Chapter 7

As I walked to pick up the documents at the copy machine, I overheard some conversation.

“Have you seen the CEO lately?” one girl from accounting asked another.

“Oh my gosh, yeah. What happened to him? He’s so fat now. It looks like he had an entire Thanksgiving meal by himself.”

“Maybe he swallowed the turkey whole,” she laughed. “But yeah, it’s totally crazy, right? He used to be in great shape. I guess it’s stressful with that new bitch from the merger. I hear she’s super aggressive and will nitpick anything we offer on our side when we do projects together.”

“Too bad, but I guess stress does that. I know I eat when I get upset…never to that extent though.”

“Well, in the end he’s still loaded. He can eat as many turkeys as he wants.”

When the papers stopped printing, I picked them up and headed back upstairs to deliver them, doing my best to repress the smirk on my face.

For the employees who usually didn’t get to see Tommy it was a shock to see him these days. It’d always tickle me to hear them go on about how fat he got, maybe because I got to see the wild displays so often.

Ever since I noticed his gain, I started bringing more treats to the office, just to see if he’d eat them or hold back. I’d bring in all sorts of things in the guise that I was bringing them in for a lot of people, but of course I just wanted to see how much of a glutton the boss was. Last month I’d brought Halloween candy and cookies, before that apple cider donuts and caramel apples. Throughout the past few months in general, I’d pass off brownies, cookies, muffins, donuts, danishes, cupcakes, and cakes very often.

And he’d never turn it down. Even with all the other junk he was eating.

I entered the boss’s room without knocking, seeing as I just left out of here five minutes ago.

“Urk…” When I looked up, I saw Tommy sitting in front of the desk struggling to reach something on the floor. But he couldn’t bend very far due to his giant gut. I watched for a couple of minutes.

“Um, here’s the papers you asked for,” I said, placing them on top of the desk, finally alerting him to my presence. I was also trying not to laugh.

“O-oh!” He jolted up. “T-thanks. Didn’t expect you back so soon with how much nonsense they wanted me to review.”

“Good thing the copier works pretty quick,” I said. “What were you doing hunched over?”

A bright red flashed across the boss's puffy face. At this point, any sharpness to his face had long since vanished.

“I was trying to get my pen,” he muttered.

“Oh?” I couldn’t repress my grin. “Do you need help getting it?”

“N-No,” he snapped. “I can get it just fine.”

I stood there and watched.

“Don’t you have work to do?” he asked me, growing redder by the second.

“Of course, but my job is to help you, you know,” I said. “If you need help with the pen, I can get it for you.”

“It’s fine,” he grumbled, reaching once again with a thick arm towards the floor. But not like it changed anything, seeing as his stomach wasn’t shrinking anytime soon. He couldn’t get past it now.

Eventually, he lifted himself out of his chair with a creak and slowly got on all fours, grabbing the pen with a stubby hand. I was in stitches at the display. It was amazing how much his stomach was hanging in that spot, reminding me almost of a cow.

Taking one knee at a time, he grabbed hold of the edge of his desk and forced himself up off the floor, wiping the beads of sweat from his forehead. He was wearing one of his new pullover sweaters, which he needed to pull back down as it had risen up from that minor effort. Even though it was new, it wrapped around his stomach in a form fitting manner, accentuating how big and round it was.

“See? I got it,” he said, more to himself than me. He wouldn’t look me in the eye, still flushing.

“Yeah, you got it after two minutes, where a regular person would take a few seconds,” I laughed.

“Please get back to work. I need you to finish uploading the notes from the marketing strategy meeting,” Tommy said, folding his arms across his much wider chest.

“Sure, sure,” I waved him off. “Oh, you do realize your shoelace is undone right?”

“What?” he looked and saw I was telling the truth.

I snorted. “You want me to tie it for you, boss?”

“Kris…” he said like a warning.

“I mean, you extended so much effort trying to get that poor pen. You’re gonna tire yourself out.”

“Shut up. I can tie my own damn laces,” he said, face as bright as a tomato, plopping back down into his office chair. Tommy shifted from his right side to left, bending over as much as he could, reaching for his shoe. It took a lot of awkward shifting from right to left and him to raise his leg up in the air to slowly be able to retie his shoe.

I didn’t hold back anymore and was laughing the entire time.

“I hate you.”

“I bet that was the most exercise you’ve gotten in a while, huh, big guy?”

Tommy sighed. “Would you get out of here and do your damn job instead of harassing me?”

“Huh?” I asked, playing dumb. “Me? Harassing you? I’m here trying to help you. And besides…”

I walked over to him in the chair and slipped my hands under his bowl of jelly, raising it up in fascination. He froze, eyes wide.

“...Look at how fat you are now, boss. I sort of think you like it. I see the way you eat. All the garbage you eat every single day. Pizzas, burgers, chicken, tacos, Chinese…and you take all of my treats too. You eat everything. You just can’t seem to stop yourself, can you? Now you’re so fat you can barely tie a shoelace.”

I let go of his stomach and watched it drop with a jiggle. He was at a loss of words.

“You know, everyone talks about it too. The girls used to talk about how hot you used to be, how sexy you were, but now all they talk about is how you’ve blown up like a hot air balloon. Like the boss, really let himself go. It’s a pity, really… Hm. I was gonna give you some donuts I brought in today, but I gotta ask myself after that, if you really need anymore. You know, since you’re such a pig already.”

“I…don’t need them,” he said weakly in response.

“Well, it’s your choice after all. I’ll leave the donuts on my desk if you want them, since you always seem to be hungry.”

Smirking, I turned on my heels.

“I’ll be getting back to work now. The notes won’t write themselves.”

I shut the door behind me without looking back. I couldn’t tell what came over me in there, but I did enjoy teasing him more than usual. I bet Tommy was too humiliated to come back out to face me.

It had been months, but I still found it hard to believe that the boss was now fat. It felt almost like an obligation to make fun of him for it since for the past six years in which I knew him he was always watching his weight.


Sinking in my seat, I refreshed the page on my computer and got back to work like I promised. There were only a few more hours left in the day before we could go home. While I was good at bullying, I did take my job seriously so I gave it my all in the hopes that time would pass quicker.

The next two hours were uneventful, as I finished uploading the notes from today’s meeting. Just as I moved onto writing and sending emails, the door to Tommy’s office opened.

I turned my head in the direction of the sound, and we made eye contact. The boss was scowling at me in silence as he slowly inched his way out of his room and right to my desk.

“Can I help you? Something you want?”

His eyes darted to the box of donuts left on my desk from earlier.

“Oh? You want a donut?” I asked in a honeyed voice. “What happened? I thought you didn’t need them?”

“Kris, I could kill you-”

I beamed brightly. “If you don’t mind, boss, I’m busy working, so I think you should tell me what you want properly.”

That pissed him off more as he began to pout, but he obliged. “I want the donuts…because I got hungry.”

“Look at that! You got hungry and…what did you eat for lunch again?”

He flushed. “Shut up and just give me the box,” he said, attempting to grab them from the desk.

I quickly pulled the other end with both hands. “Wait, wait, I need to be reminded, what did you have for lunch again?”

“...A large cheese pizza, wing dings, onion rings, and a salad,” he muttered.

I pretend gasped. “All of that for lunch and you’re still hungry? Wow, you really need to slow down boss or else you’ll get – oh. Wait. You’re already fat.”

Tommy blushed even harder.

“Well, I did buy them for you because I knew this would happen. You really should start admitting I’m right about things. But I won’t keep my favorite big guy waiting anymore. Must be starving after that tiny lunch,” I said, letting go of the box.

“Insufferable…” he muttered as he stormed off back into his room. Or more like tried to. It was a bit more like a waddle mixed with a shuffle to get out of my sight. Heh.

Whether it was stress or just letting go or some other reason behind this whole thing, I didn’t know. But I did know, I was going to be amused for a very long time.