chapter 2

It was weeks since Maya saw the woman in red and a part of her lost hope she’d ever see her again. Maybe she was just being nice when she complimented Maya’s baking and that it actually sucked. Maybe she did start that diet after all, and what’s a diet that involves cakes? (The answer is the best kind, but not with the types of people that lived here.)

Either way Maya couldn’t keep thinking about her forever and what could have been. Business went on as usual, with slow days and hoity toity customers who’d leave as soon as they saw the calorie intake. Sure, her cakes could potentially be a bit healthier. But why do that?

One evening, she found herself napping in the storage closet. If there was a potential customer they could ring the counter’s bell, though this late she highly doubted that. That’s why she thought she was hearing things when the bell did in fact ring, a total of three times at that.

“Coming! ‘M coming…” Maya called out with a yawn. Just as she was getting comfortable in flattened storage boxes, too. Damn it.

She plodded through the staff door behind the counter, her hair a mess and eyes full of sleep. “Yeah? What can I get…” Maya trailed off when she saw the customer stood in front of her.

It was the chubby woman, only this time she was wearing a pair of mom jeans and a t-shirt that was fashionably too short. Not a full crop top, but enough that Maya could see a slither of soft flesh between the gap. She looked as beautiful as she did the first time, maybe even a few pounds heavier.

“...You.” She finally breathed out, both to finish her sentence and simply stating the fact that yes, it was her.

Her giggle caused goosebumps to run along Maya’s arms, “Me!” she said cheerily. “Am I interrupting again? It seems I have a knack for catching you at a bad time.”

Maya’s cheeks lit up as she caught her reflection in the metallic worktop and reached up to try and fix her bed hair. “No! No not at all I--I was just…” she stammered. “...Okay, I was having a nap.”

The woman rested her arms against the countertop and lent in, close enough that Maya could see the small cluster of freckles that decorated her nose and cheeks. “Well, I’m sorry to have woken you up, but it seems I have a craving for your cakes.”

Maya’s eyes widened, “Y-You do?” Maybe she sounded a little too excited about that, correcting herself with a cough, “I mean--I can certainly get you your fix. I have just the thing…”

She didn’t actually have anything in mind, but she wanted to impress her. Maya crouched down to search through the many cakes on display behind the glass, scanning each of them carefully before ruling them out. Eventually, she came back up and placed down the plate in front of them both.

“Cookie dough. With churros and Nutella ganache.” Maya stated proudly. It was definitely one of the more high calorific cakes that she had to offer and she knew from experience it’d make you not want to eat anything else for the next week.

The chubby woman looked at it with a slight frown, seeming to have an internal conflict with herself. If Maya had to take a guess she was probably trying to choose between keeping up with the idea of a diet, or just letting herself indulge.

“...I’ll take two slices, please.” She decided with a nod of confirmation.

Maya couldn’t quite believe it, two slices? It was well over a thousand calories for just one, let alone two. She’d be having more of the recommended calorie intake for an entire /day/ right here in her store. Maya was tempted to ensure this woman knew this, though the card with the calorie breakdown was there plain as day on the plate. She knew exactly what she was ordering and suddenly Maya found it hard to stand upright.

She simply nodded instead as she prepped two of the slices for her, neatly cutting two large wedges onto a smaller plate, “Er...Will you...Be staying or taking away?” Maya asked shakily.

“I think I’ll stay in, thank you.” The customer responded with a hum, taking the plate with her as it was handed over.

As soon as she sat down, Maya rushed into the staff door to try and cool herself off. Her legs felt weak and her face must have looked as though it was on fire with how red it was.

‘Be cool, be cool.’ She thought to herself, ‘Don’t blow this.’

With a large exhale of air, Maya forced herself back out onto the shop floor. She was immediately halted again by the fact the woman had already made her way through half one of the slices in a breeze. It made her wonder just how much she had eaten before coming here…

“Uh--” Maya spoke up, “Mind if I join you?” She gestured to the seat opposite. The woman simply nodded since her mouth was currently preoccupied.

She didn’t want to make it seem as though she was staring, but it was hard not to. The customer’s cheeks were bulging out with how much she was cramming into them, with traces of peanut butter lining the corners of her lips.

“So...How’ve you been settling in?” Maya prompted, her leg bouncing nervously under the table. She wanted to ask why she hadn’t been here in weeks, why she said she was planning on dieting, or why she was so perfect. Baby steps though. Baby steps.

The woman held up her finger as if to say ‘one minute’ as she was currently having a battle with the peanut butter stuck to the roof of her mouth. “Nmrph...Mm...Yeah! Great.” She managed to get out, “I’ve only just finished unpacking if I’m honest, otherwise I would have come back a lot sooner.”

“Oh,” Maya gasped. So she hadn’t been avoiding her, that was good to know. “Well, if I had known it was going to be a long process for you, I would have offered our delivery service.”

The woman’s face lit up at that, “You do deliveries?”

They didn’t.

“Er...Yeah! You said you lived just across the street, right? With something that close it’d be free of charge.” Maya was beginning to squirm a little in her seat. She was digging herself a potential massive hole here. That, or she was doing the best snap decision of her life by running with this. “I’ll give you our details.”

With that, she got up again to fetch a business card as if her life depended on it. By the time she came back, the woman was waiting at the counter with an empty plate. Maya wasn’t gone that long, was she? Or, did she just eat the rest incredibly fast...She hoped it was the latter.

The customer took the card with a smile, “I’ll be sure to give you a ring.”

As she turned to leave, there was a prominent muffin top resting on her jeans. Maya still didn’t know her name, but this was a lot better than she ever could have hoped for.


(I did actually do some maths with the calories based off of cookie dough, Nutella and churros separately and it did come to about 1200 calories. Not sure how that then translates into cake form, maybe more?)