chapter 1

'You’re only eighty pounds overweight,’ she said, as she placed the box of donuts by his side and kissed his cheek.

'Kinda feeling it though,' he replied, as he picked up the box and examined its contents. 'l like the chocolate ones,' he observed.

'I know,' she said, with a sly wink.

He rolled his eyes at her knowingly, before placing the box back down and stretching his body out before her. And as he did so, the thick wedge of soft underbelly he had recently put on made its presence felt from beneath his t-shirt. Mediums were no good for him any more, that much was clear, but were just 'fine' for around the house, or so she had said. And it had always amused him how much attention a little eye candy could drum up, although he'd been talking diets all day.

'Maybe I’ll have just the one,’ he declared, patting his overgrown middle, and not even attempting to show some self-restraint, as he picked up the box and broke its tab.

As he took a first bite of donut, her eyes traced how even his ‘fattest’ sweatpants now clung tight to his hips; his ‘fat’ jeans having not long been retired a few pounds ago. She bit on her bottom lip at the sight of a few fresh new stretch marks appearing just at the point where his belly hang met his hips. 'Boy'd been eating good that month,' she thought, delightedly. And it was clear her daily donut haul from the store had done some damage, given that his belly had risen like dough from a tin that month. The pounds simply had nowhere else to go by this point.

With a sly grin, she bid a hasty retreat for the couch, safe in the knowledge that probably more than one donut would now find its merry way into his gut. All those pounds he'd put on recently had not grown themselves after all.

The first forty or so pounds, she mused, as she walked towards the couch, had been a lot of fun, if a little challenging at first. And at times, she really wished she could go back and help him gain them all again - if only to rejoice for a second time at the sight of his appetite truly breaking new ground and settling into its stride.

The second forty pounds or so, however, had posed no such difficulties at all, appearing thick and fast, like a heavy freight train on a dark night, and just as impactful if you happened to find yourself caught beneath them - which she had done of late - several times - given that her own appetite had grown in different ways compared to his. And even more so since he had really started to grow like this.

After about twenty minutes or so, maybe more, he reappeared by her side on the couch, donut crumbs and glazing around his lips.

‘Good donuts,’ he said, as he dropped himself down heavily beside her. He tried to stifle a belch with one hand and pat her thigh with his other. He truly was a pig. And as he sank back into the softness of the couch, his own mound of softness around his middle broke ground the other way, sitting there proud and heavy; a most fitting tribute to his recent gluttony of late. And with his t-shirt pulled taught by the weight of his overfilled gut, he was the epitome of Templeton Rat post-fair.

‘Love this one,’ he muttered, as he reached forward - with some difficulty - for the remote from the coffee table and tapped at its buttons. The nondescript sitcom's dialogue registered a little louder in her ears.

He picked up a chocolate from the bowl of snacks she kept by the side of the couch - another trick she had learnt since he had really started to grow - and sat back down as he popped the treat in his mouth, which were the most fattening she could find at the store, if only he knew; perhaps he did.

‘Seen it,’ she said, impatiently, and doing her best not to stare at his belly, which was beginning to play its siren song to her hands. She sat on them quickly. 'Good things come to those who wait,' her grandma had always told her. But times had changed since grandma's day, and with a bulging belly begging for her attention beside her like this, waiting was the last thing she wanted to do. She glanced over at it surreptitiously once again, from the corner of her eye. It was just sitting there, oh so spherically round, and oh so very fat. And heavy. And plump. And begging to be rubbed.

He popped another chocolate in his mouth as she glanced over again. He really had turned into a man who couldn't - or wouldn't - say no until he got every last mouthful he could want. And the effects of that were now plain for all to see. But he seemed to be wearing his additional pounds with greater pride every day now, as if the thought of widening out further barely registered as he ploughed through another plateful or sank himself deep into another slice of pie.

She sat on her hands with greater gusto this time, as her body began to fight an age old urge, probably as old as time itself. Gluttony of this order required its own reward. And she wasn't just thinking about the fat belly that all those indulgences would bring, which should've been reward enough itself of course. She just wanted to be on top of that, as she spotted those soft new stretch marks of his again, now a little redder and angrier than before, as they fought valiantly to hold back the weight of his overfilled stomach. As if on cue, he scratched at them lightly with his hand, his t-shirt having rolled up a little to expose them to the room's cold air.

'Thick-and-fast,’ she mused, silently, and with glee, as he popped another chocolate in his mouth. And the next forty or so would come even thicker if he could keep this kind of eating up. Not many diets required mainlining donuts like he had just done, except perhaps for that of a gainer in full flow.