Chapter 4 - ch4 a better christmas

When I walked in the door, the place smelled delicious. I found Mrs. Bunton in the kitchen, listening to the radio and doing the crossword from the Saturday paper. When I came in she looked at me and smiled, the most perfectly content smile I may have ever seen. Then she announced "Since you never got a proper Christmas dinner, I thought we should have one. Turkey is in the oven and will be done by three, and we'll have all the fixings: gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, brussel sprouts, beans, dinner rolls, and pumpkin pie." She almost sang the words, like they were a carol or something.

I was flabbergasted, and tried to protest that it was too much, but I fumbled over my words. She shushed me, assuring me that she loved making Christmas dinner, it was such a happy meal, and she was just glad to have an excuse to do it all up. I asked what I could do to help, but she assured me she had it all under control. Finally I just ate a quick bowl of cereal in place of lunch, then went back out again. At the liquor store I asked what wine would go best with turkey, and bought two bottles of it. Still hungry, I popped into Tim Hortons for a hot chocolate and a couple of donuts, despite knowing that I'd be having Christmas dinner soon. There was just something so gleefully naughty, so flagrantly 'fat guy,' about doing so that it made the donuts at least three times tastier than normal.

Not long later I was settled at the table with Mrs. Bunton. She walked me through carving the turkey, then we loaded up our plates. We ended up laughing as we realized that there were so many serving dishes on the table that the two of us could not conveniently reach all of them without having to get up! I poured us each a glass of the wine I'd bought and toasted the chef. Then Mrs. Bunton got all serious looking, and asked that I do just one thing for her: eat as much as I could. She explained that we'd have leftovers for days anyway, and the best way to show my appreciation was to not leave the table until I barely could leave the table.

Well, that was all right by me! I cleared my plate easily, despite my earlier donuts, and loaded it up again. With another glass of wine to wash it down I found that second plate emptied surprisingly easily too. Oh, I was getting full, but the food was still going down effortlessly. It did help that it was all excellent.

I did slow down during the third plate, and it took more wine to lubricate it down. By the time I was done my stomach felt stretched and my face was warm. All the same I slowly assembled a more modest fourth plate. As I did so Mrs. Bunton sat back with a sigh and admitted she was done, commenting that she just couldn't put it back like she used to do.

I ate my fourth plate slowly, taking time before each bite to see if I could handle it. By the time I finished it I was literally sweating a little bit, any belly looked enormous. Mrs. Bunton made sure I didn't want anything else, then suggested we should put away the leftovers before we collapsed into a digestive stupor. Just getting up was uncomfortable at first, but as we moved around I began to feel a little bit better. Once the food was in the fridge and the dishes in the dishwasher I was thinking of taking a nap, but Mrs. Bunton announced dessert!

I was tempted to decline, but it was pumpkin cheesecake, and I knew how good her cheesecake was. I took a modest piece, but to my surprise it was soon gone and I still wanted more, so I took a more generous piece. After that I even managed a final small wedge.

When I finally got up from the table I was almost panting from the effort. Not that I'd suddenly gotten that much heavier, but more that I was so full I couldn't manage a deep breath. My face felt flushed, my balance felt off, my stomach was very close to in pain, but when Mrs. Bunton smiled and asked how I felt, my honest answer was "Amazing!"

She gave me a smug look and replied "I remember when you were a kid, how happy you always looked when you were eating. I had a suspicion even back then, and really became quite sure as you've been living here, that you were someone who could really enjoy being truly stuffed."

I think I was more drunk on the food than on the wine, but between them it felt natural to reply "Like you?"

She chuckled and commented that she'd assumed that much had been obvious, but added that she was mostly non-practising now. A little more seriously she pointed out that I'd seen the sort of size she'd been at back when she had indulged regularly, so I had to think about how I wanted to balance things in my life. That was a bit of a sobering thought, but one that I pushed off for later.

We'd eaten in the middle of the afternoon, and had finished by five pm. For all that I felt I could sleep, I made myself go and do homework. I was worried that I'd fall asleep over my books, or that my stuffed gut would be too distracting, but instead I soon felt almost energized, like I'd drunk a case of cola or something. Before I knew it, it was 8pm, but I'd finished my work for the weekend. And unbelievably I was hungry again. My midsection still felt distended and tight, but there was no denying that I needed food.

Down in their rec room Mrs. Bunton was knitting while watching TV. When she saw me she smiled and asked if I was hungry. I admitted that it was unbelievable, but that I was. She explained that actually this was normal, that after being stretched out like that, once the stomach passed all that food into the intestines, it felt empty and signalled that it was hungry. Then with an even bigger smile she added "Really, this is the best part. Before just your stomach was full, and you said that was amazing. If you keep eating regularly, you can get full all the way through. I always thought that was even better."

With that sort of encouragement I'd soon filled up a plate with left overs. I was amazed at how much appetite I had as I gobbled it down. Certainly not the same appetite I'd had earlier in the day, I only managed another modest plate of dinner and then a good sized wedge of cheesecake before I was sprawled on the couch, almost aching in my gut but almost high from the feeling otherwise. Then Mrs. Bunton came back into the room with a beer mug full of creamy looking liquid and told me that the perfect way to wash everything down was with a big rum and egg nog. I would have told you that there was no way I had enough room for that big mug, but I guess the liquid can fill in the empty corners or something, because ten minutes later it was gone. Ten minutes after that I was falling asleep in front of the hockey game, so I stumbled off to my room to sleep off my enormous consumption.

Near midnight my bowels woke me up. I guess that having put that much into one end, I shouldn't have been surprised. I was annoyed, even more so because by the time I was done, I felt pretty much awake again. And hungry. I didn't even question whether it was a good idea or not--I trooped back down to the kitchen and had another plate of left overs, followed by the last third of the cheesecake. I didn't feel right hitting up Mrs. Bunton's liquor cabinet, but I did wash it down with a big glass of egg nog. After that I was ready to go back to bed, the comforting warmth radiating from belly quickly soothing me back to sleep.

The next morning I woke up fairly early, for a Sunday. Mrs. Bunton was already in the kitchen, and had prepared bacon, sausages, waffles, re-fried mashed potatoes, and grapefruit. I was probably gaping at all the food, but she gently explained that they'd always had a big breakfast on Boxing Day, and further said that of course I didn't have to eat everything, but that I was certainly welcome to carry on from yesterday.

I carried on. At first I felt like a bottomless pit, but I did fill up sooner than I'd expected. Mrs. Bunton suggested that a bit of activity would help my system clear itself along, so I bundled up and went for a walk in the frigid weather. I was so full that it was hard to bend over and tie up my boots. As I walked I could feel my parka rubbing against my belly, telling me how little space I had left in it. You never want to breathe deeply when the air is that cold, but again I couldn't have breathed deeply if I'd wanted to, food wasn't leaving a lot of room for my lungs. It felt magnificent, royal, and above all it felt right.

I spent the rest of that day eating at regular intervals, constantly amazed at just how far out my gut was protruding. No individual meal was huge, but I ate six substantial meals, and polished off a couple of cartons of egg nog. By the end of the day I had my new jeans done up with an elastic band, so swollen was my gut.

The next day I still felt distended, bloated, huge. I walked around university wondering if anyone saw how stretched out my sweatshirt was, if anyone guessed that I was overhanging the jeans I'd just bought the week before? If anyone did, they didn't show it. Gradually I came off the weekend's high, and accepted that most people, if they noticed, were simply too polite to show how disgusted they would be. But couldn't just one person look at my bloated belly and smile? I'd found this most wonderful, magical, experience, and it just didn't seem fair that I couldn't find someone to share my excitement. Well, other than Mrs. Bunton, who was good looking for her age and all, but was almost like an adopted mother, so she didn't count.

Thinking about it, I realized that I didn't need someone to stuff with me or to stuff me, I had plenty of desire all on my own. But someone who would accept it, someone that I could talk to about it, someone who thought it made me more desirable, that was what I wanted. Mrs. Bunton had had Mr. Bunton, surely I could find someone too?