Chapter 4 - rivalries are revealed, and a contest is proposed.

Holding her large camera phone on its side, Katie stepped back two paces and pinched the zoom.

She shuffled back a few more milimeters, then tilted the phone ever so slightly.

*Click*

Flicking through the gallery with her index finger, the pretty brunette grinned at the end product.

The shot showed her sleeping husband, mouth agape with a thick worm of drool hanging to his double chin, sprawled on his back in bed and surrounded by empty plates and a half-eaten chunk of cheese soufflee. She had timed the photo perfectly so that it was taken just as snoring Ryan at reached the apex of exhalation, the point where his belly - firmly full with a feast of Mexican delicacies and rich desserts - was at its most roundly swollen.

There was only one thing left to do. Licking her lips, Katie hit "share" and fired the pic over to her friend Beth on whatsapp, along with the caption "Feed the brute...".

After a couple of minutes cleaning up around her snoring husband, she felt the buzz of a response in her pocket.

When Katie looked at her phone, her eyes almost jumped out of their sockets, and she had to cover her mouth to prevent herself from laughing out loud.

For Beth had sent back a picture of her own husband, looking equally asleep and replete in a big recliner, his firm, spherical gut protruding hugely into his lap. Nearly to the knees, it strained the fabric of his designer turtleneck sweater. The caption read "...And give him seconds!"

"Buuurp! :)" Katie typed back, "What's the occasion?", adding a winking smiley.

For of course, she knew there was no occasion. Beth was renowned and envied throughout the neighborhood not just for ler looks, but for her extraordinary culinary talents - particularly her phenomenal feats of baking. A year after moving into the neighborhood, the compliments she'd received had prompted her to open what as now a highly successful bakery.

And nowhere was the evidence of Beth's skill - and perhaps the proof that there's no substitute for practice - more obvious than on her husband of four years. Zach was a walking advertisement for his wife's business (although to be fair these days he spent far more time sitting on his ever-growing ass than walking).

Gazing at the picture for a moment, Katie thought back to when Beth and Zach had first moved to the neighborhood. The cliched storybook couple: athletic college stud meets blonde head cheerleader with massive boobs. Yet it seemed that fairytales could come true: now in her their twenties, the pair remained deeply in love. Beth still passed for the perfect cheerleader, her waist as slim and her boobs as big as ever.

Zach too was just as handsome as his college yearbook photo, with his short but stylish thick blond hair and boyish grin. But where Beth had kept herself trim with long yoga sessions, boot camps and and extensive circuit training, the ease of married life, a love of beer, and half a decade in a desk job - coupled with his wife's growing baking obsession - had conspired to swell Zach's formerly sporty physique to staggeringly plump proportions.

Once an avid ballplayer, the college stud now boasted a huge ball belly, which jutted out high and firm as if he were well beyond nine months pregnant - and expecting a heavy set of twins. The neighbourhood wives joked that the perfect sphericalness of Zach's prosperous paunch - which curved out sharply just below his nipples, giving his "pecs" somewhere to lounge - could only be explained by its being permanently full of his wife's wonderous baking. And sure enough, it was unusual to see the big guy without some plate of some freshly concocted goodies to tuck into.

In fact, zooming in on the picture, Katie reckoned the blond stud had acquired even more bellyweight since she last saw him. The tanned swell of his massive middle was peeking out beneath the bottom of a new-looking designer sweater, which had ridden up way over the bellybutton thanks to the introduction of what must've been a truly epic breakfast, no doubt followed by an intense "taste-testing" session, in which Zach "sampled" several large servings of Beth's latest baked masterpieces.

And it wasn't just the gut. with his head tilted back, Zach was showing off a thick neck and multiple chunky chins.

Katie smirked. All men loved to eat, but it usually took well over a decade of severe laziness and dedicated wifely feeding for them to develop a belly as big as Zach's. He was one of that rare breed of husband who had passed the big three-oh-oh before even reaching big three-oh.

A belch from Katie's own dearly beloved brought her back to reality, as Ryan groaned slightly and shuffled in bed, scratching his paunch lazily and mumbling in his sleep. She smiled, imagining the wild dreams her tubby hubby must be having after such a major cheese overload.

Her whatsapp beeped again, Beth's blonde avatar appearing next to another message: "Hah! Just trying a new recipe for Cherry Choc Frasier Torte. As I'm sure you can tell, it seems to have been, uh, well-received. ;) What's in yours?"

"Mexican" replied Katie. "Best part of a chicken, quarter of a cow, plenty of chips. And don't forget the cheese souflee!"

"Ah the famous Rhodes souflee!" came back Beth's message, and then on the next line: "Pass the pepto!" followed by a puffy cheeked emoticon.

Katie chuckled, shaking her head at her friend's cockiness. "Cheek!" she tapped back, adding with a winking smiley: "Looks to me like it's your Zach who'll be hollerin for the pink stuff #cherryoverload."

"Girl please!" came back Beth instantly, "The day my husband gets sick from my baking, I'll hang up my oven gloves for good. Zachy could eat my pies for days on end. Poor little Ryan couldn't even choke down one measley serving of your second-rate souflee #IveSeenTheEvidence!"

"That was his third!" typed back Katie hastily and a little testily too. "And I bet my Ryan could eat more slices of my souflee than Zach could of your Chocolate Tuxedo Supreme Cheesecake. That thing's so full of sugar he'd be hollerin for a bucket after half a slice!"

Katie was joking, but only just. Beth's playful insult to her cooking had hurt at little.

"My dear Katrina," came the instant response, and Katie winced at the use of her full name. "Are you seriously challenging a professional baker to a bake-off?"

"Bring it on!" fired back Katie, getting reckless now at her friend's smug arrogance.

"Challenge accepted," Beth replied, followed by a large grinning face. "What's say we make it a public event to prove who's the best baker in town. Bring your whisk! #itsON!"

"Just keep your husband restrained from my souflees!" Katie slapped her phone shut.

Minutes later she was staring into the kitchen sink, srcubbing a pyrex bowl and wondering what on earth she'd let herself in for. Had she really just challenged a professional baker to a baking contest? In her mind's eye she pictured the sleeping form of her well-fed Ryan. However much he insisted that he had a "manly physique" and was "in his prime", that hefty paunch said otherwise. But...Had she really just entered her husband in an eating contest against a man whose waist must stretch the tape at least into the mid 50s?

Meanwhile, just a few blocks around the corner, Beth was tapping her phone against her lips, staring thoughtfully at her happily snoring husband. Katie must be crazy, she thought. Ryan was a porker: he'd proved as much on Thanksgiving. But thanksgiving had also proved that his eyes were way bigger than his belly, that he didn't know his limits.

Zach, on the other hand, had no limits - or at least none that she had yet discovered. Beth continued to gaze at her husband, his hands resting atop the tremendously fat tummy he'd managed to develop in four short years of marriage. The man was eating more than ever - and always had room for seconds. Yet with that sleepy, contented look on his face he seemed to her as handsome and perfect as the day they'd wed - even if his weight had more than doubled since their marriage.

Beth didn't know what it was, but there was something so confident and comfortable about him, elbows resting on the arms of the recliner she'd coaxed him into after lunch, that hugely round tummy stretching upwards with every snore.

Beth spun on her heels and skipped out throught the ajoining door, which opended into a vast kitchen, full of sparkling, gleaming appliances and brand-new culinary machinery: everything a girl could need for the speedy production of huge, high-quality meals that would quell the appetite of a voraciously hungry hubby. Humming happily, she casually fired up a state-of-the-art oven - one of three mounted on the wall.

There was no way Zach could lose this.

But a little extra training wouldn't hurt.