Chapter 25 - Market Maturity (Part 5) - END

Looking to the sky and wiping the edges of her eyes, Macey slowly walked closer to the centre of the crowd. The legs of her burgundy pant-suit danced around her ankles as she walked to the centre. May and some of the other, older staff looked on lovingly at the poise and confidence that increasingly defined Macey’s public presence – a transmutation, perhaps, from her bedroom life into the wider world.

“Thanks, Em,” and she hugged her again.

“I’ll keep this short. When Macey pitched Lipid to me at first, I though she’d lost her mind.”

The whole room burst into laughter.

“No, really. I thought she was trying to cope with getting fat in basically the most bizarre way ever. But the more she talked to me and explained the vision she had, the more this crazy idea started to feel more and more like it might be crazy in a brilliant kind of way.”

More laughter.

“May and I have had each other for a long time, and when we started Lipid, we had the incredible fortune to gain all of you. Like she said, cheesy as it is, I do think of us as a big, fat family. And so, as one of the ‘bosses,’ but more than anything, as a friend and comrade, I want to thank you all.”

The crowd smiled and sniffled as Macey smiled onward. She kept quiet for a moment and her posture softened somewhat.

“I would be lying, though, if there were some connections that stood out more than others.”

Eyebrows raised and lips curled into conspiratorial smiles as Macey’s eyes and posture re-solidified and she turned towards Amanda, seated, still panting slightly, on a bench near the door.

“Amanda, when you first started working here, you were a mystery to me. You were friendly but hard to know.”

She paused for a second, considering her words with a bemused smile.

“Honestly, I thought you were kind of an airhead.”

Amanda broke her panting to open her mouth in mock surprise.

“But as I got to know you, I realized you were both incredibly smart and deeply kind. You came to work at a fund that invests in fat people, and never seemed to question that, despite what you looked like, you could still help. When I understood that fully, I think I fell for you right there.”

A palpable tension floated in the air now. Amanda’s heavy breathing had miraculously passed and now her eyes, somewhat moist at the edges, were fixed on her girlfriend.

Macey began to walk towards Amanda now, her pants swishing side-to-side and her breasts jostling slightly at the neckline of the top, her lace bustier just barely hidden underneath, a gift for her lover later that evening.

She got right to the edge of Amanda’s belly, which was bunched on her thighs and knees and formed a kind of table that Macey now leaned atop and looked even more closely into Amanda’s eyes.

“My love,” she said, her voice cracking, “our connection was unexpected, but I have never for one minute looked back. I feel like each day you teach me something new. More than anything, you’ve taught me what it means to truly love yourself.”

Amanda was fully crying now, her mascara running down her cherubic cheeks and drips of watery black liquid were now falling down onto the light brown skin of breasts.

“From where I stand right now, I can’t imagine doing anything differently than what we have done, and what we do now. And so, Amanda, I have a question for you.”

Macey reached into her pocket and pulled out a slim, velvet covered box. She felt the hinges click mechanically as she opened it, her heart racing a thousand beats a minute as she turned the case to Amanda to show her the prize inside.

The two women locked eyes, tears from each winding their ways down their cheeks. Internally, flashes of their lives together zipped across each of their mind’s eye: Saturday afternoons on the couch snacking; spectacular, sometimes almost unhinged lovemaking; and the senuous, unbridled hedonism that Macey got to support and Amanda drove.

“Amanda, will you marry me?”

Overcome with tears, Amanda nodded her head through sobs and, unable to reach over her massive belly, pulled her lover in for a kiss. The remnants of Amanda’s pre-event milkshake still lingered in her mouth and so their loving, and soon passionate dancing of tongues had an unexpected but thoroughly welcome sweetness to accompany the love that flowed between the two of them.

It was only the chorus of “oooos” at their increasingly spicy embrace that broke their concentration, as their audience started to whoop and hollar all around them at their newfound joy. The stress that Macey had been holding in for the past month evaporated and she melted into the lap of her lover, their heads tucked into one another, dazed with love and the prospect of their future lives together.

The party began in earnest now, with champagne bottles popping all around and the caterers bringing more and more food to replenish the already drained buffet. The atmospheric was meteorically happy and everyone in the office laughed and indulged happily with one another.

The party-goers formed something of a receiving line to congratulate the engagees, laughing and hugging them together as they sat, depleted but happy, in their shared daze.

One of the first to come up was Nasha, looming over the two of them as ever. She wore a forest green dual-legged slit dress, each meaty hip fully exposed to the air and allowing for her massively pregnant belly the space it needed to be comfortable. Nasha and her partner had decided to give a baby a go earlier in the year and Nasha’s genes apparently leant themselves to pregnancy far more easily than she had expected. Always the largest member of the Lipid staff, her belly now took on an even more domineering form than May’s and jutted outward spherically, her two-rolled belly increasing fading through the onslaught her growing babies set against her previous body-shape.

Nasha had been preparing for the baby for the latter half of the year and hadn’t been around the office, and so both her and Amanda had to take in one another’s respective changes. Given the environment of acceptance that Lipid cultivated, there was no awkward avoidant generalities about “new looks,” but rather mutual knowing smiles of bemusement and direct engagement with the topic:

“Jesus, Nasha, how many are you carrying in there?”

Uproarous laughter from the dark-skinned Amazon.

“Just two, but trust me, they’re more than enough.”

A deep belly laugh from Amanda, now, wobbling all across her body.

Nasha was more delicate, but still was more than happy to poke and prod her old coworker’s belly loving and give a series of affectionate, if awkward, hugs to both parts of the couple. As Macey took in the Chief of Staff’s radically enhanced figure, her mind immediately turned to what Amanda would look like once she was pumped up with a baby someday. The thought left more than a little warmth between her legs.

Next in the receiving line was Bex.

Unlike Nasha, it was their personality that had undergone the most notable change in the past several years. As they’d been asked to take on a greater and greater leadership role in Lipid, they had, with starts and stops, come to embrace that more and more. Bex was still a consummate introvert, but it no longer took the threat of unemployment to get them to a company event and – on occasion – they’d even plan one on occasion for a few select friends, which Amanda and Macey counted themselves luckily amongst.

Bex wobbled their way up to the two of them and, their considerable weight bearing down, practically flopped into a hug on top of Amanda – while still trying to hook a meaty arm around Macey at the same time. The collective puddle of flesh was suffocating to Amanda, who laughed and squealed with worry indeterminantly.

Bex was much more confident in themselves and, for those who knew them well, this was the more notable change, but their body had also shifted, too.

They’d retained the impossibly-perfect hourglass shape that they would always be known for. Their awe-inspiringly immense breasts somehow strikingly perky in spite of their incredible heft. The belly that jutted out beneath them was spherical but so teemingly sensuous that even an ardent thin-chaser would admit it was a sexual object. Their indecently large hips sprawled outward and, after a meaty crescendo, sloped inward to their cartoonishly lithe ankles. Their body was hentai-indecent, no matter how fat they got.

And yet, despite this enduring feminine aesthetic, their internal aura – entirely unique, separate, safe – projected undeniably who and what they were.

Even if you’d only met them in that moment, Bex’s internal peace, jubilant in its youth, was shining in all directions.

The couple chatted with them for several minutes, asking them about their recent dating exploits – ongoing, but not yet successful – their creative pursuits, and new favourite eats. The smiles and laughter continued on until Amanda’s stomach let out an unsettlingly large gurgle.

Her coterie sprang into action, swooping over to the buffet (between their own bites) to select a new tranche of snacks for the seated beauty.

This continued on, with interludes for new conversation partners, more arrivals, and congratulations, as Amanda stuffed and stuffed more food into her face. The hunger that she felt wasn’t merely primal, it was transcended, she knew how powerful and beautiful her body was and what that represented in this world. She felt elated in the completion of that mentally, while stuffing down yet more food.

It was only the ripping of the stitches holding the centre seam across her belly that pulled her from her focus on devouring half the snack table.

The room around her erupted in laughter, a few beaches and giggles following sporadically. May herself was hoisting her belly up and down with mirth. She smiled at Macey.

“I’m sure it’s just bloating.”

/ The End /

Thank you so much for the support through the writing process on this. Finishing "It's Just Bloating" is an incredible achievement for me and I'm so proud and honoured that it's resonated with so many people. Please enjoy! And stay tuned for what's next!