# The Open Door



## Big Beautiful Dreamer (Aug 6, 2012)

~BHM, ~BBW, ~~WG, mildly erotic. _A thoughtless remark triggers introspection ... and leads to an eye-opening relationship.

_*The Open Door*​
If the door hadnt opened when it had, I wouldnt have seen her. She was sitting at a table in the corner of Daisy Buchanans, looking out the window, I guess so no one could see the tears sliding down her face. When the door opened, it briefly illuminated the corner where she was.

After I collected my drink, I wended my way over there and sat down. 

She looked up, wetly.

Hi, I said matter-of-factly. Sorry Im late.

A reluctant little giggle escaped her. About time you showed up, she said, and gently blew her nose.

Hungry? I said, ready to flag down a waitress.

Oops.

Sorry, she managed, when shed mopped up again. She looked down, tracing patterns on the tabletop with her finger. She swallowed, looked away, and finally looked at me.

I was at the newsstand on the corner, she said. Someone I knew came by. She swallowed hard. She meant well. I really dont think she was trying to be catty.

She sighed. She just asked me when I was due.

More or less involuntarily, I glanced in the direction of her waistline. She was  well  plump, all right. I could sort of see how, at a glance, her convex belly and her silhouette might look like a bun in the oven.

Not that I have anything against the convex belly look. Its warm, approachable, and infinitely snuggly. Women are meant to be soft, to have curves, to be _women_.

I paused. The next thing I said would be crucial.

Well, I said slowly, trying to keep my tone light, if youre eating for two, youre gonna need protein. I lifted my eyebrows, waiting to see which way this would go.

She shot a death glare at me, then modified it on the fly. Something about my expression, my voice, my generally harmless demeanor  or maybe just something within her  heck, maybe all of the above  softened the look so that by the time it reached me it was at least equally mixed with relief and a hint of sun peeking through the clouds.

The tiniest of nods as the waitress paused beside the table.

Steak fries, then, um a chicken parm and a turkey club, I said.

I looked back at my tablemate. Ya know, I said, if were gonna arm-wrestle over the steak fries I should probably know your name.

To my relief, there was now a definite wobbly smile illuminating her face. Um. Carly. Carly Fondeveau.

Jason Connor, I said, and that acquaintance of yours was dead wrong. I think your figure is smashing.

That was really forward of me, but what the hell. I had just invited myself to a total strangers table and plunged into her personal life. What if she didnt like what Id ordered? What if she didnt like what I said? What if she told me to take a dive into Boston Harbor?

The steak fries came out. I started eating, as much out of nervousness as anything. Carly held back. 

She was right, though, she said, and I could hear the tears gearing up again. If I look at myself sideways

Like I told you  I think you have an absolutely gorgeous figure. Head to toe, breathtaking. Hey, Im hungry, but I dont think Im hungry enough for a whole basket of steak fries plus a chicken parm plus a turkey club. Im gonna need some help here.

Carlys stomach chose that moment to growl.

Traitor, she said. And picked up a steak fry.

Yes, she was  well  a plump young lady. Most of her weight in her breasts and belly, some very luscious softness, inviting, delectable, in her arms and hips and bottom. Ripely turned legs. The rear view as she got up to go to the bathroom was very, very pleasing. Round and full, and I could almost feel my hands cupping it. Down, boy!

Still, it was clear that this newsstand encounter was bothering her. She nibbled on a few steak fries. Resolutely folded her hands in her lap. When the sandwiches came, she glared at hers and tried avoiding it for a while. Finally she shrugged.

Heres the thing, she informed me. Susan was right. I really have let myself go. I was pretty good in college, worked out a lot, ate smart, managed to stay pretty  well  pretty okay. Now, though she looked down. Now, apparently, I look pregnant.

Um, number one, you dont, I said firmly, and number two, who said that was a bad look?

She gave me a blank stare.

Women, I elaborated, have curves. Shape. Nurture-y stuff. I gestured with my hands. No one, and least of all women, are meant to be skeletal. Flesh is kind, flesh drapes and warms and softens, and with women  well  it makes for these really gorgeous curves, and my hands described an hourglass. Sexist as hell. I deserved to get thrown out on my ear. I braced, unconsciously, for a slap across the face.

Instead, Carly pondered my eloquence while absently consuming a triangle of turkey club. And another. Then she stopped.

But theres such a thing as too much curve, she said tentatively.

I shrugged and stole one of her fries, since Id eaten all of mine. She let me.

Its a purely subjective definition, I said. I leaned back a little. Im in my second trimester myself, gesturing to where my polo shirt half-concealed the belly Id gradually acquired since graduating college and its easily available gym, pickup games, and built-in walking.

That earned me an actual giggle. And Carly returned to her turkey club, eventually finishing it. As to who ate her fries, well, it was kind of a joint venture.

Afterward, we hiked over to the park and sat on a bench, slowly and steadily licking the cones I insisted we had earned by walking the four or five blocks to the park.

It seemed that no matter how full I was, ice cream was always a good way to cap off a meal. So cold, so smooth, it trickled into the cracks and chilled the heat that my achingly full belly was radiating at the moment. It lowered my body temperature and dulled the throbbing of my midsection and gave me something to take my mind off the immediacies of the effort of digestion. Ice cream was definitely my friend.

Together we licked, nibbled, crunched. Together we rested our free hands on our sore stomachs. A couple of tall brews, a basket of steak fries, a big chicken parm sandwich, plus more fries, and some of Carlys fries  no wonder my shirt was stretched over a basketball of a belly at the moment. Carly had eaten less, but I found the tightness of her tummy very very sexy, a firm little rosy mound resting on her soft womanly flesh.

As we talked, we discovered we both worked at Mass General  Carly was a medical records assistant supervisor, and I worked as a translator. Stayed pretty busy, too. I spoke Spanish and Portuguese and had spent most of yesterday discussing treatment options with a guy from Lisbon who had Stage II colon cancer.

After we went our separate ways, I made myself wait three days to call her. Not because I was being a jerk, but because I didnt want to come across as this helpless stalker lunk.

It was pure chance that when she answered the phone, I said, Hey, beautiful. It just slipped out, I swear. 

Sorry wrong number, she said, a trace of regret in her voice.

Nope, right number, I replied. This absolutely gorgeous lady I met last week. The one with the lovely peekaboo smile and the blue eyes that look like drowned flowers and the absolutely socko figure.

Pause.

Socko? Socko, really? No one says socko! It makes me sound like one of those sock monkeys with the creepy mouth.

So, I replied, thinking fast, would Socko like to go out with Creepy Mouth?

Socko would. And yes, Creepy Mouth noticed how deftly Socko had dodged the whole figure issue, but whatever.

And so we got coffee and wandered through the park  saw movies together and crunched through a tub of popcorn and drained our large Cokes  went out for Chinese, eating ourselves under the table  got ice cream and strolled along the Charles River Esplanade  ambled along Yawkey Way and looked at the banners and said, Wait till next year  stuffed ourselves at cheap buffets, then went back to her apartment and watched a movie and groaned about how full we were. Always her apartment, by the way. Her roommate worked long hours  mine didnt, and besides, our apartment could have been condemned by the Health Department just on principle.

One evening, sitting on a bench watching the sun set, Carly said out of nowhere, Youre not kidding, are you.

Nope, I said promptly. Um, what am I not kidding about?

You really think I have an attractive figure.

Um, duh, I replied. She shook her head.

No one can possibly find this  she gestured  attractive. Miss Blobbo, here.

Not Blobbo, I corrected. Socko. And  guess what. What youre actually saying is that popular culture, which has given us _Twilight, Toddlers and Tiaras_, Snooki, Paris Hilton, and fashion designers Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen  popular culture insists that you look like coat hanger sections surgically attached to pencils, and that we  guys, that is  find the coat hanger and pencil sculpture appealing. And reject all notions to the contrary.

I stopped and swallowed some more coffee. Put my arm around her lovely cushiony shoulder.

I find you, personally, attractive. I love your face  and your nuzzly chin. I love your delectably cushioned shoulders. I gave the one under my hand a squeeze.

I find your shape stunning. Gorgeous. Absolutely Socko, Socko. The curve of your hip, the turn of your leg, the sweetness of your backside. The breathtaking invitation of your  um  chest, the warmth and invitation of your tum tum. How can I say this?

I stood and tugged Carly to her feet, then took her hand in mine and started strolling. You are the single most beautiful female I have encountered, and it staggers me to think that you like me back, because God knows, I myself am a chubby old shlub.

Now wait a minute, Carly said. No shlubby allowed here.

Its true, I said. A tiny part of my brain was playing mind games with Carly, but to my horror I heard a pathetic whine in my voice.

Since college the only exercise I get is walking here and there, I confessed. Ive got love handles here, a spare tire, and I thought I could pare some off to look good for my gal, but truthfully, at the moment my khakis are so tight Im afraid to bend over.

Hey, Carly said, and tugged me toward the street. We took the T back to my apartment and somehow, without words, we were slowly undressing each other.

Then we were in bed. Naked. Naked! Oh, crap. Then Carly was cuddling me, and I was cuddling her, and 

And afterward, as she lay with her head on my chest, she gently stroked my belly. Youre so handsome.

Hmp.

So all this time youve been saying that you love my soft shoulders, my double chin, my preggo-looking tummy  its not okay for me to love all of you?

I didnt know what to say. I loved Carly, and she was unquestionably gorgeous. But there was nothing attractive about an average-height average-looks guy with love handles flopping over his waistband and a spare tire straining his shirt buttons and wobbly pecs  which Carly was gently massaging  holy crap.

I jerked away. Got out of bed. Started fumbling for my clothes. Then Carly was standing in front of me and with a gentle push, tipped me back among the tangle of sheets. Sat on my chest. _Sat on my chest_! Do you have any idea how unexpectedly sexy that is? Yes, I was short of breath. Did I care? Of course not.

Carly was on the phone. I vaguely registered that she was ordering Chinese.

You stay here, pal, she said firmly.

An hour later, we were sprawled on the sofa, she in an opened short robe, me in my boxers, with the litter of takeout cartons around us. 

I groaned.

Oh, God_urp_, I grunted. Looked down at my gorged and swollen belly, which no longer resembled a limp inner tube but a fully inflated beach ball. Firm and hot to the touch, my stomach ached, steadily throbbing with heroic efforts at digestion. I was in a haze of food-fueled pleasure, warmly stuffed and dopily satisfied, aware on some primal level of having fulfilled an evolutionary survival requirement.

I prodded my belly gently. The lightest of touches still set of a seismic inner effect of grumbles, churning, and moans, as if my stomach and related digestive organs were protesting the workload.

You have  no_mrp_idea  how sexy you look  right now. _Hic_! Carly slowly raised an arm and dropped her hand onto my gut, then lifted my hand and rested it on her own tummy. Like mine, it was taut and rosy, a warm ball of flesh stretched tightly across a stomach packed to the brim, the skin nearly quivering with tension. I seriously doubted that I looked at all sexy, but with an effort I turned my head so I could see Carly.

Well, damn.

As if her gorgeously alive tummy, distended and warm, werent enough  within the opened robe I could glimpse her breasts, damp with a faint sheen of perspiration. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright and hectic. She looked fevered, a delicate row of droplets beading her brow like a queens seed-pearl tiara.

Id like to say we rose without a word and in silent accord headed to the bedroom. Which is mostly true. We didnt actually speak. But we had just consumed a staggering amount of Chinese, and stagger we did. Leaning heavily on the arm of the sofa, and with several false starts, I hauled myself up, grunting and huffing, short of breath for a couple of reasons. I rested a hand on my belly, tender and bloated, and carefully let out a large belch. Then I helped Carly up, my arm around her as she survived a series of painful-looking hiccups, and in a haze of exquisite discomfort we stumbled toward the bed.

Both of us were too full to move, but desire transcended aching tummies. With extreme care we maneuvered ourselves together, side by side at first, shivering in unison at the sensation of gentle, steady, torso-to-navel pressure laid along a groaningly stuffed belly. Slowly, languidly, dopily, we snuggled and massaged, the mutual pressure alone making each of us shudder in turn.

Only after a suspension in time and space did she tenderly lay herself onto me, gently easing the weight of her warm and pliant flesh from her elbows to my chest and gut, and we entered each other, the physical pleasure so removing us from the actuality that the whole episode seemed dreamlike and eternal. It might have been minutes or it might have been days before, shuddering hugely, we wound down and she was once more lying on my chest, which now was slick with perspiration, and I was stroking her damp and tangled hair.

After a hundred years, Carly spoke.

Now do you believe me?

It took me a while to process the question. I had to fetch my brain, click it back into its casing, wait for it to turn on and warm up, and search the files for the context of something that seemed to have been said on the other side of the world.

I do, I said firmly. And I want you to say those words to me.

Three weeks later  she did.


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## growinluvhandles (Aug 6, 2012)

"Mildly erotic"?

I would love to see your "normal erotic"!

You are a wonder! Thanks for sharing this!


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## strataadvance (Aug 6, 2012)

I never pass on your stories! And lately I have had an experience similar to the man.This belly of mine the last 4 years is finally not the horrible thing I had thought it to be.Thanks to a Marvelous Lady who Loves it! Thanks for another Terrific Story!


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## BriarChubNJ (Aug 15, 2012)

I always love your writing. The bit about "pop culture...Snooki, Toddlers and Tiaras" etc. made me hoot with laughter--brava, once again!


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## fatmac (Aug 15, 2012)

Another great story...thank you


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## chubsixtysix (Dec 11, 2012)

I do, too. Love this story.


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