chapter 1 - prologue

Eric hadn’t seen Colette in three long months, not since he dropped her off at the beginning of June to catch her flight to Paris. They had been living together for three years, starting when she was a student at Barnard and he was in getting his masters in architecture at Columbia. After identifying as a dancer all of the way through college, Colette had finally come to the conclusion that she was not going to make it in ballet. Her attention had turned to culinary arts and she had spent the year after college taking courses at the Culinary Institute. She left for Paris on a traveling fellowship that she had been awarded by her school to deserving students and her hope was to fulfill her dream of gaining first-hand experience with French and Italian pastries.

Eric got to the airport in time to park and position himself where Colette would see him as she was exiting customs. He could see her smile all of the way across the terminal. While they had kept in touch with e-mails, he was more than excited to finally be able to see her again.

Almost daily, she would update him about her travels and experiences. Her elegant descriptions of the croissants that she had at breakfast, the profiterole she had at lunch, the beignet she enjoyed in the afternoon, the tarts she savored at dinner, and the Madeleine she had saved for a treat before going to sleep made him think that she had a future with Bon Appetit, if things didn’t work out with her becoming a pastry chef. She could go into beautiful detail about the flakiness of the crust of brioche, the balanced sweetness of a pain au chocolat with the filling oozing from its buttery shell, or the crunchy outside and chewy inside of macarons that she had discovered during the day. She elevated her investigation of how eclairs varied from patisserie to patisserie to an art form, puzzling about whether experiments with rum-flavored custards could be preferable to the classic standard.

She also had forwarded to him countless photographs of the food she was encountering on her adventure. He diligently had kept a file so that she would be able to retrace her steps through the photos. He was a bit disappointed that there were so few photos of her, with the exception of a selfy here or there showing where she was.

When she reached Florence, her focus changed to cannolis, with descriptions of various cream fillings in the perfect crunchy shell, to boconnotti being the perfect bite-sized mouthful, and to la sfogliatella, which were so light when served hot that they were to die for. Her enjoyment of the pastries that were small enough to be consumed in the plural didn’t interfere, though, with her study of various rum cakes. Despite that they were intended to serve several people, Colette found herself finishing one each evening, as she relaxed in her pensione taking notes and keeping a journal of what she had discovered during the day.

Although her study was focused on pastries, her e-mails also included detailed descriptions of the fabulous meals that she had in Paris, Florence, and everywhere in between. In Italy, she wondered if her real interest was even going to be baked goods in the end, since she had become fascinated with the different kinds of pasta and sauces. She had written that she felt she could make a life out of studying the intricacies of balancing the tart acids of tomatoes with a combination of rich cheeses in a perfect manicotti; and then, the challenge of figuring out how spinach manicotti compares to chicken cacciatore manicotti compares to a manicotti made with prosciutto.

By the time she was on her way back to Paris for her flight home, she had become obsessed with comparing pot au feu with cassoulet as the perfect provincial food. Each little town had its own character for the dish and she was intrigued by the subtle nuance that a chef could achieve with a delicate touch. She also decided that foie gras was wonderful if she could ignore the process of gavage, by which the duck or goose was force-fed. When she discovered combining the foie gras with a pastry shell, she realized that all of her culinary interests could be engaged by creating the perfect pastry containing pate de foie gras and bacon. She wrote Eric that she would end up feeling so stuffed with the rich food that she empathized with the goose, deciding in the end that, if you were a goose, there couldn’t be a better way to go than effectively being fed to death.

In her last e-mail, before boarding the plane, Colette wrote to Eric that she had figured out how to bring him home a sampling of her eating escapade. Since he knew that she would not be allowed to bring baked goods or other foods through customs, he wondered what her gift would be.

As Colette made her way closer to the customs counter, Eric started to get an idea of what she was “bringing”. Although she had not mentioned it specifically, he had wondered how she would maintain her lean, dancer’s figure, as she ate her way back and forth between Paris and Florence. When she finally was in the last part of the line, with no one in the line blocking his view, he could see that she was bringing him the results of 90 days of her efforts to make the most of every minute of her culinary experience.

Colette finally made her way through and Eric hurried over to help with her bags. The first thing he noticed, after the great big smile that let him know she was glad that he was there to pick her up, was that the jeans she was wearing were struggling to do their job. When she had left, those jeans would have hung loose on her hips, being one size larger than she normally wore. Now, they were as tight as could be without giving up the seams. There was something odd, too, about the way that they were fastened, but it would be hard to confirm that they were even buttoned, since the full muffin top that she had developed rolled over the waistband in the front.

She was wearing a t-shirt top that she would have been swimming in when she left, but that was now stretched across her belly, inching up to reveal a band of ballooning paunch. Eric and Colette hugged and kissed and rocked together. With his arms wrapped around her, it was easy to document the difference in her circumference. His hands on her back felt how the bra that she was wearing cut deep into her back fat, forming a generous bulge both above and below the strap. When she finally leaned back so Eric could see her face, the softness around her jaw and the beginnings of a cute double chin were apparent.

Colette could sense that Eric was taking inventory on the changes to her body and her expression changed to one of being a bit sheepish. “You may notice that I gained a bit of weight,” she said, nursing a smile. He hugged her in close again and calmed any concerns, saying, “I think you look great. I am so glad you are home. I missed you.”

For as long as she could remember she had weighed around 130, which at 5'-8" and toned made her lean and lithe; a bit tall for a dancer, and with long legs that emphasized her slimness. Eric remembered that during the spring she may have gained a little bit but likely not more than 10 pounds making her maybe around 140 when she left. Eric assumed that she had not been anywhere near a scale during her trip and he figured that there was no reason to risk increasing any anxiety that she might have by asking her how much weight she had gained. But, judging from her roundness and the way that everything looked thicker, he guessed that she must have added at least 35 pounds in that short time, if not more. Thinking it through, his first thought was that such a rate of gain sounded almost impossible. It would be gaining a pound roughly every two days. But then, doing some quick calculations, assuming 3,500 calories was an extra pound and remembering the long list of treats that she had reported consuming in a single day, he realized that it could be even more.

Eric grabbed Colette’s bags and they headed towards the car. As she was walking along, he noticed that her gait had changed and that she was no longer carrying herself like a ballerina. Before heading to Europe, there was a tautness to her stride and the way her body moved. Now there was a jiggle in her belly, a bounce in her breasts, and a wiggle in her ass as her hips swayed back and forth. Although he was trying to keep his eyes on her eyes when they were talking, Eric knew that his gaze kept dropping to watch her body in motion. This was also obvious to Collete, which was causing her to blush.

“I know that this outfit is tight enough to be ludicrous, but these are the loosest clothes I have with me,” she explained. “I am going to have to go shopping in the morning.”

“Don’t worry about it. They’re just a bit snug,” Eric replied in an effort to play down any concern.

“Well, the way you are looking at my tits and ass, I feel that I may have moved from ludicrous to lewd,” she joked. “I guess you were serious when you used to say that you wouldn’t mind if I added some curves.”

Eric smiled and tried to keep his eyes on her face, but he was having trouble. As she walked, each step was a rhythm of ripples that, if set to music, would have been a syncopated jazz score, instead of the classical ballet music that she once had danced to. Following behind her, as they walked through the doors to the street, he was entranced by the fullness of the ring of flesh above her pants, and how it bounced with each step. The roll formed by her belly continued as a projection over her hips, finally forming generous love handles above her still well-formed, although much larger, rear. If forced to describe her though, instead of using the word “fat”, Eric would have said that she had more of an appearance of having been inflated. He imagined that, if she were to scrape against something sharp, she would ooze a kind of cream filling or sugar syrup. Or maybe foie gras.