Today, though, I may have overdone it a little; not in volume, but in the intensity. It wasn’t even that terrible, if I only knew where it came from...

“Ungh!” I grunted a little as I released the handle for the seat adjustment; it forced my paunch against my pant’s clasp, which I quickly undid, out of public sight for the moment. I half expected an immediate relief from the action, another routine of mine, but none came. My gut did roll forward, but bunched up again suddenly as it met my belt sash, which I had neglected to untie--oh this is just great. The pressure of my belly against the cloth had only tightened the knot and caused the material to groan, making it a bitch to undo. When it was finally undone, I was free once more and felt the cold plastic of the steering wheel of my station wagon against my skin when my pudgy belly unfurled, making it depress and fold what skin was not being stretched by my taught stomach within. I started the engine and drove away from school.

As I was driving, I thought again, about where it came from, the little display of mine today. “It was for Vince,” I said aloud for no particular reason.

I’d actually known Vince for a long time beforehand, or at least I knew about him: his friends, his hobbies, habits--everything I could, driven not because of what I learned, but because of what I did not know. As much as I looked at him, his hazel eyes and dark hair, his curiously tight and lean body for a non-athletic type, he looked at me more. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell you why, either.

The most unusual thing is that he would always stare at me in what I’m sure he thought was a discreet manner, but would never try to make eye contact. He would run his eyes over my body, my large, usually moving and jiggling curves and bulges and walk right by, then look back after me. I never once thought that he was disgusted with me; people often find pleasure in studying the things that make them cringe to imagine. No, he was afraid of me, and that was the silliest thing that I’d ever known to be true. He was, is afraid that every time that he looks at me that I’ll look back with the same fear of him, the same fear that I want him but for some reason won’t go after him, like he does to me…he hates that he does it, that much I could always tell, so I guess you could say I humor him--god isn’t that a terrible term for it, but it’s what I do. I look at him, square in the face and smile, and I think that that sends him into a frenzy of excitement and fear, but a different kind of fear; a good one, a nervous one that goads him with anticipation. I say it’s silly that he should be afraid because I know that if he asked me practically anything that I would say ‘yes,’ which is why I had hoped he wouldn’t, and was almost glad that he didn’t. It would be too much, too good…

So, I think that’s why I did it, and why he never did: we were both afraid of the same thing and never really admitted it to ourselves, he for something I still don’t completely understand, and I because I just couldn’t take it anymore. I’m too weak, that’s the problem, no wonder he never tried to- No. Stop.

So I gave him what he wanted in abundance, to watch my body while I ate fast and a lot, and I was happy that I did; that’s why it hurt more than usual, and why I ran away. Then, I did it again at the game, moving more than necessary, practically waving my heavy curves in his face. I’d never noticed him at any of our games before, which most likely meant that he had never been to one, because in the auditorium today, I couldn’t have missed him in the dark, the only one absolutely silent during the entire game, and the look on his face, like he forgot for just a few minutes why he was afraid, and that he really had no reason to be in the first place. That’s how I knew what he really wanted.

When the game was over and the team and I got into the locker rooms, I had half expected to see him there screaming to get in, held back by a resident cop. Of course he wasn’t there, I was being even sillier than he would have been to think he could do something like that, but then again, the voice of reason has never been a person’s strongest voice.

I looked around the room, at all the girls changing, laughing and ribbing each other for either losing or winning, whichever side they happened to be on at the time. I was laughing, too, and probably would have been lifted onto my side’s shoulders if they could have managed it, but of course they couldn’t. Eventually I stripped down myself, most of the fun being exhausted and the greater part of the girls having patted my back and left, my excuse was now moot and only myself and Charlotte remained. I showered next to her and she didn’t look, but I did. I ran my eyes over her sleek form, her wavy blonde hair held back by one hand as the other splashed water over her tall, glowing white face, her button nose and hollow cheeks a sharp contrast to my own sharp and soft ones. I saw her hip bones and pelvis under her concave navel, and her small widely spaced breasts on her smooth chest. Her calves were skinnier than my arm at the shoulder and her butt, nothing anyone could ever consider an ass, consisted of only two symmetrical lumps growing from her thighs; on her they were like a pair of cosmetic tumors. I looked away in disgust with my eyes closed, the main reason Charlotte did not look anymore, then looked at myself. I ran my left hand, my right was holding my hair out of my eyes, over my body in a cheap feign of washing without a cloth, even though I knew no one was looking. It slipped with ease over the arc of my belly with no bones on which to catch and I slid it under the weighty overhang of my gut and kept it there as I worked my way under and around my smooth, round love handles to my ass. There was some cellulite, my hand, though wet, pulled at the skin and fat and went irregularly down the length of my legs I could reach without bending. I recoiled my hand when I reached that point and turned off the water after only about three minutes. It was all I had needed.

I walked back into the main room with a towel and dried there, working the cloth over and under my bulges and curves, every movement lifting and jiggling my swinging belly as it shifted side to side, quivering and billowing in and out with my shallow breaths. My breasts hopped and bounced gaily on their own, pendulous and sloshing with their tender fullness. My thighs did the least, held down by my swaying and undulating ass; they, like everything else, just pulled me in the direction of their motion, and my practiced resistance to tipping from the motion just made them contract and flow forward in opposition like small, quick waves.

With my hair still damp and my skin moist from steam emanating from the showers I stripped off my bra and panties one at a time, each to be replaced by a new dry pair in turn, but not before I glanced at the lighter tan lines they left on my beige skin. I then reached into my gym bag to retrieve what were what seemed to be some of the tightest clothing I owned. It all stuck on the way up (or down) and the dampness of my skin did little to help, so I ended up having to shake and pull them on one side at a time--for the pants, resulting in my paunch being thrown upward and slamming down with each tug, and for the shirt, alternating back to front. I slid a sash through the belt loops with some difficulty and tied it, forcing my belly out more and making my shirt ride up again; I quickly tugged it down and breathed a sigh of both relief and fatigue as I pulled on my jacket. I bent down to slip on a pair of sandals over my plump, yes even there, feet, which yet again made my shirt ride up and expose my creamy flesh up to the bottom of my belly button; that time I let it be.

Charlotte had finally left the shower and came out to see me as what I suppose would be considered ‘fully clothed.’ She looked at me, and I at her, then she said with a knowing smile, “Alright Danielle, be seeing you later.” We both smiled, and I walked out as she bent to change back into street clothes.

I saw Vince, then, practically dragging himself down the deserted hallway headed toward the door, dropping a slew of books without noticing. Without thinking, I rushed down the hall, bounding practically, the gym bag on my back slapping me annoyingly. Along the way I snatched the books from the ground mid-stride and slipped a tiny tear of paper into the first one on the pile and bent the page closing the book; it was something I had been carrying with me for a while, in case I ever got afraid to follow through with the decision I had just made. I called to him and he paid no mind

“Vince, hello? Wait! You just dropped, like, four books!” I called to him again, hopefully, that time, and he turned around.

I had been running up to meet him the entire time, and when he turned around it was the closest we had ever been to each other. My eyes were at his nose, so I didn’t have to look up, I suppose he was just short. I gave him the books and we had a terse, rather impersonal conversation, until I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about summer, but at that point I didn’t care what I said to him, as long as it was said to him; wow, I must have sounded like I way practically begging him, because I was. Then he said it; he said it stupidly like a little boy who had muddled his words in a preschool play, but he said it none the less, “‘Tomorrow,’” and I just had to make it happen.

“Tomorrow? Why tomorrow, Vince?…” and on and on--he tried to interrupt, but if I let him, then ‘everyone’ might not follow through either.

***

“Hahaaaa! Hah ha, ah, that’s it, isn’t it?” I laughed, still aloud. “That’s the whole reason I did any of that; it’s him alright, he makes me feel just like I am just a little school girl, he was so much like a toddler himself, no cares, just the one thing he was ever afraid of! Huh,” I said, still chuckling, “I don’t think that either of us can be afraid of that now, at least, not tonight. I don’t know or care too much what he’s going to do until then, but I already know that he’ll call.”

On the way home, I stopped at the drive-through at Burger King, the only one in town and right on my way home, like I do every day. I wasn’t hungry, but that didn’t matter--it usually didn’t. I ordered a Whopper with cheese and a large Coke from the window attendant; she seemed like she was a nice lady, but then again, a child molester would have seemed like a nice lady to me right then. Nothing mattered at all; I was happy.

I drove away one-handed so that I could eat and drive at the same time. I wasn’t going home--I didn’t want to yet, so I just drove around town. Up hills, down them, passing street signs I’d never seen or never read before, somewhere along the way I tossed the empty wrapper from the hamburger to the floor; I kept passing old and new buildings from firms and lending offices that wouldn’t last the year they leased the space. Eventually I stopped on a little bluff that overlooked the city called Eagle Ridge. I had always thought it was funny that there were four places called Eagle Ridge in the county and none of them looked even remotely like an eagle. I turned off the engine and used the battery to listen to the radio, it was 5:43 according to my watch. I listened to rap and imagined the dancers rubbing their breasts up against the chest of a man with three gold teeth in his top jaw alone, I found classical and swayed with the music, hip-hop, and the car swayed with me. I finally settled on news: there was a hurricane last week and a few before that, too, then an earthquake, and the president was still a moron: nothing new. People from different ends of the continent bantered back and forth, until my phone rang, vibrating my squashed hips and making my belly quiver in its lowest region, just above my vagina; I let it go for a few more rings’ time.

“Hello?” I asked calmly.

To be honest, I hadn’t expected him so early, it was only a little after seven, but as soon as I heard his voice, I knew I wouldn’t have been able to remember anything even if I had planned to.

“Danielle! Hello, how are you? Wait, no, that’s just stupid formality--b-but I really do care…” He coughed into the phone, then said, “Er, what I mean to say is, ‘hey, this is Vince.’”

“I’m wonderful, Vince, and hello yourself,” I giggled into the phone.

“Good, that’s really--yeah, good… Well, anyway, I am calling in the hopes that I could ask you something this evening,” he said, a little more eloquently than before.

“Oh, really? Please, then, ask away,” I replied, playing coy.

He went on, like I hoped he would, as if we had never talked that afternoon, like I had never played dumb about our classes, or that he tried to be indifferent to my presence, like it was all ordinary to him.

“Yes, I was wondering if perhaps, if you don’t have a previous engagement, we could do something this Friday. Together.” The last part wasn’t a question.

“Friday?” I asked, “You mean tomorrow?”

“Yes,” he said, “tomorrow.”

“I’d love to. What exactly did you have in mind?” This was going perfectly, at least for me; I was positively giddy.

“Well, I was thinking that maybe we could catch an early movie, you know, at the theater by the mall, and then go to a late dinner?”

“A flick then dinner? Why?” Now why on earth did I just say that? We could just sit in a parking lot and get the same effect as a formal date--there would just be less distract us.

“…Oh! Umm, well you see, I only-”

I cut him off, trying to remedy the situation as fast as I could. “Oh, no! No, never mind. It doesn’t matter, just curious is all! I’m talking a little too fast now… Sounds great, really,” I added, trying to calm down.

“Oh, alright then…Er, wait, don’t you want to know which movie? Where we’re going to…?” he asked, trailing off, as if he wanted me to finish for him.

“Nope. You decide.” It’ll be better that way.

“Okay then! Great…! Oh, but I don’t exactly know how to find your place. Perhaps you could-”

“Don’t worry about it,” I interrupted, again half laughing. “I’ll meet you there, tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow…at five, then?”

“Vincent, it’s a date.”