Part XII

Xander sighed as he shoved his hands deep in his pockets and started walking through the parking lot of the grocery store a few hours later.  His stomach let out another nasty growl, and he gritted his teeth.  "I should be running," he mumbled, "not that it would do any good.  I'd have to run for a year to lose any of this."

His thoughts descended into despair as he entered the store, remembering back to his first visits here at the beginning of college, when he was 120 pounds lighter.  He'd thought he was huge then, with his round belly and chunky ass.  Now look at me, he thought.  I can't even go for an hour without my stomach freaking out because it hasn't been fed.  He was still mortified from the way his insides had been protesting their emptiness in the presence of Darshan, Ling, and Ken.  At least Callisto wasn't there, he reminded himself as he pulled a cart out of the long row lined up inside the sliding doors.  The beautiful girl unnerved him in a way that no one else ever had, and, apart from her obvious blunt comments and seeming non-understanding of the basics of human emotion, he couldn't figure out why.

Just forget about her and try to get out of here without buying the whole damn store, he told himself.  Since it was Christmas, the food court was closed, and he hadn't eaten all day.  So he'd finally broken down around dinner time and had driven himself to the 24-hour grocery store for some food.  He was hoping to try to only get healthy stuff, like apples and frozen low-fat dinners, but he felt his resolve crumbling as he saw the display of Christmas cookies and cakes.  The incredible smell - cinnamon and sugar and chocolate and peanuts and everything else - assaulted his senses from every angle.  He stood there for a few moments, just staring at all the delicious treats, trying to talk himself out of buying one of everything.  But a moment later he made his way over to the display and started piling packages into his cart.  He did a circuit of the empty store and within twenty minutes had a full cart, his well-thought-out protests not even registering anymore.

"Having a holiday party?" the elderly cashier asked him conversationally as he scanned a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Xander's face colored.  "Uh, yeah."

"That's nice," she told him, smiling sweetly.  "Lucky for you we're open today.  I don't mind working; Hanukkah is already over."

He just nodded mutely as she continued to scan and bag all the junk he was buying.  Cookies, ice cream, chips, frozen pizzas and the like piled back up in his cart.  She gave him his total and he swiped his bank card to pay. 

"Have a lovely holiday!" she called after him as he wheeled his cart out of the store.

"You, too," he responded distractedly.

Fifteen minutes later, he was back in his room, a frozen pizza turning around and around in the microwave as he annihilated a bag of chips.  The crunchy, salty morsels dissolved in his mouth at an incredible rate, and, before he knew it, he was crumbling up the empty bag and tossing it in the garbage.  The timer on his pizza dinged, and he grabbed it out of the microwave and shoved it in his mouth, moaning as the melted cheese exploded on his taste buds.  But that was gone too soon, so he popped another pizza in the microwave and ripped open a box of soft, heavily iced Christmas cookies and began to inhale them.

"Mmm," he groaned, licking the icing from his lips.

But then they, too, were gone.  At least his pizza was ready.  He sat down heavily in his desk chair to check his e-mail as he chewed.

"Junk, junk, junk," he said from around mouthfuls, deleting spam from his college about the holiday choral concert and snow removal procedures.  He popped the last bit of his pizza into his mouth and got up to rummage around in his bags for something else to munch on.

"Ooh," he said, pulling out a frozen container of spinach artichoke cheese dip.  He slid it into the microwave and opened another bag of chips to eat while he waited for it to heat up, and started up his game again.  He paused it a few minutes later when the microwave timer was up, and began dipping the few remaining chips into the creamy mixture and shoveling it into his mouth.  He ended up having to open his last bag of chips to finish off the tray of dip, which had been far too small.  He should have bought a few more of those.

Next it was a box of gummy fruit snacks, which he ate by ripping open each package and dumping them into his mouth all at once, to chew them up in a ball of sugary goo.  He'd bought a few boxes of those, so when he was finished with his first he decided to have another before moving on to the little prepackaged chocolate peanut butter cakes he loved so much. 

Two rich, decadent boxes later, he sat back in his chair and belched, rubbing his protruding gut with one hand as the other ran through his hair.  God, he felt good - warm and full and...fat.

He looked down at himself, panic coursing through his veins.  What had he just done?  He sighed, grabbing a handful of his belly and shaking it.  I'm fucked, aren't I? he thought, resigned.  There was no denying that he felt better than he had in days, even though he had just eaten enough food for at least five people.  He cradled his massive belly in his hands, softly squeezing and pulling the blubber.  It felt amazing. 

A strange mixture of emotions rushed through him as he continued to jiggle his fat.  On one hand, he was ashamed of himself for stuffing his face like that, and for loving the feelings that were coursing through his body at his hands' acknowledgement of his fatness.  On the other, he longed to feel what it would be like to eat more, to stuff himself even more fully, and to feel what constant stuffing would do to his already enormous body. 

How can I hate this so much but love it at the same time? he asked himself, in a daze as he stared at the ripples coursing through his belly.  How can I want to be this fat...and even fatter? 

His phone rang, jolting him out of his reverie.  He blushed, embarrassed even though no one was there to see him shaking his gut.  He reddened even further as he saw who was calling him.

"Hello."

"Merry Christmas, darling!" his mother's voice rang in his ear.

"Merry Christmas, mom."

"How are you doing?"

"Um, I'm fine...how are you?" he asked as he tore open a package of cookies.

"I'm not so good, sweetie," she admitted, and he could hear the tears in her voice.  "I miss you so much."

He chewed silently, waiting for her to continue.

"I'm so sorry for the way things went the other day," she said.  "And I want to let you know that we love you no matter what, Xander.  We really want you to come home."

"Did you cancel my appointment with Dr. Fording?"

"What?  Oh!  Um, well..."

"You didn't."

"Well, honey, it's very difficult to get in to see him, you know..."

"Mom, I'm not going."

He heard her sigh.  "Xander..."

"Mom."

"Talk to you father, okay?  Here he is."

After some shuffling, his father's voice boomed from the speaker.  "Merry Christmas, son!"

"Merry Christmas, dad."

His father launched right into it.  "Now, Xander, we're willing to come up there again and get you tomorrow.  We miss you and we want you to come home."

"No, you don't," Xander said, suddenly belligerent.  "You just want me to go to the doctor and get my stomach sewn shut."

"Xander..."

"No, dad.  I'm not doing it, alright?  You're just going to have to deal with having a son who's as big as a house because I'm not doing it.  So goodbye."  He pressed the "call end" button with a sticky finger and threw his phone across the room and onto his bed.

It immediately rang again, so he hefted himself out of his desk chair and grunted as he leaned over to pick it up, trying to hitch his stuffed belly out of the way and failing, and turned the power off.  He took a bite of cookie and flopped down on his bed, cringing when the whole thing shuddered and groaned.  He was afraid that soon he'd have to ask his RA for a new bed.

He lounged on his bed, absentmindedly rubbing his overfed gut with one hand while he shoveled cookies into his mouth with the other.  He knew that there was no good reason for him to still be eating, but the delicious flavors as well as the steady chewing and swallowing calmed him.  Calmed him so much in fact, that his eyelids began to droop.  Sighing, he heaved himself off the bed and changed into his skintight pajamas, regretting the fact that he hadn't picked up some more shorts while he was at Think Big the other day.  As he was changing, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and, with an embarrassed little smile, gave his gigantic belly a bit of a shake and watched as it jiggled.  He shook his head and climbed into bed, wondering as he fell asleep how the sight of his enormous, fat body could inspire such warm, tingly feelings somewhere deep inside him.