Chapter 1

He counted down the laborious hours of the day, waiting for closing time to approach. The clock seemed to be ticking away the seconds in slow motion. Customers came in a steady stream; and even though the day usually seemed to pass faster when he kept busy, it offered him no relief. Heather was constantly on his mind. He barely even thought of food, the usual object of his affections. Lunch was a welcome respite from the long day. He closed the store for about forty-five minutes so he could walk down to Lawson’s Deli to eat.

Peter had gone to high school with Jack Lawson’s son and they had become business partners after Peter opened his pastry shop down the street from their family delicatessen. He supplied them with all of the bread used in the preparation of their sandwiches. While this earned Peter a lucrative customer for his bakery, it also meant that he received free meals on a daily basis. This consequently caused him to become their most frequent and well-known customer. His presence at the deli was so common, in fact, that during the summer kids out of school on break would sometimes take up residence at the park across the street during lunchtime to gawk at the morbidly obese man who patronized the establishment day after day. It bothered him at first, but by now he had grown accustomed to it.

Today he had his usual two corned beef sandwiches with a Caesar salad and a large bowl of their locally famous clam chowder. He didn’t want to have too much of an appetite at dinner that evening so he got a third sandwich to go so he could have a snack later on and not make a complete pig of himself during his date. Even though she had told him she appreciated a man with a large appetite, he still couldn’t wrap his head around it. Or perhaps he believed that she had never encountered a man with as huge of an appetite as him. He didn’t want to scare her away.

Between helping customers the rest of the day and decorating cakes, he managed to make a dozen oatmeal raisin cookies disappear along with his other sandwich. At around 5:30 he could no longer take it anymore and decided to close the shop a little early so he would have time to go home and make himself more presentable. He took a shower and decided to leave his five o’clock shadow from not having shaved since the morning. He always thought that its rugged appeal made him look sexy.

He stood in front of the steam covered mirror in his bathroom after getting out of the shower, streaking his hand back and forth to clear a space in which he could view his reflection. He could not believe how enormous he looked as he stood there naked and glistening, dripping water onto the plush evergreen rug beneath his feet. His big belly heaved and jiggled as he breathed. He rubbed his hands across his plump chest and tree trunk sized legs, wondering if there was any possible way that the woman he was to meet tonight could find him attractive like this.

He was so overweight that even his friends and family had begun to express concern over his excessive eating and constant weight gain. Their feelings did mean something to him. He just didn’t feel as though his size was as dangerous as they made it out to be. His health was good; he got around well enough and tried to eat healthy at least some of the time. Most importantly, he was happy. He loved being able to eat to his heart’s content and he had a strange appreciation and awe for his body is it grew. The only downfall was that he had been alone for so long, but maybe that was about to change.

He caught sight of the bathroom scale out of the corner of his eye and quickly looked away. He had noticed that his clothes seemed to be straining more than usual lately to contain his girth. It had been a long time since he last weighed himself, and he was certain that the number had increased significantly in the interim. He was always nervous to find out how much he weighed. He knew that it was a bad thing to have gotten heavier, but it was always such a rewarding feeling to him. He never quite understood why. Reluctantly, he stepped on the large scale base and waited for the digital voice to sound out to him how much fatter he had become.

“578 pounds,” the scale’s robotic-sounding female voice stated.

“Jesus christ,” Peter said back, stepping off in a state of shock.

Three months ago he had weighed in at 540. He reached underneath the apron of fat that hung from his midsection and picked it up, sensing its full weight as he shook it before letting it fall back down heftily over his fat-dimpled legs. He really had packed on quite a bit of weight in such a short time, and he could feel that a good portion of it had accumulated in his gigantic, pendulous tummy. At this rate, he wasn’t sure how much longer he would be able to run the bakery on his own.

His hand traced in circles around his soft curves as he ambled into his bedroom to get dressed. He settled on a black button down oxford and a pair of freshly pressed khakis that had both been sitting in his closet since he attended a friend’s wedding several weeks ago. He hoped that the size 70 pants would fit around his larger waistline, and luckily enough he managed to get the button done. He slid on a 7XL undershirt and then proceeded to button up his dress shirt.

He stopped back off in the bathroom to check himself out in the mirror. He looked damn good if he did say so himself. He was very obese, but he had a large frame as well, standing at 6’5 and possessing the broad shoulders and intimidating stature of a linebacker. He was endowed with handsome good looks, creamy skin and a gorgeous baby face accented with big, soulful brown eyes. He thought that he would be more anxious than he was, but he had a good feeling about his date with Heather. He felt confident about himself for the first time in a long time. He rubbed a small dollop of gel through his dark hair and sprayed on a dash of cologne before heading out the door.

Instead of walking as he usually did, he decided to take his Tahoe out that evening because he was unsure of exactly where it was they were going to dine. On his way to the bookstore to pick up Heather, he stopped off at a flower shop and purchased a small bouquet he selected himself consisting of mixture of dainty pink and purple heather blossoms wrapped in pink chiffon with a silk bow. It was a little old fashioned to bring a girl flowers, but he knew she would appreciate the gesture. He didn’t know that much about this mysterious girl yet, but based on her intelligent demeanor and the fact that she was the proprietor of a book store, he figured that she had to be at least a little sentimental. She was a woman after all.

He pulled in front of The Treasure Trove at a little past six-thirty. The sun was setting at the end of the tree-lined road, dimming rays of light shining through the maples and glowing off of the brick buildings that diminished into the distance. He lugged himself out of the vehicle and made his way down the cobblestone pathway that led to the front of the building. The location of the store was very nice-looking. It was an old house that had been transformed into a store, like so many of the houses in the historic part of town.