Chapter 1 - the first trip

About a year ago I got an awesome phone call from my friend James. He had been hired by a travel company to road trip across the country and review several stops along the way. He could take three friends, and if I was interested it would be me, him, our friend Tyler, and his brother Matt. The company would pay for our car, gas, lodging, and food, and all we had to do was visit a list of places, take pictures of ourselves there, and write reviews about the experience. Of course I accepted, and I went with the other three to meet the trip coordinator.
They told us we would leave in two weeks, October first, and start from Chicago, and travel to California and back. The whole trip would take one month, and if they liked our work, we'd be sent on another trip in April, that would take about two months. They gave us a list of places, which were mostly diners, and some roadside attractions. The whole thing seemed very exciting and we couldn't wait to leave.
Two weeks came pretty quick and we set off on the road. One thing I had noticed about James is that he had gotten in pretty good shape, at least for him. Growing up, Me, James and Tyler have always been best friends. While Tyler and I were always skinny kids, James was the chubby one. We teased him about it, but the truth is, he was never that fat, just too chubby to be called skinny. Matt was a little bit more rough on him, and being the younger brother, had to combat James' rough housing with jokes of him being a "huge fat lard".
Now, in our late twenties, Tyler and I weren't as stick thin, but we were still pretty trim compared to our high school buddies, and with all the dieting James had done in the past year he was down pretty close to our size. Being that I was around 160, I imagined James was probably hovering around 180-185. Matt was about five years younger, and looked so thin you could snap him in half.
As we drove along, and I though about my companions body weights, I noticed that Tyler had a small mound of dough hanging over his seat belt. I had never known him to have any chub, but I guessed since he had recently quit smoking, a bit of weight gain was only natural. It wasn't much, maybe five pounds.
Before I knew it we were at our first destination. A small diner just outside of Chicago. We sat down, starving, and looked over there menu of fried greasy foods. Everything looked so good. We ordered tons of food, and couldn't wait to dig in. Our waitress, Abby, commented that we must be hungry and walked away to put our orders in. I watched her as she walked, I couldn't help it. She was beautiful. She had a naturally angelic face and light brown hair that was loosely curled, but the thing that drove me wild was her body. I had always been attracted to curvy girls, with just enough extra weight that no one would call them skinny. I could watch the slight jiggle of a small belly all day, and I loved the full feel of their soft bodies in my arms.
I flirted with Abby a lot, but of course she didn't pay me much attention. In fact she seemed more interested in James, though he was much less smooth than I was. We scarfed down all of our food and set off on our way. I liked the feeling of being full, as I relaxed in the car, headed toward our next destination.
The next two weeks or so were full of these experiences. We stopped at so many roadside diners and tried as much of the food as possible. James did a few food challenges, and almost always finished the ten pound steak, or the mega hog meal. I didn't bring up his diet, which he seemed to leave back at home.
I could tell James was gaining some weight, but I didn't really say anything until one night when we were driving along. I was driving and James was in the passenger seat. The other two slept in the back. We had been not talking, just listening to the radio for about half an hour, when James started feeling his stomach and broke the silence.
"Dude, I'm getting fat again."
"what?" I asked, though I heard him fine...
"I'm getting fat again. This past week I must have gained at least ten pounds".
"really?" I answered " I hadn't really noticed". lies.
"yeah, at least ten maybe fifteen. I guess I shouldn't be surprised we've been eating like pigs. Maybe I should slow down." he said.
"I think your fine." For some reason I felt at this point the need to encourage his gain. " We still have a few weeks of this. Eating bad food, and just sitting all day in a car. You might as well just enjoy it and worry about it when you get home."
I thought he would reject this idea, after how hard he had been dieting, but I think he liked the idea of just relaxing and letting go for a few weeks.
"you're right" He said. "It's not like I've never been fat before. And it's not like I'm alone this time. "
I wondered what he meant.
"It looks like Tyler is starting to pack on a few since he stopped smoking."
I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Tyler sleeping in the back seat. The little fat roll that hung over his seat belt had grown substantially since the day we left. I'd noticed that he had been sucking in most days, but as he slept his little paunch could be seen jiggling in it's full size.
"yeah I noticed, but I didn't want to say anything. He's pretty sensitive sometimes" I said.
"Totally" James answered " I'll leave him alone about it. Besides, who am I to tease anyone about getting fat."
We laughed.
"Who knows" he said "pretty soon your metabolism will slow and you'll probably get just as fat as the rest of us."
I laughed, like I agreed, but I knew that I would never get fat. I've always ate whatever I wanted without gaining a pound, and besides I didn't eat as bad as those guys.