By Wilson Barbers
Elaine discovered the purse with her foot while she was
jogging through the Hedge Apple Woods. It was a misty Saturday morning, but
she'd refused to let the dampness keep her from her morning run. Break your
exercise routine just once, she knew - and that was the beginning of the end.
She was lucky she'd stepped so solidly on the bag: a few inches over and she would've fallen on her ass. As it was, Elaine skidded several inches on the woodchip-laden path. Panting, she stopped to regain her balance, put her hands on her knees and looked down at the treacherous handbag. A single drop of sweat fell from her forehead onto its snap button, where it mingled with the a.m. dew.
It was a small black purse: nothing fancy, just a simple leather clutch. A little out of place in that section of the city where joggers were more likely to strap on a back or fanny pack, but not too unusual. She looked around to see if its owner was anywhere in the vicinity. "Anybody missing a purse?" she shouted out, but the only response was the sound of a nearby grosbeak. She called again, then bent over to retrieve the lonely clutch. Its cover flipped open in her hand to reveal the owner's driver's license.
It took Elaine a moment to read the card through the purse's milky plastic window. When she did, she couldn't help giggling. The owner's married name was Lainie Prevost.
Prevost. Elaine's old high school boyfriend had been a Denny Prevost. She hadn't seen Den in well over a decade, but now that she examined the driver's license, she wouldn't be surprised to learn he was the gal's hubby. From the brightly lit photo, it was clear this gal was Denny's type: her face was round, full-cheeked and plentifully chinned. Her old high school flame had always shown a preference for the zaftig. Back when Elaine was a chubby teenager, he'd made that fact more than abundantly clear: whenever they'd gone out together, he pushed fattening treats her way. If they'd stayed together, she'd be a walking whale by now.
Or at least as fat as Lainie Prevost, eh? Looking at the stats on the woman's license, she saw the purse's owner was 5'8" (same height as her, actually) with a license weight of 548 pounds. That was four times Elaine's size!
"Not much chance you dropped this while jogging, eh, Toots?" she asked the woman in the photo. Perhaps the fat lady (also in her late twenties) had been purse snatched at the park-side Tastee Freeze? Had the thief dumped her bag in the woods, after siphoning out all the cash? She looked inside the purse's coin pocket and saw it was indeed empty. But at least the woman's license and credit cards were still in the wallet.
"Let's get you back home," Elaine decided and she turned to head back down the hedge apple path. From the address on the license, the purse's owner lived just a few short blocks away from the park. Might be kind of fun, meeting this Lainie Prevost. Wouldn't it be a kick if Miz Five Hundred Pounds was her old boyfriend's missus?
The sky brightened up as she left the tiny woods. As she stepped out into the sunlight, Elaine felt an unaccountable heaviness wash over her - as if she'd just finished running her usual route twice over. Her car was one soccer field and a playground away, but instead of jogging the distance, she decided to take it easy. The morning had turned sunny and beautiful, after all - why not enjoy it? Usually, she was too busy concentrating on keeping up her pace to appreciate her surroundings.
Strolling alongside the empty field, Elaine pondered the purse's owner. 548 pounds. Assuming the license weight was accurate (and how many of them were?), what did you have to do to become that obese? Back when she was a pudgy teen, Elaine had been sixty pounds bigger than her current weight. She hadn't been much for exercise back then - or restrained eating, for that matter - but even at her worst, she'd never budged beyond a size twenty. Living your life at over a quarter of a ton was just inconceivable to her.
She'd worked hard over the years to slim down to a size twelve and felt pretty good at that size. Not so thin as to lose any of her curves (her mother had always kept the same classic hourglass) but no longer forced to do all her shopping in the plus-sized ghetto either. Per current national stats, she knew, Elaine was smack dab in the American mean, though her 39" D bust was perhaps a tad more generous than necessary. Her jogging uniform - size L navy blue sweatpants, a red tank top, and a pair of running shoes purchased online - was neither too baggy nor too snug. When she wore it to the grocery store, she could count on snagging admiring glances from more than one straight guy. If she were any kind of an independent modern woman, that last probably wouldn't matter - but she had to admit it did.
She took yet another look at Lainie's license photo: on further examination, she decided that the woman could've been her fatter twin sister. Her full brown hair was apparently tied back and cut into bangs that framed her thoughtful looking forehead; her wide nose still had a trace of sharpness to it, while her mouth looked almost as small as Elaine's despite an extra fullness on the lower lips. Their green-blue eyes appeared to be the same color, but with colored contacts these days, who could tell for sure?
Shutting the purse once more, Elaine continued retracing her steps. The morning was growing warmer; she could definitely feel the sun on her face, feel the sweat as it rolled down her tank top cleavage. Pausing twice to stand and rest, it took her longer than usual to make it back to the playground and the park vending machines. Feeling hot and chafed, Elaine considered buying a diet pop to quench her thirst.
Her change, however, was in a coin holder back in the car. Maybe there was some silver in the bottom of the purse? Surely, Miz Prevost wouldn't begrudge her a five-minute loan? Tentatively, Elaine shook the handbag and was edified to hear a solid jingling sound that wasn't from the keys on her wristband. Reaching into the bag, she pulled out a handful of quarters and what looked to be a shredded paper coin roll.
"Hey, Mister Purse Snatcher, you missed some major coinage!" she chortled as she made her to the gazebo housing the park's candy and pop machines. She put in three quarters for a Diet Coke, but the machine was out, so she got a regular Cherry Coke in its place. As she popped the can and took her first sip, she idly considered the candy and granola bars on sale in the neighboring vending machine. She was feeling a little low on blood sugar - should she get a granola bar?
Dropping some quarters into the machine, she checked the numbers for a Quaker Oats bar, but before the code was entered, she impulsively punched in a bag of Peanut M&Ms instead. She hit the jackpot - instead of just one bag being pushed into the dispensing area, two fell within reach. After grabbing them both, Elaine sat on the edge of a nearby picnic table and started in on her morning snack. It'd been ages since she'd treated herself to some simple M&Ms. She'd missed them.
She made two more trips to the candy machine before finishing her pop and both times got more than she paid for: first, two bags of Cheddar Cheese Combos; second, a trio of Grandma's Big Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. The cookies she decided to just take back to the car with her - perhaps offer one to Lainie? - but as she ambled across the playground, they all found their way into her mouth. After dumping the empty wrappers into a trash can by the parking lot, she hiked her XL jogging pants and unlocked the car door. (Her sweats seemed to've slipped down her tummy while she'd been walking.) Tossing the recovered purse on the passenger seat, Elaine looked around for her own handbag but came up empty.
Her first thought was that the park's purse-snatcher had struck again, but then she remembered her car had been locked. Looked like she'd driven to the park with only her car keys. Better shoot home first, retrieve her license (she was pretty certain she'd never be able to convince a cop that Lainie's license was hers!) and then return the purse to Miz P. Backing out of the parking lot, Elaine chuckled over her absent-mindedness. A block from the park entrance, her eyes lit on a Dunkin' Donuts. "Has that always been there?" she asked herself out loud. Once more giving into impulse, she turned into the parking lot and carried the purse into the donut shop.
"Pay you back later," she told the bag, emptying all its quarters onto the counter. The amount tallied into enough for a large bag of jelly donuts plus a decaf coffee, heavy on the vanilla-flavored cream. "Getting some snacks for the office," she told the counter boy, forgetting it was a Saturday. Edging back into the driver's seat (after sliding her cotton sweat pants down a bit on her rounded paunch), she set the box on the passenger seat and propped it open. The next half hour was spent sitting in the parking lot, sipping coffee and savoring jelly donuts. Her favorites were the ones with the apple/cinnamon filling, but it was all good.
When she finished, she dumped the box and her Styrofoam cup in a trash car and once more started for home. Exiting the parking lot, though, she had to slam the brakes quickly when a yellow VW did a running stop at the nearby intersection. The squealing stop sent the purse to the floor, spilling all its contents. As she unlatched her seat belt and bent over to retrieve it, her full-size belly popped out of her blue XXL sweatpants. Within her sweats, the string was perilously close to snapping, but it still managed to hold on.
But what at first looked to be a scary near accident proved to be fortuitous, for lying on the mat was a fifty-dollar gift certificate to a local buffet. She recognized the name: Sinorak's. The place had been a local institution for decades. Picking up the gift cert, she almost imagined she could smell the heat tables. While she typically tried to keep away from all-you-can-eat joints, the thought of visiting one suddenly seemed irresistible.
"Okay," she promised Lainie, "so I'll make a stop at the ATM before I return your purse." Forgetting her earlier plan to return home, Elaine aimed her car for the far side of town. Though she'd only just finished her between meals pastry nosh, she was famished by the time she arrived at the restaurant.
Lunch hour was still forty minutes away, but the place still seemed to be doing pretty good business. She had to park several rows away from the entrance, but the walk'd do her good, she decided. Pulling herself together, unsuccessfully attempting to close the inch gap between her sweats and her clingy tank top (it kept crawling into the space beneath her DD breasts), "Lainie" prepared to take advantage of her gift cert.
First thing she saw - the woman was unavoidable, really - on entering the building was the restaurant's hostess. Seated behind a glass counter that had been moved twice (you could see the marks on the floor) to make room for her mega-sized belly, the woman sat placidly dining on a selection of plates covering the counter. She was gargantuan: within her floor-length brightly colored dress, you could see her enormous belly droop within inches of the floor; the width of her hips was several inches greater than her seated height. As she looked up from her well-stocked plate of chicken tetrazini, a jiggling wave moved within her dress.
"Good morning," the super-super-sized hostess puffed, after swallowing a healthy fork of breaded chicken breast. "Would you like a table or booth? Our booths, I should add, are plenty roomy."
"Whatever's free," Elaine told her, as she pulled the gift certification from her purse. "I have a gift cert for a meal. Should I show it now or wait until I leave?"
"Lainie, is it?" the hostess read, leaning over her voluminous belly. "Sure, I remember signing this 'un. Your husband bought it for you, no? He coming in today, too?"
Her answer was a trace too loud: "No!" She was tempted to just back right out of the restaurant, but that chicken dish just smelled so darn good . . . "Just came in by myself, feeling hungry."
"Well, you're at the right spot," the woman grinned, as she rang up lunch. The price only cut into a fraction of the gift cert. "If you go to the grill, tell them Patti sent you. They'll make sure you get an extra special cut of meat. You look like you'd enjoy it."
"I'm sure I will," Elaine answered, as she entered the restaurant proper and got her first full whiff of its many luscious offerings. She followed her waitress - a young chubbette who looked she could've been Lainie in high school - and was shown a table close to the grill.
"Didn't think you'd want to be too far from the action," the girl told her with a wink. As part of the offerings, you apparently could get your own lunch-sized ribeye, a burger or a chicken breast grilled to your liking. First thing "Lainie" did was scope out the buffet tables, grab a large glass of chocolate milk then load up on salad, wings, buttered buns and crab legs. Before she sat down to eat, though, she sidled up to the grill and ordered one of Patti's "special" ribeyes. Far be it for her to pass up the Specialty of the House.
As she started scooping her salad off her plate and into her hungry mouth, she watched the grill master bend down and pull out her steak. It was by no means a small lunch portion - but a beautifully marbled sixteen-ounce slab of beef. She could barely keep her eyes off it as it was grilled, though that didn't prevent her from finishing her opening course. She hurried back to the buffet tables to get two baked potatoes, filling four paper cups apiece with butter and sour cream.
Backing away from the buffet tables was difficult: it all looked so wonderful, she could've just stood there, happily filling plate with entree after entree. She got back to her table in time for her steak to be lifted off the grill, though. As she was handed her platter, she ordered one of Sinorak's "special" burgers. The grill man grinned and nodded as if he'd been expecting this.
From that point on, "Lainie" was lost in her meal. Seated at her table, an ever-rising pile of empty plates stacked across from her, she luxuriated in the honest pleasure of dining. As she ate, she grew attuned to the gradations of flavor within each piece of meat: the way the ribbons of fat momentarily blanked out the juices within the cut of her ribeye, the small layer of dryness encapsulating a well-grilled chicken breast. When she'd been a young fat girl, the act of overeating had been as rote to her as jogging to a habitual exerciser. This was different; this was magical.
She didn't just rely on the grill, of course, for her gift cert meal: regularly, she hefted herself from her chair and waddled back to the buffet tables. She was glad the waitress had seated her so close to it all. Chicken tetrazini, meat and vegetarian lasagna, barbecue rib tips, two plates of self-made soft-shell tacos, bratwurst, scalloped potatoes, cauliflower in cheese sauce - they all vied for her gluttonous attention and received it. After more than one trip to the fountain, she filled a pitcher with chocolate milk and replenished it more than once. She also sampled every item on the dessert table. She was made for buffet dining - and Sinorak's fare was preternaturally good.
It was close to dinner hour when Lainie finally decided to call it quits. A whole new crowd had begun trickling into the smorgasbord: fat and hungry Midwesterners, primarily, though few of them were as huge as her.
At 648 pounds, it took time for Lainie to make it back to the exit: lugging her burdensome forefront across the room was not a task for the easily daunted, though, of course, she was used to it. With a waistline close to eighty inches, there was a lot of belly to navigate, and she was regularly forced to stop and pull her supersize 8X sweats up to keep from revealing too much belly roll. She didn't regret her size - it gave her freedom to be the way she wanted, after all - but there were times she wished she could motor-vate herself a bit more expeditiously. Moving at her circus fat lady's pace forced her to regularly stop and smell the chicken tetrazini, though, so she couldn't much complain. Every path you chose in life had its plus and minuses.
Still, she sighed - catching her breath as she reached the still-noshing Patti - she wished she hadn't parked so far away from the entrance. Just the act of trudging to the exit had her feeling as parched as a jogger at the end of a two-mile run.
"Enjoy your gift certificate?" the hostess inquired, holding out a bowl of York Peppermint Patties. Lainie took a handful and dropped all but one into her purse. This she unwrapped and popped into her mouth.
"Very much," she huffed, pulling a pack of hand towels out to wipe her glistening forehead and her exposed cleavage. She patted her belly happily for emphasis. Her faded blue sweats, which had grown a trifle thin and pilled over time, especially on her inner thighs, showed off every quiver in her pendulous breasts and heavily drooping belly. The gap between her snug sleeveless red top (with upper arms as large as hers, she needed special fitting to wear even short sleeves) had re-emerged, but Lainie didn't feel the least bit self-conscious about it in front of Patti. The super-sized hostess had to be familiar with the ways a body their size could move on its own. "I'll definitely be back."
"Bring your husband," Patti encouraged, as her new buffet regular heavily swayed through the extra-wide exit. "He looked like he'd enjoy a good meal!"
"Will do!" Lainie panted as she stepped out into the parking lot.
Happily, her mini-van wasn't as far from the restaurant as she'd remembered. Worn out from her walk to the handicap space, she collapsed in the driver's seat, after first pushing her adjustable steering wheel tiller to make room for her looming lower belly (it swelled far beyond the edge of her seat). The extra-large cup holder had a half-bottle of cherry flavored Gatorade, which she quickly emptied before blindly reaching into one of the grocery bags waiting on the back floor.
She found she'd grabbed a bag of Oreo's Double Stuff, enough to give her the drive to make it back home. Her sweats felt tight after her afternoon meal, so she pulled then down to free her ballooning belly. Outside her much-stretched elastic waistband, Lainie's paunch spilled forward even further, forcing her thighs apart and once more asking to be fed. She finished off a row of Oreo's before she started the ignition.
Her husband was waiting for her back home. Once a month, they spent the day apart from each other - just to see what kind of person they could be on their own. They'd been a duo, after all, since high school. You needed an occasional break from the couple's thing - a chance to put yourself in someone else's place, at least for a morning. So she'd driven to Soya City Park, grabbed a picnic table under the gazebo, and pondered the morning joggers as they each hit the wood chip trail. What possessed these folks to get up on a perfectly fine weekend morning to spend their time speeding through a spot that was made to be more leisurely appreciated? She didn't have a clue.
She remembered watching one girl as she'd set out on her morning jog. Lainie had tried to mentally put herself in the girl's running shoes, but had only been half-heartedly successful. At heart, she was too happy with her own life to want to be anyone else. She suspected that the girl would've had as much trouble placing herself in Lainie's comfortable flats.
Oh well, she sighed. At least the park vending machines were generous . . .
Denny was on the back porch when she arrived home, tending to the propane grill, a "Kiss the B-B-Q-er" apron wrapped around his sixty-inch bay window. Weekdays, Lainie spent in the house, playing in the kitchen and working on their multiply coursed evening supper. On weekends, it was her hubby's turn to show what he could do. She liked to sit back and watch her handsome spouse - after a day away, she loved her time spent with him even more.
"Have a good day out?" Denny asked from the porch as she carted in her grocery bag of treats.
"That I did, sweetie," Lainie replied. Toddling over to her husband's side, she kissed him on the side of his face. Her exposed belly felt a shock of cold from the spatula in his hand. Looked like Den was grilling a couple of plump Cornish hens - and had some sirloin burgers waiting on the sidelines. Though she'd just come back from using her gift cert, she still felt her mouth watering as she anticipated her husband's cooking. What could she say? She had a healthy appetite. "Got to visit that buffet you've always been raving about!"
"And?"
"May not measure up to your grilling, but I found enough to fill me up," she grinned, settling down on a well-padded reinforced deck chair with the rest of her Oreos. Her tired legs thanked her for the relief. "Couldn't help wondering, though, if your love for the place didn't have as much to do with its super-sized hostess as it did the quality of the food!"
"That stings," Denny said. "You know you're the only one for me!"
"I do," Lainie sighed happily, and she lay back to rest and wait for dinner. The smell of the charcoal piqued her appetite even further. Perhaps they could do a Tastee Freeze run after dinner, she thought. "I enjoyed your gift cert, but I almost didn't get a chance to use it," she suddenly remembered. "Had a moment in the park when I thought I'd lost my purse!"
"You did? How'd that happen?"
"Not sure," Lainie answered, trying to retrieve the moment and unaccountably failing. All she could visualize now was the buffet at Sinorak's - and that pitifully frail girl in the jogging outfit. She lifted her top, unsnapped her too-tight 78I bra and emptied the last of her cookies onto her shelving belly. "Not important," she decided. "All it tells me is I've got to get a bigger purse."
"Alrighty," her husband said, as he placed the first of their burgers onto the grill. Lying with her naked belly mounding above her, cookie crumbs dappling her pale flesh, fulsome cheeks quavering as she ate the last of her Oreos, she looked the picture of well-nourished contentment. At the rate she was eating and gaining, Lainie would be hitting seven hundred pounds soon, but he didn't think it would keep her from her monthly excursions. They were too important to them both.
"So what'd you pick today?" he finally asked.
"A jogger," Lainie told him. "Never could see myself as one of those women, so I thought I'd temporarily try one. Didn't take, though. Got too hungry, of course." She chomped down on her final cookie to make the point, then brushed the crumbs off her voluminous stomach. They flew to the floor like wood chips being kicked up on a jogging path.
"I sure am glad of that," Denny said. "I like you just as you are."
"I know you do, darling," Lainie smiled. "How long 'til dinner?"
"Almost ready," Denny reassured his hungry love. As he flipped his first sirloin burger, he made a note to stop and buy his wife a new purse on the way back from work Monday. One, he thought, with a compartment large enough to hold a fuller array of snacks.
Copyright (c) 2006/7 - OakHaus Designs
