lurksville
Well-Known Member
~BHM, ~Gay, ~MWG - A man insists on wearing pajamas to bed even though it annoys his signifigant other.
I noticed it in January. Bobby comes from old money, and he loved wearing those damn silk pajamas to bed when we first met, but after the first three months or so of dating, I’d finally talked him into acting like a normal guy and sleeping in his boxers. Or in the nude. I preferred the latter, but Bobby still has a shy streak on occasion.
We’d been together for three years—one year since the commitment ceremony, and by now the feel of his body was just as familiar to me as my own, if not more so. Which is why I noticed it immediately when the infamous silk pajamas made a reappearance.
“It’s cold,” he shrugged when I gave him a questioning stare.
He did have me at that—the winter nights in Connecticut were quite cold—so I bought his explanation with relative ease. I figured he must have re-accustomed himself to their warmth, since he’d also been wearing them over the holiday vacation when we’d gone to visit his family at their estate. He simply couldn’t fathom sleeping naked under his parents’ insanely large roof, it seemed.
I for one would have rather had him seek warmth by burrowing in close to me, but I guess I didn’t quite measure up to silk in Bobby’s eyes.
By the time a month had gone by, I was starting to get restless. I’d tried removing his pajama top several times while we were making love, but I always found my hands restricted as Bobby went on the offensive, taking control of the situation and getting me so aroused I didn’t know up from down. When we came down from the high of sexual release, though, I missed the contact with his skin even more, for all I wanted to do was press up against him, feel the heat that radiated from him, and drift off to sleep.
I was also starting to have my suspicions as to what the real issue was. Determined not to spend the rest of my life with a man draped in cloth, I cornered him when he got out of the shower one night in early February.
“Bedtime?” I asked as he fiddled with his bathrobe.
“This early?” he questioned, looking a little startled. I always stayed up until around 11—I was an internet junkie, and loved to waste time searching for education or entertainment—and Bobby always came to find me in our home office to remind me it was time for bed.
He used to come in his boxers, his broad chest coated with fine dark hair glistening from his evening shower. Lately, though, he’d been coming to get me wearing those ridiculous powder blue silk pajamas. So my plan had been to catch him before he could put them on, and then subtly talk him out of them. Or not so subtly. Enough was enough.
“Yup. I mean, I’m not sleepy, but I would like it to be bedtime.” I crossed my arms and grinned at him.
“O-okay . . .well, let me just get ready for bed.”
“You are ready,” I countered. “Just take off that robe.”
“Gotta put my p.j.’s on,” he said lightly with a little grin.
“No, you don’t.”
“It’s cold . . .”
“I turned up the heat.”
“But Mark, that costs money! We spent a lot this year on the house and . . .”
“I figure the cost is worth it if I get to see you out of those stupid things for a change.”
Now Bobby paled, and I could tell we were soon to get to the heart of the matter.
“Mark,” he said quietly, looking down at his feet. “I . . . I’m not sure . . . I mean, I don’t feel comfortable . . . I mean . . . you must have noticed . . .”
He trailed off and turned his face away from me, but I wasn’t going to let him get off so easily. In two quick steps I was beside him, taking his chin in my hand. It felt a little softer than I remembered.
“Bobby, what’s going on? What are you talking about?”
His eyes watered. “I know you must have noticed.”
“Noticed what?”
Now through the haze of his uncried tears I glimpsed a flash of anger. “This!” he shouted, pulling back his robe. “Don’t tell me you didn’t!”
What he was displaying for me was a rounded and slightly hairy belly that stuck out a couple of inches from the rest of his body. It wasn’t really very large at all, unless one took into account that for most of our relationship, he’d had a relatively flat and somewhat toned stomach.
His upper body had changed a little, too. Where once his broad chest had been firm, now his pecs had softened and there was a slight crease under each one where they sagged from the added weight. His thighs were wider, and though I couldn’t see his butt from where he stood, I knew it had been looking a bit larger in his suit pants as he left for work each morning.
All in all it couldn’t have been more than fifteen to twenty pounds or so, but from the look on Bobby’s face, it was dire.
“I don’t know what happened . . . I mean, I know what happened. I ate too much at Thanksgiving, and then at the office, with all the holiday snacks, and then at my parent’s over Christmas . . . God, Mark, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” I asked, crinkling my brow. I was having a hard time tearing my eyes away from his little balloon of a belly, although not because I found it revolting. Far from it, actually. “Why are you sorry?”
“Because you . . . you still look as incredible as the day I met you . . . and I’ve . . . let myself go.”
I glanced down at myself. Yes, I worked out. I liked to stay fit. But I also ran my own Internet business, and my hours were much more flexible than Bobby’s, which gave me time to waste at the gym. And besides, I wasn’t really seeing anything wrong with Bobby’s new look.
“Baby,” I said quietly, using my thumb to brush away a tear that had just barely escaped his eye. “You look perfectly fine. Don’t be ridiculous. Is this why you’ve been hiding in those pajamas?”
He nodded meekly.
“Well stop being so silly. I love you. And I’ve seriously been going through withdrawal, not being able to touch you. Please come to bed with me, just like that. Nothing would make me happier.”
Bobby looked doubtful. “You really don’t mind?”
“Let me show you how much I don’t mind,” I said, adding a little suggestive wink.
After we made love, without any fabric in the way (finally!), I held him close, running my hand over his slightly fleshier side and sighing contentedly. “This is what I missed,” I murmured in his ear. “Skin against skin. Just you and me.”
Bobby shifted a little to give me a quick peck on the lips. “I love you,” he said. “And don’t worry, I’m gonna lose this weight.”
“I’m not worried,” I said, and was going to elaborate on that notion, but I didn’t get a chance because Bobby cut me off with another kiss.
*
For the next month, mealtimes with Bobby were a miserable experience. He insisted on salads; he insisted on partitioning his food and throwing half of it away; he insisted on skipping meals altogether. None of my cajoling for him to loosen up or scolding about unhealthy eating habits seemed to get through to him. He’d simply give me a glare and say “I’m on a diet,” and that was that.
His silk pajamas also reappeared after only a week away. When I groaned my immediate protests he put a hand up to shush me and insisted that they would be gone when he lost the weight, but that for now he needed to “keep his dignity.” He even brought out the old trump card: “If you love me, you’ll let me have this.”
What could I do? I sadly acquiesced, and got used to slipping my hand above the pajamas as I caressed him instead of under them, since he’d put all belly-touching off limits.
But for all Bobby’s dieting efforts, I could plainly see he wasn’t getting the greatest results. Rather than slimming down, it seemed his cheeks were getting chubbier, and the buttons of his suit jacket appeared to be straining a bit more each day. His rear end was now filling out his suit pants to the fullest, and I was afraid there’d come a point fairly soon when they could no longer hold his growth.
None of that bothered me, though. What bothered me was how unhappy he seemed, and how unhappy I was, not being able to look upon the man I loved in his natural state and show him I loved him, just as he was.
In mid-March I finally found out the cause of Bobby’s diet failure.
Our downstairs toilet was on the fritz, so after a disheartening dinner in which Bobby had literally only eaten about half a head of lettuce, I ran out to the home improvement store to get some parts. When I returned, I could hear Bobby in the shower, so I set out my tools and got to work.
The problem proved to be a quick fix, and after only about ten minutes I threw my tools under the bathroom sink and headed upstairs. I stopped short of the door to our bedroom, however, which was slightly ajar. I could hear strange crinkling sounds coming from inside, and for some reason, I decided to press myself up against the wall, trying to be as small as possible as I inched up to peek inside without Bobby seeing me.
He was sitting on the bed with his briefcase by his side. It was wide open, and I could see that it housed a myriad of candy bars and snack cakes. Bobby was unpeeling them, one by one, stuffing them into his mouth, and chewing furiously. His bathrobe had fallen open, and a considerably expansive belly sat upon his thick thighs. The way he was bent over made his pecs sag and point downwards, and he had three distinct rolls of fat visible along his sides.
It looked like he’d gained another twenty pounds or so since the last time I’d seen him naked, and now I could finally see why. All the crazy dieting he was doing in front of me was merely pushing him to binge when he was alone.
I knew I should try to stop him, but I didn’t want him to be humiliated by being caught in the act. I remained frozen in my spot as he finished the entire contents of his briefcase and stuffed the trash back inside before snapping it shut.
He closed his eyes for a moment as he brought a hand to rest on his distended stomach. When he opened them again there was a look of such sadness and pain in his gaze, it broke my heart. I cursed my own cowardice at not making it clear to him how much I adored him and his growing body, but before I could come up with a way to set things right, he started to rise from the bed. Panicked, I slipped back down the stairs as quietly as I could, and then re-ascended them with loudly pounding footsteps.
“Baby? I’m home, and I fixed the toilet,” I called out, waiting an extra second before swinging open the door to our bedroom and stepping inside.
He had secured his robe firmly by that point and stashed his briefcase away by his nightstand.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said.
I walked over to him and threw my arms around him, burying my head in the crook of his neck. “I missed you,” I murmured.
I felt him chuckle against me. “I missed you, too,” he said, sounding slightly amused by my declaration. “Let me just get my p.j.’s on and we can cuddle in bed.”
Damn.
He was lucky those pajamas had been loose to begin with, because even though he turned off the lights before crawling in beside me, I couldn’t help but notice the growing gap between the bottom two buttons, where slivers of jiggling belly were starting to poke through.
For a whole two weeks I fretted over what to do to help Bobby while he continued to visibly expand. I tried dropping hints about how great I thought he was looking lately, but Bobby at best ignored me and at worst stormed off in a huff. It seemed I was getting nowhere on my own, and had it not been for the annual black tie benefit at his firm, I don’t know how long it would have taken me to get through to him.
I hated black tie events-- I’m a t-shirt and jeans guy, all the way. But Bobby seemed to live for them, perhaps because they reminded him of his ritzy childhood. So it was a rare occasion when I was ready before him. Usually, he was the one pounding at the bathroom door, yelling about how we were already late, and could I please just hurry up?
This time, I was ready before he’d even started getting dressed. Mysteriously, he’d snuck into the bathroom with his tux while I wasn’t looking, and now I was sitting on the edge of our bed, waiting impatiently and tugging at the annoying bowtie that was chafing my neck. After five minutes or so, I finally grew frustrated enough to call out to him.
“Hey, what’s taking so long? Need help with your bowtie?” I laughed, because that was obviously a joke. Bobby had tied mine for me, and he did every year.
I heard Bobby shout, “Just a minute,” but even from those three little words I could tell that something was wrong. His voice was caught somewhere between panic and tears.
I couldn’t wait “just a minute” after hearing that, so I stood and barged in on him. I found him wearing his tux shirt-- which clung like a second skin to his rounded form-- and struggling to button his pants.
His face was red from the exertion but it grew redder still as his eyes flew up to mine. “Mark, don’t . . .” he choked out, but I’d had it.
“Shut up,” I growled, stepping closer to him. “Let me help you. What the hell do you think I’m here for?”
He shook his head, glancing down at his swollen abdomen. “It’s no use. I really can’t miss this event . . . but I can’t believe I . . .”
I put a hand on his mouth to stop him from berating himself. “No,” I instructed firmly. “No more negative. Let me help you get these on, then we are going to your damn stuffy function, and we are going to have a great time, do you hear me?”
Startled into submission, Bobby nodded.
I then turned my attention to the task at hand. The flaps of his pants were a good two inches apart, so I grabbed them and gave a forceful yank. They came a little closer together, but not close enough.
“Suck in,” I said gently.
“I am sucking in!” Bobby wailed, and to prove his point, he exhaled. The flaps flew out of my hands as his stomach surged forward. A few of the buttons on his shirt were plainly holding on for dear life.
Bobby had started to sweat, and I could tell he was on the verge of breaking down. Carefully and without sudden moves, I took his hand and lead him into the bedroom.
“Okay, baby. Let’s try this. Lie down on the bed, and let’s see if that gives us the slack we need.”
Looking doubtful but desperate, Bobby did what I asked. Amazingly, the redistribution of his weight while he was lying down allowed me to get the button of his pants closed, but I had to help him stand because he couldn’t really bend very well given the extreme tightness. He looked down at himself and frowned, as a generous roll of fat was being pushed up and out by the restrictive pants.
“Mark, I can’t . . . I can’t go like this.”
“Ah, but that’s what cummerbunds are for,” I said lightly. I grabbed his from where it lay on top of our dresser and quickly loosened the strap. I then wrapped it around him where it did indeed cover the worst of the bulging roll, as well as the gaping lower buttons of his shirt. “See?”
“Um,” Bobby mumbled. Now that the worst seemed to be over, he was beginning to register his embarrassment.
I grabbed his tux jacket and helped him into it, mainly because I wanted to make sure it would button. Again it was an extremely close call, and his love handles were clearly outlined by the dark fabric. I realized Bobby hadn’t worn his tux in a year, and either his suits had more give to them, or he’d gone and gotten larger sizes on the sly, because it was clear that this tux was meant for a much smaller person.
Bobby hung his head in his hands. “I’ve been trying, Mark. I really have been.”
“I know, baby,” I said, uncovering his face and pressing my lips into his. “I love you. You know that, right? Now take a deep breath and relax. Everything is fine, okay?”
Bobby started to take that deep breath, but winced and stopped, probably because his clothes were too tight to allow it. I kissed him again and put my arm around his pudgy waist. “C’mon, baby. Let’s go.”
Bobby barely picked at a plate of hors d'oeuvres, and I frowned at him unhappily, wishing there was some way I could tell him to just ease up on himself. But, surrounded as we were by his colleagues, there didn’t seem to be much I could do. As an alternate plan, I began snagging glasses of wine from the waiters who passed by and slipping them over to him. “Drink. We’re here to have a good time,” I encouraged him.
After some initial hesitancy Bobby finally gave in. Before the main course we were interrupted by a succession of boring speakers that I couldn’t care less about. Bobby seemed to be interested, however, and that was to my benefit because he downed at least four glasses of wine while we listened.
By the time the entrée was served Bobby looked much more relaxed, and he laughed with ruddy cheeks at his coworker’s jokes while he devoured all of his pasta and chicken. I wasn’t feeling very hungry, and to my surprise when I pushed my plate aside, he stuck his fork into it and made quick work of finishing it off.
When the desert buffet was set out Bobby stood quickly. He surreptitiously put a hand to his waist and rubbed it gently, and I realized it must have been pretty painful for him to be sitting with his pants cinched so tightly around his stomach. Perhaps that was why he chose to remain standing for the rest of the night as we schmoozed with a succession of acquaintances. Every few minutes or so, Bobby darted away to the desert table and came back with something to happily munch on—cupcakes, pieces of pie, tarts, chocolates, and so on. He must have sampled everything they had to offer at least twice. It seemed my Bobby had a sweet tooth.
By eleven o’clock we were ready to call it a night. He was starting to fidget more in his tux and I had a feeling it would be a good idea to get him out of it and then never let it see the light of day again.
The valet driver pulled up our car and I made quick work of jumping in. Bobby took considerably more time, smartly unbuttoning is jacket and lowering himself into the seat with a painful-sounding “Ooph.” His breaths were labored, and he put a hand on his stomach so that there was no doubt where the discomfort was coming from.
Without giving him a chance to object, I leaned over and yanked up the cummerbund so I could get at his pants. The button had been sucked up into a roll and I had to actually dig to get at it, but when I found it, it saved me further trouble by popping off. I fervently hoped that Bobby hadn’t noticed as I pulled down the zipper and gave his poor belly room to expand.
It plopped down onto his lap, but was still slightly restricted by the shirt and cummerbund. Bobby closed his eyes and rested his head against the window without saying a word.
I watched his mound of a belly bounce and wobble as we drove, wondering what if anything I should say to him when we got home. It was mesmerizing, actually, and I found myself overcome by a fervent desire to touch him—all of him—and explore how that soft, jiggling flesh would yield under my fingertips.
Bobby was still silent as we trudged our way up the steps to our room. He didn’t turn on the lights, and neither did I, because I had a feeling that things would be easier for him if we could talk in the dark.
Whereas I shed my tux in a minute flat, Bobby stood still, staring at me with a blank expression. He seemed lost.
“Okay, baby, your turn,” I whispered. I walked up to him and took off his jacket, then slowly began unbuttoning his shirt. His expression was still vacant, but he wasn’t trying to stop me, so I took that as a good sign.
I pulled his pants down and helped him to step out of them, then removed his dress shirt as well as his undershirt. Even in the dark I could see the angry red mark that encircled his doughy middle and I frowned, thinking that I should have talked him out of going instead of allowing him to suffer through the night like that.
“Poor baby,” I said gently, running my hand over the red skin. The touch of his softness under my fingers had me shivering, but in a good way.
I lead him to the bed and then grabbed some massage oil, rubbing it over my hands before I took them to his skin. Carefully, I tried to ease away the worst of the mark. His stomach rippled and folded beneath me, and I loved it.
“Mm, feels good,” he mumbled, then bit his lip, as if he hadn’t meant to let that slip out.
“I can do this all the time, baby. If you’d just lose those damn pajamas for good.”
I got caught up in what I was doing and failed to realize when he’d started crying. Abandoning his belly for the time being, I crawled up his face and furiously began wiping the tears away.
“I’m sorry, Mark,” he said. “I didn’t mean to let it get this bad. I’m sorry.”
“Shh,” I said, putting a finger to his lips. “I don’t want to hear you apologize anymore, do you understand? You have nothing to apologize for. You’re being ridiculous. And maybe I have been too, not making things clear to you. I don’t want you to be unhappy. I don’t want you to diet anymore. I want you to eat in front of me and take your time enjoying the things you eat, like you did tonight.”
Bobby started to cry a little harder then, as if he’d guessed I’d caught on to his little secret. “I tried so hard at first but it just made me hungrier and I . . . I . . “
“No more crying, either,” I chastised. “I love you, Bobby. This doesn’t bother me at all.” I gave his belly a gentle rub, watching the waves it caused with a smile. “I love all of you. I’d love you if there were more of you. I’d love you if there were less of you. But to tell you the truth, I’d actually prefer the former to the latter.”
Bobby hiccupped. “Are you . . . are you sure? Because I can try . . . I can try harder . . .”
“The only thing I want you to try harder at is trusting me,” I insisted. “Please, Bobby. Promise me you’ll just let me hold you like this so I can show you how much I love you. No more hiding.”
I continued to caress every part of him, taking special care to fondle his new curves and creases. After a few minutes I felt him shudder and relax, and his stomach billowed out a little further.
“Okay,” he exhaled quietly as I kissed him up and down. “But there is one thing.”
I groaned. “What?”
He smiled at me ruefully, then brought his hand over to his belly, scratching at the remaining damage from the combination of too-small pants and too many fattening treats. “I think I’m going to need to buy a new tux.”
And I told him I’d never been more excited to go shopping for formal attire in my life.
*
Bobby continued to gain for a while after that, though under much more pleasurable conditions. He developed a much bigger appetite than he’d had during the earlier days of our relationship, as if he’d accidentally discovered the full capacity of his stomach through his binging episodes. His thighs and backside grew to support the bulk of his weight, which ended up in a rolling belly that took up a good quarter of his lap when he sat down, and his face softened to the point where he had an adorable double chin.
For the most part, he accepted his growth without too much resistance. Every once and a while, though, he’d hesitate before biting into that eighth piece of pizza or sixth donut with a little sigh.
“I really shouldn’t,” he’d say, placing a hand on his ever-widening belly. “I’m getting so fat.”
But a few passionate kisses from me, coupled with my expert tummy rubs, usually had a smile chasing his doubts away as he continued to eat to his—and my—heart’s content.
*
The following winter, when we were packing for our annual visit to his parents, he found the forgotten silk pajamas buried deep in a drawer. He pulled them out with a little chuckle and showed them to me.
“Guess these won’t fit anymore,” he said.
I didn’t even try to hide my glee at that, and he playfully tossed them at my face.
“But what am I going to wear at my parents house?”
I walked up to embrace him, resting my arms on his convenient love handles. I loved how it took so much of my entire arm span to get all the way around him.
“How about nothing at all?”
Just the thought of it already had me going, and Bobby didn’t miss it.
“I suppose if it makes you that happy . . .”
Shouting my triumph, I pulled him down onto the bed, where we made love like newlyweds. The next morning, we tossed the silk pajamas into a bag for goodwill, and to my intense pleasure, Bobby never spoke of pajamas again.
***
Silk Pajamas
I noticed it in January. Bobby comes from old money, and he loved wearing those damn silk pajamas to bed when we first met, but after the first three months or so of dating, I’d finally talked him into acting like a normal guy and sleeping in his boxers. Or in the nude. I preferred the latter, but Bobby still has a shy streak on occasion.
We’d been together for three years—one year since the commitment ceremony, and by now the feel of his body was just as familiar to me as my own, if not more so. Which is why I noticed it immediately when the infamous silk pajamas made a reappearance.
“It’s cold,” he shrugged when I gave him a questioning stare.
He did have me at that—the winter nights in Connecticut were quite cold—so I bought his explanation with relative ease. I figured he must have re-accustomed himself to their warmth, since he’d also been wearing them over the holiday vacation when we’d gone to visit his family at their estate. He simply couldn’t fathom sleeping naked under his parents’ insanely large roof, it seemed.
I for one would have rather had him seek warmth by burrowing in close to me, but I guess I didn’t quite measure up to silk in Bobby’s eyes.
By the time a month had gone by, I was starting to get restless. I’d tried removing his pajama top several times while we were making love, but I always found my hands restricted as Bobby went on the offensive, taking control of the situation and getting me so aroused I didn’t know up from down. When we came down from the high of sexual release, though, I missed the contact with his skin even more, for all I wanted to do was press up against him, feel the heat that radiated from him, and drift off to sleep.
I was also starting to have my suspicions as to what the real issue was. Determined not to spend the rest of my life with a man draped in cloth, I cornered him when he got out of the shower one night in early February.
“Bedtime?” I asked as he fiddled with his bathrobe.
“This early?” he questioned, looking a little startled. I always stayed up until around 11—I was an internet junkie, and loved to waste time searching for education or entertainment—and Bobby always came to find me in our home office to remind me it was time for bed.
He used to come in his boxers, his broad chest coated with fine dark hair glistening from his evening shower. Lately, though, he’d been coming to get me wearing those ridiculous powder blue silk pajamas. So my plan had been to catch him before he could put them on, and then subtly talk him out of them. Or not so subtly. Enough was enough.
“Yup. I mean, I’m not sleepy, but I would like it to be bedtime.” I crossed my arms and grinned at him.
“O-okay . . .well, let me just get ready for bed.”
“You are ready,” I countered. “Just take off that robe.”
“Gotta put my p.j.’s on,” he said lightly with a little grin.
“No, you don’t.”
“It’s cold . . .”
“I turned up the heat.”
“But Mark, that costs money! We spent a lot this year on the house and . . .”
“I figure the cost is worth it if I get to see you out of those stupid things for a change.”
Now Bobby paled, and I could tell we were soon to get to the heart of the matter.
“Mark,” he said quietly, looking down at his feet. “I . . . I’m not sure . . . I mean, I don’t feel comfortable . . . I mean . . . you must have noticed . . .”
He trailed off and turned his face away from me, but I wasn’t going to let him get off so easily. In two quick steps I was beside him, taking his chin in my hand. It felt a little softer than I remembered.
“Bobby, what’s going on? What are you talking about?”
His eyes watered. “I know you must have noticed.”
“Noticed what?”
Now through the haze of his uncried tears I glimpsed a flash of anger. “This!” he shouted, pulling back his robe. “Don’t tell me you didn’t!”
What he was displaying for me was a rounded and slightly hairy belly that stuck out a couple of inches from the rest of his body. It wasn’t really very large at all, unless one took into account that for most of our relationship, he’d had a relatively flat and somewhat toned stomach.
His upper body had changed a little, too. Where once his broad chest had been firm, now his pecs had softened and there was a slight crease under each one where they sagged from the added weight. His thighs were wider, and though I couldn’t see his butt from where he stood, I knew it had been looking a bit larger in his suit pants as he left for work each morning.
All in all it couldn’t have been more than fifteen to twenty pounds or so, but from the look on Bobby’s face, it was dire.
“I don’t know what happened . . . I mean, I know what happened. I ate too much at Thanksgiving, and then at the office, with all the holiday snacks, and then at my parent’s over Christmas . . . God, Mark, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” I asked, crinkling my brow. I was having a hard time tearing my eyes away from his little balloon of a belly, although not because I found it revolting. Far from it, actually. “Why are you sorry?”
“Because you . . . you still look as incredible as the day I met you . . . and I’ve . . . let myself go.”
I glanced down at myself. Yes, I worked out. I liked to stay fit. But I also ran my own Internet business, and my hours were much more flexible than Bobby’s, which gave me time to waste at the gym. And besides, I wasn’t really seeing anything wrong with Bobby’s new look.
“Baby,” I said quietly, using my thumb to brush away a tear that had just barely escaped his eye. “You look perfectly fine. Don’t be ridiculous. Is this why you’ve been hiding in those pajamas?”
He nodded meekly.
“Well stop being so silly. I love you. And I’ve seriously been going through withdrawal, not being able to touch you. Please come to bed with me, just like that. Nothing would make me happier.”
Bobby looked doubtful. “You really don’t mind?”
“Let me show you how much I don’t mind,” I said, adding a little suggestive wink.
After we made love, without any fabric in the way (finally!), I held him close, running my hand over his slightly fleshier side and sighing contentedly. “This is what I missed,” I murmured in his ear. “Skin against skin. Just you and me.”
Bobby shifted a little to give me a quick peck on the lips. “I love you,” he said. “And don’t worry, I’m gonna lose this weight.”
“I’m not worried,” I said, and was going to elaborate on that notion, but I didn’t get a chance because Bobby cut me off with another kiss.
*
For the next month, mealtimes with Bobby were a miserable experience. He insisted on salads; he insisted on partitioning his food and throwing half of it away; he insisted on skipping meals altogether. None of my cajoling for him to loosen up or scolding about unhealthy eating habits seemed to get through to him. He’d simply give me a glare and say “I’m on a diet,” and that was that.
His silk pajamas also reappeared after only a week away. When I groaned my immediate protests he put a hand up to shush me and insisted that they would be gone when he lost the weight, but that for now he needed to “keep his dignity.” He even brought out the old trump card: “If you love me, you’ll let me have this.”
What could I do? I sadly acquiesced, and got used to slipping my hand above the pajamas as I caressed him instead of under them, since he’d put all belly-touching off limits.
But for all Bobby’s dieting efforts, I could plainly see he wasn’t getting the greatest results. Rather than slimming down, it seemed his cheeks were getting chubbier, and the buttons of his suit jacket appeared to be straining a bit more each day. His rear end was now filling out his suit pants to the fullest, and I was afraid there’d come a point fairly soon when they could no longer hold his growth.
None of that bothered me, though. What bothered me was how unhappy he seemed, and how unhappy I was, not being able to look upon the man I loved in his natural state and show him I loved him, just as he was.
In mid-March I finally found out the cause of Bobby’s diet failure.
Our downstairs toilet was on the fritz, so after a disheartening dinner in which Bobby had literally only eaten about half a head of lettuce, I ran out to the home improvement store to get some parts. When I returned, I could hear Bobby in the shower, so I set out my tools and got to work.
The problem proved to be a quick fix, and after only about ten minutes I threw my tools under the bathroom sink and headed upstairs. I stopped short of the door to our bedroom, however, which was slightly ajar. I could hear strange crinkling sounds coming from inside, and for some reason, I decided to press myself up against the wall, trying to be as small as possible as I inched up to peek inside without Bobby seeing me.
He was sitting on the bed with his briefcase by his side. It was wide open, and I could see that it housed a myriad of candy bars and snack cakes. Bobby was unpeeling them, one by one, stuffing them into his mouth, and chewing furiously. His bathrobe had fallen open, and a considerably expansive belly sat upon his thick thighs. The way he was bent over made his pecs sag and point downwards, and he had three distinct rolls of fat visible along his sides.
It looked like he’d gained another twenty pounds or so since the last time I’d seen him naked, and now I could finally see why. All the crazy dieting he was doing in front of me was merely pushing him to binge when he was alone.
I knew I should try to stop him, but I didn’t want him to be humiliated by being caught in the act. I remained frozen in my spot as he finished the entire contents of his briefcase and stuffed the trash back inside before snapping it shut.
He closed his eyes for a moment as he brought a hand to rest on his distended stomach. When he opened them again there was a look of such sadness and pain in his gaze, it broke my heart. I cursed my own cowardice at not making it clear to him how much I adored him and his growing body, but before I could come up with a way to set things right, he started to rise from the bed. Panicked, I slipped back down the stairs as quietly as I could, and then re-ascended them with loudly pounding footsteps.
“Baby? I’m home, and I fixed the toilet,” I called out, waiting an extra second before swinging open the door to our bedroom and stepping inside.
He had secured his robe firmly by that point and stashed his briefcase away by his nightstand.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said.
I walked over to him and threw my arms around him, burying my head in the crook of his neck. “I missed you,” I murmured.
I felt him chuckle against me. “I missed you, too,” he said, sounding slightly amused by my declaration. “Let me just get my p.j.’s on and we can cuddle in bed.”
Damn.
He was lucky those pajamas had been loose to begin with, because even though he turned off the lights before crawling in beside me, I couldn’t help but notice the growing gap between the bottom two buttons, where slivers of jiggling belly were starting to poke through.
For a whole two weeks I fretted over what to do to help Bobby while he continued to visibly expand. I tried dropping hints about how great I thought he was looking lately, but Bobby at best ignored me and at worst stormed off in a huff. It seemed I was getting nowhere on my own, and had it not been for the annual black tie benefit at his firm, I don’t know how long it would have taken me to get through to him.
I hated black tie events-- I’m a t-shirt and jeans guy, all the way. But Bobby seemed to live for them, perhaps because they reminded him of his ritzy childhood. So it was a rare occasion when I was ready before him. Usually, he was the one pounding at the bathroom door, yelling about how we were already late, and could I please just hurry up?
This time, I was ready before he’d even started getting dressed. Mysteriously, he’d snuck into the bathroom with his tux while I wasn’t looking, and now I was sitting on the edge of our bed, waiting impatiently and tugging at the annoying bowtie that was chafing my neck. After five minutes or so, I finally grew frustrated enough to call out to him.
“Hey, what’s taking so long? Need help with your bowtie?” I laughed, because that was obviously a joke. Bobby had tied mine for me, and he did every year.
I heard Bobby shout, “Just a minute,” but even from those three little words I could tell that something was wrong. His voice was caught somewhere between panic and tears.
I couldn’t wait “just a minute” after hearing that, so I stood and barged in on him. I found him wearing his tux shirt-- which clung like a second skin to his rounded form-- and struggling to button his pants.
His face was red from the exertion but it grew redder still as his eyes flew up to mine. “Mark, don’t . . .” he choked out, but I’d had it.
“Shut up,” I growled, stepping closer to him. “Let me help you. What the hell do you think I’m here for?”
He shook his head, glancing down at his swollen abdomen. “It’s no use. I really can’t miss this event . . . but I can’t believe I . . .”
I put a hand on his mouth to stop him from berating himself. “No,” I instructed firmly. “No more negative. Let me help you get these on, then we are going to your damn stuffy function, and we are going to have a great time, do you hear me?”
Startled into submission, Bobby nodded.
I then turned my attention to the task at hand. The flaps of his pants were a good two inches apart, so I grabbed them and gave a forceful yank. They came a little closer together, but not close enough.
“Suck in,” I said gently.
“I am sucking in!” Bobby wailed, and to prove his point, he exhaled. The flaps flew out of my hands as his stomach surged forward. A few of the buttons on his shirt were plainly holding on for dear life.
Bobby had started to sweat, and I could tell he was on the verge of breaking down. Carefully and without sudden moves, I took his hand and lead him into the bedroom.
“Okay, baby. Let’s try this. Lie down on the bed, and let’s see if that gives us the slack we need.”
Looking doubtful but desperate, Bobby did what I asked. Amazingly, the redistribution of his weight while he was lying down allowed me to get the button of his pants closed, but I had to help him stand because he couldn’t really bend very well given the extreme tightness. He looked down at himself and frowned, as a generous roll of fat was being pushed up and out by the restrictive pants.
“Mark, I can’t . . . I can’t go like this.”
“Ah, but that’s what cummerbunds are for,” I said lightly. I grabbed his from where it lay on top of our dresser and quickly loosened the strap. I then wrapped it around him where it did indeed cover the worst of the bulging roll, as well as the gaping lower buttons of his shirt. “See?”
“Um,” Bobby mumbled. Now that the worst seemed to be over, he was beginning to register his embarrassment.
I grabbed his tux jacket and helped him into it, mainly because I wanted to make sure it would button. Again it was an extremely close call, and his love handles were clearly outlined by the dark fabric. I realized Bobby hadn’t worn his tux in a year, and either his suits had more give to them, or he’d gone and gotten larger sizes on the sly, because it was clear that this tux was meant for a much smaller person.
Bobby hung his head in his hands. “I’ve been trying, Mark. I really have been.”
“I know, baby,” I said, uncovering his face and pressing my lips into his. “I love you. You know that, right? Now take a deep breath and relax. Everything is fine, okay?”
Bobby started to take that deep breath, but winced and stopped, probably because his clothes were too tight to allow it. I kissed him again and put my arm around his pudgy waist. “C’mon, baby. Let’s go.”
Bobby barely picked at a plate of hors d'oeuvres, and I frowned at him unhappily, wishing there was some way I could tell him to just ease up on himself. But, surrounded as we were by his colleagues, there didn’t seem to be much I could do. As an alternate plan, I began snagging glasses of wine from the waiters who passed by and slipping them over to him. “Drink. We’re here to have a good time,” I encouraged him.
After some initial hesitancy Bobby finally gave in. Before the main course we were interrupted by a succession of boring speakers that I couldn’t care less about. Bobby seemed to be interested, however, and that was to my benefit because he downed at least four glasses of wine while we listened.
By the time the entrée was served Bobby looked much more relaxed, and he laughed with ruddy cheeks at his coworker’s jokes while he devoured all of his pasta and chicken. I wasn’t feeling very hungry, and to my surprise when I pushed my plate aside, he stuck his fork into it and made quick work of finishing it off.
When the desert buffet was set out Bobby stood quickly. He surreptitiously put a hand to his waist and rubbed it gently, and I realized it must have been pretty painful for him to be sitting with his pants cinched so tightly around his stomach. Perhaps that was why he chose to remain standing for the rest of the night as we schmoozed with a succession of acquaintances. Every few minutes or so, Bobby darted away to the desert table and came back with something to happily munch on—cupcakes, pieces of pie, tarts, chocolates, and so on. He must have sampled everything they had to offer at least twice. It seemed my Bobby had a sweet tooth.
By eleven o’clock we were ready to call it a night. He was starting to fidget more in his tux and I had a feeling it would be a good idea to get him out of it and then never let it see the light of day again.
The valet driver pulled up our car and I made quick work of jumping in. Bobby took considerably more time, smartly unbuttoning is jacket and lowering himself into the seat with a painful-sounding “Ooph.” His breaths were labored, and he put a hand on his stomach so that there was no doubt where the discomfort was coming from.
Without giving him a chance to object, I leaned over and yanked up the cummerbund so I could get at his pants. The button had been sucked up into a roll and I had to actually dig to get at it, but when I found it, it saved me further trouble by popping off. I fervently hoped that Bobby hadn’t noticed as I pulled down the zipper and gave his poor belly room to expand.
It plopped down onto his lap, but was still slightly restricted by the shirt and cummerbund. Bobby closed his eyes and rested his head against the window without saying a word.
I watched his mound of a belly bounce and wobble as we drove, wondering what if anything I should say to him when we got home. It was mesmerizing, actually, and I found myself overcome by a fervent desire to touch him—all of him—and explore how that soft, jiggling flesh would yield under my fingertips.
Bobby was still silent as we trudged our way up the steps to our room. He didn’t turn on the lights, and neither did I, because I had a feeling that things would be easier for him if we could talk in the dark.
Whereas I shed my tux in a minute flat, Bobby stood still, staring at me with a blank expression. He seemed lost.
“Okay, baby, your turn,” I whispered. I walked up to him and took off his jacket, then slowly began unbuttoning his shirt. His expression was still vacant, but he wasn’t trying to stop me, so I took that as a good sign.
I pulled his pants down and helped him to step out of them, then removed his dress shirt as well as his undershirt. Even in the dark I could see the angry red mark that encircled his doughy middle and I frowned, thinking that I should have talked him out of going instead of allowing him to suffer through the night like that.
“Poor baby,” I said gently, running my hand over the red skin. The touch of his softness under my fingers had me shivering, but in a good way.
I lead him to the bed and then grabbed some massage oil, rubbing it over my hands before I took them to his skin. Carefully, I tried to ease away the worst of the mark. His stomach rippled and folded beneath me, and I loved it.
“Mm, feels good,” he mumbled, then bit his lip, as if he hadn’t meant to let that slip out.
“I can do this all the time, baby. If you’d just lose those damn pajamas for good.”
I got caught up in what I was doing and failed to realize when he’d started crying. Abandoning his belly for the time being, I crawled up his face and furiously began wiping the tears away.
“I’m sorry, Mark,” he said. “I didn’t mean to let it get this bad. I’m sorry.”
“Shh,” I said, putting a finger to his lips. “I don’t want to hear you apologize anymore, do you understand? You have nothing to apologize for. You’re being ridiculous. And maybe I have been too, not making things clear to you. I don’t want you to be unhappy. I don’t want you to diet anymore. I want you to eat in front of me and take your time enjoying the things you eat, like you did tonight.”
Bobby started to cry a little harder then, as if he’d guessed I’d caught on to his little secret. “I tried so hard at first but it just made me hungrier and I . . . I . . “
“No more crying, either,” I chastised. “I love you, Bobby. This doesn’t bother me at all.” I gave his belly a gentle rub, watching the waves it caused with a smile. “I love all of you. I’d love you if there were more of you. I’d love you if there were less of you. But to tell you the truth, I’d actually prefer the former to the latter.”
Bobby hiccupped. “Are you . . . are you sure? Because I can try . . . I can try harder . . .”
“The only thing I want you to try harder at is trusting me,” I insisted. “Please, Bobby. Promise me you’ll just let me hold you like this so I can show you how much I love you. No more hiding.”
I continued to caress every part of him, taking special care to fondle his new curves and creases. After a few minutes I felt him shudder and relax, and his stomach billowed out a little further.
“Okay,” he exhaled quietly as I kissed him up and down. “But there is one thing.”
I groaned. “What?”
He smiled at me ruefully, then brought his hand over to his belly, scratching at the remaining damage from the combination of too-small pants and too many fattening treats. “I think I’m going to need to buy a new tux.”
And I told him I’d never been more excited to go shopping for formal attire in my life.
*
Bobby continued to gain for a while after that, though under much more pleasurable conditions. He developed a much bigger appetite than he’d had during the earlier days of our relationship, as if he’d accidentally discovered the full capacity of his stomach through his binging episodes. His thighs and backside grew to support the bulk of his weight, which ended up in a rolling belly that took up a good quarter of his lap when he sat down, and his face softened to the point where he had an adorable double chin.
For the most part, he accepted his growth without too much resistance. Every once and a while, though, he’d hesitate before biting into that eighth piece of pizza or sixth donut with a little sigh.
“I really shouldn’t,” he’d say, placing a hand on his ever-widening belly. “I’m getting so fat.”
But a few passionate kisses from me, coupled with my expert tummy rubs, usually had a smile chasing his doubts away as he continued to eat to his—and my—heart’s content.
*
The following winter, when we were packing for our annual visit to his parents, he found the forgotten silk pajamas buried deep in a drawer. He pulled them out with a little chuckle and showed them to me.
“Guess these won’t fit anymore,” he said.
I didn’t even try to hide my glee at that, and he playfully tossed them at my face.
“But what am I going to wear at my parents house?”
I walked up to embrace him, resting my arms on his convenient love handles. I loved how it took so much of my entire arm span to get all the way around him.
“How about nothing at all?”
Just the thought of it already had me going, and Bobby didn’t miss it.
“I suppose if it makes you that happy . . .”
Shouting my triumph, I pulled him down onto the bed, where we made love like newlyweds. The next morning, we tossed the silk pajamas into a bag for goodwill, and to my intense pleasure, Bobby never spoke of pajamas again.
***
