Chapter 1

The warm and pleasant smell of the bakery in the morning was always a familiar comfort for Peter. The lingering aromas of the sugar and cinnamon of the previous days work never failed to remind him how much he thoroughly enjoyed his job and the confections he so carefully labored over. He struggled slightly as he maneuvered through the door frame, closing the mahogany monstrosity behind him. He had surveyed the building as a prospective place for his future business when it first went up for sale, and that same door was what had initially appealed to him. The sturdy slab of wood that served as entry to the old brick building was intricately carved with a beautiful design that snaked around its edges, interrupted only by the inclusion of an age-tarnished brass handle.

Finding a location with a unique and inviting entrance had been important to him because it served as a central point for the exterior that would draw in potential customers. The glass window to the left of the front door featured a display case with shelves stocked full of a delectable assortment of sugar-dusted cookies, muffins and glistening, glazed pastries that possessed their own allure, although on an exceedingly more tempting scale. Each day when he passed the window he was always overcome with the sudden urge to sample the delicious morsels which beckoned him from the other side of the obstructive glass.

His mind wandered over the necessary preparations that he had to begin in order to open the shop in an hour. He pulled up the hinged countertop and forced his way through the narrow passage that seemed to be getting tighter and tighter recently. The edges of the marble counter firmly grazed the soft flesh of his wide hips as he freed himself from the constrictive space, letting the countertop crash down behind him with a loud thud. He was starting to wonder if he hadn’t gained more weight. The thought both concerned him and intrigued him at the same time; however, there were more pressing matters at hand than his unexplained fascination with his expanding frame.

He had bread to bake and cakes that had to be decorated for pick-ups scheduled later that day. He had two birthday cakes to make and a three-tier wedding cake, which he was looking forward to despite the fact that they always proved to be an arduous undertaking. Every delicate placing of the icing had to be precise and aesthetically perfect for him to be satisfied with a creation as symbolically significant as a wedding cake. He had always fancied himself as somewhat of a perfectionist, and in no other aspect of his life was it more evident than in his baking. He took great pride in that fact.

He walked to the back of the shop, flipping on the light switch as he passed by it. The dull, pallid florescent lights flickered to life overhead as he crossed the kitchen and began setting the controls to heat up the large Doyton oven that took up most of the space in the back of the room. He took his over-sized apron off of a hook on the wall, throwing it over his neck, and with great effort he managed to wrap its strings around his massive belly to tie them together at the small of his back. It was quite a difficult feat.

He was secretly longing for the day when he could no longer reach around his huge body to put his apron on. He was unsure of what he would do when his gargantuan torso reached that point. He only knew that he found the prospect quite arousing to ponder. He pulled several trays of bread off of a rack in the corner where they had sat over night to rise, placing them side by side on the metal working space that was situated against the side wall. Three trays covered with rows of oval-shaped balls of different varieties of bread dough, two sheets of cookies, a tray of cinnamon buns and a tray of mixed pastries should be enough for the time being, he reasoned. He was mildly startled as usual by the sound of the oven as it released a signatory beep to announce that the preheating was completed. He slid each tray into its respective slot, sealing the door when he was finished. The keys on the number pad rang out melodically as he set the automatic timer afterwards.

While the oven was doing its part, he meandered down a short corridor to his small desk in the cramped storage room that served as his office. He plopped himself down in the big leather chair behind it with an audible creak which reminded him of his persistent fear that one day the chair would break under his immense weight. He let out a heavy sigh. He could feel the apron straining to hold back the enormity of the huge roll of fat around his middle that was pushed up by his thick thighs every time he sat. He decided that he had gained more weight. He was certain of it.

He had never been a thin person. Growing up he had always fought with his weight and was relegated to the proverbial role of the “chubby kid”, then an overweight teenager and finally a fat man. It wasn’t just his genetic predisposition, even though he had used that as an excuse when he was younger. Most of the members of his family were big, and that was a viable copout. Peter knew better than that now. He loved to eat. It was his greatest passion in life, even more so than cooking. Nothing was more satisfying than gorging himself on a fattening meal and feeling his stomach stretched taut as he filled it to capacity.

He didn’t fully realize the depth of his love of food until he went to cooking school. It was as if all of the discussion of food and its delights, along with the constant sampling of the concoctions they worked on in his courses, caused an awakening of the future contentedly obese man within him. Upon leaving home to further his education in the culinary arts, he had weighed around 300 pounds. When he returned after he had graduated two years later he weighed 375. That had seemed like a lot at the time. Now the experience of his body being that much smaller was a foreign and distant memory.