Chapter 14


Mara took a break from telling me her story; she was lying on her back and I could see her eyes glistening with tears as she was transported back to the first moment she'd met Zake. A warm, salty breeze was blowing in off the ocean and I could see it moving through the fine, silky hairs on her soft golden thighs. One of her hands was behind her head, hidden in the tangle of strawberry-blonde curls, the other was absent-mindedly stroking the tender skin of her round belly. And, just above the waistband of her too-tight bikini bottoms, a few curls of golden pubic hair had grabbed my attention.

I imagined my hand finding its way over the soft, hot skin of her stomach mound, then tentatively -- just my fingertips at first -- slipping under the fabric and into a dense jungle of firm yet gentle fur. My fingers would continue deeper into her privacy, probing for a hint of heat and moistness...

She rolled over on her side, just then, her blubbery belly adapting to gravity's demands and flattening out on the blanket. "Pretty sad story, huh?" she asked. "I have the feeling it gets much happier, though," I answered. "Yes, MUCH happier! But, you've gotta let me know if I'm boring you... okay?" "I don't think that's going to happen," I said, "but if it does I'll make sure I let you know." "Okay, well let's grab a snack out of the cooler and I'll keep going with the Saga of Mara." So, even though it wasn't yet noon, we pulled out a bottle of wine, a large baguette, and a platter of crackers and cheeses and started a little al fresco feast.

"So, let's see," she began in-between bites of Brie-d crackers, "there I was, emaciated, unwashed, crying hysterically, lost in Zake's huge embrace. When I finally got enough control of myself to pull away, I could see that he'd been crying a little, too. He asked if he could buy me something to eat, and I surprised myself when I said I'd love to, but I needed to shower first. When he asked if he could give me a lift to my apartment, I panicked and said, No, I'd get there myself and meet him later. I got halfway out of the building before I realized how stupidly and uncharacteristically prideful I was acting, and I ran back to where he and Andy were looking over the room I'd been calling home. I confessed that I didn't have anywhere to go, so he took me to his place and left me in his bedroom to shower.

"I threw off my clothes where I stood, then headed directly to the bathroom, turned the water as hot as I could stand and felt like I had the chance to wash away all the horror of the preceding year-and-a-half. I scrubbed myself over and over, then shampooed my hair five or six times; when I finally stepped out of the shower stall an hour later, I felt like I'd woken up after a long, long sleep. And when I looked at myself in the mirror which covered one whole wall of his dressing closet, it was like I was looking at a stranger. My parchment-like skin was trying to look pink from the heat of the shower water, but instead was only managing a sickly orangish color; my arms and legs were atrophied, and not only could I count every rib, but I swore I could see my internal organs as well. How had I been so blind?

"There was a soft white terry-cloth robe laid out for me, and I wrapped myself in it, feeling like it was the height of luxury! My smelly, ratty clothes were gone, and in their place were new panties and a bra, a pale yellow T-shirt, a green plaid knee-length jumper, and a pair of sandals. I felt like Cinderella... You can't imagine... I try to remember that feeling every day so I don't become spoiled and jaded..." I reached over and touched her round shoulder, giving her a little chill and a smile.

"When I came downstairs into the kitchen, I was already becoming someone new. Andy was there, and he inspected me for a moment, satisfying himself with the knowledge that the clothes he'd picked up for me fit and looked nice. Zake, meanwhile, had brought out a tray of fruits and vegetables and crackers and a pate. I greedily ate three pate-laden crackers, and then barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up. Zake was right behind me -- he moves really fast for someone his size -- comforting me and asking me when was the last time I'd eaten. I scared myself, because I couldn't remember -- I only knew that it'd been several months since I'd anything of enough substance to qualify as a meal. Most of the time, I'd been subsisting on beer, pizza crusts and the occasional fruit stolen from a Korean grocer.

"When I'd wiped my face and turned around to look at him, I could see that he'd been crying. The difficulty I'd had in remembering my last meal was nothing compared to the difficulty I had remembering the last time anyone had given a shit about me -- and yet, here was this mountain of a man who didn't know anything about me, except that he FELT that there was some pain inside me that had brought me to this. He's not someone who's very self-analytical, and he just says that he looked at me the very first time and knew that there was something I needed which was in his power to give.

"Well, my year-and-a-half on the streets is just a big blur, but the next two-and-a-half -- I can remember every single minute!." She propped her body up on her elbow, and her right boob fell out of the tiny little cup which had barely contained it. I tucked it back in for her and she looked at me with an amused, knowing look, then continued her story. "I think I can even remember every meal I had since he and I met.

"He gave me a bedroom of my own, even though I would have slept with him that first night., saying that he wanted us to know each other better and that if I wanted to sleep with him I should do it out of love, not gratitude. For the first couple of weeks, I did practically nothing all day long -- just sat in my room and read, listened to music, watched TV and ate continuously, without even bothering to get dressed. I was gaining weight, but not as quickly as my appetite would have suggested.

"It was probably my concentration on food that kept me from even thinking about drugs. I mean, after that first day when I wasn't even able to hold down a cracker, I just became insatiable: stacks of pancakes or a loaf of french toast for breakfast, a dozen donuts or an entire apple pie for a snack, three or four jumbo hamburgers with fries and chocolate milk for lunch, a family-size bag of chips in the afternoon, two lobsters or a whole chicken for dinner, a half-gallon of ice cream for dessert and sometimes an entire pizza for a midnight snack." She filled up the wine glasses we'd emptied and continued with her story.

"Zake was bringing home bags and bags of groceries every night and I was just devouring them. It was no time at all before I'd lost that emaciated look and started to develop my old soft curves, and then my old, soft rolls of blubber. Meanwhile, Zake and I were becoming great friends. He told me all about his restaurant and about Andy and New Zealand and adjusting to America. We started sitting closer to each other on the couch while watching a movie, we started touching one another for emphasis when we spoke, tickled each other, came up with secret names. I started cleaning the house and decorating and reading his cookbooks and making meals for us occasionally -- then one day, I just realized out of the blue that I was madly in love with him. I started fretting -- what if he didn't feel the same way? What if he was just thinking of me as some charity case?

"I couldn't believe that that was a possibility, but standing in front of the mirror in the bedroom, I started getting a hint of that old self-hatred. I'd put on at least forty-five pounds in the three months I'd been there. My belly was round and beginning to develop a droop, my boobs were swollen like balloons, my thighs were becoming jiggly and the cellulite was starting to announce its reappearance on my butt. How could he possibly love me? I thought. I was a fat pig and he probably regretted ever bringing me home. But then I started thinking about how he looked at me, how he encouraged me to have seconds and thirds, how he told me I looked better every day, how he called me beautiful whenever he could... I got this big smile on my face and this sudden knowledge came over me like some divine thunderbolt.

"When I looked in the mirror again, it was as if someone had changed the channel. Instead of a fat and disgusting wench, I was looking at a beautiful, voluptuous woman with insatiable appetites and desires, who was worshipped by a great mountain of a man.

"He didn't know what hit him... When he came home from the restaurant that night, I was waiting for him, naked, in the kitchen. I had cooked a rich onion soup, a polenta with lamb, rosemary and a tomato-mint sauce, roasted zucchini and peppers. I'd baked a baguette, and for dessert, I'd made my first Pavlova." She looked at me, then touched my soft belly, saying, "You know all about Pavlova, don't you?" I gave a little Pillsbury Doughboy giggle from the heat and the wine and the unexpected touch, and then she continued.

"He hadn't seen me naked up till that point and he couldn't take his eyes off of me. I moved really close to him, grabbed his hand and placed it on my breast -- he let me move him like he was a doll -- and then I kissed him, long and deep, realizing that I hadn't kissed anyone in almost two years, and that this passion roiling my emotions had been growing and fermenting since I'd first met Zake.

"After a few moments, I sat us down for dinner, and we both ate hungrily, lustily, neither one of us saying anything, but both of us knowing that each bite was stoking our furnaces for passion. We touched each other, fed each other -- when he slowed down, I unbuttoned his pants, fascinated as his enormous belly slowly swelled over the descending zipper. Then I fed him some more and he fed me, until every last bit of our feast was sitting in our swollen bellies. That's when I took Zake's hand and led him upstairs to the bedroom, kissing him hungrily all the way.

"I toook his clothes off slowly, deliberately teasing him, but forcing myself to enjoy each new vista and commiting every inch of his body to memory -- the folds of his breasts, covered in hair, with brown tender nipples, the vastness of his stomach and the way the skin seemed stretched so tight, his belly-button so deep that I was sure I could have lost my arm in it, the purple stretchmarks emanating from his groin like rays from the sun, and his cock: so fat and firm and trying in vain to stand out further than the swell of that magnificent stomach. I laid him down on his back and climbed on top, sitting on his thighs and stretching my legs as far apart as they would go. My hands were all over him and he reacted like a child -- laughing and shivering as if his entire body was one gigantic erogenous zone.

"His hands were reciprocating, and I felt through him the warmtho fm y gorged stomach, the softness of the love handles I was developing, the fullness of my breasts, and as I lowered myself onto his waiting cock and felt our bellies squash against one another, I knew that I was going to get bigger and softer and that he would enjoy every second of it."

When she stopped talking, I realized that I'd been entranced, unaware of the passing of time or the roar of the surf or the crowd of noisy seagulls encamped just a few yards from our blanket. I'd been seeing nothing but the bedroom of her duplex, the golden glints in her hair, the gentle rise and fall of her breasts and belly... Without thinking, I moved close to her and kissed her and she kissed back, her arm moving around my chubby waist and her hand settling beneath my bathing suit on the soft flesh of my plump butt.

It seemed like hours before we came up for air, and then Mara said, "Maybe we need to go into the water and cool off a little bit." "I don't know," I said, "I don't think it's been a half-hour since we ate." "If I had to wait a half-hour before going in the water, I'd never get to go swimming," she said, then stood up and took off her bathing suit. She was already running towards the breaking surf before I'd wriggled out of my little bikini and took off after her. Her hair was flying and her breasts and butt were swinging and I was staring so intently that I didn't realize I was that close to the water until the sudden sensation of icy-coldness travelled up my spine, covering me in goosebumps and turning my nipples into little rocks.

She went under a wave and I didn't see her until she surfaced right in front of me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and pressing her wet fat belly against my wet, fat belly. We kissed and stroked each other, lubricated by the cool water. We lined up our nipples and squashed our breasts together, giggling like little girls. I ducked under the water and put my face in-between her thighs and found her clitoris with my tongue, tasting the faint trace of her juices mixed with the saltiness of the ocean, and holding myself under the surface as long as I could. When I emerged she was standing with her eyes closed, looking like Botticelli's Venus painted by Rubens. We kissed again and I transferred the taste of her into her own mouth.

When we got back to the blankets and towelled off, Mara suggested we go back to the house for some lunch; I was starting to feel a little bit of sunburn, so I figured it was a good idea. I went to the bathroom and when I came back, Mara was busy in the kitchen putting together a platter of cold shrimp and olives and sweet crackers and more wine. The diffuse light had given her skin a honeyed cast and I followed a stray drop of water as it rolled down the curve of her back and disappeared into the deep crack of her rotund rump.

We carried the food out to the deck, sat down at the cedar table and poured some wine. I lifted my glass and toasted, "To us!" She lifter her glass, hesitated a second, looked out at the surf, then looked right into my eyes and said, "Friends!" I wasn't sure what she meant, so I waited and listened, like I had been all morning. She took a sip, then said, "Melanie, from the moment you came into the restaurant the other night, I've been able to think about nothing but you. I've fantasized about this whole day, planning every detail -- what we'd eat, what I'd wear, what I'd say, what we'd do..."

She smiled and looked down at the table for a second, then back at me. "Do you know that I've never made love to a woman -- never even been interested before -- and certainly never approached a total stranger in a bathroom and put my hand between her legs. It was some kind of magic and I felt like my whole world shifted. I watched you and Andy feeding each other and I watched you going down on him, and I imagined that it was you and me... That's what today was going to be all about. I mean, girl-with-girl -- it wouldn't be cheating, would it? But telling you all about Zake and me -- it made me realize how strongly I feel him and how I promised to love him, forsaking all others, so..."

She was so beautiful and yet -- for a second -- I caught a glimpse of the tragedies and uncertainties in her life. And then I thought about Andy and the possibilities of love between he and I unfolding. And about Jess and how much I love her, and all the complexities that entails. I realized that Mara was right -- that this was a path we weren't meant to walk down. I reached across the table and put my hand on hers, looked deep into her soul and said, "Sisters?" The sigh that came out of her seemed as if she'd been holding her breath underwater for a long, long time; her eyes moistened and a little tear started down one of her cheeks. "Yes," she said. "Yes! Sisters!" She grabbed my hand and squeezed it and smiled brighter than the mid-afternoon sun in a cloudless sky...