Chapter 4 - section 4

By the time she rocks up, the anger has seeped out of her, aired out through the open windows. AS its replacement is cold embarrassment. As she walks she is shivering, shaking, despite the warmth of the day. Or is that the layer of fat around her body? She feels it in her thighs, each buttock, her hips, her breasts, especially her belly. From under a crop top which hardly feels like hers anymore, she can feel her pot belly bouncing freely - freedom is good, too much freedom can be scary. Staying out the way of anyone she might recognise, she comes in through the customer entry, sticks to the walls, past racks of just about any item you can imagine, along the back, and into the warehouse section. So far nobody's crossed her path. Just ahead is the delivery room. Picking up speed, she gets to the door, opens it, slips inside, ass lightly grazing something by accident, and-

There's no one here. The lights are even off.

Taking a huge breath, heart beginning to steady, she flicks on a single row of lights and locates the parcels table. There's hers. She tears the plastic open just to make sure it's the uniform, then stops. She'd been planning to get out of these tiny clothes and into the uniform, but there are cameras in here. Tucking it under her arm, she makes to leave. Not even two meters from the door, it opens, and nobody else would have been so ironic to appear other than William himself. Georgia's heart inverts and her legs turn wooden. William comes up short inside the doorframe, hand still on the handle. His eyes can do nothing but look her up and down. Nor can he say anything. Barely a huff of air left in her lungs, Georgia breathes, 'Oh. Um.'

William looks her in the eyes, one fragile moment too long, before looking past her.

Georgia makes to move, but so does he - they both step back, unsure of who should go first. Again, his eyes drop to her waist, ashamedly, before looking up, someplace other than her exposed stomach. Remembering her state of body, Georgia takes the package from under her arm and tries to hide herself with it instead - but she's holding it upside down, and out it all comes from the hole she's made... Oh Jesus, are the words in her mind as, still staring at William, in her peripheral vision the orange and black colours fall to the floor.

Here William sees his chance to break ice. 'I'll get it.'

'Oh no, don't, it's okay-'

'No, I can.'

But Georgia is already crouching to gather the uniform off the cold laminate floor, only to feel fast punches of regret as the waistband of her shorts rises to contest her belly for space, causing it to bunch up into one thick roll she just knows is going to lift her already short crop top when she stands... Expecting the worst, she slowly rises with a faint exhalation of air, keeping the bottom of the croptop down with one hand and the uniform in the other. She straightens, one hand still holding her crop top down. What can she do, keep standing like this? She pulls the croptop down to its limits and, the moment she lets go, it snaps back up, shocking her belly into a one-two bounce-a-bounce, the top settling somewhere over her belly button. If this were a video and you'd paused it just now to take a screenshot, you'd have captured an expression that is truly meme-worthy; head lilted slightly to one side, eyes staring into the distance from behind a please-kill-me-now glaze, mouth pressed into a straight line of shame.

'Um,' she manages to say again, this time looking off to one side.

As if this wasn't enough, there has to be a mirror lying around, throwing back at her the image of legs thicker in the thigh region than ever, arms starting to get chunky, and a belly bulging as far as her breasts, giving her the look of someone nearly five months in. Her skin has turned from warm to milky, left doughy and bare under a crop top which seems to be failing more and more as the day goes on. She looks away. New uniform and packaging a tangled mess, she clutches it over her belly and steps aside. Unable to say much, William takes the chance and moves past apologetically, secretly hoping to hell neither of them will remember this.

And unable to say much, either, Georgia beelines out the room. The first place she stops is the girls room, where she locks herself in a cubicle, hyperventilates, and changes clothes. Outside William is nowhere to be seen. Matter of fact, he's nowhere to be seen in the entire facility. Sticking the walls just as she'd done when arriving, she leaves through the customer exit, beelines through the mall space into the parking lot, finds her car, hops inside, throws her old clothes on the car floor like poisoned rags and drives home.


[23 October, Monday]

One surprisingly warm Monday morning, filled with sun-excited customers milling in from the clear-skied day just for something to do, Georgia reaches the midpoint of her busy shift and crashes towards the common room. Already gravitating towards the microwave with a container of cold spaghetti in hand, she opens the door and sees Elisa chatting with Blake over a fruit salad. They look up to say hi and continue talking: something about old friends from old school days. The sexual preferences of those they have no business discussing. Whatever.

Then, busy operating the microwave, she overhears the name "William" and "new guy". She listens closer.

'William?' Blake is saying. 'The new guy? Really?'

A clang from Elisa's bowl, then through a mouth full of fruit; 'Yeah, didn't you know?'

'You serious?'

'Yeah, him.'

'How do you know, though?'

'He's the guy from that video.'

Blake remains silent.

'You know, the "I guess so" one?'

'For real? Maybe it is.' A moment of silence, filled perhaps with recollection. 'Yeah. Holy sh1t maybe it is him. Man, that's unreal.'

'I know, right?'

Unable to bear having all these words and tones fly around the new guy's name and still not understand what any of them mean, Georgia turns away from the microwave and, casually as she can, says, 'Who's this?'

Elisa looks up at her and gestures out the door. 'The new guy.'

Georgia frowns. 'What about him? What are you saying about him?'

'Oh - that he's a chubby chaser.'

For a moment this doesn't register at any level. She begins to ask something, but comes to a stop, mouth half open, beginning to slacken even further as too many thoughts, images, scenes, ideas and consequences spin into each other like tumble dryer. 'He's a what?' is all she can manage.

Seemingly amused, Blake says, 'A chubby chaser,' while he may or may not be giving Georgia's figure and brief once-over.

Elisa twirls her spoon in the air. 'Don't repeat anything you heard in here...'

'So...' Georgia hesitates. 'But is that true? How do you even know that?'

'I was just telling Blake, William's in that video. You know the one where he says "yeah I guess"?'

Georgia slowly shakes her head.

'Oh, well, he's youtube famous for it. Just ask him. Actually, no, don't. Fraser already did and it didn't go well, he was the one who told me. Literally though, he's a living breathing meme, as if you guys didn't know!'

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