Chapter 1 - fat shaming girlfriend

I met Emily during my first semester in college. She was so perfect for me, or so it seemed at first. "Tom," she would say to me in her cute Southern accent, "you and I are like two peas in a pod."

Little did I know that when I started to outgrow the pod, she would squeeze me out and find another pea to share her pod with.

I was away from home for the first time - a former baseball all-state, slender, athletic and, as my sister used to say to her friends, "A real chick magnet."

In high school, though, I didn't get serious with any girls. Not that I didn't have the offers. Also, I was a bit shy and, despite my athletic success, I lacked self-confidence in relating to girls. I could have had just about any girl I wanted, but I concentrated on baseball and my grades, so I could get both academic and athletic scholarships from State. As it turned out, that was a good idea because I tore my ACL in the summer, so my sports scholarship was no longer.

Still, I stayed positive about going to college. Sports aren't everything, and really I wanted to do well in my classes anyway. Emily and I met that first day in psychology class. She was a honey-haired cutie with big blue eyes and a curvy but petite body. She had been a cheerleader in high school, and as I later learned, she had dated quite a few jocks. That may have been her initial attraction to me - wearing my letter jacket with all those all-city, all-county, all-region and all-state awards on it.

We made love for the first time on Labor Day weekend. It was heavenly. My first time, of course, and Emily was very gentle and skilled. She had a whole bag of tricks and the erotic experience of someone much older than 18. I really fell for her after that. I didn't know if it was love or just love, but I knew I wanted more of it.

But then, something happened.

I started to gain weight. I was suddenly getting fat, and Emily was letting me know that this was unacceptable.

I don't know why I started porking up so fast. It may have been that this was the first time in years I didn't have a regular training schedule with running, exercise and weight-training. Maybe without Coach there to watch that I was eating nutritious meals, I overindulged. Maybe too many late-night studying sessions with pizza and burgers and fries, or maybe too many beers at the frat house. No matter what the cause, the pounds were piling on fast.

The week before Halloween, I had already gained the Freshman 15! In case you don't know, the Freshman 15 is the 15 pounds an average college freshman can expect to gain in the whole first year. And I had gained it in about nine weeks. Emily said sarcastically that I was on my way to gaining the Freshman 50 - and then some!

At first, Emily made jokes about my little belly, patting it and rubbing it. That actually turned me on for some odd reason, and we would often end up in bed as a result. Not that I was burning many calories there because as I said, Emily was quite experienced, and she was quite the aggressor in bed.

The turning point came Halloween night when we were at a party. She was drunk, and she launched into a sarcastic tirade about "my big fat boyfriend." She reeled off a long litany of "He's so fat . . ." jokes. She insulted me and humiliated me - calling attention to my growing gut by pulling my shirt up and asking her cheerleader friends to feel my pudge.

"When's the baby due, Tom?" she asked as her friends howled with laughter. One even grabbed my flabby fat roll and squeezed it hard until it was red and bruised.

"Tommy is the only guy who can turn a six-pack - " Emily lifted the shirt of John, star freshman quarterback, to reveal perfect abs "- Tommy is the only one who can turn a six-pack into a keg." And then, she lifted my shirt, showing off the my round gut and soft muffintop spreading out over top of my jeans waistline.

I smiled and ha-ha-ed a little, trying to be the nice boyfriend. I tried to take her ribbing as best I could until she started talking about my manhood and our sex life.

"Tommy's getting so fat that when he gets it up, I have a hard time finding it buried beneath his gut," she slurred her words loudly to the crowd who were hooting and hollering, cheering her on. "And then, I have to climb on top of him, and believe me, by the time I have done that, I'm so tired I just feel like going to sleep myself. It's a good thing he grew some man-boobs -- such a soft place for me to lay my head, and his gut makes such a wonderful mattress for me."

I felt my face flush at her words, and tears started burning my eyes. I left quickly to avoid a scene, hearing her friends behind me snorting like pigs at me and calling me Tubby Tommy.

The next day, Emily apologized. Kind of.

"Come on," she said as I looked down in a sulking manner. "I was drunk. You know, I say all kinds of things when I'm drunk. I'm sorry. Besides, you need someone to tell you the truth, Tommy. You're turning into a fatso! If you weren't gaining so much, I wouldn't have said a thing, so you have to accept some of the blame. Besides, I didn't say anything that everyone else isn't thinking anyway. You're turning into a blubbery blob."

She reached out and grabbed my belly with both hands, squeezing it until I winced and pushed her away. In some strange way, it kind of turned me on, and I pulled her close for a kiss.

That was the last time we made love. I couldn't get her comments from the night before out of my head. And she acted almost cruel to me in bed. She slapped my belly so hard it hurt then pinched my love handles until they were bruised. Then, she came quickly, and pulled me out of her, leaving

I didn't see or hear from her until the next day. By then, I knew it was all over. I saw her giggling, hanging on the arm of John the quarterback as if she and I had never had anything. She didn't even look in my direction She didn't have the decency to talk with me about this. I just saw them on my way to psychology. I dropped that class, so I wouldn't have to see the two of them together in class, and so I wouldn't have to hear the gossip.

I can just imagine those cheerleaders in the class chattering on and on. "Tommy just got too fat for her." "Haha, he's such a hog! Oink oink!" "No wonder she left him!" "John is really sexy, isn't he?" "Did you hear what she said at the Halloween party?" "I'm surprised he didn't squash her when they had sex, hahahaha!"