Paragon (prologue)

Chapter 1 - Prologue: Six Months In

“Hey, family!”

Candii and her boyfriend John walked into her cousin’s birthday party in her hometown of Pottersville, Pennsylvania. Or, John walked, and Candii waddled.

“Hi, Candii!” Kristina, red from sheer extroverted excitement, ran up and gave her cousin a hug. “And who is this?”

“Happy birthday, Kristina! This is John!” Candii said. “We met at work.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” John extended his hand and smiled. With his height, leather jacket, and cheekbones, he might have passed for Travolta in Grease.

“What a cutie!” Kristina looked back at Candii. “You got yourself a score, didn’t you! Well come in, come in. There’s cake! I was just about to blow out my candles.” She flitted away, like a butterfly, her svelte, late teenage figure melting back into the crowd.

“Oh, hi Candii!” Her Aunt Caroline approached. “You look…different! Did you - dye your hair? Good to see you.”

“Hey Auntie C. This is for Kristina! She was too fast for me, I meant to give her this."

Candii handed Caroline the bow wrapped gift she’d been carrying.

“And this is John Thompson, Esquire…”

Aunt Caroline shook the smiling gentleman’s hand, yet couldn’t help her eyes from lingering upon Candii’s strangely transformed figure. Candii had always been beautiful. Dark green eyes and dark brunette hair; thin waist. But the change wasn’t just the dyed scarlett hair. She noticed how Candii wore a dark, frilly, short-sleeved blouse, showing just a little of a suddenly generous bust. Candii’s arms, even beneath the loose fitting top, looked thick and soft like marshmallows. And Candii’s belly protruded noticeably, competing with her cleavage for attention.

Aunt Caroline couldn’t help her eyes from focusing on Candii’s abdomen a moment too long. How rude of her - she thought - and cast her gaze down at the floor.

Now from across the room, Candii’s elderly Aunt Luane glanced over. Oh, there’s my Candii, she thought. She looks so lovely, what a nice boy she has by her side.

But wait. Is that a double chin? What is going on below her neck? Isn’t black supposed to be slimming?

Many girls have weight issues, Aunt Luanne reassured herself. Maybe I’ll try and help her with it later. I can talk to her about avoiding carbs. That’s the thing to do!

Many of the aunts and uncles standing around were thinking something similar. Was this the same Candii they’d known their whole lives? The same Candii who was a D1 track and field athlete right up until graduating Boston University last year, who, obsessed with eating right, even had suffered a short bout of anemia, and had to go to the hospital? In less than one year in the New York City metro, it looked like she’d packed down more than a few slices of pizza and a couple extra bagels. Best not to speak of it, most of them decided, and shifted their gaze to this new individual, John, who accompanied her. He hadn’t knocked her up had he? They eyed him suspiciously, but approached and shook hands with him nonetheless.

“A pleasure to meet all of you,” John said, grinning.

“Okay, everyone! Let’s sing for Kristina!”

Aunt Caroline gathered everyone around.

Candii and John approached the dining room table with the rest.

Everybody began. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY…”

John took her by her soft hips from behind, his fingers indenting into her waist.

“How are you feeling?” He whispered.

“Good. I mean their eyes are like daggers, but whatever.”

“Are you ready?” John asked.

“No, John.” She blushed. “I thought today was going to be ‘going along to get along’” She complained. “I already look like a pig. You made me gain 87 pounds. Didn’t you see Aunt Caroline’s eyes?”

“You do want to be a good girl for me, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Candii replied, quickly, turning with a pouty face to kiss him. “I do.”

“Good.” Said John. “Let’s sit over here with your cousin.”

They sat down across from Kristina, who had blown out her candles and was daintally stabbing at her piece of cake.

“Oh, here you go Candii! And here you go John.” Kristina handed them both pieces of cake.

“Thank you so much.” Said Candii. She began to eat her cake. She wolfed it down quickly, much to the judgement of her many aunts eyes, but tactfully, she didn’t reach for another piece.

“Would you like some more, Candii?” Asked Aunt Caroline, suspiciously.

“Oh no, that’s alright. I’m full. Thank you though.” Aunt Caroline moved away, pleased.

But, Candii felt her midsection growl.

“So what do you do, John?” Asked Kristina.

“I work as an attorney at Abbott. I actually met your cousin Candii at one of our corporate training sessions. She’s really something isn’t she!”

“Yes she is. She’s my favorite big cousin. Well don’t tell anyone else that!” The nearby listeners giggled. It was always a tight knit family.

“She was the prettiest paralegal I'd ever seen!” Said John. Much of the family at the table awed in approval.

“I bet. And I love your new hair, Candii!” Said Kristina. “How did you two meet?”

“Oh she’s…” John felt Candii’s hand under the table, groping like she wanted attention. “She’s big…”

“She’s a big lover of the arts!” He ended quickly. “At the company party, we talked so much about sculpture. Our first date was to the Met.” He ended up awkwardly.

Luckily, Kristina didn’t notice this unusual turn of phrase, and smiling approvingly, turned to speak to someone else.

John turned to Candii. “Isn’t that right?” he said. Surreptitiously, he reached beneath the table and gave Candii’s side roll a firm squeeze. It felt buttery soft yet definite, struggling against her panty line. He leaned into Candii’s ear. “Paragon.”

Paragon. Like a spell, the unusual word echoed in Candii’s head, pulling her right back to her bedroom in Brooklyn where John had fed her near bursting almost every calendar day for the last 180 days. Where’d she’d been fed second and thirds, where she’d swallowed cream shakes and donuts by the blender full through funnels, amidst heaving burps and moans of pain; where John had tied her up and weighed her and measured her hips, bust, and abdomen, taking precise notes in a dated journal. She was his beautiful little science experiment, he always said. His little lab pig. Where he’d proudly and delicately traced her erupting red stretch marks along her abdomen and thighs, calling her a good girl and a fat pig, in turn.

Paragon. She was flung straight to the zone where pain melded into pleasure at the end of each night, where John would take her and make her orgasm over and over and over again, her screams erupting in a register beyond ecstasy and agony, sex unlike anything she’d ever experienced in her previous 24 years on earth.

Paragon. It was their special word: the word that put her under a willful trance.

Now, obliging their fantasy, she reached out and took a second piece of cake. Kristina, seeing this, paused quizzically, then turned away. John turned away too, arguing in a friendly fashion with Candii’s cousin Jimmy about whether it would be the Mets or the Yankees next season.

Paragon. Bite after bite. Candii could hardly taste or smell the cake. She didn’t care whether it was chocolate or vanilla. She could already feel the increased weight inside her and she fantasized about the new, fresh fat that would stretch and fold out like white dough on her previously petite frame. Fresh fat to be tantalizingly shaken, slapped, bitten, caressed, and jiggled by John. In only three bites, she’d swallowed an entire second slice. That slice alone might be 400 calories. She’d just eaten 800 calories. Her old self would feel anxiety. Her new self didn’t, she just wanted more.

A few family members looked over, furrowing brows.

Now she was on to a third slice. She felt a wetness between her legs. John continued to speak with Jimmy about pitching and outfielders. To any onlookers, it was as if he had nothing to do with this emerging scene - an innocent or hapless victim. Candii looked down and shivered with pleasure seeing her swollen figure expand outward, hiding the entire chair. Candii took a fourth. Swallowed. A fifth. Now almost all of the adults at the party were looking over at Candii. A sixth. Then a seventh. This one she swallowed in two bites. Candii surreptitiously unbuttoned her khakis. An eighth. A ninth. The little plastic plates piled up beside her, nearly all of them licked clean. A tenth. Only the children playing over the television and John and Jimmy still hadn’t noticed.

“Hey, Candii? Um, would you like something to…drink?” Aunt Caroline asked sharply.

Now the room fell silent. Candii was working on her tenth piece of cake. She looked up at Aunt Caroline with her green eyes, her pretty, fat face with bits of cream on her cheeks. She paused. The whole world seemed to pause with her. Then she opened her mouth.

“BRWBWWBWBWBWBWBWBWBWWWWWWWW.”

Her burp caused every person at the party to stop and stare. Now, even the children looked over.

“Excuse me.” Candii covered her mouth, turning bright red. “Oh my gosh, sorry. I hadn’t eaten all day.” That was a lie - John had taken her to three fast food restaurants on the drive down.

All of the children started laughing. The adults tried looking away.

Old Aunt Luane, who’d been on the couch, shushed the children before looking over. Candii’s belly, noticeable upon her arrival even under cover of dark clothing, now forcefully pushed out in front of her, stuffed with 4000 calories worth of dense, fat-laden cake. Her pale white gut had ridden her black blouse up above her belly button; across the bottom roll criss-crossed bright red stretch marks.

Dear God. Was she pregnant?

No. It wasn’t taut, it was a mess of soft fat, caressing out over her thighs, stretching towards her knees. A roll between her top and bottom belly nearly made her belly button disappear.

Candii burped again, pitifully. Not realizing any one could see this angle, she reached her hand down from the table and gave her belly one little slap. It quivered in every direction. She could feel the vibrations down into her panties and she gave a little moan.

Aunt Luane had to look away, disgusted.

Coming to her senses, Candii pulled her blouse back down.


The moment passed. The family had to look away also, out of courtesy. Conversations unwittingly picked back up. No one wanted to look at this gluttonous scene for even another second.

With eyes finally turned away from them, Candii quickly kissed John’s neck.

She whispered to him. “Are you ready to fuck me now?” She grabbed him, hard beneath the table, and John pinched almost two soft inches of fat around her midsection.

Candii burped again in pleasure.