Kinktober Day 26: Holiday Gains

Obligatory Thanksgiving story ahoy! Sorry it is so late, Canadians, and sorry it is so early, Americans. 

***

Two down, two to go, he told himself. How he had let himself get roped into five Thanksgivings, he did not know. But that was kind of how it went when you had divorced parents who remarried, sides of the family that refused to be within a mile of each other, and a partner with an equally complicated family structure.

The only blessing was that they were spaced out. Everyone had learned their lessons about the evils of scheduling conflicts and holiday travel delays and had resolved to plan better. Or, Cal had thought this was a blessing. But now that he and his longtime girlfriend Valerie were both staying at her parents’ house for a few days in between Thanksgiving get-togethers and he was finding out just how much time Valerie’s parents could manage to fill with idle gorging, he was having second thoughts.

The first feast they had attended had been at Valerie’s mom and stepdad’s. That had been a pretty classic affair, and a smaller party. Cal had felt optimistic as they sat down to eat. There was plenty of food, but it wasn’t excessive—just the classics: candied sweet potatoes, a good-sized turkey, scalloped potatoes, a green bean casserole that no one touched, and a pumpkin pie for dessert. He hoped that maybe he would make it through this holiday season with his waistline mostly unscathed. He was already a bigger guy, and nervous at the thought of getting bigger.

Not that Valerie would’ve minded. She told him regularly how much she liked when he gave in to his appetite, and made no secret of how much she liked the extra weight he’d put on around his butt and thighs over the years. Cal was a little too self-conscious to really understand, even if he felt the same way about Valerie. By the time they met in college, she was a soft girl, not a whisper of a gym body beneath the little layer of pudge she carried all over. Now, nearly a decade after graduating, she had a noticeable little gut, a wide, heavy butt, and a solid, cushiony bosom that he loved to bury his face into. Valerie was not a woman concerned with her weight in either direction, and Cal loved that about her, even as a little part of him rooted for a little extra weight to stick to her each year and make her even more soft.

That first Thanksgiving meal of the year, he ate until he was satisfied. Valerie’s mom and stepdad were okay cooks, but that was all. Valerie dug in a little more enthusiastically and finished the meal bloated and enthusing to her parents about how stuffed she was. Cal teased her about it later as they snuggled up together in the guest bedroom. “You know better than to fill up at the first Thanksgiving. Amateur move. You gotta pace yourself.”

She had rolled her eyes in the dark and smiled. “I like my mom’s cooking, sue me. Besides, our next Thanksgiving isn’t until later tomorrow. I’d say having almost a full day to digest in between is pacing myself.”

“Okay, if you’re sure,” he said, his tone skeptical but clearly joking.

Their second Thanksgiving, they went to Valerie’s dad’s place. He had a new girlfriend who was extremely nervous about meeting the whole extended family and had clearly been prepping for days beforehand. On top of that, Valerie’s dad was one of five kids, so his house was bursting with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends. Everyone brought something, and all of it looked and smelled amazing. Cal had looked at Valerie as they first set eyes on the spread, his expression smug, as if to say, Don’t you wish you’d saved some extra room for all this?

The meal was boisterous and extravagant, and Cal dug in with gusto. There were two different, massive turkeys to try—one roasted, one deep-fried—plus a spiral ham, and a huge smoked brisket. The sides were nearly endless. There were at least three different sweet potato dishes, four different breads (including some of the best biscuits Cal had ever eaten), two types of gravy, six different potato dishes, and on and on. Cal was almost embarrassed at how much he ate, but given that nearly everyone went back for at least thirds of dinner, his four heaping plates didn’t stand out much. He didn’t skimp on dessert, either, especially since there were pumpkin cookies, which were his favorite seasonal treat.

By the time they headed to bed, Cal looked like a swollen tick, belly bowed out in front of him obscenely. He’d undone his pants at some point, and his shirt was riding up a little on the underside of his belly. Valerie was in a similar state, her soft stomach stretched tight around her meal. Cal slept in just boxers that night, and Valerie slept in underwear and one of his t-shirts. He thought it was cute that her food baby almost made the shirt look like it fit her, even though normally it would’ve barely skimmed her curves.

They stayed at Valerie’s dad’s for a couple days, planning to make the long drive up to visit Cal’s family afterward. Her dad’s girlfriend used every opportunity to foist leftovers upon her guests, and Cal’s desire to eat more of that fabulous dinner overrode any potential shame at looking greedy. The one time he voiced some concern to Valerie and asked if maybe he was eating too much, she told him not to worry about it. “Would she offer if she didn’t want you to eat it?” And that had settled that. Though, the constant gorging definitely didn’t settle Cal’s stomach. By the time they waddled out to their car with all their luggage, Cal was feeling every last bite of the past three days of gorging. It wasn’t unpleasant, exactly, but he would much rather have napped for two more days instead of driving up to grandma’s.

His grandma lived in the southeastern corner of the next state, and it took the better part of the day to get there. Somehow, even though they were both feeling packed to the gills, they still ended up stopping along the way for burgers. “I’m going to start sweating grease by the time we get home,” Cal moaned in between bites of a double-pattied burger.

The third Thanksgiving was another orgiastic experience. Cal’s grandma, plus all the relatives in the area—mostly aunts and uncles and their broods who had never moved out of their hometown—put on a feast to rival the last. Despite the heavy feeling that the past several days of binging had given them, once again, they ate until they were about to pop. They slept fitfully on his grandma’s pullout couch, whispering in the dark about how neither of them ever wanted to eat again. And yet, when his grandma pulled out all the stops the next morning and offered up a mountain of pancakes, including Cal’s favorite which had bacon, sausage, and blueberries speckled throughout, plus all the eggs and breakfast meat they could stomach, they ate like starving hogs.

They helped grandma clean up, both so stuffed they could barely bend down to load the dishwasher, said their goodbyes, and piled into the car once again. The rest of Cal’s family was in a bigger city near the center of the state, so they spent close to five hours in the car. They were sure they wouldn’t be able to eat a bite once they got to Cal’s dad and stepmom’s, certain they would still be full after the ridiculous breakfast they’d had. But as they walked in the door and caught a whiff of crisp, butter-basted turkey skin and Cal spotted a pile of his stepmom’s pumpkin cookies, their bellies both rumbled.

Cal adored his stepmom’s cooking like no one else’s. His parents had divorced when he was little, and he’d spent most of his time at his dad’s, so his stepmom often felt more like his real mother than his biological one. She doted on him, too, and had been sure to have plenty of all his favorites on hand. He glutted himself on perfectly juicy turkey, sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes with the platonic ideal of brown gravy poured over them. Valerie knew this was the meal Cal looked forward to most every year out of all their Thanksgivings and slowed her own eating enough to focus on refilling his plate and passing him favorite dishes.

He couldn’t even get up by the time they’d finished eating. He’d eaten close to half an apple crumble by himself for dessert, with vanilla ice cream on the side, and whipped cream all over both of them. Valerie, thankfully, was not quite so full. At one point when Valerie tried to offer to help clean up, Cal’s stepmom waved her off. “Get him to the couch. He looks like he overdid it a little, poor thing.” She patted his belly and then whisked some dirty dishes off to the kitchen.

Cal had absolutely overdone it. His chubby cheeks, normally a little rosy, were a dark, ruddy color just from the effort of sitting up and breathing. Eventually, she was able to help him upstairs and into bed. She rubbed his aching stomach while he moaned, and offered up the most comforting words she had: “Only one more Thanksgiving to go.”

Cal’s only response was a quiet, whimpered, “fuck.”

They headed to Cal’s mom’s the next day. Cal’s mom was not much of a traditional holiday person, and both Cal and Valerie assumed it would be a nice comedown after over a week of near-constant eating. They were wrong, of course.

His mom, a genuinely awful cook, had skipped all attempts at a normal Thanksgiving and instead purchased a small feast of takeout from different places: a couple buckets of chicken from a local chain; Chinese food from the place around the corner that had the perfect fried rice; Hawaiian barbecue from one of Cal’s favorite places, with plenty of SPAM musubi to go with it. It wasn’t traditional in the least, but fuck if all of it wasn’t delicious. It was just the three of them, and they ate on the couch in front of the TV, watching old movies they had all seen before and catching up. Cal spent much of the day telling Valerie, “Ohhh, this used to be my favorite as a kid, you have to try it.”

They didn’t quite get to the levels of stuffed they had achieved before, but it was a close call. Both Valerie and Cal had to sit back on the couch. At one point when Cal’s mom left the room to take out the trash, the swollen couple fist-bumped. “Five out of five, done and dusted,” Cal sighed.

“Mmhm. Now we just have Christmas to get through.”

Cal groaned. “Don’t remind me.” He already knew he needed to go up a pant size (or two, honestly) after this ridiculous holiday road trip. He could feel his ass taking up more of the couch than it should have, and he had noticed that some of the stretch marks on his thighs that had been silver before now had fresh redness around the edges. When he looked at Valerie, he was surprised to notice that her double chin had gone from “only there when she looked down or laughed” to omnipresent and even more obvious from the side. Her bra was clearly struggling with the additional weight, and her belly was beginning to take up more of her soft lap.

How much fatter would they get after five Christmases, he wondered. He hoped not too much more, because he was already looking like a fat roast turkey packed with stuffing.

Valerie was thinking along the same lines, but with a little more hope. She saw Cal resting his hand on his rounded gut and licked her lips, greedily imagining what many days of Christmas gorging would add to it.