Chapter 1 - Arrival

“You'll do just fine Brianna – stop worrying so much, they're gonna love you!” Jason laughed as he made a left turn, slapping his nervous fiancee's thigh playfully as she looked out the window with a worried expression.
 
It had been two years since Jason had been home to New York. Finally landing a job with a world-renowned restaurant chain as an operations manager, he had spent the past couple of years traveling quite a bit. The company HQ in Los Angeles had brought him together with Brianna Maxwell, a beautiful and friendly young accountant working at a nearby financial firm. They had hit it off over their mutual love for taking lunch breaks at a small cafe across the street from their offices, and it had blossomed into a relationship, then a proposal.
 
They had planned for a long time on meeting his family, but the distance and schedule conflicts made it difficult to make the journey until Jason's promotion. He was now handling the hottest market in his company – New York, and Brianna had managed to transfer to the NYC HQ of her financial firm. This meant that with their apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, they were a relatively short car ride from the rest of his family all of whom lived in Bensonhurst. They had hardly started unpacking when Jason got a phone call from his mom almost demanding that they stop what they were doing and come over for a big family dinner.
 
As they found a spot to park and walked towards his parents' house, Jason repeated some advice he had been saying for days.
 
“They're very Italian, so they're gonna be all over you...” he warned. “Don't take offense to it, they're friendly people, but there's nothing really off limits for them, and barely any filter at all...”
 
Brianna had grown up in Oklahoma before moving to Los Angeles for college and finding a job there. She had never even been to the east coast, and her family was far more on the reserved side compared to some of the stories Jason had told her. Still, the thing that had attracted her to Jason in the first place was his straightforward manner, quick wit, and sense of humor. If his family was anything like him then she felt that in theory they should get along well. She just wasn't sure what they might have in store for her. Jason had been a bit secretive about his family. She had seen some family photos of him as a young boy, but aside from that and some of his stories that was about it. She was in the dark and felt very unprepared.
 
“Here we are, my childhood home!” he smiled, taking Brianna's hand as they walked up the front steps to his parent's row home. Loud laughter and talking echoed from inside and she took in a deep breath and exhaled loudly as Jason opened the door and led her inside.
 
“Hey! Look who's here!” a loud voice called as they stepped inside. A wave of amazing aromas hit Brianna immediately, it was one of the most fantastic combination of smells she had ever encountered – a blend of Italian scents (which she couldn't distinguish but knew she liked) filled her nostrils, as her ears were blasted with the sound of chairs squeaking across the floor in the other room and unfamiliar voices saying “Oh! They're here!”.
 
The first voice was coming from a handsome man in his mid-30s who was hustling over towards them. He looked a lot like a slightly older version of her fiancee. He was tall, slim, and had very sharp and well defined features.
 
“Hey there Jason, it's great to see you made it back home.” he said, embracing Jason in a bear hug.
 
“Hey Vince, it's really good to see ya...hey let me introduce you – this is Brianna, my fiancee.” Jason replied, gesturing over to Brianna. “Bri, this is Vincent Costello, my big brother” he added.
 
Brianna smiled and extended her hand cordially starting to say “nice to m-” but was interrupted by Vince.
 
“Hey hey, none of that!” he laughed, extending his arms and scooping Brianna up in an equally large bear hug as the one he had just given his brother.
 
“It's great to finally meet you Brianna, I'm glad you two are gonna be back in the area now, it's amazing to have everyone together!” Vince belted out in his loud and excited voice.
 
“Oh! Y-yeah! Thanks!” Brianna stammered, caught off guard by the boisterous reception.
 
Then some of the occupants of the kitchen shuffled into the room. Brianna's eyes widened tremendously. It was at this time she realized that the floor was shaking slightly in the rhythm of ponderous footsteps. Three enormously fat women waddled into the room. Each followed a similar pattern of greeting to the one given by Vince – waddling over to Jason, they wrapped their arms as far around him as they could reach given their size and exclaimed how nice it was to see him, and how they were so happy he was back home. Then in turn, Brianna was introduced. The first girl was just as tall as Vince and Jason. She oddly had a fairly thin face and some of the same fine and almost chiseled features, but from the neck down she was all blubber. She had relatively small breasts, enormous arms that drooped and sagged heavily on the back of her biceps, she had an apron belly and was the widest of the three. Her hips were almost comically wide, to the extent that she must have had to turn sideways to slip through the kitchen doorway. Her thighs matched the extreme pear shape and it seemed that each one was probably wider than her waist. Brianna didn't know how much she weighed, but she imagined it had to be about 350 pounds.
 
“Bri, this is my big sister Adrianna” Jason said, as Adrianna shuffled forward for a big hug. Brianna was taken off guard by the fact that she felt was a lot more solid and dense than she expected for someone with so much fat on her.
 
Brianna was then introduced to Adrianna's husband, Mark Rossi – previously described to her by Jason as a “good Italian guy from the neighborhood”, he was shorter than Adrianna (who must have been 6'2 or so) but he seemed to be very physically fit, something that amused Brianna considering his wife was a total hog.
“What an odd couple...” she thought to herself.
 
The next woman in line was the thinnest, yet shortest of the three heifers, and was far more evenly proportioned. She was still enormous by normal standards and must have weighed about 250 to 300 pounds, but carried it well. She had a chubby face, large breasts, a protruding belly, and bulging hips with the start of a shelf butt poking against the back of her skirt. Without waiting for the intro from Jason she exclaimed loudly “Hey Brianna, I'm Jason's little sister Julia!”.
 
This hug was far squishier, like she was embracing a ball of dough. Julia was able to get her arms all the way around, and really envelop Brianna in her flab, which she did heartily and with a big smile.
 
“Bri – this is Vince's wife and my sister in law A-” Jason was interrupted by the woman he had just finished hugging.
 
“Sister in law is such an impersonal term!” Shouted the third obese girl. “Think of me as just his other big sister!” the woman laughed, patting her gigantic belly, the deep laughter causing it to bounce and jiggle up and down.
 
“Yeah yeah, alright!” Jason said, smiling. “AS I WAS SAYING... Bri, this is my BIG sister April” Jason chuckled.
 
Brianna was unsure how to react to this casual weight innuendo. If this had been in her household everyone would have been absolutely mortified at someone mentioning the almost literal and figurative elephant in the room. She decided it would be stranger if she reacted uncomfortably when nobody else seemed to be doing so, and she decided to roll with it.
 
“Hi there, 'big sister' ” she said, opening her arms for a hug.
 
April was in a class of her own compared to the other two. She was essentially a spherical blob of flab. She was 5'7, not that you would know as her horizontal girth made her look shorter than she really was. She was wearing what amounted to a tent-dress but she must have been well over 400, maybe up to 450 pounds. Like Julia, she was proportionately fat everywhere but it had been cranked up from pig to whale status. She had an enormous double chin that sort of just morphed into a layer of jiggly gelatin covering her nonexistent neck. Her breasts were flabby pancakes drooping to the side of her monstrous belly. Her ass crept up her back and merged with a belly roll wrapping backwards from her lower belly which drooped over her plump fupa. Everything, absolutely everything was enveloped in a thick layer of blubber. Her ankles had a small but noticeable roll on them, her wrists creased over her fat, stubby hands, her fingers splayed away from each other – the fat stumps of each one pressing the others away from themselves.
 
Brianna couldn't so much “hug” April as she could wrap her arms around her gigantic belly and squeeze. It was like hugging a marshmallow, it was pure soft fat – almost a liquid or foam. April, in turn could only really turn to the side a bit and reach her over plumped arm to hug Brianna's shoulder.
 
“It's nice to finally meet you, Brianna!” April said with a smile.
 
Again, Brianna was shocked at the odd couple nature of Vince and April. She was shorter than him and probably 4 times wider than he was. What a strange pair they made.
 
 
Last in line was Jason's dad, Salvatore. Once again Brianna could see where Jason and Vince both got their looks. He was a tall and slim man with well defined and chiseled features, and the quietest of the group. He greeted Jason with misty eyes and gave him a longer and quieter hug than the rest, adding softly that he was so happy to have his oldest sons home. He gave Brianna an equally warm embrace and thanked her for putting everything aside in Los Angeles to follow Jason to New York.

“Where's Johnny, I thought he was home this week?” Jason asked – referring to his little brother John who had joined the marines out of high school.

“Naah, they messed with his leave again, he's not getting back here for a while now unfortunately..” Sal replied with a sad tone to his voice.
 
“Hey pops... where the heck is 'ma?” Jason asked, changing the subject from his youngest sibling.
 
“Oh, right, she's been upstairs resting. Let me go get her – she had a big afternoon getting all of the food ready, she hasn't cooked quite like this in years!” his dad replied.
 
Sal went upstairs and in a few minutes Brianna heard loud creaking on the floorboards as heavy footsteps approached the staircase.
 
“Is that my little boy down there???” a voice called.
 
“Naah, just a stranger who's come to eat all your food!” Jason answered jokingly.
 
The enormous woman came into view. It was like a carbon copy of Adrianna descending the stairs. Tall, pear shaped, enormous on the lower half. When she reached the landing, she waddled as quickly as she was able towards Jason and almost knocked him over with the force of her hug's impact.
 
“OH Jason, I'm so glad you're finally back, it's been WAY too long, we're just SO glad you're finally home!!!” she exclaimed, tearing up.
 
“Thanks ma, I'm glad to be back, it's really nice to see everyone” Jason said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
 
Turning towards Brianna, and wiping her eyes, Jason's mom said enthusiastically “and you must be Brianna!” she said, opening her arms and going for a hug.
 
“I'm Lydia, Jason's mom, it's so nice to meet you – I'm so happy Jason found someone, I'm so happy to have another daughter!” she said, giving Brianna a giant hug.
 
“It's so nice to finally meet you Mrs. Costello...” Brianna began
 
“No, please, none of that Mrs. Costello – call me 'ma' “ Lydia responded.
 
Brianna contemplated the irony of being surrounded by Italian-Americans and having the phrase “when in Rome...” echo in her head. It felt strange to call someone who wasn't actually her mother “mom” or “ma” but she didn't want to seem out of place and embraced it right away.
 
“Sorry, ma!” she said with a smile.
 
“That's better!” Lydia replied. “Alright, well look at you, you're skin and bones – Jason, why haven't you been taking care of your wife-to-be? She's clearly famished, let's all go into the kitchen – dinner should be ready let's EAT!” she said, turning to waddle through the tight doorway.