chapter 3

Britt Sommers had always noticed that thin people tended to underestimate fat people. For some strange reason they seemed to assume that fat cells made you stupid. Now Britt didn't mind this, in fact, she LOVED to take advantage of it. When she challenged Kelly to let herself go she had a definite plan in mind.

Apart from being extraordinarily intelligent, Britt was also keenly observant. She noticed from the time they first met that Kelly was VERY competitive. That's why she KNEW that Kelly would rise to the bait and accept her challenge. Even better, she knew that Kelly would do whatever she needed to do in order to WIN. What Britt hadn't expected was the degree to which Kelly was letting her rigid self-control slip away. She expected that Kelly would systematically eat enough to gain weight. What she hadn't expected to see was how MUCH Kelly was starting to ENJOY it.

Britt first realized this when she noticed how oblivious Kelly had become about what and how much she was eating. Britt had been there herself once upon a time. When she was a freshman she barely weighed a hundred pounds. She was away from home for the first time, she was homesick, lonely, and she needed comfort, which she found in food. Now this was all well and good as long as she maintained control. But what she didn't realize was how easy it was for control to just slip away. She had always counted calories, maybe not as obsessively as Kelly, but enough to keep her weight on an even keel. But over time that freshman year she failed to notice little changes in her diet. Her meals got bigger. She started to snack. The snacks became more frequent. The snacks got bigger, and so did SHE. Before she knew it she had put on the dreaded Freshman Fifteen and about forty pounds more. Of course at SOME point she noticed that she wasn't the thin girl she had always been. That's when she tried to exercise more and eat less. That's also when she found out just how hard it WAS to exercise more and eat less!

What Britt noticed about Kelly was that HER self-control was starting to wane. That's when she decided to launch Operation Overeat. It was an insidious plan. No, she wasn't going to ply Kelly with appetite stimulants or weight gain powders. But she wasn't above placing temptation in Kelly's path. With any luck at all, Kelly would start to become less and less conscious about her eating habits. And, if there just happened to be something on hand for her to snack on, something with a few more calories and a lot more fat, well so much the better.

Now Britt couldn't help but notice that Kelly was getting less and less active. Instead of being out and about the campus DOING things, Kelly was spending a lot more time in the apartment. She'd plop herself down in their recliner and read voraciously or watch TV hypnotically. Now what do you suppose would happen if there was something nearby for her to snack on? Britt was pretty sure that Kelly just MIGHT feel just the least little hungry and start to search for something to nibble on, and she decided to be Little Miss Helpful.

So that Monday afternoon, when Kelly came back from class and plopped her butt into the recliner and turned on the TV, lo and behold, there was a nice big bowl of M&Ms. She didn't wolf them down or anything, but unconsciously she'd take a handful and just nibble. When that handful of tiny tidbits were gone, her hand unconsciously reached for another and then another. Before she knew it, the candy was all gone. And it was time for supper. Amazingly enough, in spite of all that candy, Kelly's appetite hadn't diminished all that much. She ate a rather large supper, although she DID skip dessert.

By some incredible coincidence, bowls of various and sundry candies and other sweet goodies would mysteriously appear on the coffee table right in front of the recliner. Kelly had always been a bit selfish and a tad inconsiderate, so it never occurred to her that these luscious snacks might belong to Britt, and she didn't much care. The only thing that changed over time was that the bowls got bigger and the snacks more plentiful.

By the middle of December, Kelly's gain had become impossible to miss. Her belly was bigger and rounder, sticking out rather prominently. Her butt, which had always been flat and hardly noticeable had filled up and rounded out nicely. Her perky little boobs were distinctly round and full, which may have explained why she had taken to walking around braless, even though it was definitely chilly outside.

As oblivious as Kelly might be, she couldn't deny to herself that she was having a VERY hard time pulling ANYTHING over her billowing butt. She was reduced to buying a couple of pair of yoga pants, size eight, not her usual size four. At this point she had gained twenty-seven pounds and for the first time in her life weighed over one hundred and forty pounds. She may not have been exactly fat, but she sure had taken the bus into Chubby Land!

Britt, of course, was overjoyed. Now you had to understand that the extra weight actually made Kelly look BETTER. She had curves in places she had never thought possible and she had taken to staring at her new figure in the mirror, not appreciating just how MUCH weight she had put on. But Britt knew. And more to the point, SHE realized what a struggle Kelly was going to have to try to regain her OLD figure.

Then something happened that helped Britt launch Operation Overeat 2.0. It seems that Kelly's plans to go home for the holidays went completely out the window. Her little sister Maya had come down with scarlet fever and their home was under quarantine. She was stuck on campus. Worse, the cafeteria would be closed over the holiday. However, it just so happened that Britt was planning to stay on campus to work on her senior thesis. As it turns out, Kelly didn't know her way around the kitchen at all,she could barely boil water, but Britt was a marvelous cook and offered to act as Kelly's personal chef until the end of the year when the quarantine would be lifted and Kelly could go home for at least a FEW days. Kelly gladly accepted Britt's "kind" offer, little knowing what was in store for her!