chapter 2

Heartbreak, it seemed, was a wonderful appetite stimulant. Or perhaps, Kate reflected, food was a wonderful replacement for love. Over the week, she and Neil had settled into a bit of a routine whilst Max was out at work. Not being inclined to leave the house at the moment and being able to do most of his job from home, Neil had become a permanent fixture in Kate’s comfy armchair, typing away on his laptop and drinking endless cups of sweet coffee. When he wasn’t doing this, he seemed intent on stalking Daisy on social media and ruining his own day. Kate couldn’t stand to see him moping, and so she would inevitably bring him some sort of treat to lighten his mood. This morning was no different.

“Oh fuck everything!”

Kate poked her head out of the kitchen at his voice just in time to see him fling his phone across the room. Thankfully it landed on the sofa instead of smashing against a wall.

“What on earth’s going on?” she asked, and Neil looked up, a little sheepishly.

“Daisy, ah… she’s blocked me on insta,” he said, lamely, and dropped his eyes back down. “I accidentally liked a photo from last year. Not my smoothest moment.”

“I’m sorry,” Kate replied, sitting on the footstool next to the chair. “I made cookies. Do you want one?”

One turned out to be five. Between the cookies, Kate whipping up cheeseburgers for lunch and mountains of spaghetti for dinner, Daisy was not mentioned again for the rest of the day.

***
It was the early hours of the morning, a couple of days later, when Kate was awoken by noises downstairs. The house was dark and mostly silent, but she could hear footsteps and rummaging coming from the ground floor. Max was deeply asleep next to her and she knew that waking him up would cause him to be unbearably grumpy the next day. Slightly nervously she slipped out of bed and crept down the stairs to see what was going on. When she realised that the noises were coming from the kitchen she relaxed. She stood in the doorway without announcing herself and watched as Neil raided the cupboards. Max had started labelling his food recently, annoyed that his snacks had begun to go missing. Neil stood on tiptoes, his stomach resting slightly on the edge of the counter, reaching up for a jar of cookies that most definitely did not belong to him. There were many wrappers on the table already, showing that he had already swept through the shelf that housed the savoury snacks and left it empty of crisps, pretzels and popcorn. He was wearing the same band tee that he had originally arrived in, and it was riding up significantly further than before. In the past few days he had ditched his jeans entirely and was living in the same pair of stretchy sweatpants.

“Max will be upset if you eat those,” Kate said quietly, and Neil startled, almost dropping the jar in the process. He turned to face her, his face flaming.

“I got hungry,” he mumbled. Noticing her eyes wandering over the large expanse of exposed belly, he pulled at the tee ineffectually in an attempt to claw back some modesty. Crumbs scattered onto the floor from where they had gathered on his chest.

“I guess I must have shrunk that in the wash,” Kate said graciously, and he nodded weakly. She crossed the room, sweeping the empty wrappers into the bin as she did, and took the cookie jar from him. Being slightly taller, she didn’t have to stretch as far to put it back on the top shelf, but she leaned in as she did so, almost pinning him to the counter and brushing up against his soft figure in the process. As she settled back down onto flat feet their eyes met and they stood together for a heartbeat, close enough for Kate to feel his breath on her neck. “Are you still hungry?” she asked softly.

“I… Y-yes, I…” he stammered, and then she was walking away from him, grabbing utensils and pans and leaving him standing there, leaning against the counter for support. After a time, he sat at the kitchen table and watched as she made him a grilled cheese sandwich that dripped with cheddar. She fried up a banana and nutella one for dessert and beamed at the awestruck expression on his face as he took enormous bites.

“What the hell is going on down there?!” Max shouted down the stairs after a time.

“Nothing, sweetness,” Kate called back, “I’ll be up in a minute!”

She gave Neil a guilty smile as she went back up to bed.

***

It was a week later, and Kate was singing to herself as she fried fluffy pancakes in a glistening pool of butter when she heard Neil calling her from upstairs. She frowned. His voice sounded uncertain and a little out of breath. Placing the pan in the oven to keep warm, she climbed the stairs, listening to soft thumping noises which sounded as though he was stumbling around the room. She knocked on the door and listened to Neil breathing heavily for a moment. When he didn’t respond, she called through.

“Neil? Is everything okay? Don’t worry, I’m making pancakes, breakfast is nearly ready.”

“Ah… yeah. This is a little… Can you come in? I need some help.”

Opening the door, Kate was greeted by a sight that made her stomach fizz with excitement. Neil stood in the middle of the room, desperately trying to extract himself from his tee shirt. It clung to him like a second skin, his fat stomach oozing out of the bottom like cream from a doughnut. His threadbare joggers were straining to contain his ample behind and Kate could see a small hole forming in the seam at one of his thighs. As he pulled at the shirt - really looking like more of a crop top now - his belly quivered and bounced deliciously. Kate took a deep breath to steady her breathing. Neil looked at her pleadingly, mistaking her wide eyed expression for scornful rather than lusting. Unsure of what to say to break the silence, he stated the obvious.

“I’m stuck,” he said, and then, with an embarrassed chuckle, “I don’t think you shrunk it. Do you think you could… ah… help me out of this shirt?”

Feeling as though she were in a daydream, Kate hurried over and gently started to roll the tee shirt up, drinking in each new inch of exposed flesh as she did so. She felt as though she were unwrapping a particularly decadent present. Neil’s body jumped and twitched as her fingers swept over his underarms and pulled the shirt over his head, causing a cacophony of jiggling. His chest was flushed and warm, and Kate had a sudden urge to bury her face in it. Instead she swallowed deeply, her dry throat clicking, and passed the offending shirt back to Neil. He met her eyes uncomfortably, trying to read her expression.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely, “I’m so sorry. I think I might have let myself go a little since I came here.”

“Come and have some pancakes,” Kate said with a warm smile. “When you’ve eaten, I’ll take you shopping. You need some new clothes. We can get lunch.”

To her delight, Neil followed immediately and ate breakfast with no shirt on. Looking up from his plate, he noted her stolen glances at his body with curious surprise. As soon as he got up and left to go and shower - his belly hitting the kitchen table and causing the utensils to rattle on his plate - Kate retreated to her room and masturbated with a furious focus, stifling her moans in her pillow. She glanced at Max’s side of the bed guiltily. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this way. She wondered where they would go to eat.