chapter 4 - part 2

The croissants didn't take long to prepare, and Chloe's mother was soon carrying a platter of them through to the dining room. The family settled in to their seats at the dining table, surveying the spread laid out before them. There was far too much food for the four of them, just as Chloe had expected. Eight plain croissants and eight chocolate croissants, jam, marmalade, and butter. Chloe's stomach rumbled and she didn't waste any time in picking up the closest pastry to her – a plain croissant, quickly opening it on her plate. She used to have just strawberry jam with her croissants, but this was the new Chloe, who proceeded to carve a hefty chunk of butter from the block to spread on the already buttery croissant, before lathering on a thick layer of jam. Chloe's father poured out three and a half glasses of Buck's Fizz – even Ben would have a little drop of booze on Christmas morning – and passed them round. Chloe wanted plenty of that too, so before she took a bite of the loaded croissant on her plate, she took a big swig of the sweet cocktail before tearing into the pastry. It was soft, flaky, buttery, and sweet, all at the same time. If Chloe had been alone she would have been making some pretty satisfied sounds by now but, alas, she wasn't. She finished her first croissant quickly – seeing as her mother had bought sixteen of them, she took it as granted that four was an acceptable number to have. She drained the rest of her glass and picked up a chocolate croissant, pausing briefly while holding in a burp from all the bubbles she'd swallowed so quickly, and then dug into her next treat. Chloe could feel a little buzz in her head already – she'd drunk her first glass a little too quick, and on a mostly empty stomach, in her rush to maximise the calories she could get from this meal.

Her father refilled her glass while she ate anyway, but she decided to make a bit of an effort to take smaller sips of her drink for the rest of the meal. The family ate mostly in silence, instead listening to the Christmas music on the radio and enjoying the peace of the morning, especially as they all grew progressively tipsier from their breakfast cocktails. The slight inebriation meant Chloe had lost herself in her food a bit more than she normally would, and as she picked up another chocolate croissant – her fourth croissant in all – she realised that she wasn't sure how many everyone else had had, or if there had been any sidelong glances at the number she'd chosen to treat herself with. Ben had finished eating and was currently looking around the room aimlessly, clearly bored already, but her parents were still eating – the realisation that she must have been eating too quickly dawning on her with a hint of embarrassment. She finished the last few delectable bites of pastry, then finished the last few drops of her second glass of Buck's Fizz, feeling a warm glow that was part alcohol and part satisfied belly. Of course, Chloe wasn't really in the 'satisfying' game when it came to her belly, usually preferring to go far past that point, but she'd take what she could in the circumstances. Her father poured another round of refills for Chloe, himself, and his wife, emptying the last of the pitcher. Chloe leaned back in her chair.

“So who's coming for dinner again?” she asked.

“Paul and Angie and your grandparents” her father responded, his glass of fizz in his hand. Paul was Tom's older brother, Angie his at-times abrasive sister-in-law. Tom and Paul both had a rocky relationship with their parents, so Chloe knew 'your grandparents' meant her mother's parents rather than her father's.

“Ugh” Ben muttered.

“Ben don't start” Tom said with a slightly exasperated tone.

“But Aunt Angie...” he whined.

“Shush, she's not that bad, and if she does say anything just ignore it. I don't think she even realises what she's saying half the time” their mother responded.

“Oh, she knows” Tom said.

“Well just ignore it!” his wife replied, clearly a little annoyed by the turn of the conversation. Chloe sipped her third glass of the orangey cocktail, eyeing up the croissants still on the platter in the middle of the table. There were two plain croissants and one chocolate one left. Chloe couldn't conceive how there was still a chocolate croissant left – they were so much better than the regular ones, even when they were covered in butter and jam! She really wanted to reach out and take it, but she wasn't quite tipsy enough to have the courage for such a public display of greed. “Anyway, I'd like everyone to dress nicely for dinner this year.”

Chloe straightened in her chair as that last bombshell from her mother sunk in.

“But Muuuuum...” Ben started, but Chloe just spoke over him.

“Mum I don't have anything to wear! Why didn't you say something before I came down, I could have brought something down with me!” There was more than a hint of panic in Chloe's voice.

“Don't you worry about that honey” her mother replied with a knowing smile. Chloe's heart leaped into her throat. Clearly, one of Chloe's gifts would be something to wear today. It was bad enough that she was obviously going to have to wear something her mother had picked out for her, but that wasn't what was really causing her to panic. The true source of her distress was the knowledge that since she moved out she'd blown through not just one, but two whole dress sizes. What was she going to do when the outfit her mother bought inevitably didn't fit and then she's the only one looking scruffy in jeans?

“I don't have anything either” Ben complained. “Why do we have to dress up on Christmas, that's so unfair!”

“I said not to worry about that, and you have to dress smart because you're not a child any more, are you Ben? All our guests will be dressed up so you should too.” Their mother's tone of voice said the discussion was over. Chloe felt a pit open in her stomach, dreading the surprise to come, so she emptied the rest of her glass into it.

“OK come on kids, clear the table and then you can have some presents!” their father said, expecting a better reaction that the one he got, both of his children feeling reluctant to find out what clothes their mother had bought for them. Chloe's mother went straight through to the lounge, but her father at least helped carry some of the dishes through to the kitchen before joining his wife in the lounge. Once their father had left, Ben pulled his age-old trick, claiming he needed the toilet and running out of the room, doubtless to return just as the work was finishing.

“Little bugger” Chloe muttered to herself as she started tidying the mess, but she soon saw a silver lining. She stood in front of the kitchen counter, the platter with the last three croissants sitting on the worktop in front of her, eyeing up the lonely chocolate croissant. Her mind was still dwelling on the coming struggle to fit in whatever outfit her mother had planned for her today, but one more croissant would hardly make a difference – the problem she faced was the nearly two-and-a-half stone of pure fat she'd packed on to her formerly slender body, and she wouldn't be getting dressed for at least a couple of hours yet so her belly wouldn't be quite as round by then. She looked around, making sure she was alone, before snatching it up from the platter and stuffing it into her mouth as quickly as possible, forcing it in with her fingers, just in case anyone came into the kitchen while she was inhaling the unneeded treat. It was cold now and all the chocolate had re-solidified, but it was still delicious. She swallowed the last bite and put her hand on her tummy, or at least on top of her dressing gown above it. She loved to feel and hold her growing belly when it was nicely filled with food, and she didn't have to be stuffed to her limit to enjoy the sensation. Even though she couldn't feel the tautness of her softening abdomen through the dressing gown, the thick layers of fabric that meant her hand was resting a couple of inches forward from the actual curve of her belly gave her an unexpected thrill – the layers of the dressing gown acting like a rudimentary reproduction of the way she'd padded her clothes with pillows and cushions as a child, the placement of her hand creating a rough illusion of what it would feel like to have a belly big enough to stick out so far.

Chloe's imagination loved to play with the idea of a fatter belly, a fatter body, a fatter everything. It cycled through countless variations of that theme multiple times a day after all, but every single time it did, it triggered a physical reaction in her body, starting with a familiar warmth pushing out in waves from the source between her legs... She forced herself to snap out of it – this was not the time or the place to be a horny mess, even though thoughts about the feast to come made it harder to drag her mind away from her obsession to focus on the ordinary task at hand. She put the kettle on for another round of tea while she finished doing the dishes, failing again to keep her excitement at bay as she lumped three teaspoons of sugar into her mug for a second time.

She carried the three mugs through to the lounge where her parents were already settled on their sofa, the TV tuned to a radio channel, playing the corny Christmas pop music that had been the soundtrack to Christmas for as long as Chloe could remember. As if by magic, Ben appeared in the room behind her, sitting down on the empty two-seater sofa innocently, giving no hint that he knew he'd just gotten away with hiding instead of helping. She passed her parents' mugs to them and settled down on the smaller sofa next to her brother, choosing to ignore him as much as possible. It was a low sofa, with very soft cushions, the kind you could really sink into – especially if you happened to be the owner of a pair of plump bum cheeks.

“OK who's starting first then?” her father asked with a smirk, as if that was even in question.

“Me! Me! Me!” Ben chirped eagerly, swinging his legs around and thumping his feet off the base of the sofa.

“Go on then, why don't you kids pass them out?” their mother responded, before quickly adding, “one each please!” Ben sprang up off the sofa and looked at Chloe expectantly.

“Go on Ben, why don't you get them all out? I've got tea here” Chloe said, though the truth was she couldn't be bothered to shift herself out of the low position she was sat in to lift herself off the sofa. The weight she'd gained so far hadn't really affected her physical capabilities or the way she moved much at all, but sat on this sofa the extra weight was enough to make standing up a bit more of a chore than it used to be, and while Chloe had noticed that she had to make a bit of an effort to get off these sofas since she'd been at home, she hadn't made the mental connection between that fact and her heavier body being the cause. Having been slim her whole life she had a pretty naïve grasp of how quickly fat could affect the free and flexible bodily movement that she'd always taken for granted, ignorantly believing she wouldn't have to worry about that until she'd gained a significant amount of weight. Years of looking at feedist sites online had warped her perception however, so she didn't realise that she already had gained a significant amount of weight, and now it was literally weighing her down.

Luckily for Chloe and her increasing laziness, Ben didn't need much encouragement, happy to dig around under the Christmas tree by himself whether the gifts were his or not, though his ulterior motive was to try and find the biggest present for himself so he could open it first. He grabbed a random assortment of gifts to hand out before their mother intervened.

“Pick that one first for your sister” she said, and smiled at Chloe. Ben put down the book-shaped gift he'd picked up first, and picked up a much larger one that his mother identified. Chloe was suddenly extremely curious – she wasn't expecting anything big and she had no idea what the gift could be. When Ben laid it down on her lap, it was surprisingly heavy, but as per family tradition, she waited to open it until her little brother had opened his first. He'd successfully identified his main present and was already tearing into the paper.

“Ohmygodnoway!” Ben exclaimed. “You actually got it! Thank you so much!” the new generation Xbox unveiled by the shredded paper was enough to drag some genuine gratitude and manners out of him, and he sprang up to hug his parents one by one.

“Go on then Chloe” their mother said, smiling encouragingly at her daughter. She was clearly impatient to see her daughter's reaction to the surprise. Chloe unwrapped the paper eagerly, but not as aggressively as her brother had, to reveal a brand new, top of the range laptop – she was in pretty dire need of a new one to replace the old hand-me-down she'd had to use in her first term.

“Thank you so much!” she said, in shock. “I had no idea, I didn't expect this at all!” An expensive gift was enough for her to be bothered to get up, and she set the box down on the sofa next to her before shuffling forward awkwardly on the sofa and pushing herself up from the soft cushion to go and embrace each of her parents just as her brother had. After leaning down to hug them, she stood up straight and unconsciously pulled the dressing gown cord tied around her abdomen down a bit, the gown having ridden up a touch from all the movement. She returned to her sofa and dropped back into her seat, a little more heavily than she expected.

Her brother continued handing out gifts and they all took turns opening them. Chloe had a few accessories for her new laptop, the aforementioned book, and a couple of other nice but forgettable trinkets. Eventually, Ben laid a soft and flexible package on her lap and a sense of dread bubbled up in Chloe's chest. This was it – whatever her mother had decided she was going to wear today. Her brother had already opened the shirt and trousers he was expected to wear, discarding them with barely a word to look for a more interesting gift. Chloe gingerly tore the paper open, as if opening the gift slowly would make the contents more tolerable. Lifting the torn wrapping paper, she found a dark red satin-like material. She lifted the garment out of the remains of the gift wrap, unfolding it and holding it up for inspection. It was a high necked, long sleeve dress, with a slightly frilled collar and cuffs, and a full skirt. It was a gorgeous deep red, and it had a vintage look to it – considering the setting, she actually quite liked it. She looked the dress up and down as she held it out in front of her, trying to get a feel for its size. It didn't look that small actually, but Chloe had been growing out of clothes sizes so fast she found it hard to judge what would fit her curvier body. She tried to take a surreptitious look at the label inside the neckline but there was no size to be found there.

“Well, what do you think?” her mother asked expectantly.

“I like it! Thanks Mum”. It was the truth, but there was no enthusiasm in her voice, her tone muted by the anxiety she was still feeling about squeezing herself into it.

“Good!” her mother replied with a broad smile, clearly pleased at Chloe's response anyway. “I'll give it a quick iron while you're in the shower.”

“OK. When is everyone coming?”

“Not for a few hours yet, and I need some help in the kitchen before you go upstairs please darling?” she asked, with a slightly pleading voice.

“Of course, what do you need?” Chloe didn't really need much convincing when given the opportunity to squeeze even more calories into her diet. She stood up faster from the low sofa than she had all morning, her extra-sugary tea in her hand.