Gaining Confidence
By Charissa
Part Eight As well as snacking constantly at her desk, Jenny was now munching her way through upwards of 25 doughnuts a week, as she'd got into the habit of picking up five or so on the way home from work every day to bridge the gap until dinner. It seemed that all the time she was either eating or deciding on her next snack. Her weight gain continued more steadily; she was back up to 193 by Friday, having pretty well bypassed the 180s that wild weekend. When she stood, her splendid belly jutted out about seven inches in front of her, ripe and round and perfect. It had not yet started to droop like Sophie's, and indeed Jenny was determined to stop “adding to it” the moment it showed signs of doing so; it was its roundness and smoothness that intrigued her. And it was still getting rounder! Thanks to her instinctive action of rubbing body lotion into her tummy during and after a binge from the very beginning, her flesh had remained firm and her skin had only a few stretchmarks. These were off to the side, over her hips. Those hips were still relatively slim compared to her belly, so people did still sometimes assume she was pregnant. This pleased her very much, as she remembered the stunning pregnant goddess she had seen the first day she began to notice women's bellies. She was also beginning to get a real taste for all the startled looks when she said no.
As she moved towards 200 her hips and butt were beginning to catch up a little, though; some of the pounds from her weekend with Luke had definitely ended up there, and the rolls on her back and sides were larger and softer as well, though her breasts remained relatively small compared to the rest of her; at 196 they were still fitting in a C-cup, though her chest measurement was now 40, with a 45 inch waist and 47 inch hips. She had indeed been getting a double chin. Her combination of large round belly and smallish round breasts made her look, naked, like a depiction of Eve from a late-mediaeval painting or illuminated manuscript. When she had time, she liked to stand nude in front of the mirror, supporting her belly with her hands, just admiring its generous size and heft and the way in which the lesser bulges of her hips complemented its sublime roundness, framing it. Sometimes she would bounce gently up and down on the balls of her feet, enjoying how every soft part of her now bounced and swayed in the rhythm of her motion; it was quite hypnotic. Jenny was becoming magnificently rotund. When she sat, two thick inverted-V-shaped rolls of fat formed above the main bulge of her belly, billowing outwards and upwards; they were actually beginning to push her breasts up from below, as they were pushed up by her main spare tyre in turn as it became ever larger. Sitting, her body was beginning to be wide enough to push her upper arms a little out of the vertical as she held them by her sides. Even standing, her belly was now as wide as it was high, round as a bubble, smooth as a pearl. Soon it would be even wider, she thought. Because she was small and short-waisted, fat had filled up about all the available length on her torso, so sideways and downwards were the only options left.
This time she gave Luke regular updates on her progress. It was fascinating to think that she was now almost 10 pounds heavier than Sophie when she'd seen her first: Jenny knew that on her, the weight gain was more dramatic because she was shorter. She hadn't bothered to get any size 16 clothes, but had jumped straight to the 18s, and her new hipster jeans displayed the expanse of her abundant gut much as Sophie's had on that momentous day; they did not so much cover it as display it, offering it forwards like an orange which fills a cup. Sophie herself, having given Jenny some of her old clothes, was feeling a little frustrated as she had only got to 253 - a gain of eleven pounds in just over three weeks, when Jenny had managed twenty-four in the same time. Sophie was aiming to be 350 pounds by the time she left home, and she only had another twelve months to achieve this, so she felt jealous of Jenny for managing to pack on about sixty pounds so quickly. Jenny did point out that she herself had certain advantages; she could buy all her own groceries, cook her own meals, and sit up gorging late at night - and nobody could prevent her from stuffing herself as often as she wanted, or ground her for sneaking junk-food into her room. Sophie took to calling at Jenny's once a week, and Jenny always made sure to have plenty of food around.
“I have a big favour to ask,” Sophie said through a mouthful of pizza with extra cheese. “Before school starts again, Jack and I and our two best friends had planned to go out to this lake for a day - kind of like a last fling. We were going to go in Jack's friend's car, but it's old and something went seriously wrong with it at the weekend. Apparently it's not worth fixing, so we don't have any transport. Jack's parents took their car on vacation and I can't borrow ours - you know why” - Jenny grinned - “so would you take us? We'll pay your gas and everything. It's a beautiful lake; Jack's family has been going there for ages. Jack really wants to meet you, he says you sound cool.” They fixed a date for the following Saturday, the last weekend before Luke would come home.
Sophie turned up at Jenny's house dragging a large coolbox and wearing a lot of eye makeup, a leather miniskirt, a studded dogcollar round her neck and a red boatnecked top which wasn't cropped but still didn't manage to cover her hanging stomach. “It's the Kelly Osborne look,” she explained. “Not that suitable for the lake but it certainly annoys my mom.” She would have made several of Kelly Osborne! Jenny was dressed in size 18 shorts handed down from Sophie and a new cropped T-shirt, having regretfully decided that the old one was finally getting just too small for comfort. Jenny handed her a small package. “This is a present for coming to our rescue. You might want to open it before we go.”
It was a red bikini. Jenny had never had a bikini in her life before; when she swam it was always in practical, athletic-looking one-pieces, all of which were too small long ago. She had tried on a few swimsuits in a lunch hour, but all those that fit over her paunch were much too loose around her breasts. This bikini had evidently been picked out with care - the bottom half was a size 18, but the top was marked 38C. This might have been too small, but Jenny headed into the bathroom, tried it on and it fitted like a glove. It had strings which tied like a halterneck, easily adjustable. She looked at herself in the mirror - why not? She'd have been ready to wear a one-piece, which wouldn't have concealed the size of her tummy. Well, it might have held it in a little, but there wasn't much you could do to disguise forty pounds or so of fat belly, no matter how many “tummy control” panels the designers had added. So why not just display it bare as she was now used to doing in short T-shirts and low-cut pants? Why hold anything in? She took her shorts off and put on the bottoms; her jutting stomach forced the material to sag slightly to get around it, as usual, but everything that ought to be covered was covered. She put her clothes back on over her suit and walked down to meet Sophie's friends.
Surprisingly, Sophie's best friend Merry (who had been with Sophie the first day Jenny saw her) was tall and slim, bespectacled and quiet. She seemed rather like Jenny used to be, a very odd companion for the loquacious, bountiful and rebellious Sophie. However, she had a knack of dry, funny little comments that showed her to be clever and incisive, and Jenny suspected she was really quite self-possessed and not as restrained and prim as she looked. Jack's friend Dave was a normal tongue-tied 16-year-old boy in baggy shorts, who had very little to say other than “Your car is great” and “Yeah, The Offspring suck” all the way to the lake. Jack, on the other hand, greeted Sophie with enthusiasm and when introduced to Jenny immediately proclaimed, “Sophie told me you were really nice, but she did not mention you were a goddess surpassed in beauty only by herself…”
“That's 'cause I'm not a complete nutcase like you,” said Sophie goodhumoredly. “Take no notice, he's like this with all fat chicks. He's a one-man Fat Appreciation Society.” Jenny was a little taken aback, but climbed into the car and began to drive, following the directions Jack was giving her (using more everyday language).
When they got to the lake an hour later, Jenny was surprised to note that the place was bustling - she had been imagining some quiet little hideaway, but although there wasn't much signage for the lake, Jack's parents clearly weren't the only ones to discover it. There was quite a crowd of vacationers sunbathing or swimming. The lake itself was not very large, but pretty and unspoiled. A cluster of buildings at one end was pointed out by Jack as “the resort - it's been there for ever. There's a cute little restaurant - not fancy, but the food's great. We should go eat lunch there.”
“So what's this cooler for, then?” asked Jenny as they made their way down to the shore.
“Stopping the goddesses from dying of starvation until lunch?” suggested Merry.
Jack winked. “Got it in one.”
Jenny would have felt shy about stripping down to her bikini had it not been for Sophie. As soon as they had staked out a patch not too far from the water, that unselfconscious young lady yanked her top over her head, unzipped her tight black skirt and heaved it down over her big hips, and revealed a bikini of her own, dark pink with a pattern of little white hearts all over it. Evidently specially ordered, it left nothing to the imagination at all, straining around Sophie's belly, over her wide behind and hips and showing off her 52-inch waist, her billowy, cellulited thighs, an array of love handles which made Jenny's pale into insignificance, and her two large rolls of belly fat, the lower of which now hung opulently several inches over the top of her bikini bottoms. Sophie had a cute tattoo on her generously padded left hip: a winged Cupid with a very bulging belly and a cheeky expression. “How did you get that done? Isn't it illegal at your age?” asked Jenny in an undertone.
“Yeah. I got it at Easter on vacation with my big cousins Alli and Kate - Alli rocks. She's 22 and she looks kind of like me, or like I would if I was 130 pounds anyway, so she let me use her ID. I've got a good fake one now; it works great. People just assume I gained a ton since the photo was taken; they can't really tell what my face would look like thin, and mostly they're too embarrassed to stare at me so they don't even know if I look 22 or not! I wish Mom knew about the tat, it would drive her crazy; but I've got better sense than to let her see it. You like it? I'm a fat Venus, baby.” This last to Jack, who agreed. Jenny had to concede that the tattoo was very “Sophie.” She had given up being shocked at Sophie's behaviour; she felt censure would have no effect!
When sitting, Jenny's belly now touched her thighs at all times, but Sophie's sagging rolls filled her lap almost a third of the way to her knees when she sat - you couldn't tell from the front if she had bikini bottoms on or not so long as she kept her knees together, and her piercing was getting hard to see, so deep was her navel becoming. Her breasts were very heavy, and barely contained by the suit's top half. Jenny felt almost thin again beside her; Sophie still outweighed her by about 55 pounds. She helped to spread self-tan cream over Sophie's back while Jack did the honours on the rolls of her stomach.
Once Jenny herself had sunblock on - she didn't want to burn - she and Sophie lay down on the blanket, Jenny on her stomach and Sophie on her back. Jenny's stomach was firm and big enough now to cushion her, raising her off the ground so there was no pressure on her breasts when she propped herself up on her elbows, though the force of gravity widened her hips and sides too. Sophie's fat was much softer and looser, and flowed sideways as though she were a large water-filled balloon, her stomach becoming very wide and almost flat in the process. Jack reached over and poked it. “My beautiful, you need to fill this baby up. It's looking very sad and empty.” He opened the picnic hamper and drew out four wrapped footlong sandwiches, tossing two to Jenny, saying “You too, we can't have you fainting from hunger even if you are lying down.” Jenny finished one - it was delicious, soft bread loaded with slices of honey-roast ham, cheese and mayo - then tossed the other back to Sophie, saying she wanted a swim and she would sink if she ate too much beforehand. She was really feeling the heat, another effect of her added poundage.
Jenny approached the water in slight trepidation, knowing that there would be a few people staring at this big fatbellied girl in a tiny bikini. She held her head high - she knew she looked great, plump and ripe and luscious. She smiled at anyone she caught looking. The water was cool on her sunkissed skin, and as she waded in past her hips, Jenny realised her fat was beginning to be buoyed up by the water. She didn't feel as though she could sink even if she did get cramps from eating before she went in. She began to swim, breast stroke, moving through the water in a queenly manner. Ah, why hadn't she been swimming in so long? Her chub shielded her from any chill - like the blubber on a seal, she thought - and the water felt silken on her bare belly. It was easy to float and drift… she felt so at home in the water, a fat mermaid…
Uggh! She was startled out of her reverie by a faceful of water. As she shook it out of her eyes, she became aware of jeering from the group of teenage boys who had splashed her. “Get out of the way, ya big fat cow!”
“Fuckin' whale, you mean! Thar she blows!” snickered a particularly unattractive specimen, rail thin, greasy-haired and pocked with acne.
Jenny stood up, put her hands on her hips and waded towards them. “You little creeps, you think I'm bothered by what you say?”
“You sure should be, you'll never get a fucking boyfriend the way you look. God, you're fuckin' gross.”
“What makes you think I would want to appeal to the likes of you? I'm sorry for the kind of girls who do… except you probably wet yourselves at the very thought of them. I have a 'fucking boyfriend,' thank you very much, and if I didn't it's no business of yours! I've got as much right to swim here as you have, so you might as well get your scrawny little asses to a part where the scenery doesn't offend you. I'm staying right here.” Jenny lay on her back and floated again, displaying her half-globe of a belly to its best advantage, and was gratified to note that the boys were, indeed, swimming away - her display of bravado had worked! Indeed, one of the boys was throwing rather an admiring look back over his shoulder… she wondered if she'd sown a seed for the future there.
Jack swam up to her. “Man! That showed them. If I wasn't going out with Sophie I might have to develop a grand passion for a certain stunning older woman. I wasn't kidding about the goddess thing, y'know.”
“You saw all that?” said Jenny, victorious if a little shaken.
“Yeah, I heard. Just making my way over in case you needed any moral support, but you clearly don't.”
“Believe it or not, that's the first serious bit of hassle I've come up against. I've only been doing this about three months, and most of my friends, work colleagues and so on, they're fine with it. So, you and Sophie… nearly eighteen months now, isn't it?”
“Yeah, but I had a crush on her for ever before that. Ah, she makes me go weak at the knees - she's a true goddess! In the canteen at school, she'd always finish up lunches for anyone who didn't want it all. She would just stuff herself - man, I love to watch her eat. At the beginning of a semester she'd always have lost some weight - her mom made her diet - but she'd eat everything she could get once we were back in school, and she always put it back on pretty quick, and then more.” Jack was gazing at the vast supine figure of Sophie on the shore, a look of total admiration in his eyes. She appeared to be searching the cooler for more food. “Eventually I started talking about how diets were stupid whenever I knew she could hear, and then I got up the courage to ask her out. We've got loads of other stuff in common, we like the same music and films and things too. I love how she doesn't take any shit from anyone, goes straight for what she wants. A few guys told me I could do better - it makes me laugh, how wrong they are… No, really it's sad. They just don't know what they're missing. You know she wants to get to five hundred by the time she's 21?”
At lunchtime the five of them went to the buffet-style restaurant called “Annie's” at the end of the lake. It was a fairly basic room, just a large wooden hut painted white inside, with long tables and wooden kitchen-style chairs, but the table covered with old-fashioned dishes took up one whole long side of it; fried chicken and fish, cold roast pork or beef, veal and ham pie, liver paté, beef-and-potato pie with rich gravy, breaded cutlets, macaroni and cheese… the list went on, and there were too many vegetable and side dishes to count. Up at the end, Jenny saw four different kinds of pie, chilled custard trifle like her Granny made, two layer cakes… Remembering the weekend with Luke, she was glad that she and Sophie were in bikinis - they should allow plenty of room for expansion.
Expand they did. It would have been a crime not to do justice to the food. After she and Sophie had been up for their fourth platefuls, Jack proposed a bet with Dave as to who would eat more. The loser was to pay for lunch. He of course would be supporting Sophie, and Dave didn't look too pleased to be saddled with Jenny, who, fifty pounds lighter, didn't look as though her belly's capacity could challenge Sophie's mighty bulging gut. However, he gallantly agreed. Jenny thought, Sophie has been eating much more than me this morning, and she isn't used to gorging herself for hours together either. She cleared her plate, shot an encouraging look at Dave and went up for her fifth helping. Sophie followed and was careful to choose exactly the same items: all of the fattiest and richest dishes. Merry went too to make sure that both girls ate the same amount for each plateful.
The next four helpings presented no trouble to either girl. Jenny, rubbing sun cream into her stomach in place of her usual lotion, was quite impressed with the way Sophie was pacing herself; she wasn't eating as fast as usual, and seemed to be enjoying herself. Jack, of course, could barely contain himself with excitement. Sophie's tenth one, however, went down much more slowly, and Jenny suspected she was getting full. She wasn't precisely hungry herself, but knew she could eat a good deal yet. She stood up, her swelling belly bumping the table, and headed up for her eleventh plateful. Sophie waddled after. Looking at her friend, Jenny saw that, fat though she might be, Sophie's stomach simply wasn't as capacious as her own; she looked stuffed and was nearly at her limit. There were crumbs in her cleavage.
“Want to move on to dessert after this?” she asked. Sophie concurred, with some relief.
Eleventh plateful gone, Jenny chose three slices of pie - apple, cherry and coconut cream - a heaping helping of trifle, and a sixth of layer cake, and Sophie matched her. She was evidently forking the goodies down without really tasting them, hoping that Jenny would flag at this point and they could stop. Jenny, however, was still in her stride, enjoying the different desserts and the whipped cream that slid down so richly, though her stomach was, admittedly, now getting full. She cleaned her plate, and watched as Sophie finally got rid of the last mouthful of cake. Dave was beginning to look much more hopeful, though he didn't say anything.
“Ready to go back up?” Jenny asked, trying not to sound too bright and cheery.
“Well, I can manage one more piece,” said Sophie. Jenny went and fetched two more pieces of cake, and ate hers, still with enjoyment if more slowly than before. Sophie was having difficulty, but struggled bravely on, holding her belly with her other hand. She was determined not to be beaten, but the last few forkfuls were evidently a real struggle to swallow. She was groaning and panting, and her gut, with so much extra fat on it to begin with, seemed nearly at her knees, which were parted with the weight of it.
“You want to call it a draw, Jen?” gasped Sophie with despair in her voice as she saw Jenny was ready to get up again. “I've never been so full, ever!” Dave looked worried once more. Jenny smiled, sympathetically.
“Much though I hate to rub in a victory, I think I've got a duty to my supporter to see this thing through.” She heaved herself out of her chair, waddling herself now, and filled her plate as full as it would hold; there were five wedges of cake and pie on there, and some more trifle. She topped it all with a large dollop of cream and sat down, ready to prove her superiority.
All eyes were on Jenny as she started in on the first pie. She rubbed her stomach with the other hand - more effective than simply holding it, Sophie! - and forked in the two pieces of cherry pie. She looked down at her belly now and then; it was butting up against the table. A distinct smaller bulge caused by her packed stomach was rising out of the soft fat swell, and it was pushing the thick layer of padding even further out on the lower half of her belly. This was great. She started in on the apple pie - that vanished too. She ate the sponge, fruit and jello parts of the trifle, then the layer cake, which was more difficult. She truly thought, every time, that she wouldn't be able to swallow any more, but determination drove her on. She comforted herself with the thought that she was getting ever fatter and tauter and rounder with every bite she took, and interspersed it with spoonfuls of custard and whipped cream from the trifle, to lubricate her throat. At last the cake was gone, and she took a look at the coconut cream pie. Not for nothing had she been leaving this till last - it would slide down so much more easily than the cake. She savoured each mouthful deliberately on the tongue, then let it slip down inside of her. Ahhh. Two more bites to go… one more… gone. She was glad her bikini was made of stretchy fabric, or it would surely have ripped under the immense pressure from her insides, which seemed to be testing her very skin; anyway she could feel it rolling itself down over her hips, and she imagined it would look like a string bikini when she stood. She looked up. Dave was beaming, and let out a “You did it! Awesome!” Jack didn't look too unhappy either, even though he had to pay up. The boys applauded. Sophie was too full to clap, but stuck out a hand. Jenny brushed it aside, stood up with immense difficulty, and staggered around the table to hug Sophie. Jack and Dave heaved her to her feet. The girls' overstuffed bellies meant they didn't have a hope of getting their arms properly round each other, and when Jenny went to kiss Sophie on the cheek, Sophie just couldn't bend forward enough for her to reach. Jack kissed her instead, and gave her a very gentle hug. Both girls waddled out looking as though very pregnant, Sophie supporting her overhang with both hands. Her belly had expanded so much that the tattoo of Cupid was stretched sideways a little over her hip, making him look even fatter! They staggered back to the shore and lay down - both on their backs of course - on the blanket again. Sophie's stomach sure wasn't flat anymore - it stuck up way beyond her breasts. Jenny's was a perfect globe, hard and tight and smooth. She rubbed more sun cream into it by feel as she lay prone, and then both girls, stupefied with food, dozed off in the warm sunshine.
When they awoke, a few hours later, Jenny pointed out to Sophie that as a seasoned binger she'd always found herself to be much hungrier the day after a binge, with her capacity increased. Sophie perked up at this, and a little later Jack came out of the water. Sophie went all kittenish - a 250lb-plus kitten is a striking sight - and begged him to go and get some ice cream for them as she was just too worn out to get up after her exertions earlier. Jack complied, saying that he had budgeted for spending a lot of money on food that day. He came back with two towering cones and a slightly smaller one for himself, and somehow both Sophie and Jenny managed to find a little room. They all went into the water after that, finding (after the initial exertion of standing) that the semi-weightlessness which immersion gives took a lot of pressure off Jenny and Sophie's stuffed bodies, as well as cooling them down. They did not go out of their depth, however. Later Jack waded out with more ice cream and they ate it standing chest-deep, their breasts seeming to bob on the surface. Merry commented that they had become like icebergs - 90 percent of their bulk was underwater!
When it was time to go home, both Jenny and Sophie had to stay in their bikinis as there was no way they could fasten their street clothes. It felt a little bizarre, to say the least, driving wearing a bikini the bottom half of which had disappeared from view beneath the bulge which was attempting to fill Jenny's lap - and making it further than ever before - almost six inches out. She got a few funny looks from other drivers waiting at intersections, but she felt too full and happy to care. The only thing to lessen her pleasure was that Luke couldn't be there, but she would send him a detailed e-mail about it, with her new measurements, whatever they were - she was sure she would be up to 205 tonight, and maybe 46 or 47 inches around the middle. Sophie had looked like she might be up to 56 or even 58 now, so dramatically had she expanded, even if it wouldn't all stay on; Jenny had had to lend her a sarong to go home in. In fact when Jenny climbed on the scale, she was 208, a nice round (!) ten-pound increase since the morning.
Part Nine