chapter 4

“Neil!?” Daisy stood next to the table and looked down with melodramatic horror at her glutted ex boyfriend. Judgemental eyes flicked from empty pint glasses to his tumescent gut and when she spoke again she screwed up her pretty mouth into a twisted line of disdain. “My god, you look awful.”

“I… I do?” he asked uncertainly. He hadn’t been expecting to see anyone he knew whilst he was in this state, let alone her. He shifted uncomfortably in the seat, trying ineffectually to conceal exactly how much he had gorged himself.

“Yes. You do,” Daisy replied, “You obviously haven’t been coping very well, have you? What have you done to yourself?”

“I’m coping!” he responded heatedly, hiccoughing involuntarily. Whenever he did, gaps formed between the buttons of his new shirt. “It’s been *hic* great since we ended. I’ve moved on.”

“Oh, of course you have,” Daisy replied, flicking a blonde tress out of her face and raising an eyebrow. “Yeah, you really look like you’ve got your shit together, congratulations.”

At that moment, Kate returned to the booth. She was carrying another comically overfilled plate in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. She took in the scene in front of her, noting Neil’s pale face and cornered expression. “Can I help you?” she asked cooly.

“I’m Daisy. Neil’s ex?” Daisy’s tone suggested that she was surprised that she needed to introduce herself.

“Ah. I’m so sorry, this must be a little upsetting for you,” Kate replied. She placed the food in front of Neil and slipped past Daisy, to share his side of the booth. She placed a hand on his thigh and smiled up at the startled woman. “Do you mind if we get back to our lunch?”

Daisy faltered for a moment, unused to being dismissed, and stared at the couple coldly. Then, without another word, she turned on her heel and stormed back to her girlfriends. A flurry of hushed gossiping began, and then the group left the restaurant, a few of them shooting Kate dirty looks. They were now the only diners left. Neil was staring at her, unsure of what to say. Her hand was still on his thigh, squeezing his soft flesh almost protectively. There was a kind of electricity between them, a tension like the slow build up to a summer storm. She reached over his engorged stomach to the table and picked up some fried chicken with her chopsticks. As she brought it to his mouth she bit her bottom lip, half unconsciously, half seductively.

“Do you still need me to feed this to you?” she asked, almost dreamily. He nodded, and unbuttoned the bottom of his shirt to make some room. What else could he do?

He ate the last plateful very slowly, neither of them speaking much. Kate had wild concentration in her eyes, as though she were trying very hard to commit this moment to memory. She daintily dropped morsels into his mouth with the chopsticks, feeling the curious eyes of the serving staff on her every time they brought a new drink. As the final plate emptied, Neil was openly playing with his stomach, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was still in public. Kate watched him hungrily. He opened his mouth to speak but belched loudly instead.

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” he said thickly, “I’m *hic* a pig.”

“You’re so fucking sexy when you’re full,” Kate blurted. There was a small silence. They had both been dancing around this from the very beginning, and she had finally brought it to life.

“You seriously think so, don’t you,” he asked, dazed by the prospect. He patted his stomach again and beamed dozily. “I had to *hic* keep eating to be sure. It seemed so crazy to think you were getting off on this but… fuck. You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

He gestured for one of the servers to come over. The look of amazement on their face as he ordered dessert would have mortified him a few weeks ago, but it was eclipsed by the sharp intake of breath from Kate as he asked for chocolate fudge cake and extra whipped cream. They had caught the bus into town, but by the time he had finished his dessert, Neil knew he wouldn’t be able to move. Kate had to help him to slide out of the booth, gently supporting his belly for him. Unable to walk to the bus stop, he had called an Uber and barely managed to stagger out to the front of the restaurant when it arrived. At home he had collapsed onto the sofa, his gut rising out of his unbuttoned shirt like a huge pale mountain. He massaged his churning stomach for the next few hours, deep in thought about the afternoon’s events. When he thought about the way Kate had looked at him when she fed him his cock would stiffen and dig into his gut maddeningly. He wanted to go and take care of it but now that he was laying on the couch, he felt like a beached whale,and so he remained there, smouldering. When Max came home later in the evening and saw him still laying there he spoke in tones of disgust that rivalled Daisy’s.

“Jesus, Neil. You need to get some clothes that fit,” he said brashly.

“You do,” Kate agreed, her eyes sparkling mischievously as she brought him an enormous bowl of macaroni cheese for dinner, “I’ll take you to buy some. We could even get lunch.”