Unforgettable cruise

Chapter 77 - (actual chapter 23 continues…)

* *
Clark and Rebecca both recognized the twiggy young barmaid leading their group to their booth, notwithstanding her entirely (other than eyes) face-covering face mask. The protective mask looked quite out of place, clashing as it did with her semi-scanty (someone’s idea of) British pub barmaid uniform. It succeeded admirably hiding her grimace, struggling to imagine how even any one of the women of this group might fit into any of their booths, as well as how any of them could have ever become so fat, and having done so, how they possibly managed to survive COVID-19 since she’d read that obesity was a major risk factor for serious illness and (gulp!) death.

There was absolutely nothing morbid about these noticeably to significantly to profoundly obese women, puzzled though at least some of them were by the booth to which they were led: one of the standard rectangular 6-person (or 4 of what management thought were people of size) booths.

Beryl, who’d made the reservation, inquired. “Is there some reason the group booth over yonder in the corner which I thought I’d reserved isn’t available?”

“Someone with the sniffles and a fever was reported within the last hour to have been sitting there yesterday, so we’ve thoroughly cleaned it and it’s in its 3-day quarantine period” she proudly announced with an air of authority, briefly wondering why one of the other fat women looked more than vaguely familiar to her.

Feeling adventurous (and hungry), Leigh grinningly declared, “I think we can make it work”, sliding in on the left side, scrunching herself against the wall. “Neener next to me, then Squish.”


Clark grinned and Jayne giggled as they slid in. It was tight enough that Leigh had to lift her right hip and bun fat with leg muscles and hand as much and as high as possible for him to slide in under her. Even doing that, her right hip and Jayne’s left were well into contact: more than stand-offish people would abide, as though they were sitting intimately close with no one between them. Clark’s lap was completely buried beneath their combined hip and bun fat.


“Here goes nothing” Rebecca muttered.

Already shocked that this hugely-wide woman was going to even try to slide in, the barmaid barely reacted when Per snatched a pair of the plastic-coated menus she was holding from her, quickly slipping them between his beloved’s front and the table edge, forming a sliding bearing surface.

“Clever, Per” commented Clark.

“He’s quite the gentleman” Rebecca smiled and blushed, thanking her man with her eyes in a special, private way. “OK, I’m in, so now he can squish deep into me and we can all find out how Beryl’s gonna pull this off.”

He did so straightaway, placing the bearing surface menus atop the table.

Beryl eyed the geometry of the situation. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” she narrated as she plunged on in sideways. “And I have a lot of will. And luscious, glorious fat!”


{Luscious and glorious fat?!} the barmaid thought, in the moment glad that she didn’t have to force a smile behind her face mask.


Had the table not been securely bolted to the floor, Beryl might have nearly impaled her friends on the other side, none of whom had middle to upper chest below-boob fat the way Rebecca and especially she did. The table and bench seat creaked and groaned, but held.

Per was squished so tightly into her right side and Rebecca’s left, he could barely move. Like Clark, their butt and hip fat impressed well into each other’s, inundating and completely covering (and then some!) his lap. “You sure this is OK?” he asked Beryl mostly, his love Rebecca secondarily.

“Oh I dunno” the latter teased, obvious from her smirk, “You’re gettin’ a lot of another woman’s side boob action.”

“That’s not all he’s getting and you know it and we’re all better off for what each of us is getting” Beryl grinned. “Under normal circumstances in which few people on Earth are currently living, I’d be seeking something more spacious. Being here in this pub with you all of Team Succulence is far more important to me than free space right now. Beyond that, it’s turning me on like I can’t believe that I’m so fat that I can barely wedge myself in here. I’ve had this joy in the past at the *end* of big meals, but here the meal hasn’t even started yet!”

“Are you into stuckage?” asked Per.

“Amongst many other things, yes” she grinned, wiggling a little to further feel just how tightly packed in she was.

“I know why Beryl’s grinning, because she’s a *freak*” Rebecca partially teased. “What’s got you grinning and laughing, Leigh?”

“I’m the only one with any meaningful table space for food and beverages in front of me” she chuckled.

“I’ve got a workaround for that” grinned Jayne, sweeping her braless boobs off the table, letting them fall to her sides.

“So do we” Beryl countered. Amazing them all, she pulled a pair of decently-thick cloth placemats out of her inner depths somewhere near or beneath her giant boobs. First she neatly unfolded and laid one atop Rebecca’s table-filling orbs, then the other atop her own.


As she studied herself and the others at the table, Rebecca experienced a sense of surrealism. Meant as an internal thought, she wound up softly saying aloud, “How did I ever let myself get so big?”

The friendly smiles around the table aimed towards her were a small part of the answer. Inner feelings she definitely did not verbalize were a much larger part. When her and Per’s eyes directly and intensely met yet again, the out-of-this-world powerful love between them gave her the rest of her answer. She gently eased him over against and into her at an angle allowing his head to rest atop her placemat. This was only possible *because* of how profoundly soft and fat she was.

Others were studying the menu, figuring out what all they wanted. Soon enough, she joined them.


* *
With orders placed, attention turned back to being together.

“Welcome to the second meeting of Team Succulence” Beryl smiled.

“Yeah, I suppose you are our de-facto leader” Rebecca mused (aloud).

“We can vote on that.”

Clark had a different idea, “Let’s instead award Rebecca with something for having named us.”


Leigh started applauding, the rest of them quickly joining in.


“Thank you. I don’t even remember how it happened. What I’d *really* like is to be a part of the vote or nominations or whatever you over on the other side apparently took to give you your special names.”

All 3 of them looked puzzled, Leigh especially.

“You know: the ones you just used when we sat down. Neener and squishy something.”

“Those are our pet names for each other” explained Leigh.

“You’re sharing your names of endearment out in public?!”

“They’re not exactly racy” Jayne countered.

“Fewer names to remember, if we use them for our Team Succulence names too” noted Clark.

“Alright, what are they?”

“Let’s each sound off with our own, starting from my left.”

“Chonky.”

“Neener.”

“Squish. As in Brent’s Squish Buckle from yesterday, improved via removing him and the Buckle.”

“*Always* remove the buckle” said Beryl. “Makes for more breathing and eating room.”

“Unless she’s DJing” Per mildly disagreed.

“Alright, I sit corrected: *usually* remove the buckle, and other restraints.”

“Yeah, I get those” Rebecca nodded. “I like mine—Per’s pet name for me—but y’all are gonna penalize me for it, and then I’ll be sad.”

“Why would we do that?” asked Clark.

“’Cause in private I’m Cali, C-A-L-I. But you all natives won’t let me be that, and nobody’s given me the rule book or the how-to or the course requirements to earn my Ph.G. And here come our beer flights” she grinned at the end.


“Sorry to be nosy” said the barmaid as she set the flight racks down, “but what’s a Ph.G?”

“A mythical degree I made up as an abbreviated way of saying ‘getting my Ph.D in Cali Girliness, with the girl part of Cali girl being the G. I’ve lived there 20 years—*a freakin’ ***generation***, people!*” she noisily teased the natives seated across from her—“and the native son and daughters over there keep tellin’ me I’m still a New Yawwwker.”

“20 years… that’s 87 percent of my life.”

“See people?!” she again directed to those across from her. “It’s like it’s a frickin’ copyright or something! I’m not gonna *live* long enough ta be a Cali girl at this rate. You a Cali girl, hun?”

The barmaid nodded.

“Thought so. Can you approve me as a Cali girl? Or tell me how ta go about it?”


The young woman stared contemplatively towards the ceiling for nearly half a minute.


“Fortunately for you, we have a sufficient number of natives here today” she totally made up, sounding as authoritative as had Shashi the usher. “Unless my peers of greater experience know otherwise, last I heard in a pub setting like this, the nominee and each native-born person on the qualification committee consumes all of a drink, then the first committee member asks the nominee a general California knowledge question that only a true Cali girl—native or qualified immigrant—would know. Conveniently you’re all having microbrew flights, so consuming one whole flight glass each round shouldn’t be an especial hardship. Upon successfully answering the first question, the process repeats, moving to the next committee member in order. Once the final question has been answered correctly, the nominee becomes an official Cali girl.”

“*Finally!* Is this an open-book test?”

She shook her head.

“Dang! Do I get more than one guess?”

“Normally no, though by unanimous agreement amongst the members of the qualification committee, that and other rules can be adjusted.”

“Oy! These three will make it harder!”

“No we won’t” Leigh assured her, “because as she just said, it requires unanimous agreement to modify the rules.” {And you are brilliant} she thought of the clever young barmaid.