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[A 12,000 word story for an anonymous client, thanks for your commission, and everybody else, enjoy!]

Lalia wrung the napkin between her hands as she watched the restaurant diners gorge themselves all around her. The white square of cheap paper has been twisted into a tube and was currently being twisted tighter and tighter. She licked her dry lips, looking around nervously as her fingernails with flecks of last months’ nail polish hanging on to them tangled the napkin around her digits slowly.

She looked down at the single empty plate in front of her. A few stray salad leaves clung to the small, cutlery-scratched surface. Lalia bit her lip and furrowed her brow uneasily before reaching forward and picking off the remnants of her light lunch with her thumb and index finger.

“Lalia, leave something for the dishwasher to do, please,” her mother unfolded her arms and tutted in the seat opposite, pushing her own plate to the center of the table.

“Yes mom, sorry mom,” Lalia quietly apologized, quickly passing the tiny morsel between her lips before her mother could protest any further.

The look of fury directed at Lalia was only interrupted by the presence of the pretty young waitress at the side of the table. The was girl around Lalia’s, if a little younger, and had shown the mother and daughter to their table and taken their order. Arriving at that moment, she bustled up to the seated pair with a learned, painted on smile,

“Alrighty folks, are we all done here, hmm?” she enquired sweetly, her curly brunette locks bouncing to a halt around her slender face with its delicate features,

“Yes thank you,” came Lalia’s mother’s clipped response,

“Alrighty, can I get you anything else?” the waitress asked, batting her long, mascaraed eyelashes over her glistening blue eyes, “Would you folks like to see the dessert menu? Hmm?”

Lalia, sitting self-consciously on her hands shifted in her seat like an excited puppy. A longing, involuntary,

“Oo-ooh!” escaped her lips, which she clamped shut with a jump at one sharp maternal glance from across the table.

“No thank you, just the check, please,” Lalia’s mom answered,

“Alrighty,” came the breathy, singsong reply, as the waitress took the two lonely looking plates and turned to walk away. Lalia’s heart sank. She looked guiltily up at her mom, who’s eyes followed the waitress across the restaurant, a few meagre lunch patrons dotted around,

“Drop a few pounds Lalia and you could look like that pretty little thing,” she commented in a barely lowered voice,

“Mo-o-m!” Lalia ashamedly objected, “Can you not?”

“I’m just saying sweetie, I bet she has the boys crawling all over her,” shrugged her mother, still staring at the waitress winding her way between tables,

“She’s just trying to do her job mom,” Lalia whispered in protest,

“I know dear, but she’s such a pretty little thing,” she repeated. Lalia looked from the side of her mother’s head to the object of her admiration. Apron strings double knotted around a tiny back, the waitress’s dark pleated skirt fell at knee length. Below the waistband her hips barely flared out and she wore a top exposing the top of her freckled back and the nape of her neck. As she turned around the counter, Lalia could see that she was close to flatchested. Undeniably, she was objectively beautiful, and built like a supermodel,

“Mom that girl must be about 100 pounds on a fat day,” Lalia reasoned, “She’s got boyish hips and no boobs whatsoever. I could never eat again and still not look like her on my freaking death bed.”

Lately it had felt like Lalia would never eat again, as she surreptitiously passed her hand over her flat, empty belly under the table. She felt her stomach rumble beneath her palm, disapproving of the meal of salad and sparkling water that had just been sprinkled into it. If you could even call it a meal, she miserably reflected, propping her chin on her fist,

“Language, Lalia, please,” was all the response the redhead got, “And elbows off the table! People will think I didn’t raise you right!”

Lalia’s mother swatted at her with a hard backed food diary until she moved her arms as instructed. She didn’t even lift her head as the waitress returned with the bill, leaving Lalia to smile and thank the young girl as she left the check on a saucer with two mints as her mother scribbled in the diary. Lalia hurriedly took the tiny piece of candy and clamped it between her tongue and the roof of her mouth. If she could make it last a few minutes, maybe the hunger pangs would stay away a little longer.

Slowly, eventually, Lalia’s mom reached into her purse and at her own pace took reading glasses out. Putting them on her face, she picked up the check and read it once through the lenses, once over the rims of the glasses, and once through the lenses again. Frowning, she paid the bill, leaving a 5% tip,

“You’re welcome, Lalia,” she sighed exaggeratedly after a few seconds of silent pause, as Lalia desperately stumbled over her words,

“Oh um sorry mom, thanks for lunch mom,” she smiled to a stare of disapproval,

“Let’s go,” her mother said. Lalia stood up, pushing the wooden chair across the floor with her calves and letting her mom go first. Quickly, she snatched the other mint from the table and stuffed it into her pocket. Lalia paused a moment before walking. She looked down, and tightened the belt of her loose-fitting blue jeans by a notch with an unhappy sigh.

It had been a long summer break from college for Lalia, moving back in with her mom. She would have much preferred to live with her dad down in Florida this year. But he had fallen off the radar some months ago. Whether he was raising ‘gators or been eaten by one was unclear. Either way, as the end of semester approached, it became increasingly clear that Lalia would have to move across town to the suburbs and back in with her mother. No adventures in the south for another year.

On the face of it, as she reached the top of the double-wide staircase and walked along the mezzanine to the third door on the right out of five, she didn’t have much to complain about. Entering her bedroom, which had barely changed at all since she was 17 or 18 years of age, the sun streamed through the sash windows into the big, high-ceilinged room. Having kicked off her pumps near the front door, her mother had chased her to store them neatly in the shoe closet. So now Lalia pulled off her socks one by one and walked barefoot over the darkly varnished floorboards, across a thick rug, and sat at her desk.

Most people would envy the cushy living space and lack of need to get a summer job. Free bed and board, and all Lalia had to do was to tolerate her mother’s meddling for a few months. First world problems indeed.

Yet, there was a problem, and it left Lalia thoroughly depressed. It had also left her under 140 pounds for the first time since she was 16. At 6 feet tall and as curvaceously built as Lalia was, 140 was bordering on… there was no other word for it, she thought… skinny.

If Lalia’s mother didn’t exactly control her every waking moment, she certainly controlled her every waking meal. Those had been slashed to three a day; a healthy breakfast, a light lunch, and a sensible dinner. Absolutely no snacking. Definitely no takeouts. Stuffing? Binges? What even were those?

Lalia paused, listening to her mother, off working through her daily list of chores in some distant part of the vast duplex. Sliding a drawer of her nearby dresser open, Lalia had to remind herself exactly what those were every once in a while. She rifled past underwear from the last year or two. Currently Lalia was wearing a DD cup, which her deflated boobs didn’t even come close to filling. She couldn’t bring herself to downgrade any further, for now.

Finding what she was looking for, she slid open her memory box, and took out that rare, nostalgic thing. Printed photographs. Digital of course, downloaded from a phone and printed off at a big box store. But printed photos nonetheless. She looked for herself, in the sea of friends and faces, her eyes passing over her own face several times before coming back and spotting her smile.

Then her shock of straight, flame-colored hair. Then her chins. Lalia had to stop herself from giggling out loud as she saw her photographed expression, mouth wide open, shrieking with laugher. Her arms were around the boy next to her, who looked mortified yet delighted at Lalia’s pose, as a thick, feminine thigh rose across the front of his body and could be traced back to poking out from under Lalia’s skirt. His hand held her leg up under the knee, as her boobs gushed from her low-cut top across his chest. How had she failed to spot herself initially?

She stood, clutching the handful of photos, and looked at her profile in the mirror. Lalia lifted up the striped jumper she wore for the overcast June day, looking at her flat stomach and her exposed ribs. Her ribs! Wow, that was why she didn’t recognize herself.

Shaking her head, she leafed through the collection of pictures. She looked at the next photo, taken at the end of a table lined with people either side, over ten smiling faces with Lalia somewhere in the middle. The brightly lit photo hinted at a busy restaurant in the early evening.

Even Lalia was a little shocked as she put that photo to the back of the pack and looked at the next. Clearly much, much later on that night, it was a picture of Lalia seated at the same table in the same restaurant, alone. Clearly she had eaten untold amounts of food, and her monumental gut ballooned comically from her body. With a broad smile, Lalia was lifting her staggeringly vast belly towards the camera with both hands, wearing a formerly white but since food-stained t-shirt. Clinging desperately to her enormous tits and covering next to none of her belly, it bore a gaudy restaurant logo, stretched and distorted over her chest.

Lalia chuckled silently as she moved to the next photo, a picture of her standing, balancing multiple empty pizza boxes on one hand mimicking a waiter in a fancy restaurant. She sported a huge, twin-sized gut and an almost equally large grin on her face.

Just then, she heard her mother begin climbing the stairs, so calmly hid the photos away again, sat on her desk chair and picked up her phone as if she were tapping away at it the whole time.

“Lalia? Honey?”

“Yes mom?” Lalia answered, as her mother rounded the door with a smile on her usually severe face,

“I have a little present for you!” she whimsically entoned,

“Oh?” Lalia narrowed her eyes with suspicion,

“Look what I ordered for you!” her mother said, and produced from behind her back a small pair of white denim cutoff shorts,

“For… for me?” Lalia hesitated, “Th-thanks mom...”

“They’re size eight sweetie, so something to work towards,” her mother sniped, passive-aggressively patting Lalia’s upper arm,

“Gee mom,” Lalia deadpanned, “I dunno what to say.”

* * * * *
“Like, seriously Jane, it’s just like… y’know? I’m just like… Jane, I can’t even string a sentence together, I feel faint,” Lalia stumbled over her words, gesticulating wildly across the booth table she sat at with her friend.

It had been too long since Lalia had seen her best friend and long-suffering roommate. Jane had walked in to the diner and almost not recognized Lalia at first. But the glimmering red head above her newly-sculpted cheekbones gave her away. Even if she did look a shadow of her former self. Jane could just about bring to mind the last time she had seen Lalia without some item of her clothing stretched and barely able to contain the spilling curves beneath.

“God Lalia, it really sounds like she’s got your number. You look gaunt,” Jane consoled her. A summer work split between volunteering and working at the college library’s archive had left her looking invigorated. On the other hand, Lalia had the look that people get when they have been hitting the gym too hard. She was slimmer, but nowhere near as energized, and her vivacious personality had been dulled,

“I… I do? I mean… look, it’s not like I want to be fat,” Lalia looked up with shock at Jane’s face after her comment,

“Oh of course not!” Jane broke in quickly, then making a grab for the straw of her drink with her teeth as she listened to Lalia protest,

“It’s just… super slim Lalia really isn’t me...” she frantically tried to explain, her voice raising an octave,

“You’ve got to find the balance,” Jane nodded, taking a gulp of her strawberry milkshake and pushing her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose after all the nodding she had been doing,

“Exactly! I’ve got to find the balance,” Lalia concluded with another flourish of her hands. There was a pause between the two before Jane smiled warmly,

“Come on Lalia, let me buy you a milkshake. My treat!”

Lalia’s hands went from gesticulating across the table to clenched together as soon as Jane had spoken,

“Ohhh, I don’t know...” she began, her voice pitching back down again and little more than a conspiratorial whisper.

Her eyes darted around Maguire’s Diner. They specialised in milkshakes, ice cream, root beer floats, and other retro treats of that kind. During summer vacation, the place was busy with carry outs, grandparents buying the children in their care a little indulgence. Teenagers on first dates sat awkwardly across the table from one another, making small talk. Lalia’s front teeth bit her lower lip gently,

“Lalia, when the hell have I ever offered to buy you food?” Jane giggled softly, encouragingly, “This is a one time thing,”

“Okay Jane, but just the one, cos otherwise my mom will go insane.”

* * * * *
Gently closing the front door behind her several hours later, Lalia was immediately confronted with the imposing figure of her mother in the entrance hall to her home. Lalia looked up with a start to find her overbearing matriarch, standing in front of her in the beginnings of dusk with her arms folded tightly across her chest,

“Did you enjoy your little catch-up Lalia?” said her mother, not without a hint of malice in her voice,

“It was great thanks mom, Jane is really well,” Lalia smiled, naively failing to detect her mom’s tone, “She’s volunteering at...”

“Where did you go?” Lalia clamped her mouth shut suddenly, beads of sweat forcing their way through the pores on her forehead as she stumbled over even this simple question,

“Um… we just met at Maguire’s, why?” she replied, lowering her head like a schoolchild in front of the principal,

“And what did you have to eat?” the interrogation continued,

“Nothing mom I didn’t have anything to eat.”

There was a brief pause and the slightest hint of a smile nudged the corners of her mom’s mouth upwards before disappearing again, and Lalia’s mother went on,

“Very good… and to drink?”

Sweet Lalia smiled broadly, looking at her mother lovingly as she began to declare with delight,

“Aw mom you’d be proud of me, I just had one small milkshake, cos I knew you w-”

“A MILKSHAKE?!”

Lalia stopped talking immediately. With tears in her eyes and an abnormal stammer to her voice, she tried to recover the situation from her clearly furious mother,

“Y-yes mom, b-but just the one, and I walked all the way there and...” Lalia tried and tried to explain herself. Just one milkshake! It was her first treat in weeks, and she surely had worked off any fattening effect it had on her -

“Do you realize how many calories are in one of those?!” her mother was near hysterical now, the color rising into her face, her hands flying away from her chest as she advanced towards Lalia,

“M-mom I thought I was doing good!” Lalia shrank back to the front door, pressing herself up against it and making herself as small as she could, “Jane wanted to buy me a milkshake and I said-”

This stopped Lalia’s mom in her tracks. She blinked, her jaw tightly pressed together,

“Jane. I might have known it would be her fault,” she began to speak again, this time slowly, deliberately. Icily,

“That’s the last time you see that friend of yours Lalia,” her mother said, exactingly,

“B… b-but mom, it… it’s Jane! You love Jane!” Lalia objected, horror filling her voice, moving forward from the doorway, her voice escalating in tone as her mother’s descended,

“No Lalia she’s a sweet girl but exactly the kind of bad influence you don’t need,” her mom shook her head and continued matter-of-factly, as if she was explaining to a much younger child why they couldn’t have a toy,

“I’ve seen the sort of portions her mother serves and it has obviously rubbed off on that daughter of hers,” she snapped, brusquely,

“B-b-but mom! It’s Jane!” was all Lalia could think to say, “She’s my best friend! We lived together for… f-for…”

Her mother suddenly exploded with furious, Lalia letting out a yelp as her mom suddenly screamed,

“And look at the size you ended up Lalia!”

She was stunned at both the volume of her mother’s words, and also at the ferocity that she delivered them with. There was venom in her tone that even the redhead’s worst enemy wouldn’t have reserved for her,

“You were an embarrassment when I got you back Lalia! An overweight, lazy, slobbish, greedy layabout who did nothing but stuff herself all day!”

Her mother was advancing towards her again now, Lalia backing as far away as she could. What kept her from sliding down the front door and curling up in a ball was the sheer shock of her mom ranting such hatred at her,

“Well no more! I am sick…” her mother was right in front of her now; Lalia could feel her hot breath and see the mad glint in her eyes as she jabbed a bony finger below Lalia’s collarbone,

“And tired…” she jabbed again, painfully, “Of being ashamed of my only daughter,”

Lalia was shocked to tears at the hissed conclusion to her mother’s verbal assault. She couldn’t hold back the tears any longer and her face turned pinkish red as fat teardrops fell from her eyelashes and yet more streamed down her cheeks,

“Lalia I forbid it, and that’s final,” her mom concluded, and turned to walk away,

“M-mom… she’s… she’s my whole world, mom… you can’t do this,” Lalia sobbed, her voice little more than a squeak. It served only to break her mother’s stride for just a moment. She didn’t even face Lalia, inclining her head over her shoulder so that Lalia only saw its profile momentarily,

“Oh yes I can, Lalia. You just watch me.”

* * * * *
The first thing that Lalia did was tell Jane about all of this. After all, what parent can actually ban their children from having contact with a friend these days? The lines of communication were endless, and Lalia knew she would be able to keep in touch with Jane for a while at least before her mother found out. Even then, how mad could she really get about her grown-up daughter seeing a grown-up friend?

Lalia’s mom was many things; prying, controlling and vindictive to name but a few. But a technology wiz she certainly wasn’t. So Lalia immediately informed Jane of the situation
via a Skype message,

“That sucks, but we’ll get around it,” came Jane’s reassuring reply.

Jane always knew what to do, and this time was no exception. They would simply have to meet where Lalia’s mother would have no business following them. Coffee shops, restaurants, fast food outlets, perhaps the food court at the mall, Jane suggested. Lalia was thrilled. Jane was usually so cautious, and this mixed with her willingness to go against her mom’s wishes meant Lalia got to see her best friend just as much as ever.

Perhaps she saw her with even greater frequency than that. There seemed to be no lengths that Jane wouldn’t go to in order to see Lalia. It also seemed like there was nothing a single kind of food that Jane would deny Lalia. In fact, on the days when her mother’s meddling in both her friendships and diet especially got her down, Jane would even buy Lalia her favorite treats wherever they chose to meet. Lalia reasoned it must have been Jane’s sympathy coming out in practical ways.

Soon a secretive diet of pizza, pasta, burgers, fries, milkshakes and iced caramel macchiatos began to take its toll. Lalia’s shrinking stomach abruptly halted and turned in the opposite direction. To her horror, she was having to buy larger clothes in order to hide the weight she was gaining from her mother. This lead to some very tense exchanges between the two. Inevitably, the stress also lead to more eating.

Lalia would worry herself to the point of trembling whenever she stood on the scale to find her weight had increased. She even found herself looking over her shoulder at the cash register of clothing stores when buying extra large clothes that would swallow her burgeoning figure, half expecting to see her mother peeking out from a rail of shirts.

It was on just such a day that Jane insisted on walking Lalia home, a situation that gave the redhead the beginnings of a panic attack. Although, she couldn’t tell if her shortness of breath was due to anxiousness or from being increasingly out of shape. It was made all the worse by the huge meal bloating her gut outwards as they walked, her round belly bouncing with motion. Nevertheless, Jane told her friend they would part ways a safe distance from Lalia’s residence. For her part, Lalia had no idea where quiet unassuming Jane got her bravery from,

“Gee Lalia, you are thicker than the bowl of oatmeal a bowl of oatmeal had for breakfast,” Jane laughed as she lagged behind Lalia momentarily and saw her jostling, jiggling ass cheeks gently stretching the fabric of her pants. She had no idea where this streak had suddenly come from either, as a chortling Jane caught up,

“Oh my God, you can tell? Really?” Lalia gasped in horror,

“Barely,” smirked Jane, “Besides, don’t worry, you look great!”

Lalia nodded unsurely as they reached the crosswalk Jane had agreed to finally leave her at, which over a bridge lead to Lalia’s destination. The pair exchanged goodbyes and a heartfelt hug, but Jane called after Lalia as she turned to leave,

“Careful Lalia, that sign says the weight limit here is three tons,” Jane grinned, pointing to a road sign,

“Ja-a-a-a-nne! Don’t say that!” Lalia whined, and set off home at a steady walking pace to ensure she wasn’t too winded if she crossed paths with her mother.

* * * * *
Arriving home, the coast seemed clear to Lalia. Only the light at the top of the stairs above the entrance hall was on, the rest of the house in eerie silence. Lalia softly closed the door and pressed forward, not exactly sneaking, but keeping noise to a minimum.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mom. Sitting on the couch, watching Lalia’s entrance. Her heart skipped a beat. Why was her mother sat in near-darkness, without so much as the TV on?

“Hey mom,” she smiled feebly,

“Hello sweetie,” her mother’s voice rang sweetly back. A little too sweetly,

“I’m just gonna-”

“Lalia?” the question cut off the excuse the redhead was about to make. She didn’t like this. After a second’s hesitation she replied,

“Yes mom?”

“Could you try on those denim shorts I bought you?”

Lalia’s blood froze.

“I want to see my special little girl in the outfit I bought especially for her,” she said, with a malevolent grin,

“I… uh… don’t know where they are, mom,” Lalia was in trouble. She knew it instinctive as she took a step up the staircase,

“Oh, they’re right here honey,” her mom held up the shorts, concealed from Lalia’s view until they were dangling, freshly ironed, from their belt loops, between her mother’s hands, “Oh they were hard to find… shoved to the bottom of your laundry hamper… by all those… big, oversized outfits you’ve been wearing, sweetie pie,”

“M-mom?” Lalia quivered, breaking out in a cold sweat,

“Why don’t you put these on for mommy, angel cake? See where all that… hard dieting has gotten us...”

Her mother was up off the couch before Lalia could take another step and clamped her hand around Lalia’s wrist, spongey with chubbiness. Suddenly the shorts were in front of her face,

“Y-yes mom, I’ll just go and change into...”

“No, butter cup. Here. Now.” she mother snapped,

“S-sure mom,” Lalia began taking off her jeans, exposing her thick, wobbling thighs. Her mother’s jaw tightened. She stepped into the shorts, and slid them up. There was no way they would button, so Lalia mimed buttoning them under her shirt,

“There mom, let me go put something else on so I...”

“Nooo, tootsie pop,” her mom simpered in a high-pitched voice, “Let me see you… properly.”

Lalia didn’t like this one bit, trying to turn and get away up the stairs, her pulse quickening. But she couldn’t just run. She needed an out. An excuse. Anything,

“M-mom please can I-”

“Off with that big ol’ t-shirt dress, munchkin,” her mom barely stopped short of cackling. Before she knew it, her mother was dragging the t-shirt off over her head. Her scalp stung where her ginger hair was being pulled, as she heard her mom muttering,

“Let me see you, cupcake. Surely that diet has been paying off, honey bucket. I’m SURE you haven’t been cheating... dumpling!”

She struggled, but the shirt was soon over Lalia’s head, and she stood in the hallway in just an ill-fitting bra and obviously far too small denim daisy dukes,

“Piggy!” her mother hissed. Lalia gasped. She tried to cover herself up, pulling the poorly-fitting G cups of her bra back over her pink areolas as her erect nipples scraped on the fabric uncomfortably,

“Mom, I-”

“I KNEW it, fatass!” her mother roared, her incensed gaze turning down to the shorts nestling beneath Lalia’s huge, wobbling, stuffed belly,

“MOM!” Lalia wheezed; the words came like a punch to her growing gut. But her mother lunged forwards and grabbed handfuls of fat on each of her daughter’s hips,

“Look at these disgusting saddlebags! Lalia you f… you… y-you fat fucking COW!”

The house resounded with her screech. Silence followed, with only the living room clock’s ticking punctuating it.

“Get out,” she snarled,

“Mom?”

“Get out now, Lalia. Don’t pack. Go as you are. And don’t come back. I am… humiliated… to call you my child,” she spat.

Her mother turned and stormed away, leaving Lalia with only the sound of echoing, retreating footsteps and the creak of a denim seam straining between her butt cheeks.

* * * * *
Lalia awoke the next day, not knowing where she was but vaguely recognizing her surroundings. It was a comforting place, where she was surrounded with soothing yellows and cosy, snug textures. She blinked her eyes, fluttering her long eyelashes against the sunlight streaming through blinds across a window above her.

She was in a bed, she could tell that much. It certainly wasn’t hers, she knew instinctively. But where exactly it was, she didn’t know. That was until Jane’s face appeared almost in front of hers.

Jane recoiled with a start, scrabbling for her glasses and kicking a sleeping bag off her legs from her position on the floor.

“Y-you’re awake!” she stated somewhat obviously, before offering a week smile, “M-morning,”

“Hey,” Lalia returned the friendly glance, “Um… what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” Jane’s facial features knotted as she looked at her friend with concern,

“I mean, what gives?” Lalia pursued unsurely, “How come I stayed over,”

“You mean you don’t remember?” Jane’s look of worry only deepened. Lalia could only shake her head as she felt her heart rate increase involuntarily,

“Lalia you turned up here in a taxi after midnight, with no money and almost naked,” Jane explained, “I got out of you that your mom had kicked you out, but I thought something much worse had happened,”

“Wh-what?”

“Lalia… you arrived in just your underwear. Your hair was a mess. Your makeup was all screwed up. You looked like you’d been in a fight,” Jane gulped, “You… you looked like you’d been… assaulted...”

“Oh...” Lalia said vacantly, as the pieces of what Jane said slotted into place in her mind, “Oh! OH! Oh no, nothing like that!”

She frantically tried to assuage Jane’s conjecture. What had happened however, she knew wasn’t much better,

“No, just… my mom… she kicked me out,” Lalia shrugged, trying to be nonchalant when she was still shocked numb by the whole thing, “She um… got wind of my gaining, I guess… saw the results for herself,”

Jane eyed her with distress,

“Didn’t give me much choice about showing her,” Lalia pursed her lips and smiled ruefully,

“Lalia,” Jane tried to sound reassuring, “That’s sexual assault. You can go to the police about this,”

“No… no, I don’t… I don’t think I wanna,” Lalia said, continuing her forced smile and mumbling, “Seems like… it might make the whole situation worse,”

Jane nodded,

“Um...” Lalia looked around the room, “Got any of my old hoodies still?”

* * * * *
The food smelled so good as Lalia descended the stairs behind Jane. She sniffed a deep lungful of the aroma, inhaling the warm morning air. Jane pushed open the swing-hinged door and some steam escaped from the top of the door frame as the pair entered to a one-woman hive of activity,

“Lalia my dear! Good morning!” Jane’s mother cried out with a mixture of sympathy and pleasure,

“Morning Mrs. J., nice to see you- *BLUP!*” Lalia smiled sheepishly before Jane’s mom squeezed Lalia’s cheeks between both hands causing her lips to pout, “Shorry choo show up aftcher midnight,”

“Ohhhh don’t mention it Lalia, you know you’re welcome her any time, day or night!” she fussed, releasing Lalia’s face so that she could flex her jaw again, “My, my, my you have been through the wringer little one!”

Lalia and Jane took a seat at the breakfast table as the kind older lady bustled about them, returning to the cooker she had been busy at,

“I haven’t seen you crying like that since somebody stuck their finger into your slice of cake at Jane’s eighth birthday party,” she continued, to which Lalia giggled childishly,

“Mo-o-m,” Jane rolled her eyes with a smile,

“Oh I’m sorry Jane, you’re right, it must have been your seventh!” Jane’s mother chuckled, “Anyway listen to me babble on! Lalia my little pumpkin, whatever can I get you for breakfast? Pancakes? Waffles? Bacon? Maybe all of those!”

“Oh mom, don’t fire so many questions at her!” Jane almost mirrored the motherly chuckle as she glanced to her side at their guest, “Just make her all of them!”

Lalia took a breath in but Jane stopped her short,

“She’ll protest about it,” she turned and glanced at Lalia to make eye contact with a smile, “But give her everything and I know she’ll love it,”

Lalia returned the smile, and Jane’s mom gazed at the two with a loving sigh before setting to work once again. Pretty soon, she had delivered on her promise. She came over, depositing a piled plate in front of Lalia, then depositing a kiss on her red head and one on Jane’s forehead before busying herself elsewhere in the kitchen,

“She’s the best, right?” Jane smiled,

“Well… second best,” Lalia said, shuffling closer to Jane so that their thighs touched, and commencing eating.

* * * * *
“You just stay with Jane and I just as long as you like, Lalia,” Jane’s mom was saying, as she scooted around the kitchen in a whirl of activity. She washed dishes here, opened the fridge there as she spoke, opening the oven to check on something one moment and reaching to refill Lalia’s plate the next.

She listened to an approximation of the same speech every morning, and never tired of hearing it. How much she was welcome. How much she was wanted. She’d lost count of how many she had heard since her mother had disowned her.

Lalia was of course no slouch when it came to eating. But even she had to admit that the pile of food in front of her had barely diminished in the half hour she had been sat at the table. Her jaw ached from chewing and smiling. Her eyes and sides stung from laughing at the tales of old times that Jane’s mother had regaled the pair with non-stop.

The women seemed to be a boundless whirlwind of energy, never eating, never ceasing for a moment, just making sure in her motherly way that everybody around her was taken care of. Lalia on the other hand seemed to have been constantly eating, not just that morning but since she had arrived at Jane’s house. The bottomless brunch she was currently consuming bloated her belly out beneath the table, pushing the waistband of her joggers down and tunnelling its way out between her pants and hoodie.

As quickly as Lalia shovelled the food into her mouth, more sausages, additional hash browns, another slice of toast, a further round of biscuits, a scoop more of scrambled eggs, arrived in front of her,

“Mom, I think you’ve cooked enough,” Jane shook her head with a laugh, “Really, it’s fine,”

“Oh but honey, are you sure you don’t-” her mom looked up from scrubbing a pot to be put into use,

“Mom, thanks but there’s plenty here!” she assured her worried mother, “If we need seconds, we can just grab it. Why don’t you relax a while?”

“You’re right my dear, you know me,” her mother sighed, “I just can’t help but make a fuss,”

“And that’s why we love you mom, but take it easy for a half hour! Please?” Jane smiled,

“Ok sweetheart,” her mom returned the warm smile, folding a dishcloth and placing it over the faucet, and twisting a dial on the oven, “I’ll go and watch TV for a while. If you need anything else, it’s staying warm in the hotbox,”

“Thanks mom,”

“Thanksh Mishish J!” Lalia grinned with a mouthful of food. Jane’s mother stroked her daughter’s cheek lovingly on the way past and ruffled Lalia’s ginger hair, and the kitchen door swung shut behind her as she disappeared,

“You can get your breath back now Lalia, rather than inhaling food,” Jane giggled, with a nudge of her elbow on her friends’ upper arm. Swallowing a mouthful of potato pancake, Lalia emptied her mouth completely for the first time in many minutes,

“Geez Jane, your mom is such a feeder!” laughed Lalia, leaning back in her chair for her pregnant-looking gut to squirm between her spread legs, “Now I know where you get it from,”

“L-Lalia! I… I am not a f-… f-...” Jane blushed hard and stammered her words as Lalia chuckled and squeezed Jane’s thigh with her hand,

“I’m just kidding, hon! Look at your face!” she winked,

“Ha! Good one, Lalia,” Jane smiled uneasily, her pulse slowing and her brow stopping barely short of sweating.

She looked at her former roommate and current houseguest, looking infinitely happier than she had done when Jane had met up with her at the milkshake bar. After a few weeks of her mom’s home cooking, Lalia was looking much more like herself. A spare tire around her waist and smuggling pumpkins in her chest and pants was how Jane pictured Lalia in her minds’ eye. And that was definitely how Lalia was looking again, with a little extra too. Particularly at the moment, as she took a brief break from constant eating to give her expansive gut a brief rub.

Jane’s heart rate quickened and her mouth dried as she took a breath in to joke,

“N-now, come on! Eat up! We wouldn’t want you going hungry!” and pushed Lalia’s plate closer to her with a bright smile, which the redhead returned,

“Gladly!” she said, picking up her fork and digging back in to the mounded food before her. Jane pursed her lips and wet them with her tongue, pushing her chair back and walking to the oven as casually as possible. Bending over and looking in, she glanced back to the table,

“More sausages, Lalia?” she asked, “You heard what my mom said, there’s plenty here,”

“Oh!” said Lalia gratefully after swallowing her latest forkful, “Don’t mind if I do!”

With an oven mitt, Jane removed the scalding hot dish from the metal shelf. Placing the roasting pan on a trivet, she took and plate and decanted the eight or ten sausages onto it, before carrying it to the table and placing it in front of the diner,

“Thanks Jane!” Lalia warmly acknowledged,

“That’s okay Lalia, there’s plenty more where that came from.”

In the living room, Jane’s mother heard the kitchen door swing open and footfalls approach where she was sat in her armchair. She heard this, but paid little attention, with the fluffy slippers she wore on her feet elevated on an upholstered stool and her eyes engrossed in the plot of a soap opera playing on the television across the room.

The reflections of characters playing out their dramatic lives were visible in her glasses, as was the image of Lalia who staggered past,

“Thanks for… urp! B-breakfast, Mrs. J,” Lalia croaked, waddling by Jane’s reclining mother with her belly sprawling feet from her body and her hands clasped to the small of her back in order to carry the thing,

“You’re welcome, my dear,” Jane’s mother said sweetly, but without removing her eyes from the screen, and seemingly not noticing the gigantic, quadruplet-sized belly that Lalia struggled to carry across the room,

“Jane’s just… washing up,” Lalia breathed heavily, leaning on the doorway before starting towards the staircase and calling back, “I’m just going for a lie down,”

Glancing at the giant, sloshing belly disappearing around the corner as the stairs each creaked loudly in turn, Jane’s mother turned back to her soap in another second,

“Of course my dear,” she smiled innocently.

* * * * *
“Jane, what if my mom sees me like this? She might never let me home again,”

A month had gone by since Lalia had last seen her mother. Perhaps longer, she hadn’t exactly marked off the days on the calendar. Other than a rescue operation when she knew her mom would be at the salon to rescue some clothes – most of which she had now outgrown – she hadn’t even returned home in that time,

“Lalia, I mean this in the nicest possible way… well actually I don’t… but anyway, what I was gonna say is, fuck what your mom thinks,” Jane stabbed her finger into the table between the two to reinforce her point, “She doesn’t ever deserve to have you home again after what she’s put you through. Another slice?”

“Mmmm… I really shouldn’t…” Lalia said, placing a hand on top of the upper roll of her expansive belly, which she couldn’t even see past the continental shelf of her boobs,

“So that’s a yes then?”

“I believe it is, yes,” she grinned with a slight groan, as Jane picked up the eighth of pizza and flopped the cheesy segment onto Lalia’s plate, “But… you know what I mean, right?”

“Alright so you’ve gained a little… people change!” Jane shrugged, looking at what she conservatively estimated to be 300 pounds of Lalia, “Just because your mom wants to keep the pair of you looking like you did five, or in her case, fifty-five, years ago… it doesn’t mean that’s possible,”

Lalia chewed thoughtfully. For her, that meant not gulping down mouthfuls in milliseconds, but she didn’t exactly look as if she was ruminating much. In her head however, she felt like a noble cow chewing on a cud,

“People change, Lalia,” Jane repeated as the redhead polished off the latest slice, “Another pizza?”

“Whoa holy crap, that’s the third one gone already?” Lalia gawked in disbelief. Jane just nodded,

“So do you want another?” Jane persisted, looking at her old fashioned leather-strapped wristwatch,

“There’s still another hour of pizza buffet time left,”

“Sure, what the hey, it’s summer vacation,” Lalia reasoned with a chuckle, as Jane got up from their table in the corner and approached the buffet stand. Selecting a 14-inch pepperoni, she picked up the pizza stone, taking the entire thing and turning back towards their table,

“Hey!” a red shirted male employee barked at Jane, “I told you before, you can’t do that,”

Stopping and dropping her shoulders slightly, Jane spun back around on the spot, depositing the stone on a nearby table and glaring at the middle-aged bus boy, his navy cotton cap covering his receding blonde hairline,

“And I told you before that I couldn’t care less, Brian,” Jane said through gritted teeth, glancing down at his name tag as she dipped into her jeans pocket and brought out a note, “Now shut up about it, bring out a replacement, and there’s a $20 tip in it for you,”

She held a folded-up Jackson between her index and middle finger, and slotted the note between Brian’s name badge and his shirt. With that, Jane turned again, picked up her pizza – or, more accurately, Lalia’s – and returned to the table, running a pizza wheel through the doughy disc,

“I dunno, it just feels like I’m burning my bridges, kinda,” Lalia continued her thought from earlier,

“Lalia, just be careful you don’t burn you mouth, okay?” Jane smiled, plopping a greasy slice of pepperoni pizza before the redhead, “Trust me, everything’s gonna be fine. Now eat up.”

* * * * *
“That was so nice of them to just give me a whole pizza to go!” Lalia approved, as she wobbled across the parking lot to Jane’s car,

“Wasn’t it?” Jane grinned, tucking her empty purse into a handbag, “We’ll have to go back there!”

“Definitely! Although, my waistline will probably thank us if we had a break from there for a week or two!” Lalia laughed, “Man, pizza is fattening!”

“What, this?” Jane giggled, reaching out and poking the jutting lower roll of Lalia’s massive protruding belly, “Just a little food baby! You gotta expect that after thirteen pizzas!”

“Th-thirteen?” Lalia juddered to a stop, her heaving breasts bouncing to a halt after a further few moments, “You said I’d had twelve… and that was only after I told you I was sure it was more than ten!”

“Yeah… well… I couldn’t exactly leave you on an unlucky baker’s dozen… right?” Jane explained haphazardly, glancing at the pizza box in Lalia’s hand. Pouting her lips, Lalia recommenced waddling,

“Jane it’s cool that you don’t mind me pigging out and all, but aren’t you worried I’m getting...” Lalia wondered aloud, “You know… kinda… well, overweight?”

Jane turned to face Lalia, casting her hand over the huge swell of her lower belly, pulled a little tauter than usual by her brimming stomach crowded with pizza,

“You look great Lalia,” Jane assured her, reaching down and catching hold of the waistband of Lalia’s large, stretchy joggers. She pulled briskly upwards and Lalia’s fat sunk into the roomy pocket of fabric, and Jane let go of the elasticated waist, which sprung into the extensive crease in the middle of Lalia’s abdomen, housing and hiding her navel,

“There,” Jane satisfactorily patted the bulbous muffintop of Lalia’s upper belly, “Better?”

“B-better,” Lalia smiled, blushing slightly as they set off again towards the car. Tumbling in, Lalia set the pizza box half on the dashboard and propped it on the ledge of her gut. Jane swung open the door and climbed into the drivers’ seat,

“For the road?” she asked, glancing from Lalia to the pizza box as she fumbled the keys into the cars’ ignition and turned them to start the engine,

“Oh! No, I wasn’t gonna...” Lalia vowed, but Jane reached over and swung the box lid open. Steam escaped, rising into Lalia’s face as a smile formed around the edge of Jane’s lips,

“Come o-o-o-n-n, it’ll be cold by the time we get home,” she encouraged, scooping up a slice, carrying it over the hump of Lalia’s bulging bosom and offering it to her plump lips. Unable to resist, the chunky redhead leaned forward and took a large bite, grasping the pizza with both hands as Jane retracted her grip,

“Mmmhhh… sch-o-o-o-o goot!” she sighed. Jane bit her lip and nodded, shifting the car into drive.

* * * * *
As the weeks went by, Jane found more and more excuses to treat Lalia with extravagant lunches and dinners.

It was like calories followed Lalia wherever she went. As soon as she got up in the morning, Jane’s mother was like an automated factory churning out breakfast. It seemed like Jane left Lalia longer and longer every day before ushering her mother away from the cooker. Perhaps it seemed that way, because that’s exactly what was happening.

Jane placed greater and greater demands on her mom’s cooking, which her nurturing disposition was only too glad to meet. Lalia couldn’t help but eat up, not wishing to seem like she was being ungrateful for the bed and breakfast she was receiving. As well as the lunches, and dinners, and suppers, and packed lunches… Jane oversaw all this of course, and ensured that Lalia not only never went hungry, but that as little time as possible throughout the day would pass without her munching on something.

Meanwhile, nearly every day more and more of Lalia’s meagre supply of clothes ceased to fit her entirely. This necessitated almost weekly trips to the mall to restock, with Jane underplaying Lalia’s journey through dress sizes every time they hit the stores. She was flying through bra sizes with similar rapidity. With some of her old underwear still in circulation and in various stages of not fitting her, Lalia’s true bust size was always a bit of a haze to her.

But no amount of larger bands and adjustments could hide the fact that she was simply bursting out of insanely large letters like MM, P, and even Q. Her behind was no slouch either, troublesomely crammed into whatever underwear and trouser combination that could be hefted over her booty cheeks’ twin bulk. Wherever Lalia walked, she could feel her vast swinging ass wobbling and bobbling behind her, enormous saddlebags where the projecting curves of her hips once were.

Of course with each mall visit came a meal (or sometimes several) at the food court. A stuffed Lalia would always have trouble fitting her bloated gut back into the passenger seat of Jane’s car come home time. But Lalia also noticed that the seat was required to be a notch further back most times she entered the car even when – relatively – empty.

Even the quiet street on which Jane lived underwent a subtle transformation. It seemed like there was barely a time of the day or night when there wasn’t some sort of courier at the door. Postal carriers brought larger clothes for the clearly growing Lalia – dress sizes unbeknownst to them approaching the high 30’s – while delivery drivers deposited hot food, both in between and as a replacement to meals. Jane was always on hand to stuff the delicious morsels into Lalia’s mouth, and to help when the resulting pounds became burdensome.

* * * * *
“Come on… Lalia! Oopsie-daisy!” Jane grunted, hauling Lalia out of the passenger seat of her car at the third attempt.

Lalia thrust herself forward and then used her thick legs to propel herself as soon as her feet made contact with the driveway. This time, the momentum of Lalia’s hugely stuffed gut carried her forward and after scraping away from the dashboard, it bounced and bobbled its way out of the car door,

“Phew! Thanks Janey!” she smiled, finally catching her balance and leaning on Jane’s shoulder,

“That’s fine Lalia, what are friends for?” a red-faced Jane smiled back, prompting a chuckle from Lalia that sent her belly sloshing and rippling,

“Well apparently for talking me into eating 53 buffet plates tonight,” she laughed, rubbing her replete gut as Jane struggled not to gaze longingly at it,

“I don’t think you can even count when you ate in terms of plates, Lalia,” Jane shrugged a little guiltily, “I’ve never seen even you just take the whole steam tray back to the table and eat from that,”

It was Lalia’s turn to blush and look slightly guilty, as she tugged the hem of her t-shirt down in an attempt to cover a little more of her rounded, protruding belly against the cold night air,

“Yeah they were not happy about that when they found out,” she winced at the memory, swinging the car door shut, “Why do such angry people go into the restaurant business anyway?”

“You’d think they would appreciate patrons enjoying their food,” Jane smirked, paraphrasing a speech she remembered Lalia giving the last time something similar had occurred,

“Thank you!” Lalia gestured emphatically, before beginning to waddle towards the house. Jane followed, booping the alarm on her car and then hurrying to dig her house keys out of her bag.

Habitually, Jane and Lalia wandered into the kitchen to find the hub of the house quiet and empty. Although Jane was disappointed, she spotted a note left on the kitchen table and picked up the small yellow reminder paper with her mother’s neat, old fashioned writing penned on to it,

“‘Jane and Lalia’”, she spoke out, “‘I felt a migraine coming on so I went to bed, I made a cheesecake and put it in the fridge in case you’re hungry. Hope you girls had fun! Let me sleep in the morning, love Mom,’”

Looking up, Jane found Lalia’s head already buried in the refrigerator, her face beaming in the cold light produced by the opened door,

“Wow Jane, this looks like it should be behind glass in a New York deli!” Lalia gasped as she slid the pristine cheesecake off the shelf, “It should be behind glass in a freaking museum, this thing is a work of art!”

“I can think of a place it would look better...” Jane smirked, tossing the note onto the table, approaching Lalia’s bulky, protruding gut and cupping her hands around its soft, stretched-out rolls of fat. Lalia blushed, looking from the cake to her friend,

“Ohhh Janey I already got one heck of a cargo here,” she protested, biting her lower lip gently and glancing back down at the cheesecake, her belly brimming with Chinese food bursting out from her body underneath. Jane simply smiled,

“I’ll get a knife,” she replied softly, turning and walking towards the cutlery drawer,

“J-… j-just a… f-fork… um, would be fine,” she heard the squeaked, shameful request from behind her, and struggled to contain her glee.

* * * * *
“Sh-shit… s-sorry… I got a little… um, carried away there,” Jane said, with widened eyes, looking up at her lifelong friend’s face. Lalia’s lower lip quivered as her upper teeth bit softly into it and her eyes met Jane’s. There was a few seconds of silence, each of the two seeming to hold her breath.

Jane took stock for a moment to reflect how they had gotten here. Of course Lalia had wanted her mom’s delicious cheesecake; when had she ever been able to resist dessert? She had waddled into the living room with Jane following, carrying the plate with the three inch-high dessert on it in both hands, and settled on the couch. Jane, of course, had fed the whole thing to Lalia. And of course Lalia had protested about feeling like a glutton. But she had eaten every mouthful she was offered, until Jane set the empty, crumbless plate on the floor and placed the well-used fork on top.

It was only then that Lalia had grimaced, her hands clutching at her blimp-like belly, which was definitely unlike her. Complaining about trapped gas, Jane realized she hadn’t heard one of Lalia’s earth-shuddering burps in hours, since they were back at the Chinese buffet.

Jane hadn’t needed any further encouragement, and set to work trying to alleviate Lalia’s discomfort. She grabbed Lalia’s overburdened track pants by their cuffs and hauled them over her enormous bubble butt and massively thick thighs. She totally exposed Lalia’s belly by helping her to drag her t-shirt over first her breasts then her head.

Wincing at first, Lalia soon purred with pleasure and relief as Jane rubbed her gut all over and the burps came pouring out of her. Jane’s face became increasingly flushed as her hands roved all over Lalia’s deflating but still massive belly, descending beneath her trembling belly button.

Lower and lower she had rubbed, Lalia’s barely-visible face soon disappearing from sight behind her mountainous belly until suddenly, Jane gasped. Her stomach lurched and her eyes widened, as her hand strayed into Lalia’s panties, obscured to the wrist by the pink fabric.

“It’s… it’s ok...” Lalia quietly said after Jane’s apology. Jane just blinked,

“Y-you mean… it’s ok, like… no problem? Um… or…?” Jane slowly tried to edge her hand back out of Lalia’s underwear the way she had entered. Lalia’s hips moved forward slightly as she did. Jane moved her hand further backward, but Lalia’s hand gently caught her by the wrist,

“Or… um…” Jane licked her dry lips, “You mean it’s ok like… c-carry on?”

She looked back up to see Lalia’s lips parted, her front teeth bared slightly in a silent gasp. Jane’s eyes fell downward. To Lalia’s chubby fingers wrapped around her thin wrist. To where Lalia’s gut obscured the rest of her arm and hand. Where below the mound of fat, her fingers nestled inside Lalia’s pink panties...