chapter 1

Carl was what you’d call a layabout. At 5ft 7 and around 310lbs, a pretty hefty one at that. Once he’d finished secondary school he’d gone out into the real world without any aspirations or drive to do much of anything.

As the years came and went, so too did myriad dead end jobs and temping stints. In some ways he’d accumulated varied experience, but his outlook didn’t change. He did not want to work. It was never a driving force for him. He was a gainer. What he wanted to do was get big. Realities of life were inconveniences.

He was between jobs and was jointly renting an apartment with Brax. During their time together they’d developed a vague friendship. Brax was older than Carl, probably early thirties. He was also in far better shape. 6ft 2 and around 220lbs he was thick but sturdily built. The musculature of his upper body suggested a good amount of strength. Day to day they didn’t have much to do with one another. They kept out of each other’s ways. They would occasionally chat if they happened to cross for long enough. It wasn’t very often though as Carl practically lived in his bedroom. Now and then Carl would hear Brax bringing back a shag he’d picked up at a bar or club. He would simply stay in his room and leave only if he really had to.

One day, things changed for Carl. The scratchcard he’d bought home with him from the corner shop, alongside his usual trove of junk food, held a jackpot. He netted himself £900K and nearly shit himself on the realisation of his win. Having no family or significant friends, he kept his win a secret. He didn’t even tell Brax. He saw it as the opportunity to make his fantasy real. Now he didn’t have to worry about paying rent or his share of the bills. He didn’t need to give a second thought to finding a job. All he needed to think about was what he was going to eat and how fat he was eventually going to get.

The first couple of months saw some changes. Brax quickly noticed differences. Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats drivers were turning up several times every day. Carl often offered to order extras for lunch and dinner for Brax and insisted he didn’t pay anything for them.

One evening, Carl was trying to quietly navigate from his room to the main bin, thinking that Brax had gone to bed. He hadn’t, he was sat on one of the dining chairs, vape in one hand and his mobile in the other, pouring over Grindr. He looked up at Carl to greet him and was caught off guard by what he saw.

Carl was dressed in a scruffy food-stained blue polo and had tattered three quarter lengths on. Both garments were at least 2 sizes too small. A huge pair of moobs strained against the top and a thick and flabby portion of lower belly fat was hanging out the front. His calves and ankles were like tree trunks. Carl’s face showed equal surprise, his eyes wide but not as wide as his neck and chins.

Brax exhaled his vape. “Bloody hell Carl. What’s happened to you?”

Carl stumbled slightly and could feel his face flush and turn crimson. “Whatcha mean? Nothing has happened.”

“You mean like a hundred pounds of nothing…. fatty”

Carl was a bit angry at first but what Brax was saying wasn’t anything but the truth. Quite a tantalising truth... He felt a warmth in his crotch. He liked being told what a *** he was.

“Yeah okay, I put on a bit - what can I say? I like my food!” He smiled.

“Well looks like the food likes you too bud.”

Carl made his way over to the bin and decanted the remnants of his binge into it. He wondered to himself if he should tell Brax what he was doing, but decided that now wasn’t quite the right time.

A week or so later Brax announced that he was going to be working away for a few months doing some on site consultancy or some such, somewhere down south. He was worried about telling Carl at first because he couldn’t afford to pay rent at the apartment as well as working the job and was expecting Carl to boot him and say he’d have to move out. When Carl had just wished him luck and told him not to worry, he was both surprised and taken with how cool of him it was.