Joellen took my mind off the restaurant incident somewhat. She showed up that night, looking as beautiful as ever, although she'd dropped about ten pounds. "You're not disappointed, are you?" she asked. "I'm just so happy to see you that I couldn't care if you looked like Kate Moss! Besides, whatever you've lost, I've gained -- and then some!" "Yes but in all the right places," she said, reaching around my back and squeezing big handfuls of my ass appreciatively. It took us about two hours to get her stuff out of storage -- the reason for the trip -- and into the rental van, and the rest of the time we spent eating and making love.

"Oh, boy," she said after midnight on Friday night, sitting on the bed and rubbing her round belly, filled with an whole pizza, an entire one of Luanne's incredible pumpkin pies and a half-gallon of ice cream, not to mention a six-pack of beer, a pound of chocolate candies and a half-pound of peanuts. "This feels so good! I feel like I haven't eaten since I left here. I mean -- look! I'd lost so much weight you could even see my navel-ring! My mom is a food tyrant and I can't wait to see her face when I come back fat again! So -- c'mon -- there's gotta be a diner open or something!" And there was always something open that weekend, whether it was a restaurant or a supermarket, her legs and my mouth, my legs and her mouth, our hearts, our souls. We ate so much and kissed so much and made love so much that on Sunday afternoon, I was actually starting to experience jaw cramps! But I wouldn't have traded that sweet pain for the world, even knowing that when she left, the odds were good that something was ending. She climbed up in the seat of the van, opening her jeans and letting her swollen belly roll out onto her lap, then patting it and saying, "I'm gonna name it after you!" I waved as she drove away, feeling very lonely.

It was going to be a short work-week, since Thanksgiving was on Thursday and the restau-rant would be closed on the holiday and the day after. I'd assumed that I was going to be seeing my Mom for the holiday, but when I called her, I found out that she was going to be in Florida for the holiday to spend some time with her mother who wasn't able to come north. "I'm sure you have a friend or someone you can spend the day with, don't you?" "Of course," I said. "Give Grandma my love." Luanne and Jimmy were going to be with his parents in Buffalo for the weekend, and I knew it was too soon to try to spend some time with Joellen; we needed some time apart, to reflect on what we had and what we were and what we wanted to do about it. Out of the blue, my friend Ari called and after we were talking a while, he mentioned that his folks had a winterized cabin in the Finger Lakes -- not too far from where I was -- and if I ever wanted to hang out with him there, he'd love to meet me. "How about this weekend?" I said jokingly. "I wish I could," he answered, "but family beckons!" "Wish I had that problem," I said and told him about my lack of plans. "Do you want to go there yourself? It's really gorgeous and -- sometimes solitude can be nice." I thought about it for half a second -- the dorm room or a beautiful cabin on a lake -- before I said I'd love it! He told me he'd express the keys to me, that they had a big four-wheel drive luxury thing in the garage in case I wanted to do some exploring and that I should have a great time!

On Monday, in an incredibly uncaring demonstration of bad timing, the state released an-other hundred patients from the closing psychiatric center and by Tuesday, they were showing up in Myrmi. They'd be taken care of, I knew, especially since Luanne and I were going to be calling Mr. W on Tuesday night. When I showed up at her apartment, Jimmy had ducked out to get some milk. Luanne looked at me very seriously for a second, the said, "There's something I have to tell you, and... I hope you take it the right way." A little apprehensively, I asked her what was on her mind. "Well, ever since that last night you were here... Ever since you... I can't stop thinking about your hands on my belly. It's driving me crazy! I think about how wonderful it felt and how warm. I feel like we should have pressed our bellies together and melted into one another. I feel like something more was happening. And then... I feel like I'm betraying Jimmy, being unfaithful. And I feel like I'm twisted and perverted..." "Well," I said, "if you're twisted and perverted, then I am, too, because I've been feeling so many of the same things. But we can't... you and me... it would be wrong..." She looked at me for a second, then said, "You're not getting all moral and homophobic on me are you?" "I don't think so," I said. "Not moral in that way, but moral in the sense that you love your husband, he loves and trusts you, and nothing -- I mean nothing -- is worth jeopardizing that for!" We didn't have a chance to go any further with that discussion, because just at that moment, we heard Jimmy's keys in the door.

"Hey!" he said when he saw me! "How's the waitress biz? Were you both waiting for me to take your pants off? Well, I'm here so go right ahead!" We laughed at his schoolboy horniness, then he invited me to stay around and watch a movie with them. I said I couldn't, that I had to get back and finish up some schoolwork and that I'd just come over so we could call Mr. W and let him know what was up. He was a little disappointed, but not as much as Luanne was. She recovered, though and found the phone number. But when we got through to the hotel, they told us that Mr. W had been back and had checked out, leaving no information about his next stop. We were confused and worried about his disappearance and had no idea what to do next.

As it turned out, it didn't really matter what we would have done. On Tuesday night, some vandals had hit the fence around the camp with their car, knocking over the two portable johns and turning the lot into an open sewer. Of course the smell got around and a neighbor called the health department who came by the next morning and ordered the place cleaned and closed and the Guests were left to find somewhere else to go -- on their own.

Campus was dead on Wednesday: classes officially ended at noon and many of the profes-sors cancelled those sessions anyway. I got my last meal for a couple of days at the dining hall and decided to take a walk around in the unseasonably warm weather before heading out to the cabin. My belly was full and I had a block of time all to myself. I felt good, thinking about Joellen and me, feeling her hands all over my body, touching all my softest spots, making me feel like one big eroge-nous zone. The weight of the food in my stomach made me think of our marathon gorging session of the previous weekend and how, the fuller our bellies got, the hungrier we became for one another. I thought about Luanne and how satisfied she was with herself and how Jimmy worshipped her, and how, standing with my hands caressing the bulk of her massive belly, I wanted nothing more than to have that belly as my own. I had memorized the pattern of stretchmarks on her stomach and I was sure that they were directions to somewhere wonderful.

Once again, my aimless strolling brought me to the Market. It would be open until six that night and the chances were good that Scott would be there now, so I avoided walking past the front of the store, although there was only one big window and most of the time it was covered with a sale sign or a holiday banner. I went around the back, expecting to smell the stench of sewage, but it smelled instead of disinfectant. The tent was still up, but the fence had a padlock on it and a con-demnation notice from the health department. There was a car back there, too that I didn't recog-nize, parked in the space reserved for Scott. I looked inside it and saw his very expensive gloves on the seat, then realized that it was a rent-a-car for him. It was strange because he'd bought a brand new Acula early in the summer and there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with it. I walked further down the fence to where the porta-johns had been and saw where the car had hit the fence. There were tiny flakes of hunter green paint on the ground -- the same color as Scott's Acula -- and I suddenly knew what had happened.

He had done it! He'd found a way to get rid of the Guests without going against his father. After all, how could he do anything about it when the Health Department had closed it down? There had to be some evidence, I thought, something to link him. Richards' body shop was right down one of the side streets, and I knew that Mr. W always used the place, so I walked over there and sure enough, Scott's car was sitting on the lot, cleaned and being hand-rubbed as I walked up. Mr. Richards waved at me, recognizing me from the store, and said, "Happy Thanksgiving!" "Same to you," I said walking up to him. "Hey, isn't that Scott Walters' car?" I asked. "Sure is. Stupid, care-less people in parking lots leave their carts anywhere. Gets me too much work I'd rather not have." "Where'd they get him?" "On the bumper and the hood. Right down to the metal. Even a couple of little dents I had to pull out."

"Dents, huh?" I said. "Someone must've really wailed a cart at him to leave dents!" "That's true. Usually it's just scratches. Maybe someone didn't like him!" "Or maybe he actually hit some-thing." "Could be," I guess. "He does tend to get a little... happy, if you know what I mean. Makes you wonder, though. I've got pictures inside -- for the insurance company. Makes you wanna take a second look." I only needed a quick glance at the photos before I knew what I needed to know. It was a tough decision, but I decided I had to trust Mr. Richards.

When I finished explaining to him what had been going on and we'd walked over to the fence where he saw the flakes for himself, Mr. Richards was convinced. "The cold bastard," he said. "How does a man like Mr. W get a son like that?" I said we should call the police right away, but he said he wouldn't be able to talk to them until Monday anyway, since his wife was waiting for him to close the shop early and catch a plane so they could go see their new granddaughter in Boston. That's when I looked around the corner of the building and saw that the rent-a-car wasn't there anymore anyway. "That's right.," Mr. Richards said, "he told me he wouldn't be picking the car up until Monday on account he was going away for the holiday. We can take care of this on Monday. You come by first thing and we'll go down to the sheriff, you and me. After all the good that man's father has done for people..."

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