chapter 20- let the games begin (p5)

Wasting a moment to grab a flavor that would hold her interest, Kate selected Vanilla Caramel fudge for her third pint. Before beginning, Kate noticed Mia was working on downing a pint of chunky monkey. What luck! That was likely a huge mistake! While the banana ice cream was yummy to the extreme, it contained huge fudge chunks and walnuts that Mia couldn’t just swallow without risking choking. She’d have to chew them. Chewing mean time, and that time would be all Kate needed to catch up and finally beat miss perfect at something for the first time in over a year!

Pushing her steady pace to the next level, Kate didn’t care that her stomach had reached its limit so soon. The pain in her gut became the fuel she used to push herself past her limits! While, Mia struggled to consume her newest pint with the same fury that she’d attacked the first two with, Kate got busy gulping down vast swaths of fattening dairy goodness. The caramel taste offered enough of a contrast to the ice cream that Kate could push past the fatigue her taste buds were experiencing after consuming so much of the same sugary thing.

As the last minute of the contest began ticking down, Kate was briefly paused by a disorienting sound.

*Bbbuuuuurrrrrppp!!!!*

The deepest, manliest belch she’d ever heard had just came out of Mia’s snobby mouth! She had ice cream sloppily smeared all over her lips, but the expression on Mia’s face was one of pained relief. Was her stomach fighting indigestion? Or maybe she’d gotten a brain freeze? It didn’t matter, she’d stopped eating!

Kate drastically hurried to scrape what remained in her pint into her mouth before eagerly swallowing it all before time ran out!

Having finished three full pints of ice cream, Kate had ensured she was a narrow winner over Mia’s equally impressive two and three-quarter pints consumed. But had this been a pyrrhic victory? Kate’s gut felt no less than ten times heavier now that all that fattening ice cream was sitting safely in her belly. Three more gulps of ice cream and she just might have ruptured her stomach.

“Ughhh! Oh f*ck…” Mia moaned with a pained look on her face. She was leaning back in her chair clutching her now visibly swollen midsection. Kate tried to sit more upright so she could get a better look at miss perfect’s fabulous food-baby. Mia’s stomach looked taut to the naked eye, completely stuffed to its limited capacity. The newly rounded shape of her center had descended as far as it could to carry all the ice cream had forced down her throat, but it hadn’t been enough to out eat Kate. Noticing Kate’s stare, Mia demanded weakly, “Get me some *uuurp!!* tums… I can’t move…”

“Just give me a second… I’ll get them…” Kate agreed, as she wondered just how impaired her own mobility would be from the enormous ice cream binge she’d just endured. Her own belly appeared far larger than Mia’s even though they’d just eaten roughly the same amount. Kate didn’t think that was fair at all, but her body was still struggling to process all the food she’d gorged herself on from dinner yesterday. Even though her body had much more capacity to fill itself with ice cream, a lot of that space had ready been in use before they’d even started.

“I don’t think I’ve *bbuuurrpppp!* eaten this much ice cream in one sitting since my last breakup…” Mia frankly admitted looking completely zoned out and exhausted. She was clearly feeling so pained she couldn’t even complain about her close loss.

Kate would have rubbed in her victory, but she was probably feeling even more pain in her gut than Mia was. Although, Kate was surprised by how much the diva was burping, she was normally never this gassy. Was Mia lactose intolerant? Did this b*tch actually have a human weakness?

Trying to keep her possibly significant observation to herself, Kate played along with Mia’s wistful tone, “Tony?”

“Yup…” Mia mused, as the memories played in the background of her mind… At least until Kate finally managed to lumber to her feet and start walking past Mia. All at once, Mia saw the true extent of Kate’s pure beefiness. Exclaiming in laughable surprise, Mia chuckled, “Haha! Woah, you’re so swollen! I didn’t think you’d blow up so much!”

“Oh shut up! Check out the big ol’ belly you’re sporting!” Kate smiled in triumph with chocolate dripping down her softened face, as she leaned over and prodded Mia’s vulnerable looking food-baby.

“Don’t touch it! Do you want me to throw up!?” Mia pouted, as a quick flash of worry went through her head.

Why didn’t she save the eating contest until the end?? Could she even play tennis on a full tummy like this? Ugh… She wanted a nap not a tennis match…

Luckily for Mia, the feeling was mutual with her competitor. The girl’s decided on a half-hour break so they’d have some time to digest. Mia chose to lumber over to the sofa and nap during her free time, and Kate chose to walk around the house and continue to stretch her legs.

After the brief intermission from combative activities had ended, the girl’s grabbed their rackets and set out to the university’s tennis courts. Half an hour had done enough to allow the girls to walk relatively freely, but both worried about how playing a competitive game would feel with their full stomachs.

It was clear by now that the day’s events had taken a toll on both combatants. The aftermath of the ice cream contest had Kate’s belly feeling heavy and stretched. Mia’s starter-gut felt equally cumbersome. The sprint earlier in the morning had left Kate the worse for wear because her hamstring still didn’t feel quite up to 100%; however, Mia was not unscathed from the contest of speed. She felt a surprising amount of soreness on the insides of her thighs, and her legs still felt heavy. To make matters worse, she was feeling a little sleepy from her recent food-induced nap.

While Mia let out more than a few burps and yawns on the way to the tennis courts, Kate’s mind was on the fact that she’d been unable to get her sweat jacket to zip back up after the ice cream eating contest. She’d been forced to leave the house in nothing but her tight brown sweatpants and a tank top which couldn’t fit her enlarged chest and painfully swollen belly. She prayed nobody would be at the tennis courts and her prayers were answered once they got there.

The place was deserted, while the two combatants took their positions. The sun was equally flying overhead, so there was no advantage to be had by claiming either side of the court. Like the track, the court was a little damp, but neither side was particularly worse than the other. Slipping might be an issue during this game, but it would be an issue that both girls would have to account for on their own.

After a surprisingly quick discussion about who would serve first, Kate held the tennis ball and readied herself for a clandestine serve. For some reason Mia hadn’t wanted to serve first at all. She’d given Kate exactly what she’d wanted. That was a first. Kate didn’t know her strategy, but it didn’t matter. She intended to blow Mia out of the water from the first serve.

While Kate bounced the tennis ball on the ground a few times and tossed it in the air a few more times for good measure. It must have looked to anyone passing by that a professionally fluffy couch potato had challenged a former college tennis player, in the early stages of pregnancy, to a deathmatch. No more words were traded, no more teasing insults exchanged. They each knew winning three of five sets were necessary to achieve victory.

Changing her rhythm from slow to fast, Kate caught Mia off guard with the speed and power of her first strike.

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