Chapter 13


When my mother tried to wake me on Tuesday morning, I was naked under the covers and in the middle of a vivid dream. I was seeing Jess, naked, with her belly swollen to the size it would be if she were 24 months pregnant, and all around her on a beautiful, sandy beach were throngs of men and women, all clamoring for her attention, all carrying plates and trays and platters, piled high with delicious foods. She took their offerings and ate them hungrily, her belly growing larger all the time, until she was so large that her belly encompassed the entire beach, and I was walking across her vast stomach, my feet sinking up to my thighs in her soft flesh.

My mother shook me again, and with a start, I realized that my right hand was massaging my swollen belly, while my left hand was busy deep inside my pussy. "What time is it?" I asked, feeling like it was very early, still disoriented from the dream and from last night's over-indulgences. "It's 8:00," my mother answered, "and there's someone on the phone for you." "At 8:00? Who?" "Well," she said, teasingly, "I think it was... Randy. Or maybe it was... Sandy. Or could it have been..." I grabbed the portable phone from her hand, sat up, and said, "Hi, Andy! Where are you?"

"In Paris, yet," he answered. "I'll be home on Thursday. I was wondering if you'd asked your mate if she wanted to go to Florida with us. Reservations, you know..." "Absolutely," I said. "She loves the idea." "Terrific. I'll get the suite, then, and I'll have a car pick the two of you up on Friday around three. All right?" "I can't wait," I said. "Neither can I," he answered. "And, by the way... I hope you don't mind, but Mara asked for your phone -- said she thought the two of you might strike up a friendship. She said she'd ring you today... I wasn't too presumptuous, was I?" "No," I said. "She seemed to be a pretty interesting person. We'll see how it goes..." "Fantastic, he said. "Then I'll ring off and see you on Friday."

"So?" my mother said as I hit the off button. "So, nothing. He just wanted to know if Jess was going to Florida with us." "And?" "And I told him of course she was." "Honestly," she said, "I don't know how you expect to start a relationship with him if you have Jess around all the time." "Pleeeeease," I said, "Let me handle my life, okay?" I stood up and walked, naked, over to get my bathrobe from the closet; when I turned around, my mother was shaking her head. "Honestly, Melanie! What are you doing to yourself? You had a cute little shape and now you're just letting it all go. Ordering thirds at the restaurant last night... then getting dessert! Don't let yourself get like your sister -- or me -- please!"

I put my bathrobe on and walked over to her. "Don't worry about me, Mom -- I know what I'm doing." "I hope you do." She got up and opened the door and then turned around, saying, "I'm going to Waist Watchers on Thursday -- I'm going to start again -- if you want to come with me..." "Well, that would kind of be self-defeating, since I'm going on vacation on Friday..." "Come anyway," she said. "It would help me." I agreed, and then headed into the bathroom.

Saturday had been the last time I'd weighed myself, preferring to see big leaps of progress, and sure enough, I got one: 173 pounds! There was still a very big dinner in my swollen belly, so I wasn't sure how much of that was a permanent part of me, but I did know that when I went to Robin's party a little more than a week ago and met Andy, I had weighed 157 pounds. It had been a week-and-a-half of self-discovery and self-feeding and it showed in the roundness of my belly, the slight droop of my buns, the way my thighs rubbed together, the heaviness of my boobs in my hands, the way my belly-button was a deep black hole, and the slight softness around my jaw. It also showed in my new necessity-formed habit of wearing my jeans unbuttoned, and my inability to spend more than five minutes without putting food in my mouth or my hand down my pants.

Although I certainly wasn't wearing any pants in the shower, my hand would've been down them if I had been wearing any. I was in another world, so, I was a little surprised when the bathroom door opened a crack and my mother said that someone named Mara was on the phone. I was just about done showering, so I asked her to bring the phone into the bathroom, quickly dried my self and picked up the handset. "Am I talking to a naked person?" she asked. "A wet and naked person," I said. "Oooh. I love wet and naked people. Would you like to get wet and nearly naked with me?" "I'm not sure that would be a good idea," I said. "But you don't really know what the idea is," she said. "Enlighten me, then" I answered.

She laughed a sparkly laugh, and said, "Zake's teaching a seminar, Andy's in Paris, and I'm looking for a new friend to accompany me for the day on a trip to our house on our own private beach, where I'm sure you can soak up a quick and preliminary tan before your journey to Miami on Friday. How's that for enlightenment?" I had to laugh, too. "It sounds very enlightening," I said, "and despite my first instincts, I'd love to go." "Good," she said, because I'm turning onto your block right now and I'm hoping to get a glimpse of that wet and naked body through some upstairs window, right... about... now." I ran to the window of my bedroom just in time to see a car pulling up to the curb, Mara getting out, phone still in hand, and looking up to where I was striking a pose in front of the glass.

"Should I just walk in and come upstairs?" she asked. "No, my mom's home, so be civilized and knock and I'll be down in a minute." I heard the doorbell ring as I was pulling on the white string bikini which was even tighter than it'd had been on Saturday. The knots Jess had tied at the waist were like a tourniquet and I was struggling with them when there was a knock at my bedroom door, which opened a crack -- just enough to show Mara's curly hair and one blue eye. One hip-bow was tied and the other was untied, the top was knotted around the neck but not around the back, leaving the bikini barely attached to me. "I think you need some help," she said, coming all the way into the room. "I think I need a new bikini," I said. "Why? This one'll look lovely once we stuff you into it." Which she proceeded to do, tying knots, adjusting here and tugging there, then standing back and saying "Yummy!" I looked at her, in a long, natural-color linen jumper over a low-cut white tank-top, her strawberry-blonde hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, a light, golden tan glowing on her round cheeks, and I said "Yummy!", too.

"Well, now that we've properly admired one another, why don't we get this show on the road. It's about an hour-and-a-half to the beach, so... chop-chop. I brought some snacks, so you don't have to worry about breakfast. I'm sure Andy wouldn't want you to miss any meals..." I looked at her questioningly, but she just smiled, patted me on the meatiest part of my butt, and said, "Come on already!"

I blew my mother a kiss, telling her I didn't know when I'd be back, and was sucked along in Mara's wake out to the little red BMW convertible parked in front of the house. She drove very fast and seemingly recklessly, but always in control. I was as terrified at first of her driving as Jess is of mine, but I quickly realized that she was very competent and very comfortable in the car, and I forgot about the near-death experiences that were occurring around us. We were on the highway in record time and when I asked where we were going, she told me that they had a place in Montauk. "But that's more like two-and-a-half hours away," I said. "Not with Mara Andretti at the wheel," she answered. "There's a white bag in the back seat that's got some fresh croissants and a thermos of coffee, so help yourself and don't forget about your starving driver."

After we had plowed our way through half-a-dozen of the flaky butter pastries, slathered in even more butter, I stopped chewing long enough to ask if she'd made them. "Well, it's not that I couldn't or wouldn't, it's just that getting up at 6:00 in the morning to do something that the bakery does just as well as I do seems a little silly, don't you think?" I agreed, and settled back in the seat, letting the wind knot up my hair and studying the soft golden outlines of Mara's face. We chatted about everything and nothing for the rest of the ride, giggling like little girls, touching each other's shoulders or thighs for emphasis, finishing off the rest of the croissants and the box of lace cookies. When we pulled up at the house, it seemed like we'd known each other forever.

Mara went to the bathroom after we brought the cooler into the house ; it was glowing softly inside from the bright sunlight diffused through linen curtains. It smelled of cedar and salt-air and slow summer afternoons, and I could feel my body slipping into that generous pace. She emerged from the soft shadows a moment later wearing a yellow bikini which fit her as well as mine fit me. I was staring and she did a little pirouette for me, showing off the wonderfully complex patterns of cellulite on her massive thighs and wide butt. She ran her hands down her sides, squeezing the flesh into a wave, then finished by placing her hands under the ample bulge of her stretch-marked belly, lifting it and letting it drop. She licked her finger, reached out to touch me just underneath my bikini-top, and ran her finger slowly down into my belly-button. Then, with the same finger, she motioned me to follow her outside. Watching the sensual roll of her flesh, I don't think I could have avoided following her.

We got out to the beach which was white and hot and empty, laid out an enormous blanket, pitched an umbrella, and Mara began to oil me up. Her hands were firm and gentle at the same time, massaging the oil into the soft flesh of my back.

"You're dying to ask me why I think or how I know that Andy wants you to eat, right?" she said after a few moments of quiet stroking and kneading. "Well..." I said.

"There's a story that Z told me about when he and Andy were kids back in New Zealand, and Andy's family had a maid --" "A Polynesian girl named Missy, right?" "You know about this? I didn't think he'd ever told... You must be pretty special." "Well, I thought that was obvious," I said haughtily. "Well, seeing you all cute and chubby, and with that incredible appetite, and the way Andy just couldn't keep his hands off of you the other night and the way you couldn't keep your appetite confined to the edibles on the table... I just put two and two together and..."

"What do you think about it?" I asked. "Is it really strange? Is it fucked up? Is it weird that I'm getting all hot and bothered by eating and getting fat? I've put on about 15 pounds in the last week-and-a-half!"

She finished oiling the backs of my thighs and calves, and then she motioned that I should oil her back. I straddled her on my knees, my pussy resting on the cushion of her big butt, my thighs stretched far apart, my fingers sinking into her pliant flesh. She moaned gently a couple of times, relaxing into my touch. When I had finished anointing her, I pulled down her bikini bottom and gave a quick little kiss to each of her tremendous cheeks, then climbed off and laid down next to her. "Let me tell you a story," she said, "that'll answer your question. "

"When I was 14, I weighed 200 pounds and I didn't really care -- I liked to eat. Everyone around me was thin, though -- my mother, my father, my friends, my classmates -- and I was a whale. My mother used to alternately berate me, telling me that I'd never get anywhere in life being a fat pig or she'd cry, wondering where she'd failed -- but nothing stopped me from taking seconds or thirds at dinner or spending my allowance at the Dippin' Donuts. In high school, people started treating me differently -- suddenly, I wasn't just a person who was fat, instead, all I was was FAT. I had a few friends, but no boyfriends, no dates. I got a job at the ice cream store, worked on the school newspaper, did really well in my classes. By the time I was going into eleventh grade, I was very close to 300 pounds, and I was starting to blame all of my problems on being fat. I started to look in the mirror and see myself the way I imagined everyone else saw me -- as a mound of excess adipose tissue, ugly and unlovable. I started to think that if I was only thin, everything would be great, and I determined that I'd get thin no matter what it took.

"Well, what it took was pills. Someone told me about a diet doctor who was very loose with the prescriptions. I went to see him, and he gave me a prescription for amphetamines; as soon as I started popping them, the weight started melting away. My parents died in a car crash that year and somehow, I blamed my fat for doing it -- don't ask why, because all I can remember was that through some convoluted logic, I knew I'd caused it. I went to live with my aunt and uncle who were both overweight, and I treated them with disdain because of their size, focusing only on losing weight. By the time high school graduation came around, I was down to 160 pounds and I wore a size 14 dress. I was also anemic, undernourished and severely addicted to uppers.

"I'd been accepted to the Ivy League and I went away to school with a big bottle of pills. I did okay at first, but I was more concerned with my weight than with my schoolwork. I doubled up on the pills and started taking tranquilizers just so I'd be able to sleep at night. I was also drinking, and smoking pot and doing coke -- putting anything into my mouth except food. I started missing my classes, missing tests, missing homeworks. I wasn't eating at all, so I was terribly weak and always sick; I even started losing some hair. Then after one particularly excessive party, I wound up in the hospital listed as a drug overdose. I weighed 108 pounds.

"The school gave me an involuntary leave of absence, telling me I could only come back after I'd been in a drug rehab program. My aunt and uncle were horrified, but they helped me find a program which I left after two weeks because I'd gained three pounds. That's when they kicked me out. A 'Tough Love' kind of thing.

"I bounced around from friend's apartment to friend's apartment, staying as long as they could stand me -- which wasn't usually too long, since the drugs were making me nasty and intolerable. Finally, I wound up moving into New York City with this guy who I only really knew as a drug connection. I had no money, no job, no pride, no nothing except an addiction, so I fucked him as payment. Occasionally, I fucked his friends, and sometimes I fucked people he owed money to. I slept during the daytime and I got high at night, often waking up in places I had no memory of coming to.

"That's how I found this one building in NoHo after almost a year-and-a-half of being on the street. It'd been abandoned for a while, but someone was renovating it very slowly. The top two floors were totally empty and no one seemed to want to come up there, so I started crashing there during the day when I was starting to get the idea that this wasn't the life I wanted. They'd turned on the water for the construction, so I was able to use the bathroom and sometimes I'd wake up caring enough to wash my face. Some of the construction guys saw me, but no one bothered with me -- I figured that if they did, I'd offer to fuck them, too.

"Then, one morning, I was woken up by these two guys I hadn't run into before. One of them, I realized, was Andy Sansome -- I knew his face from the posters on the bus shelters -- but the other one was this very fat man, who had the friendliest face I'd ever seen. His eyes really twinkled with this mixture of love and intelligence and humor -- everything I'd always ascribed to someone like Santa Claus. He was smiling at me for some strange reason -- Lord knows I looked like shit. He turned to Andy and said, 'Looks like I've a boarder. And what a bad reflection on this boarding house that I'd leave a guest to starve to death.' He took me by the arm and helped me up, and I think I realized for the first time when I looked at my little twig of an arm in his great hands, just what had happened to me.

"All the toughness I'd built up from my time in the gutters, just melted away for some reason, and I started crying uncontrollably. He hugged me -- a filthy, smelly, anorectic, homeless drug addict who he had never seen before -- against that huge, soft belly of his and I just melted into him..."