chapter 2 part 1

"It was so simple!" thought Jenn, as she nervously fidgeted in her seat, eagerly awaiting Russell's arrival for the pair's first actual meeting in the flesh. If only she had thought of this idea four years ago, Russell's waistline might now have been substantially more generous than it was.

"Damn!" she thought, as the notion of an opportunity forgone finally hit home.

"Jenn? Is that you?"

The familiar voice distracted her from her musings.

"Russell!" replied Jenn, leaping to her feet to give the owner of the voice a big hug.

"It's so nice to finally meet you after all these years!! It's been too long, hasn't it?"

"Uhm, I guess so! It's great to finally meet you too Jenn," said Russell hurriedly, slightly taken aback by Jenn's obvious enthusiasm for meeting, but clearly beaming from ear to ear at such a rapturous welcome to the restaurant that Jenn had selected for their rendezvous.

"Well then ...," Russell paused as he sat down by the table, "I guess we need to order some food, because I'm absolutely starving!"

"Good boy!" Jenn replied with a gleeful smile upon her face, feeling as if Russell had read her thoughts.

"You must have known that's just exactly what I wanted to hear!!" She fired him a playfully knowing wink, which was welcomed by a flush of colour from Russell's not yet chubby cheeks.

And so the pair began to chat, and after the initial awkwardness of meeting in the flesh for the first time began to subside, they began to hit it off famously as a pair of long lost friends reunited; the time appearing to fly by as they spoke.

But Jenn, ever observant, diligently tried to size-up Russell's appetite based on what he had ordered, and the amounts of food he ate. She even surveyed the way that he ate it. She also continuously eyed his somewhat disappointing waistline in between her sentences. What a sorry shape that waistline now was. There was barely any fullness or roundness to it.

"This boy has room to fill out," she mused. In fact she had long yearned to see him grow in between their sporadic online encounters, secretly wishing that some of the pounds of her encouragement would finally start to stick.

However, as the pair's three course meal for that evening slowly drew to a close, they both found themselves supping daintily on their post-meal coffees, with the conversation, despite best efforts, beginning to dry up.

"Dammit!" thought Jenn, frustrated. They still hadn't discussed 'it', "The Deal", which was the very purpose of meeting Russell in the flesh in the first place.

"This simply won't do," Jenn thought to herself, so having always been the type to take the lead, she decisively grabbed the bull by the horns and set the ball rolling.

"Soooo then," she began with a glint in her eye, "let's talk about 'it' shall we?" Her hands mimed speech marks for the word 'it'.

"Oh yes," replied Russell guiltily, "I was just about to get on to that."

"Sure you were!" teased Jenn playfully as she pulled a pile of heavy paperwork from her purse and placed it on the table with a thud.

"I took the liberty of asking Daddy's lawyers to draw up the details for us. It's a full legal contract now".

"Oh my, Jenn," said Russell taken aback, "so you're really on board with this then?"

"I sure am," replied Jenn. "Why? ... Aren't you Russell?"

She purposefully fired him a look of disappointment as she began to assume the worst that Russell's idea for the deal was still nothing but a big fantasy in his cute head. However, she noticed that her disapproving gaze must have worked wonders because she could see Russell begin to squirm uneasily under the pressure that she silently applied upon him, her body language indicating her disappointment. She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. This boy was a pushover in her mind. She always got her way, and this time would be no different.

"Well, aren't you on board Russell?" Jenn asked again. Ever manipulative, she leant forwards and applied further pressure by gently grasping Russell's hands in her own. She gentle squeezed them with eager encouragement, her thumbs stroking his.

"Just think for a second. It'll be so much fun! Won't it?" she whispered brightly giving him her best pair of bedroom eyes. The had rarely failed her in the past.

Russell broke almost immediately under this well executed flirtatious assault.

"Okay, okay, let's do this Jenn!"

"Brilliant!" Jenn replied excitedly, surreptitiously clapping her hands together like a pleased child.

"Let's get the waiter over here to witness our signatures shall we?"

"Hey, just give me a sec ...," said Russell as he picked up the paperwork and thumbed it clumsily.

"Wow, there's a lot of legal jargon in here Jenn," he said as he flicked through the pages hurriedly.

"You really went to town on this one. Is it really all as we agreed?"

"Well, I gave the lawyers free-reign on making it all above board in legal terms, but it's broadly what we discussed Russell."

"Broadly?" replied Russell, raising a questionable eyebrow.

"Hey now. Come-come dear Russell, don't you trust me?" replied Jenn with a smile so sweet it could have melted the most cynical of hearts.

Russell responded playfully, "No Jenn, I really don't. And you know that". He winked at her for once.

"I know exactly what you want to see happen to my waistline". He patted his stomach suggestively, but on the inside began to sense Jenn's growing frustration with him. He was stalling, and he knew it.

Jenn was growing impatient. She had taken time out of her busy schedule at a considerable expense to set up all the arrangements, so if Russell backed down now at the last minute, she would get nothing out of this. She couldn't let that happen. Not on her watch.

"Well then. If you want some more time to go through the legal minutiae then maybe we should hold off for a little while?" said Jenn.

"... Maybe call the whole thing off?" she added rather curtly, as she swiped to grab the paperwork from Russell's hands.

"No, no," said Russell, slightly shocked by Jenn's abrasive manner, as he pulled the paperwork back from her and finally moved decisively for once, uttering confidently, "it's too late to back down now, isn't it?"