chapter 1 - justin

September-
Justin had graduated from college only a couple of months ago from a reputable Texas university. He majored in accounting, and even stuck around at school for an extra year to earn his Master’s. Upon graduating, he took a job in San Antonio as an entry level analyst, which paid enough, but certainly left something to be desired. Between the moving expenses, being out on his own for things like car insurance and a phone bill for the first time, and wanting to go out and get to know his new city, he didn’t have much left over at the end of each month. Being a money-minded guy, he decided to try working for a dog walking/sitting service he had seen advertised to earn a couple extra bucks over the weekends and on evenings when he felt up to getting a bit of exercise.
Like many of the young men at his university, Justin had been involved in a fraternity. He enjoyed his experience overall, the brotherhood, the intramurals and of course the beer related activities were central to his college experience. He had done a pretty good job of consistently going to the gym and even participated in a couple of his school’s half-marathon races, so he was in pretty good shape when he started his job in September. The summer hadn’t been terribly kind to his physique though; he spent most of his time inside, studying for his state qualifying exams and stress eating cookies his roommate brought home from work at the local bakery.
Leaving high school 5 years earlier, Justin was an athletic 170lbs and 5’10, with some muscle tone from running cross country and track. Throughout college his weight had fluctuated between 170 and 185, but after his summer of CPA studying, he was pushing 190 pounds most days.
His weight was one of the reasons he chose dog walking as his side hustle, it would get him out of the office or his apartment and let him explore the city on foot. Some of the clients even wanted their dogs to accompany the walkers on a run, and with his cross country background Justin was interested in finding the trails and other active spaces that San Antonio had to offer.
October-
After a couple months of working his full time gig as well as his Rover job, Justin was finding his rhythm in his new city. He liked his apartment; he had a few new friends and hang out spots and both of his jobs were going well. One Thursday evening, he received a notification from a client he hadn’t worked with before. They were requesting a house sitting for the weekend, meaning that Justin would have to go over to their place, take care of the dog, and spend the night for both Friday and Saturday. His core group of friends was all going to be out of town on various weekend getaways, so with no other plans Justin agreed to the sitting. The pay was going to be generous, $150 for the weekend, which was almost unheard of for only one dog.
One of Justin’s favorite things about San Antonio so far was the delicious food. Not only tex-mex, which consisted of the city’s best tacos, fajitas, quesadillas and chips & queso, but the pizzas, the steak, the sandwiches and the ice cream. When he arrived at the client’s apartment, he realized it was just across the street from his favorite restaurant, Chuy’s, with a dairy queen right next door.
“This guy’s place is in such a prime location! I’m definitely going to hit Chuy’s up on Sunday when I leave here” Justin thought to himself.
Once he had picked up the keys from the front desk of the complex, he headed up to the 6th floor to check on the dog and set himself up for the weekend. The apartment was nice, definitely nicer than his. It was about the same size, still a one bed/one bath with a good-sized kitchen and living room, but their stuff was so expensive looking. They had a cool retro mini fridge with a fully stocked bar cart next to it, every kitchen appliance you could think of, a massive TV with two or three gaming consoles attached and gorgeous furniture. The place was also spotless, even without a puppy that is hard to do, but Justin was thoroughly impressed.
Once he made himself more comfortable and took the dog out, he went to the couch to unload his laptop. On the coffee table, he found a note that read:
“Hi Justin! I’m Amanda, Chico’s human. I just wanted to say thanks again for helping me out on such short notice this weekend. I left the fridge and pantry pretty well stocked, so if there’s anything you want to eat, you’d be doing me a favor helping me get rid of some of this food! If you need anything, just text me!”
As his eyes scanned the sentence about food, his stomach began to rumble. He looked to his left into the kitchen to locate the pantry and made his way over to the undisclosed snackage that waited from behind the cupboard door. He literally gasped when he saw all of the delicious things inside. There were full packages of cookies, unopened chips – lays and tortilla, popcorn, pretzels, nuts, pasta, a package of flour tortillas and his favorite brand of sandwich bread. He couldn’t help himself from peering into the fridge and freezer as well. There was a mountain of shredded cheese, three flavors of Gatorade, Sprite, Pepsi, cheese, bacon, avocado, a homemade loaf of banana bread with nuts and a tin of cinnamon rolls ready to be baked. The freezer contained Hungry-Man TV dinners, his favorite flavor of ice cream – rocky road, and an apple pie.
Once he had taken a full inventory of the kitchen, he looked around the apartment, feeling a little guilty at how excited he was to eat probably too much of this. He knew that he shouldn’t pig out too much, because his buddy from his fraternity was getting married in December and he had already ordered his groomsman suit.
“Hell, I’ve got two full months until the wedding. One weekend of enjoying myself isn’t going to have me busting out of my pants.” Justin said aloud, for only the dog to hear.
Just to further convince himself, he made his way over to the bathroom and tried to locate a scale. He stripped down to his boxer-briefs and socks and stepped onto the scale, thinking thin thoughts.
189.4, the scale read
“Heh, not so bad” Justin thought. He looked up at himself in the mirror and flexed at himself. He had certainly been more toned, but he definitely wasn’t fat by any means. This was all the encouragement he needed to prepare himself an absolute feast. So far, everything was going exactly according to “Amanda’s” plan.