chapter 1

Hilly Przbylski had reached the "lock up your brain and throw away the key" phase of her relationship with Brad Brauner. No one could have seen it coming, least of all Hilly. Perhaps it was because she'd never had a long term boyfriend before, never been in a serious relationship. So when she fell for Brad, she really FELL. The best way to describe how she felt about Brad is that it was 60 percent lust, 30 percent love, and about 10 percent biological clock ticking away.

Hilly hadn't thought of herself as mother material. She didn't get all weepy when she saw babies. She certainly didn't envy pregnant women their big bellies, varicose veins, hemorrhoids, and stretch marks. At least she hadn't until she passed her 30th birthday. Then, all of a sudden, WHAM!! She'd find herself unconsciously rubbing her flat belly when she'd notice a massively pregnant woman waddle by and seriously wonder what it would feel like to actually BE pregnant.

And then Brad entered her life. He was tall, dark and VERY handsome. That checked off the lust box on her "must have" list. He was also sweet and kind and considerate which definitely made it easy to fall in love with him. And there was a part of Hilly that looked at Brad as nothing more than a sperm receptacle, a gigantic ejaculation machine that could fill up her belly with babies.

Brad may not have known that there were all these ulterior motives floating around in Hilly's fertile little brain. But then there were regions of Brad's brain that Hilly hadn't explored and had no idea existed. On the surface, Brad was nothing if not conventional. He was a sharp dresser, VERY fashion conscious. He took care of himself, watched what he ate, worked out, tried to always be physically fit. But deeply hidden in the dark recesses of his mind, there were desires, strong, compelling, obsessive desires, desires that Brad kept to himself. But, in time, Hilly would be introduced to at least one of them.

The relationship moved slowly. Dinner on the weekends at first. Always in top-of-the-line dining establishments. Hilly was no gourmet, not by anyone's stretch of the imagination, so she deferred to Brad's sophisticated tastes and his extensive background with haute cuisine, which meant that Brad ordered FOR her. And being as besotted with Brad as she was, Hilly never seemed to notice how LARGE her meals were and just how calorie-packed they were. All she knew was that Brad ordered dinner and he expected her to clean her plate. When she didn't, he gave her that disappointed little boy look and almost FORCED her to wolf down her entire meal, no matter how BIG it might be.

Over time the couple only got closer. Brad would stop by with lunch, a hand packed picnic basket loaded with delicious goodies. And, of course, being the "good girl friend" that she KNEW Brad expected her to be, Hilly ate every single delicious, calorie-laden bite.

At the beginning of the Hilly/Brad relationship, Hilly made a definite effort to exercise as much of the extra calories Brad was inducing her to eat. She'd spend hours at the gym, sometimes staying until late in the night in a frantic effort to burn off as many calories as she could. And, by and large, she succeeded. Over the first six weeks of their relationship, Hilly only gained three pounds, hardly putting an ounce of strain on the seams of her size 2 wardrobe.

But then Brad started coming by on Wednesdays to cook for her. Now how could a "good girl friend" turn down a gesture as thoughtful as that? Certainly not Hilly. Besides, once she finished off the magnificent spread Brad laid out for her, they engaged in some of the hottest, most passionate sex Hilly had ever experienced in her entire life. The combination of delicious food and wild, passionate sex was simply irresistible, downright addictive in fact. So it should come as no surprise that Brad's thoughtful gestures expanded from Wednesdays to Mondays and Thursdays as well. And then, of course, there were the weekend dining extravaganzas that invariably were followed by some of the most orgasmic moments Hilly had ever imagined possible.

Of course, with all this eating and with all that sex, who had time to go to the gym to work out? Especially since Brad saw to it that Hilly was kept VERY busy in the nutrition department at DePaul University Hospital, often working WAY into the night and more often than not into the early hours of the morning. It wasn't too long before Hilly let her gym membership slide and her workouts reduced to climbing the stairs at work on a semi-regular basis.

By the time Hilly and Brad got to their three month anniversary, Hilly was forced to admit that she couldn't get her "slightly" expanded backside into any of her size two pants or dresses. And, naturally, Brad offered to pay for an entirely new wardrobe. What Hilly never noticed as she tried on her size four ensemble was the look of what could only be described as anticipation on Brad's face. Anticipating dinner that night? Anticipating another round of mind-boggling intercourse? Or anticipating something even more life changing than Hilly could have ever imagined?