Liz and the Sauce

Chapter 1 Elizabeth the author

The mysterious man with mysterious hair looked down on his mysterious beloved, mysteriously, as he held her sensuous body in his strong, thick, muscled arms. The lady could feel those arms throbbing as blood pumped through them, “Bang me!” lady Delacroix cried out as she threw her head back, panting with desire. “I love you babe.” Said Lord Hugeman as he smiled down at the exhausted vixen. He certainly would bang her before the day was out, and more than once.

That was where the book reviewer stopped reading and looked at a tall woman with straight, black hair, saying “Really?!?!” Incredulously, as he starred at the author's face, sneering as he said “Don’t quit your day job miss, uummm,” he paused for a moment, trying to think, before shrugging and asking “What was your name again?” The black-haired woman glared back at him and said “Elizabeth Winston the third, and I don’t have a job to quit!” in a, strangely victorious sounding, voice, as if she’d won a debate over the man’s error. The reviewer laughed hysterically and said “Even your name’s pretentious!” as he held out the stack of papers that Elizabeth called a book. The woman snatched it back and said “You could have just said ‘no,’” you know?” sticking her tongue out. Elizabeth then turned around and flipped the man off without looking back, before beginning to walk away. Elizabeth heard more laughter from the man as she slammed his door shut.

Elizabeth, or “Liz,” as her friends called her, was a terrible author, and she knew this when she was being honest with herself. But what else could she do? Liz had been fired from three consecutive jobs, and had sent the manuscript for “Lady Delecroix and Her Dozen Suitors.” To as many publishers as Delacroix had suitors, which was not twelve, oddly enough. Elizabeth never even realized that she had misspelled her protagonist’s name in the title of the book, or the dozen other times she had done so. Liz sighed as she trudged back toward her apartment, “Stupid book guy, in his stupid office, making stupid money that I could use to pay my stupid rent.” She stupidly said. Liz made it to her apartment after saying the word “Stupid” eighty-seven and a half more times, the half was because she tripped mid-word, saying “Stoop,” before screaming as she fell to the floor. Needless to say Liz was having a bad day.

As she got to the front of the dull, little apartment complex that she called home Liz heard a beep from her pocket and said “Dear God, if it’s dad and more ‘Standbi’ jokes about me being single and bi I’m gonna stab somebody.” She then sighed deeply and retrieved her phone to see an Email with the subject line of “Loved your book!” Liz stopped before even opening the door, and read the Email outside of her home. It read as follows

To Ms. Winston

Hello, I’m Jay Franklin, at Haphazard House Publishing, and I just finished the romance novel parody you sent me. I ended up laughing so much that the man in the room across the hall from my office was worried that I’d had a stroke or something. I have a few suggestions for the start of the book to clear up any ambiguity, modern audiences can be surprisingly dense and may think you’re serious about this being a romance novel. But I absolutely must meet you in person! There’s a quaint little Italian restaurant near my office named “The Saucy Spoon” don’t let the name fool you though, they’re damned good! I’d like to take you out to dinner. Just meet me at 867 Five street at 3:09 PM tomorrow and we can do an early dinner as we hash out the details. Just tell me if you can’t make it, I’ll assume you can if you say nothing. See you then!


When she’d finished reading Liz wasn’t sure if she should be angry that this shmuck thought that her book was a comedy, embarrassed that her work was that bad, or happy for the chance at making a living. But, regardless of any emotions, she’d take him up on the offer. Liz had rent to pay, and she didn’t want to be evicted over someone hurting her fucking pride. So, Liz replied “Thank you Mr. Franklin, I’ll see you then and there.” Then stepped into her apartment.

Nothing of note really happened for Liz the next day, until she went into The Saucy Spoon, which had a sign with the image of a large, wooden, spoon that had tomato sauce dripping off of it. Once inside Liz saw a woman who she presumed to be the hostess here, she stood behind a podium with the picture from the restaurant’s sign on it. This woman had brown hair and a tanned olive skin tone. But that wasn’t what stood out the most to Liz. The most eye catching part of this woman ess easily her size. The hostess was absolutely enormous, she looked like she was about four hundred pounds at a height just over five feet. Liz went straight up to the hostess and said “Hello miss, I’m here to meet a man named Jay Franklin.” The hostess smiled and said “Aahh, he said that he had someone who would come to meet him, if you’d follow me I’ll show you to his seat.” She then took two menus from the little podium looking thing and started walking down a little path between booths of people eating.

As she followed the hostess Liz couldn’t help but notice how the big woman seemed to sway her hips with every step, it was as if she was trying to show off her ample rear end. Liz thought that, If she weren’t so big, the hostess would make a good model. She had the runway walk down anyway. Liz couldn’t help but stare at the woman’s butt as she followed the hostess. She started to feel herself blushing and decided to look up and to the side to distract herself from inappropriate thoughts. When she did Liz couldn’t help but notice that the diners at The Saucy Spoon all had one thing in common. It seemed that each and every person eating here was obese, or very near it anyway. As she looked Liz noticed a heavy set blonde practically inhaling lasagna, once again she had to note that the woman would be quite attractive if she were actually bit thinner. Liz didn’t want to say anything about how everyone here was overweight, especially not to the hostess, who was clearly obese herself.

The hostess set down the menus on a table as the man sitting there came into view, he wasn’t incredibly overweight like everyone else here. Liz silently thanked God, she'd half expected that the food here was cursed to make you fat or something. The man looked to be about six feet tall, he was a moderate build and had brown hair and eyes. He stood and held out a hand to shake, saying “Jay Franklin, pleased to meet you Elizabeth.” Liz smiled as she shook the man’s hand. She couldn’t put a finger on it, but something about the man made Liz feel like she was a blushing schoolgirl again. Liz felt her cheeks heating up again as she said “Please, call me ‘Liz,’ everyone else does.” To which the man said “Okay, and you can call me ‘Jay.’” Liz gave him a funny look and said, “I’d hope so, that’s your name, isn’t it?” to which he smiled and said “Yes, that’s why you can call me it.” With a broad grin, continuing, “Seeing as I share a name with a letter I never really had to come up with a nickname to save people’s time.”

Once Liz had sat Jay began to push over how he’d loved her “parody.” Liz tried to hide her embarrassment and knew she’d failed miserably, as she couldn’t stop blushing or smiling nervously. Eventually she decided to just distract herself by reading the menu and thinking of what she’d get. As she did Liz realized why everyone here was so flipping heavy. Every single item on the menu had gigantic portions, somewhere near twice the size of an ordinary meal if the pictures in the menu were anything to go off of. “Wow, they have big portions here.” Liz said, as she pointed at a page in the menu for emphasis. Jay said “Yeah, I always have to get a doggy bag here, it’s like each meal is really two, one you have now, and one for later.” I assume it’s because they want to sell more to each customer and ingredients aren’t their main cost of doing business.” Liz gave Jay a curious look and he continued “Most of these places have land and paying employees as their main source of spending, with things like ingredients far down the list, so they tend to have bigger portions and higher prices. Since doubling the size of a meal makes it seem like it’s a better deal to customers, who’re getting twice as much, but nowhere near doubles the price for the restaurant to make the meal.” Liz nodded and said “Okay, that makes sense I guess.”

The two ordered shortly after Jay got a serving of lasagna and an image of the big woman from before eating jumped to the forefront of Liz’s mind. She was so damned fat, almost everyone here was. As Liz thought about it the waitress asked her for her order, Liz’s was so focused on the thought of the big girl that she’d forgotten her order, so she just said “I’ll take the same thing.” And the waitress nodded, saying “Okay, two lasagna and two glasses of coke coming up.” Liz hadn’t even glanced at the waitress until then, she was pretty chubby, not obese lime the others, but far from skinny, she had the hips, legs, and ass that brought the word “Thicc” to mind, spelled with two C’s. As the waitress walked off Jay said must have caught Liz staring, he answered “Oh, that’s Carol, she’s new here. I’ve been coming here about once a week for years, so I know the staff pretty well, Carol started a couple months ago.” Liz nodded, saying “Oh, so you’re a regular then?”

Liz was finding it difficult to focus on conversation, her mind was being pulled a thousand ways at once, her book, which she was now selling as a parody, her overdue rent, the size of everyone here, that jerk wad book reviewer from before, and a half dozen other places.

As Jay and Liz awaited their food already tall woman in the back looked at a jug of a thin, red, liquid. The “special sauce,” that her restaurant added to everything they made. It was an extremely addictive, and surprisingly cheap chemical, that Stacy figured would be a popular street drug by now if it had any noticeable high. Stacy owned The Saucy Spoon, five years ago the restaurant was hemorrhaging money by the day, which was when Stacy made a “Deal with the devil” type agreement with her cousin Vinny, who was a “chemist” for the family, he began to supply her with her “Secret sauce,” which she added to her actual sauce. It was a thin, red liquid that Vinny had stumbled across while trying to make aa new drug. It was extremely addictive, and caused a mild, happy feeling that lasted several hours when consumed. The effect was almost unnoticeable, which lead to Vinny discarding the stuff as a street drug. But it managed to save Stacy’s failing restaurant, as everybody who’d eaten even one bite began to return night after night for more, never knowing why. The guilt gnawed a hole in Stacy’s stomach, and as the chef and owner of The Saucy Spoon Stacy was pretty sure she’d accidentally dosed herself with the stuff more than a few times, but she was in too deep to stop, and at only a few bucks a dose the special sauce was a miracle for her business, which never lost a customer again. “Order up.” Stacy said as she set out a plate of lasagna a table. The woman who took it was Stacy’s niece Carol, who was aware of Stacy’s “business plan,” yet couldn’t stop herself from eating the drugged food night after night Stacy looked down to se the sauce was unusually thin, she asked the chef “Isn’t that a bit much on the special sauce?” the chef shook her head and said “Added some extra to this batch on accident. But no big deal, the stuff’s cheap enough, and it always keeps people coming back for more. Just serve it like usual, not like they’re gonna OD and die or anything.” Stacy didn’t know how much of the stuff it took to cause problems, but she knew it was a hell of a lot more than was in any plate they sold. Carol took the plates and scurried off to serve them.

Meanwhile Jay laughed, saying “And the names! I have no idea how you think of this stuff, “Lord Hugeman,” he said with a chuckle as Liz felt herself blushing, “You even change how the leading lady’s name is spelled every so often. It’s hilarious! Tell me. How do you think of this stuff.” Liz smiled nervously as she said “I don’t know, I just type things out as they come to mind.” Jay smiled and nodded, saying “So, just pure stream of consciousness then?” Liz nodded, she didn’t read know what that meant, but it sounded good. Thankfully their waitress came by and set down the two servings of lasagna just then, letting Liz focus on the food for a moment. Liz looked down. At the lasagna, the sauce looked pretty thin, but she had to see what everyone liked so much about this place, so she cut off a piece and lifted it to her mouth.

The lasagna was damned good, normally Liz didn’t like thin sauce like this, but here it worked. She managed to avoid talking and letting it slip that she’d meant the book seriously by keeping her mouth too busy chewing to talk, it wasn’t hard, the stuff was good. Liz’s favorite part was the sauce, she could see why the place had it in their name, and Liz felt like she loved it more with each bite she took. So much so that she somehow finished the obscenely large piece of lasagna that she’d been served. Liz then looked up to see Jay, who’d only eaten about half of his own food. It suddenly hit Liz that her plan to eat and not talk may have worked a little too well, so she said “Heh, it’s really food, I mean really good.” pointing down at her empty plate. Jay smiled and said “It is, isn’t it? I’m surprised that this place isn’t more popular. Everyone I’ve told about it loves their food! Hell, half of them have cursed me out for making them fat it’s so good.” Liz nodded and said “Yeah.” With a bit more sorrow than she’d intended, as she thought back to the people she’d seen on her way in. Liz could swear that the two seated at this table were the only people here who weighed less than two hundred pounds.

About then the waitress returned, asking “May I take your plate?” which made Liz cringe, it drew more attention to just how much she’d eaten, Liz could feel herself blushing as she said “Sure,” then, as the waitress picked up the plate Jag said “Oh! And can we have a large order of mixed flavor mini-cupcakes please?” Liz said “No, I couldn’t.” For Jay to reply, “Well, I’m going to have some for myself. If you want to eat a couple then just ask, but the desserts here are even better than the dinner.” The waitress said “Alright, one order of cupcakes coming up.” And stepped away for Jay to say “Oh, and a doggy bag too!”

Shortly after the waitress returned with a tray of cupcakes and a to-go bag and box for Jay. As she watched the waitress set down the food Liz felt a pang of regret hit her, the cupcakes really did look good. Jay noticed Liz staring and said “Changed your mind? They look fantastic tonight, and they taste even better than they look! I spoke with the owner a while back, and apparently they put a bit of their special sauce into the icing. It sounds dumb, but it tastes amazing!” Liz stared at the cupcakes, there was nothing “mini” about these cupcakes, unsurprisingly, everything here was more food than one would expect it seemed. Liz shook her head and said “No, I don’t want any, I’m just looking.” Yet, Liz could feel herself mouth watering as she saw Jay pick up an cupcake, it looked to be a chocolate cupcake, with a huge pile of purple icing on top, it looked amazing, like it really would taste better than the lasagna. But no! She would be strong! What would lady Dellacroix do? Probably spell her name better. But first she would be strong, she would stand by her desire to not have any dessert! She wouldn’t ask “Can I have one after all?” like Liz was doing just now. Jay smiled broadly and said “I knew you’d want one.” Handing her a cupcake. The cupcake tasted good, it tasted damned good, Jay was right it seemed, the cupcake was even better than the lasagna had been.

But all things must end, and that includes cupcakes, as the two walked out of the restaurant Liz said “Wait, we never went over an agreement for writing.” To which Jay smiled coyly and said “That’s fine, we can meet up again. Same time tomorrow.” Liz tried to giggle playfully, but it came out sounding awkward. She said “It’s a date.” Then felt herself blushing and tried to roll with it, finishing “On the calendar. It’s the fourth tomorrow, which is a date. You know.” Before giving another forced laugh. Jay ignored it and held out his second doggy bag, saying “Here! You seemed like you really liked that cupcake, and I come here all the time, so I can get more easily enough, so why don’t you take the rest of the mini cupcakes?”

Liz took the bag and started walking to her home, kicking herself for ruining the date. “Date?” she said to herself incredulously, “That wasn’t a date. Hell, it was more important than a date. This is my one chance of not having to go back to dad with my tail between my legs, and worse still, having to endure more of his terrible jokes.” Liz said to herself. When she got home Liz went to her desk to look at her writing. The author pulled out her notebook and a pen, saying, “Maybe this is a time to try a new direction entirely.” She said to herself, “Apparently I wrote a decent comedy when I was trying to be serious. So who knows? Maybe I can do even better intentionally.

Meanwhile, Jay went to his own apartment, thinking of his meet up with Liz. What he didn’t say was this, Jay was more than a little attracted to fat women, it’s why he goes to The Saucy Spoon so regularly, it's the one place he gets to subtly watch all the nice and chubby girls getting fatter by the second. Until now he’d been watching Carol blow up, she’d been gaining weight at a break neck pace since she’d gotten the job, and Jay would often fantasize about her sneaking off to eat her heart out each day after work.

But Liz, she was something else, the woman was funny as hell when she wrote, she was the cute kind of awkward that Jay always found adorable, and the girl could eat. She’d downed an entire serving of lasagna in one sitting, which was about twice what Jay normally had, Jay spent most of the meal fantasizing about how big Liz would get if she kept this up. Jay was overjoyed when he found an excuse to bring Liz back to The Saucy Spoon. But his favorite part of the evening was dessert. Liz had said she didn’t want any, but she took the opportunity to have one of Jay’s cupcakes in an instant, then looked like she wanted to eat them all, but just barely held herself back. The thought of it made Jay grin, Liz must have been doubling the, already gargantuan, calorie intake she’d had from her dinner now that she was alone with those cupcakes.

After an hour of trying to write and coming up with nothing at all, Liz decided to write out her thoughts as an exercise in finding inspiration. So, she spoke as she wrote, “The beautiful, smart, sexy, and funny woman began to write in her journal,” before laughing sadly, “Okay, maybe that’s just my fantasy.” And writing her thoughts more seriously, “Man, that lasagna was good, I kind of wish I had more. No, I already ate way the hell too much, that lasagna would’ve been a meal for three or four people, I” Liz sighed deeply, saying “I still want more anyway.” Putting her hands on her stomach, “I’m so full that I don’t even know how the hell I got home, why do I still want more? That sauce sounds so fucking g-“ and Liz gasped as she realized something. She did have some more of that! Those weirdos put the sauce into their freaking cupcakes! So, Liz took out a cupcake and set it down next to her book, sighing and saying, “No, I’ve had enough.” She then spent the next hour or so staring at her cupcake, trying not to eat it, “At least not until I’ve written a page.” She mumbled to herself, glaring at the little pastry venomously.