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Description
Paul’s Dilemma

Warning: This is an adult/fetish story involving weight gain, adult language, feeding, and stuffing. If this isn’t your type of thing, please don't read it.

By berserker1133 & polarisdreamer

Chapter 3- Too Good to Be True
(Part 1 of 2)

As the morning light began to produce a mild glow in the cloudy sky, the sound of rainfall pitter-pattered atop the dilapidated roof of the downtrodden apartment building. The relaxing sound was a welcome relief to Claire’s ears. Last night, she’d fallen asleep to some awkwardly loud sex noises that pounded into Paul’s bedroom from the noisy couple living below them in apartment 2b.

As she began to stir, the peaceful quiet of Paul’s bedroom soon gave way to the gentle rustling of covers. Claire rolled to the side of the bed as quietly as she could to grab her phone. Tapping the screen and checking the time, Claire couldn’t believe it!

*5:59AM*

It was amazing! Somehow, she’d done it again! She’d woken up a minute before her alarm was set to go off! A week ago, when she’d first done it, the experience had been a welcome surprise. She hated waking up Paul with her alarm. Since he was such a peaceful sleeper, she hated ruining it for him. With a quick swipe of her finger she disabled her alarm and let out a quiet yawn.

Her morning spin class was set to start in an hour. She’d only made three out of five classes last week and she was determined to make all five this time. No excuses. She needed to get out of bed and get ready.

Quietly digging herself out from under the covers, Claire softly rolled out of bed and stumbled sleepily toward Paul’s closet. After her wardrobe difficulties three weeks ago, Claire had convinced Paul to let her store a larger array of clothes at his apartment. In fairness, it hadn’t taken much effort to convince Paul. He was always so supportive. Especially recently with her diet.

Joining weightwatchers had been a big change for her, but also for Paul. He’d had to learn dozens of newer recipes to cook for her and he had to change his normal grocery shopping habits to accommodate Claire’s new dietary needs. She was thankful for his support, but she also felt a bit guilty. Her diet was interfering with how they usually had fun. She’d cut drinking pretty much cold turkey and Paul didn’t like to drink alone. Their weekly restaurant dates had largely stopped, since apparently low point options seemed to be hard to come by in the culinary sector of the birthplace of America.

However, despite all the changes, Claire and Paul still found ways to enjoy their time. They walked around downtown together. They watched their TV shows together. They were never short on finding engaging topics of conversation, and the sex was still wonderful. Everything was going great, except for one thing.

Despite her efforts to stick to weight watchers and attend the gym more regularly, even as she stared at herself in the mirror right now, Claire couldn’t notice a big difference in her body. Sure, the scale told her she’d lost 5 pounds so far, but she’d been kind of hoping for better results. Her clothes didn’t really fit any better. Her tummy still looked big and flabby. Her butt hardly felt any less round and jiggly. What did she have to do to lose some serious poundage?? What was the secret?

Trying to calm herself down, Claire quietly creeped out of Paul’s room and snuck toward the kitchen to grab herself a banana for breakfast. However, before she even passed by the bathroom, she could hear a noise coming from the main room of the apartment. At first, she thought her sister was awake and watching TV, but after blinking away the blurry vision from her eyes, Claire could see that the noise she was hearing stemmed from two sources. The first was repeating music on the TV. It looked like Emma had left her DVD of Titanic on its menu screen all night. The second was her older sister’s annoying snoring. She was loud even when she wasn’t awake.

As Claire’s eyes adjusted to the dim light of the room, what she saw horrified her. For starters, the apartment was a bigger mess than usual! Her sister’s clothes were clearly discarded all over the place. There was a jean jacket on the kitchen chair, a tank top on the oven, shorts on the floor, a sock on the TV stand, and leggings hanging from the back of the sofa! But that wasn’t the half of it!

On the coffee table, there was an opened, and empty, domino’s pizza box with two slivers of stale crust lying next to it on the table’s surface. They weren’t on a plate. They were crummy, greasy and laying right where they shouldn’t be, next to the remote. And of course, there were the multiple empty beer bottles all thrown about in no logical ordering on the poor coffee table. Claire counted six in total, no.. seven. There was one on the carpet too.

Stepping onto the carpet and looking at the culprit, Claire glared at her sister. Emma was passed out asleep on the couch in nothing but a bra, panties and what appeared to be one of Paul’s flannel shirts that he’d been keeping in his box of winter clothes toward the back of his closet. How had Emma gotten her hands on it?

Claire wanted to contemplate the possibilities, but she didn’t have time right now. She had to clean this up before Paul saw it! Her boyfriend and older sister had gotten off on the wrong foot three weeks ago. She knew tensions between them were a little high, while they adjusted to living under the same dilapidated roof.

Paul’s main complaint about Emma was that she took up a lot of space and made it difficult for him to get comfortable working on his art. She hogged the bathroom. Sang loudly in the shower. Didn’t clean her dishes or pick up after herself. When she was in her bedroom, she was blasting music. And when she was in the main room, she was hogging the couch and the TV. The only time she would leave the apartment was to pick up food she’d ordered or to pick up a case of lionshead beer from the store down the street. He kept finding the distinctive puzzle caps freaking everywhere. It appeared Emma couldn’t get enough of them.

While Claire completely understood where Paul was coming from, she couldn’t help but feel bad for her sister. She couldn’t imagine what her sister was feeling since splitting up from her longtime lover. However, judging from Emma’s anti-social behavior these past three weeks, Claire could guess that Emma wasn’t feeling very well. It was obvious she was depressed. Claire had even tried to offer her sister some help, but Emma was way too proud to admit anything was wrong.

Something had to change.

Claire looked upon the dirty dishes her sister had left in the sink and rushed to clean them. Once she’d polished off everything in the sink, her attention turned to Emma’s clothes. She grabbed every last far-flung garment of clothing and folded them neatly on the arm of the sofa. Then she grabbed the pizza box and managed to squeeze it into the trash can along with Emma’s leftover crust. After shutting off the TV, she rounded up the empty beer bottles and tossed them in the recycling bin. With the coffee table finally free of clutter she could wiped it down and clean off any crumbs or bits of crust that remained. Finally satisfied with the look of the apartment, Claire turned her attention to her sister. She looked cold.

Grabbing a blanket from her sister’s even messier room, Claire was about to toss it on her sister when she noticed something. A few things actually. The most obvious thing to Claire was the smudge of pizza sauce that Emma had on her lower lip. Claire was able to skillfully lick her finger and wipe off the smudge from her sister’s skin without waking her up. Emma was a heavy sleeper. She’d even bragged about sleeping through a fire drill in college. Feeling that everything was finally clean, Claire was about to give Emma the blanket, but her eyes couldn’t help but notice the rather auspicious bulge in her sister’s tummy.

Her sister was no stranger to overeating and wasn’t immune to the occasional food baby, but this was something different. Something softer. Something.. a little fuller. Nothing significant, but Claire was sure her sister looked a little thicker around her midsection. Served her right for all times she’d criticized Claire’s weight. If Emma wasn’t careful, she’d start to have a little pot belly going on down there. Now that would be karma!

Snickering to herself at the thought, Claire gently lay the blanket upon her sister and decided to leave Paul a little morning note before she left for the gym. Judging from the time she’d wasted cleaning; she knew she’d be late to her spin class. Maybe she could go to the gym again tonight to make up the lost time?

After Claire took the trash down the stairs to the dumpster and headed off to the gym, the apartment remained quiet for the next few hours. Paul was the next person to awake from his sleep. The rain had stopped, but they day remained a cloudy mess. Paul didn’t want to get out of bed, but he was craving some coffee. Looking to his side he had to admit that it was always a little bit sad to wake up without Claire next to him, but since her semester had started, he’d gotten more and more used to it.

Making his way to the kitchen, Paul could tell Claire had done some cleaning before she left. Clothes were folded, dishes were done. The place looked spotless, well.. except for Emma sleeping on the sofa again. As Paul ignored Emma and looked toward his coffee maker, he noticed a note next to it. He couldn’t help but smile once he spied it was Claire’s beautiful handwriting. After carefully reading it, he threw the note into his back pocket and got started with answering Claire’s request.

…
20 minutes later..
…

Something was in the air. Emma’s stomach gurgled, as she realized her body was wrapped in a blanket. Coming to her senses but still feeling tired, she tried to guess the scent gracing her sense of smell. Her headache made it hard to decipher, but she was certain chocolate was nearby.

“Mhhhh.. What is that smell?” Emma cooed, while her eyes remained stubbornly closed. Her nose bristled with each subsequent curious sniff she took, and her voice continued, “Is that.. Chocolate chip pancakes?!”

“Correct.” Paul’s voice responded rather quickly, while Emma unintentionally flinched. For some reason she’d expected her sister’s voice, not Paul’s. The surprise of hearing him so close caused Emma’s eyes to dart open the instant the noise stopped coming out of his mouth.

Coming to her senses in a quick fashion, Emma saw that Paul had taken a seat on the coffee table in front of her. While she had to admit that her sister’s boyfriend was pleasant to look at, he was much closer to her than she felt comfortable with. Especially after what she’d found in his closet last night when he’d been on a walk with her sister. Not wanting to reveal her significant doubts about his long-term viability as her sister’s boyfriend, she withheld her feelings and resolved to wait for the right moment to ascertain the truth.

“For me?” Emma innocently wondered, as she spied three plates beside Paul on the table. One looked empty with some left-over syrup skid marks and a chocolaty knife and fork. That one was probably Paul’s breakfast. The larger plate was piled high with no less than four large pancakes, it had a see-through Tupperware container over it, probably to preserve their warmth. And then there was a smaller plate, presumably hers, with two large pancakes, a nice glob of butter slathered in the middle, a large bottle of maple syrup to the side and a tall glass of milk to its side.

“Correct again.” Paul smiled, as he lifted up her plate and offered it to her.

“What’s the catch?” Emma skeptically asked, as she poked her arm out from under her blanket and shakily rested the plate against her stomach while she remained prone on the couch. This was most unexpected. Paul normally left her alone unless she was in his way. Had he found out she’d been snooping through his stuff? There wasn’t any way she could find out without giving herself away.

“What? There is no ‘catch.’ I made you breakfast.” Paul replied seemingly perplexed by Emma’s apparent lack of gratitude, “You’re welcome.”

“You trying to fatten me up?” Emma unexpectedly burst, as she raised an eyebrow. Paul looked calm and cool on the outside, but Emma couldn’t see that internally he was taken aback by the suggestion.

“No! But.. I was wondering if we could talk.” Paul revealed his intentions, as he shook off Emma’s comment. It was weird she’d suspect him of something like that out of the blue like this, but he had just made her a rather hardy breakfast. He had to assume it was just Emma being Emma and nothing more sinister.

“I’m listening.” Emma expectedly voiced in an impatient tone, as she wrapped her hands around her plate and sat upward.

“Well..” Paul began, as he tried to keep Claire’s letter in mind. However, his attention turned, as Emma sat upward, to the blanket formerly covering her upper body falling downward to her waist. The fact Emma’s large breasts were contained by nothing but a meager bra was eye-catching, as was the bit of bloating or softness he detected around her stomach area, but what really sent alarm bells going off in the back of his mind was the unbuttoned flannel shirt she had on.. Could it be the same shirt he used to conceal.. No.. Their was no way.. Paul’s voice immediately broke with worry, “Umm.. Where did you get that shirt??”

“I found it, duh!” Emma annoyingly sighed, as she avoided meeting Paul’s eyes and instead grabbed a pancake with her bare hands and rolled it up like a French crepe. She poured some syrup on it before taking a sizable bite. As she chewed, she finally met Paul’s eyes. She was giving him a weird look. Paul needed to know.. He couldn’t be comfortable unless he knew..

“Umm.. where did you find it?” Paul inquired, as he desperately hoped Emma hadn’t been digging through his bedroom closet.

“It was under the couch I think.” Emma lied with a smile. Paul was clearly on high alert now. She needed him to calm down if she wanted to ascertain the true intensions he had for her innocent little sister. As her eyes narrowed on Paul’s, she took another bite from her pancake to fill the silence.

“Okay, whatever, look.” Paul shook his head in relief. He’d been so worried she’d found his stash that he’d happily take her response as a bullet dodged. In relief, he got back on track with Claire’s request, “Claire asked me to make you breakfast and see if you’re okay. This isn’t the first time we’ve found you passed out on the couch drowning in empty beer bottles and pizza boxes. Are you okay?”

“Just haven’t been sleeping well. Last night was probably the worst so far.” Emma admitted, while she continued chewing. Paul had clearly bought her lie. She’d lull him into a false sense of security and then get the truth out of him.

“Nightmares?” Paul wondered in a considerate tone, as he faithful tried his best to follow Claire’s wishes.

“No.” Emma spat, as her mouth tore into the pancake once more. The truth of her poor sleeping habits recently was rather complicated, and she was sure she didn’t want to get into it with Paul right now.

“Is something wrong with your bed?” Paul curiously asked wondering if there was something he could do to help. As his concern remained on helping Emma, in the back of his mind he couldn’t help but marvel at the way Emma ate her pancakes. He’d known better than to give her a knife and fork by now. Somehow, he knew she’d eat the pancakes with her hands. As she dipped her rolled up pancake into the syrup again, he wasn’t disappointed by the way she lavishly opened her mouth wide for the coming treat. How she fit the whole amount of the remaining pancake into her mouth, Paul didn’t know. She seemed to really savor the taste of food and filling her mouth to capacity. It was an attractive quality that Paul had to admit Claire didn’t share.

“My bed’s a little big but it’s fine.” Emma reluctantly answered Paul’s question in a dismissive sounding tone. Her mouth was full when she talked, so Paul wasn’t totally sure if his questions were bothering her. He decided to hold off on his follow up questions while he watched her reach for her glass of milk and take three large gulps before clearing her throat with a rather large, “*Bwwarrp!!* I think my room’s a problem. It’s too fucking hot.”

“You.. have an air conditioner.” Paul pointed out doubtfully, as he tried to ignore how oddly attractive he found Emma when she burped like that. He had to remain focused. Emma’s complaint didn’t make total sense to him. As she began rolling up her second pancake in the same fashion as her first, he suspected she was hiding something.

“And my room’s too quiet. I hate quiet. I need something on in the background otherwise I go crazy.” Emma continued with a bite of her second pancake.

“You know turning on your air conditioner would solve both of your problems, right? The revolutionary thing about air conditioners is that they are cold and loud.” Paul countered in a straightforward, if a little condescending, tone.

“Oh, yeah I knew that. I just.. I didn’t think of..” Emma stuttered, as she realized she hadn’t put enough effort into her excuses. Paul wasn’t buying her bullshit. If she wanted to lull him into that false sense of security, she’d have to give him some truth now. Bursting more sincerely, Emma reluctantly admitted, “It’s lonely, okay? I don’t like sleeping alone, I’m not used to it, okay? The beer has been helping me relax and the pizza has been helping me soak up the beer so I don’t get sick. There is a method to my madness.”

“You’re more than welcome to hang out with Claire and..” Paul offered sensing Emma had just given him the true reason for her pouty behavior over the past few weeks. He wanted to console her but before he could finish his thought, she countered.

“Do I look like a third wheel? I don’t think so. I don’t want any pity invites from you two. I don’t need help making friends.” Emma pouted, as she stubbornly began munching on her pancake. She hadn’t wanted the conversation to go this way.

“How are you going to make friends if you never leave the apartment? Have you even been looking for a job?” Paul asked, as Emma seemed annoyed by his persistent questions.

“I don’t need a job yet! I still have money.” Emma argued sounding a little heated, as she whined, “Besides, I don’t want new friends. I want my old friends..”

“Huh?” Paul reflexively uttered, as he didn’t follow Emma’s logic.

“Let me break this to you slowly. My friends were my ex’s friends first. So now that we are over, they can’t really be my friends anymore.” Emma revealed, as Paul got the gist of what she was saying.

“That sucks.” Paul admitted trying to find some common ground with Claire’s obstinate sister.

“Yeah it does.” Emma agreed, as she chewed through another bite of her breakfast. Paul sensed it was probably the right moment to press her a little further and get to the bottom of her troubling coping habits.

“Is.. umm.. Do you think your breakup has something to do with what’s keeping you up at night?” Paul reluctantly inquired, as he braced for an irritated response from Emma, but it didn’t come. Instead she looked rather dismayed.

“For sure.” Emma admitted, as she grabbed her cup of milk and took a few gulps without a burp this time.

“Wanna talk about it? I understand if you don’t want too. But talking about it might make you feel better.” Paul offered still holding out hope that he could do what Claire asked and help Emma feel better.

“I think you’re actually right. Let’s talk.” Emma agreed to Paul’s surprise.

“So..” Paul began not wanting to overstep his bounds, “How long were you two together?”

“Six years..” Emma sighed, as her eyes seemed to gloss over at the same time her voice seemed to weaken, “Haha, six years but I guess I never really knew him.”

“What do you mean?” Paul responded out of real concern. Emma’s voice didn’t just sound a little sad. She sounded a little, vulnerable. Finishing off the last of her second pancake, she proceeded to respond to him with her mouth full again.

“You see he was a liar. Kept secrets. But not major secrets. He was the perfect guy on any given day of the week, but if he didn’t want me knowing about something, he’d hide it from me. It was usually stuff that didn’t really matter, betting money on a sports team, getting skipped over for a promotion at work. I think he wanted to spare himself the embarrassment of telling me. Either way, he got good at hiding, I got good at seeking. When I dug up anything he’d been hiding, I wouldn’t rub it in his face. I didn’t want to make him feel bad.” Emma paused, as she momentarily broke eye contact with Paul, “And then I found out that he cheated on me with another girl. I might have been able to forgive him when it counted, but he would rather lie than take responsibility for his actions. I’m such an idiot for wasting so much time on him.. He was too good to be true.”

Description
Paul’s Dilemma

Warning: This is an adult/fetish story involving weight gain, adult language, feeding, and stuffing. If this isn’t your type of thing, please don't read it.

By berserker1133 & polarisdreamer

Chapter 3- Too Good to Be True
(Part 1 of 2)

As the morning light began to produce a mild glow in the cloudy sky, the sound of rainfall pitter-pattered atop the dilapidated roof of the downtrodden apartment building. The relaxing sound was a welcome relief to Claire’s ears. Last night, she’d fallen asleep to some awkwardly loud sex noises that pounded into Paul’s bedroom from the noisy couple living below them in apartment 2b.

As she began to stir, the peaceful quiet of Paul’s bedroom soon gave way to the gentle rustling of covers. Claire rolled to the side of the bed as quietly as she could to grab her phone. Tapping the screen and checking the time, Claire couldn’t believe it!

*5:59AM*

It was amazing! Somehow, she’d done it again! She’d woken up a minute before her alarm was set to go off! A week ago, when she’d first done it, the experience had been a welcome surprise. She hated waking up Paul with her alarm. Since he was such a peaceful sleeper, she hated ruining it for him. With a quick swipe of her finger she disabled her alarm and let out a quiet yawn.

Her morning spin class was set to start in an hour. She’d only made three out of five classes last week and she was determined to make all five this time. No excuses. She needed to get out of bed and get ready.

Quietly digging herself out from under the covers, Claire softly rolled out of bed and stumbled sleepily toward Paul’s closet. After her wardrobe difficulties three weeks ago, Claire had convinced Paul to let her store a larger array of clothes at his apartment. In fairness, it hadn’t taken much effort to convince Paul. He was always so supportive. Especially recently with her diet.

Joining weightwatchers had been a big change for her, but also for Paul. He’d had to learn dozens of newer recipes to cook for her and he had to change his normal grocery shopping habits to accommodate Claire’s new dietary needs. She was thankful for his support, but she also felt a bit guilty. Her diet was interfering with how they usually had fun. She’d cut drinking pretty much cold turkey and Paul didn’t like to drink alone. Their weekly restaurant dates had largely stopped, since apparently low point options seemed to be hard to come by in the culinary sector of the birthplace of America.

However, despite all the changes, Claire and Paul still found ways to enjoy their time. They walked around downtown together. They watched their TV shows together. They were never short on finding engaging topics of conversation, and the sex was still wonderful. Everything was going great, except for one thing.

Despite her efforts to stick to weight watchers and attend the gym more regularly, even as she stared at herself in the mirror right now, Claire couldn’t notice a big difference in her body. Sure, the scale told her she’d lost 5 pounds so far, but she’d been kind of hoping for better results. Her clothes didn’t really fit any better. Her tummy still looked big and flabby. Her butt hardly felt any less round and jiggly. What did she have to do to lose some serious poundage?? What was the secret?

Trying to calm herself down, Claire quietly creeped out of Paul’s room and snuck toward the kitchen to grab herself a banana for breakfast. However, before she even passed by the bathroom, she could hear a noise coming from the main room of the apartment. At first, she thought her sister was awake and watching TV, but after blinking away the blurry vision from her eyes, Claire could see that the noise she was hearing stemmed from two sources. The first was repeating music on the TV. It looked like Emma had left her DVD of Titanic on its menu screen all night. The second was her older sister’s annoying snoring. She was loud even when she wasn’t awake.

As Claire’s eyes adjusted to the dim light of the room, what she saw horrified her. For starters, the apartment was a bigger mess than usual! Her sister’s clothes were clearly discarded all over the place. There was a jean jacket on the kitchen chair, a tank top on the oven, shorts on the floor, a sock on the TV stand, and leggings hanging from the back of the sofa! But that wasn’t the half of it!

On the coffee table, there was an opened, and empty, domino’s pizza box with two slivers of stale crust lying next to it on the table’s surface. They weren’t on a plate. They were crummy, greasy and laying right where they shouldn’t be, next to the remote. And of course, there were the multiple empty beer bottles all thrown about in no logical ordering on the poor coffee table. Claire counted six in total, no.. seven. There was one on the carpet too.

Stepping onto the carpet and looking at the culprit, Claire glared at her sister. Emma was passed out asleep on the couch in nothing but a bra, panties and what appeared to be one of Paul’s flannel shirts that he’d been keeping in his box of winter clothes toward the back of his closet. How had Emma gotten her hands on it?

Claire wanted to contemplate the possibilities, but she didn’t have time right now. She had to clean this up before Paul saw it! Her boyfriend and older sister had gotten off on the wrong foot three weeks ago. She knew tensions between them were a little high, while they adjusted to living under the same dilapidated roof.

Paul’s main complaint about Emma was that she took up a lot of space and made it difficult for him to get comfortable working on his art. She hogged the bathroom. Sang loudly in the shower. Didn’t clean her dishes or pick up after herself. When she was in her bedroom, she was blasting music. And when she was in the main room, she was hogging the couch and the TV. The only time she would leave the apartment was to pick up food she’d ordered or to pick up a case of lionshead beer from the store down the street. He kept finding the distinctive puzzle caps freaking everywhere. It appeared Emma couldn’t get enough of them.

While Claire completely understood where Paul was coming from, she couldn’t help but feel bad for her sister. She couldn’t imagine what her sister was feeling since splitting up from her longtime lover. However, judging from Emma’s anti-social behavior these past three weeks, Claire could guess that Emma wasn’t feeling very well. It was obvious she was depressed. Claire had even tried to offer her sister some help, but Emma was way too proud to admit anything was wrong.

Something had to change.

Claire looked upon the dirty dishes her sister had left in the sink and rushed to clean them. Once she’d polished off everything in the sink, her attention turned to Emma’s clothes. She grabbed every last far-flung garment of clothing and folded them neatly on the arm of the sofa. Then she grabbed the pizza box and managed to squeeze it into the trash can along with Emma’s leftover crust. After shutting off the TV, she rounded up the empty beer bottles and tossed them in the recycling bin. With the coffee table finally free of clutter she could wiped it down and clean off any crumbs or bits of crust that remained. Finally satisfied with the look of the apartment, Claire turned her attention to her sister. She looked cold.

Grabbing a blanket from her sister’s even messier room, Claire was about to toss it on her sister when she noticed something. A few things actually. The most obvious thing to Claire was the smudge of pizza sauce that Emma had on her lower lip. Claire was able to skillfully lick her finger and wipe off the smudge from her sister’s skin without waking her up. Emma was a heavy sleeper. She’d even bragged about sleeping through a fire drill in college. Feeling that everything was finally clean, Claire was about to give Emma the blanket, but her eyes couldn’t help but notice the rather auspicious bulge in her sister’s tummy.

Her sister was no stranger to overeating and wasn’t immune to the occasional food baby, but this was something different. Something softer. Something.. a little fuller. Nothing significant, but Claire was sure her sister looked a little thicker around her midsection. Served her right for all times she’d criticized Claire’s weight. If Emma wasn’t careful, she’d start to have a little pot belly going on down there. Now that would be karma!

Snickering to herself at the thought, Claire gently lay the blanket upon her sister and decided to leave Paul a little morning note before she left for the gym. Judging from the time she’d wasted cleaning; she knew she’d be late to her spin class. Maybe she could go to the gym again tonight to make up the lost time?

After Claire took the trash down the stairs to the dumpster and headed off to the gym, the apartment remained quiet for the next few hours. Paul was the next person to awake from his sleep. The rain had stopped, but they day remained a cloudy mess. Paul didn’t want to get out of bed, but he was craving some coffee. Looking to his side he had to admit that it was always a little bit sad to wake up without Claire next to him, but since her semester had started, he’d gotten more and more used to it.

Making his way to the kitchen, Paul could tell Claire had done some cleaning before she left. Clothes were folded, dishes were done. The place looked spotless, well.. except for Emma sleeping on the sofa again. As Paul ignored Emma and looked toward his coffee maker, he noticed a note next to it. He couldn’t help but smile once he spied it was Claire’s beautiful handwriting. After carefully reading it, he threw the note into his back pocket and got started with answering Claire’s request.

…
20 minutes later..
…

Something was in the air. Emma’s stomach gurgled, as she realized her body was wrapped in a blanket. Coming to her senses but still feeling tired, she tried to guess the scent gracing her sense of smell. Her headache made it hard to decipher, but she was certain chocolate was nearby.

“Mhhhh.. What is that smell?” Emma cooed, while her eyes remained stubbornly closed. Her nose bristled with each subsequent curious sniff she took, and her voice continued, “Is that.. Chocolate chip pancakes?!”

“Correct.” Paul’s voice responded rather quickly, while Emma unintentionally flinched. For some reason she’d expected her sister’s voice, not Paul’s. The surprise of hearing him so close caused Emma’s eyes to dart open the instant the noise stopped coming out of his mouth.

Coming to her senses in a quick fashion, Emma saw that Paul had taken a seat on the coffee table in front of her. While she had to admit that her sister’s boyfriend was pleasant to look at, he was much closer to her than she felt comfortable with. Especially after what she’d found in his closet last night when he’d been on a walk with her sister. Not wanting to reveal her significant doubts about his long-term viability as her sister’s boyfriend, she withheld her feelings and resolved to wait for the right moment to ascertain the truth.

“For me?” Emma innocently wondered, as she spied three plates beside Paul on the table. One looked empty with some left-over syrup skid marks and a chocolaty knife and fork. That one was probably Paul’s breakfast. The larger plate was piled high with no less than four large pancakes, it had a see-through Tupperware container over it, probably to preserve their warmth. And then there was a smaller plate, presumably hers, with two large pancakes, a nice glob of butter slathered in the middle, a large bottle of maple syrup to the side and a tall glass of milk to its side.

“Correct again.” Paul smiled, as he lifted up her plate and offered it to her.

“What’s the catch?” Emma skeptically asked, as she poked her arm out from under her blanket and shakily rested the plate against her stomach while she remained prone on the couch. This was most unexpected. Paul normally left her alone unless she was in his way. Had he found out she’d been snooping through his stuff? There wasn’t any way she could find out without giving herself away.

“What? There is no ‘catch.’ I made you breakfast.” Paul replied seemingly perplexed by Emma’s apparent lack of gratitude, “You’re welcome.”

“You trying to fatten me up?” Emma unexpectedly burst, as she raised an eyebrow. Paul looked calm and cool on the outside, but Emma couldn’t see that internally he was taken aback by the suggestion.

“No! But.. I was wondering if we could talk.” Paul revealed his intentions, as he shook off Emma’s comment. It was weird she’d suspect him of something like that out of the blue like this, but he had just made her a rather hardy breakfast. He had to assume it was just Emma being Emma and nothing more sinister.

“I’m listening.” Emma expectedly voiced in an impatient tone, as she wrapped her hands around her plate and sat upward.

“Well..” Paul began, as he tried to keep Claire’s letter in mind. However, his attention turned, as Emma sat upward, to the blanket formerly covering her upper body falling downward to her waist. The fact Emma’s large breasts were contained by nothing but a meager bra was eye-catching, as was the bit of bloating or softness he detected around her stomach area, but what really sent alarm bells going off in the back of his mind was the unbuttoned flannel shirt she had on.. Could it be the same shirt he used to conceal.. No.. Their was no way.. Paul’s voice immediately broke with worry, “Umm.. Where did you get that shirt??”

“I found it, duh!” Emma annoyingly sighed, as she avoided meeting Paul’s eyes and instead grabbed a pancake with her bare hands and rolled it up like a French crepe. She poured some syrup on it before taking a sizable bite. As she chewed, she finally met Paul’s eyes. She was giving him a weird look. Paul needed to know.. He couldn’t be comfortable unless he knew..

“Umm.. where did you find it?” Paul inquired, as he desperately hoped Emma hadn’t been digging through his bedroom closet.

“It was under the couch I think.” Emma lied with a smile. Paul was clearly on high alert now. She needed him to calm down if she wanted to ascertain the true intensions he had for her innocent little sister. As her eyes narrowed on Paul’s, she took another bite from her pancake to fill the silence.

“Okay, whatever, look.” Paul shook his head in relief. He’d been so worried she’d found his stash that he’d happily take her response as a bullet dodged. In relief, he got back on track with Claire’s request, “Claire asked me to make you breakfast and see if you’re okay. This isn’t the first time we’ve found you passed out on the couch drowning in empty beer bottles and pizza boxes. Are you okay?”

“Just haven’t been sleeping well. Last night was probably the worst so far.” Emma admitted, while she continued chewing. Paul had clearly bought her lie. She’d lull him into a false sense of security and then get the truth out of him.

“Nightmares?” Paul wondered in a considerate tone, as he faithful tried his best to follow Claire’s wishes.

“No.” Emma spat, as her mouth tore into the pancake once more. The truth of her poor sleeping habits recently was rather complicated, and she was sure she didn’t want to get into it with Paul right now.

“Is something wrong with your bed?” Paul curiously asked wondering if there was something he could do to help. As his concern remained on helping Emma, in the back of his mind he couldn’t help but marvel at the way Emma ate her pancakes. He’d known better than to give her a knife and fork by now. Somehow, he knew she’d eat the pancakes with her hands. As she dipped her rolled up pancake into the syrup again, he wasn’t disappointed by the way she lavishly opened her mouth wide for the coming treat. How she fit the whole amount of the remaining pancake into her mouth, Paul didn’t know. She seemed to really savor the taste of food and filling her mouth to capacity. It was an attractive quality that Paul had to admit Claire didn’t share.

“My bed’s a little big but it’s fine.” Emma reluctantly answered Paul’s question in a dismissive sounding tone. Her mouth was full when she talked, so Paul wasn’t totally sure if his questions were bothering her. He decided to hold off on his follow up questions while he watched her reach for her glass of milk and take three large gulps before clearing her throat with a rather large, “*Bwwarrp!!* I think my room’s a problem. It’s too fucking hot.”

“You.. have an air conditioner.” Paul pointed out doubtfully, as he tried to ignore how oddly attractive he found Emma when she burped like that. He had to remain focused. Emma’s complaint didn’t make total sense to him. As she began rolling up her second pancake in the same fashion as her first, he suspected she was hiding something.

“And my room’s too quiet. I hate quiet. I need something on in the background otherwise I go crazy.” Emma continued with a bite of her second pancake.

“You know turning on your air conditioner would solve both of your problems, right? The revolutionary thing about air conditioners is that they are cold and loud.” Paul countered in a straightforward, if a little condescending, tone.

“Oh, yeah I knew that. I just.. I didn’t think of..” Emma stuttered, as she realized she hadn’t put enough effort into her excuses. Paul wasn’t buying her bullshit. If she wanted to lull him into that false sense of security, she’d have to give him some truth now. Bursting more sincerely, Emma reluctantly admitted, “It’s lonely, okay? I don’t like sleeping alone, I’m not used to it, okay? The beer has been helping me relax and the pizza has been helping me soak up the beer so I don’t get sick. There is a method to my madness.”

“You’re more than welcome to hang out with Claire and..” Paul offered sensing Emma had just given him the true reason for her pouty behavior over the past few weeks. He wanted to console her but before he could finish his thought, she countered.

“Do I look like a third wheel? I don’t think so. I don’t want any pity invites from you two. I don’t need help making friends.” Emma pouted, as she stubbornly began munching on her pancake. She hadn’t wanted the conversation to go this way.

“How are you going to make friends if you never leave the apartment? Have you even been looking for a job?” Paul asked, as Emma seemed annoyed by his persistent questions.

“I don’t need a job yet! I still have money.” Emma argued sounding a little heated, as she whined, “Besides, I don’t want new friends. I want my old friends..”

“Huh?” Paul reflexively uttered, as he didn’t follow Emma’s logic.

“Let me break this to you slowly. My friends were my ex’s friends first. So now that we are over, they can’t really be my friends anymore.” Emma revealed, as Paul got the gist of what she was saying.

“That sucks.” Paul admitted trying to find some common ground with Claire’s obstinate sister.

“Yeah it does.” Emma agreed, as she chewed through another bite of her breakfast. Paul sensed it was probably the right moment to press her a little further and get to the bottom of her troubling coping habits.

“Is.. umm.. Do you think your breakup has something to do with what’s keeping you up at night?” Paul reluctantly inquired, as he braced for an irritated response from Emma, but it didn’t come. Instead she looked rather dismayed.

“For sure.” Emma admitted, as she grabbed her cup of milk and took a few gulps without a burp this time.

“Wanna talk about it? I understand if you don’t want too. But talking about it might make you feel better.” Paul offered still holding out hope that he could do what Claire asked and help Emma feel better.

“I think you’re actually right. Let’s talk.” Emma agreed to Paul’s surprise.

“So..” Paul began not wanting to overstep his bounds, “How long were you two together?”

“Six years..” Emma sighed, as her eyes seemed to gloss over at the same time her voice seemed to weaken, “Haha, six years but I guess I never really knew him.”

“What do you mean?” Paul responded out of real concern. Emma’s voice didn’t just sound a little sad. She sounded a little, vulnerable. Finishing off the last of her second pancake, she proceeded to respond to him with her mouth full again.

“You see he was a liar. Kept secrets. But not major secrets. He was the perfect guy on any given day of the week, but if he didn’t want me knowing about something, he’d hide it from me. It was usually stuff that didn’t really matter, betting money on a sports team, getting skipped over for a promotion at work. I think he wanted to spare himself the embarrassment of telling me. Either way, he got good at hiding, I got good at seeking. When I dug up anything he’d been hiding, I wouldn’t rub it in his face. I didn’t want to make him feel bad.” Emma paused, as she momentarily broke eye contact with Paul, “And then I found out that he cheated on me with another girl. I might have been able to forgive him when it counted, but he would rather lie than take responsibility for his actions. I’m such an idiot for wasting so much time on him.. He was too good to be true.”