Big Beautiful Dreamer
ridiculously contented
~BHM, ~WG
Peter had never been to an authentic smörgåsbord before. Annika was almost indecently excited. During the drive to her parents’ house, she chattered nonstop. Peter stopped listening at the third or fourth repetition.
Even with all the talk, Peter was still unprepared for the sheer quantity. Two long tables, pushed together in the garage, were actually sagging under the weight of the food. Everything looked and smelled fabulous. Peter was suddenly an adventurous eater.
A hair over six feet, Peter weighed 180 if it was humid. He worked out every morning, giving him nicely sculpted arms, chest, and legs. Food had always been a matter of indifference to him. If it was presented to him, he ate it; if not, he seldom bothered and rarely felt hungry. In college, he had avoided actually losing weight only because of the frequent appearance of beer and pizza. Left to his own devices, he could easily forget to eat both breakfast and lunch, and sometimes dinner.
Annika had her parents’ Swedish genes in spades. Her father had been a library science major who had spent a semester in the ’70s studying at Columbia University and managed to stay; his then-girlfriend, a potter, had agreed to marry him so that she wouldn’t have to go back to Stockholm alone. Annika was the second of three children and, like her parents, tall and very fair, with a nearly translucent complexion, blue blue blue eyes, and hair like spring wheat. Her brother Anders was similarly complected and their younger sister Karin only a little darker.
Greetings were exchanged, and Peter was warmly embraced by first Annika’s parents and then her brother and her brother’s girlfriend, Gudrun. Annika’s father said something in Swedish, then winked.
“He says,” Annika translated, blushing furiously, “that he wants to know your intentions toward his daughter.”
As Peter turned bright red and stammered, Annika’s father roared with laughter and handed him a beer, then slapped him on the back. “Welcome to our home,” he said in English. “Welcome.” His English was overlaid by a light, lilting accent that made everything sound like music.
“Come, eat,” Annika’s mother urged. Everything smelled delicious, even if much of it was unfamiliar, and under Annika’s tutelage Peter made a fair attempt to tackle all of it. He hadn’t known there were so many ways to prepare herring, but the strong salty taste had always appealed to him. There were egg dishes, potato dishes, homemade applesauce -- Peter was suddenly an adventurous eater. The beer was replaced with a deep red drink, a sort of lingonberry soda. Salads, meats, delicately flavored cheeses, little cookies, and Peter really wouldn’t mind more herring and rye bread.
Whoops.
He was suddenly very full, and they weren’t even halfway down the table. Annika was tugging him to his feet again and he let out a groan as his tightly packed belly pressed against the waistband of his jeans, which seemed to have shrunk. He’d tried some of everything -- okay, a lot of everything -- at least three heaping platefuls, and his stomach was complaining. With some justification.
“Come on, come on,” Annika urged. “You haven’t yet tried the open face sandwiches, they’re famous.” They were big, certainly. What looked like yards of bread laid open and topped with cold cuts, cheeses, cucumber, shrimp, onion, bacon, and was that herring hiding in there? Probably. Peter swallowed hard. Time to take one for the team.
On his plate, the sandwich looked even larger, and why in heaven’s name had he added a double handful of rye crackers? He sighed -- or tried to, he was too stuffed to draw a deep breath -- and took a deep gulp of the soda.
The sandwich was delicious. Never before had Peter encountered such a symphony of flavors in one bite. Who ever thought of pairing shrimp with cucumber, herring with cheese, good rye bread holding it all together? It was messy, and it was glorious, and it was actually with a twinge of regret that Peter swallowed the last crumb.
It might have been a twinge of something else. Peter was stuffed, bloated, achingly full. He had never in his life eaten this much all at once and now that he had stopped, his stomach was stretched beyond its capacity, his abdomen pulled taut and bulging beneath his shirt. He was too full to move, dopey and sated, his head swimming. Then he heard Annika’s voice.
“We have to go,” she was saying, and trying to pull him to his feet. “My pager went off.”
Crap. He was tempted to say, “You go; I’ll just stay here and pass out,” but that would be bad form. Somehow he got to his feet and shook hands with everyone. Somehow he waddled out to the car and persuaded Annika to drive.
The minute they were on the road, Peter leaned his seat back and unbuttoned his jeans. “Ohhhh,” he groaned. “Hic.”
“Didn’t you like it?”
“Uff. (Hic!) Ate too much.”
Annika glanced over, then poked his swollen and distended midriff, protruding roundly outward. “I see a full tummy,” she said teasingly.
“Ow. (Hic!) Don’t.”
Instantly Annika was all concern. “Ooh, sorry, love.” She gently rubbed his aching and gorged belly. “Smörgåsbords can be … kind of overwhelming. Maybe I should have warned you.” She hiccupped herself. “I ate too much now also,” she admitted, making a face and rubbing her rounded tummy.
“No, no. (Hic!) I’ll be … all right. Just … (hic!) just … stuffed.” Peter found that he was puffing, too full to breathe. Every time he inhaled, he thought the skin of his belly would burst with the effort.
Annika dropped him off at the apartment and sped to the veterinary hospital, where she was on call that weekend. Peter staggered to the bedroom and slowly, grunting with effort, stripped off his clothes. He fell onto the bed, groaning again as his overloaded stomach sloshed heavily, and arranged himself onto his side, cradling his gut and waiting for sleep. When it finally came, it was deep and dreamless; he didn’t even hear Annika tiptoe in.
It had been more than a year since Peter’s last girlfriend had pitched a fit and walked out, and he had forgotten just how social an activity dating is. With Annika on the scene came parties, dinners out, movies, ball games, bowling, all accompanied by the appropriate snacks. For the first time in his life, Peter began to notice a little roll of flab around his waistline. He dismissed it. It was nothing. He’d always been too thin.
Then he wasn’t. Somehow he’d blown past skinny to average and was coming up on chubby. His workouts kept him muscular, but even workouts won’t stop a relentless intake from swelling the belly. All through the summer and into fall, Peter watched his stomach get rounder and his waistline visibly thicken. It was no longer something he could dismiss. Annika appeared not to notice -- or if she noticed, not to care. Indeed, in bed she seemed to enjoy cuddling and fondling his new acreage, squeezing and caressing his love handles and nestling onto his abdominal cushion.
She had added some padding to her own figure, but on her tall, lithe frame it translated as fuller breasts, a seductively rounding backside, and a tempting softening through the middle. Her cheeks grew rounder and rosier, and her elbows no longer bruised him in bed.
Thanksgiving came, and Annika was, again, indecently excited as she explained how her parents were proud to put on an American Thanksgiving feast -- with a few Swedish touches. Lingonberries instead of cranberries, plates of rye bread and dishes of herring alongside the turkey and stuffing.
By now Peter was virtually part of the family and sat next to Anders and across from Karin, even venturing a few sentences in clumsy Swedish.
Thanksgiving dinner is less an act of will than a force of nature. The food looks and smells delicious, wine flows, conversation is carried on, overlapping and all at once, and the camaraderie and companionship layer everything together until suddenly the vast meal is over and the participants are left wondering what just happened.
When it was finally ended, when no one could manage another bite, Peter waited for Annika’s father to stand, which he did with some difficulty, and slapped his rounded belly under his sweater. He said something in Swedish, prompting laughter.
“He says,” Annika translated, “he is now ready to hibernate.”
Peter wasn’t sure it was a joke. He felt ready to hibernate himself. Suddenly he had eaten way too much and his overloaded stomach was groaning, rock hard and protruding hugely beneath his shirt, whose buttons were straining. He followed Annika’s father and Anders into the den, where they sank gratefully into large squashy chairs and stretched out their feet.
Anders opened his mouth to say something, but belched instead. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“All right, Peter?” Annika’s father glanced at him.
“Oh. Ate too much,” Peter admitted. An understatement if ever there was one. Annika’s father yawned hugely.
“I think now I will go have a nap,” he announced. Annika materialized and began tugging Peter to his feet.
“Us too,” she said. A nap sounded glorious. Just what he needed. He obediently followed Annika to the guest room. Ohhh -- moving might not be the best idea. He felt rather queasy and his stomach ached prodigiously, sloshing and groaning in its preliminary efforts at digestion. Slowly, dopily, he began undoing his shirt buttons. A smile quirking her soft lips, Annika took over, tracing a finger down his chest to the firm convexity of his gorged belly. Through a haze of satiety Peter noticed that Annika’s shirt was clinging rather snugly to her tummy, which protruded roundly over her belt.
“Oh, you ate well today,” she said fondly. She gave his bloated midriff a gentle poke. “Oh!” Its firmness surprised her. Hugely distended and taut as a drum, Peter’s stomach protruded well over his jeans, which seemed to have shrunk somewhat. When Annika playfully drummed on it, she produced a hollow thud.
“Ripe,” she pronounced, making Peter laugh, then wince and cradle his swollen belly.
“Oh. (Hic!) Don’t make … me laugh,” he puffed, too full to breathe. Now Annika was struggling with the buttons of his jeans. With some effort, she got them undone, and tugged down his jeans and underwear.
Peter sighed in relief as his constricted abdomen ballooned. “Ahhh. (Hic!) Better,” he said, and carefully got into bed. He shifted around, trying to find a comfortable position. It wasn’t easy. His belly was heavy, engorged, like an overinflated balloon, and as he shifted, it weighed him down so that nothing relieved his present discomfort.
Annika, solicitous, massaged his bloated stomach until, at length, he finally dozed off. He slept for an hour and woke to find Annika gently waking up something else.
Oh.
Then she placed his hand on her own belly, still ripely round itself and full of dinner. Her tummy gurgled musically and Peter drummed gently on it, then traced downward.
Still stuffed, but no longer too full to move, Peter began to stroke Annika’s hair and back, grunting as he shifted onto his side. Annika took the lead and spent an inordinately pleasant amount of time cradling his still-aching belly and cupping, tracing, and caressing his growing midriff. At length they entered each other and languidly made love, Peter at least euphorically conscious of the weight and warmth, the pressure and arousal that their overloaded stomachs added to their intimacy.
That weekend, however, back in the apartment, Peter caught a good glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror after a shower. His belly, even empty, was protruding, a plump spare tire that nonetheless sagged around his love handles. Making a face, he slapped it, feeling and seeing it wobble. Annika came in, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“Morning,” she mumbled, hooking an arm around his thickening waist. Peter froze her hand in place.
“Honey,” he said, an edge to his voice, “I’m getting fat. Really fat.”
“Hush,” she said firmly, even sharply. “I won’t have such talk. You are my sweetheart and I love exactly you.” She kissed him, hard, and stepped into the shower. From which she said, her voice echoing, “I have added to my tummy too. It’s love.” Peter slapped his belly one more time, then made a face, decided it might be holiday overindulgence, and began to shave.
Once Thanksgiving had passed and Christmas loomed, Peter forgot about his momentary concern. Annika adored Christmas, Santa Lucia day and all, and insisted on the robe, candle wreath, saffron buns and all, even though it was just the two of them. Hell of a way to wake up, to a beautiful woman with fire on her head.
At her parents’ house, after a prodigious Christmas dinner, Peter brought out the package he had carefully wrapped in blue paper with yellow ribbons, modestly proud of the color scheme. When she opened it, Annika screamed, then started to cry and passed it to her mother.
Peter had made arrangements for a long New Year’s weekend for him and Annika in Stockholm and had even wormed out of her parents names and addresses of several relatives and had planned visits. He was worried about the weather and flying into Sweden, but apparently the Swedes were used to snow, for the trip over was uneventful, outside of jet lag.
Peter was overwhelmed by familial hospitality, blown away by the starkly beautiful Nordic scenery, impressed by the number of Volvos he saw, and inexplicably found himself completely at ease amid large numbers of relatives jabbering in Swedish as he sat in a corner and beamed at having made Annika so happy.
On New Year’s Eve, in the narthex of the church, he knelt in front of Annika and her aunt and uncle and their three children and slid a ring onto her finger.
“Vilja du gifta sig med jag?” he asked. She beamed and tears began pouring down her cheeks and onto her red sweater.
It should have been the highlight of the trip (and it was), but on the flight back, Peter found himself reflecting more and more on how satisfied he felt of late. It was Annika; but there was something more. He felt more substantive as well as, well, more substantial, the added heft revealing a newfound awareness of his body.
Whereas before he had always been wholly indifferent to it, he now found active enjoyment in all of his body. He took pleasure in his cleanly muscled arms and firm calves now paired with perceptibly softening pectorals and meatier thighs, a spreading backside and grabbable love handles; on his face, plumping, apple-round cheeks and a softening jaw.
Most of the twenty-five pounds he’d packed on in Annika’s delightful company had mostly gone to his visibly thickening waistline and ballooning paunch, the midsection he now saw reflected in the mirror as swelling almost by the day, the button and buttonhole of his trousers getting farther and farther apart. The trip to Sweden, with its multiple feasts, had surely added another inch or so.
“Maybe I’ll make a New Year’s resolution to lose weight,” he thought, and padded into bed and drew the blankets up. As he drifted off, his thoughts were not on his own belly, but on the increasingly gravid plumpness of his bed partner’s tummy. Her long-waisted figure showcased the added pounds in cushion of thigh, buttocks and breast, and in a bodacious padding through the middle, pearlike and glowing in the mornings when the sun peeked through the blinds.
Peter forgot his resolution as he found himself plunged into a delightful whirl of wedding plans, consulted as a matter of form and then cheerfully ignored, which was fine with him. He was fitted for a tux, then refitted and refitted again, as the countless parties that marked their engagement pushed his belly farther and farther forward and his thighs rounder and closer together. Annika, too, required a couple of refittings on her gown, but fortunately had chosen a flattering Grecian drape that hugged her ripening breasts and skimmed her belly and luscious hips.
Finally it was June, finally it was the eighteenth, finally Peter slid the ring onto Annika’s finger. A long kiss followed, and a shower of rice, and then a blur of reception, flights, jet lag, and at last, at last, they were on the island of Gotland, home to the impeccably preserved walled medieval town of Visby.
“Um,” Peter said to his wife.
“Um?”
“Now that we’re married, maybe I should…” he gestured vaguely to his belly, which crowned roundly below his chest as he lay in the large bed.
“Maybe,” she said, hiking herself up and leaning over him, her Nordic blue eyes gazing deeply into his, “You should shut up and kiss me.”
Shut Up and Kiss Me
by Big Beautiful Dreamer
by Big Beautiful Dreamer
Peter had never been to an authentic smörgåsbord before. Annika was almost indecently excited. During the drive to her parents’ house, she chattered nonstop. Peter stopped listening at the third or fourth repetition.
Even with all the talk, Peter was still unprepared for the sheer quantity. Two long tables, pushed together in the garage, were actually sagging under the weight of the food. Everything looked and smelled fabulous. Peter was suddenly an adventurous eater.
A hair over six feet, Peter weighed 180 if it was humid. He worked out every morning, giving him nicely sculpted arms, chest, and legs. Food had always been a matter of indifference to him. If it was presented to him, he ate it; if not, he seldom bothered and rarely felt hungry. In college, he had avoided actually losing weight only because of the frequent appearance of beer and pizza. Left to his own devices, he could easily forget to eat both breakfast and lunch, and sometimes dinner.
Annika had her parents’ Swedish genes in spades. Her father had been a library science major who had spent a semester in the ’70s studying at Columbia University and managed to stay; his then-girlfriend, a potter, had agreed to marry him so that she wouldn’t have to go back to Stockholm alone. Annika was the second of three children and, like her parents, tall and very fair, with a nearly translucent complexion, blue blue blue eyes, and hair like spring wheat. Her brother Anders was similarly complected and their younger sister Karin only a little darker.
Greetings were exchanged, and Peter was warmly embraced by first Annika’s parents and then her brother and her brother’s girlfriend, Gudrun. Annika’s father said something in Swedish, then winked.
“He says,” Annika translated, blushing furiously, “that he wants to know your intentions toward his daughter.”
As Peter turned bright red and stammered, Annika’s father roared with laughter and handed him a beer, then slapped him on the back. “Welcome to our home,” he said in English. “Welcome.” His English was overlaid by a light, lilting accent that made everything sound like music.
“Come, eat,” Annika’s mother urged. Everything smelled delicious, even if much of it was unfamiliar, and under Annika’s tutelage Peter made a fair attempt to tackle all of it. He hadn’t known there were so many ways to prepare herring, but the strong salty taste had always appealed to him. There were egg dishes, potato dishes, homemade applesauce -- Peter was suddenly an adventurous eater. The beer was replaced with a deep red drink, a sort of lingonberry soda. Salads, meats, delicately flavored cheeses, little cookies, and Peter really wouldn’t mind more herring and rye bread.
Whoops.
He was suddenly very full, and they weren’t even halfway down the table. Annika was tugging him to his feet again and he let out a groan as his tightly packed belly pressed against the waistband of his jeans, which seemed to have shrunk. He’d tried some of everything -- okay, a lot of everything -- at least three heaping platefuls, and his stomach was complaining. With some justification.
“Come on, come on,” Annika urged. “You haven’t yet tried the open face sandwiches, they’re famous.” They were big, certainly. What looked like yards of bread laid open and topped with cold cuts, cheeses, cucumber, shrimp, onion, bacon, and was that herring hiding in there? Probably. Peter swallowed hard. Time to take one for the team.
On his plate, the sandwich looked even larger, and why in heaven’s name had he added a double handful of rye crackers? He sighed -- or tried to, he was too stuffed to draw a deep breath -- and took a deep gulp of the soda.
The sandwich was delicious. Never before had Peter encountered such a symphony of flavors in one bite. Who ever thought of pairing shrimp with cucumber, herring with cheese, good rye bread holding it all together? It was messy, and it was glorious, and it was actually with a twinge of regret that Peter swallowed the last crumb.
It might have been a twinge of something else. Peter was stuffed, bloated, achingly full. He had never in his life eaten this much all at once and now that he had stopped, his stomach was stretched beyond its capacity, his abdomen pulled taut and bulging beneath his shirt. He was too full to move, dopey and sated, his head swimming. Then he heard Annika’s voice.
“We have to go,” she was saying, and trying to pull him to his feet. “My pager went off.”
Crap. He was tempted to say, “You go; I’ll just stay here and pass out,” but that would be bad form. Somehow he got to his feet and shook hands with everyone. Somehow he waddled out to the car and persuaded Annika to drive.
The minute they were on the road, Peter leaned his seat back and unbuttoned his jeans. “Ohhhh,” he groaned. “Hic.”
“Didn’t you like it?”
“Uff. (Hic!) Ate too much.”
Annika glanced over, then poked his swollen and distended midriff, protruding roundly outward. “I see a full tummy,” she said teasingly.
“Ow. (Hic!) Don’t.”
Instantly Annika was all concern. “Ooh, sorry, love.” She gently rubbed his aching and gorged belly. “Smörgåsbords can be … kind of overwhelming. Maybe I should have warned you.” She hiccupped herself. “I ate too much now also,” she admitted, making a face and rubbing her rounded tummy.
“No, no. (Hic!) I’ll be … all right. Just … (hic!) just … stuffed.” Peter found that he was puffing, too full to breathe. Every time he inhaled, he thought the skin of his belly would burst with the effort.
Annika dropped him off at the apartment and sped to the veterinary hospital, where she was on call that weekend. Peter staggered to the bedroom and slowly, grunting with effort, stripped off his clothes. He fell onto the bed, groaning again as his overloaded stomach sloshed heavily, and arranged himself onto his side, cradling his gut and waiting for sleep. When it finally came, it was deep and dreamless; he didn’t even hear Annika tiptoe in.
It had been more than a year since Peter’s last girlfriend had pitched a fit and walked out, and he had forgotten just how social an activity dating is. With Annika on the scene came parties, dinners out, movies, ball games, bowling, all accompanied by the appropriate snacks. For the first time in his life, Peter began to notice a little roll of flab around his waistline. He dismissed it. It was nothing. He’d always been too thin.
Then he wasn’t. Somehow he’d blown past skinny to average and was coming up on chubby. His workouts kept him muscular, but even workouts won’t stop a relentless intake from swelling the belly. All through the summer and into fall, Peter watched his stomach get rounder and his waistline visibly thicken. It was no longer something he could dismiss. Annika appeared not to notice -- or if she noticed, not to care. Indeed, in bed she seemed to enjoy cuddling and fondling his new acreage, squeezing and caressing his love handles and nestling onto his abdominal cushion.
She had added some padding to her own figure, but on her tall, lithe frame it translated as fuller breasts, a seductively rounding backside, and a tempting softening through the middle. Her cheeks grew rounder and rosier, and her elbows no longer bruised him in bed.
Thanksgiving came, and Annika was, again, indecently excited as she explained how her parents were proud to put on an American Thanksgiving feast -- with a few Swedish touches. Lingonberries instead of cranberries, plates of rye bread and dishes of herring alongside the turkey and stuffing.
By now Peter was virtually part of the family and sat next to Anders and across from Karin, even venturing a few sentences in clumsy Swedish.
Thanksgiving dinner is less an act of will than a force of nature. The food looks and smells delicious, wine flows, conversation is carried on, overlapping and all at once, and the camaraderie and companionship layer everything together until suddenly the vast meal is over and the participants are left wondering what just happened.
When it was finally ended, when no one could manage another bite, Peter waited for Annika’s father to stand, which he did with some difficulty, and slapped his rounded belly under his sweater. He said something in Swedish, prompting laughter.
“He says,” Annika translated, “he is now ready to hibernate.”
Peter wasn’t sure it was a joke. He felt ready to hibernate himself. Suddenly he had eaten way too much and his overloaded stomach was groaning, rock hard and protruding hugely beneath his shirt, whose buttons were straining. He followed Annika’s father and Anders into the den, where they sank gratefully into large squashy chairs and stretched out their feet.
Anders opened his mouth to say something, but belched instead. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“All right, Peter?” Annika’s father glanced at him.
“Oh. Ate too much,” Peter admitted. An understatement if ever there was one. Annika’s father yawned hugely.
“I think now I will go have a nap,” he announced. Annika materialized and began tugging Peter to his feet.
“Us too,” she said. A nap sounded glorious. Just what he needed. He obediently followed Annika to the guest room. Ohhh -- moving might not be the best idea. He felt rather queasy and his stomach ached prodigiously, sloshing and groaning in its preliminary efforts at digestion. Slowly, dopily, he began undoing his shirt buttons. A smile quirking her soft lips, Annika took over, tracing a finger down his chest to the firm convexity of his gorged belly. Through a haze of satiety Peter noticed that Annika’s shirt was clinging rather snugly to her tummy, which protruded roundly over her belt.
“Oh, you ate well today,” she said fondly. She gave his bloated midriff a gentle poke. “Oh!” Its firmness surprised her. Hugely distended and taut as a drum, Peter’s stomach protruded well over his jeans, which seemed to have shrunk somewhat. When Annika playfully drummed on it, she produced a hollow thud.
“Ripe,” she pronounced, making Peter laugh, then wince and cradle his swollen belly.
“Oh. (Hic!) Don’t make … me laugh,” he puffed, too full to breathe. Now Annika was struggling with the buttons of his jeans. With some effort, she got them undone, and tugged down his jeans and underwear.
Peter sighed in relief as his constricted abdomen ballooned. “Ahhh. (Hic!) Better,” he said, and carefully got into bed. He shifted around, trying to find a comfortable position. It wasn’t easy. His belly was heavy, engorged, like an overinflated balloon, and as he shifted, it weighed him down so that nothing relieved his present discomfort.
Annika, solicitous, massaged his bloated stomach until, at length, he finally dozed off. He slept for an hour and woke to find Annika gently waking up something else.
Oh.
Then she placed his hand on her own belly, still ripely round itself and full of dinner. Her tummy gurgled musically and Peter drummed gently on it, then traced downward.
Still stuffed, but no longer too full to move, Peter began to stroke Annika’s hair and back, grunting as he shifted onto his side. Annika took the lead and spent an inordinately pleasant amount of time cradling his still-aching belly and cupping, tracing, and caressing his growing midriff. At length they entered each other and languidly made love, Peter at least euphorically conscious of the weight and warmth, the pressure and arousal that their overloaded stomachs added to their intimacy.
That weekend, however, back in the apartment, Peter caught a good glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror after a shower. His belly, even empty, was protruding, a plump spare tire that nonetheless sagged around his love handles. Making a face, he slapped it, feeling and seeing it wobble. Annika came in, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“Morning,” she mumbled, hooking an arm around his thickening waist. Peter froze her hand in place.
“Honey,” he said, an edge to his voice, “I’m getting fat. Really fat.”
“Hush,” she said firmly, even sharply. “I won’t have such talk. You are my sweetheart and I love exactly you.” She kissed him, hard, and stepped into the shower. From which she said, her voice echoing, “I have added to my tummy too. It’s love.” Peter slapped his belly one more time, then made a face, decided it might be holiday overindulgence, and began to shave.
Once Thanksgiving had passed and Christmas loomed, Peter forgot about his momentary concern. Annika adored Christmas, Santa Lucia day and all, and insisted on the robe, candle wreath, saffron buns and all, even though it was just the two of them. Hell of a way to wake up, to a beautiful woman with fire on her head.
At her parents’ house, after a prodigious Christmas dinner, Peter brought out the package he had carefully wrapped in blue paper with yellow ribbons, modestly proud of the color scheme. When she opened it, Annika screamed, then started to cry and passed it to her mother.
Peter had made arrangements for a long New Year’s weekend for him and Annika in Stockholm and had even wormed out of her parents names and addresses of several relatives and had planned visits. He was worried about the weather and flying into Sweden, but apparently the Swedes were used to snow, for the trip over was uneventful, outside of jet lag.
Peter was overwhelmed by familial hospitality, blown away by the starkly beautiful Nordic scenery, impressed by the number of Volvos he saw, and inexplicably found himself completely at ease amid large numbers of relatives jabbering in Swedish as he sat in a corner and beamed at having made Annika so happy.
On New Year’s Eve, in the narthex of the church, he knelt in front of Annika and her aunt and uncle and their three children and slid a ring onto her finger.
“Vilja du gifta sig med jag?” he asked. She beamed and tears began pouring down her cheeks and onto her red sweater.
It should have been the highlight of the trip (and it was), but on the flight back, Peter found himself reflecting more and more on how satisfied he felt of late. It was Annika; but there was something more. He felt more substantive as well as, well, more substantial, the added heft revealing a newfound awareness of his body.
Whereas before he had always been wholly indifferent to it, he now found active enjoyment in all of his body. He took pleasure in his cleanly muscled arms and firm calves now paired with perceptibly softening pectorals and meatier thighs, a spreading backside and grabbable love handles; on his face, plumping, apple-round cheeks and a softening jaw.
Most of the twenty-five pounds he’d packed on in Annika’s delightful company had mostly gone to his visibly thickening waistline and ballooning paunch, the midsection he now saw reflected in the mirror as swelling almost by the day, the button and buttonhole of his trousers getting farther and farther apart. The trip to Sweden, with its multiple feasts, had surely added another inch or so.
“Maybe I’ll make a New Year’s resolution to lose weight,” he thought, and padded into bed and drew the blankets up. As he drifted off, his thoughts were not on his own belly, but on the increasingly gravid plumpness of his bed partner’s tummy. Her long-waisted figure showcased the added pounds in cushion of thigh, buttocks and breast, and in a bodacious padding through the middle, pearlike and glowing in the mornings when the sun peeked through the blinds.
Peter forgot his resolution as he found himself plunged into a delightful whirl of wedding plans, consulted as a matter of form and then cheerfully ignored, which was fine with him. He was fitted for a tux, then refitted and refitted again, as the countless parties that marked their engagement pushed his belly farther and farther forward and his thighs rounder and closer together. Annika, too, required a couple of refittings on her gown, but fortunately had chosen a flattering Grecian drape that hugged her ripening breasts and skimmed her belly and luscious hips.
Finally it was June, finally it was the eighteenth, finally Peter slid the ring onto Annika’s finger. A long kiss followed, and a shower of rice, and then a blur of reception, flights, jet lag, and at last, at last, they were on the island of Gotland, home to the impeccably preserved walled medieval town of Visby.
“Um,” Peter said to his wife.
“Um?”
“Now that we’re married, maybe I should…” he gestured vaguely to his belly, which crowned roundly below his chest as he lay in the large bed.
“Maybe,” she said, hiking herself up and leaning over him, her Nordic blue eyes gazing deeply into his, “You should shut up and kiss me.”
