chapter 1

Hm. That's smaller than I remember. My regular wobbling sidestep had gotten me into the bedroom easily enough before, but this time required a little extra shuffling through the doorway, my love handles brushing through tightly as I swung in. I stopped for a moment and jiggled them... wow, I'm not just imagining it. I am fatter. Wonder what I weigh now?

I ran my towel over my wet belly as I looked in the closet for something to wear. Only a few possibilities, I thought as my stomach grumbled. Hungry already, huh? Not a big surprise, I guess. I've really been pigging out lately, much to Lucy's delight. It's been fun, watching her enjoy my enlarged appetite over the last - what was it? Weeks? A month? When did this start? I remember really filling up on New Year's.

I'd been eating big all through the holidays, of course, but not that much more than my usual heavy lifting. Things stepped up after Christmas - to be expected when all of your presents are food, food, or bigger clothes - plus you're the neighborhood go-to guy for finishing up leftovers - but New Year's was something else. New Year's I was non-stop all day.

This wasn't just the hunger of new capacity, like when your stomach stretches. Mine had, but I wasn't eating more just because I could. I was certainly taking advantage of that new reality, but more importantly a slight shift had occurred. I wasn't thinking about food. I was thinking about eating. The holiday feasting had come with visions of dishes I loved: turkey and gravy, sage stuffing, yam casserole, buttered rolls, buttered potatoes, buttered rum, mince pies, spiked egg nog. Uhnf. I could go on. Good cooks in my family - and great cooks in Lucy's. They made their own egg nog - who does that? (Not a complaint, of course. Lucy poured two quarts of fresh egg nog into me first thing Christmas morning. I actually sloshed when I got out of bed.)

Anyway, my point is that things had changed. Food still played in my mind, of course, but rather than thinking "When's lunch?" or "Am I still hungry?", my mind simply flashed me the same card: "Next?" That New Year's Day, food stopped being something I wondered about. Even the hoggish questions like "Which dish is the most fattening?" faded in lieu of the far more productive "Have them all."

This is the gainer's impulse. It's the tingle where your skin folds and brushes against itself in new places, the rippling across the loosest flab of your belly fat as you walk. The sensations that drive the cravings for more food get turbo-charged by the cravings for more fat. Eating becomes constant - and everything is eaten - all to grow fatter. This is where we fatties leave the stuffers and inflators behind. This is beyond swelling, or tautness; it's even beyond gluttony. This is about blubber. Fat growth. Sagging, jiggling, swaying, rolling obesity. Ever-gaining, ever-eating, unencumbered by either fullness or hunger. I just wanted more. My appetites have been roaring, and I have been shoveling it in.

So yeah, a real uptick in my eating since New Year's. That makes it a month at least, and we're at February... wait. We just finished Feb-- we're in March now. That's two months plus of overdrive eating, and it had just flown by. Flown? Rolled, maybe. I pulled on my sweatpants. Newly washed, and wearing snug. Not sure I need the drawstring...

Lucy walked in and stopped, her eyes fixed on the waistband of my sweats.

"Those are smaller than I remembered."

I looked down, ran my thumb under the elastic. "Yeah..."

"Are these--? Wait. Are these from Christmas?"

"Yep," I smiled.

"The new ones Mom gave you at Christmas?" She ran her hands around the waistband and giggled through an imitation of her mother. "Well they were the biggest I could find - I had to drive clear to Indiana!" She hefted my belly and set it bouncing. "Boy oh boy. What have you been doing?"

"I have been eating."

She wrapped her arms around me as far as she could reach, her hands flattening against the slopes of my love handles. "Funny how you don't notice day-to-day, then suddenly just, wow." She cracked a silly smile. "Let's weigh you."

I shook my head, setting my chins wobbling. "Too fat," I said.

"Oh that's right. How could I forget?" She reached up and tickled the soft roll of chin flab encircling my neck, then leaned into my plush forefront and sighed. "How could I ever forget that?" I hugged her tight. Her hands wormed deep into my side rolls; her thumbs lingered under the fat creases at my elbows. I felt huge. She nuzzled in closer and I felt entirely draped around her. Heavy, loving, enveloping. Past her I could see our old scale sitting cracked on the bathroom floor.

"When does the new one get here?"

She looked over at it and groaned, "Who knows? They're backlogged."

"So are you ever going to throw out the ol' five-fifty?"

"I dunno. Maybe mount it somewhere. Get it bronzed, you know."

"Backlogged, really? The eight hundred capacity? I would not have guessed."

She shrugged. "This is the year to go bariatric, apparently."

"Ugh. Fads."

"Right?" Then my belly groaned, loud and impatient. Lucy looked down and patted it warmly, then looked up at me. "You know, these sweats really are the last of anything this big in stores. Like anywhere. You're fully online now, fatty. All your clothes only available by mail."

"Or custom."

Lucy kneaded a side roll and chuckled, "What a blob. Do they do custom bedsheets?"

I raised an eyebrow at her. "I believe you mean 'toga', thank you very much."

She grinned. "Sure. Okay." Her phone chirped.

"Like a sultan's robes, you know..."

She laughed, "Uh huh..." My stomach grumbled as her phone chirped again. "I put in the cinnamon rolls." She poked my moaning belly. "You answer this call while I get my phone," she poked me again, "fatty."