chapter 3 the princess of pamperdom

With the slenderest of scrapes, the golden fork completed its final lap of the shiny silver platter, revealing a gleaming surface as it accumulated a small pile of creamy sweet potato, peppercorn sauce and a vestigial lump of the tenderest beef.

Shifting her round bottom in a softly cushioned Georgian chair, Ashley tossed back her honey-gold hair and raised the exquisite forkload to her perfectly pink lips.

"Ummmmmmmmmm." The blonde superbeauty closed her eyes in delight, rolling the exquisitely smooth medium-rare mouthful across her tongue, savouring it like the kiss of a recently returned lover, before reluctantly swallowing.

"Aaaaaaaaaah."

Sighing serenly, Ashley dabbed her lips with a silk napkin. This was without doubt the finest meal she'd ever eaten.

It was also one of the largest. Gazing thoughtfully at the huge gold rimmed plate - which had until recently boasted four sizeable circles of beef, each poised atop a mound of creamy mashed potato that emerged like a island from a sea of pinot-noir peppercorn sauce - Ashley now understood why so many of the restaurant's patrons were so plump.

She smiled. It certainly explained the diamond-dressed girl who'd departed the restaurant a few minutes earlier. Of a similar age and with comparable golden locks and blue eyes, the expensively dressed young lady bore an uncanny resemblance to Ashley herself.

From the neck up, anyway. Ashley would've had to inflate all corners of her dress with a helium hose to come close to rivalling the width and roundness of her would-be doppleganger's figure, which was clearly overly accustomed to cordon-bleu dining. Indeed, while slowly savouring every tiny morsel of her own meal, an astonished Ashley had watched the posh young blonde almost sleep-eat her way through the same five-michelin-starred food in a matter of moments and with an expression of utter boredom on her cherubic face, as if she were eating porridge. Her male companion, clearly distressed that his date was so unimpressed, summonded and resummonded waiter after waiter to bring out increasingly exotic, increasingly extravagent and, Ashley noted, increasingly large dishes in the desperate hope that one would at least cause a glimmer of excitement in his beloved. But to no avail. Plate after plate was dispatched with the same hazy indifferece until it seemed as though the entire menu must have descended into the disenchanted blonde's spherical belly. Yet even then, though rather more swollen than at the start of her meal, the girl remained unmoved, dabbing her pink lips indifferently with a napkin, a look of distant disappointment in her pretty blue eyes.

Only when she rose to leave, whereupon it became apparant that her bulging backside had become firmly wedged in her seat, did the indifference depart. And then the swollen young blonde more than made up for her earlier lack of emotion - though in quite a different way than her boyfriend had hoped for. Seething in helpless fury at her predicament, stylish golden locks bobbing, the overfed femme screamed furiously for the manager, demanding to know the meaning of this outrage as she pressed her uselessly plump hands down on the chair-arms in a futile attempt to free herself. The scene became particularly comical when her boyfriend and a waiter finally managed to help the globular girl to her feet, only for her to realise - with a wail of fury - that the chair was still firmly wedged to her bulbous behind. In the end it took the combined strength of her boyfriend (tugging his beloved's arms), a waiter and the manager (both pulling the chair) to finally extract the bulging beauty from her seat, the process hampered by her useless flailing and furious protests about the inadqeuacy of the furniture.

Though most of the diners were too intent on eating to notice the commotion, Ashley had giggled throughout. It really served the young madame right for putting away three full desserts on top of her massive and multiple main courses. She'd clearly been trying to play it cool with her date, to really make him earn her affections. Well, she'd been hard to get all right: hard to get out of her chair.

And yet... Ashley found she couldn't quite suppress a certain... admiration for the girl. Though pruce-faced with exertion, and so supremely stuffed that she couldn't stand without assistance, the overblown blonde had - once mollified with the promise of lavish reparations - departed the restaurant with the all the airs of a princess. A ponderously overplump princess, to be sure, but a princess nonetheless. After pompously berating the restaurant's manager for its inadequate seating (and obtaining a month of free meals as recompense) the round young lady had rounded on her handsome boyfriend and roundly castised him for his lack of strength, even while leaning heavily on him for support.

"Really, Archie" she had puffed haughtily as the pair passed Ashley's table on their way to the exit. "You simply *must* get down to the gym more often: I cannot *believe* you're not even strong enough to carry me to my car!" At this a pudgy hand fluttered to her globe-like midsection. "I've had a terrible ordeal, and if my delicate little tummy is distressed by all this walking, it'll be all *your* fault!"

Her poor companion was a fountain of feeble apologies. Wrapping his arm around his swollen sweetheart to better support her overloaded middle, he swore to triple his workouts and quadruple the number of marshmallows in her midnight cocoa - which he promised to serve her in bed the very moment they arrived home, along with a big slice of a chocolate-orange cheesecake he'd baked earlier especially for her.

Ashley had winced at this last part, feeling sure that the suggestion of even more food would cause the glutted-to-the-eyeballs blonde to hurl up half her feast there and then. Yet to her astonishment it actually seemed to do the trick. No further protests were heard from the pompous princess; and though continuing to look forward with her head held back imperiously, she leaned ever so slightly closer to her boyfriend, even permitting the faintest hint of a smile to play on her pampered lips, just for a moment.

So it wasn't *entirely* down to the girl then, thought Ashley. With a handsome prince rushing around after her, spoiling her incessantly, attending to her every desire and overindulging her every whim, could she really be blamed for growing so extravagently plump? Sure, a lifetime of rude gluttony might make the gates of heaven a bit of a squeeze (not to mention her own front door) but Ashley suspected the girl's loving boyfriend would manage to push her through somehow. She smiled as she watched their respective backsides - his firm and pert, hers wide and wobbling - leave through the restaurant's tall glass doors.