Roomies

chapter 1

“Ha! You think you’re fat?” Brock chortled smugly. “Next to me you look downright skinny!”

He towered over me with his hulking mass of a body. Indeed, Brock was a very large man, but I wasn’t exactly a lightweight myself. I’d always been on the chunky side, but in the four years since Brock and I had been roommates, I’d been slowly getting bigger and rounder all over. It was as if sharing an apartment with someone who was notorious for his unbridled displays of gluttony gave me permission to be just as greedy.

“Look at this big gut,” he said, drumming his hand loudly upon the bulging belly laying snugly beneath his tightly fitting shirt. “This thing is the size of a medicine ball, and it ain’t getting any smaller.”

“That may be true,” I said to him, “but it’s not as if my belly is small.”

I placed my hand down on my distended abdomen, feeling how soft and round it was, running my hand up and down, back and forth and showing off the contours of its naturally spherical form.

“Ha!” he chuckled loudly, his gelatinous mass shaking and jiggling violently. “That’s cute! You may be chubby, Percy, but you’ll never be as big and fat as me.”

“Never say never, my friend!” I fired back.


I realize this may sound strange to you, the thought of two grown men arguing with one another about who was fatter, with each one of us vying to be the fattest. Why would we actually want to be fat when most of the world around us was trying to desperately to slim down? Well, the answer is elementary of course: it was about a woman.

Her name was Allyson. We met her a couple weeks prior at a local nightclub where a mutual friend of ours was throwing a party. The two of us were taking a break from mingling, chugging beers at a table in a corner by ourselves when she suddenly seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, becoming drawn toward us like a magnet.

“Hey there, boys. Mind if I join you?” she giggled girlishly. Of course both Brock and I melted at the sight of a pretty young lady, and we practically fell over one another trying to pull out a chair for her at our table. “Thanks, fellas,” she said, raising her glass in the air before taking a sip. We obliged her toast, raising our drinks and sipping them in turn.

We all started talking, and we learned a lot about Allyson. She was just twenty eight years old, a photographer who worked for a local newspaper in addition to teaching at the community college. She was short in stature, no more than five-foot-three at the most. She had long dark and wavy hair, big brown eyes and pouty little persimmon-colored lips.

Her figure was thick and curvy, with wide hips and a full and soft tummy protruding from her middle. She wasn’t exactly in the same league of fatness as Brock and I, but she was certainly not too far off. In talking with her though, it became apparent that she had a strong fascination with all things fat.

“I’m so envious of you guys,” she said at one point. “I wish I could grow my belly that big.”

“You do?” I asked her. Up to that point in my life, I’d never actually met anyone that wanted to be fat.

“Oh yeah,” she said, “I’ve always wished I could be fatter, ever since I was a kid. I just love the way extra fluff looks on people.”

I was absolutely fascinated. I’d had a few love interests in my life, but never had I been able to find someone who truly could accept me for who and what I was: a very fat man. In that moment, I felt a little boost in confidence, knowing that there was at least someone out there who saw a body like mine as attractive.

Brock on the other hand, seemed to not need any boosting of his confidence at all.

“Yeah, these skinny schmucks don’t know what they’re missing!” He bellowed as he gave himself a firm pat on his big belly. “Let me get you another drink from the bar, Allyson. What’ll you have?”

“Vodka cranberry,” she said politely, “with a twist of lime please.”

“You got it,” he responded. “Percy. Another brewski?”

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”


Brock sauntered off to the bar, leaving me alone to chat with Allyson for a bit. We started talking a bit more about our experiences with weight and fat admiration. She told me that she’s always been into dating bigger guys, ever since she was in high school. She even went out with a few plus-size ladies when she was in college, but in the end she decided that was just a phase, and that she preferred the company of fat men more than anything.

I found myself sharing feelings with her that I hadn’t ever discussed with anyone, feelings about myself, my body, and my own struggles to find myself in a fat-phobic world. While I had been confronted many times throughout my life by family and friends to watch my weight and try to slim down, inside I knew that I was meant to be the size that I was. By the time I was in my mid twenties I had come to not only accept the fact that I was fat, but I’d even come to love it.

“I feel so comfortable with you,” I said to Allyson. “It’s like I can tell you anything.”

“Yeah, me too,” she responded, looking up at me with a warm smile and a glint in her eye. “It’s like I’ve known you for years.”

Just when I was about to suggest that we continue our conversation elsewhere, perhaps at her place, that’s when Brock returned with drinks in hand and loudly interrupted the mood that had been set. 
“Coming in for a landing!” he called out as he handed us our drinks. We all clinked glasses once again and began to imbibe, when suddenly the DJ put on some old 90s song that none of us had heard in years.

“Ah! Now this is what I call music!” Brock exclaimed exuberantly. Then he held out a hand toward Allyson. “My lady, would you care to dance?”

“Oh my,” she said, taking the tips of his fingers between her palm and her thumb. “Such a gentleman!”

“Come on,” he said, “Let’s cut a rug!”

Before I knew it I was sitting all alone, sipping sudds as I watched my roommate do his best to boogie down, rubbing and grinding his bulky body up against this miraculously beautiful creature whom I had quickly come to adore.


The night came to end with Allyson cordially hugging us both and giving her number to us both. I hadn’t thought much of this seemingly innocuously friendly gesture, until the next day when Brock started making a big deal about it.

“Oh yeah, she’s into me!” he chortled through a mouthful of noodles that he was stuffing down his gullet. “She’s into big guys, and there’s nobody around who’s bigger than me!”

“Well maybe she’s looking for more than just someone who’s big,” I told him. “Maybe she’s looking for someone she can connect with emotionally too.”

“Ha!” Brock sputtered, splattering droplets of noodle-juice everywhere. “Where’d you hear that crap? You been watching Oprah’s channel again?”

“Well, I just…”

“Listen, women like Allyson, they know what they want,” he said, pointing his fork at me from his seat at the kitchen table. “She’s not like one of these airheads out there that you meet on the inter-web or whatever who have no idea what they want in a man. This is a woman who recognizes class when she sees it.”

“Is that so?” I said. “Well I guess we’ll just have to see about that.”