The Baker's Boy - by Big Beautiful Dreamer (~~WG, Both)

[Big Beautiful Dreamer]

~~WG, Both - A story of a couple during the holidays.

The Baker's Boy
by Big Beautiful Dreamer​

“I won’t say that boys that age have a lock on stupid, but I was 7 years old when my cousin Davy and I pulled a real winner.” I took a swallow of my drink and stretched my legs out toward the fire.

“Ooh, I’ve not heard this one yet.” Natasha snuggled closer to me. I slid my hand down her velvet-clad back, letting the hand come to rest on her backside which I knew from experience to be ripely creamy. Idly my hand wandered back up to her exposed shoulders, rounded and gleaming in the firelight, and my fingers nuzzled her recently softening chin. Natasha had been an exchange student in America last year as she was finishing college, and her American family had invited her back this year for Thanksgiving, something we rather missed the boat on in the UK. She’d spent five days in Pennsylvania and come back with her tops visibly snug through the middle and her jeans straining to clasp round a rather padded tummy.

“I gained half a stone,” she’d groused mildly in the cab on the way back to her flat, but once she’d changed into sweats she’d rhapsodised for me at length about how glorious it had all been – the food, the company, the food, the games, the food, the weather, the food. And seven pounds, I thought, sat lightly and beautifully on her otherwise reasonably compact figure.

I was no great shakes in the looks department myself and was still rather pleasantly stunned that Sasha had fallen for me at all. Average height, average looks, average shape, with maybe a hint of podge pushing over my belt now I’d turned 30. I didn’t consider having a 23-year-old girlfriend cradle robbing in the least, and if she did, she’d been the one to make the first move. She’d begged me for cab fare, having stormed thinly clad out of a restaurant one night and literally bumped into me on the pavement. She’d insisted on having a way to pay me back, so I’d given her my card. The next day came not a phone call but a note in a firm girlish hand inviting me to tea.

I went. She treated me and insisted on handing the cab fare money back and by the time the pot was empty, I was smitten. She worked as a pastry chef; I was (boringly) an accountant at Guy’s and St Thomas’s hospital near the Thames. I’d been promoted earlier that year to an office with a view of the river, on clear days.

“Anyway.” Sasha nuzzled in again. “You and your cousin.”

“Oh, right. My mother’s sister’s family, from up near Brecon. They’d all come down to Swansea for Christmas dinner. Davy and I were the same age, six weeks apart. We passed the time throwing snowballs at each other in the back garden and speculating about dinner, bragging how much we would eat.”

“Uh-oh.” Natasha’s voice was rather muffled by my shirt.

“You guessed it. We somehow wound up challenging to see who could eat more. And since we were at a children’s table, nominally presided over by Davy’s 13-year-old sister, who was sulking at still being at children’s table, there was no one to make us see sense.”

Natasha straightened up, turned it into a stretch, then stood and collected my glass. She headed to the kitchen to refill it.

“Go on,” she called.

“Well. We made proper pigs of ourselves and we both ate a disgraceful amount of dinner,” I said. I stood myself and stretched, warming before the fire, then sat back down and took the glass from Natasha.

“I was already feeling a little green,” I admitted sheepishly. My stomach felt hard as a rock. I could see Davy’s sticking out like a bowl under his shirt, mine probably was too. And then they brought out the plum pudding.”

I took a swallow. “Heaven knows why they put a pitcher of hard sauce on the children’s table, probably just someone not thinking straight. Anyway. Davy scooped out a large chunk of pudding and poured hard sauce all over it, so of course I had to do the same thing.”

I paused, vividly remembering how time had slowed and stretched out. One hand on my stretched and aching little belly, the other manipulating the spoon, bite after bite somehow vanishing down my throat.

“We finished every bite, it felt like it was coming out my ears. Then, at the same moment, Davy and I both pushed back our chairs, bolted from the table, and finished by being spectacularly sick side by side in the bathtub.”

I glanced at Natasha. “Our mams came after us and cleaned us up and put us to bed to sleep it off, and the next day I got a proper lecture about how I should have stopped when I was full instead of getting such a tummy ache. To this day, Davy won’t touch plum pudding.”

I felt Natasha’s laugh vibrate against my ribs. “You will,” she pointed out.

“Mm. Yes,” I answered absently. I was wondering why on earth that recollection had made my stomach feel warm and made my heart beat a little faster, as though I were excited at the memory. I thought back to the aftermath, lying in bed resting my hands on my distended stomach, somehow reveling in the sensation.

Natasha had stood up. “We’d better hustle if we’re going to get to Peter and Lucy’s.”

“Oh. Right.” I concealed my groan in a stretch and yawn. Lucy, Sasha’s partner, made artisan breads. Their shop was called Flour Power, yes, ha-ha. Peter would bend my ear endlessly about Gordon Brown, but if I drank enough I could stand it, I thought. Besides, Sasha routinely brought home Lucy’s fresh bread; it was all we ate; and I was getting rather spoiled toasting sourdough in the mornings or piling ham and cheese between thick slices of marbled rye. No point upsetting that particular golden goose.

Peter and Lucy’s cottage was thronged with people. I loaded my plate with all sorts of goodies, including a couple of thick slices of Lucy’s farmer’s loaf, which I smeared thickly with butter and topped with honey. Miniature quiches, sausages in crust, meatballs in a slow cooker, chocolate pinwheel cookies, dark chocolate mint fudge, marzipan balls, and a huge, three-tiered cake wild with buttercream swirls, swags and roses, with silver and blue fondant ornaments lavishly dotting the surface. Every year Natasha made a different cake, last year’s had been a buche de noel on a platter with sugar moss, chocolate rabbits, meringue mushrooms in green ribbon candy grass, sugared violets, tiny butterfly cookies, even a Father Christmas gnome.

As expected, Peter cornered me early. I kept my mouth full as a way of keeping from saying something I would regret, and consequently ate far too much. I abstractedly noticed the warmth and enjoyment flooding my body at the sensation of a full stomach, stretched and even a little sore.

A commotion round the table – time to cut and serve the cake. I pressed a hand to my belly and groaned. I’d forgotten the cake.

Sasha pressed a plate bearing an obscenely huge slice into my hand. “Dark chocolate,” she murmured, “with peppermint buttercream frosting. I know how you love dark chocolate.”

I bit my lip. I would have to eat every scrap, enthusiastically. I let Sasha steer me to a director’s chair, settled in and gamely picked up my fork.

The cake was delicious, of course, but I was already achingly full. I focused on how lovely Natasha looked and the mild buzz of being a little tight and the pleasant warmth generated by a too-full tummy. Eyes on Natasha, I somehow downed every bite. My stomach stretched and gurgled, visibly bloated out over my belt. I was warm, stuffed, and a little drunk, in no shape to socialise.

Somehow, we made our farewells and got out of there. I was silent in the taxi, half asleep, to be honest, my hand in Sasha’s. We got into the flat and next thing I knew it was morning, I was naked in bed, and Sasha was bringing me in a cup of tea.

“Ohhhh.” I groaned as I hauled myself up and took a deep swallow of the hot milky tea. “Ohhh. Last night?”

Sasha smirked as she perched next to me on the rumpled duvet. “You went to sleep in the cab. I got you into the flat and into bed, that’s all.”

I grimaced and held out my hand as she waved the aspirin bottle at me. She shook three into my palm and I gulped them down. “Ooh. Drank too much.” My stomach growled. “Ate too much too.” Natasha laughed at the juxtaposition and proffered a plate of cinnamon toast made with pecan-crusted honey wheat bread.

December turned Flour Power into Father Christmas’s workshop. Sasha and Lucy and temporary helpers worked long hours, six days a week, juggling pre-placed orders with walk-ins frantic for three dozen red velvet cupcakes or Christmas cookies. Often Sasha would bring home an order that had been placed and never picked up and that couldn’t be sold at half price the next day, or something that wasn’t quite as ordered – green frosting instead of white, or some picky complaint; and sometimes day-old treats that would otherwise have been tossed out. She ate her share of the mistakes and leftovers she brought home, but I more than helped.

Soon the half stone of weight she’d picked up in America had company round her softening waist. Every pair of trousers gave her a little muffin top, and every blouse pulled snug against fascinatingly ripening breasts. After my night of overindulgence at Peter and Lucy’s, I’d silently vowed to behave myself, but temptation seemed under my nose at every turn. Not just the delicious bread calling my name, but tins full of cookies and cupcakes, petit fours and marzipan lined the counter and I got into the habit of dipping in a dozen times a day.

It wasn’t long before Natasha’s wasn’t the only softening waist in the flat. My trousers seemed to be shrinking at an alarming rate and I thought perhaps a New Year’s resolution might be in order. I didn’t realise quite how tubby I was getting until one evening in bed. We’d slid into a long and languid intimacy with Bing Crosby in the background and afterward, side by side, we idly and drowsily traced abstract patterns on each other.

“Ho ho ho,” Sasha said through a yawn.

“What?”

She poked at my middle. “Father Christmas,” she sing-songed.

“Stop.” I batted her hand away. “A little holiday indulgence, that’s all. Besides, who brings all the goodies home?” I almost poked her tummy in return, but I wasn’t that foolish. Instead, I propped up on an elbow and traced my finger round her burgeoning breasts and down to her navel cushioning in an unquestionably padded tummy. A roll of podge rimmed over her hips and pointed the way toward spreading thighs, the treat lurking within.

Then I spoilt the moment by yawning hugely in her face, one of those things one can’t stop.

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly.

“’sokay,” she replied, snuggling down into the blankets. I lay back on my pillows and furtively ran my hands down my sides. I seemed to be developing love handles. Flat on my back, in the dark, I couldn’t tell if my belly was any larger, but I suspected that it would be. I’d only moved in with Sasha in November, but I would be unsurprised to find myself up a full stone before New Year’s.

As proved the case, and then some. The merciless digital readout on New Year’s Day showed a full fourteen stone, only a few pounds shy of the 2-0-0 mark. I’d been in the neighbourhood of twelve twelve when I’d moved in with Sasha.

Natasha padded in behind me. “My turn,” she mumbled drowsily. She stepped aboard, then gasped. “Ugh, no,” she groaned. “Look, Nicky, twelve twelve. That can’t be right.” She was at 180 pounds, ironically the weight I’d left far behind since moving in. “I was only eleven thirteen before I went to Pennsylvania.” So she’d gained a stone too.

I lifted her off the scale, turned her round and kissed her. “I love you,” I murmured into her ear. “And you get lovelier with every day.” I stood back and held her lovely soft shoulders. “Besides, Christmas is over, things should slow down, right?”

Natasha laughed until she gasped for breath. “Not ... likely ...” she finally managed. “Val-Val-Valentine’s ... Day.”

Oh, crap. “But that’s chocolates, right?”

“Chocolates, yes, but cupcakes have gotten huge the last few years, and personalised giant cookies, and there are always a few dafties who insist on being married on the day. I’ve got three wedding cakes on the books.”

I closed my eyes. Took the plunge. “You were right to call me Father Christmas,” I admitted. “I’ve been fattening up since I moved in with a pastry chef.” I pinched round my waist. “Does it ... uh, bother you?”

She snuggled in against me. “Just the opposite. Makes you very cuddly, don’t you know that?”

“Suppose I like my sweetheart a bit cuddly too?” I asked, my face buried in her shoulder. I felt her droop a bit in my arms. Then she looked up at me.

“Cuddly,” she said hesitantly, trying it out.

“Yes, cuddly,” I said more firmly. “Valentine’s Day here we come.”