All Hallow's Hunger

Chapter 1a: The Costume Doesn’t Fit

The zipper caught halfway up her back, digging in right below the band of her strapless bra. Constance exhaled, twisted, and tugged again, using the last two fingers of her left hand to hold the fabric tight while she reached back with her right. Still stuck.

“Come on, come on, you smug polyester bastard,” she muttered, yanking harder.
There was a tiny pop as the zipper gave half an inch more. Not all the way. Just enough to pass as functional if she kept her arms down and didn’t exhale too deeply. The cheap material clung to her hips like it knew what it was doing — a sleek black witch’s dress she’d received from Amazon earlier in the week, the one she’d tried on once; the one she didn’t yet know would no longer fit as she was four pounds up; on a day she swore she’d eat “clean for a whole month” until Halloween.

It wasn’t that Constance hated how she looked. That wasn’t the word. But it was also not the same as liking it.

She stepped back from the mirror. Bare feet on her hardwood floor, body backlit by the standing lamp she’d angled toward her closet. A deliberate kind of lighting. The kind that softened angles and blurred belly lines. It didn’t matter. Her body was undeniable now — not in the way it used to be, thin and sharp, all jaw and clavicle and slender wrists like wire. No, now it was full. Settled. She ran a hand down the curve of her side—soft, then over her stomach—squishy.

And every time she touched herself like this—idly, curiously, privately—she hated the way it made her feel. That flicker of thrill, that shameful pride. She hated how much she liked it when she let go.

There was give there now, as her fingers sank into the warm flesh. There was weight, too. She was soft, had been softening for a while, and Constance didn’t know how to feel about any of it.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. She checked the screen.

Janine: don’t flake on me. I swear to god if you ghost this party, I’ll come drag your witchy ass here myself.

This was followed by another incoming message.

Drake: I second this. There will be cider. And beer. And Halloween vibes. Counting on you, Connie.

Constance stared at the texts and ran her finger down the side of her phone, smiling. Her friends, Drake and Janine were from her college days. They’d kept in touch, though, a little less lately, what with jobs and rent and the daily stressors called life. In those early days after graduation, she’d have long phone calls and send endless texts. But now, it was the occasional phone call. The infrequent text. Maybe she’d stumble onto Facebook and like a post, only to realize it was already two weeks old. But she knew that everyone drifted at some point. Constance was just happy none of them had let things drift too far, even since those early college dorm room days that felt like a forgotten memory.

Well, not to her at least.

She re-read the texts, and it made her chest tighten. Somehow, any message from either of them made it seem like no time had passed, even though it had actually been three years since graduation from U Mass in Boston.

Too much time, too much distance. And presently, too much body between then and now.

Constance typed a reply.

Constance: Almost ready! Just…

She stopped. Deleted it.

Typed again.

Constance: Trying to look spooky-hot. You can’t rush a witch. Be there soon.

Send.

She tossed the phone onto her bed and exhaled again — a little too sharply. Her belly pushed forward against the front of the dress. Not enough to burst the seams—thank god! But enough to remind her she had a belly now. A real one. Not a faint curve. Not a temporary relic from her monthly cycle. Not one grown after an evening college binge of beer and wings, soon to be worked off on a treadmill the following day.

This was a soft, tender bulge that pooched over any waistband when she sat and jiggled slightly when she walked. She had her secretarial job to thank for the way her body had transformed since college, but there was nothing to be done about that right now.

She tried to remember the last time she, Janine and Drake had all hung out. Was it before she’d begun piling on the weight? Definitely. God, it had been ages and a good 25 pounds since college, and she wasn’t sure how she’d feel if they could see her now. She had lost a few, but she was undeniably…fat.

‘Just focus on getting through tonight, Connie.’ She told herself, puffing out her cheeks.

She leaned towards her mirror once more. Fixed her lipstick. Dark plum. Sexy. Witchy. She puckered her lips which made her smirk, her sensual lips twisting so that it created that little dimple she’d always admired about herself, even though her face had softened slightly so that the dimple looked a little less defined these days.

‘God, I miss that dimple. Miss the size 6 clothing, too…’ Constance sighed as she stared at her hamper which held her clothes from work—size 12’s.

Sighing again, her hand, without thinking, slid back down her waist. To the edge of her belly.

Constance breathed, feeling the cheap material fill her hand as the body contained within struggled to be let out. She remembered the tightness that began when she pulled up the zipper, that only worsened the higher it went. But the tightness and fullness of her body wasn’t just from the dress. Nor was it from the late-night dinners she’d been enjoying way too late in the evening, nor the ice cream bars that followed, ‘as a treat’ and ‘just because’.

She’d been having too many treats and ‘just becauses’ for far too long, for far too many days in a row. Connie made good money and, single living in a modest apartment with very reasonable rent allowed her the luxury of eating out more times than she cooked at home.

Her boyfriends these days were DoorDash and Uber Eats, and they never judged her or disappointed her.

Constance’s stomach grumbled softly under the fabric of her witch costume. Despite her soft waistline, she was hungry.

“Quiet you.” She said aloud, pressing her fingers in gently.

Just then, her phone pinged. That little jingle that told her it was not an incoming text. Like a Pavlovian response, Constance’s tastebuds began to water. The sound had told her that Uber Eats had made a delivery. That dinner had arrived.

Her stomach growled afresh — a soft, needy flutter of sound.

She glanced down at her dress. Then at the door, from which a soft knock could be heard

Then back at the mirror.

Her reflection said nothing.

But it knew what she was thinking.

Connie strode over to the door and checked the peep hole: the hallway was empty.

She unlocked the door and peeked out, staring down. There was tonight’s dinner. Smiling, she closed the door and scraped back the deadbolt and flung the door open, the smell wafting into her nose made her mouth water.

Bending low, Connie felt the strain of her costume press in all around her, giving her a sort of pleasant thrill as she righted herself and closed the door behind her with a refreshing click of the lock, the weight of her impending dinner heavy in her free hand.

She didn’t mean to eat all of it.

The smell hit first — buttery, peppery, a little garlicky—Antonella’s Italian Trattoria never disappointed her. The delivery bags were still warm when she pulled them onto the couch. Connie hadn’t even made it to her dinner table.

I mean, what was the point? She rarely entertained and the left cushion of the love seat had basically held her ass print like a memory from all the time’s she sat there, eating while watching Netflix well into the evenings.

Connie was about to sit down when a thought occurred to her: ‘there might be trouble with this dress if I wear it while I eat—no stains.’ It had become a pattern—loosening the zipper just enough to indulge, like she was undoing more than fabric. Like she was saying yes to something she kept swearing she didn’t want. But she did. That was the problem. She considered this, as well as the notion that if she took it off and ate, she just might find it difficult to pack herself back into it.

She huffed loudly, the sound echoing off her apartment walls before she decided that yes, the dress needed to be unzipped.

Connie set the bags of food on the little coffee table in front of the couch and reached a hand behind her. She found the zip and considered it an omen of good faith that it slid down easily.

“Thank you, Chinese imported dress from Amazon. Now, be just as kind when we meet again, hmm?” she said aloud as she slid it down as far as it would go, and shrugged her arms out of the sleeves, folding down the front of the dress like an apron, so that it hung—tightly—around her fleshy hips.

Cool air licked at her skin, and she felt goosebumps erupt all across her bare arms, chest and stomach. She looked down at the too-small black strapless bra that contained her breasts, surreptitiously reaching for one of the cups and giving it a gentle tug upward. Soft flesh wobbled and she repeated the gesture with the other side.

Connie sat down, waggled her hips as she felt the dress spreading under her ass, her thighs making a statement already as they pressed warmly together. One hand automatically slid under her belly, creasing it and lifting her pooch so that it sat more comfortably atop the folded-down dress.

Her domed belly greeted her, pink and round, as she gazed at it, noting too, that her love handles had mushroomed outward also.

Connie opened the first bag which contained a serving size for two of Bacon Pasta Carbonara. She lifted the heavy container out and popped the lid, breathing in deeply the rich sent of pancetta, parmesan cheese, oily noodles, garlic and salt.

Her thighs were already spreading wider across the cushions than she remembered as she waggled into her seat like a squirrel burrowing down for the winter. Lifting the plastic container higher, Connie grabbed a fork and dropped right into the center of the meal and began to twist, grabbing a little bit of each ingredient. The first loaded forkful went down easy.

So did the second.

And the third.

While Connie worked her way through the container of loaded pasta, she promised herself she’d “save half for tomorrow”, but with the way it was tasting tonight, she’d have to reneg on that promise.

Each bite was a small indulgence — fork, chew, sigh — slow and measured at first, until it wasn’t.

Quarter gone.
Half gone.
Three Quarters gone.

Connie ate indulgently in silence, the remote untouched, all the while, her tongue receiving pleasure from the rich and complex flavors that danced across it.

She should’ve stopped. She told herself she would. She always did. But every bite made it harder to lie. And she hated how much she liked that—how completely it satisfied something she never spoke of.

By the last few bites, she wasn’t hungry anymore.

But that wasn’t the point, was it?

Connie leaned back against the couch, breathing out through her nose as she ran one hand absently across her middle. Her belly rose with a quiet authority—swollen, warm, claiming space. She hated how comforting it felt. Hated the way her body, full and unresisting, whispered more. And worse—she listened. There was a pressure now, a comfortable kind of fullness. Enough to notice that when she tucked herself back into that cheap dress, that it would feel tighter across her stomach. There would be a faint pulling, like it was clinging to a version of herself that she used to be.

Smacking her lips, Connie put the now-empty container down beside her on the couch. She’d done it again, like she knew she would. Couldn’t stop herself. And part of her didn’t want to stop. That part terrified her because it felt, in some strange way, like coming home.

Connie looked at the second bag that had been left by the Uber Eats driver. It lay unopened, but she knew that inside would be four dense garlic knots, each one larger than her fist. They would be hot, fresh, flavor-filled and so dense that her jaw would be sore after she finished one.

But would it be just one, tonight?

Breathing through her nose, she leaned forward and made a grab for the bag, a pleasurable pressure creased across her hips as her stomach sank into her thighs. Bag now in hand, Connie pushed the flaps apart with her hand and reached inside.
Yes, there they were. But what was this? A fifth garlic knot?

Connie felt a frisson of warmth pass through her, and she pinched her thighs together as she lifted the biggest one from the bag and brought it to her lips.

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