Chapter 16 - seeds of doubt

Zach remembered the way he had felt when Jennifer first started inexplicably gaining weight. He didn’t understand it and, as a couple, they had become disconnected. He knew that had been because they hadn’t been communicating with each other. Now he was doing the same thing all over again. He had these awful insecure knots in his stomach whenever Jennifer went off for one of her shows; he’d find himself getting grumpy with her even the day before she left. Yet, he couldn’t find a way to tell her how he felt. Whenever he practised in the mirror, he just sounded stupid, petty and melodramatic. How could he let Jennifer see him that way? Why would he try to turn the woman’s remarkable success into something that was all about him?

As the weeks went by, Jennifer’s fan-base seemed to be growing along with her waistline. But, with that, came a new enthusiasm from the greedy chef; to eat even more than ever before. Zach would see the girl checking herself out in the mirror; immensely proud of the size she was achieving. During her barbecue videos, she sometimes went with cropped tops that allowed her fleshy stomach to be shown; always resulting in a massive spike in viewers. Not once did the girl second guess her decision to grow fatter; she simply loved every second of it and all of the consequences that came along for the ride.

As three hundred and fifty pounds came and went, Zach could see just how much of a kick she was getting out of being too fat for certain things, shopping for stronger furniture and specialist clothing. Even the breathless effort of putting socks on was an excitement for her. There she would sit, naked on the bed, turning sideways and rolling back like a ball, lifting her comparatively tiny foot into the air. From there she would try to hook her sock onto her toes, like she was trying to catch her foot in some sort of net; all the while making grunts from the effort of doing this with such a large stomach and giant breasts in the way.

“It’ll all end in tears!” Aunt Mildred had proclaimed, refusing to acknowledge how successful Jennifer had become.

“Have you seen this?” Jennifer grinned, shoving a magazine under Mildred’s eyes. “I’m number thirty-three in their list of the fifty sexiest female celebrities! It’s a readers’ poll!”

Aunt Mildred glanced at it for only a second. “They need their heads seeing to!” she mumbled in reply, satisfying Jennifer’s wicked determination to keep the woman enraged. “You need to watch that one!” she warned Zach seriously, once Jennifer had left the room. “She’s getting a real ego, about all of this! A little picture of her in some trashy magazine and it’s gone straight to her head! Who knows what she’s getting up to when she’s away all these weekends. I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if she had a new lover in every town!”

Zach knew he was a fool to listen to his Aunt Mildred, but he couldn’t help himself. The idea was tearing him up inside. He was comfort eating and growing fatter by the day, getting angry with himself that he was inadvertently ruining the contrast between their bodies, which Jennifer enjoyed so much. He started refusing his wife's cooking, trying out fad diets; losing weight and then ending up exactly where he had started from; just as chubby and overweight-looking. Aunt Mildred could also be relied upon to make some snarky remark about it as well; pointing it out as if Zach had not noticed it at all.

“Why don’t you come with me to this next festival?” asked Jennifer, sensing that Zach was getting grumpy with her for leaving again. “I’ll be working for most of it, but we’ll get to spend Saturday night together; the first in quite some time!”

Zach considered. He’d need to take Friday off work, but that was fine. He was due some time off. Alright,” he nodded, not knowing whether he felt better or worse about the prospect of going with Jennifer this time. “Let’s do it!”