Big Beautiful Dreamer
ridiculously contented
~~WG, Dining, ~BHM, ~BBW. A good cook's greatest happiness is in finding someone who loves what she (or he) makes.
“You look different,” the bank teller commented as she processed my transaction. “Did you … get a haircut?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, running a hand through my short brown hair. “I have lost some weight. Stomach flu.” I slid my hand down my belly, which was eleven pounds lighter.
The teller – Kelly Barnett, her name plate read – smiled in sympathy. “Yeah, I hear it’s going around pretty bad.”
“I was in bed for a week, and it took me another week to really get to feeling better,” I admitted.
“Well … glad you’re feeling better,” Kelly said, handing me the receipt. There was something handwritten on the back.
Once I got back in the car, I looked.
We’re not allowed to ask customers out, the note read. 412-5555.
Which is how, a week later, I was knocking on Kelly Barnett’s door with a bouquet of tulips.
“I hope you like meatloaf,” she announced. “We need to build you back up.”
Over dinner, I learned that Kelly had majored in accounting and minored in domestic science, that she was one of three children and the only girl, and that she loved to cook and read cookbooks.
I also learned that her mini meatloafs – loaves? – with sauce were so delicious that I could eat six of the eight of them with no trouble at all. Also rosemary-garlic mashed potatoes. Also beet slaw. Also a pear salad with rosemary-walnut dressing and bleu cheese crumbles. Also five or maybe seven crescent rolls. Also three tall glasses of lemonade.
Embarrassed at how I had made a pig of myself, I sank obediently into the wing chair to which Kelly directed me and stretched out my feet.
Kelly, bringing in coffee, clucked at the picture I presented.
“Undo your trousers,” she chided. “Give yourself some room.”She suited deeds to words and deftly undid my belt and then my khakis. I tried not to blush as the trousers flapped open in visible relief and my disgracefully full belly swelled out.
“I think I’m built back up,” I said sheepishly, rubbing my bloated and distended midsection. It was firmly engorged, swollen and a little tender, as if any sudden movement would make the tautly stretched flesh pop like a balloon. There was no hope of trying to do those khakis back up any time soon, and I wondered vaguely how not to outstay my welcome.
Kelly turned on the CD player and perched on the arm of the chair, helping me massage my aching gut. It was tight as a drum, my belly button prominent through my polo shirt, and I was warmly drowsy, sated and content, muzzily aware of the sensation of her fingers easing the discomfort of my overloaded and bulging belly.
Time passed. I might have dozed off. The music was different; Kelly must have changed CDs. I apologized.
“Sorry I ate all your food up,” I mumbled.
Kelly tilted my chin up so that my gaze met hers. “I’m not,”she said simply. Then she gave me a peck on the cheek and walked me to the door.
The following week, over Chinese buffet food, I waited until we were both three plates to the wind before bringing it up.
“Last week. You said … I mean, I said I was sorry I ate all your food and you said you weren’t.” I looked and her and shrugged a little.
Kelly looked down, looked up, looked down at her entwined fingers restless on the vinyl tablecloth, and blushed.
“I like to cook, you know that, and for me, the greatest compliment is when someone likes my cooking so much they eat it all up,” she said finally. “You know, when you’re full, or you’re getting full, and your stomach tells you to stop, but you keep going because you want one more bite and one more bite and one more bite and it’s so good you can’t resist.”
I looked at her. Didn’t say anything.
“And a nice round belly on a guy is sexy,” she almost whispered.
“Sexy, eh? What about on a girl?” I teased.
She shrugged. “I eat what I want and I don’t worry about my weight … and this is the result.”
The result was a beautiful brunette with a peaches-and-cream complexion, a heart-shaped face, and an hourglass figure with maybe a little more sand than some people might like. Her waist was a little thick, her tummy padded, her breasts and bottom voluptuous and her legs lush. Me, I liked the look.
“Sexy, eh?” I repeated. I stood up. “I guess that means I have to get some more.”
Kelly was finished, she said, but she went with me back up to the buffet.
“Ooh, you have to try that … oh, that’s good …”
By the time I waddled dopily to the car, I think the buffet owner might have been rethinking his all-you-can-eat policy. My jeans were unbuttoned –I hadn’t wanted to do that in public, but I was afraid they would undo themselves – and my belly, tautly ballooning out into the new opening, was stretched tight. I felt logy and a little light-headed, stuffed almost to bursting, and every step was torture. It felt like seismic activity making my packed gut tremble and slosh, each movement threatening an overflow.
Kelly drove. I reclined the passenger seat and lay dazed and whale-like, waiting for the ride to be over, feeling each bump and turn in the exquisitely uncomfortable tautness of my belly.
When we got back to her apartment, she showed me how the wing chair reclined, put on a TV show, and let me slowly recover.
It took me all of Grimm and half of Rock Center to start feeling conscious again. I got up and sat down next to her on the sofa. She massaged my belly, which felt wonderful, and we sat there in contentment, the cook and the customer, enjoying my satiation.
A month and change passed in easy contentment. I could tell that I was putting on a few pounds – that happens when someone starts actively feeding you – but if Kelly was also putting on weight, it was more subtle.
Then Kelly asked me to dog- and apartment-sit while she went to a four-day banking conference. Her dog, an elderly beagle, was quiet and undemanding, no trouble at all. I fetched Kelly’s mail, watered her plants, and stayed indoors, watching stiff winds and periodic bouts of rain. Out of boredom, and, I admit, a mild curiosity, I started leafing through the cookbooks.
“What’s this?” Kelly asked, emerging from my embrace and noticing cookbooks piled on the coffee table littered with yellow sticky-note flags.
“Um. Stuff I thought looked good.”
“Stuff you want me to make,” she teased, and I blushed, caught out.
“Or stuff you could make,” she added.
“Hey, not me, pal. I’m the fork-and-knife end of the business here.” I put my hands up in mock defense. I didn’t cook. Hadn’t actually tried.
Kelly looked interested. “You’re a smart fellow. I bet you could figure it out.”
Challenge accepted.
Kelly was nice enough to look over the recipes I had flagged. A few she marked as too complicated for a beginner and agreed to make them herself. The rest she put into order so that I would be starting with the simplest stuff and working my way up.
So it was that over the ensuing weeks I found myself making homemade cheese straws, spinach casserole, bleu cheese and onion burgers; gradually I progressed to white chocolate raspberry brownies, caramelized onions, from-total-scratch tomato sauce (first, take your tomato). I learned how to eyeball the amount of salt or thyme sprinkled into my hand and make an educated guess whether it was enough. I learned exactly when the cookies were ready and when they needed another minute. I learned how to keep chicken moist and flavorful in the oven.
And I learned the truth of Kelly’s words to me:
“I like to cook, you know that, and for me, the greatest compliment is when someone likes my cooking so much they eat it all up,” she had said. “You know, when you’re full, or you’re getting full, and your stomach tells you to stop, but you keep going because you want one more bite and one more bite and one more bite and it’s so good you can’t resist.”
I also learned that, given the opportunity, most grownups display at least a veneer of politeness. I’m sure my visible uptick in weight had not gone unnoticed, but no one said anything to my face except Ma, who all but preened when she learned the reason, and didn’t bring it up again. If people at the bank were giving Kelly a hard time, she wasn’t telling me. She did tell me when she’d been promoted to loan officer, which meant a celebration.
When we finished getting ready, we looked at ourselves side by side in the bathroom mirror. I saw a guy who, if I passed him on the street, I would mentally classify as “sturdy.” My chin had become a little fleshy, my face a bit fuller. My pecs were softer, and there was a visible spare tire resting squashily above my (new, larger) belt. The lady I had my arm around had a fine layer of padding around her beautiful heart-shaped face, and her bodacious breasts were rounder, fuller, temptingly riper. Her waist had visibly thickened, and her backside was, well, lavish. I had reason to know that the legs below the drape of red silk skirt were gloriously, gorgeously curved, smoothly turned like finely carved wood.
The allover picture was of a plumply prosperous couple, two people who loved life, who ran into the breaking waves of each day with unrestrained pleasure, who embraced every moment as an adventure. Two people who, in becoming one, had discovered that having each other made more of them both. Two people, one of whom had in the breast pocket of his jacket a small velvet box.
The Cook and the Customer
“You look different,” the bank teller commented as she processed my transaction. “Did you … get a haircut?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, running a hand through my short brown hair. “I have lost some weight. Stomach flu.” I slid my hand down my belly, which was eleven pounds lighter.
The teller – Kelly Barnett, her name plate read – smiled in sympathy. “Yeah, I hear it’s going around pretty bad.”
“I was in bed for a week, and it took me another week to really get to feeling better,” I admitted.
“Well … glad you’re feeling better,” Kelly said, handing me the receipt. There was something handwritten on the back.
Once I got back in the car, I looked.
We’re not allowed to ask customers out, the note read. 412-5555.
Which is how, a week later, I was knocking on Kelly Barnett’s door with a bouquet of tulips.
“I hope you like meatloaf,” she announced. “We need to build you back up.”
Over dinner, I learned that Kelly had majored in accounting and minored in domestic science, that she was one of three children and the only girl, and that she loved to cook and read cookbooks.
I also learned that her mini meatloafs – loaves? – with sauce were so delicious that I could eat six of the eight of them with no trouble at all. Also rosemary-garlic mashed potatoes. Also beet slaw. Also a pear salad with rosemary-walnut dressing and bleu cheese crumbles. Also five or maybe seven crescent rolls. Also three tall glasses of lemonade.
Embarrassed at how I had made a pig of myself, I sank obediently into the wing chair to which Kelly directed me and stretched out my feet.
Kelly, bringing in coffee, clucked at the picture I presented.
“Undo your trousers,” she chided. “Give yourself some room.”She suited deeds to words and deftly undid my belt and then my khakis. I tried not to blush as the trousers flapped open in visible relief and my disgracefully full belly swelled out.
“I think I’m built back up,” I said sheepishly, rubbing my bloated and distended midsection. It was firmly engorged, swollen and a little tender, as if any sudden movement would make the tautly stretched flesh pop like a balloon. There was no hope of trying to do those khakis back up any time soon, and I wondered vaguely how not to outstay my welcome.
Kelly turned on the CD player and perched on the arm of the chair, helping me massage my aching gut. It was tight as a drum, my belly button prominent through my polo shirt, and I was warmly drowsy, sated and content, muzzily aware of the sensation of her fingers easing the discomfort of my overloaded and bulging belly.
Time passed. I might have dozed off. The music was different; Kelly must have changed CDs. I apologized.
“Sorry I ate all your food up,” I mumbled.
Kelly tilted my chin up so that my gaze met hers. “I’m not,”she said simply. Then she gave me a peck on the cheek and walked me to the door.
The following week, over Chinese buffet food, I waited until we were both three plates to the wind before bringing it up.
“Last week. You said … I mean, I said I was sorry I ate all your food and you said you weren’t.” I looked and her and shrugged a little.
Kelly looked down, looked up, looked down at her entwined fingers restless on the vinyl tablecloth, and blushed.
“I like to cook, you know that, and for me, the greatest compliment is when someone likes my cooking so much they eat it all up,” she said finally. “You know, when you’re full, or you’re getting full, and your stomach tells you to stop, but you keep going because you want one more bite and one more bite and one more bite and it’s so good you can’t resist.”
I looked at her. Didn’t say anything.
“And a nice round belly on a guy is sexy,” she almost whispered.
“Sexy, eh? What about on a girl?” I teased.
She shrugged. “I eat what I want and I don’t worry about my weight … and this is the result.”
The result was a beautiful brunette with a peaches-and-cream complexion, a heart-shaped face, and an hourglass figure with maybe a little more sand than some people might like. Her waist was a little thick, her tummy padded, her breasts and bottom voluptuous and her legs lush. Me, I liked the look.
“Sexy, eh?” I repeated. I stood up. “I guess that means I have to get some more.”
Kelly was finished, she said, but she went with me back up to the buffet.
“Ooh, you have to try that … oh, that’s good …”
By the time I waddled dopily to the car, I think the buffet owner might have been rethinking his all-you-can-eat policy. My jeans were unbuttoned –I hadn’t wanted to do that in public, but I was afraid they would undo themselves – and my belly, tautly ballooning out into the new opening, was stretched tight. I felt logy and a little light-headed, stuffed almost to bursting, and every step was torture. It felt like seismic activity making my packed gut tremble and slosh, each movement threatening an overflow.
Kelly drove. I reclined the passenger seat and lay dazed and whale-like, waiting for the ride to be over, feeling each bump and turn in the exquisitely uncomfortable tautness of my belly.
When we got back to her apartment, she showed me how the wing chair reclined, put on a TV show, and let me slowly recover.
It took me all of Grimm and half of Rock Center to start feeling conscious again. I got up and sat down next to her on the sofa. She massaged my belly, which felt wonderful, and we sat there in contentment, the cook and the customer, enjoying my satiation.
A month and change passed in easy contentment. I could tell that I was putting on a few pounds – that happens when someone starts actively feeding you – but if Kelly was also putting on weight, it was more subtle.
Then Kelly asked me to dog- and apartment-sit while she went to a four-day banking conference. Her dog, an elderly beagle, was quiet and undemanding, no trouble at all. I fetched Kelly’s mail, watered her plants, and stayed indoors, watching stiff winds and periodic bouts of rain. Out of boredom, and, I admit, a mild curiosity, I started leafing through the cookbooks.
“What’s this?” Kelly asked, emerging from my embrace and noticing cookbooks piled on the coffee table littered with yellow sticky-note flags.
“Um. Stuff I thought looked good.”
“Stuff you want me to make,” she teased, and I blushed, caught out.
“Or stuff you could make,” she added.
“Hey, not me, pal. I’m the fork-and-knife end of the business here.” I put my hands up in mock defense. I didn’t cook. Hadn’t actually tried.
Kelly looked interested. “You’re a smart fellow. I bet you could figure it out.”
Challenge accepted.
Kelly was nice enough to look over the recipes I had flagged. A few she marked as too complicated for a beginner and agreed to make them herself. The rest she put into order so that I would be starting with the simplest stuff and working my way up.
So it was that over the ensuing weeks I found myself making homemade cheese straws, spinach casserole, bleu cheese and onion burgers; gradually I progressed to white chocolate raspberry brownies, caramelized onions, from-total-scratch tomato sauce (first, take your tomato). I learned how to eyeball the amount of salt or thyme sprinkled into my hand and make an educated guess whether it was enough. I learned exactly when the cookies were ready and when they needed another minute. I learned how to keep chicken moist and flavorful in the oven.
And I learned the truth of Kelly’s words to me:
“I like to cook, you know that, and for me, the greatest compliment is when someone likes my cooking so much they eat it all up,” she had said. “You know, when you’re full, or you’re getting full, and your stomach tells you to stop, but you keep going because you want one more bite and one more bite and one more bite and it’s so good you can’t resist.”
I also learned that, given the opportunity, most grownups display at least a veneer of politeness. I’m sure my visible uptick in weight had not gone unnoticed, but no one said anything to my face except Ma, who all but preened when she learned the reason, and didn’t bring it up again. If people at the bank were giving Kelly a hard time, she wasn’t telling me. She did tell me when she’d been promoted to loan officer, which meant a celebration.
When we finished getting ready, we looked at ourselves side by side in the bathroom mirror. I saw a guy who, if I passed him on the street, I would mentally classify as “sturdy.” My chin had become a little fleshy, my face a bit fuller. My pecs were softer, and there was a visible spare tire resting squashily above my (new, larger) belt. The lady I had my arm around had a fine layer of padding around her beautiful heart-shaped face, and her bodacious breasts were rounder, fuller, temptingly riper. Her waist had visibly thickened, and her backside was, well, lavish. I had reason to know that the legs below the drape of red silk skirt were gloriously, gorgeously curved, smoothly turned like finely carved wood.
The allover picture was of a plumply prosperous couple, two people who loved life, who ran into the breaking waves of each day with unrestrained pleasure, who embraced every moment as an adventure. Two people who, in becoming one, had discovered that having each other made more of them both. Two people, one of whom had in the breast pocket of his jacket a small velvet box.
