Chapter 16 - a surprise visit

Now, he did not know what to do, he was too full to move much, but felt strangely full of energy, he tried to concentrate on the television, but his legs were restless, he had to stand and move for a bit. He paced around the living room, one hand was rubbing his enormous, taut belly, the other was typing. He had gone onto FeedistLife and started a thread under the "Stuffing" forum called "The 10k challenge." Here he listed everything he ate today, including the calories (he adjusted the lunch slightly in Case CarlaFFA1983 looked, he did not want her to work out who FatFreddie was right now.)

The first reply flashed up very soon after he posted.

"Congrats FatFreddie. You must feel very full. Did you gain?" FeederEllie90.

He had not thought of that. What did the nurse say? 186? He strode to the scale and climbed on.

"194!" His heart jumped. 8lbs heavier than the weekend. 14lbs heavier than a fortnight ago. He took out his camera and angled down to capture his bursting gut and the number on the scale.

He posted the photograph as a forum reply. "8lbs heavier than last time I checked. No surprise, must have had at least 8lbs of food." FatFreddie.

Feeling accomplished and incredibly tired he went to bed, he tossed and turned but eventually dozed off.

He woke up in the morning to the alarm, he blinked, but struggled to open his eyes. His lids felt incredibly heavy, his face clammy and sweaty and his stomach felt terrible, it made awful, angry noises. He gently rubbed it for a few minutes until he realised he was in no state to go to work today. A week of overindulging had caught up with him and now he was paying the price.

He made his excuse to work, he claimed he probably pulled a muscle on the bike ride, he said the same to Carla. He knew she would have loved to hear what he did, but felt was probably best to not mention it, since she did not actually know that he enjoyed experimenting like this she would probably only worry and think he had a problem with food, at least when he overeats with her she can see he's enjoying it. He went back to sleep.

He woke again up at mid day, Carla had sent him a sympathetic text with hugs and kisses. He felt a little better, but not ready fod food. He gently ribbed his stomach, it had gone down a little but felt soft, he picked up his phone and started playing mobile games.

By 6PM he was feeling much better, he drank a lot of water and spent a lot more time in the bathroom than he ever wanted to, he felt alright to go to the shops, where he got himself some wholewheat bread, vegetable soup and a few pieces of fruit, this was definatly a day to detox.

He spent the rest of the day being lazy, he played games and read the forums, Carla had not been online since Sunday night and he checked the replies to his 10k calorie challenge. It was full of support and promises to try it out themselves, he wondered how many actually would. His photos had also recieved more likes as he became more prolific.

After a light dinner, he fell back asleep early, he really did need to recover a lot.

On Wednesday morning he awoke much earlier than his alarm, feeling great and incredibly well rested. His stomach was happily growling again.

He went to the bathroom to wash up. Leaning over the sink and brushing his teeth, he noticed something different, his tummy was sagging as he leaned forwards, a little fat roll had formed above his waistband, he poked it, it felt like warm dough. After brushing his teeth he stepped on the scale, the number read 188.It had gone down since the stuffing, but well up on normal, he wondered how obvious this new look would be.

He stopped off at the fast food restaurant on his way to work and got himself one breakfast bagel and an ice mocha and made it into work in good time and as usual stopped at the vending machine, picking up crisps and a wafer biscuit.

"I got you this." Carla said, passing over a large handmade chocolate cake. "Might cheer you up." She gave him a hug. He was genuinely touched by the gesture.

"Thanks Carla, does it have magical healing powers?"

She nodded. "Yup, science shows cocoa is good for almost everything, almost as magical as red wine." She paused and whispered. "I got you a bottle of red wine too, but I probably shouldn't give it to you now."

Red parked up to this and made an "ooh" noise. "Sounds great!"

"And i can drive you back tonight, save yourself straining on the bike again."

"Oh no, that's too much." He protested.

Carla shook her head. "Nah, plus I want to snoop on your flat."

Red nodded. "Okay, i'll cook dinner for us."

The two of them went back to work. Red had a lot of missed emails to catch up with.

Lunchtime passed, he was too busy to go out so had a sandwich at his desk, Carla had hers in the canteen with other colleagues.

Red nearly caught up in the afternoon, he was running late so Carla perched on the desk next to him for half an hour until Red finally gave up and they left the office, he grabbed the cake from his desk, he wondered if he was going to eat the whole thing tonight... More than likely at this stage.

"You can leave your bike here, it'll be safe right?" She asked.

"Probably, won't i need it for the morning?"

"Oh i'll drop you back in, obviously!"

"You're staying?"

She nodded. "You're cooking, I have wine. Why? Did you not want me to?" She feigned a hurt expression.

"I didn't want to assume." He said.

They stopped off at the supermarket, Red did a frantic dash to pick up food for the night, he picked out enough to make a vegetarian lasagne with garlic bread. They also picked out a movie and headed back.

Red made Carla sit in the car for ten minutes to clean out the rubbish and make the place look a little more presentable, he changed the duvet sheet and dug out a spare which he tucked behind the sofa. After the rubbish was thrown out and a couple of candles were lit, he sent Carla a text to come up.

She entered the door whilst Red was chopping vegetables and let out an excited squeal, before dashing around to have a spy on the flat, Red figured it better to leave her to poke around herself.

"It's so tiny, it's adorable" Carla said as she came to see Red in the kitchen.

"Bigger than yours" Red mumbled.

"Yeah, but you know! Cosy!"

"Okay okay, do you want to put the movie on? i'll be through in ten minutes when the lasagne is in the oven." He went back to chopping up aubergines.

Quarter of an hour later, Red joined Carla in the living room, she had not put the movie in, she had managed to log into his game console and was lost deep in concentration. Red watched her struggling to move and swing a Chainsaw at the same time, he figured it best not to interrupt this for now, sat next to her, poured out a couple of glasses of wine and observed.

"This game is broken." She said passing the controller to Red, who proceeded to gracefully make the character dance around with the precision of a ballerina, decapitating the waves of shuffling undead. He looked a little smug. "Nope, all works fine, maybe the problem is behind the controller, try something simpler?"

Carla glared. "It's the games fault! I thought these were supposed to be fun?"

Red quit to the main menu and browsed the store to and found a multiplayer 2D platformer with cartoon characters. "This might be better, we can play after dinner."

Carla sighed "okay." And leaned her head on his shoulder, he slipped his arm around her back and they chatted about gaming until the dinner was ready.

Red brought the lasagne through, served on his finest china, he had carved out two generous serving with garlic bread.

"Oh my God, it looks great, I didn't know you could cook" Carla said

Red wished he could cook, but his skills lay in following a recipe from the internet. "Thanks," He said. "Pretty healthy too, just veggies."

Carla looked at the thick crust of melted cheese on the top and nodded. "Looks it." She said trying not to imply sarcasm. "I love cheesy stuff, wish i had it more often."

The two smiled and started eating.
At the end of the meal, Red felt pleasantly full, but not uncomfortably so.

"So good, Red." Carla said, unbuttoning her skirt and leaning back to the full support of the sofa. "Don't judge me."

Red shrugged. "Don't be silly, i plan on upgrading to elastic waistbands someday soon." And unbuttoned his as an act of solidarity.

Carla grinned. "Oh you. You can go pour us some more wine and help yourself to the cake I got."

Red smiled, "That was the plan."

He returned a moment later with cake and plates, he cut them both generous pieces.

Carla shook her head "oh god, no way, im stuffed, you have it." She pushed her plate to him

Red shrugged and started eating from both plates.

Carla giggled and poked his belly. "Looks like you're literally eating for two!"

"Mmph. Twins?" He said with his mouth full.

"Going to look like triplets soon if you keep eating like this"

Red looked at her. "Is that bad?"

She laughed. "It is if you aren't on FL."

Red stopped eating. "FL?" he asked.

She took out her phone and pressed a few buttons. "Does that belly and that sofa look familiar?" She showed him his picture on his FeedistLife account.