Chapter 3 - the shack

She looked up. "Excuse me," she asked, smiling a light smile as an older lady came up to receive her needs.

"Yes?" the lady said. She was in her late fifties. Bags of a lifetime dedication to labor hung under her eyes, puffy with sleepy liquids.

"I'm just wondering if you've got a few things in," Mia said.

"Ah. Yes?"

Mia looked at the request list, found the unchecked items. She asked for them. She was told they were in stock. She brought money out to purchase them all.

"So your total payment comes to thirty two dollars five."

"Okay. Thanks."

"Any spend over ten dollars gets you something free. You're spendin' ten dollars over twice, so you get two things for free."

"Oh that's nice! Thank you. So what can I get?"

"Any item you want."

"What? Anything? Really?"

The lady nodded.

"Wow."

The lady added, "Especially things on the wall there behind you. That's all overstock, stuff we need to get rid of, so you can either buy it or get it free."

"So that's what this store's notorious for... I got recommended to come here, they said this store is always massive on stock."

The lady grinned. "Indeed, that's what we're known for! Go on, have a look."

Mia went to the racks of foods made of bread and everything unhealthy, and looked at each of them. There were single items like donuts, and buns, and rolls. There were packages of things, boxes of things. Bags of smaller things. Pink things, chocolate things, cream things, lolly things, savory things, rainbow things. There were too many things.

Then Mia got an idea. Am idea that felt sort of... strange, when she considered it. One that was probably even useless. But, she'd give this one last try. One last effort for all her desire to kill her sexual frustration.

She went back up to the counter. Tilting her head, thinking about how to put it, she said, "Excuse me. What's the, um... the... the fattiest thing you have? Like... to give you an idea... something that's really bad for someone who was trying to lose weight?"

As the lady was counting the till she listened, then paused. She glanced up at Mia. Her creased eyes narrowed.

Mia felt like she had to compensate suddenly. "I- I know, it's a very strange question, I know, but I've got a medical condition where I'm rapidly losing weight more and more no matter how much I eat," she full-on lied. "I've been officially diagnosed," she lied again. "I need something that will help me gain weight. Gain it back, I mean."

The lady fell into hysterics. "Oh you poor thing! that must be horrible!" The lady furrowed her brow and huffed. "You're gradually withering away? How awful. I have never heard of that condition before, but it must be awful. Are you the only one with it? What is it called?"

Mia had no idea. "I'd rather not say." She made herself slump a little, as if to look grieved her fictional condition. "It's sort of... personal." Which was true.

The lady gasped and threw her hands up. "Oh, sorry, sorry, I shouldn't be prying. Well..." The lady became pensive. "Here. There are a few things that are very, very high in fat content, they'll be sure to take a swing at anyone's metabolism, which is a very unhealthy thing you know, and I'm not sure we're too proud of it here, you know." She laughed. "It's very unhealthy, and if you don't do some exercise to put those calories to use, you'll be putting on the wrong sort of weight rather quick..."

Mia'd chest fluttered. She nodded.

The lady tipped her head forward. "I am thoroughly serious. It is very high in content. And in fact, it has something in it that does injure your metabolism, so do exercise rigorously before you do yourself harm. In fact, the chemical in it should be outlawed by current chemical safety regulations." The lady muttered to herself and swatted the issue aside with her hand. "Anyhow. I shall be just one moment."

Mia watched the lady's every move, waiting with a dizzy chest. The lady moved around the side of the counter and went to the wall behind Mia to her right. She extracted from one of the racks a transparent container with nine double-decker donuts crammed in there, looking way too tight. The grease of the packaging had seeped off and dampened the container, and even the donuts themselves, which were coated in an icing Mia had never seen before. It was a creamy colour but with swirls of white and gold within it. They shone with a gleam of grease like thick, runny sweat.

The lady came forth, holding out the pack. "Here you are." The lady handed her the container and Mia relieved it, expecting it to be light. It was not at all. It was weirdly heavy for a bakery item. To Mia, it felt more like holding a briefcase full of papers. Her eyes widened at the thought of what must be causing all that weight.

Mia swiftly paid for the items and took the container of oddly heavy donuts, thanked the lady and left.

Near her car, she paused. She looked at the donuts. They shone. She wanted more.

She had hurried back, then, quick on her feet, leaving her stuff on the roof of her car. She asked for three more containers of the same donuts, and the lady had narrowed her eyes, but had ultimately obliged. Then Mia walked out again, dinga-ling, with three more containers, packed all four and the grocery items in the car, and drove off.

All the way down the road, and the highway, and then the unused highway, the donuts jittered and rattled around in their containers on the passenger seat out the corner of her eye, trying to dance for her attention.

Well they had it.

Three more minutes of divinely powerful temptation, and she slowed the car to pull off the unused highway. Looking around to make sure she was alone, she reached an arm across to the passenger seat, took a container, brought it over the upraised handbrake and set it on her lap. Those ivory golden rings of dough and sugar gaped back at her in their glowing rows of threes. What was the power of these things? Why had she never heard of them? She placed a hand on the lid. Opened it. Placed a finger around one donut. Lifted it out.

The thing weighed as much as a full glass of water. Salival glands working, she put it to her mouth.

Mia set to eating those thick over-rich donuts, and did not stop until it was impossible to go on -- but she should have stopped long before that, should she? Because how was she supposed to act normal when she got back?

The first bite sat in her like a gallon of milk, left her feeling full like she'd eaten a meal. The second bite just doubled it. What the hell? this was food of New Testament proportions. She could usually demolish any donut without feeling even a feather's-weight inside her. The bite donut pushed her into pain, and made her stop. But then she just kept going anyway -- shouldn't have, should she? Onto another donut. This fourth bite took all of ten entire minutes to force down. The fifth made her gasp at constrictions writhing around in her gut. Something was not agreeing. The seventh bite swallowed down, and her belly was so hard-packed that her belt was pulled tight against her, jammed, she could not release it. She kept going. The eighth bite and she was whimpering in soon-to-be agony. The ninth final bite, and her jammed belt popped its pin, her over inflated stomach shunted out to its required size, and the grunt of relief she made was one of pleasure birthed by pain. With crumbs and saliva-wet dough lining the inside of her mouth, her jaw hung open as she panted, breathed, panted some more, her lungs compressed and struggling.

How was this possible? She'd eaten two donuts. Two!

And the hot tingling in her crotch needed attention. It needed to be dealt with.

Mia reached down to her pants and paused. She would be masturbating in Noah's car if she did this.

...Noah.

'Noah', she silently mouthed the name.

Unable to use her abdominal muscles lest she tear one, Mia slumped back into the seat and pushed her hand onto her watering crotch, started dry-rubbing. But all it did was make her stomach tense and send lightning streaks of pain shooting up her body, and then -- what's this? -- all that did was provoke the heat in between her legs into the heat of the sun, and the thought of Noah making her even wilder still until amalgamating into a storming mess of passion inside her.

So she told herself 'fukk it', and ripped her belt off, and fumbled for her zipper, and found it, and tore it down. She shoved her damp panties down, found her clitoris, rubbed it with all her fury and within seconds she was arching, muscles tensed into rock-solidity by galactic blasts of energy charging through every thread of her, surging and flaring and roaring around her, exploding from her core with the anger of ten thousand burning suns unleashing one last yell of pleasure before fading gradually, settling like honey, dying away. Leaving Mia sweating, and moaning. Bloated like a whale too exhausted and heavy to do anything with itself but mouth Noah's name again and again, letting the warm waves wash over it as it drifts into the warm waters of unconsciousness.