Learning My Lesson

(all characters are, of course, fictional, and any resemblance to anyone alive or dead is strictly an accident. In particular, the protagonist is not me under a different name, and his desires and fantasies are not necessarily mine.--Wrye)

Almost anyone will tell you that it is important to learn from your mistakes, but they never add that you have to learn the right lesson.

As I grew up, I always tried to be a nice guy, but one experience when I was 18 taught me that perception is more important than reality when it comes to how others judge you. It turned out that the real lesson should have been that in the end you have to fight through the perceptions and find reality if you want to achieve happiness, or something like that, but it was years before I figured that part out. Heck, I'd better tell the whole story, maybe then what I am saying will make more sense.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The Summer before I headed off to College I worked as a lifeguard. I was one of four guards working the outdoor pool in a row housing complex in one of the lower rent sections of the mid-western town I grew up in. The local kids tended to spend a lot of their fee time at the pool, so I got to know a lot of them pretty well. I also found out that one of the occupational hazards of being a male lifeguard is that pubescent girls like to use you to practice their budding charms on. At the beginning of the Summer I found it pretty disconcerting, especially because I had never had much of a social life. I may have been a nerd to my peers, but to middle school girls I guess I appeared older, strong, and well tanned, and therefore reasonably cool. By August I had learned how to keep my cool, and how to keep them from being too outrageous.

There was one girl in particular, Andrea, who was difficult to handle. She was 14, just finished grade 8, and already had a figure like a Jamaican Marilyn Monroe. That she had recently filled out to such an extent was made obvious by the fact that her bathing suit didn't fit very well in the chest. Rather than get herself a new bathing suit however, Andrea seemed more inclined to make everything male and over 12 years old very aware of what she wasn't covering very well. She had very dark, almost black skin, an innocent face with mischievous eyes , short straightened and lightened reddish-brown hair, and a low voice with a touch of a Jamaican accent that would have been hard to ignore even without her other charms. She also had a silver earring in her right ear, shaped sort of like an eight, that pierced her ear twice, once in each loop, that I could never figure out how she could get in and out, and which frankly drove me crazy. While I had no desire to date someone four years younger than me, I had to admit that she was still as sexy as could be. Most other guys found her even harder to ignore than I did, and her constant flirting caused problems more than once. To make matters perhaps more difficult, hers was one of only three first generation immigrant families in town, and all of us at the pool were never sure how much of her behavior was due to cultural differences we should be sensitive to, and how much was just her.

Finally, one day in mid August she was leaving just as I finished my shift. Another guard and I had each had to talk to her earlier that day, telling her not to lay down practically on top of guys who were sun bathing, and I decided it was worth having a longer talk with her. I offered to buy her a pop at McDonald's, which was only a couple of blocks away, and she accepted. We walked over there in silence, and I could tell that for once she seemed uncertain of herself. Once we had our drinks we chit chatted some, and I finally found out how she got the earring out: she didn't. Her grandfather had been an amateur jeweler back in Jamaica, and he had placed it in her ear when she was down visiting him when she was ten, and it was there until she cut it off.

Finally, I got to the meat of the matter: "Look , Andrea, I want to explain how I see your behavior, and I hope you can listen and really pay attention. Your flirting is way out of control. You are 14 and gorgeous, and for the next few years your looks are going to get you all the guy attention you can handle without you going after them like a nymphomaniac, trust me. Throwing yourself at guys the way you have been is only going to drive off the nice guys, and get you a reputation as either a slut or cock-tease."

"Looking good is nice, but frankly, in the long run your looks won't make you happy. First of all, any guy that only goes after you because you are hot probably doesn't care much about who you really are, and second unless you plan to get married at 18 your looks will probably betray you anyway."

"What do you mean?" she suddenly seemed to pay attention to what I was saying.

"Kids who fill out young, boys or girls, tend to fill our more in their 20's, but with fat. I've seen it happen in my family, and with people I know. Heck, it will probably happen to me, I was the biggest, most strapping kid in my class in grade seven, but every guy in my family over about 25 has a gut, and I doubt I'll be any different. I hate to say it, but you will probably be the woman that everyone is glad to see at your 10 year high school reunion, because you'll probably have gone from voluptuous to chunky."

Her flirtatious smile had totally gone now, and her voice took on that classic teenage this-is-so-unfair tone. "What, so it's OK for you to get a beer belly and not for me to get fat?"

"There's nothing wrong with your getting heavier, heck personally I prefer women with some extra meat on them, but the girls who have no figure now will look better in ten years, and they will be glad to see that you've gotten chubby."

The look on her face said that she didn't like me much right then, so I finished off my drink and said "Look, all I'm trying to say is that all your flirting is going to get you a bad reputation, and isn't going to make you any happier in the long run. You'd do better off working on becoming nice, and pulling off good marks." And I left.

The next day I got fired, for hitting on a 14 year old pool patron. I tried to explain that all I'd done was tell her to behave herself, but my boss didn't listen to what I was saying.

Let me summarize the next seven years of my life for you. I went to college in Boston on a wrestling scholarship, and having learned my lesson well made sure wear the right clothes, go to the right clubs, hang with the right people, date the right girls. I was reasonably popular, and part way through my freshman year I started steadily dating a curvaceous blue-eyed blonde cheerleader. After my junior year we got married, in due course I graduated, and got a job. I expected to settle down to beer, back-yard barbecues, and a bit of a belly, but find out my wife expects me to be scaling the corporate ladder while maintaining the physique I had while wrestling. Then I find out that she's climbing onto a tri-athlete who has corporate ladder scaling as his fourth event, and we get a divorce. I find a new job in Chicago, not two hours from where I grew up.

I didn't really know anyone in Chicago when I moved back, nor did I have much money seeing as I had left basically everything to my ex-wife just to get things over with faster. I had lots of time to sit around in my bachelor apartment, eat pizza and watch TV. I knew most people would perceive me as a loser, who couldn't cut it in the east, lost his wife, was going to seed, and so on, so I avoided most social contact. I had already been up to 200 pounds when I left Boston, and as I watched my waist spread out as Spring moved into Summer into Fall I felt a bitter satisfaction, knowing that never again would my physique belie my temperament.

Bitter satisfaction was about as cheery as I got during those months. I was depressed, and horribly lonely. As the weather cooled down I began to get desperate for social contact, but I couldn't seem to make the first move to break out of my shell.

I still lifted weights three times a week, and the scale at the health club said I weighed 238 pounds one Friday evening in October. If I wasn't as strong as I had been in college I still packed a lot of muscle, so I wasn't as fat as you might expect from 5'10" and that many pounds, but did have to shop in "big and tall" shops, and I was almost as wide through the middle as across the chest, and I was getting a bit of hang over my belt.

I worked out not far from my office, in downtown, but I lived out in the southern suburbs. That evening grabbed the train home at my usual station, and quickly grabbed a seat that would at least let me people watch on the ride home. As the train lumbered and lurched its way through the darkness, I examined my fellow passengers. Seven years off the farm, and I still found the variety of people in the city fascinating. In my home town 90% of the population had been northern-european, and everyone had dressed about the same, had the same style, just all-in-all been similar. Here there was all colors, all sizes, all sorts of styles. I loved it.

When I recognized the double-loop, double-piercing ear-ring, I felt like my heart had stopped. Without even thinking about it, I got up, and took the few steps to where I could see her better. She had her head bent down, reading a book, and I couldn't make out her features very well. The skin tone was right, and she was certainly buxom-in fact her white shirt was unbuttoned far enough to show a generous amount of cleavage from my vantage point--and she was probably at least as fat as I was. The general face shape looked about right, but with plump cheeks and a double chin it was hard to be sure.

"Andrea?" I asked softly.

She looked up at me, at first appearing puzzled, but before I could think of anything else to say recognition suddenly lit up her eyes, and then her entire face transformed into a smile. "Joe!" the tone in her voice left no doubt that she was glad to see me. "What are you doing here, I heard that you were living down east, married and all."

"The marriage didn't last long." I shrugged, somehow telling her didn't seem so hard. "and I working back here now. How about you?" "I'm in my final year of accounting at college here" She paused, and looked at me appraisingly for a long moment. "I'd love to catch up on things with you; have you eaten yet?"

With my pulse pounding in my ears, I admitted that I hadn't, and that I was famished. We got off at the next stop, and as we walked along the platform to the exit I felt like I was walking on air. I tried telling myself that it was just seeing a familiar face, but I knew there was more to it than that. I stood a couple of steps behind her on the escalator, and got to take a good look at her. She was no taller than she had been, leaving her perhaps slightly on the short side. Her hair was cut short on the sides, and pulled into a pile of tight curls at the back of her head, which only accentuated the roundness of her face and body. She was wearing canvas sneaker, a pair of blue jeans that snugly showed the fullness of her backside and the roundness of her hips, and her shirt belled out slightly above the waistband of her jeans. Her waist had thickened enough to reduce her curves somewhat, but she seemed to mostly be carrying her weight up front and in the back. Her right hand was on the rail of the escalator, and she was carrying a bag from Lane Bryant in her left hand, and I was able to make sure that there was no rings on the critical finger, or for that matter on any other fingers.

We went to a convenient Italian restaurant that she knew of, with a passable and fairly cheap buffet. It mostly served the office workers, so it was quite quiet, and we received a table near the buffet. She had apparently already had a light Supper while out shopping, but she still served herself a reasonable plateful of pasta, and picked away at it while I demolished my first plateful and then polished off a second one-I truly was hungry, and eating helped steady my nerves.

To my delight, it turned out my talk with her years before had actually had an impact. She admitted having been mad at me, and then crying, but then seeing the sense in what I had said. Despite attempting to tone down her dress and behavior though, she had found that it was too late, everyone seemed to have already written her off as a bimbo. At first unintentionally, and then somewhat more intentionally, as high school had carried on she had gained weight. She found that adding thirty pounds had caused boys to pay less attention to her, and teachers and the more studious girls to pay more attention to her, while still leaving her feeling sexy. Her first year of University, living in residence, had brought another thirty pounds, and the years since then at least another twenty.

I was a little surprised by how bluntly she talked about her weight, but we both were quite a bit rounder than when we had last met, so it didn't seem so strange. I mostly ate while she talked, but I did tell her about the crash diets to make my weight class for wrestling, and how I had put on weight after my marriage, and what that had led to. When I explained that my weight had shot up even more ever since the divorce she asked "You never felt that you should try and lose weight, to appeal to women like your ex-wife?"

"Heck no!" I was actually surprised to find I didn't even have to think about the answer. "For me staying thin is misery. Even if I ate like a monk I wouldn't be thin, and frankly I like food too much to eat like that." I paused for a second, and added, "and besides, I don't want another woman like my ex-wife, thank you very much."

"Good for you." Was all she said, but I could see approval glowing in her eyes.

I covered my embarrassment at my outburst by excusing myself to go to the bathroom. While there I thankfully loosened up my belt, which had begun to make sitting upright uncomfortable. When I got back to the table I found my plate covered in two big squares of lasagna, and Andrea eating a somewhat smaller piece herself.

"They brought out fresh lasagna, and it is so good here I knew you would want some."

I was reasonably full, but the lasagna was good and I wasn't totally full. Part way through the second piece I began to get that comforting stuffed feeling, and by the time I finished it I was getting a somewhat uncomfortable stuffed feeling, but after what I had just said about enjoying my food I wasn't going to stop.

Over coffee we continued to chat, sharing what gossip we knew from back home, comparing our schooling experiences, talking about weather, the Bulls, whatever came to mind. Eventually I was feeling like I could comfortably walk, and the waiter was giving us significant glances, so I paid the bill, and we left and caught the train again. We had discovered that we got off at the same stop, although she lived right near it and I lived a 15 minute bus ride away.

Once back on the train our chatter lagged. After an awkward minute of silence I asked her what she had bought, and she showed me a warm looking sweater and a mock turtleneck. I could see that there was another package in the bag, but when I asked her about it she blushed, and giggled "That one I don't want to show you here."

When we got off the subway I was wrestling with the question of whether I should offer to walk her home, when she saved me by saying "Do you want to get some dessert? There's a place with all sorts of yummies right near where I live."

While I sort of mentally groaned at the thought of more food, I was glad of any excuse to prolong our evening. The restaurant was one I had passed on the bus twice every day without noticing, but once inside I found it very nice, and with a large display case of wonderful looking desserts. I ordered Black Forest Cake, while she chose blueberry cheesecake, and we each ordered an espresso. Fortunately the restaurant was not busy by this time, because we didn't fit well on the tiny chairs or around the equally small tables, but I was able to push a couple of tables back to give us more room. When they brought us our order, the servings were huge. I attacked my Black Forest cake more with grim determination than eagerness, not sure if I was going to be able to finish it, but determined to try. Part way through it I suddenly had this strange dropping sensation in my stomach, as if the food had just forced its way down into my intestines or something, and I suddenly felt light headed, but after that I seemed to have more room to put food in.

When I finished my cake I realized that I had been so focused on my cake that I had been ignoring her. She had scraped off the blueberry topping, and eaten the tip of her wedge of cheesecake, but most of it still remained.

"I'm too full to finish this, could you finish it off for me?" I knew she was going to ask that before she said a word, and was going to refuse, when she took my right hand between hers, looked me in the eye, and said "Please."

Her hands were warm, soft, and dry, her voice was slightly throaty, and her eyes were pleading. I swallowed, and said "Yes."

It wasn't easy, and it took a while. The whole time Andrea sat there smiling broadly at me, and the last few little bites she fed me herself. By the time I finished I felt I was going to explode. My ears were ringing, my face felt flushed, I could feel my pulse pounding and I felt almost like I was drunk.

Andrea paid off the waiter, and helped me to my feet. As we stepped outside, she commented innocently "You're looking a little rough, why don't you come back to my place for and lie down for a bit, and then you can go home if you want."

Despite my dazed state I could recognize an invitation that blatant, and while I didn't feel up to any sort of activity I also didn't feel up to a 15 minute bus ride, so I acquiesced.

Her apartment was only a few blocks away, in a long three story brick building. She led me inside and into the elevator, which only took us up one floor but I was grateful to avoid the stairs all the same, down a hall, to her door. She then made me stand in the hallway for a few minutes after she slipped inside, saying "Just give me three minutes to clean up, OK?"

I tried to protest that I didn't care what her apartment looked like, but the door was already shut in my face. I thought of sitting down on the floor, but the thought of bending my waist was repellant, so I just leaned against the far wall.

When it re-opened again, it framed her, now clad only in a snug, slightly shining, midnight-blue teddy that barely came to the top of her thighs. After I stood stunned for a few seconds, she murmured in a throaty voice "You can see why I didn't want to show this purchase on the train."

She pivoted, and walked into the apartment, and I followed, admiring the sway of her ample hips, and the play of small rolls of fat down the back of her rubbing thighs. I didn't have long to gaze, as her living room was only a few steps across, but I realized that I had probably underestimated her fatness, she was surely plumper than I. She stopped by a darkened doorway and turned towards me. When I caught up to her she reached her arms up around my neck and pulled my head down for a kiss as she pushed her soft body up against mine. Of their own volition my hands came to rest on the silky cloth over the soft curve of her hips, and I may have moaned softly.

She pivoted me into the bedroom, and then her fingers traced tracks of fire around my neck and to the top button of my shirt, which she deftly undid. She gently kissed a lightning bolt onto the newly exposed part of my chest as she undid the next button, and pushed me a half step backwards.

Kiss, undo button, push. Kiss, undo button, push. Kiss, undo button, push. As she kissed the upper slope of my belly I felt a bed against my calves, and her push made me sit down. As she finished unbuttoning and untucking my shirt she pushed warm, moist kisses into the soft fuzzy bulge of my swollen stomach, and then stroking my love handles she brought her hands back to the button on my jeans, fought them under the swell of my stomach, and unbuttoned the jeans and pulled down the fly in one deft move, letting my stomach spread out freely. She massaged my gut until I grabbed her meaty thighs and started teasing the teddy upwards, at which point she pushed me flat on my back, and stripped me of my pants, underwear, and socks in an economical manner. As I lay there, naked, still stuffed, and half erect she whispered "I'm sure you can get bigger than that." And while I wasn't sure if she meant my belly or my erection I concentrated on the one I could do something about right then.

The next morning I woke up early to an urgent call of nature, and I was on the toilet before my surroundings hit home. By the time I was ready to leave the bathroom I felt about ready to murmur my apologies and leave, but as I picked my way through the litter of crumpled up clothes, and a torn condom wrapper, I stepped on a creaky floor board, and through dim pre-dawn light filtering through her bedroom window I saw her stir, and give me a smile that warmed me from head to toe, and some particular parts in-between, and somehow I was soon licking her full, heavy breasts while one hand stroked down between her legs, and a while later I was ready to go back to sleep.

When I awoke again it was full daylight, I was alone in bed, and domestic noises and good smells were coming in through the door. When I got out of bed I stepped on the squeaky spot on the floor again, and seconds later Andrea padded into the room, clad only in a snug t-shirt and a pair of bikini panties, with the lower roll of her belly protruding between them. She passed me a steaming cup of tea, and a bundle of silk and said "as soon as you are ready, come out to the kitchen, I've gone kind of crazy making pancakes."

The silk turned out to be a robe, that would have been enticingly small on her and was indecent on me. Thus covered, and fortified by several scalding sips of tea I made my way first to the bathroom, and then into her small galley kitchen.

The kitchen had a small eating shelf at one end, big enough perhaps for two thinner people, but in any case there was one stool, and one plate with a pile of pancakes on it. "I hope you like pancakes." She said brightly, making it a statement rather than a question. She made a slightly ludicrous figure, standing in her skimpy garb, with a big fluffy oven-mitt on one hand and holding a spatula in the other. The situation and her good humor made me smile, and I responded "I love pancakes, but after last night I don't know how much I can eat."

"Well, you just start with what is there."

The pancakes looked delicious, and turned out to taste even better, soaked as they were with butter and real maple syrup. I finished them up with surprisingly little difficulty, only to have another pile deposited on my plate.

"Aren't these for you?." I inquired.

"I already ate." Andrea replied smugly, "I added banana to these ones, you have to try them, they are delicious."

They were delicious, even better than the first batch, and while I was stuffed when I finished them I was more than willing to suffer a little discomfort for the pleasure of eating them. Once I was done, before she could deposit more onto my plate I swiveled to face her.

"No more! I'm full."

She pouted prettily, and murmured enticingly "Not even for me? Tell you what, you come lie down in bed and I'll feed them to you. These ones are peach"

"Andrea, I don't want to question my good fortune, but why do you want me to eat so much?"

She gave me a speculative gaze, then responded "Come, I'll tell you as I feed you."

After I lay down with my head propped up on pillows she undid the belt of the robe I was wearing and pulled it off my stomach, which seemed to be sticking a long way out. She nestled into a siting position next to me, and started feeding me little bite after little bite of butter and syrup soaked pancake, somehow making it into a sensuous and erotic action. Her other hand slowly stroked my belly and chest, periodically kneading my flab.

Finally she spoke, starting off slowly, in a soft, husky voice, her accent more pronounced than usual, looking down at the floor. "When you took me to the McDonald's that day, I kind of fell in love with you. I always liked big husky guys, and I'd always admired the voluptuous full figured women I'd seen in Jamaica, and there you were, telling me that you planned on becoming husky, that I would be voluptuous, and that you would think I looked better that way." She glanced at my eyes, and asked "Do you remember that conversation?"

"Vividly. You were so young and innocent, and so full of sexuality it could have killed a rhino at ten paces, and I so much wanted to protect you, but what could I do?"

She smiled, and moving her non-feeding hand down to somewhere altogether more delightful, she continued "As I got older I realized that I loved pleasing guys, but there were more ways than just sex. Then I realized that there was more to it that just liking husky guys, and liking see a guy enjoy his food, I started fantasizing about feeding a guy until he was ready to burst, first satiating his stomach, then satiated him sexually, leaving him drained from an excess of pleasure. Night after night I want to please him, cramming more and more pleasure into him, training him to be able to eat more, and fuck more, each night. Of course all that food would give him more energy for sex, letting him get more thoroughly drained, at the same time as it made him fatter and fatter. Eventually when I was done with him each night he would look like a beached whale."

Between her fondling me, and what she said, I was achingly erect. She gave me a playful smile, then leaned over and gently kissed me on the penis, straightened up and fed me a bite of pancake, and leaned over took me in her mouth. Every few seconds she would come off of me to feed me more pancake, until half crazy with frustration I grabbed the fork form her and started shoving pancake into my mouth as fast as I could eat it, and she went down on me all the way. I could barely breathe for how full my mouth was and how urgent the demands of my body was, until I finished the last of the pancakes, took a deep breath, and started bucking in ecstasy. She rode my movements without losing my penis or gagging, and as I exploded in pleasure I could feel her swallow.

As I lay then twitching with aftershocks of pleasure she snuggled up against me. Stroking my brow she said contritely "When I saw you, and saw how you were just starting to get fat, I just knew I had to try and live out my fantasy for a day. I hope you don't mind."

Just starting to get fat? For a day? Desperately I made my mind focus on what she had said earlier. As it came back to me anger helped me focus.

Somehow I found my voice. I couldn't let her get away with this. "Of course I mind."

A look of shock and disappointment crossed her face.

"I can't believe what you did to me." I could see her get ready to talk, to defend herself. I bulled ahead, not willing to listen to what she had to say. I continued, anger making me louder. "To show me this sort of pleasure, tell me your fantasy of night after night, and then tell me that this is it, it was a one time fling? You're still just a tease, aren't you?"

She started to talk, stopped herself, looked shocked, then slowly said "You liked it?"

"You know I didn't fake that orgasm-you can probably still taste it!"

"Doing this again--doing this all the time-you would want to?"

"This sort of pleasure every day? Hell yeah."

I could see a strange light start to dawn in her eyes. "Getting fat, you wouldn't mind?"

"All my life I've dreamed of meeting someone who could live with my being fat. To suddenly, strangely, wonderfully, find someone who WANTS me to be fat, who would help me be fat." My voice cracked and I took a breath then carried on "if you are serious I don't want to lose you."

Andrea shut her eyes for a second, and then opened them, looked me in the eye, and said in a strange voice "There is one more thing I have to ask, maybe as strange and sudden as all the rest.."

"Go ahead." I said into an electric atmosphere.

"Joe, will you marry me?"

(the end)