BHM The Shocking Adventures of Spark

[stevita]

Malcolm led the way to the science building, along shortcuts he'd discovered semesters ago, with Elisa, Gina, Heather, and a stumbling-drunk Chloe at his heels. Luckily for them, they slipped through campus undetected and unbothered. When they finally got to their destination, Chloe strained for a minute before confirming it: "Yep, the prisoners are right under there."

"It looks a lot less threatening from the outside," mused Elisa. "So what's the game plan?"

Heather surveyed their surroundings. "There's a lot of trees here...most of them older than the country. The root system should be deep enough for me to use it to tunnel into the basement...but I'd be flying blind. Does anyone have a computer?"

"Thought ahead," said Chloe, hefting the messenger bag she carried over one shoulder.

"Great. Do you know how to hack into a live feed of the campus cameras?"

"No…" Chloe's eyes went distant, moving back and forth as she sifted through the local body of knowledge. "The cute programming professor that works here does though!"

***

Flat on his back against the cold concrete, delirious from starvation and utterly alone, Ben was fading in and out. With Elisa gone, he had become Dr. Duplicate's new favorite punching bag, after his grand display of defiance. His face and ribs still ached from his last beating--imagine that! He was aware of his ribs now. He still had a substantial layer of padding around the waist--anyone who saw him on the street would still consider him fat--but for longer than he'd been able to keep track of in this place, he'd been hungry.

Chloe came to mind again. What did she have in her to offer him? Love? No, certainly it had to merely be lust; he'd be delusional to hope for anything more. She already had Malcolm and Heather under her spell, after all. There was admiration for sure...probe solidarity...genuine friendship, or at least, that was what he hoped.

In any case, she'd miss no opportunity to get him nice and fed.

Suddenly, out the corner of his eye, he detected movement. The thin, spindly tree root made its way towards his cell and sprung the lock with unbelievable dexterity. Down the hall, another prisoner startled in his cell. "The fuck is THAT?" he gasped. "The fuck IS that?"

"Shut up," Ben hissed. "Evergreen's here to save the day."

His breathing shallow, he staggered to shaky feet and pushed past the unlocked door. "Thanks, Heather," he muttered, making his way up the stairs back to the surface, other prisoners following his lead once they were freed.

The next few moments happened impossibly fast. The back door of the laboratory swung open and hit the wall with a violent SMACK! "What is the meaning of this comm--?" snapped one of the four incoming clones. Upon assessing the situation, three Dr. Duplicates began to strip off their labcoats, preparing to multiply, while the last one began slashing at the vines with a scalpel he pulled from his pocket.

Ben pushed past the door and collapsed onto the grass, unprepared for the sudden rush of fresh air and natural light. Chloe was there, manning a laptop keyboard while Heather worked her magic, both hands on the ground. She flinched as down in the basement, her roots got hacked to pieces. "I can't hold 'em off for long…"

That was when the clones burst forth through the door, at least forty of them, snarling and poised to attack, all of them stark naked as the day they were--well, 'born' wasn't exactly the right term, was it?

Chloe's friend, the one from her social media--Gina, was it?--was there, along with Elisa, who took out three clones at once with some sort of biomanipulative attack that caused them to fall to their knees, shaking, with a single glance, before they lost consciousness.

"WHY ARE THEY NAKED?" screeched Gina, punching out a clone.

Then, the world rushed around him. For a fraction of a second, everything spun before Malcolm threw him into the grass by the parking lot. "The f-fuck, bro?"

"Sorry," said Malcolm, grabbing Ben's hand to help him up and into the backseat of a car. "You know I don't have super strength."

Malcolm disappeared in a blur and Ben let himself fall against the door, cheek pressed to the cool glass of the window. Soon, Heather let herself into the driver's seat, and Chloe slid in beside Ben, smelling distinctly of bourbon. "Are...are you drunk?" asked Ben.

"It's like, a long story," said Chloe as Heather fired up the ignition. "Mal's working on getting the other prisoners to safety while Gina and Elisa hold off the rest of the evil scientists. Scientist? Is it still plural if they're all the same guy?" she rattled off. "Definitely the bizarrest thing I've ever seen, one consciousness spread over so many bodies. Anyway, the others are gonna rendezvous with us back at Bellvue--"

"And Felicity?" asked Ben.

"She wasn't there," said Chloe. "Trust me, I looked for her consciousness...why don't you trust me?"

He wanted to trust her. Fuck. He'd dreamt about her feeding him back up to health...and beyond. But he still remembered the rivalry between her and Felicity. Under the circumstances, how could he trust her?

"Once your powers come back you'll see...you'll see I'm not lying," said Chloe, resting a small hand on his upper arm.

He still wasn't sure.

"Fuck...look what they did to you," she said quietly. "It's gonna be okay, though. Once the suppressants wear off...you'll see. And I'll have a double dose of happy thoughts ready to help you get your health back."

He wanted to believe her. But he was afraid of what he'd discover once his empathy turned back on.

 

[stevita]

Felicity had no sense of how much time had passed when she next awoke, other than a clawing hunger and a desperate need to piss. There was a different doctor, a man, perhaps in his mid-forties but graying prematurely, keeping an eye on her vital sign monitors. "Please let me out of these straps. I have to go to the bathroom," she begged, her fire at last extinguished after all this time.

Her whole life had been a lie, her own mother one of the bad guys. How the hell was she supposed to process that?

"I'm afraid I can't do that. Your file indicates you're volatile even while suppressed. You could be a danger to myself and the other staff. Your mother's already found out the hard way."

Tears welled in her eyes. She hadn't meant to hurt her...she'd just felt so shocked, and betrayed, and angry.

And now?

Now, she was past her breaking point.

"I could bring you a bedpan?"

Felicity couldn't bring herself to answer through the lump in her throat.

The doctor left the room and returned shortly with the promised bedpan, positioning it under her hips so she could relieve herself. For seconds, they stared at each other in awkward silence, before she said, "Well, I can't go with you watching me."

"Right. Of course." He turned around. She wished he would leave, but at least now it was less weird.

"When do I get my powers back?" she asked over the sound of her, well...her business.

"When a Division compulse arrives to wipe your memory and make you into the blank slate we need if we're to train you for military service. Until then, I've been ordered to keep an eye on you."

Maybe it was a good thing Felicity's powers were turned off for the moment. After hearing that, she might have stopped her own heart if she wasn't careful.

"Wait, wait, wait! You can't just--wipe me!"

She'd already lost so much. She couldn't lose her identity, too! She liked herself too much to become a mindless drone.

"I'm afraid I have orders."

"What if--just hear me out! What if there was another way?" she began to rant. "Look: since I got my powers, it's always been my dream to be a superhero. You guys could give that to me! Let me be a hero for you, here at home. There are so many threats I could take on. Like...like looters! And drugs! And shoe bombers! And, and--and ANTIFA!"

She was talking out her ass, and she knew it. She wasn't even sure what ANTIFA was, why people were so afraid of it, or if she was pronouncing it right. But she'd promise to fight it, if that's what it would take to save herself.

"Admit it--I could be a great superhero here! I definitely have a face for TV. And...and I'll be good. I'll be perfectly obedient. You wouldn't have to wipe my mind then, right?"

He hesitated for a moment before saying, "I'll run it by the guys upstairs." He sent a text, and thirty minutes later, by her rough estimate, his phone pinged. He came to unlock her straps. "The regional manager of the Division wants to interview you about your ambitions as a stateside hero. Let's get you a shower and some makeup done and dress you up in something nice."

She fought the oncoming heat in her cheeks and eyes. This was it: after all her time spent fighting in captivity, she was left with no choice but to finally surrender.

Unless…

Unless she wasn't.

This was the home stretch. If she could just convince the Division she now saw them as a friend and savior, while secretly clinging to the inner fire that had carried for this long…

If she could just say the right things and play the right cards, she might stand a chance at infiltrating the Division and bringing it down from within.

But if she was going to go down that road, she couldn't allow anyone to be dragged along after her into certain danger.

She was going to have to say some goodbyes.

***

Ben and Malcolm's dorm was a hub of activity that night, between the girls checking on Malcolm after his string of successful hostage rescues and checking on Ben after his stint in a government torture chamber. Chloe kept her distance, but Gina stopped by Ben's bed to offer her profuse thanks for busting her out, and Elisa came to set a present on his bedside table that looked an awful lot like a human skull. "It's a paperweight," she explained. "Remember when Dr. D kept threatening to turn me into stuff? Well, I got some inspiration. I made an extra. Figured if anyone deserved it, it was you."

"Are you gonna stay here? Maybe enroll?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know what I'm gonna do. Where I'm gonna go...I think we'll meet again, though."

He slept fitfully that night, and in the morning, his powers had returned in full force.

Malcolm was already gone, having left a text message about meeting the girls for breakfast, starving as he was after the previous day's heroics. Ben, on the other hand, wished he could purge in a way that didn't involve electrocuting himself, or at the very least causing substantial property damage. He could taste it through the paper-thin walls: happy couples canoodling in bed before afternoon classes, freshmen giddy about the Fall Formal in just a few days, nervous students shaking with the caffeine jitters as they crammed for mid-terms…

Everyone seemed perfectly oblivious about his disappearance, and yet, he was painfully privy to their every emotion, stuffed to near-bursting and overwhelmed by it, having grown used to the suppressants he was on in the lab. He rolled over in bed with a groan, yanking the pillow over his head and fighting back both the emotional onslaught of the nearby students and the awful truth about his plight: it was far from over.

With Felicity still missing, he knew he should confer with the squad...or should he? If Chloe didn't know anything about Felicity's whereabouts, that meant none of the others did either. But if she did, and she'd lied to him…

He didn't want to fathom it.

However, he did know of one person who might take interest in his case, who already had experience exposing the human rights violations committed by the Heroics Division.

After waiting about an hour for the dorms to empty out, he dressed, found a secluded computer lab on campus, and uploaded the pictures he'd taken inside of Dr. Duplicate's compound. He printed them each in triplicate, shoved them into a manila folder, and hauled ass across campus to retrieve his car and GPS his way to the studio of FM 95.1.

When he got to the studio, anxious but determined, there was a thin blonde receptionist sitting at the front desk. "Would you mind if I put you on a brief hold?" she asked whoever she was on the phone with before setting the receiver down and turning her attention to Ben. "Can I help you?"

"I really hope so," he said, approaching the desk with his stack of evidence. "I need to speak to Martika Mitchell."

 

[FFAscinated]

Oh, hurrah! The drought is ending. All we've heard is crickets in the BHM fiction pond lately. So nice to have it replaced by the Spark-le of electricity. Masterful as always, Stevita!

 

[Tad]

I'm delighted to have new chapters, and with so much happening!

 

[stevita]

Thanks you guys!

If I forgot, I think it's worth mentioning this is no longer part the group project it originally started out in, for a myriad of reasons mostly boiling down to my cowriter's were from the UK and I'm from the American south and well...political differences.

But irregardless there is more Spark coming soon! And I promise there'll be more sexiness and less angst.

 

[stevita]

CHAPTER 10

"I need to speak to Martika Mitchell."


The thin blonde receptionist looked over her desk at Ben with a slack, incredulous expression. "No one sees Ms. Mitchell without an appointment."


"But it's important! It's a matter of national security!"


"You'll still need to make an appointment."


Ben sighed and conceded. "How do I make an appointment?"


"Oh, it's easy! Just call the station."


He stepped away from the desk, pulled out his phone, and looked up the number for K-TRU 95.1.


The landline rang on the front desk. The receptionist picked up.


"K-TRU 95.1, how may I help you?"


"I need to book an appointment with Martika Mitchell."


"Name, please?"


"Ben Taylor-Moore."


"Business?"


"I have information about a government plot involving the kidnapping of multiple Deviant students from the Rivington school. I believe Ms. Mitchell can be of vital help in exposing the plot."


The receptionist pulled out a binder of notes and started flipping pages. "I'm afraid Ms. Mitchell is booked solid for the next three weeks. If you want, though, I can pencil you in for 9 AM on the 18th of next month--"


Just then, a woman in a billowing burgundy velvet dress strode into the lobby and stepped behind the desk. Her jet-black hair flowed to the middle of her back and over one shoulder in big, bouncy curls. She had a creamy, dark complexion, sharp, inquisitive eyes, and a smirk pulling at the corners of her full, glossy lips. She was a vision of confidence and poise, and what's more…


She was fat. She was obviously and unapologetically fat, curves straining the tensile strength of her luxuriant dress, and yet, she rocked it. With her posture erect, her ample cleavage was on full display, her heels serving their function to put her hips to work and accentuate the swaying globes of her ass, and yet, her other assets did nothing to diminish a round belly that jiggled with her every step.


And nothing in her stride gave away an ounce of shame.


"Monica! Today's episode was brilliant!" she said, coming up behind the receptionist to clap her on the shoulder with a wide grin. Her makeup was impeccable: between her eyes, popping against a shimmer of gold and copper hues, and her plump, inviting lips painted as shiny as glass, Ben wasn't sure where to look. She was so much to take in, and he had never seen anyone more...interesting?


Alluring?


The word 'sexy' came to mind, and a shade of shame ate at him from within: she hadn't even spoken a word to him yet.


"Scarlet Flame is always a delight. Bleak, of course...but I feel like her cautionary advice has helped a lot of people tonight. These next few folks you have lined up for me, though? I don't see much potential. I need controversial voices. To make the right people happy, I need to get the right people angry. Tell me, Monica: whose cock do I have do suck to get Big Tech in the studio?"


"Well, I assume Big Tech's," said the receptionist, shrinking into her seat.


"And who is this?" The buxom beauty fixed Ben with a hungry smile.


He lowered his phone.


"Ben Taylor-Moore, Miss."


Her head tilted. Her eyes widened. "Did you say Taylor-Moore?"


"Y-yes?"


She stepped out from behind the desk, approached him, and shook his hand vigorously. "I'm Martika Mitchell!" Her smile was unwavering, her charm magnetic, her perfume reminiscent of orange blossoms and sweet vanilla and cinnamon and...leather? "Would you do me the absolute delight of stepping into my office?"


Breathlessly, he followed her into the station headquarters, down a hallway, and into a spacious office. The desk was lined with liquor bottles and the plush velvet chairs were some of the fanciest Ben had ever seen. "Forgive Monica," said Martika. "She has strict instructions. She had no way of knowing when to make an exception, and, well, this is a surprise."


"So how do you know my brother?" he asked, though he imagined he already knew the answer. She was D'von's type to a T, if skyscrapers' heights out of his league.


"I'm afraid I've never had the pleasure. It's your sister I used to rub shoulders with."


"Sister? I don't got a sis--oh, Oriana, she's my cousin."


"So that's what it is. You have the same eyes." Martika selected a bottle from her collection and produced two glasses from a cabinet. "She always called you her brother, but I guess she meant she loved you like a brother. You're the compulse, or the electro-empath?"


"Electromancer, yeah, the compulse is D'von."


"Excellent. You a scotch man?"


"Ms. Mitchell, I don't wanna be rude, but I need to show you this evidence of human experimentation happening on kidnapped Deviants in the basement labs at Rivington Hero School."


"And I'm eager to see what you've got, but I don't see why we should do this without drinks in our hands." When she poured him a measure and held it out to him, he humored her, palming the glass as she took the folder of evidence out of his hands. He took a sip. It was surprisingly smooth. She raised her glass, popped something into her mouth, and chased it with the liquor before cracking open the binder.


"Mhmm...mhmm...oh, this is gruesome," she muttered, nodding.


"There's loads more that I didn't get on camera. Dr. Duplicate wants to build a fattening gun using my stolen DNA and sell it to the military, and--and they still have one of my friends," Ben explained breathlessly. At least, he thought they still had her. If she was free, she'd have contacted him by now. Unless their near-hookup had really been that bad...but she wouldn't have ghosted him for being unsatisfying in bed. (Well, in car seat.) They would have talked about it.


So either Chloe was lying and Felicity was still at Rivington, Chloe was telling the truth and Felicity was in the Heroics Division's custody at another location, or Felicity was dead.


"If you could generate buzz about this on your show…"


Martika mulled over the evidence before shaking her head. "An expose will only let the Division know we're onto them. What we need to do," she said, "is move in and wreck this place first. Liberate anyone who's still trapped inside, and once that's done, make the whole lab inoperation--"


"W-wait," stammered Ben. "What do you mean 'we'?"


"I mean you and me, kid. Was my wording confusing in some way?"


Of course, she was a Deviant. Why else would she have a whole radio show advocating for their rights? But he was afraid he wouldn't be much help to her.


"You gotta know someone else who can do the job. You interview tons of superheroes, your list of contacts must be huge!"


"You attend Bellvue, yes?"


"Yeah, but--"


"Then you're already friends with plenty of Deviants yourself, no?" she pointed out. "Then why come here?"


"Me and my friend, the one who's being held by the Division, we tried to pop the lid off this Rivington operation but we just got caught. I think this calls for real superheroes. Plus, I'm not sure how much I trust my other friends right now."


"Hmm...I do have some guys I can call on for a favor. Avalanche, Isotrope...but it's your friend whose fate's in the balance. Why, then, do you insist on missing out on the fun?" asked Martika, fixing him with a stare across her desk.


His gaze dropped to his lap. "I...I can't control my powers."


"Who says we can't change that? I could train you, you know."


"We don't have time to train me! They could be torturing my friend right now--"


"So I should just leave you untrained, and let you become a liability to me and anyone else I put you in contact with?" asked Martika. Her impatience hit him like a slow, dull ache, but dissipated before it could overwhelm him.


But there was so much more in her.


Here was a woman who had seen some shit and knew how to keep her emotions in check. They swirled around her in a tight cloud, not reaching, but festering, banging on the walls of her to be let out, and he could feel all of it.


There was rage. Hellfire. The distinct righteous fury of someone who had been wronged by a person they were meant to be able to trust. And there was love, too, so much love it could burn oceans and raze cities.


"You been through it, Ms. Mitchell, I can tell," he said. "You're calmer about it than I'd expect, though."


"Yeah? I just took half a Xanny. If you think it's bad, 'magine what it does to me." She finished her drink, and Ben stared across the desk at her, wondering where they stood.


"You really think I'm trainable?"


"Oh, sure. You just need a little nourishment. I can feel your pain."


"I'm not in--"


"You don't feel it because you're used to it, but other people's pain is my business. It never slips past me, especially at such a close range, and from where I'm sitting, yours is pretty awful. You're starving."


"I don't know bout that," said Ben. "I weigh two hundred and fifty pounds." It was probably lower than that now, after his stint in captivity, but he was still a large man, not the type you'd assume missed meals.


"When's the last time you've eaten?"


"I was fourteen," he recalled. "It was hospital food. Right before the doctor diagnosed me with superpowers and told me I was feeding off people's feelings." Roasted vegetable platter. Hospital cafeteria roasted vegetable platter. It needed a lot of salt, or at least, that's what Ben thought after he took his first bite. So he applied some salt, took another bite, and found that it was just as joyless an experience as before, still soggy, still limp, only saltier. He'd been trying to do the responsible thing, eating healthy even when that beef stroganoff was calling his name. After all, he'd gained eighty pounds in no time at all. Didn't he have to be vigilant about his health?

 

[stevita]

Then, the test results came in.


In the doctor's professional opinion, he'd never need to eat again.


He'd felt sick at the time. Superpowers. He had fucking superpowers, and all they were good for was making him fatter. Before he was discharged, he excused himself to the restroom, unpocketed his phone, and looked up 'how to induce vomiting'.


It was easy. Just bend at the waist, stimulate the uvula, and let gravity do its work. Thank god for pro-mia bloggers.


Since then, he had been living off of alcohol, other people's feelings, and grapefruit LaCroix.


He told her all this with shame building up within him, the vulnerability threatening to burst through his chest and destroy him, and yet…


At least these emotions were his own.


All the while, she listened, calmly, attentively, nodding at the right times, asking the right questions…


He had never felt so listened to.


At last, Martika weighed in. "And you're what, now, eighteen?"


"Nineteen."


"Oh, dear…you poor, deprived thing."


She lit up a cigarette right at her desk.


"Here's my working theory," said Martika. "Your doctor was wrong. In the absence of food, your body has become ravenously dependent on emotional energy. That's why it takes in more than you can handle. I think, maybe if you ate some real food, you'd be able to get a handle on this. Your psyche would be less demanding. Maybe you'd even be able to choose when you take in emotions, and when you channel them into electricity."


Ben scuffed his foot against the floor. "I just...I don't know. What if you're wrong?"


"Swallow this." She passed him a shot glass full of clear liquor.


"What is that?"


"Austrian potato vodka, barely has a bite."


He drank it. It went down as smooth as water. "It's good," he nodded. "But it'll take more than two drinks to get me drunk, if that's what you're tryna do."


"Drink me out of house and home, why don't you?" she said with a smirk, pouring another shot. She spiked it with a liqueur of some sort and flung the glass across her desk.


He sampled the drink, his eyes blowing wide. "What is this?"


"Kentucky straight bourbon with a splash of allspice dram."


"It tastes like a goddamn gingerbread cookie." He'd have to tell D'von about this later.


"I'm genuinely curious: why make the exception only for calories from alcohol?" asked Martika, passing him the next concoction she had to offer.


"Because when I'm drunk, I forget about the consequences."


"Do you ever eat when you're drunk?"


"I've never been that drunk."


As she kept the drinks coming, he was finally starting to feel relaxed. He knew it wasn't healthy to drink until he forgot he existed...but with all the stress he'd been under lately, he wondered, as he slipped under the tide of inebriation, why he hadn't done this sooner.


"Would it be the end of the world if you gained a little weight?"


"Not the end of the world," he shrugged. "Fact, it's almost definitely gonna happen. And if your theory's true I guess I'm gonna be a fat fuck forever if I want to control my pow--"


"Ben. Stop." She glared from across the desk. "Insult yourself all you want on your own time, but I won't stand to have you insult me in my own office."


"Sorry," said Ben guiltily. "I wasn't tryna be negative." He truly hadn't been. He was simply coming to accept his fate. He was never going to be thin whether Martika's hypothesis was right or not, but he could live with that. It would forever ruin his chances with Felicity...but that was fine, as long as he got to see her again, alive and unharmed.


"Then why use such negative language?"


He shrugged. "Habit?"


"We'll work on that."


"I really didn't mean to shit talk you. I actually think you're super attractive."


He winced. Should he be putting his foot in his mouth? That had just slipped out!


She leaned forward, elbows on the desk, her eyes bright. "Thank you, Ben. But let me ask you this: if you think I can rock the extra weight just fine, why don't you think more highly of yourself?"


"You can't think you're hot, that's conceited."


"Tell that to every skinny-mini self-proclaimed 'model' pumping out selfies by the hundreds on Insta-Fans."


Ben was all out of arguments. Martika contradicted everything he'd ever learned about navigating the world in his oversized body, and yet, she had backed him into a corner until he was forced to concede that she was right. It was as if the sky had opened up and he was speaking directly to God.


"Now, Ben: where are we going for dinner?"


He shrugged. "Burger Queen?"


***


Martika drove a huge SUV with an all black paint job, tinted windows, leather upholstery, and an ashtray in the cup holder so she could keep smoking cigarettes at the end of a fancy cigarette holder all through the drive. It would have felt awkward, pulling up to the fast food joint in such a conspicuous vehicle, if Ben wasn't so tipsy. "I'd say I hope you're hungry, but I already know you are," said Martika, leading the way out of the car, into the store, and up to the counter.


Stepping into the Burger Queen was like walking through a portal into a decade Ben hadn't been alive to see. With its fluorescent lights overhead, cheap tiled floors, brightly colored seats, and deserted indoor kiddie playground, the restaurant's interior defied the passage of time into the age of nanotechnology and social media, self-service and surveillance. Add Martika's presence against the retro backdrop, in her too-elegant dress and rows and rows of too-expensive bracelets and rings, and the scene became surreal.


The bored cashier at the counter was wearing a red wrap-around sun visor and a yellow polo emblazoned with the company logo in fire-engine red right where her hand would've gone for the Pledge. As the pair approached her, Ben squinting at the menu up on three screens overhead, she perked up, shoving her phone under the counter. "Welcome to Burger Queen, may I take your--" she began, before her eyes fell on Martika's smoldering cigarette. "You can't smoke in here."


"Really?" Martika slid a fat stack of twenties onto the counter. "Because my friend Andrew Jackson says I can."


The young woman looked both ways before nodding and pocketing the money.


Ben was still contemplating what he wanted. This would be his first meal in forever: he wanted It to be special. But there were too many options! From burgers to chicken sandwiches, wraps, ice cream cones, breakfast served 24/7, chocolate chip cookies, apple pies…


There was salad...that would have been the sensible option, but even the stylized pictures on the menu made it look unsatisfying...


Martika, on the other hand, had her mind made up. "Can we get two double-Slopper-with-cheese combos, both with fries, I'll take a Dr. B for my drink and he'll do…" She looked expectantly at Ben.


"Umm. Club soda? Lemon wedge?"


"And two medium triple-thick mint chip Freezies," said Martika.


Ben gulped. That all sounded so good, and yet…


"There's no way I can finish all that food!"


"He's right. Make it one large Freezy, two spoons, we can share." She squeezed Ben's shoulder and led him to a table in the back. "Hey. It's gonna be okay, little guy. You won't have to push yourself. If anything, I'll just eat whatever you can't finish."


"Thanks," he said, leaning instinctively into her touch. She chuckled and gave his shoulder a squeeze. "You're too precious."

 

[stevita]

Before too long, someone came to drop their order on the table, all on one tray. Martika made quick work of unwrapping her burger and fries before popping open the milkshake. She scraped the inside of the lid with her spoon and practically deep-throated the plastic utensil. "So good!" she proclaimed, and proceeded to dunk a french fry into the creamy concoction and pop it into her mouth. "The fries are never as good as you remember them, though. Out of all the restaurants in the city, you pick this one...I'd have totally taken you out for steak if you asked."


Ben, meanwhile, had taken his time unpacking his order. Between the smell of fries straight out of the basket and the greasy, juicy burger, he didn't quite know where to start.


But Martika seemed to be enjoying that milkshake.


He held a fry to the rim of the plastic cup and asked permission with his eyes until she flourished with her hand and invited him: "Be my guest!"


He dipped it in, put it in his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and then…


Then it was over.


"Damn, what are you talking about? These fries are amazing." Or maybe it was just that he'd been depriving himself for years. Either way, even if the fries were a bit mushy on the inside and a bit burnt on the outside, he might as well have been shoveling down a handful of the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted. He couldn't get enough, his desperation for more of the greasy, salty treat growing until he began to choke from eating too fast.


"Oh, no, baby, here," said Martika, tilting his head back to spoon a bit of millshake down his throat and ease everything down.


"Thanks," he said, and stifled a belch in his fist. "S'cuse me."


"Cute."


He felt his cheeks grow hot.


"You wanna try these burgers, or what?" she asked, and dug in. Ben followed suit, forcing back a moan of pure pleasure. Fuck, he'd missed burgers. And cheese. And bacon, and caramelized onions, and whatever that drippy orange sauce was that this restaurant put on everything.


"Funny thing, but if I had to guess, I'd have assumed you'd want Taco Shack. It was Oriana's favorite, as long as I knew her."


"Why'd you lose contact?" asked Ben between fries and gooey bites of his cheeseburger. He had a feeling he already knew, though.


"Oh, circumstances make people drift apart all the time," said Martika. "I graduated, took a gap year, and then went to do my master's abroad, and she...well, she withdrew, for some reason."


So, not even Oriana's old friends knew she was Bombshell. That tracked.


"You two are close, aren't you?"


"I mean, yeah. We used to be closer. She was always at our house, growing up. Like you said, she's kind of a recluse now," said Ben, feigning oblivion. "How'd you guess?"


"She always cut the conversation short whenever I asked too many questions about you. She does that: keeps the things closest to her vague and tucked away. She's good to you, though? If a little antisocial?"


"Last year she took me to my first Electromancers' Conference and Masquerade Ball."


Martika winced. "Did it hurt?"


"Did what hurt?" asked Ben, confused.


"When they made you swallow C4 and then electrocuted you until you shat yourself."


Ben flushed. "That's just a rumor! They don't actually do that. I mean, there's duels and stuff, but you volunteer."


"So you had a good time, then?"


Well, that was a stretch.


Despite his size, he'd been nigh invisible throughout the duration of the conference, despite the gaggle of fans chasing down Bombshell for an autograph.


But that was more than he could say here.


"It kinda blew. I was the only fat person there."


"Well then, maybe this year you take me as your date. That way there'll be two of us."


"You'd really do that for--?" Suddenly, he stopped mid-sentence, wincing and dropping the remaining half of his burger back onto the tray as his insides churned and a prickling burn coiled its way up his throat.


"Ben?"


"M'gonna be sick," he groaned.


"You'll be fine." She wadded up her trash, sucked down the last few gulps of her milkshake, and hooked one chubby arm around his waist, under his elbows. "Just let me help you back to the car before anyone thinks I poisoned you."


The walk couldn't have been longer than twenty steps--she had parked close enough to the restaurant--but by the time he collapsed in the shotgun seat, he was in agony, his head spinning, stomach protesting the sudden onslaught of starch and sugar and grease.


"Don't--don't start the car," he whimpered between labored breaths. The last thing he wanted to do was throw up all over her dash.


"I wouldn't dream of it. Not 'til you're better."


He leaned back in his seat, thinking she would leave him to digest. Instead, she slipped a warm hand up his shirt and began to rub small, gentle circles into his belly just above the navel where the knots were the worst. At first, he flinched, but soon arched against her touch as the tightness in his middle suddenly dissipated, as if by magic. "How are you doing that?"


"What, this? I told you: I'm in the business of pain. Detecting it, making it go away, and sometimes even causing it, if I need to."


Well, that was one way to keep an enemy down. "I was wondering how you'd use your powers in combat."


"It does come in handy. I think my favorite part is being able to give the best belly rubs south of the I-39, though."


She leaned in and he felt her pillowy breasts press against his upper arm as she continued to work her pudgy, dextrous fingers against his skin. His cock twitched in his jeans. Nobody had ever touched him like this...he'd never allowed them to. Chloe had wanted to, but he'd always been too intimidated by her raw, burning desire. He felt nothing like that coming off of Martika.


Wait a minute…


"I can't get a read on you," he said.


She pulled back and he startled, turning to look at her. Her unblinking, curious gaze was trained on his eyes. "Okay...what about now?" she asked.


"Nope. Still nothing."


"That's surprising, seeing as I'm thinking about my...well, someone that did me wrong, put it to you that way," said Martika. "How about if you, y'know, concentrate?"


Steeling his will, he reached out to grip her inner workings…


She burned hot with indignance and meticulous vengeance. He let go immediately before his floodgates could break--he was already far too stuffed with fast food to let her emotions fill him up, too. He swallowed and nodded vigorously. "I...I felt it. But I…"


"You what?"


"I let go. I've never been able to do that."


She smirked widely, her brown eyes gleaming. "Good boy!" She keyed the ignition. "We're going somewhere more private. I want to try something."


As she drove, smooth and steady, towards the outskirts of town, he relaxed and let his hand drift to the slightly-bloated curve of his full belly, massaging it gently through his shirt in an up-and-down motion. Now that the pain had subsided, it felt nice to be this full. Left to his own devices, he might have let the satisfying heft inside his gut and the relaxing warmth of the luxurious car upholstery lull him to sleep.


But Martika wasn't letting him off that easy.


She pulled up by a pier, shook him softly to alertness by the shoulder, and led him outside, to the edge of the Blackwater River. Inky and opaque, the polluted water rippled in the moonlight. "Your body's been used to acting like a sponge," she explained, "soaking in energy and retaining it in the absence of nutrition. And maybe one meal won't be enough to fix it, but what I hope is that now that you're satisfied, you can be more of a prism, refracting that energy into a useful attack. So, why not give it a go, huh?"


Ben bit his lip. "What if I can't do it?"


"Then we'll try again the next day, and the next, until we have to conclude I was wrong. But isn't it worth trying?"


He took a deep breath. "Arright. Here goes nothing…"


He focused on honing in on Martika's internality. This time, he drew a different cocktail of emotions: anticipation, excitement, hope.


"You got it?" she asked.


"Yeah...yeah. It's...weirdly nice." It fizzled with both a warmth and an edge, and it was bouncy somehow, delicate and subtly sweet like a perfect dollop of whipped cream on a hot chocolate.


"Yeah! We're in business!" hollered Martika, pumping one fat fist in the air. "Now try and throw it!"


With a his, Ben began to loosen his grip on the thread of her feelings…


CRACK!


A cluster of lightning bolts erupted from where he stood with a thunderous cacophony, branching into a network of white-hot, buzzing tendrils that popped and sizzled two stories high. Ben looked up, bewildered, as he beheld his own power. "YES!" screeched Martika, jumping up and down in celebration, though her bouncing bulk barely rose inches off the ground.


Seconds after the light show began, it was over, leaving behind only a faint, sweet smell in the air as the last of the sparks fell into the river and dissipated with a hiss of smoke. Martika bounded up to him and embraced him in a tight, doughy hug. He wrapped his arms around her, but they barely made it around her back. Her body felt like a fluffy marshmallow pressed against his, resisting the push of his frame with the loveliest bit of bounce in every vibration of her gleeful laughter. He wondered if his own chubby body was as nice to squeeze as he found hers.


Her head barely came up to the bottom of his chin, and as she pressed her face between the swells of his doughy chest, he felt more capable, more confident, more sexy than he'd ever been.


"By God, you beautiful thing," she said, pulling back to look at him, her eyes welling with joyful tears. "I was right."

 

[Tad]

I am embarrassed to say I never saw this twist coming -- in hindsight it is so obvious. Well done!

 

[stevita]

I am embarrassed to say I never saw this twist coming -- in hindsight it is so obvious. Well done!

Thanks for the read and the compliment! Though I'll be the first to admit, I didn't come up with the fix to Ben's dilemma until I was well into writing his incarceration montage.

Usually I plot my stories meticulously. This time, I just kind of let it run away with me.

My thought process for this concept was "what if there was a character whose romantic interests could literally fatten him up with their love? Why? Because horny brain go brr."

 

[stevita]

CHAPTER 11

"Try it again, only this time, try to keep it a little more contained. Think you can do that, bud?"


Martika lived in a lavish penthouse in the bustling Blackwater business district, sixty-nine stories up from the city's harried pedestrians, resembling ants from this altitude as they scurried across intersections and occasionally entered and exited beetle-like automobiles.


It was a humid but chilly early afternoon, gray and overcast as was typical for the northwest coast. Ben had slept over on her couch after their long, exhaustive day, and now sat with her on her spacious balcony, each of them in a sturdy reinforced chair with a tray of snacks between them on a small table, along with several carafes of mimosa on the ground. Martika had had room service bring up the booze along with a vast array of light bites and hors d'oeuvres: crackers and hard cheeses, finger sandwiches on soft white bread with cold cuts and subtly spiced cucumbers, bean dip and yogurt dip and oil with garlic and herbs, roasted nuts, juicy grapes, dried apricots, and a whole assortment of jams and marmalades; nothing that would tax Ben's sensitive stomach as he sampled the pickings while she leaned back and gorged herself, filling and refilling her own plate and glass while she gave him instruction. She was wearing a silky, dark pink nightgown that left her soft shoulders and juicy, dimpled thighs on display. Without her bra, her breasts held much of their voluminous perk, but still managed to droop ever-so-slightly to either side of her upper belly, a belly that swallowed up the delicate silk between its upper and lower rolls. Ben, for his part, was still wearing what he fell asleep in.


"I can try," he nodded. "Give me something to work with?"


"Any requests?"


Fighting the urge to squirm as he watched her plump lips wrap suggestively around a tiny smoked sausage, he decided, "Think about your first kiss."


She chuckled in the back of her throat, her chubby cheeks rounding out even further as she smiled. "Okay...ready."


He reached for her train of emotion until he was able to grasp it. Her smile became contagious.


The memory was years-old, but still fresh in her mind. He couldn't see it scene-for-scene, but he knew what it felt like. A dual edge: satisfaction and need, competing with one another, radiating from the spot right at the base of his spine. A warm blanket cocoon, acting as a shield against a harsh blizzard. A stranger's umbrella offered in the rain. A playful power-struggle between comfort and lust, until the two abstract concepts lay down beside one another and exchanged names.


"Let it out, Ben," said Martika.


With a controlled, shuddering exhale, he upturned his hand and conjured a softball-sized flurry of hot, yellow sparks. It held its shape for a moment, hovering inches above his palm before dissolving into the faint surrounding drizzle.


"Good!" she praised him between gulps of mimosa. "How do you feel? Do you need more to eat?"


"Nah...everything's been delicious, though," he said, letting his hand fall onto the curve of his belly, enjoying the residual warmth from the electrical burst against his skin through last night's shirt. He was full, but not painfully so--or dare he admit, pleasantly so? "So...what was his name?"


"Dante," said Martika. "I met him in my senior year of college. He was a freshman...down as fuck, though. I've never met anyone else who loved to feast and fornicate as much as me. I think that year I put on seventy pounds, and he picked up what I wanna say was a hundred and ten under my tender loving care?"


A feeder. Of course she was a feeder. No wonder she and Ori had been friends. "What happened to him?" asked Ben.


"Nothing happened, he's just out of town on diplomatic business right now."


Ben choked on his champagne mid-sip. "F--" He coughed a few times and swallowed, hard. "Shit. I didn't know you was taken. Otherwise I wouldna said--"


"What, that I was attractive?" She waved her hand dismissively before clapping him on the shoulder. "It's fine. You're allowed to think another man has a nice car."


He forced a laugh and deliberately relaxed his posture. "I guess. Long as you don't try'n drive it."


She threw him a smirk that he wasn't sure how to interpret and raised her glass.


***


Chloe sensed Heather's approach before the heavy-set heroine even entered her apartment.


With just a few hours until the break of dawn, Heather was returning triumphant, deservedly smug after stopping two armed robberies, an arson in progress, and an attempted child abduction. And what had Chloe accomplished?


After classes, she'd slept through most of the afternoon, then chugged a bottle of cheap champagne by herself, played Minesweeper for an hour, and rewatched an entire volume of Paris After Dark on VHS. The booze had worn off by now, but the dry feeling in her mouth lingered, and she was as depressed as she'd been all day.


Oh, and she'd e-stalked Ben. That couldn't have helped.


She told herself it was only to make sure he hadn't been abducted again, but deep down she knew she was just waiting for any sign that he might come around and talk to her. He was back on his socials, but had given nobody who followed him a clue as to what was going on in his head. No status updates. No RSVP to the next meeting of the Telepath-Empath Society. Just a repost of Complicated Scheme's latest music video and a bunch of funny pictures of animals dressed up as people.


Once Heather had showered and changed from her costume into a too-short hoodie and gray sweatpants that had no hope of ever fitting loosely again, she found Chloe sitting on the back patio, chain-smoking menthol cigarettes and tossing the spent filters over the railing, past a row of hedges and into the parking lot.


"Honey, I'm home!" Heather straddled Chloe's lap and let her full weight bear down on the athletic girl's muscular thighs. A more cheerful Chloe might have creamed her panties to the thought of the rickety wooden chair beneath them giving way under all of Heather's heft. At present, though, she simply wrapped her arms around Heather and cuddled her like a big plushie, sniffling and trying to blink the moisture from her eyes.


"Aww, allergies got you?" Heather teased, blissfully oblivious to Chloe's distress. "You should get some chicken soup. That'll clear you right up. Speaking of food, I am famished!" As if to chime in for emphasis, her belly grumbled with need. "A few more intense nights like that, and I might start wasting away!" she whined. "I sure hope you cooked up a storm!"


"...FUCK!" Chloe gave Heather's fleshy, exposed love handle a series of gentle but insistent taps with her open palm, as if to signify, 'we have an emergency'. How could she have forgotten…


Heather dismounted and Chloe stumbled to the kitchen, where she yanked open the oven, letting off a thick cloud of black smoke that sent both girls into coughing fits and triggered the fire alarm. While Heather fanned it into silence with a stray towel, Chloe clumsily donned a set of oven mitts and pulled out the world's most pathetic baked ziti.


Well, it would have been delicious, had the topmost layer of cheese not burnt to a crisp. But, hours-forgotten in the oven, it was now beyond salvaging, the edges pulling away from the pan and more closely resembling rubber than pasta. Chloe couldn't have been more embarrassed. She didn't know whether to curse, or say a prayer. "Like, O.M.G. I don't even know how I let that happen!" she attempted to plead her case.


It probably had something to do with all the champagne.


While she scraped the mess into the trash with a spatula, Heather took it upon herself to start dinner--her idea of cooking was throwing a few packets of instant ramen into a pot, but at least it was something. She pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and let Chloe collapse into the seat. "What's bothering you today, love? And before you say 'nothing' or try to deny it, just know that you're allowed to fail the Bechdel test."


A telepath couldn't have gotten a better read on her.


"You believe me, right? About Felicity?"


Heather gave her shoulders a squeeze. "Ben's probably got a lot to figure out right now. Remember, before he was our friend, he was hers. But he can't avoid you forever, and he's basically a human lie detector. He'll see."

 

[stevita]

Ben had more to figure out than any of his friends realized, starting with the stupid sandwich machine in the dorm caf.


It had been another productive, but exhaustive, morning training at Martika's penthouse. He could now throw an electrical attack across a room with a marksman's aim, which he thought was remarkable progress for less than a week, but the beguiling radio personality insisted he had a long way to go before he was ready to take down any kind of foe. While they practiced, he'd been in disagreement: he'd felt on top of the goddamn world! But once her valet dropped him back off at campus, he started to see what she meant.


He was still having trouble recognizing his hunger for what it was, but the lightheadedness and weakness on his feet were definite clues.


An hour ago, he could have passed for a veritable demigod. Now, he lacked the competence to even put together a meatball sub.


"What's the holdup?" shouted someone in the line that was rapidly growing behind him. He winced, making a futile attempt to scrape misshapen blobs of cheese, sauce-soaked bread, and mushed meat off of the grilling surface with a plastic fork. What the hell was wrong with him? He'd watched tons of people make sandwiches on this thing every day. Surely, it wasn't supposed to be this hard.


Finally, Malcolm came to his rescue, setting down his own tray of pizza slices, chicken strips, and ice cream sandwiches. Ben couldn't help but notice his roommate's wrinkled button-down and thrift-store vest pulling tight around his prominent gut. Normally, that wouldn't have been a cause for jealousy, but he supposed being kidnapped and starved would do that to a man.


"You alright, bro?" he asked. Ben sighed, defeated.


"I dunno how I managed to fuck this up."


Malcolm cocked his head and examined Ben's poor excuse for a sandwich before concluding, "I see what the problem is: you tried to make a meatball sub in the panini press." He picked up the can of oil spray from the sandwich station, sprayed down the machine, and, with the application of some force and the help of a spare spatula, scraped the now-burnt abomination onto a paper plate, which he proceeded to toss into the trash. "So you do eat food now?"


"Yeah, it's kind of part of my new training regiment."


"Tell me about it at the table, bro. I'm freaking starving."


Eager to get off his feet before he could faint, Ben needed no telling twice.


They ran into a slight delay at the register--Malcolm's swipe card was maxed--but Ben was quick to come through for him. "Put him on me," he insisted, handing the cashier his own card.


"You sure, bro?"


"Yeah, ain't no thing. I still have all my points from last year."


Malcolm had fixed him a plate of chicken fried steak, green bean casserole with white gravy and bacon, and a heaping scoop of gooey mac and cheese. Ben hadn't really been paying attention while they were in line, but now that he was about to dig in, the spread was intimidating. Everything smelled delicious, but looked entirely too decadent. "This is way too much," he said, squirming nervously in his seat. He was dying for a taste of the rich, hearty selection, but…


"I don't know if I'll be able to hold this down."


"Just pop a couple of these," Malcolm instructed, digging a bottle of chalky-looking, colorful pills out of his weather-beaten backpack and sliding it across the table.


"Is this a drug? Am I being offered drugs right now?"


Malcolm rolled his eyes. "They're antacids. They keep your stomach from getting upset. Chloe gets them for me from the co-op."


"...Oh." Ben shook two tablets into his hand and examined them. "These things are huge, how the hell am I supposed to swallow them?"


"What's the matter? I thought you swung both ways," Malcolm joked. "Just fuckin' with ya. You chew 'em."


The taste was every bit as powdery and bland as Ben expected, but nothing some warm, tender beef and creamy gravy couldn't get out of his mouth.


"So, tell me about this new training thing," said Malcolm, unwrapping one of his ice cream sandwiches. There was a lot to tell, but between forkfuls of food that nearly left him shuddering with pleasure, Ben managed to condense the events of the last few days.


"Wait, so you're Martika's student now?" said Malcolm, wide-eyed and incredulous, his voice dripping with envy. "AND her feedee?"


Heat rose in Ben's cheeks. "I wouldn't go that far. She's got a whole man already."


"Makes sense. I mean, she's Martika fucking Mitchell."


"Yeah, he's out of town for business or whatever, but--"


"Hold up. Did she say he was out of town?"


"Yeah, she--"


"Escuchame. Buddy." Malcolm clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a serious look. "She's trying to fuck."


"I kinda wish, but I doubt it." Ben buried his unfulfilled lust for the voluptuous vixen with another irresistible mouthful of macaroni.


Had food always tasted this good?


As he scraped the last morsels off his plate, he felt his stomach stretch to accommodate the volume of food inside. It was a pleasant pressure, intoxicating if confusing. Surely, it wasn't normal to feel such an enthusiastic anticipation for the heft in his belly to turn into fat as he relaxed and digested...but wasn't it, though? His pants were still a little loose after his stint in the lab. He still missed the rest of his body: the softness of his thighs as they crowded together, his pillowy upper arms that made a perfect cushion for his head in bed, the familiar softness of his chin if he bent his neck a certain way, the warmth and weight of his belly as it pooled into his lap when he sat. Finishing his drink, enjoying the slow, dull feeling of his middle expanding, he zoned out and absently palmed at his belly through his sweater.


Malcolm snapped his fingers in front of his face. "Hello?"


Ben shook himself alert. "What?"


"I said, are you going to the dance tonight?"


Fuck. "That's today?"


Malcolm sighed. "For the last five minutes, bro. I usually hate dances, but I heard through the grapevine that Chloe got nominated for Night Court."


"I'm, uh...not really talking to her right now."


"BRO! You gotta let go of this bullshit theory that she left Felicity for dead. Which, news flash, I wanted to. But Chloe wouldn't let me. Anyway, she saved your life, so the least you can do is come and root for her."


***


It was Heather who bounded out of the gyrating crowd to greet Ben at the gymnasium door as he dragged his feet onto the lacquered hardwood, blinking against the sudden assault of colorful strobe lights. "You actually came!" she squealed over the thrum of the live pop music, wrapping him up in a squishy-armed hug. She was wearing an asymmetrical black dress that laced up the front and plunged at the neckline, along with dramatic dark eyeshadow, black lipstick, and chunky, knee-high boots. She'd buzzed her hair again under one ear and wore the rest in a wild, spiky twist. "I didn't think it'd be your scene."


"Yours either," he replied, leaning in so she could actually hear him. "You don't seem like you'd be into this preppy music."


"Oh, Bailey Sharp?" said Heather with a backwards nod towards the stage, where a peppy blonde singer in a sequined silver minidress was dancing energetically and performing a song called, if Ben had to venture a guess, 'All My Love Belongs to You'. "I never thought I'd like her this much, but she's really good. She's super sweet, too. Did you know she went here?"


"What, to Bellvue?"


"Yeah! She's a compulse."


Come to think of it, her voice did have this soothing, ethereal quality to it. Perhaps that was what kept Ben calm as Chloe cut in. "Heather, come on!" she insisted, tugging Heather by the hand back onto the floor for another dance. Heather planted a jet-black lipstick kiss on Chloe's cheek, and Chloe threw Ben a sad, shy smile before the girls disappeared into the crowd.


Malcolm met Ben by the punch table and slipped him a flask. "Nice suit."


"Thanks." Ben helped himself to a swig of tequila.


The suit was from last year, and fit, but barely. A few more good meals, though, and the pants button would have little hope of closing. For the first time in his life, that was a comfort to him instead of a looming threat. "I bought it for my grandma's funeral...which went about as good as you'd expect, considering my dad was a sobbing wreck and my mom's an angry drunk."


"Yeesh. I'm sorry."


"It's whatever." His family problems felt light years away now.


Malcolm shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Speaking of death...shit, I'm never sappy like this."


"We don't have to do this now."


"Look, all I'm tryna say is, I'm glad you didn't get killed."


"Well, gee, Mal, so am I."


"Bring it in?"


Ben let the moment happen, surprised at the strength and sturdiness of Malcolm's embrace. He was looking soft all over these days, but evidently still had a solid foundation of muscle under a layer of lard that had padded out his entire body. He gave Ben a squeeze, and their bellies pressed against one another, soft-on-soft, Jello-like and almost seamless…


Shit. Why was Ben enjoying this?


"Damn," he said once the hug had broken apart.


"I know, right?" Malcolm snickered and gave the side of his gut a proud smack. "Fifty-two pounds in less than a semester. Impressive, yeah?"


"I just meant...I didn't know you actually missed me that much."


"Y'know, Taylor-Moore, for an empath, you can be one dense motherfucker."


"Have you ever thought maybe you're just a closed-off, stonewalling jerk?"


"Yeah...yeah. But that's what you like about me."

 

[stevita]

Soon, the song ended, and Chloe returned to Malcolm with Heather trotting along close at her heels. "Ready for another dance, darling?"


"Actually," Heather cut in, "Mal still looks a little winded from your last dance. C'mon, Mal, I think I saw some of those pecan thingies you like at the snack table. Ben, you just got here--why don't you entertain Chloe for a minute?"


Malcolm looked fine, but he raised no objection, stepping aside to yield to Ben.


Was the whole universe determined to force him to talk to Chloe?


Sighing, he let her lead him out into the crowd. The next song was slow, and she fumbled for a moment, debating what to do with her hands before placing them gently, chastely, upon his shoulders. She studied him with narrowed eyes before the sudden realization dawned on her: "You learned how to block it out!"


"Took me long enough." Now that he thought about it, the key to his power set should have been obvious.


"So, are you gonna, like, read me, or not?"


He would've been mad--and maybe he would've been justified--but the music kept him mellow enough not to walk off on her. "Geez, I've been in everyone's head against my will since high school. Now I don't get a break?"


Chloe seemed to think on it for a moment before nodding, quite possibly compelled by the same force keeping Ben level-headed--he wouldn't know, he wasn't prying. "You're right. Of course you're right. Take all the time you need."


"Thanks," said Ben. "And thanks for rescuing me and all that."


"It was a joint effort," said Chloe, glancing down with a faint blush. "Your new friend Elisa was a great help. Don't tell me she already left without saying goodbye?"


"She hands out human skulls like party favors. She's not exactly the best socialized," Ben pointed out. "What about Gina?"


"She went home to be with her family. She's gonna enroll here next Fall, but God knows she needs the time off. I'm surprised you jumped right into training with Martika. Like, don't get me wrong. It's obviously been good for you. But I'd have liked to get a few days to just...take care of you. Like in that dream you had? At the lab?"


His mouth went dry and he swallowed. For a moment, anticipation mounted inside him. Chloe almost leaned in. Ben almost let her.


Then, the music stopped.


They broke apart. Chloe stared down at her shoes. Ben stuffed his hands in his pockets.


"Good evening, Bellvue!" said Bailey Sharp into the microphone. Her speaking voice, while still pleasant with its charming southern drawl, didn't have the same seductive, sedative undertone as her singing one. "Are y'all having fun tonight?"


There was an uproarious cheer from the student body.


"I just wanna say, it's been less than a year since I moved to the state, and it's been amazing, it's a privilege to be back on this campus playing for y'all, the future heroes of America. Because that's what all of y'all are, no matter what anyone tells you. Whether you're in a costume, or a uniform, or just living your regular life, you can all make a difference, you know how you know? Because y'all go to the best Deviant school in America, am I right?!" As her speech went on, she paced the stage back and forth, her little body coiled with a restless energy evident in her every sharp turn, every bounce on the balls of her feet. "Now, I'm gonna hand it off to Miss Erika Kimborough from the school paper while I take a little intermission, but before I do, I just wanna say that Bellvue baseball RULES, and we are SO gonna crush the Rivington Rattlers next semester, WOO-HOO!"


To thunderous applause, Bailey bounded off the stage, and up stepped Erika, holding a stack of small, white envelopes. "What's up, Bellvue, are you ready to find out who you've elected to this year's fall formal Night Court?"


Ben startled as Heather and Malcolm made their return known behind him with their applause.


"First up, my very own colleague from the Biweekly: Mason Harvey, and his date, Jeremy Callaghan!"


"I knew it!" declared Mason, shoving past Ben on his way to the front of the gym with his boyfriend in tow.


"Yeah, but you're precog, so…" muttered Ben.


"Next on our list: Jason McCready and Caroline Carlisle, please come up to the stage!"


The broad footballer ascended to the stage to be crowned, leading along a busty blonde cheerleader on his arm.


"Congrats, gentlemen! Now, let's get to the ladies! Beth Garramond, will you please come to the stage, and don't forget your sweetheart, Lydia Lochridge! Folks, in case y'all missed it, Lydia got down on one knee for Beth in the quad earlier this semester, and Beth gave her a resounding yes, before announcing their engagement on Twitter! Let's hear it for the brides to be!" said Erika, welcoming the pretty pair of seniors onstage with a sweeping gesture of her arm. Once crowned, Lydia and Beth shared a kiss onstage, to the collective 'aww' of the audience.


Erika opened the penultimate envelope. "Oh...this is a surprise. Well, I suppose foreign royalty isn't unheard of. Our next Lady of the Court comes to us from the Rivington school. She hasn't been with us for long, but you may know her from cheer squad...you may know her from probe club...or maybe the chess team. But more than likely, you know her as the smart-mouthed, if socially awkward, Queen of the gambling scene. She's certainly pretty enough to make the cut, and, love her or hate her, she won the votes: Chloe Cezanne Nguyen, would you and your portly paramours Malcolm Jimenez and Heather Greene please make your way up?"


"Cezanne?" Malcolm repeated with a snicker.


"Shut up," said Chloe, before leading the way up, hand in hand with him.


Ben had been cringing through Erika's entire monologue. "This shit's fucked up. They turned you guys into a joke!"


"Who cares? A crown's a crown," said Heather, and she shuffled along after the rest of her polycule as fast as her short, thick legs would carry her.


But the clown show wasn't over.


"Ladies and gentlemen…"


The drummer from the band initiated a drumroll.


"I'm about to reveal this year's Night Court King and Queen. Are. You. READY?!" To the hysteria of the crowd, Erika ripped open the final envelope. "Oh. Well, this one was obvious. I'm sure all of us expected this: girls want to be her, boys want to be on her. She's powerful, beautiful, and, though she may only be a sophomore, she's definitely the most promising heroine any of us know. Bellvue, the votes are in, and your Queen this year is none other than Miss Felicity Cohen, accompanied by her date…" Erika squinted at the paper. "Benjamin Taylor-Moore? Wait a minute...that can't be right, can it?"

 

[stevita]

Ben's whole face burned hot with shame. He wished he was close enough to the back exit to slip out quietly. That, or that he could melt through the cracks in the floorboards. But the shuffling crowd began to shunt him towards the front with no regard for his wishes, and soon, he was stumbling onto the stage, with no date, and Dammit, no dignity. There were a few derisive snickers from the crowd as Erika plopped a plastic crown on his head.


Then…


Then Bailey Sharp herself got back up on the stage to take his hand and stand at his side.


A collective gasp overtook the audience.


She smiled and took a bow. He followed her lead. "What's next?" he asked as she led the way offstage. He hadn't gone to this thing last year.


"Well, if memory serves...now we dance."


She placed her hands at his shoulder and waist while he awkwardly rested one palm in between her shoulder blades. In theory, he knew how to do this. Oriana had taught him, and she had the skill of a professional. But he had never had her confidence. Bailey naturally took the lead, so he let her have it. "Ain't you the cutie pie," she said. "And such a gentleman, too! Your date's a moron for standing you up."


"Oh, she didn't stand me up," Ben explained. "She's been kidnapped by the government for purposes of science experiments. I'm tryna get her back, but I been working with this mentor on my powers and she don't think I'm ready for a fight yet."


"Sweet Jesus, that's a whole handbasket of hell," said Bailey. "But I'm sure you'll save her." The song ended and they broke apart. "Do you want to take a walk outside with me?"


With all the eyes in the room on the pair of them, getting out became a welcome idea. "Sure."


They slipped out a side door and Bailey lit up a cigarette as they made their ambling way towards the lake. "That was a nice speech," said Ben.


"Thanks," Bailey scoffed. "My manager wrote it. She figured if I kissed the school's ass, we could downplay the whole bit about how I dropped out back in my day. I ain't dumb, I'm just no good at sitting in a desk."


"I never said you were dumb," said Ben. "I think you're nice. Your boss is the dumb one."


She smiled. "That damn witch would kill me if she knew I smoked...but I think my pipes are fine."


"You sounded amazing!" agreed Ben. "Hey, you used to live in Texas, right? Why'd you leave? Just outta curiosity. There's a big betting pool about it here...not that I'm in it. Most folks think you went to Blackwater for a guy. But you don't seem like that. You're deeper than the tabloids say, I think, anyway."


She gave a sardonic chuckle and ashed into the grass. "My parents and I have an ongoing disagreement. See, when I was younger than you are now...hell, I think I was thirteen...I made the mistake of confessing a certain...ambition of mine t'them. One they thought was dangerous."


"You wanted to be a superhero?"


"Something like that, I guess," said Bailey. "Totally different, but almost the same in terms of stakes. Anyway, it's irrelevant. It's never gonna happen. With my career established, the media would have a field day if I ever decided to go in some odd direction."


"Some Odd Direction, hey, that sounds like a band name."


"It does, don't it?" She stared off wistfully into the horizon before tossing her spent cigarette over her shoulder. "Anyway, even if I can't do that thing I wanted to do, they keep interrogating me about it like I'm some criminal and I just wanted to create some distance."


"Well, I hope you like Blackwater City. It's my hometown, so if you play concerts there I'll definitely turn up to support you!" said Ben. "Anyway, we should probably get back. 'Bailey Sharp disappears with some fat guy' probably won't be a great headline for your press."


Bailey walked around to stand in front of him. "Let 'em talk. I don't care."


"Wait, really?"


"Yeah, my mom'll absolutely shit. It'll be hilarious. Either way, I'll still sell tickets. Although…" She trailed off.


"What?"


"Sometimes the whole compulse thing feels like more of a burden than a blessing," she admitted. "When I was first diagnosed, people made it into such a huge deal, saying I could control the world if I wanted to. But all I wanted to do was sing...and now? My voice is just another product for sale. The whole world hears me, but nobody really sees me. But listen to me: poor little celebrity. You probably think I'm some kinda spoiled brat."


"What? No!" said Ben. "And I totally feel you, about powers being a pain in the ass sometimes. Up until recently, mine been more of a curse than anything special. If it wasn't for the lady who's training me--"


"Well, let's see it! What can you do?"


He hesitated for a moment. Could he show her? What if he messed up?


Then again, he hadn't messed up once since he'd started with Martika.


Emboldened by her bright blue gaze, he decided to give it a shot.


"Well, it's fueled by other people's emotions, so feel something for me."


"Like this?"


The first note he got from her was yearning. She wanted with such a ferocity, such a deep-seeded, burning need.


Then, guilt and righteousness fought in her. She knew she shouldn't feel ashamed of her innermost desire, and yet, she did.


The final note she left on his palate was a bittersweet resignation to her life's status quo.


Ben took all of this in as if he was simply pumping gas into his car. It was intense, but nothing he couldn't handle. Then, he upturned one palm and shot a bolt of lightning into the sky that echoed with terrifying BANG!


Bailey jumped back, before hopping up to hug him. "That was amazing! You say your mentor doesn't think you can fight?"


"We been working on my control, but she--"


"I say, bullshit. You want to save your girl? Ignore the mentor. You're ready. First thing in the morning, you go out and find her."


They had turned around by now and made their way back into the gym.


"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back Miss Bailey Sharp!" announced Erika. Bailey took the stage, throwing a wink at Ben, and heads turned to stare at him as if he was the biggest deal in the room.


***


He didn't know how he'd explain it to Martika, if things went sideways.


He wasn't even sure how to explain himself to Malcolm, as the ex-jock rolled out of bed, threw himself together, and started following him down the hall on his way out of the dorm. "Ben! Wait up! Where you going in such a hurry?"


"Class?" Ben invented.


"It's Saturday."


"Right. I meant studying for class. What are you doing here, anyway? You didn't hook up with Chloe last night?"


Malcolm rolled his eyes. "Well, I was gonna. But then you didn't hook up with the singer, and can you blame me for wanting to keep an eye on you after the whole mad scientist thing?"


"Bailey? We just met! Unlike some people in this hallway, I can't just fuck any random stranger!"


"Why not? She totally wanted you."


"I think you're projecting."


"Nah, man. You can tell when a girl wants to fuck. It's all in the body language: she'll turn her chest towards you, like this, see? Like her tits are staring at your eyes."


Ben scoffed. "Whatever, bro."


"Anyway, you're not seriously thinking about going to the library without breakfast?"


As out of the loop as Malcolm was, he was right about one thing: there was no way Ben could brute-force a rescue mission on an empty stomach. Nevermind that he didn't even know whether he'd be looking in the right place if he broke back into Rivington, much less how he was going to go about giving Malcolm the slip. The most important meal of the day would have to come first. Even now, he could feel Malcolm's energy--not to mention his hangover--disrupting the flow of his power.


There was something else, too: another consciousness fast approaching from around a corner, its thoughts ringing with an all-too-familiar, high-strung chord of righteous fury. Ben stopped in his tracks, but not in time to prevent another body from colliding with him head-on.


The girl fell backwards, flat on her ass, her books scattering across the floor, along with her bag and an armful of personal belongings. Her already sour mood spiked with irritation as she scrambled for her things. "Here, lemme help you with that!" Ben offered.


"Don't touch me!" she snapped. "Would it kill you to watch where you're going, you big fat--?!"


She looked up, her jaw going slack. Her eyes widened like a deer's in headlights. Ben nearly collapsed himself from the shock.


"Felicity?"


"--fuck."

 

[stevita]

CHAPTER 12


"You're...you're out?"


"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah," muttered Felicity, waving one hand dismissively as she shoved her possessions back into her bag with the other and staggered to her feet. Ben, of course, offered her a hand up, but she smacked his arm away.


"Why didn't you reach out to me?"


"They told me you were scheduled to be killed. I thought about it...and I...I…"


Ben choked.


Malcolm put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay, bro?"


"Felicity--"


"Please stop saying my name."


"How did you even get away?" Half of him knew the answer already. The other half didn't want to know it. Goddammit. If only he'd gotten down a granola bar or something before leaving the dorm so he could block this out.


"I was released," she said, "because I cooperated."


"You cooperated," said Ben, "with the people who tortured us?"


"You seemed perfectly content to kiss ass in there yourself."


"Did you forget everything I said while we were locked up?" Ben demanded. "I was holding out for rescue!"


"Well, lucky me, because I didn't need it!"


"What...what do you mean?"


"They made me stronger. My service is the least I owe them," she replied. "Besides, do you know how hard it is to get into the superhero game? People waste years trying to make the cut, and I've had the opportunity handed to me on a platter! Be stupid to turn it down."


"Lissy, if you really wanted to be a hero so bad, you coulda just became a rogue any time."


Felicity laughed cruelly. "A rogue? You mean like all those weirdos and fuck-ups? Bombshell and Big Tech and whoever that new fatass is who drives that ridiculous green car? No thanks!"


"And what are you gonna do when your new bosses turn on you? Huh?" asked Ben. "What happens when they can't use you anymore and you end up in cryo-freeze, or back on the experiment table?"


"You still don't get it, do you, Ben? But I guess it took me long enough, too: I was never in any real danger from the Division because I'm just a higher caliber of Deviant. I was fooling myself, thinking it would be you and me against the world forever, but I see now. I've always been superhero material, and you'll only ever be good for spare parts. It's about time I stopped letting you drag me down."


With every passing second, Ben felt closer to losing the battle not to cry.


"Did you come back here just to insult me?" he whimpered.


"Don't flatter yourself. I came to get my stuff." She turned on one heel and flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Later, losers."


"Listen, you bitch--!" Malcolm looked for a moment like he was preparing to attack her, but Ben grabbed him by the shoulder to hold him back. Even before she had whatever extra powers Dr. Duplicate had shoved into her, both men combined would've been no match for her. "OW!" Malcolm yelped as an involuntary electric shock shot down his arm. "Did you just tase me, bro?!"


"I'm so sorry! It just slipped out!"


Malcolm rubbed his shoulder in pain, but was quick to forgive his roommate. "Alright, bro, we're gonna get you fed, and then...we're gonna get you plastered."


Twenty minutes later found the boys back in their dorm, surrounded by as many bottles of liquor as Malcolm had been able to shoplift across a handful of trips from the school to the store and back, along with enough snacks to feed a whole Superbowl party. None of it could be called 'real food'--it was all things like chips, cheesy crackers, trail mix, Wasabi peas--things you could easily cram down by the handful while you drank and wallowed in misery. They sat on the edge of Malcolm's bed, Malcolm alternating between hits on his weed pipe and shots of tequila while Ben nursed a whiskey cola that was mostly whiskey, but with just enough cola to taste it. He hadn't given much thought to it in the last few years, but now that he looked back on his former diet of emotional energy and calorie-free seltzers…


He really, really hated grapefruit LaCroix.


They had the Splice Sisters playing on TV, but he wasn't really paying attention. "I just don't get it," he mumbled, more to himself than to Malcolm. "She used to defend me. She'd get into fights with people who tried to fuck with me."


"Wait, so is it the Asian girl who's the genius?" asked Malcolm, squinting at the screen. "And I don't even know, bro. People change. I did."


"No, Klaudia's the smart one. Keiko is the one that fights like a rabid animal," Ben explained. "And I know, but you had some real growth."


"Really? You're gonna do fat jokes now?"


"Fuck no. All I meant was that you turned into a better person, instead of a giant jerk."


"Well, thanks." Malcolm finished the last crumbs out the bottom of the family-size bag of spicy Cheesers they'd been passing back and forth and tore open a bag of BBQ Crunchlers. "So is the super-smartness because of the human experimentation, or was she always gonna be smart?"


"I think that might be a point of debate in the fandom?" Ben guessed. "This show's kinda heavy. It's really more my cousin's thing than mine. We just all share the same FlickStream account and she left it in the queue. Do you wanna just watch Fred, Fred and Frederick?"


"Man, why's it always gotta be cartoons with you? I wanna watch Space Trek Infinity."


"You wanna watch Captain Brightman's ass bounce in her little uniform. You can speak your mind, dude."


Suddenly, a banging sounded from the door. "WHERE THE FUCK DID THAT BITCH GO?"


It was Chloe.


Malcolm heaved himself off the bed and stumbled to the door to let her in. He tried to pull her against his bulk for a hug, but she shoved him away. "I'LL KILL HER! I SWEAR TO GOD, I'LL KILL HER!"


Ben didn't need to ask who she was ranting and raving about. "Chloe, c'mon. Don't kill nobody, you'd go to jail." He poured her a double shot of vanilla vodka. She liked the sweet stuff, right? "Just c'mere and drink this."


"Yeah, besides, what are you gonna do, mind-read her to death?" Malcolm pitched in. "Anyway, I thought you were at work."


"I was. I was!" She crossed the room, threw herself onto the bed, and accepted the drink Ben offered her, downing it in one pull. "But then that BITCH Felicity went in my InstaGlam DMs and sent me this shit!"


She tossed her phone into the bed. Ben picked it up and read through the messages.


BadassBlondie03: jsyk I'm transferring to Rivington so I'm soon to be out of your hair. Don't look for me.


BadassBlondie03: Regarding Ben--he's your problem now. I tried to protect him but I can see now he's never been worth it.


BadassBlondie03: Fatten him into his grave for all I care. Goodbye good riddance and good luck.

 

[stevita]

Ben hooked an arm around Chloe's back and eased her upright. "You'll be okay, Chloe. I got you."


"Please don't feel sorry for me," she choked out, blinking back tears. He reached into her to get a read. Right away, he was hit with notes of guilt. He wanted to take it away. "I shouldn't be thinking of me right now. You're the one who lost your best friend."


"Chloe, no! You're my best friend!" He pulled her in close to his body. The timbre of her feelings changed. She clung to him, relishing the softness and proximity she'd craved for so long, but been denied. Ben could have smacked himself...but that would do no good in the way of fixing things between them.


At last enlightened, he could do right by her now.


"She's a terror. She's egotistical, narcissistic, and a fatphobe. I think I already knew. I just gave her the benefit of the doubt because...well, I knew her. She was comfortable. But that was wrong, and I let her torture you for months, and I should have believed you. But if I could take it all back, Chloe--"


Suddenly, she moved in to kiss him on the lips. He moved his hands up her body to caress her neck and stroke her face with the pads of his thumbs. Her cheeks were soft. Her lips tasted like vanilla vodka and cherry Chapstick. Her hair smelled like flowers, and the ends of it tickled his shoulders as it stuck out of her messy twin space buns. She squeezed his sides, making him gasp. "Too much?" she asked.


"No...do that again."


His breath caught in his throat as she grabbed and kneaded his pudge. He was hyperaware of how his fat pooled through the spaces between her fingers, and, tuned into her pure pleasure, he couldn't get enough.


"Hey, don't I get any?" asked Malcolm. Ben pulled back so Malcolm could get some one-on-one with his girlfriend...but instead, he grabbed Ben by the shoulders and made out with him. He was aggressive, going straight in with tongue before pulling back, taking the time to give Ben's bottom lip an affectionate bite. He smelled like spicy cologne and alcohol and...gunpowder? "Figured, as long as we were all getting our feelings out, I might as well, right? Was...was that okay?"


Ben responded by kissing his roommate back. He was clumsy and inexperienced, but Malcolm took the lead, gripping his shoulders and pulling him in in a way that made their bellies smash together deliciously. Slightly tipsy and aroused, Ben decided to let his defenses down. In flooded Chloe's longstanding desire, along with Malcolm's curiosity, not to mention his high. Ben let himself fall against the mattress while the other two took turns palming and fondling his fat middle, jiggling him, exploring him, appreciating him.


Then Chloe inched herself up the bed and pinned him down by the shoulders for another heated make out session.


Malcolm pulled his pants down around his knees, spread his thighs, and gave a soft bite to each of their soft insides before taking his hardening cock in hand and beginning to suck on it.


***


Ben awoke in a daze. Chloe was nestled against his side, draped in his shirt, which fit her curvy, compact little body like a dress. Malcolm was spooned against her on the other side.


There'd been more liquor drunk the previous night, more sucking and squeezing and pleasing. At one point, Chloe had mounted him, and once he was totally spent, he'd rolled over and let her give Malcolm his turn right on the bed beside him. A few more rounds of shots later, they'd all caught a second wind. At Chloe's insistence, and much to her delight, the boys had drunkenly clambered over each other trying to 69, but there was a little much belly in the way on both ends to make it work. They passed out at some point, and unless Ben was crazy, Chloe had come back to fuck him again in his dream--it had to be a telepath thing.


The sun hadn't yet shown itself and the other two were still sleeping like the dead. Ben feet their peaceful bliss tickle the edges of his reach. They were adorable. He could've kicked himself for all that he'd spent the semester missing out on.


Instead, he let his night vision adjust before reaching for a quarter-full bag of chips to polish off as a midnight snack. After crumpling up the empty bag and tossing it in the trash, he picked up a bottle, helped himself to a final shot, and laid back down in a pleasant stupor. It was about time he allowed himself to enjoy life.


Chloe had rolled over to wrap her arms around Malcolm in Ben's brief absence, but as he lay back down beside her, she instinctively pushed her ass up against his gut. It was a fantastic ass, round and proud--he might have sprung yet another erection if he wasn't so wiped. He wrapped an arm around her waist, relishing her warmth. She carried a little chub of her own around her lower tummy--he'd noticed it before, but he hadn't realized until now how pleasant it would be to cuddle and caress. With a face-numbing buzz starting to creep back up on him, he happily held her until he drifted back off.


When he woke up for real, Chloe was stepping out of the bathroom, hair wet from the shower, makeup fresh, and still wearing his shirt, tucked into her skinny jeans, under a forest green jacket that she wore open. It was too loose in the neck and too baggy on her to be considered stylish, but nevertheless, she was smug about it.


"Is that just your shirt now?" asked Ben, propping himself up on his elbows.


Across the room, Malcolm was sitting in a chair with a breakfast sandwich from Burger Queen shoved halfway down his throat. He broke off a colossal bite, swallowed, and chased it with some soda before pressing a hand to his belly to push out a deep, wet belch. Ben still didn't get why it was sexy. It just was. "She does this. She's a bratty little shirt thief."


"As far as I'm concerned, I, like, won it. If you want it back, you can fuck me for it later," smirked Chloe, wiggling her butt in her straining jeans. "But I hope you know…" She plopped herself onto the bed and laid down, slipping a hand into the covers to give his jiggly lower belly a squeeze. He welcomed it, and he knew she knew it. "If I fatten you out of it, it's mine, fair and square."


"Game on," said Ben. "But you're taking me shopping for replacements when that day comes."


"Like any feeder worth her salt," she agreed. "Oh! I picked you up some Burger Queen breakfast. Can't send you off to your lesson with Martika on an empty stomach, can we?" She plucked a bag of something that smelled delicious off the nightstand and placed it in his lap.


"I mean, you could. She has food at her place."


"Well, I didn't want to." She popped up to give him a sweet, short peck on the cheek.


"I'm glad you didn't." He unwrapped a decadent sausage-and-egg biscuit sandwich and dug in with gusto. "So you really don't mind that I'm meeting her?"


"Of course not! She's helped you so much!"


"But you already know I...y'know."


"You like her. Big deal." She waved a hand dismissively. "You like me, and I've already got Heather and Mal. You don't hate them for it. You're happy to share me with them. So why shouldn't I be just as happy to share you?" She pressed her temple to his shoulder and gave his belly another affectionate jiggle. "You're so sweet...and so hot...and like, so fucking sexy. It'd feel unfair to want to keep you all to myself."

 

[stevita]

He showered quickly and threw on the jeans and burgundy button-down he'd laid out on the bathroom counter. He hadn't worn this shirt in a hot minute, and when he tried to button it up, the space between the buttons gaped, exposing slivers of white undershirt. Just as well...it looked fine unbuttoned, he decided.


Curiously, he stepped on the scale and peered over his belly at the number.


282. Once upon a time, that number would have horrified him. He wasn't yet back up to his all-time high, but he'd definitely put on weight. That time felt ages away though. Now, it was okay. He wished he had packed some of his fat clothes when he moved into his dorm, but at the start of the year, he'd been hoping to lose even more weight than he had over the summer.


Fuck that shit, though. He was nice to hug, and fun to touch, and he liked eating, so why should he ever deny himself that pleasure? So far, all the people that mattered liked him as big as he was, and the folks who wanted him smaller were all messed up themselves.


Thankfully, his undershirt was long enough to cover him up and his boxers came up high enough to keep his belly overhang from chafing against the waistband of his tight jeans, which he'd had to fasten low across his hips, as they wouldn't do up around his waist. He'd have to replace those soon, but he deserved to drop a few bucks on comfort.


He gave his lower belly a gentle little pat, smiling as he watched it jiggle, and thought to himself, 'You can stay.'


***


When Martika's valet dropped Ben off at the entrance to her penthouse, she was quick to open the door. "Ben! Delighted, as always!" She led the way inside and into the kitchen. She was wearing this sheer, purple satin nightgown with spaghetti straps that was probably meant to fit looser and hang longer on a thinner woman's body, but her robust frame pulled the fabric taut. It bunched into the rolls of back fat below her armpits and barely covered her ass, each cheek bouncing perkily as she walked despite their heft and prominence. More and more, he was beginning to understand what exactly the big deal was about fat. He wanted to grip that ass, or, at the very least, reverently run the palm of his hand over it, exploring the coating of flab and cellulite covering what had to be a base of solid musculature--how else would she be able to hold up the rest of her hefty body? How else would her cheeks stick out like that? Although...a part of him suspected she was lighter than she looked. After all, had he not felt her embrace? She was pillow-like, cloud-like, and stunningly soft, especially in the chest department. As she walked, his eyes drifted to the rolls where her thigh fat began to spill over her knees. He wished he could give those spots a little kiss. Maybe fall asleep with his head on one of those thick, round thighs like a fluffy pillow.


Dammit! Why was he so hungry for affection? He'd have thought he would have had his fill...or maybe his night with Chloe and Mal had just awakened a new sort of hunger within him.


On the kitchen counter, she had at least ten trays of pastries and sweet treats still warm from the ovens at...well, wherever her cooking staff worked. Did she--like--did she actually own the building? He'd never asked, but that would have been his guess. "You can have anything you want," she said. "I've got a pretty big day planned out!"


"It's fine, I uh...had breakfast before I came here."


She glanced over her shoulder, smiling slyly. "I didn't say anything you need. I said, anything you want."


Come to think of it...those lemon squares looked pretty tasty. And she'd said it herself: he'd gone years without basic nutrition. The least he deserved was a little dessert, even if it was with breakfast.


And, he thought to himself, plucking one of the cheerfully yellow, sugar-dusted confections off its tray and helping himself to a hearty bite, wouldn't he do well to keep himself nice and plump for Chloe and Mal?


She nodded approvingly, pouring him a glass of something from the fridge, which he took in hand and sipped to wash down the sweet, tart, and buttery dessert. It was a chilled, semi-sweet tea with some sort of fruity note--peach? Raspberry? It frustrated him that he couldn't remember. "So what about these big plans?"


"Well...you've been making great progress so far. You can channel your powers and even hit a target at a distance, which...let's be honest, very few students ever pick up at Bellvue without taking the initiative to learn on their own. Trust me, I went there. The whole combat training program is a joke. And, speaking of combat: we're working on a timetable. It's time you learned how to fight."


And just like that, a knife twisted in his heart.


He knew Felicity was bad news. He should have known sooner; in retrospect, the red flags couldn't have been more obvious.


So why did her betrayal still sting?


"About that," he said, setting down the cup, "we might not have to be in such a rush. That girl I told you about, the one I needed to rescue? Turns out she's not in danger. She switched sides on me. She's working for the enemy now."


For a moment, Martika just stood, facing him, stunned. She seemed to calculate her next words, but what she did after that felt as sincere and spontaneous as anything.


"Oh, Ben." She pulled his big body against her own, enveloping him in one of her warm, doughy hugs. With one hand combing through his hair, she said, "I know how terrible it is when the one who's supposed to look out for you stabs you in the back instead. You can put on a brave face--and don't say you're not, I know you well enough by now. But it's gonna hurt for a while. That's normal. If you didn't feel the pain, you wouldn't be human."


The hug lingered, but Ben didn't feel like it dragged. A sense of comfort washed over him, even as he floundered awkwardly, trying to figure out what to do with his hands to maintain propriety--he finally placed them on her thick upper arms. "Some folks would say we ain't human," he murmured softly.


"I know, Ben. I know. And that's why we have to fight. Especially since our enemy's ranks are growing."


She pulled back, holding him at arm's length so she could examine him. Her kind, brown eyes were wide with concern. "Okay," he nodded. "I'll fight you."


"Me?" Martika laughed, the vibration of her incredulous cackle causing her many fleshy rolls to jiggle up and down in her tight dress. "I'm not a monster! I like you too much to subject you to my big finisher. But I did happen to find you a little sparring partner…"


He heard a shuffling from behind and turned around just in time to see a familiar brunette appear at the kitchen entrance.


"Ms. Mitchell? Your door was unlocked, so I let myself in. Should I just put my stuff over--? Ben? Hell. I knew I'd see you again, but I didn't know it'd be this soon!"


"Elisa?!"

 

[Ghostboo]

Every day I’m thankful for the gay polyam chubby chasing representation we all deserve here! It just keeps getting better Stevita, I love the relationships and food descriptions. Thank you for all your hard work!!!

 

[stevita]

Every day I’m thankful for the gay polyam chubby chasing representation we all deserve here! It just keeps getting better Stevita, I love the relationships and food descriptions. Thank you for all your hard work!!!

Thanks so much! This story has been a total tightrope--I didn't want to play the "thin savior" card so I've had to find roundabout ways to guide Ben on his journey of self-love, and it feels so cathartic to finally give him good things, along with the rest of the polycule. (And it's certainly helped that irl I've recently become the "Chloe" in a similar situation lmao)

 

[Tad]

A hearty seconding to everything that Ghostboo said!