Chapter 56 - the women of their dreams: part 2

128.
Even back when she'd been thin - or, well, thinner - Annie hadn't been much of a summer kind of girl. As far as seasons go, it was too hot and humid. She'd always preferred the comfy, colourful gloom of autumn.

Now, with her body padded with over a hundred pounds of excess flesh, her dislike for the season had turned into outright loathing. As she stood, together with her mother and Faye, behind the bakery's stall at the fete, the girl felt as though she was about to melt. The sun's scorching, and all too bright, rays had sent rivers of sweat running down her body. She could feel as they gathered into lakes and pools in the crevices between her floppy rolls and folds. She was so very sticky and hot. Her clothes were clinging to her inflated frame, outlining her bloated body all too well. From time to time, she would run the side of her hand along her throat in an attempt to wipe the sweat out from under her, rather pronounced, second chin.

Annie looked out across the fete, at all those people who were bustling from stall to stall. The thing had only just started up, and already she found herself wishing that she could be somewhere, anywhere, else. She wanted nothing more than to be indoors. To be in her room with her TV, her AC, and all her beloved snacks.

As she stood there feeling sorry for herself, Annie's gaze drifted towards Faye. The far fatter, fiery-haired girl didn't seem to be holding up all that well to the heat. She was dressed in a wide sunhat and a breezy green dress that made her look a bit like a circus attraction. But, light though her clothes were, her pale, marshmallow-like body was still covered in a sheen of sweat.

Faye had been meant to help out with the stall. But, so far, she hadn't done much helping. For the last few hours the huge heifer had just sat on her sturdy stool, her gaze glassy and her gorgeous red hair frizzy from the heat. Since she'd arrived she'd hardly even moved so much as a muscle.

The girl was lucky, really, that Niall was on hand to see to her every need. The tall and handsome young baker was constantly hovering around his beloved, sweat-soaked blob. Constantly stuffing snacks in her mouth and bringing her sugary drinks to help her keep cool. Faye didn't say much as her boyfriend spoiled her and coddled her, but from time to time she'd look up at him and smile.

Annie let out a sigh as she watched the tall, wild-haired man squeeze his girlfriend's pillowy shoulder. As, fondly, he planted a kiss on her cheek and a pair of treats between her lips, Annie ran a hand along her own overgrown gut and stuffed a handful of cookies in her mouth.

Though Faye wasn't much help, Annie was happy to have her there. If nothing else, the fiery-haired girl's massive body might draw some attention away from her own growing girth.

With a frown on her face, Annie allowed her gaze to travel from Faye's sagging lardsack of a belly to her own far smaller one - which was still big enough to hide her feet from view, and then some.

God, the two of them must make for quite a sight. At this point, Maggie, who had once been the fattest woman in town, looked fairly small by comparison. It was a wonder, thought Annie, that anybody wanted to buy these pastries when they were being sold by two such perfect images of obesity. Two girls whose figures served as a constant reminder of what havoc such foods could play with the human body.

But, then again, Caulbury wasn't exactly a big place. Here, huge, hanging bellies like theirs were not at all a common sight. They were, in fact, rare enough that people would come over to their stall and buy something just as an excuse to gawp at the two of them.

Over the last couple of hours, Annie had been forced to deal with more than a few strange looks and little digs at her weight. She could hardly count the number of times that some smirking villager had poked her soft belly and said something like: "From the looks of you, these sweets must be pretty great."

But the lion's share of the crowd's attention was on Faye. It'd been months since most of the townsfolk had caught a proper look at the fiery-haired girl. And, though rumours of her weight gain had been circulating for a while, most of them still remembered her as the slender stunner whose beauty had drawn a train of customers to the bakery only a couple of years ago. When, now, they found her naturally slight frame inflated with a nearly unbelievable amount of fat, most of them didn't know what to say. When their eyes fell on her, they simply stopped to stare with mouths agape.

Faye, obviously, found this more than a little uncomfortable. Over the last year or so, the fiery-haired girl had slowly been turning into a sheltered shut-in. She wasn't at all ready to handle being made a spectacle of. As the crowd ogled and gawped at her, she kept her eyes down and did her best not to acknowledge her onlookers. As people stared at her and made their little comments, she mostly turned to Niall for support. Her boyfriend, of course, was only too happy to cheer her up with one little treat after another.

Though Annie felt sorry for the fiery-haired girl, she couldn't help but to be a bit jealous of all the attention Niall was showering her with.

The chestnut-haired girl stuffed another couple of cookies between her lips.

"Careful there, if you keep going like that you won't have anything left to sell."

Tearing her eyes away from Faye, Annie found Caroline Kincaid and Mrs Miller standing in front of her. The taller and more impressive of the two was scrutinizing Annie, a critical look on her face as she took in the girl's bulging belly, and the sticky crumbs that'd gathered around her lips and her puffy jowls. She seemed as though she was about to say something, but then her gaze fell on Faye and her face froze. For a moment, she just stood there, her eyes wide as she took in the sheer size of the fiery-haired girl.

129.
Upon approaching the bakery's stall, Caroline had thought that she'd known what to expect. After all, when she'd last seen her, Faye had already been well on her way to becoming a ball of blubber. Her slender frame had already been coated in a thick layer of loose flesh, and her goddess-like face had been turning swollen and cherubic.

But, even so, now that she was faced with the reality of what'd happened to the pretty young thing, she found that she could hardly believe her eyes. The once slight and slender girl was a sad sight to behold. She was swaddled with fat, her naturally lean frame buried under an amorphous mass of her own sagging flesh.

No matter how she looked, Caroline could see no trace of the slim, spirited thing that Faye had used to be. At this point, she was nothing but a blob. A bloated sack of jiggling jelly. Her smooth, subtle jawline had been buried under a wobbling second chin. Her dazzling eyes, which had used to seem so large as they sat in the middle of her tiny face, were now dwarfed by round, swollen cheeks. Her pretty features, her tiny button nose and her soft, full lips, had sunken into a rippling sea of flab. They looked so very tiny as they sat in the middle of her ripe, spherical moon of a face.

Annie had been right, more so than Caroline could ever have imagined. The fiery-haired girl hadn't just let herself go, she'd destroyed herself. The once graceful and delicate young thing had turned into a bloated whale. A clumsy, sweaty, lumbering mass of undulating flesh. Everything that'd used to be appealing about her was gone.

Realizing, finally, that she was staring, slack-jawed, at the girl, Caroline collected herself.

"Why, hello there," she said, smiling weakly at the vast redhead. "You sure have changed since I last saw you."

"Yeah," said Faye, not quite meeting Caroline's gaze. "I guess."

"Looks like all those baked goods have been doing the both of you a fair bit of good," Mrs Miller added with a chuckle.

Caroline shot her friend a sharp glare.

"You sure could say that again," beamed Maggie, seemingly oblivious to the insult hidden in the other woman's comment. "If there's one thing these girls know how to do, it's eat."

"Mom!" protested Annie.

But Maggie continued, paying no heed to her daughter's objection. "I don't think I've ever met anybody who likes their food quite as much as these two," she chuckled. "They just can't get enough. They just eat and eat. These days, they hardly seem to do anything else."

"Yes," said Caroline, "so I can see."

Putting on the kindest, most compassionate smile she could manage, the older woman knelt beside Faye's stool and gazed into the girl's glassy eyes.

"Actually," she said, "I was wondering if I could borrow you for a bit. I've got a few events planned soon, and I'd be ever so happy if you could out with them."

Faye hesitated. She turned and glanced nervously up at her boyfriend. Niall responded with a reassuring smile.

"I can come along if you like, and bring a few treats too."

Faye glanced over towards Maggie.

"We'll be fine, sweetie," said the middle-aged butterball. "You just go along and do whatever you like."

"Well," said Faye, hesitantly, as she turned back towards Caroline. "I guess I could help out for a bit."