Chapter 4

I awoke the next morning with a grin on my face, more eager for anything work related than I could recall having been in a long, long time. I skipped breakfast, because I always did, showering and shaving and putting on a Nike t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms. I packed my swimming stuff in a rucksack, stuffing one of the hotel towels inside before swinging it onto my back and leaving the room.

Arriving in the main foyer, I cast about for sign of Tricia, but instead I just found Beth, Stefan, Kyle and Jonas. As I approached, I overheard a little of their conversation, something to do with ‘a ridiculous amount of plates piled up on her table’ before Kyle caught sight of me and nudged Stefan to an abrupt silence.

“Morning,” I greeted them.

“Morning,” Stefan responded. “Ready for sports day, are you?”

I rubbed the residual sleep from my eyes, glad that I hadn’t drunk too much the night before. “Aye, should be good.”

“Not seen your partner yet today?”

I shrugged. “No?”

Stefan’s grin was far from winning. “Well, let’s just say, I think she should be well and fuelled up after breakfast.”

“Stefan!” Beth hissed, though it was clear she found his statement amusing.

The lift behind us dinged open interrupting whatever sort of retort I might have concocted and the wondrous sight of Tricia emerged. She had tied her long, brown hair in a ponytail, away from her round, plump face, and was wearing an oversized (which I hadn’t thought possible) turquoise hoody that hung from her enormous form. At first glance, I thought she was wearing jeans, but when her rotund thigh brushed heavily past its counterpart and I saw the way the fabric stretched and bunched, I realised they were leggings.

“Morning,” she greeted us all, her green eyes coming to rest on me.

I smiled as she came to stand beside me, panting ever so slightly.

“No hangover, then?” I asked.

“From two drinks? Hardly,” she responded, laughing.

“Even if you were groggy,” Stefan interjected, “I bet you’d have cured it with all that fry up!”

Beth poked him in the ribs but the grin remained on his face. Tricia’s face turned a deep shade of red, but she said nothing.

“What?” Stefan protested his innocence. “It’s that old saying, isn’t it? Cure a hangover with a fry up. She must have cured something with that amount of bacon and egg, is all I’m saying.”

“Stefan!” Beth chided again, but there was little conviction in it.

“Alright, mate,” I said, “you’ve made your point. Let’s just have a nice day, yeah?”

Stefan’s grin turned sour. “Sure, Dave,” he responded. “But if anything comes down to teamwork, and she’s on our team…”

He left the rest unsaid, and the four, spotting the minivan that would take us to the activity centre drive up, exited the hotel. I glanced at Tricia, who was far less cowed than I had expected.

“You alright?” I asked, regardless.

“Of course,” she answered lightly. “I know what I am, and I’m fine with it. Shall we?”

Before I had responded, Tricia preceded me out to our group’s assigned minivan. I watched on idly as some of the other groups jumped up into theirs and drove off. Beth, Kyle, Stefan and Jonas had already occupied the back rows, which was fine by me. There was a full row for three people in the middle, and that would be plenty.

“Dave?” Tricia asked, standing by the door.

I was getting better at understanding her, I realised, as I immediately offered her my hand and kept her as steady as I could as she levered herself up into the van. The vehicle rocked to accommodate her, and I heard the springs of the suspension protest before she moved further into the middle of the bus. Tricia manoeuvred her bulk carefully onto the row of three seats, filling two of them to capacity. The third was made narrower by her bulging thigh, but I squeezed myself into it, enjoying the sensation of her warm, weight pressing against my own, much, much narrower thigh.

“Seatbelts on,” I heard Stefan hiss from behind us.

“Seriously, mate, it’s not funny,” I said, turning around in my seat.

“Trust me, Dave, I don’t think it is either.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but Tricia patted me gently on the thigh partially buried beneath her own. I looked at her and she just shook her head as if to say it wasn’t worth it. She was probably right, I thought, but it still didn’t sit well.

The journey to the activity centre was not long, and soon enough, we were gathered up in front of a huge, grey warehouse-type building, waiting for something to happen. Tricia and I pulled off to one side, not wanting to be near the rest of our group for longer than necessary.

“Are you nervous?” I asked, breaking the slightly awkward silence that had fallen between us.

“Nervous? Why?” Tricia responded.

“Well, it’s a sports day,” I said, feeling rotten that I had to spell it out, or that I’d even asked in the first place.

To my surprise, Tricia barked a laugh. “No, not at all.”

“No?”

She smiled at me. “You think this is my first time at such an event? No. All that’s going to happen is we’re going to quickly find out I’m absolutely incapable of taking part in anything at all today, at which point I’ll either retire to the café or perhaps even the hotel.”

I frowned. I didn’t want that to be the case. I had been looking forward to spending another day with her.

“You can’t do any of it?” I tried.

She shrugged her round shoulders and put her hands in the pouch of her hoody, where they rested on the swollen crest of her stomach. “Usually not, but we’ll find out soon enough, I suppose.”

And that we did. One of the organisers came to announce that the first event would be a three-legged-race, and that we were required to partner up. We were also informed that the partners we chose would be our partner for the rest of the day, and we’d all be scored based on our performances throughout the various events, as yet to be disclosed. The winners would receive a nice bonus of two thousand pounds to be split between them. At that announcement, a murmur went through the crowd.

“So,” Tricia said, an odd expression on her beautiful face. “Time to choose.”

I didn’t have to think. Not even for a second. “A chance to be tied up next to you? How could I pass up on that?”

The smile that resulted from my words made everything worth it. I knew we wouldn’t win anything, and so did she, but right then, none of that mattered. I was already a winner. Inwardly, I cringed at the cheesiness of that thought, even as I knew it to be true.

“Well, I’ll do my best,” she promised, “but it won’t be much.”

Although it was relatively early in the morning, the sun was already promising a warm day. Tricia shrugged out of her overlarge hoody and dumped it with hers and my bag. The white vest she was wearing clung to her massive body in all the right ways, while her huge, bared upper arms revealed a collage tattoo of cupcakes, skulls and ice cream cones covering most of the left one. She was wearing a sturdy looking black bra that still strained beneath the weight of her breasts, and her stomach was once again tucked into the waistband of her leggings, divided up into two distinct, enormous sections.

“Very sporty,” I teased, unable to resist.

She swatted at me playfully, and I became aroused by the sight of all that jiggling cleavage. “Shush, you.”

“Competitors, please come forward to be bound by the ankle.” A voice announced, and Tricia and I made our way to the start line.

“We’ll have to go slow,” Tricia warned me, “as shocking as this might be, I’m not much of a runner.”

“You don’t say?” I responded, grinning.

We stood next to each other on the line, Tricia on my left, as a man came to bind our ankles together.

“You’ll have to get in tighter than that,” he told us, “I need the legs next to each other.”

I stepped into Tricia’s side as much as was possible. I was a couple of inches taller than she, but that was hardly worth mentioning. I slipped my arm around her back, reaching to the bulging sheaf of fat that was her left shoulder. Unsure what to do, I lightly rested my fingers on top of it. Ideally, I would have wanted to encircle her shoulder, but she was far too wide for that.

“Just grab me tight,” she whispered, “but try not to pinch.”

She slipped her own, remarkably round arm around my waist and pulled me closer into her warmth. I was already beginning to sweat from the heat of our closeness and so was she, I realised, but I dug my hand into her back fat as forcefully as I dared as our ankles were bound together. Due to the sheer size of her hips and thighs, my leg was required to stick out beneath her at an angle, in order to get our feet close enough together.

“There you are,” the man said, having strapped us together. “Good luck!”

Fortunately, we didn’t have long to wait, even though I enjoyed being bound to this colossal woman next to me, the heat of our closeness and the awkward stance I was forced to adopt was not that comfortable.

“OK,” I said, just before the whistle was about to be blown and the other competitors had lined up around us. “We move our joined leg first, together, and then the outer ones. Got it?”

“Agreed,” Tricia panted.

We watched as one of the organisers stood of to one side with a starting pistol in his hand. Without too much preamble, obviously there had to be some brief speech about our company and how this was a great activity to further the theme of teamwork, he took aim at the sky.

“On your marks, get set, BANG!”

I had not known exactly what to expect, but as Tricia’s gargantuan thigh and buttock thundered forward, I was thrown immediately off balance. I half leapt from my trailing foot to stay upright, pushing my way back into my giant partner as she, in turn, gripped me even tighter about the waist. And then she took the next step, but this time I had anticipated it rather better. It was still difficult to remain a single unit, as the mass of soft yet heavy flesh that pounded into my own hip and thigh was literally staggering. I found myself having to lean outward sideways in order to keep my ankle close enough to Tricia’s that she wouldn’t trip, my arm buried somewhere within the rolls of her back, as she was forced to relinquish her hold on me. With my free arm, I held her arm, turning my chest slightly toward her elbow, and in that manner, we managed to shuffle onward, the initial risk mitigated.

I had not thought the finish line had seemed so far away at first, but I was covered in sweat by the time we crossed it. Tricia was drenched too, I knew, the white of her vest was see-through where it stuck to her pink skin, and there was a lot of skin to cling to.

“Oh. My. God,” she wheezed, coughing slightly as she tried to catch her breath.

“I know,” I said, carefully extricating my arm from where it was clamped beneath her sodden shoulder.

“We didn’t come last!” She hissed.

And she was right. I turned just in time to see a pair, covered in dust, indicating they had fallen at least once, stumble across the line. I clapped her on the other shoulder, ignoring the fact it was also gleaming with sweat.

“I knew I’d picked the right partner,” I said, grinning.

“Amazing,” she said, gasping for breath as we waited impatiently for our legs to be untied. “Is there any water?” She asked of the man who had just unbound our ankles.

“Bucket over there,” he said, pointing.

Without hesitating, I went and grabbed a couple of bottles, unscrewing them on the way back. I handed one to Tricia, who drank deeply before spilling the rest of it over her sweat-plastered forehead. I handed her the other one immediately and she repeated the process.

“Oh. My. God,” she repeated, still breathing hard. “I think I’m going to die.”

Tricia had turned a deep, deep shade of red and there was an alarming rasping accompanying her indrawn breaths.

“You’ve overdone it,” I said. “Come, let’s get you into the shade, there’s a bench over there.”

I took her fleshy arm in my hand and guided her into the relative cool of the bench, where she plopped herself down with unusual haste. The wood creaked but held and she stretched out upon it. I went for more water and watched on as she poured yet more over herself before drinking again. It took more than five minutes before her breathing had calmed down to normal, though the pink flush had retreated, mostly, from her cheeks, neck and chest.

“Why did I do that?” She admonished herself. “I definitely overdid it.”

“You’re alright now, Tricia,” I said. “And it was fun while it lasted, right?”

She nodded, breathing in deeply. “I guess I just wanted to impress you,” she said.

That knocked me sideways. She wanted to impress me? But before I could answer, one of the organisers appeared to check up on her.

“How’re you doing?” The man asked, looking down on Tricia, not unkindly.

“Better now, thanks,” she said.

“Good, good. Glad to hear it.”

The man lingered, clearly he had something else to say.

“What is it?” Tricia asked, her exhaustion cutting her patience short.

“Well, I’ve just been sent over to see if it makes sense for you to continue.”

Tricia raised an eyebrow at him.

“Well, you see, the next event is a two person obstacle course, and perhaps you aren’t in the right… condition for it?”

“I can do what I can do,” Tricia said, bravely. I hoped she wasn’t just trying to impress me again, but if she was, it was working.

“Well, that’s just it.” The man glanced about him, clearly uncomfortable. “The first obstacle is a balance beam with a single-person weight limit of one-hundred and fifty kilos.”

“Ah,” Tricia said. “In that case, I think I should probably skip that one.”

The man smiled and dipped his head. “Probably a wise decision, really.”

Tricia simply snorted. The man did not leave, however, and Tricia once again raised an eyebrow at him.

“Well,” he continued, “the event after is a simple top-rope climbing event.”

“I am clearly not much of a climber,” Tricia responded, “but I assume I could anchor for Dave? I am probably the best anchor here,” she finished with a grin.

I grinned with her, but the organiser did not. Instead he cleared his throat. “Well, that might work, but I’m afraid we don’t have a harness in…”

“In my size,” Tricia finished for him. “No problem. What comes after the climbing?”

“Gladiator duelling,” the man said. “In the swimming pool.”

“I suppose I could stick around for that,” Tricia said, “assuming you’ve a café or somewhere I can pass the time?”

The man looked uncomfortable again. “Well, once again there’s a weight limit for the duelling platforms.”

Tricia’s face darkened and she shifted on the unfortunate bench. “Which is?”

The man swallowed, and as fascinated by the exchange as he was, Dave did not envy the organiser one bit. Not one single bit. “One-hundred and eighty.”

Tricia sighed. “What else have you got?”

The man was practically wringing his hands by this point. “The last event is,” he paused, “well, you see that crane?”

We both turned to follow his pointing finger. Not too far distant was a crane extended some thirty metres in the sky. Hanging from the top was a steel cage with elastic ropes dangling from it.

Tricia laughed, and I did too. “Should I even ask what the weight limit on that is?”

The man smiled weakly. “Well, it is a tandem bungee jump,” he said, his eyes darting between the two of us.

“And?”

He wet his lips. “The max load is two-hundred and seventeen.”

Tricia laughed again. “OK. I think we’re done here.”