The munchies: part 3 (finale)

chapter 3

3.


Now Sarah consistently ate more than she needed every day. Let me tell you, over consumption is a real thing.


Sarah's drycleaning machine is temperamental piece of metal. It works some weeks and not others. Whenever it fails, she visits the laundromat nearby run by an asian family who remembers everyone and their name. Today we went to dump a load of washing in, and I sat by the tumbler and watched while Sarah went to the counter and paid, lovehandles pooching over her pants, her ass looking thick. She had a bit of back fat now. You could spy it showing through her pink shirt. The asian lady at the counter just stared at Sarah for a moment. Then, suspicious-eyed, straight-lipped, said out loud, 'Oh you got soft in belly huh? You getting round. Very plump.' Then took the cash Sarah had been holding out in one hand, and put it in the till, and pivoted away on her heel to fluff about the staff area as if nothing had happened. Sarah turned, a grimace stretching her face, and walked back to me, belly under shirt nodding up and down.


That night we rolled and shared a joint before eating a party size pizza while we watched some trash movie that made us laugh at how B grade it was, and then ate some more pizza, because that's what happens when you're stoned - you never think about what you're eating like you never thinking about breathing.


So it was that sort of habit we'd fallen into. Eating what we needed, and then eating more than we needed, and it showing up on her, accumulating, so that people noticed, like that asian lady had in the laundromat had noticed.


One night at my house, I lay on the couch, arms up on the back of the seat, head lolled back and my eyes closed. It had been a long day. Two birthday functions in a row, one at lunch and one at dinner time. Sarah had gone to the bathroom to relieve herself. We were both stuffed. I rubbed my own stomach, having eaten a lot of food myself. I waited for Sarah to finish.


I heard her make some kind of noise in the bathroom. I heard the toilet door open and opened my eyes as Sarah came rushing out, shouting, 'It popped, it popped!'


I rubbed my eyes and sat up. 'Huh?'


'The button popped!' She was almost laughing.


'For real?' I said, 'Let's see.'


She moved towards me, thighs chafing in black denim, and lifted her baggy t-shirt, belly jiggling as she walked. She stood before me and pointed at her jeans. I leaned forwards and inspected. Indeed, fly was open, and the buttonhole on one of the corners had no button to fit it on the other. A broken wispy thread jutted lamely instead.


'Come here,' I said.


She shimmied forward, waist level with my face.


'What size are these jeans?'


'Size fourteen.'


I pinched the two corners of her waistband and tried to pull them together. They wouldn't meet.


'Let's both do it,' she said, and grabbed the corners as well. We both pulled, arms straining, denim waistband cutting into her hips so her lovehandles oozed - and the corners wouldn't meet.


'Size fourteen at the waist?'


She nodded. 'Yep.'


'Fuck you're fat,' I said.


'Fuck. I am fat,' she echoed, and pushed me back into the couch, descending like a goddess to straddle me. My crotch began to rise. She was getting heavy. She arched the small of her back forward so her stomach ballooned at me, and I held it, kneading the warm softness, pinching handfuls between finger and thumb. I put my hands on her lovehandles. She held my shoulders and leaned down to me. I looked up. We kissed. Her hair fell down around us like a tent, and it was just us now.


***


At the end of the week when we went to the shops together to buy groceries, we ran into Damien. It was late April by now. He looked melancholic. Or alcoholic. We were just coming in from the parking lot through the sliding doors, the counter beeps going off, and people muttering, trolleys clacking. Sarah froze, staring blank ahead. I followed her line of sight. Damien was just leaving one of the checkouts, holding a bag full of - I peered - bread and something in a box and... beer?


Coming towards us, head down, he looked up and came up short, and sort of looked at us. I said nothing and just watched him as his eyes went from me to her, back to me, back to her, this time going down her body and back up across every curve and dip of her. Sarah was in a grey hoodie and black tracksuit pants, thick in them. The hoodie was a zip-up one, so you could see the line of the zipper trace the twin bulges of chest and potbelly. Damien had the expression of a slight wince. He was mute. He glanced at me, then at her, and slowly shook his head, looking like he wanted to ask *why?*


Then he looked straight past us, shook his head again, and left. We turned to watch him go as he passed us, out the sliding doors, into the parking lot, vanished behind cars, rain just beginning to dance on the rooftops.


I looked at Sarah. Her face was red. I touched her hand, and she held mine. 'You alright?' I said.


She sniffed.


'Forget him,' I said.


Sarah took a deep breath and sighed. Her eyes went distant. 'So many bad memories.'


'Just memories,' I said as we started to walk again, hand in hand. I led her through the automatic gate. Just to our left was a cardboard stand of bags of chocolate, all on special, three for the price of one. Sarah stopped and stood in front of it. 'Yeah,' she said vacantly, eyeing the various bags marshalled in rows, identical and waiting, sweet and fattening. 'Yeah. Just memories.'