Chapter 9 - pitching (part 3)

The Constellation’s HQ was only a few minutes away, located on Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street, the centre of “BWS” as the locals affectionately named the neighbourhood. The building was strikingly elegant, sleek contemporary lines guiding your eyes up a vertical facade that was covered in Aninkra symbols and other Pan-African identifiers of wealth and success.

Inside, the building bustled with Black people of all shapes and sizes, though the overall trend was to the heavier side. A young secretary warmly led the group upstairs to one of their main boardrooms, her breathtakingly curvy backside swaying side to side with each long, graceful step that she took.

As the group sat down at the table, a variety of small snacks were laid out on the table, and Macey was gracious enough to offer her two obese co-workers a coffee from the espresso machine in the corner. May asked for hers with a mixture of caramel and cane sugar, while Nasha opted for a mint sweetener that left Macey grimacing at the smell.

Everyone settled in at the table for a few minutes, making idle chatter, until the solid cherrywood door to the room opened again and, with a huff, a large man in a bowtie and suit walked in, patting his head with a napkin. Heavily built with a large gut and sturdy legs, he looked every part the fatcat banker that might have once defrauded his communities - Now he was their fatcat banker, May thought to herself.

He huffed again an introduced himself as Damian, one of the “joint representatives” of the Constellation’s funds.

Following behind him was a less rotund woman, though inarguably more eye-catching. Just shorter than May, the woman who introduced herself as Angelica, was, in a word, stunning. Long braids ran down almost to her waist, which was miraculously sinched, given the size of her breasts and hips. Her truly absurd hourglass figure somehow managed to wobble and jiggle gracefully, a simply bodycon dress hugging every curve and roll that she unabashedly put on display.

The shelf that her breasts made up nearly rested fully on the table as she sat, a large folio pushed notably ahead of her so that she could actually read the bottom of the her page.

Macey silently thanked the powers that be that Azin was not here to harass or otherwise oggle the woman, but she noted that even Nasha’s eyebrows raised, though it was unclear if this was appreciation or envy. The largest person at the rable, she had already nabbed a small collection of wrapped goodies from the centre of the table and was preparing to work through them as their hosts had arrived - Macey could have sworn she saw her swallow an entire dingdong whole as they entered, lest she start speaking with her mouth full.

Damian and Angelica listened to May’s pitch statefully. They drew liberally from the snacks on the table - mostly pre-wrapped candies and small cakes - but generally stayed focused on what she was saying, occasionally taking notes or asking clarifying questions.

The team knew that this fund was one one with some of the greatest potential, at least in the United States, but, so far, no one knew which direction they were going. They were praying that favourable word from CALPers or AFOREs might help, but the Constellation remained tight-lipped and simply asked for the full team to come and present in Tulsa.

While she had a rash of successes under her belt, this reserved attitude really began to eat at May. She was confident that their pitch would make sense to Damian and Angelica, their primary interlocutors over the past few months. The various funds of the Constellation were active in Black communities across the country and many were still in the process of rebuilding social infrastructure that, in many cases, had been destroyed, damaged, or never built since the time of the second Great Migration . In many cases, these communities had existed at the economic margins of society - the people there had (and many continued to) live on fast food diets and have little to no access to the social and cultural amenities of wealthier and whiter neighbourhoods. With these constraints, these were some of the fattest communities in the United States.

Cities like Jackson, Mississipi, or Memphis, Tennessee, were phenomenally fat, distinctively poor, and overwhelmingly Black. The Constellation was bringing in grocery stores, daycares, and other services that governments had failed to, all through various mechanisms of community ownership. For exhausted and often hopeless communities, this was a godsend in every way possible. But even with these critical investments, communities where still grappling with how to manage overwhelmingly obese populations that, despite decades of work to encourage weight loss, had never broken out of a cycle of obese poverty.

Lipid felt that they could change that. Fat bodies, with the right help, could be just as, if not more, productive than thin ones. Bariatric chairs, proper air conditioning, mobility assists, and various medical interventions could all play a massive role.

May was careful not to hit these points over the heads of people who already knew them well, but having studied the ins and outs of American obesity so thoroughly now, it was impossible for her not to become more and more animated as she laid out the possibilities.

Unlike even a few months ago, merely her gesticulations and speaking faster were now enough to raise her fattended body’s temperature to a boiling point. Sweat began to bead down from her forehead and the thin linen blouse she was wearing, tastefully long and shapeless, began to cling to her skin. The air conditioning was just audible in the background, pumping more and more cool air into the room, but emphasising just how large and over-heated the lead investor could get.

As she neared the end of her presentation, the full contours of her breasts and the top of her belly were now visible as she sweat through everything. Her breathing was starting to become more ragged as she still continued to increase her emphasis and projection, but this only exacerbated her overheating, sweaty demeanour.

May was starting to feel dizzy now, and as she concluded, black spots appeared in her vision. She gripped the table, her wet-skinned belly was suddenly cut in half as her fat struggled to displace itself to make room for this sudden intrusion. The combination of the heat and the sudden positional change were too much for her and May’s head lolled and her eyes fell back to look at the ceiling.

Most of those assembled at the table were not in a position to move quickly, so, Macey was the first up to check on May. Her friend was radiating a frightening amount of heat, so, she quickly tore open her blouse to let some heat escape. Pools of sweat had gathered between her breasts and now began to trickle down her bely more freely. Next, Macey grabbed one of the Gatorades on the table, blessedly still cool, and brought it to her friend’s lips, nursing her like a wounded animal.

The first few sips of the sugary drink actually seemed to help way more than the cooling off had, and after a good minute of lapping the drink slowly, her eyes seemed to return into focus and she could hold the bottle herself. She slugged it back suddenly and motioned for another from the middle of the table.

After a few minutes of being fawned over, May fully came back to herself and apologized profusely to her hosts.

“This is completely unprofessional, I am so, so sorry. I think it was a combination of the heat and I was having a sugar low.”

Carefully neglected in this story, consciously for once, by May, was the fact she’d effectively already had two breakfasts before she even left the hotel, forgetting the cookies and coffees that the girls had eaten on their way to the office.

May, after months of bullishly putting every part of herself into Lipid, finally had to take stock of just how much her body had changed and how fat she had become. If missing food for two hours was enough to cause her to faint - that was a sign of something that needed her attention. To what end, she was undecided, but clearly she needed a period of reflection.

Angelica and Damian were more than happy to accept May’s apologies and became, somewhat unexpectedly, rather effusive about how good it had been and their eagerness to continue the conversation.

It was decided they would all break for lunch and return in the afternoon to continue the discussions. Damian had to excuse himself for a prior engagement, but Angelica was more than happy to tag along with the girls.

At a local BBQ joint that blessedly had oversized bench-seats and “healthy” portion sizes, Angelica built rapport with the group very quickly. Macey observed that Nasha’s eye was more appreciative than lustful, and that the two Black women chatted away happily about families and personal stories.

Angelica ate considerably less than Nasha, but there was a hint of competition as the larger woman occasionally swallowed huge chunks of meat from her ribs in a single gulp and seemed to taunt her to go farther. Her ludicrous curves drew stares from the servers, but otherwise she seemed relatively uncaring about how her body was viewed.

May was pensive, rather mechanically consuming a full wrack of ribs and a jug of sweat tea on her own. She engaged with Angelica formally, laughing at her jokes when appropriate, or adding small comments to the conversation building out between her, Macey, and Nasha, but otherwise was more withdrawn than she would normally be.

Fully loaded up with food after a sprawling two-hour gluttony fest that they all agreed would be branded as a “working lunch,” they all returned to Greenwood Avenue and began presentations and discussions anew. Begging a reprieve, May handed the presentation reins over to Macey and was there more in a supporting role thereafter.

They stayed in Tulsa for two more days, the conversations proving more favourable each day, Angelica and Damian returned each time more open and eager, and, thankfully for everyone, with more snacks and drinks for the table. Stifled belches and stuffed tummies abounded as they worked through the finer points of a potential agreement.

At the end of the third day, everyone’s buttons felt tighter and May’s semi-fugue state seemed to have dissipated somewhat. As they said goodbye, Angelica’s curves seemed almost angry to be contained, another tight bodycon dress looking frighteningly thin and seethrough. Given his size, any change in Damian was harder to see, but it was likely he had a few more strained buttons, as well.

They hadn’t fully closed with the Constellation, in the end, the pitch was strong but they needed more time to evaluate. They promised follow up in the next few months as their analysts worked through materials that Lipid would send to them.

The whole trainride home, May was withdrawn and thoughtful, her appetite even subsiding somewhat (relative to her insatiable baseline).

Only one question ran through her mind as she got closer to her home base: what am I becoming?