy Meches' annual holiday soiree came just days before her trip home. Pleading a heavy work schedule, she kept her own family visit down to two days.
Her family Christmas was measurably more low-key than last year's. Neither father nor mother said a word about her new weight, and though her mother's cooking was as appalling as ever, for the first time Glinda was able to appreciate the effort that the woman put forth every day. That didn't stop her from availing herself of every opportunity to drive to the store, though: each time, she hit the fast food drive-thrus. It wasn't Antonioni's, but it fed her hunger more than her mother's cooking could.
On her way back to school, she even hit a burger place in the bus station, using some of her Christmas cash to buy two double Whoppers with cheese and enough side snacks to take up the seat next to her. She ate through the entire two-hour trip, her rotund body jostling through the bumpy bus ride, her doubly chinned face a beaming symbol of holiday plenty. When her bus arrived in the city, she hit the nearest burger place there, too.
The day of the Meches' party, Tony left early to help with the preparations. Snacking on anisette cookies and listening to carols, Glinda sat and waited for the occasion. Before she'd left for her parents', Sofia had brought her a new outfit for the party: a size thirty-six sheath dress that accentuated every curve on her body. It had never been worn, and it fit Glinda perfectly.
“I don't know what I was thinking when I bought it,” Sofia confessed when Glinda called her to thank her for the dress. “But soon as I got it home, I knew it was more appropriate for you than it was for this pregnant bod.” She paused to loudly take a bite of something over the phone. “Can't wait to see you at the party in it; I bet you'll look elegant.”
“I don't know about that,” Glinda thought, wishing (and not for the first time) that there was a full-length mirror available. Both their dormitory rooms had been supplied with one, but for some reason the only looking glass in their apartment came attached to an exceedingly small medicine cabinet. It was big enough for her to paint her face for work, but that was it.
“I do,” Sofia reassured her. “Pick you up in a couple hours.”
The party was held in Dominique's, a less intimate restaurant on the other side of town with a heavily decorated banquet room. The place was bustling by the time Sofia and Glinda joined the private party. In addition to the Antonioni's staff, family members from every other restaurant in the Meches' empire were represented. Glinda recognized the manager of her favorite pizzeria - a rotund thirtyish male who looked like he'd stepped off the logo of a jar of tomato sauce - standing near a circle of well-dressed fat women who equaled or exceeded Sofia in size. He was talking excitedly to Jake Meches, who periodically peaked through the line of women toward the seated figure holding court within. Behind that mass of matronly flesh, Glinda suspected, sat Tammy Meches.
Though she was eager to meet the lady, it'd been hours since she'd really eaten anything. So while Sofia merged into the cluster of restaurant wives, Glinda sidled over to the appetizer table, swiftly filling a plate with stuffed artichokes and sweet bread. A little sustenance before she did anything else, she told herself, as she pulled a chair alongside the table. Every once in a while a woman broke away from the group to get a plate of goodies: she'd never seen so many well-dressed fat women in the same room.
An hour later, Glinda finished noshing and was finally ready to join the rest of the ladies. Dabbing her lips with a napkin, she straightened her dress then worked her way across the crowded room to the wall of women. She found Sofia chatting animatedly between bites of fried calamari, belly occasionally coming into contact with a more modestly full-sized matron.
“Enjoying the party?” Sofia asked, but Glinda was too enraptured by her first Tammy sighting to answer. Peering over her former co-worker's shoulder, she got her first full view of the restaurateur, a woman so breathtakingly vast that she outweighed any two women in the room.
She was seated on a wrought iron bench that looked like it had been brought in from someone's country garden, her massive sides overflowing the filigreed armrests. Wearing a red v-neck frock dress, she was lightly made-up with her blond hair in a bun. To her right was a small duplicate of the appetizer table Glinda had been visiting for the last hour. She watched her guests silently, regularly reaching over for another helping of appetizers as she did.
Tammy Meches was so immense that Glinda had no way of guessing her weight. All she could do was take in details: the looming belly that came close to settling on the floor, the massive lower calves that swelled over her hidden ankles, the indescribably deep cleavage. Hard to imagine this woman even walking, let alone making her way across town to the restaurant.
“Oh,” Sofia immediately noticed. “You haven't been introduced to Jake's wife yet. Well, let's rectify that.”
Grasping Glinda's hands, she pulled her into the space between the nattering women and their hostess. Tammy Meches smiled welcomingly to the duo, all the while, chewing on a large mouthful of sweet bread.
“Sofia!” she finally hugged. “Who's the lovely young lady?”
“This is Tony's girlfriend, Glinda,” Sofia explained, stepping back so the restaurant owner could get a better look. Above her dimpled cheeks, Tammy Meches' smiling eyes scrutinized her closely. Though not the oldest woman in the room, it was clear that Miz Meches was the matriarch - by virtue of both her wealth and size. Whatever the woman was looking for, Glinda hoped she found it.
“A lovely little thing,” Tammy pronounced, licking her prominent lips thoughtfully. “With a good appetite, too. Want some more frezell?”
Glinda looked back toward the table where she'd been previously been planted, but even standing it was impossible to see through the barrier of super-sized holiday celebrants.
“Look up and check the mirrors in the corners,” Tammy laughed, noticing her puzzlement. “You can even see 'em seated. I've been watching you off and on for the last hour. Hope you made room for dinner!” She handed Glinda a plate of marinated eggplant.
“That was just a pick-me-up,” Glinda joked, though as she said it out loud, the statement appeared less a boast and more a simple statement of fact.
“If only I'd been as free-wheeling when I was your age,” Tammy sighed. “But I guess all things come in the right time.”
Glinda nodded, her mouth full of appetizer.
“Besides, if I'd given in too early, I might not've connected with Jake,” she continued, plucking a quartet of Sicilian olives off a relish tray and aiming them between her lips. “It's an interesting story - I should tell it to you some time.”
“I'd love to hear it,” Glinda said politely, as Tony made an appearance in full-fledged chef's uniform.
“Dinner's ready,” he told the threesome in a voice loud enough for everyone near to hear.
The room hushed in a wave. Glinda quickly finished her plate as an army of men in white swept into the room, pushing a convoy of wheeled trays. The first was rolled before Tammy Meches, who gestured to chairs on both sides of her.
“Sit,” she invited both Glinda and Sofia, so the two took flanking positions as their dinner entrees were moved in front of them. The main course was ravioli in porcini cream with prosciutto and peas, all served in mounds large enough to fill a serving plate. It reminded Glinda of her first kitchen meal at Antonioni's, her earlier timidity in the face of all this good food. What had she been so afraid of?
She scrutinized the room: clusters of fat women - and the occasional male family member - seated at tables or personal serving carts, energetically appreciating the bounty being brought from Tammy Meches' kitchen. It made a welcome contrast to the tense and solemn holiday dinners of her own family. Here, celebration and appreciation of well-made fare was the night's prime goal. It felt more like family to Glinda than the real thing.
Halfway into her third helping, Tony emerged from the kitchen to join her. Dressed in a crisp new chef's uniform, he looked sexier than she'd ever remembered seeing him, particularly with that large plate of chocolate cake in his hands. He placed it on the cart's second shelf and promised to bring it up once she'd finished her main course. Glinda breezed through the rest of her ravioli.
If she had any lingering doubts about the path her life was taking, they were banished that night. Seeing Tammy and Sofia - and the other fat 'n' happy spouses - had opened a world of wondrous possibility. By party's end, she'd consumed more than she'd ever done in one night; in the weeks to come, she'd surpass it.
“You have a wondrous appetite. And I hear you've developed a discerning palate to go with it,” Tammy Meches told her, as she spooned leftover frosting from her cake plate. “I so love these family get-togethers.” She paused to slowly savor the remains of her dessert then continued. “My parents have never quite gotten over my growing this fat. But they can't complain too much since I've given 'em a wonderful granddaughter. She's visiting 'em tonight.”
“I wondered where the kids were,” Glinda noticed. All around them, the restaurant spouses were finishing off their chocolate cake, settling back with an unmistakable air of anticipation.
“They get the rest of the holiday,” Sofia explained. “Tonight's our night.” She indicated a train of men emerging from the kitchen, each carrying their own tray. Tony winked as he placed his offering before Glinda; to his right, Jake Meches was doing likewise. Their trays each contained helpings of tiramisu twice the size of the chocolate cake.
“Now, that's dessert,” Glinda marveled as her boyfriend pulled up alongside her and sliced into the serving with a tablespoon. Though her belly was full, she accepted his first contribution - as did the rest of the diners in the room. It tasted divine: sweet and smooth and irresistible. Her sense of fullness dissolved, and she nodded as Tony quickly brought a second spoonful to her lips. All around them, happy fat folk were being served by their spouses and lovers.
Glinda settled back in her seat, belly resting on the crevice between her thighs, closed her eyes and lost herself in the sensation of feeding. She heard the sound of silverware tapping against plates, of dresses rustling as each fat woman adjusted herself in her chair, of wordless encouragements from the feeding men. No one said a word, though occasionally a moan of pleasure of pleasure would escape the lips of one of the diners. To speak would have somehow cheapened the experience, Glinda suspected.
With her eyes shut, it took several seconds for her to realize when she'd arrived at dessert's end. As she sat there with her mouth still open and waiting, she felt a moue of disappointment - until she reopened her eyes and looked into Tony's. He was gazing upon her with an expression of worship and lust so strong that it immediately sent off corresponding triggers in Glinda. The entire room, she realized, was rife with a similar sense of sexual tension. Small wonder they'd kept the children away.
“Enjoy your dinner?” Tony asked, dabbing her lips with a red-checked napkin. Smiling, Glinda grabbed his hand and kissed it, considering the empty platter on the tray before her. She'd eaten past fullness to a place where she should have felt maximum discomfort. But the night's pleasure was still lingering, muting any other sensation.
Groaning, she sat back up in her chair, thighs stretched to accommodate her overstuffed belly. In the ceiling mirror, she could see the slender Lisa on the other side of the room: Sal's sister had been feeding the pizzeria manager, Glinda saw, and was looking at her apparent lover with a very similar expression to Tony's.
“Yes,” she answered. “I did.”
It wasn't until they got home that Glinda realized she'd missed another family member at the Christmas party.
“Where was your mother?” she asked, unscrewing the top of a bottle of sparkling grape juice and taking a deep drink. “She's not feuding with any of the family is she?”
“Not at all,” Tony reassured her. “Ever since Dad passed on, she stopped going to the Meches' Party. 'It's a couple's thing,' she says. And I can see her point.”
So could Glinda, for that matter: that last hour had been so erotic that she was ready to jump Tony's bones right then and there.
Unfortunately, her boyfriend had to return to the restaurant to help with cleanup. Glinda stretched out on their hand-me-down couch, letting her holiday meal digest and absently snacking on a sixteen-ounce bag of yoghurt covered raisins. The television nattered something seasonal, but she paid little attention to it.
Instead, she thought back to the Meches' celebration and its monumental hostess, the look of appraisal the mega-sized restaurateur had given Glinda. “A lovely little thing,” she'd called her. Glinda didn't know if she was being complimented or subtly challenged.
If it was the latter than her body certainly responded appropriately. From that day forth, Glinda ate with a fervor that surpassed anything she'd demonstrated before. It was as if her short time with Tammy Meches had unleashed cravings so primally deep that it was frightening. The days of turning down seconds were long passed: fourths and fifths were more her style.
Even at work, she was rarely without a fork in her hand. The only time she'd put it down was to lead customers to their tables. Mouth full of one of the night's specials, she'd placidly waddled from her hostess station, then back for another bite off her plate. The sight almost invariably inspired at least one of the customers to order, “What that girl is having.”
Antonioni's regulars loved to surreptitiously watch Glinda's dining: in her openly sensual appreciation of everything she was fed, in her ever-expanding voluptuousness, she reminded them of the days when an unmarried Tammy Tantalus held court in the restaurant. As winter progressed, they watched her grow larger and larger, more sensuously gluttonous.
By mid-February, Glinda was over four hundred, with waist and upper portion both in the lower seventies plus hips that came close to matching this figure. With no new hand-me-downs from Sofia, all of her outfits were on the verge of being pulled apart at the seams until the night Jake Meches came into the restaurant with a fresh bag of clothing. It contained, of course, some of Tammy Meches' cast-offs.
“They're a little out-of-date,” he apologized, “but I think they'll fit.”
Glinda put down her fork and yanked a dress from the shopping bag. It was a simple black floral print dress, nothing fancy but of good quality. It was even more suited to Glinda's legs than Sofia's clothes had been. Dropping the dress back into the sack, she rose to hug Tony's uncle.
“None of that,” he joked, backing away. “Don't wanna make my nephew jealous.” He indicated the bag then straightened his suit coat. “There's a videotape in the bag, too, you should check out. It's a chair aerobics tape for super-sized women. Tammy swears by it.”
“Really?” Glinda marveled. If asked, she'd have guessed that the only exercise Tammy Meches did was raising fork to mouth.
“You're still young,” Jake told her, “but it's easy for a woman your size to lose her flexibility over time. Tammy's at a point where many women - or men, for that matter - would be unable to get out of bed. But a little bit of daily low-impact exercise works wonders.”
Glinda eyed the tape thoughtfully, as Jake delivered the clincher.
“Best thing about chair exercises is you can even work up routines to do at dinner.”
Glinda turned back to her plate of foccacia salmon, picked up a slice of bread with salmon, herb cream cheese and capers, and grinned mischievously. “Can I ask a rude question?” she ventured.
“You want to know how fat Tammy is?”
“No!” Glinda back-stepped, but then she mustered up her courage. “I mean: yes! No wait - I mean: what makes a woman like her attractive to a man like you? Or Tony?”
Her boss chuckled.
“Can't speak for my nephew,” he said. “All I can say is my wife has grown to mean the world to me. I couldn't tell you where my love for her begins because it's vaster than her body. Which, incidentally, weighs over a thousand pounds.” With that, he indicated his office door. “You want to change in my office, go right ahead,” he offered. “I'll hold the fort for a few minutes.”
When she came out, she found Tony waiting for her with a fresh plate of bruschetta. He whistled appreciatively. The calf-length, short-sleeved dress showed her burgeoning body to maximum effect.
“That for me?” she winked, indicating the plate in his hands.
“Who else?” he answered as he slid her newest offering onto the podium. “You really look sexy in that outfit.”
“Thank you,” Glinda purred as she sat back on her stool. If she had any fears of Tony finding her too fat, the Xmas party had erased them. But it was always nice to hear his compliments.
“I mean it,” he persisted, as he pulled a fresh fork and knife from a pocket in his apron.
“I know,” she smiled, accepting the silverware before turning to smile welcomingly at a new family of arrivals. Newcomers: it didn't matter whether you recognized 'em or not, you always could tell by the look they first gave Glinda. It wasn't often you saw a woman her size dressed so self-confidently.
On campus, of course, she'd become a fixture. The largest coed in any of her classes, Glinda placidly sailed through her final semester, oblivious to both stares and comments, sitting in the back of the classroom automatically taking down notes as she anticipated the nights ahead. In comparison to the bright and sensual world of Antonioni's, the academic world seemed flat and distant. She could play the student game, but at this point she only gave it cursory attention.
As winter melded into spring, Glinda found it even more difficult to pay attention to the academic world. She borrowed Tony's notes from the year before and spent her days tamping down her appetite with student union food. It wasn't as tasty as Antonioni's - or as luxurious an experience - but there was something to be said for the simple act of no-frills gorging, of answering her demanding belly as expeditiously as possible. With Tony working and taking care of rent, her parents still paying the school bills, all she had to spend her salary on was pre-work meals.
She hit five hundred by early March.
The milestone went unnoticed by Glinda (though most of the restaurant staff, attuned as they were to blooming womanhood, had an inkling it was approaching). Because she'd been doing her low-impact movement exercises, she barely felt inconvenienced by her new size. There were times - making her way through crowded campus halls, for instance - when her massiveness proved a decided advantage.
She'd forever remember the week she hit her landmark weight, though, because it also was the first time she was invited to Tammy Meches' place.
The invitation came at the end of the Friday shift: Glinda was sitting in the kitchen piling into an ample serving of spaghetti Bolognese when Jake Meches sidled up to her reinforced stool. Off to the side, Sal, Tony and the rest of the kitchen help were cleaning the stoves and metal counter.
“Tammy's been asking about you,” the restaurant owner opened, after waiting for her to finish her plate and hand the empty to her boyfriend. “Are you and Tony free this Sunday?”
“I think so,” Glinda considered, looking over to Tony for confirmation but no longer seeing him in the room. “Is this an invitation?”
“Nothing formal,” Meches told her. “We just thought you two might want to drop by Sunday afternoon.”
“Should we bring anything?”
“I hear that Tony's been practicing in the home kitchen,” Meches said. “Maybe he can take advantage of this opportunity to show off for the boss, eh?”
Glinda's boyfriend was more than grateful for the chance. He spent all his free time fixating on their Sunday visit, finally settling on gnocci alla Romana. Preparation took most of the morning, but they could do the actual cooking in five minutes at the Meches' home. “That way it'll be at its freshest,” Tony explained, sprinkling parmagian over two shallow baking pans filled with chilled gnocci.
Watching him concentrate on his food preparation, Glinda felt a surge of affection mixed with hunger.
The Meches lived in an iron gated home in a neighborhood midpoint between all three of their major restaurants. Though the day was March chilly, Glinda could see charcoal smoke wafting from behind the house. As they buzzed the front gate, the scent of a well-seasoned grill hit her nostrils.
Tony's uncle let them in: they found his wife in a room in the center of the house, seated in sturdy couch with a colander of green beans on a nearby teevee tray. The lady of the house had obviously just finished shucking them; she smiled as her guests entered the room. Glinda grabbed a seat, and as Tony carried his gnocci side dish into the nearby kitchen she took a look around. All the furniture was heavy and welcoming; the room was brightly lit and tasteful.
“Where's your daughter?” Glinda asked, nothing what appeared to be a mint condition Easy Bake over in a corner.
Over at a friend's for the afternoon, she was told; the two young girls were going to see a movie, an activity that her mother had long outgrown.
“Even the theaters with larger seating are unable to hold me,” Tammy Meches said without a trace of embarrassment. “I've gone too far beyond conventional super-sized.” She indicated her ultra-wide torso. Dressed in a colorful sleeveless dress, her looming front wavered demonstrably. “It doesn't bother me,” she concluded. “Few movies are worth the trouble of going out to see these days, anyway. It's much more comfortable for me to wait for the DVD.”
“And this is your little girl?” Glinda indicated a slender young figure prominently featured in a frame of family snapshots on the wall.
“Gina's got her father's genes,” Tammy said with a grin. “She can eat practically all day and never gain an ounce. At her age, I was already wearing big girls' clothes.”
“So were you always full-figured?”
Most of her life, Tammy admitted, though like many fat women she'd taken a momentary detour into the thin life.
“Once I met Jake, though, those days were gone for good,” she concluded. “I'll tell you the whole story later.” She slid a large plate of appetizers (caponata, hard-boiled eggs, Italian salami, Greek and Italian olives, cheese and artichoke hearts) over to her guest then reached for a second, equally substantial platter. “Something to hold us 'til dinner is ready,” she grinned. Tammy nodded, already into her third cube of eggplant.
By the time they got to the end of their second appetizer plates, their two men wheeled in a quartet of wide serving carts, each laid with a single place setting: on Glinda's main plate was a trio of grilled lamb chops surrounded by polenta; on the smaller plates surrounding it were large servings of Tony's gnocci, green beans slathered in garlic butter, plus an eight ounce loaf of homemade bread.
Though she hadn't made a conscious effort to do so, Glinda matched her hostess bite for bite. It wasn't difficult: the main course was so delicious that she lost count of the number of chops she devoured, while Tony's gnocci was everything they'd hoped it would be. As she sat and relished every bite, Glinda thought back to the girl she'd been and the unappealing family meals of her youth. Over the last year, she realized, she'd been making up for lost time - and she still had more catching up to do.
“Save room for dessert,” Tammy Meches advised her at one point. “We're having spumoni ice cream cake.”
“I'll have room,” Glinda assured her, settling back into her cushion to surreptitiously pull her undergarment down.
Tammy smiled knowingly as her husband pushed the triple-layer cake between the two women. They both were given fresh forks and told to have at it. As with everything else that day, they finished their halves within seconds of each other.
“Quite a meal,” Glinda gasped, watching Tony retrieve the empty cake platter. “Any leftovers?”
“We don't believe in 'em in this house,” Tammy answered. “If any food is unfinished, it's because it wasn't up to snuff - and then it's not leftovers, it's scrap. But I'd say everything was just dandy today, your boyfriend's side dish included.” She said this last just as Glinda's boyfriend returned.
Tammy Meches' stamp of approval seemed to put a happy cap on the day. As they drove home, Tony was clearly energized by the discriminating matriarch's kind words.
“She's a tough critic,” he beamed. “Even at home, she oversees the dishes in all the other restaurants, you know. I wasn't sure if she'd like it or not.”
“The whole meal was wonderful,” Glinda agreed. Sitting with the passenger seat back as far as it would go, she felt totally stuffed, even as she tried to recall what was in the fridge back home. “You did a great job, Tony.”
They both said nothing further until he parked the car. Tony quickly leaped from the driver's seat and ran around to Glinda's side. Instead of reaching to help her out of the seat like he usually did, he dropped to his knees and asked the following:
“Glinda, will you marry me?”
The question was so unexpected that it banished all food thoughts from her head.
“Why now?” she finally asked.
“I know I can contribute to the family business; I know I can make a good home,” he told her. “You know that I love you; I believe we were made to be with each other.”
Glinda held out her hands, and Tony took them. He rose to give her support as she hefted her five hundred pound body from their car.
“Yes,” she told him, as he embraced her wide torso. She didn't feel stuffed at all, she noticed . . .
“When shall we tie the knot?” Tony asked.
“School's out in May. We could go traditional,” Glinda thought.
“What'll your parents think?”
“It doesn't matter,” Glinda declared, heading for the fridge as soon as they entered the apartment. “Their daughter's grown up.” She paused, then pulled out a plastic container of sour cream dip and a zip-lock bag of baby carrots. “I'm a member of more than one family now, and you know I like this 'un better!”
Tony simply nodded, taking the quart bag from his fiancé and opening it. Glinda smiled and carried the dip back into the living room, beckoning him to follow. Less than an hour after their meal at the Meches, and she already was hungry for a snack.
But first she had a question for Tony: “What do you think of your Aunt Tammy?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean: what do you think of the way she looks,” Glinda elaborated.
He paused to dip two carrots into the sour cream, then held them up to her waiting lips.
“Well, she's my aunt and at least ten years older than me. But I've always thought she looked pretty hot.”
“Good,” Glinda said, happily accepting his offering.
They planned their wedding for the first weekend in June, a week after Glinda's graduation. As these two major turning points drew closer, her appetite grew even stronger - building her up for the changes ahead, perhaps. By March's end, she was in the mid-five hundreds and still growing. Her waist had grown pre-eminent at seventy-five inches, though the rest of her figure didn't lag far behind. Both her arms and calves exceeded her old waistline (each measuring in at 32 inches); her neck seemed to have merged into her body.
She outgrew Tammy's dresses on a weekly basis. As she got ever fatter, she began to see the wisdom in the mega-sized restaurant owner's low-impact exercises. Just the act of leading customers to their tables winded her. Most of the regulars, seeing the super-sized hostess grow red-faced from this mild exertion, told her not to bother. They all knew their customary places, anyway.
It took her longer to walk to her classes (when she went), so she left for campus earlier. Fortunately, Tony rose with her to make a big breakfast: eggs tonnata, fresh ground sausage, sweet bread slathered in butter, fresh fruit dipped in sugar. She ate it all in multiple helpings. Glinda never used to be a breakfast person, but she'd learned to love it.
Sunday dinner at the Meches' turned into a bi-weekly occasion. She finally met daughter Gina, an energetic young thing who loved helping her father in the kitchen. “Can you imagine her husband after several years of marriage?” Tammy joked to Glinda. “He'll probably outweigh us both!”
Jake Meches, they learned, was thinking of retiring that summer to devote more time to his family. This meant an impending shuffle of positions, though none of the long-standing cooking staff seemed to want the position. They were happiest working directly with food - which left one worthy candidate in the restaurant: Tony.
“Think I can do this?” he nervously asked his fiancé, turning into a DQ drive-thru on the way home from this momentous announcement.
“You're young,” Glinda considered once she'd made her order, “but you're family - and I suspect Uncle Jake'll be around to show you the ropes.”
“It's a major jump in salary,” Tony continued. “Big enough that you could quit your job if you want.”
Glinda pulled the cherry from her jumbo malt and held it for inspection between a thumb and fat finger. “I'd like to continue for now,” she decided, “though I don't know for how long.” Popping the cherry in her mouth, she bit down happily and savored the sweet juices. Her body, she suspected, would let her know when it was time to quit.
And so things went until the end of the semester. Glinda's appetite remained unabated, while her capacity to add further poundage stayed unstaunched. Tony watched his fiancé's development with awe and amazement: he'd never dreamed she could grow so big so rapidly - and yet take it all so easily in stride. Bringing her into the family business, he'd introduced her to a way of life that had forever changed her.
Glinda decided to skip her graduation ceremony, concentrating on her upcoming wedding instead. (If she was going to take that long walk, she preferred it to be for a bigger family occasion.) They sent out invitations in April - the only response she received from her parents was the RSVP card.
“So what d'you think their reaction was?” Sofia asked, when she'd heard of this sparse response. “If it'd been my mom, she'd have been on the phone soon as she'd read the letter.”
The two fat women sat in the living room of Tony and Glinda's tiny apartment, noshing on pizza while Sal took Tony out to get fitted in a tux. Between the two of 'em, there wasn't a whole lot of empty space in that living room. The expectant mother was days away from her due date, and she'd never looked more hugely glorious.
“I've decided not to care,” Glinda told her. She took two slices of pepperoni pizza sandwich style and nibbled on the tips. “They can either accept my decision or not.” With that, she took a deeper bite, savoring it alongside her newfound determination. A year-and-a-half ago, she'd been at her parents' mercy; last fall, she'd still been hiding her relationship with Tony. Now she was her own woman.
If they couldn't deal with that, she thought, then tough!
Tammy Meches passed her wedding dress onto Glinda, and with some small alterations, it fit her. The service was held in a small Catholic church with the first size-friendly pews that Glinda had ever seen: with ultra-wide seats and adjustable knee rests, they were situated up front for easy access. “A donation from my Uncle Dom,” Tammy confided to the bride-to-be during rehearsal. “We've paid to keep 'em up, of course.”
The ceremony itself filled the small church, though Glinda's bio family was only represented by her mother. (“Your father had to go out of town at the last minute,” she told her daughter on rehearsal night, not bothering to make the lie sound the least bit convincing.) Uncle Jake Meches gave her away.
She walked down the aisle more than five times her old size twelve self. She didn't know her actual weight: if asked, she would've guessed at least two hundred pounds below the seven hundred pound mark, though, indeed, she'd passed that milestone the week of graduation. Her great drooping belly exceeded 87 inches in circumference, while her thighs were each close to 42 inches at their widest. Every few feet, Glinda had to use a lace handkerchief to dab the sweat from her forehead; when they got to the end of the line, a stool was waiting to support the bride. She backed onto it gratefully.
She looked over toward her mother, seated next to Tammy Meches, and was heartened to see her there. At the front of the other aisle, Tony's mother was weeping happily.
Of course, the wedding dinner was held at Dominick's, site of the annual Christmas party. The celebration lasted far into the night: course following course - all consumed in multiple helpings by the gluttonous bride. She ate beyond fullness that night, showing a capacity she'd never matched before (but would learn to maintain), reaching a state of repleteness more intoxicating than any mere alcoholic haze. She ate after most of the wedding guests had left the party, after her mother had returned to her hotel. She ate until the only food left was a single slice of wedding cake.
“No leftovers,” she grinned, as her new husband helped her to her feet. Her middle was so full that she could only take tiny steps, but despite the discomfort, she still felt wonderful.
Their honeymoon was a family-bought ocean voyage to Italy. Glinda spent most of her cruise time sampling buffets and her land time in the family restaurants that had spawned the Meches Empire. She met Tammy Meches' old world counterparts - many of whom were as large as the half ton restaurateur - and though few of them spoke English, the look of approval they gave as she finished off each serving needed no translation. She returned to her homeland fifty pounds heavier and ready to retire as a hostess.
In her absence, Lisa had taken over her position, and while the regulars missed the Glinda Show, the thin girl was unquestionably suited for the role. Though she may not have possessed much of an appetite, it was clear she loved to encourage others. The night Glinda returned to the restaurant as a guest, Lisa was over her almost as much as Tony.
It was Glinda's last visit to the old restaurant. In his new capacity as restaurant manager, Tony oversaw the construction of a new, larger Antonioni's. The expanded eatery had the most fat-friendly seating in the city, and - with the Meches' permission - the design also included a Glinda-friendly apartment in the rear.
Until their actual move, Glinda remained largely housebound. While her low impact chair exercises helped with back and leg support, most days she didn't feel like venturing very far. Even in a lightweight summer dress, the outside heat wiped her out. All through the summer, she subsisted on pizza and restaurant deliveries. Like Tammy Meches before her, she took to phoning daily orders from Antonioni's: at night, she critiqued each dish for her husband.
They both found this food talk intensely erotic.
Her two prime contacts with the outside world were weekly trips to the Meches' and more regular visits by Sofia and her daughter Dionne. Glinda's former supervisor had lost some of her maternity figure, but had still kept close to 150 pounds of new weight.
“Women in my family tend to gain weight through childbirth,” she giggled one time, sitting on the floor by her crawling daughter, her voluminous belly flattening against the floor beneath her clothes. She was wearing, Glinda noticed, a dress she'd once loaned to her friend, one hundreds of pounds beyond Glinda's capacity these days. “And we have a lot of children, too!”
Finally, the restaurant was completed, and Tony brought his super-sized bride into their new apartment. Their home was cool, spacious and built to support her - with a dining room adjacent to the restaurant dining area and an observation window which afforded Glinda the opportunity to watch when friends came to dine or to adjust the mini-blinds so that they could watch her. Seated in her family dining room, with its direct line to the kitchen, she critiqued the restaurant's fare from opening to closing.
At eight-hundred-and-eighty-five pounds, Glinda had a beauty unique to the extremely large. Her facial features were womanly and voluptuary, amply framed by jowls and chins. Her body had developed folds where she'd never known they could be: in the middle back of her pendant calves, on the inner sides of her upper arms, between her shoulders and the nape of her neck. In bed, she'd point out each fresh discovery to her husband. He'd be especially attentive to it that night.
She took to wearing simple black frocks - not to mask her size (an impossible task, anyway), but because they added to her authority. Most days these dresses were all she wore: it made it easier to quickly shuck them for the apartment's step-down Jacuzzi. Once she stepped out of the water, she'd sit in the buff in front of two high-powered fans and let them cool and dry her off. The one time Sal entered the apartment without knocking, he dropped three servings of Spaghetti Bolognese. Glinda vowed to be careful from that day on: not because of any modesty, but because she simply hated to see food go to waste.
As fall progressed, her extraordinary weight gain seemed to slow - a source of disappointment for the gormandizing Glinda. Subtly, over time, she'd gone from ignoring to accepting to embracing her weight gain. Though she didn't know why, it suddenly seemed important that she attend the Christmas part at least a hundred pounds heavier.
To force the issue, she willfully increased the number of courses she consumed each day, forcing forkfuls into her mouth even when every cell of her body said no more! She regularly slipped the bus boy extra money to do a fast food pick-up during breaks. (“I needed something for comparison,” she told Tony the night he came upon her scarfing down the remains of her third quarter pounder. He just grinned.) Nights in bed, Tony was expected to feed her a tray of desserts before she would even start to reciprocate his more direct sexual overtures. With this new resolve, Glinda's body once more began to bloom.
Though no one said it out loud, she had become inextricable from the restaurant. As fall progressed, the kitchen help grew accustomed to making regular trips to Glinda's dining table. She sampled every meal before it reached the customers, demanding full courses of each item that particularly tasted choice that day. She began to make suggestions for improvements, and each time she did, the staff agreed that they were right and proper.
When Halloween rolled around, Glinda had emphatically surpassed nine hundred pounds; by Thanksgiving, she achieved her target gain. She was fifteen pounds away from a thousand pounds.
By the evening of the Christmas party, her half-ton marker was a bygone memory.
The Meches decided to hold the event in the new restaurant, which suited Glinda since she was pretty sure she could no longer fit in the family car, anyway. She hadn't seen Tammy since summer, though pretty sure she'd caught up with her. Glinda's parents were invited to the family affair, and to everyone's surprise they accepted the invitation. She wondered what her father was going to say when he saw how much she'd grown.
When the opportunity came, her old man said nothing. They arrived to the party an hour early, and Glinda was still trying to gather herself together for the long walk from apartment to the center of the banquet room. She saw them through her viewing window, as they entered the restaurant - her mother in a bright red dress that was more form revealing than anything she recalled, her father in the same plain blue suit he'd always worn. As Lisa led them across the restaurant floor, Glinda spot-checked her face in a compact mirror. Her appetite, a near constant companion these days, appeared to have momentarily dashed out of the room.
Tony appeared in the doorway of the kitchen entrance and was swiftly by her side. As usual, he looked dapper in his manager's outfit. Time in the restaurant had added a few pounds to his frame (nothing compared to Glinda, of course), and it made him look boyish. The sight of him was enough to ease her nervousness.
“You okay?” he whispered.
“You're here; I'm fine,” she told him, dropping her compact into her purse. With Tony's aid, she rose from her chair, smiling at her parents as they crossed the threshold of her home. Her mother rushed across the room, embracing and sinking into her daughter, while Glinda's father held back. Tony crossed the gap between them to shake his hand. The old man didn't take his eyes off Glinda the whole time, then he did something amazing.
He smiled. Nervously, but it was still a smile.
“My daughter,” he said, still holding onto Tony's hand, “and my son-in-law.” He looked over Tony's shoulder to his mountainous daughter. “This guy being good to you?” he asked.
“Very good,” she answered. Her father nodded thoughtfully.
With that small gesture, the group made its way back into the restaurant, where the appetizer trays were already set. Two of the familiar wrought iron benches had been placed in the center of the room with a single heating table placed between them. Glinda gratefully collapsed onto the first seat, while Tony showed his kingdom to his in-laws. As she reached for a plate to get a jump on her guests, a sense of rightness settled over Glinda. Munching on the first of a string of sweet sausages, she looked across her ballooning forefront and watched each new arrival.
She was getting ready to fill her second plate when Tammy Meches arrived. Bedecked in a gray cape that draped all the way to the floor, she slowly waddled to Glinda's companion bench. Blocked from initial view by her be-caped frame, Jake Meches followed in her wake; hanging onto his right arm was Tony's mother.
As she sank onto her seat, her husband removed her outer garment: it took both arms for him to carry it into the cloakroom. Glinda smiled over the heating table at the party hostess then returned to filling her plate. Tammy saluted her with a serving spoon then started on her side of the table. Across the room, Tony's mother was being introduced to her father; he smiled - if she didn't know better, she'd swear it was flirtatiously - and invited the rotund woman to sit down at their table. With that, Glinda turned her attention back to eating.
She barely paused long enough to register each individual item: by now, she was intimately acquainted with everything her husband's restaurant served. Tonight was about celebrating the familiar and familial, she thought, shoveling a large mouthful of rigatoni with leeks and ham into her ravenous mouth. She nodded absently as Sofia entered the room from the kitchen: word had it that her former supervisor was expecting again. It'd be fun seeing how Sof' came out of this second pregnancy, she thought.
She remained steadfastly focused on her half of the heating table, only deferring to Tammy when they reached for the same serving spoon. Their last main course was a tray of spaghetti alla vongole, a rich conclusion to a more-than-satisfying dinner. As she wiped the last traces of clam sauce with her bread, Glinda finally noticed the rest of the room. All the guests had turned their attention to her and Tammy.
Without a word, both Glinda and Tammy placed a hand onto the cooled heating table and slowly rose. Once they were fully upright, the heating table rolled back. In unison, the two women stepped together.
They were, Glinda saw, nearly identical in size. While their shapes were more individualized (Tammy showing more body on the bottom than Glinda), they came within twenty pounds of each other. In two short years, Glinda had grown to match the mega-sized matriarch. Together, they were over a metric ton of womanweight.
As they stood parallel with each other, Glinda's intimidating forefront pushed at least two inches ahead of Tammy. It draped in triple folds within her dress down the front of her lower legs. Her full swelling top was itself large enough to keep abreast of her forbearer's forefront.
“There are villages in the old country,” Tammy said loudly enough for all to hear, “where they hold an annual pageant for the fattest woman in the region. She's treated like a queen, a symbol of abundant beauty and good fortune. Tonight, you are our queen.”
The room burst into applause. Somewhere in the back, Glinda's parents were no doubt wondering what they'd wandered into. Then Tammy raised a massive arm and placed it on Glinda's shoulder.
“My successor!” she told the room, and the applause redoubled. Unexpectedly, Glinda felt her whole body blush. “Jake's retiring, and so am I,” she told Glinda under the commotion. “You've been overseeing Antonioni's more closely than I have; I think you can keep abreast of the rest of Uncle Dom's empire, too.”
Glinda didn't know what to say, but luckily she was spared any agonizing speech giving by the arrival of dessert: tray upon tray of pandoro with bowls of mascarpone cream on the side. The sight was amazing. It took two days to make the cake from scratch, and when you considered the amount that all the kitchen staff was wheeling into the room, it was amazing that they'd had time to do anything else. This, she knew, was meant for her.
Her serving was wheeled before her. Both she and Tammy had been given cakes twice the size of everyone else's: four inches high and at least sixteen inches across. Tony appeared by her side, brandishing a cake knife. Glinda sampled the cream with her finger then imperiously waved her hand over the naked cake. Smiling, Tony started to scoop the cream on top.
She was once more ready to lose herself in her meal when her parents appeared by her side.
“We're going back to the motel,” her father told her. “It's been a pleasure meeting Tony's side of the family.” He paused, seeming to consider his next words, then continued. “You had an aunt, you know, who was close to your size. She died in her thirties - a car accident, nothing to do with her weight - and, you know, you look just as beautiful as her!” An unfamiliar expression crossing her father's face. “I'm sorry I missed your wedding,” he said before turning to lead his wife toward the door.
“Sure you don't want to stay for dessert?” Glinda asked. For the first time in who-knew-how-long, she actually didn't want her parents to leave.
“We're both full,” Glinda's mother said. “But thanks for asking!” Waving, they both walked out into the night. One of the kitchen staff, Glinda saw, had already hailed a taxi.
She turned back to her husband. “Well, I'm ready for dessert,” she said, licking her lips for emphasis. Tammy, they both noted, was already immersed in her pandoro.
Like that first Christmas party - and like countless nights since - Glinda closed her eyes and let Tony feed her dessert.
She felt her overfed body, felt the weight of her looming belly as it pressed against the top of her legs, felt her breasts as they gingerly bobbled atop her bloated paunch. Her outstretched calves swung as she shifted in her seat; her weighty upper arms flattened and spread against her sides, bulging over her elbows emphatically. She barely noticed the dessert - the cheese-based cream with its hint of rum or its carefully made cake underbelly - though that didn't stop her from eating it all.
“Your aunt wants me to take over overseeing all the restaurants,” she confided to her husband once they finally finished. “I still don't know what to tell her.”
“It's not a decision she makes lightly,” he said, “but she knows how much you've given to the restaurant in the last two years.”
“'Given'?” Glinda chuckled, and she indicated her gargantuan frame. “Looks to me like I've taken quite a lot!”
“It's been fifty-fifty,” Tony replied, and, as she thought of it, he was telling the truth.
“If I take on the responsibility,” she thought, “it'll mean my cutting back on some of Antonioni's fare. Do you think you can deal with the thought of other men feeding me?”
“I'll survive - as long as we still have dessert together.”
“You can count on that,” Glinda promised. She paused to consider the rest of her family, the sated fat women and men in the throes of post-meal afterglow, and licked her fulsome lips. “Wouldn't be surprised if this proved even more fattening in the long run.”
“And what do you think of that?”
“I think,” Glinda told her husband, “that everything I've done in the last two years has led to this point.”
“You're right,” Tony agreed. He patted her ballooning belly affectionately; its measure and the fortunes of the Meches' restaurant empire were now fully intertwined. From the look on his gorgeously fat wife's face, it was clear that the upcoming years were going to be prosperous ones. “Held back another serving of pandoro for later tonight,” he added. “If you're still up for it, we could have some at bedtime.”
Glinda looked into her husband's eyes. Though her stomach was swollen to its considerable limits, his words were sufficient to get her mouth watering.
“I'll be up for it,” she promised, and she settled back to digest all she'd received that night. Tony rose to oversee clean-up; off to the side she could hear Sofia chattering with Tammy Meches. If Tony's aunt was anything like her, she was feeling too stuffed to do anything more than sit and listen.
Tomorrow she'd call Tammy to discuss her new role as mistress of the family business. But for now all she wanted to do was sit and bask in the still potent atmosphere of familial well-being. She silently acknowledged each family member as they passed on their way out of the restaurant, feeling a sense of satisfaction from the full-fed looks of pleasure on each fat woman's face.
Tenderly touching her well-stuffed belly, Glinda thought about the night ahead. Beneath her glittery black party dress was a body made large by two years of family offerings and her willing acceptance of them. Full as she was, she still anticipated the moment when her appetite returned.
From experience, she knew that it wouldn't take too long.
Copyright (c) 2002 - Oakhaus Designs
