Chapter 12


The first thing I did after I got into my house and heard Andy's car zoom away was to take off all my clothes and run right into the swimming pool. The water was cold and bracing as I swam the length of the pool under water. When I emerged, breathless, at the other end, I felt awake and alive -- as if I'd been reborn into a strange and enchanted world. The sunlight was glistening on my barely brown skin, sparkling on the rise of my full belly, my swollen boobs, my soft shoulders, my black hair. I heard music welling up in my ears and I nearly burst into song until I took a look around and started laughing over the absurdity of the situation -- a plump naked girl belting out a version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from the middle of her suburban swimming pool.

I grabbed a towel which one of my nieces had left lying over a chair yesterday afternoon -- my god! was it only yesterday? -- wrapped myself in it and walked inside. My full belly and boobs were bobbing with my gait, the soft blubber of my ass and thighs was jiggling, and I could feel a little vibration in the rolls which were beginning to form around my thickening waist.

I wanted to see everything different and new, so I walked through the house backwards, climbed the stairs backwards, then threw myself backwards across my bed so my head was hanging off the edge and I was looking at my room upside-down. The carpet was my ceiling and the ceiling was the floor, my breasts hung nearly to my face and a drip of water collected on my nipple then slowly grew and ripened and dropped onto the bottom of my outstretched tongue; my hands roamed across my stomach and my poor, sore pussy while the blood rushed to my head.

I was getting dizzy and fishies and sparkles were dancing before my eyes, but here was something half exposed beneath the bedskirts which caught my attention; I rolled onto my stomach and pulled Jess's panties from under the bed. They were mint green and high-waisted with high-cut legs and a lace panel. She must've left them there when she stayed over the previous night. I held them up and turned them around. They were so much bigger than my own panties, softer and older, too; they felt as smooth as skin when I rubbed them across my cheek and they smelled warm and earthy, reminding me of the taste I had had of her just the other night.

Standing up, I pulled her panties over my legs, feeling how loose they were, testing the waistband, puffing my belly out as far as it would go and realizing just how much bigger than me she was. I wanted to be as fat as Jess, I realized; I wanted to know what it would feel like to fill those panties, to be covered and enveloped in all that flesh, to feel my thighs spread out on a hard wooden chair while my belly rolls into my lap. In the corner of the room, I spotted a Lacy's shopping bag and realized that Jess must've left her clothes here, expecting to come back that night; there were jeans and stretch pants and a t-shirt. In a near frenzy, I pulled on Jess's stretchies over her underpants, grabbed the pillow from my bed and stuck it down the front of the pants, then pulled the t-shirt down over it. I looked at myself in the mirror, and realized that, while my belly was big and round, I looked like a pregnant woman who'd gained only the baby's weight; my side view showed that I had a flat butt and droopy drawers. From the linen closet, I grabbed a pile of towels of different sizes, and started stuffing them inside my clothes, sculpting curves and rolls and bulges, giving myself an enormously wide butt, thighs like tree-trunks, and a Santa Claus belly. I was walking around the house, huffing and puffing from the effort of moving with all that bulk, stopping and looking at myself in every reflection, and wishing that all that mass was really part of me.

There was a wall mirror hanging in the family room, which I took down and set up on the kitchen floor, so I could see my enormous ass as I bent over to look in the refrigerator. I was very hot from being swaddled in all those layers of cloth, and although I wasn't truly hungry, the thought of cold, creamy ice cream and how it would help me to make myself fatter was getting me very excited. Watching myself in the mirror, I stuck a spoon into a half-gallon carton of Cookie Dough ice cream and began eating, rubbing my artificial belly and watching myself in the mirror. Before I knew it, half the carton was gone and I imagined I could see a change in my profile -- that the ice cream I'd eaten had actually made my simulated belly bigger. Despite the ice cream, the temperature inside the stretch-pants was building and I could feel a trickle of sweat dripping down my cleavage; my crotch seemed to be pulsing and throbbing from the heat. I reached under the pillow belly to rearrange things and the coldness of my hand against my skin made me shudder with pleasure. I ate some more ice cream, then wriggled out of my fat suit, leaving my bulges and rolls in a pile of laundry on the floor and began inspecting my naked body in the mirror.

I wasn't nearly as big as I'd been a moment ago, but the changes in my body over the past week were very apparent and very exciting. My boobs seemed fuller; my thighs were squashed against one another even when my feet weren't together; my hips were more rounded, ending in the beginnings of a fold where they met my love-handles; the creases under my rear end were deeper and flatter, my belly bulged out as far as my boobs, and if it hadn't been distended with the almost-finished ice cream, it might have even begun to show a crease over my pubic hair. I held the box of ice cream in my hand, watching my cheeks bulge out as I forced myself to greedily devour the last melting spoonful, watching the indentations made by my hand as it coldly explored the soft flesh of my gorged stomach, then watching as I plunged my frozen fingers deep inside my hot and humid vagina. The cold of my skin was a weather front advancing through me and when it met my hot internal atmosphere, it set off a storm, raging with intensity, uprooting mind and body, and leaving me shivering on the shores and twitching on the towels piled on my kitchen floor.





I must've fallen asleep there for who-knows-how-long, the empty ice cream carton next to me, clothes and towels strewn about; the phone on the wall was ringing, and as I stood up to answer it, I realized that I was completely stuffed -- my belly was amazingly distended, and felt like it needed my hand to support its weight.

Jess was on the line. "So, when're you coming over?" I asked. "Well, I figured I'd come pick up my stuff in about half an hour." I was a little surprised and detected a note of reserve and coolness in her voice. "Is everything okay?" I asked. "My parents won't be home until tomorrow -- I figured you'd be staying over." "Yeah... well... I've got some stuff to do, so..." I was a little dense at first, but it hit me soon enough -- she was jealous! "Jess, you're being silly. I love you. We have a lot to talk about." "I'll see..." she said and we hung up.

I gathered up the clothes and the towels and carried them back upstairs, mentally kicking myself for not realizing that she would be jealous and hurt and too proud and upset to admit it. How could I not have realized? What could I do about it? I knew in my heart that I loved her and had ever since we were children; I also knew that Andy was going to be someone important in my life. Would I have to choose? Would I have to lie to one of them or both of them? Could I make myself live two lives, become compartmentalized, a different person with each of them? Was there another option?

I showered quickly and dressed in a bikini and a t-shirt, fixed myself a cup of coffee, turned on the stereo and waited in the living room for Jess to arrive. She showed up just on time, and walked in without knocking, the way she always did. It was a good hair day for her, and her copper tresses shimmered and glinted in the bright sunlight. She was wearing a pair of loose olive rayon shorts, a low-cut white sleeveless shirt under an African patterned camp shirt, all of which served to emphasize her bountiful, voluptuous shape. "You look beautiful, today," I said. She gave a quick, forced smile and said, "Thanks. My stuff upstairs?" I nodded and followed her up the stairs to my bedroom.

I sat down on the bed, saying, "Jess, can we talk a minute?" "What about?" she asked. "About me and you." "Why, things didn't work out between you and Andy?" I was surprised at the sarcastic tone she took, but I resolved to keep calm. "Things worked out fine between me and him. But that's something separate from me and you."

She stared directly at me for a second, saying nothing, but I could tell that she was fighting to keep her composure, then she sat down hard on the bed and looked at the carpet. "Do you know what I did last night?" she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she pulled her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear, and continued. "I was happy for you at first -- all naive and innocent, thinking, Isn't it great that Melanie has finally found a guy good enough for her! So, I sat in my room, watched a movie and ate a two-pound box of sandwich cookies. At first, it was fun -- I was rubbing my belly and then later on my pussy, and thinking about you and the last couple of days. Thinking about how we'd eaten way too much and made love way too much and had more fun than I could've imagined possible. I thought about making love to you with my mouth and my tongue and you making love to me the same way... I thought about how I'd felt comfortable with my body -- for probably the first time in my life -- and how beautiful I found your body, and how excited I was when you touched me or I touched you, how wonderful and soft we felt, how our flesh seemed to melt together and make us one indescribably joyous creature...

"And then, I started thinking about what you were doing at that moment, and I started picturing you and him, laughing and eating and making love. I pictured the two of you feeding each other some exotic dinner, and him licking drops of champagne from your breasts -- and I realized that I was nothing special, just another lover, and that all the years we'd been friends meant nothing anymore because we'd been to bed together... I was angry at you for betraying me, and angry at myself for letting myself be betrayed. I've hated myself for so long, and when I finally thought I'd found the path to loving myself..."

Her voice broke in a fit of sobs; I didn't know what to say. I was crying and she was crying; I put my arm around her and pulled her head to my shoulder and held her and rocked her and felt the tears streaming down my face and disappearing in her fiery hair. "I love you, Jess. Just like I always have. Nothing's changed. You've always been the most important person in the world to me, and now we've found a new way to love each other. Nobody is going to stop us or come between us. It's not a difficult choice..."

"Stop it, Melanie," she said, sitting up and removing my arm form her shoulder. "I don't want to make you make choices. I don't want you to give up someone or something important to you because of me. I don't want you to protect me and my feelings. I... I don't know what I want..."

"Well, I know what I want," I said. "I want the same things I've always wanted -- to meet someone I can love and live with forever and to always have you as my friend. I've had relationships before, Jess -- lots of them -- and they've never affected our relationship..." "But, WE'VE never been lovers before," she said. "So, does that mean that our friendship before was something less? That all of a sudden NOW our relationship is important because we've had sex? That a couple of nights of beautiful, caring lovemaking should outweigh 20 years of beautiful, caring friendship? It doesn't to me. It just adds one more dimension to the love I feel -- I've always felt -- for you." She didn't say anything for a minute, just stared at the carpet, then, very quietly and haltingly, she said, "I just... I hope... I hope you won't drop me when things start to happen between you and Andy or whoever... I couldn't take that... I can't let that happen to me..."

"Jess," I said, touching her hand gently, "I couldn't take that either, and I wouldn't. That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about... Why don't you go wash your face and I'll fix us a cup of coffee and I'll tell you about last night and about where we're going this weekend." She tried to get me to say more, but I just patted her gently on her soft butt and sent her off to touch up the mascara that'd started running down her cheeks.

When she came down, I was sitting at the table and over coffee, I told her all about my date with Andrew Sansome -- his car, his clothes, the restaurant, the celebrities, Zake and Mara (I couldn't tell her everything about Mara, though), about the huge dinner and dessert, about what I did to Andy right in the restaurant, about Vix Sartor, about Andy's hush-hush affair with Vix, about our drive to his house and the lovemaking and the morning after. She listened like a child listens to a fairytale, and I realized that I WAS telling a fairytale -- only this one was true! "And then," I said, "when we pulled up to my house, he asked me if I wanted to go to Paris with him tonight and I said, No." "Why? Why would you say no?" "I'm not sure," I said. "Maybe to play a hard-to-get game or something... I'm not sure. But he wasn't daunted -- he said he was going to Miami for some business on Friday night and staying until Sunday afternoon, and would I go with him there. So, I said yes."

"You said yes to Miami but no to Paris... I thought you were supposed to be so smart!" "I am smart," I said. "Because I said I'd go with him to Miami, but that I was supposed to go to Miami with you this summer, and that I couldn't possibly disappoint you like that by going without you. He thought about it for half-a-second, then he asked if I thought you'd like to come, too." "Oh, for what?" she said. "If he's expecting some ridiculous kinky threesome thing, forget it..." "No, he's not like that at all," I said. "He's got meetings to go to and stuff, and if I went all alone, I'd be sitting alone in the suite for most of the day, bored out of my mind. Instead, we've got each other! And the sun, and the beach, and no worries! Sounds like paradise, doesn't it?" She thought for a second, then said, with a huge smile on her face, "Yeah, but why couldn't you have worked out this same deal for Paris?"

We laughed a long, tension-breaking laugh, and our laughing somehow turned into a hug and the hug into a kiss, and the kiss into a hot passionate embrace, which would have kept growing and evolving if it hadn't been interrupted by the telephone. "Are you going to answer it?"Jess asked, nibbling on my lower lip. "No," I said, "Let the answering machine get it." "You can't," she said, picking it up off the hook and handing it to me, "it could be him." I took the receiver from her and said, "Hello?" Jess leaned her face up against mine so she could hear the conversation.

My mother's voice -- a caricature of a Jewish mother's voice -- was on the other end. "So what's the matter? I'm thinking you've been whisked off to Hollywood with Mr. Dreamboat and not even a call for your mother. I told you to call first thing this morning..." "Well, I didn't want to make any long-distance calls from his house." "Oh, so Miss E-Z-Off-Panties goes to bed with a man on the first date. Did you hear that Steven? Your daughter goes to bed with men she hardly knows." My father grunted in the background ignoring my mother and responding to her at the same time. "So, did he at least wear a condom? Was he good? Is it true what they say about these gorgeous superstar models with their little bitty things?" I was laughing and blushing, and Jess was sputtering into her hand which was covering her mouth. "Ma!" I said. "Daddy's right there!" "So? Your father doesn't know from anything. Every once in a while I have to hold a mirror up to his mouth to make sure he's still among the living."

I gave her the edited version of the date, assured her that his "thing" was a very healthy size, listened to some of her complaints about my father and told her that I was going to Miami with Andy over the weekend and that Jess was coming, too. "Are the two of you going to share him, Jess?" my mother asked. We were surprised and Jess asked how she knew Jess was there. "Easy," she said. "I hear this echo when Melanie's talking, and it's either my daughter has suddenly got more air in her head than I thought, or someone else is listening. And although my daughter will share a bed with anyone, that doesn't mean she'll share any real intimacy with anyone -- such as a phone call to her mother -- and the only one she's joined at the hip to is my other daughter Jess..."

We finished up the phone call a moment later, and found ourselves once again sharing intimacy which my mother would never have imagined...