Amanda heaved herself up stiffly and drew her arms skyward for a full body stretch, arching her back and stretching absentmindedly in a feminine, feline grace. Ah, breakfast! The thought brought a smile to her face. Suddenly overcoming her former sloth, Amanda strolled leisurely into the tiny alcove that she was forced to call a kitchen. Opening a few cabinets, she reached for the first thing within reach: cereal. She somehow managed, just like every morning, to perform a master level degree of balance and juggling in order to get the bowl, spoon, juice glass, and box of Lucky Charms--well, not Lucky Charms exactly, but a comparable bargain brand--in one trip before going to the refrigerator for milk and juice. After pouring herself a bowl and raising the first spoonful to her mouth, she impulsively thought better of it and retrieved a box of donut holes from the counter before plopping eagerly back into her shambled chair. This was all Amanda really needed; after all, she reflected as she spooned the cereal into her mouth, tasting the sugar coated bites and marshmallows mingling with the sweet glaze of the spongy donuts. Amanda never was the type for college and the like. She was already enrolled in a secretarial school, and that was more than enough for her. It didn’t bother her one bit that her apartment was small and cheap; it’s not as if she really used it for all that much anyway. The smaller and cheaper the better; all that meant was less work for her to do around the house. Who did she have to impress with big rooms and extravagant belongings? The only thing that her, or in her humble opinion anybody else’s for that matter, apartment was good for was eating and sleeping--especially both together--in that order.

Amanda had never been that big of a girl and the thought never even crossed her mind as a possibility--why would it?--and at that particular moment it didn’t make all that much difference to her. The most she cared to improve her physical appearance were those endeavors which required little to no effort on her part to effect. Despite her limited income, to say the absolute best of its merit, Amanda found it of the utmost importance, for example, to spend no less than five hours in tanning salons per week, leading her skin to be a silky bronze over every inch of her body, much to the disapproval of the salon managers when they found her “all-overing” in their public beds. After tilting the remnants of the milk from her morning repast to her lips and swallowing it in one long draught, Amanda’s left hand moved reflexively to her abdomen to rub down the satisfying fullness as her right plucked one of the few remaining pastries from the dwindling supply in the box and placed it into her mouth. While she chewed and swallowed, her hand moved up and down her stomach contentedly, feeling the unremarkable layer of softness enveloping it which would be considered by no one to be anything more than the structure of the natural feminine form.

Several moments into this leisurely span of seconds, Amanda’s mind began to churn back into the waking world: Hmm…now what was it that she had to do today? A quick glance toward the couch encompassed the pizza boxes scattered about it in various states of decay reminded her of her bi (or tri…sometimes quadruple) weekly resort to her favorite restaurant in the world: the Pizzeria Via Roma. Real Italian pizza with all the sauce, cheese, meats--but mostly cheese--that a girl could ever want and, consequentially, had as often as her budget would allow. But no longer. Today Amanda was going for broke: her rent was coming due in a week or two, she couldn’t quite remember which, and she could have unlimited access to the best pizza this side of heaven. All she had to do was one, simple job interview. If there was anything in this world that Amanda knew how to do, it was being a cashier.

***

“So, Ms. Bellman; you’re here about the position we have available?” asked the perky, middle aged woman that sat behind the desk in the cramped office at the rear of Pizzeria Via Roma.

“Um…” said Amanda, a little uncertainly, “yeah…sure. You guys need a cashier or something, right?”

“Yep,” said the woman cheerily, “sure do. Let’s just have a look at your resume here, shall we?” She glanced over the crinkled paper for a moment as Amanda looked on from the tiny chair opposite the desk with a vacant expression. “Oh, my!” exclaimed the woman, excitedly. “Well, you certainly do have a wealth of experience in this department, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Amanda, shrugging, “I guess.”

Still smiling, the woman said, “Well, why don’t you just scurry on out into the restaurant and I’ll come and get you after I speak with the manager, okay?”

Standing, “Sure,” said Amanda, “That’s fine.” The woman hopped out of her chair and exited through a barely accessible door at the rear of the office and Amanda squeezed out into the lunch-rush crowded lobby of the little restaurant. The pizzeria wasn’t much to look at from the inside: only a few tables crowded into a small dine-in area, a faded orange counter to pick up and pay for orders, but that didn’t matter. As Amanda’s living space proudly testified, the vast majority of Via Roma’s profit came not from eat-in diners, but rather from deliveries and takeout orders. Amanda hurried into an unpadded chair in the far corner of the room, a rare vacancy in the small but prosperous business. She sat there alone until she began to doze, watching the crowd of people constantly flowing in and out in a hurried blur. Just as she began to nod off, her interviewer returned briskly.

“Hello there, miss! Miss?” Amanda jerked her head up to see the woman standing over her, holding her resume out for her to take. This did not bode well.

“Congratulations, Ms. Bellman! You’ve got the job.” Amanda, wide eyed and relieved took the proffered paper and stood to shake the woman’s eager hand.

“Wow,” she said listlessly, still half asleep, “thanks.”

“Oh, golly no--don’t thank me. Thank your new boss!”

“Oh…right. Where is he? Er…I mean, when does he assign me my hours?”

“Ah, well about that. Mr. Giuspelli has requested that you come up to his apartment for that; he says it’s always to busy down here to ever get any real work done! Hoo hoo! Isn’t that funny, dear?” Amanda laughed halfheartedly. “Ooh hoo…now, anyway; it’s that staircase over there on your left,” she said, pointing appropriately, “see it right there, dear? Good! Off you go now.”

Amanda hesitated; this didn’t seem quite right to her. “Hey, wait. Doesn’t it seem kinda weird to you? Has he always done this with all of his new employees?”

The woman looked puzzled, and then grinned from ear to ear. “What, hon, you mean me? Oh gosh no; how would I know? Mr. Giuspelli just called my agency last week; I’m just a temp dear. All I was supposed to do was look you over and check your resume.”

“Oh…” was Amanda’s only reply. This was getting a little too weird for her taste. Nevertheless, Amanda thanked the woman for her help and watched her wave and wish her good luck through the shrinking strip of light as Amanda closed the door behind her and began her ascent of the staircase.

Amanda blinked as she entered the dark stairwell, her only light being the dim red glow of an “Exit” sign buzzing somewhere above her. From the street it had appeared to Amanda that the apartment was only one floor above the busy shop (she could still smell the pizzas baking, the smell wafting under the door), but as her eyes adjusted to the light, or lack thereof, she could see that the stairs were somewhat longer than she had expected. They doubled over themselves twice, making the climb uncomfortably low and narrow as she cautiously scaled the steps. When she reached the top, Amanda found herself staring at a heavy metal door much like the kind she had seen at the rear entrances to movie theaters that she had many times used to get in free. There was a large dead bolt above a plunger handle and opened by swinging it a quarter of the way around its hinge. Cozy. Riveted into the top of the door was a metal plate that read “A. D. Giuspelli.” Amanda placed her hand on the handle of the door separating her from her new job and apparently unusual new boss; there was no light coming through the bottom of the door. It was sealed against anything from the outside; this guy must really like his privacy, thought Amanda. Taking a deep breath, she slowly turned the handle and opened the door to find…nothing--no one.

Inside was a rather plain looking apartment; not so much unlike her own. It was a little less threadbare, perhaps, but strikingly similar in its utilitarian design to Amanda’s little home. There was an obviously cheap beige couch in the middle of the room, a few end tables and a coffee table in front of the couch, and a floor lamp adding the small amount of light that filled the deserted room--the overhead light was not flipped on. The carpeting was equally bleak but felt soft underfoot. Around the corner of a short hall at the rear of the room Amanda could see another, smaller room. It was apparently the bedroom by the looks of the neatly made queen sized mattress visible through the doorframe--one without a door in it. Feeling all of a sudden quite alone, Amanda began to explore the apartment. It didn’t take her too long: the only other room was a bathroom connected through the bedroom adorned with only a combination shower-tub, a modest commode, sink, and a small closet with a scale under its lowest shelf and that was stocked with what looked to be many weeks’ supply of towels, tissues, and other toiletries. Nowhere was her would-be employer. Even stranger, or so it seemed to Amanda, was the apparent lack of every home’s most important room: the kitchen. Thoroughly puzzled, Amanda walked back into the main room and noticed something else that she had not before. A large rectangular section of the room’s right wall seemed to have slid open. She leaned her head into it for a closer look at what turned out to be an oversized dumbwaiter, and sitting neatly folded on the raised platform was a sheet of paper with a single word printed on the outside: “Amanda.” She picked it up, becoming more and more confused by the second, but as she unfolded it, her awe turned quickly to shock. Written very neatly in hand writing she had never seen, Amanda read:

“Hello, and may I just say first of all, congratulations! From what I could see in your application, you display every quality that I ask of an employee…and a little bit more. As you may have already guessed, I am not in this loft, and there is to be no further job assignment. However, what I will ask of you is that you stay here until such a time as I see fit. There is no need to worry about bills or food, least of all the latter; this is after all, my apartment. Food will be sent up three times every day to start. If you require anything else or just want to say ‘hello,’ simply leave a note with the dumbwaiter--you’ll find a pen and some paper in the table drawers. Thanks again for applying, and please enjoy your stay!

P.S. Go ahead and try all of the doors and windows if you must; you’ll find that they are each quite impassable.

Sincerely,

A. D. Giuspelli”

Amanda dropped the note back on the tray and raced to the door, slamming down on the handle, only to find that it wouldn’t budge. She tried again and again, hammering on it with her fists and kicking like mad, screaming for help that could neither hear nor come. Exhausted, Amanda went to plan B: windows--the apartment had two, and if she couldn’t climb out, she could definitely yell for help. She yanked open the first set of curtains and her face fell; the glass was blacked out and the barred. Try as she might, she couldn’t wedge it open and there was nothing strong enough to break the glass and thin enough to fit through the bars in the apartment: Amanda was well and truly trapped. Slowly, she slumped into the couch, tears welling in her eyes. She was just about to break down when she heard a squeaking coming from her right. The dumbwaiter had disappeared and reappeared; only this time it was carrying a steaming pizza box and a bottle of soda.

Amanda didn’t even bother to open the box. She stormed to an end table and rummaged through its drawer and found inside it a single pen. She stomped back to the dumbwaiter and scrawled on the lid “Fuck you and your god damned pizza!!!” She slammed the door down on the dumbwaiter and heard it creak away. She stood panting in rage for a few minutes, and then heard the platform coming back up to her. The door slid open and the same pizza and soda sat on the tray. Under Amanda’s message was another neatly written note: “Maybe.”

Amanda spent the rest of the day sitting with her back against the impenetrable door, staring at the floor. Eventually, she grew drowsy, turned off the lamp, and went back to her post to fall gradually into a dead sleep.

When she awoke, Amanda’s only indication that it was morning was an old digital clock sitting on the bedside table in the bedroom proclaiming 8:13 down the hall in its blocky red numerals. She felt like she had just woken up from a nightmare, but a quick glance at her surroundings told her that it was all very real. Amanda rose slowly, stretching and popping out the kinks from her uncomfortable night’s rest. The living room was exactly as she had left it the night before with only one, slight difference: last night’s pizza had been replaced by a fresh one, the soda by a carton of juice, and with the addition of short glass. Along with this was a neatly folded change of clothes; nothing fancy, just a t-shirt, shorts, and underwear. Amanda checked their tags; they were her size. Amanda was quickly made aware of another problem: she was ravenously hungry. It didn’t take her long to come to a conclusion--she hadn’t eaten since breakfast yesterday--she didn’t know exactly what was going on here, but she wasn’t going to think any more clearly by starving herself.

She opened the box and practically inhaled the delicious aroma that it poured forth. The pizza was pepperoni, her favorite. Somehow, that didn’t surprise her. Gingerly, she picked up one of the slices and brought it to her nose; it certainly smelled alright. She nibbled the end and rolled it around on her tongue; it tasted fine, too. Hungry enough to take the chance, Amanda took a bite…then another…and another until she had finished the piece. Well, she wasn’t dead yet, only now she was thirsty. Amanda poured herself a glass of juice and, after a small sampling, drank it dry. Her thirst sated, Amanda chose another slice from the excellent selection within the greasy cardboard, this time sure that it was not going to harm her. She did this again with her third and managed to choke down a fourth and another glass of juice before considering herself full. That mild distraction dissipated, Amanda turned her focus to the clothes that she had tossed onto the couch. Amanda turned them over in her hands; they were simple: a yellow top, black nylon shorts, and a white bra and panties, nothing special, nothing spectacular, everything on which she would bother to spend her own money. Looking around, Amanda thought it best not to change her clothes right in the middle of the room; god knows what kind of person was probably watching her at that very moment. So, taking them into the bedroom, she brought them into the bathroom with her for her next logical choice, taking a shower; something that she could not long avoid.

Once inside, Amanda gave the room the thrice over, peering into every corner, standing on the toilet to inspect the ceiling, tracing every inch of the wall, even the piping of the shower head, but the bathroom, just like the rest of the apartment, was completely ceiled off from the outside world. Confident in her privacy, Amanda bathed for over an hour, letting the warm water wash over her soft skin and trying her very best to relax. When she was tired of the rhythm of the falling water, Amanda climbed out of the shower and changed into her new clothes, carefully laying her old ones in an empty corner of the linen closet.

She walked back into the living room and sat in the couch. Then, she waited. She waited for anything, anyone to do something, send her something to do, to while away the hours; there was no television, no magazines, no books, nothing. So there she sat, helpless and going mad with boredom for what seemed like an eternity. She twisted positions, flipping and flopping all over the couch, clutching the cushions or throwing them across the room, but nothing lasted more than a few seconds. Eventually, her numb gaze fell upon the pizza still sitting in the chute and she moved to it. Picking up a slice in her hand, she bit off the end; it was cold, but it was still delicious. Taking the slice back to the couch, she slowly nibbled away at her excitement until she had eaten it all. She sat up, then, just as bored but now realizing that she was hungry, just as hungry as before, maybe even more than before. She grabbed another piece and brought it to the couch, not wanting to bring the box just to give herself more to do. She ate this one a little faster than before, but still trying to go slowly to take as long as possible. Her little ritual of boredom carried on until the box was empty. The picked up the carton of juice and drank its remnants, then closed the door of the dumbwaiter, disgusted that she had eaten the entire pizza in less than two hours. What was worse, she didn’t even feel full, and even if she was, she doubted that she was awake enough to notice. She slumped, listless, back into the couch and stared at the ceiling, trying to count the little nodules poking down at her.

She didn’t get too far. In only a few minutes she heard a squeaking sound and drew her tired gaze over to the dumbwaiter. On its platform was another steaming box and a liter bottler of soda. Confused, Amanda got up to look into the bedroom and saw the clock…her clock. It read 12:02. Lunch. Amanda groaned quietly to herself.

Amanda let an hour pass in defiance before giving into her boredom. She grabbed the box from the dumbwaiter and opened it on the coffee table. One by one, minute by minute, she chipped away at its contents until it was empty and the bottle lay filled with nothing but air on the floor. It was only 3:46. Finding nothing else to do, Amanda did her best to try to fall asleep on the couch, which she did, but only for short bursts, waking up ever ten minutes or so and thinking that hours must have passed, praying that they had, her prayers unanswered.

Six o’clock…dinner time. Not surprisingly it was the same as lunch, but Amanda forced herself to have no appetite. She picked herself up and slowly dragged her feet into the bedroom to try and fall asleep in a more usual fashion. She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, lights out, under the sheets. Her stomach ached a little from all the food with which she had occupied herself for the past ten hours. She placed her hands on her stomach; it felt like there was something hard way down in the pit of it, both to her hands and in her heart.

Amanda woke up groggily but still considerably better rested than the previous day had found her. She had slept in her clothes, and both they and her hair were matted and sweaty. Her dreams had not all been pleasant. Looking around her, Amanda had to assure herself that she was still trapped in the little apartment. She moved to the living room and found her “breakfast” waiting for her, still warm in the box. It was pepperoni again, and, despite her situation, she found it hard to complain about her rations. Along with the food there was another change of clothes, the same as before, and after showering, Amanda placed what she had worn the previous day on the tray and shut the door, listening to it creak away.

Amanda had not been as hungry as the day before, stopping herself at two slices to save more for later. She had made a resolution to herself during the night: no matter how bored, how desperate she became, Amanda would never ask for anything. No television. No radio. No books, magazines, music…nothing. There was no way that she was ever going to take anything from this nutcase…except food. She couldn’t get around that. There was no way for her to be sure that he wouldn’t just let her starve to death if she stopped eating, so why punish herself?

Amanda spent the rest of the morning on the couch, leaving only once to relieve herself. She stared at the ceiling again, tried to sleep, anything that she could imagine given her limited resources to entertain herself, but mostly she ate. Between every little dot in the ceiling, ever bat of her eyelashes, she took a small bite of the pizza until the slice was gone. Then, she took another piece from the box until it was empty. She managed to eek this out until ten thirty.

At noon, Amanda’s lunch arrived, the same as yesterday’s, and her dirty clothes had apparently been taken away out of courtesy. How terribly gracious, thought Amanda before beginning to gnaw away at her afternoon entertainment. Still full from the morning, Amanda didn’t quite finish her meal, a few slices remaining, before dinner came. She whiled away the hours, now laying this way on the couch, now laying that, all the while continuing to snack on lunch’s remnants and as much of dinner as her stomach, even in her boredom, would allow. Her mind in a daze, and her stomach full beyond being comfortable, Amanda finally trundled into bed, already half asleep, near midnight.

Amanda woke slowly as the silent gnawing of her hungry stomach roused her from sleep. She opened her eyes and stared upward groggily. Getting her bearings, Amanda lifted herself upward and forcing a roll of flab to roll over the waistband of her substantially tighter underwear. Amanda had been in the apartment for over two weeks--she had lost track of the days exactly, but she was sure that at least two weeks had to have passed. Well, she was as sure about that as she was about anything else in her new home. Amanda swung her legs over the side of the bed and her feet made a small thud as they contacted the floor. Amanda looked at her bare legs. They were closer together than she had remembered and thicker, too. Moving her eyes toward her torso, Amanda saw the little roll of flesh peeking out at her from under her shirt, red near its base from her panties’ waistband rubbing against it all night. As she rose slowly, Amanda’s new companion disappeared, but her stomach protruded several inches and made her shirt stretch to accommodate it.

Just like every day before, Amanda found a carton of juice and a pizza waiting for her, piping hot. Amanda had gotten used to waking up closer to the time of her breakfast’s arrival with each passing day. Taking the pizza with her, Amanda plopped down on the couch, making her new tummy pop out into the open once more. There was nothing to do now but sit, wait, and eat. Amanda, having found more room inside her stomach each day, put away four slices easily before her morning shower. Only this time, when Amanda attempted to don her shorts, she found them unbearable. Unlike Amanda, her clothes had stayed the same size for as long as she had been in the loft; she still refused to contact her captor, and he had returned the favor in kind. When she pulled the shorts up to her waist, they, even with their elastic, squeezed her butt and thighs tremendously and made her stomach pooch out even more, rolling over the top of the waistband. Her shirt was pushed up a little, showing her still tanned--but with the color deteriorating rapidly back into her normal pinkish-white flesh--stomach to the base of her navel. Amanda didn’t notice this, all she cared for at the moment was the biting of the waistband of her shorts into her tender flesh, but she was far from ignorant of it. Amanda knew that with each passing day her body grew just a little bit heavier, not much, but over several weeks it had built up to what she guessed had to be a few dozen pounds. Oddly, however, or so it seemed to her, she didn’t really care. Normally she would have thought that if she had gained weight she would have cared a great deal, probably just from the difference that it made in her, not that she cared that much about her physical appearance. After all, who was there to see her now anyway? Amanda had long ago abandoned the prospect that there was some secret peep hole or exit way into or out of her fully furnished prison cell; at least, not that she could ever find, and at that point Amanda had begun to harbor the philosophy that if anyone had gone through that much trouble to conceal some way of looking at her, then probably deserved to and were welcome to it. It was sort of a backhanded compliment. No, Amanda had thought that if she would have cared about anything in regard to her weight, it would be that she would have to go through to trouble of accommodating her life to deal with her augmented weight if she ever gained any, but in such confined quarters virtually void of any sort of entertaining stimuli, there wasn’t much to which she had to adjust at all. The only thing that bothered her was that damned waistband. Taking off her shorts, Amanda returned to her pizza and spent the rest of the day alone with her confused thoughts and consolidated herself by filling her time and stomach with the delicious pizza.

By midmorning, almost two weeks later, Amanda was fed up. It was barely nine o’clock and she had been sitting alone with her empty pizza box and juice carton for nearly twenty minutes. Also aware that with each passing day she had been able to finish the bulk of her pizza and eventually the entire thing in progressively less time, Amanda had become increasingly concerned over what she was going to do to keep herself from going crazy. She rose into a sitting position on the couch, causing the additional pounds that had been packed onto her growing and visibly distended belly to sprawl all the way down to the top of her thighs, all but fully obscuring the waist of her ruthlessly uncomfortable shorts. Her thighs, too, were struggling to bulge over the legs of her shorts, and her breasts, also swollen from her weeks of fatty feasting, showed more quivering flesh bulging over the top of her bra and through to neck of her top than was actually stuffed inside it. The night before she had had nothing to do for the entire evening after the first half hour, she was so hungry from all the time she had to kill after lunch, which she had exhausted after only two hours of painfully slow munching, that she practically inhaled it, and she knew that she would start to go nuts if that went on for much longer.

Sickened by her only option, and knowing that it was his intention the whole time, Amanda grasped the pen in her pizza-grease soaked hands for only the second time since she had been locked in the apartment. Placing the box back into the dumbwaiter, she wrote as calmly and sincerely as she could manage given her opinion of her captor: “Alright…you win. I’m finally asking for something,” Amanda heaved a sigh before continuing. “Please send up more food from now on.” She closed the door on the dumbwaiter and heard it creak downward and immediately regretted her choice. There was no reply, though she had expected that there would have been. Amanda began to panic about what was going to happen. What if he cut off her food supply all together? What if he sent too much and it all started to rot in the tiny apartment? Most of all, she regretted how weak and foolish it would make her look. She had officially given in to his power over her, and there was no turning back for her now, and she hated it but could do nothing. When an hour had passed without a reply, Amanda didn’t know what to think. She only lay down sideways on the couch, letting her belly lay on the cushion, and waited, deeply worried and busied by her thoughts while the hours passed. At noon, Amanda finally received a sign of life from below her: the dumbwaiter was making its creaking ascent. When the panel slid open, Amanda was shocked by what it contained. On the tray there was not one pizza, not even two; there were three, three steaming hot pizzas and a bottle of soda the same as before. Amanda sprang to the platform as quickly as she possibly could to see if there was anything else; there was a piece of paper with a short note written on the top:

“I was wondering when I was going to hear from you, and, frankly, I’m surprised that you waited this long. You didn’t have to be so cordial; I already told you that I would get you almost anything that you want, but I appreciate the effort nonetheless. I hope that these will do for now.”

Amanda was elated. Not only had she expected the worse and received the best that she could have hoped for, albeit a little patronizing, but she was starving and had more food in front of her than she could possibly eat in one afternoon, and probably the same amount coming for dinner. She dug into the first pizza with gusto, practically inhaling the first half of it and slowing down to savor the rest, finishing it around fifteen minutes after she had started. Her stomach more than full and noticeably distended, Amanda sat up with her hands on her stuffed belly, contented, and looked at the note which she had carried to the coffee table along with the pizza box.

She still wasn’t comfortable with asking this guy for anything; it just seemed off to her. What she was really confused about was the way she felt after eating an entire large pizza for lunch. She pressed her fingers into her belly. They sank in a little over an inch, but she could tell that they would have gone further if she wasn’t so full. Her stomach was definitely full, but it wasn’t hard, and it still had some yield when she pressed it. It gurgled back at her in response. What surprised her was the way it felt: good. She didn’t feel normal, like she had just satisfied a need to survive or anything, and she did feel a little uncomfortable with the pressure inside her stomach; but, she liked it and didn’t know why. It just felt pleasurable to her to be so full and to press her stomach like she was doing. She stopped suddenly, a little uncomfortable with the idea of being turned on by overeating, and gave her full attention to the note once more.

Feeling more relaxed and a little confident, Amanda decided to see how far she could push her good luck and wrote back. Removing the rest of the pizzas and the unopened soda from the dumbwaiter, she replaced the note along with the little addition she had tacked on to it: “Alright, then…how about a magazine? It gets really boring up here.” She had wanted to add ‘or don’t you already know that?’ but had decided that the magazine was more important than being bitter at the moment. After she shut the door and heard the platform move away, Amanda plopped back down on the couch and drank her soda about half way down. In a few minutes, the dumbwaiter returned with a new addition of People and the same note saying, “See; now it isn’t that hard, is it?”

Amanda tore the magazine from the platform with glee and practically bounced back to the couch, confident that her newfound method of entertainment would keep her snacking habit at bay. She turned to the first page of an article with relish, and made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t read more than one article an hour, even if she had to read over the same one again and again. As she read, slowly, she didn’t even notice that after a few minutes had passed and she was only a quarter of the way done with the first article that she was nibbling at the end of a slice of pizza from one of the new boxes. When she realized, she had already taken a few bites, but quickly put it back in the open box like it had a plague. Trying to ignore the delicious aroma of the pizza, Amanda read on with increased concentration, but always gnawing in the back of her mind was the smell of the pizza and the pleasure that its taste could bring her. She made a valiant effort, but Amanda, urged on by her new girth, couldn’t stand it any longer after an hour. She still held onto the magazine, still enthralled by something to read, but grabbed the slice she had started to eat earlier, by that time it had become cold, and finished it while reading. She reached for another one, it was as cold as the first one but just as good, and devoured it, and then another as she whiled away the hours, reading through two more articles before she broke into the third box. Her stomach was practically in pain from all the pizza she had consumed and it bulged out over her thighs, making her shirt ride over her belly button and forcing her shorts and panties downward, but all she cared about was the taste in her mouth, not how full she was. By the time her dinner rations arrived, the same as lunch, Amanda had plowed her way through two thirds of the third box, which she finished as quickly as she could so she could start on the new batch before they became cold.

Hours and two and a third more pizzas later, Amanda was exhausted. She had lain flat on the couch after she started to eat her dinner pizzas to stop the pain that enveloped her stomach when she was sitting upright and making it bend. Feeling sick, Amanda tried to sit upright. As she heaved with her arms, a sharp pain shot through her distended belly and she dropped back down in shock, causing another pain from the sudden jar. Trying another route, Amanda slowly brought her legs over the edge of the couch and lifted herself forward and up at the same time so that with one mighty heave she was standing upright and fighting for her balance. When she found it, Amanda looked down at herself, or what of herself she could see. Amanda’s new flabby tummy was bulging out more than a foot in front of her breasts, which were themselves pushed slightly apart by her enormous, quivering gut. They were pushed up so much that with every breath she took they sloshed on top of her bra and made her belly shake with their momentum. Her shirt had risen almost up to the bottom of her breasts, and it looked like it was straining at the sides to hold together, even at that level. Amanda lifted an arm and placed it on the top of her belly. She pressed into it and found that any pressure she applied sent a tremor of pain through her skin stretched tight over her bloated belly. She patted it anyway and enjoyed the tingling sensation that followed, but there was a little voice in the back of her head telling her that she was still uncomfortable with the thought of stuffing herself silly and getting pleasure from it.

Bracing herself for pain, Amanda lumbered slowly toward her bed and lowered herself slowly into it. As she covered herself, she realized that she was still wearing her clothes, but quickly dismissed the thought of getting out of them at the moment; it would be nigh impossible and extremely painful. Amanda slipped her arms under the covers and rubbed them up and down her belly with her eyes closed, feeling the pressure from inside and out until she drifted off into a deep, torpid sleep.

Amanda woke immediately and completely at 10:43 the next morning. When she opened her eyes and saw the sheets around her, she was momentarily taken aback. Not only did it appear as though she had not moved since she fell asleep, but the height of the sheets didn’t seem quite right, either. They were pushed up further than she remembered them ever having been before and her legs were laying straight. Amanda threw the sheets off of her body and jumped out of bed heavily, feeling refreshed. Wondering what was different, Amanda looked down at herself seriously for the first time in weeks, and when she did, she was more than a little surprised. The first thing she noticed was that her shirt, though fully extended, was riding well above where it should have been on her belly. In fact, her belly was exposed from its bottom to almost five inches above her navel.

Her belly looked different, too: it was barely tanned any longer and had grown from being small and a little soft, as she had remembered it, to being large, heavy, and round. It hung over the waistband of her shorts in a thick roll completely obliterating it from view and jutted outward by almost eight inches. She cupped her hands under it in wonder and lifted it. It came up as one large mass and tried to flow through her fingers. When she let it go, it flopped down onto her upper thighs, bouncing and jiggling in waves up through her breasts for several seconds. Amazed, Amanda shook her thick tummy from side to side, making it jiggle and sway heavily. She patted it with her hands and it bounced back and forth making a slopping sound. Satisfied for the moment with her belly, Amanda explored the rest of her now alien body which seemed so much rounder to her, but was really only slightly larger than it was before she had eaten so much food the day before. The prospect of her breasts was alluring, and Amanda cupped each in her hands, feeling their heft and round softness. She felt her body all the way down her thighs, but stopped where the legs of her shorts dug painfully into her tender flesh.

She reached under her belly for the waistband and tugged her shorts down sharply, then kicked them off, making her entire body jiggle in response. Next, she yanked her shirt off over her head, a much harder feat than the shorts considering that most of her weight was accumulating in her belly and breasts, and when she pulled it up, her shirt became caught momentarily under her boobs. With her shirt off, the only thing confining them was her now tiny bra, against which they had been struggling mightily but were still painfully contained. Amanda unclasped her bra and it practically sprang off of her. Her breasts jumped forth and quivered like balloons of fat on her chest for several seconds. Her stomach was also freed from her shirt and jiggled almost happily at being set free.

Amanda sat heavily on the foot of the bed and put her hands under her butt to feel what it was like, too. She found that it was thick with new fat, and when she squeezed it, it felt like she was trying to move her hands through warm pudding. She ran her hands down her freshly exposed thighs, finding them much the same, and patted her calves to watch them sway. Amanda was fascinated; she had never felt this way before. Every part of her body was so warm and soft that it was almost…sensual…. Amanda shook her head, trying to snap herself out of this craziness, but the thought had already taken root, and it was still seething in the back of her mind. She looked down at her belly again, placing a hand on either side of it. She pressed it together, making the flesh bunch up and fold over her hands…it felt…good. She did it again, and again; swirling her fat tummy in her hands, lifting it up and down, bouncing it, anything that she could think of to continue the feeling in her belly and the tingling beginning to moisten the area between her legs. Suddenly, Amanda stopped, and stared at the ceiling, removing her hands from her shaking gut and leaning back on them, breathing heavily. She had to stop…this was just too much. Tearing her mind away from her body, Amanda heaved her naked self upward and waddled into the main room of her apartment, determined to keep her mind preoccupied.

There was still two-thirds of the last pizza she had eaten the night before laying in its box on the coffee table. In the dumbwaiter there were three more pizzas, all of which, having sat there for several hours, were cold--except the one in the middle of the stack--and a fresh pair of clothing. Not wanting to be completely naked, Amanda struggled to hook on the bra, squishing her breasts tightly together. She pulled the panties up to the middle of her thighs before they became too tight. She pulled and slowly rolled them up with her fingers until the fabric was stretched within an inch of its existence, but they were at least covering her pubic hair, and she was fairly confident that they would be held in place by the pressure of her butt cheeks swallowing them into her crack. Ignoring her half finished magazine, Amanda grabbed the middle pizza and brought it back to the couch. Taking one slice from the old box and one from the new, she sandwiched them together and began to take huge, tearing bites, filling her mouth completely with each one. She barely took the time to chew and swallow before stuffing as much pizza as she could into her mouth. The two pizzas commingled inside her mouth so that together they were lukewarm. At that rate, Amanda had managed to stuff both the remaining third of cold pizza and the whole new one into her stomach in only a few minutes. Beginning to feel ravenous, Amanda grabbed the other pizzas from their perch and did them same with them as with the first two, stuffing slice after slice into her mouth as fast as her mouth could cram them into her gurgling belly. When she had nearly completely devoured the last of the pizza, Amanda began to slow down a little, but continued to stuff the food into her mouth as long as it was in front of her.

Finally, Amanda swallowed the last bite and brought the daily carton of juice to her mouth, tipping it back and chugging the whole thing. Exhausted, Amanda flopped back into the couch and let her stomach settle onto her thighs. She placed her hands on it and began pressing and rubbing it to sooth the pain it was sending her in sharp waves. She wasn’t surprised that she wanted to rub it; her belly seemed huge. It had expanded to handle all of the pizza being stuffed into it so suddenly and had grown outward by several inches. As good as it felt, Amanda quickly realized that her plan had backfired, and that by rubbing her stuffed belly, she was even more turned on than she was in her bedroom. Rolling on her side to reach the table on her right, letting her belly flop onto the couch cushions, Amanda reached into the drawer and pulled out the pen and a fresh sheet of paper. Heaving herself up mightily and throwing her heavy belly into waves of jiggling, Amanda trudged to the dumbwaiter and, before she closed the door, deposited on it a note bearing a single, important word “MORE!”

Amanda dropped heavily back onto the couch and waited, doing her best to keep her mind blank and to only stare at the wall where the food she was awaiting should appear. Ignoring the pressure in her belly and the gnawing hunger in her mind, Amanda focused on the anticipation that was threatening to drive her insane. The time she sat in silence but for her heavy breathing seemed immeasurable to Amanda, so when she finally heard the dumbwaiter return, she was elated. She leaned forward and shifted her weight from the couch to her feet so she could waddle uncomfortably over to meet the dumbwaiter. When it reached the top and the panel slid open, Amanda’s eyes widened and her jaw slackened. Inside were five large pizzas and a couple of two liter soda bottles, more then she had expected and far and away more than she knew she could eat. Amanda looked down at her round gut and placed her hands on it, feeling both the soft yield it still gave under her hands and the moistening inside her that the thought aroused, Amanda brought the pizzas to the couch began to eat.

In the evening, Amanda had managed to stumble into bed and was out like a light. Under the sheets, she was laying naked. Hours ago her panties had shredded and her bra had broken at the clasp as her belly continued to expand and push her other equally prominent assets upward and outward. Dinner that night had only been one pizza instead of three or five, but all told, Amanda had managed to swallow almost nine whole pizzas in one day. Her stomach had expanded enormously and had grown by more than a foot outward, forcing Amanda to sleep on her side to let it rest some of its weight on the mattress. By the end of the day, she was in such tremendous pain that it was the only thing she could think about, but Amanda knew that the damage had been done. Past midmorning, Amanda stopped focusing on preoccupying herself and kept eating out of her desire to do so. She couldn’t resist the flavor of the pizza in her mouth and the pleasure that each bite she swallowed brought. Until the pain became overwhelming, Amanda began to look at the size of her inflated belly, thinking back to how it had felt in her hands in the morning, and wondered how it would feel if it were bigger…enormous and heavy and soft; bigger empty than it was stuffed now! That thought kept her eating, and she no longer cared about being turned on by being fat. She knew that she liked it, and she was going to make it even better. Why should she restrain her new passion? She had a free (apparently) and virtually endless supply of food whenever she wanted, and she may as well take advantage of her situation.

With her new resolve, Amanda ate with fantastic vigor in the days to come, shattering her old record so that nine pizzas in a day were barely enough to fill her increasingly cavernous gut. Each day she pushed herself a little bit further until she felt fit to pop. She slowly grew more and more accustomed her obvious daily increase in weight as the pounds were piling on all over her frame. Her squishy thighs grew thick and inseparable from one another, and her butt inflated with inches of soft new padding, spreading and becoming rounder by the day. Her breasts were adding fat faster than her skin could stretch, leaving them to be taught, mostly round globes of warm, jiggling blubber, quivering violently in response to her every twitch. Her arms thickened and softened, and her back grew squishy with fat. As more and more food was thrown into it every second, Amanda’s stomach stretched constantly to accommodate the gorging it anticipated the next morning until it really had grown so fat and round with blubber that it was larger empty than it had ever been stuffed only days before. All day and night it worked overtime to digest the greasy feasts she forced into it until it could match her pace and cry out for more even as it was being filled to the limit.

The thousands of calories Amanda devoured morphed into bubbling fat all across her stretching belly. It rolled forward in an oozing heap every time she shifted her weight, pushing further and further over her lap and onto her thighs in a giant, soft roll. Her bellybutton had grown so deep that Amanda couldn’t imagine getting her longest finger anywhere near its bottom, and she amused herself by sticking one inside of it anyway and pulling her massive, heavy belly back and forth to create pounding waves of jigging softness up and down her body.

The only thing that surprised Amanda was that every time she bothered to heave herself up to the bathroom and glanced in the mirror to admire her new enormous, sexy body, she noticed how little her face had changed. The already soft angles of her face had remained almost untouched by her gargantuan gain. Oh, sure there was a little extra padding in her cheeks and a tiny roll appeared under her chin when she looked down as far as she could, but nothing in so far as she expected to find on a fat girl of her size. Her eyes were as bright as ever, and for the most part, excusing of course the cellulite on her ass and thighs, her skin was taught and smooth, though considerably less tan to the point of being almost a creamy white. She liked this almost more than anything else about her new self, that there was something left of the old that she could still admire and compare to how enormous she had become.

Amanda woke with a start on the third day of her third week of constant gorging. She pushed the empty pizza boxes off of her and they landed noisily on the huge piles of empty cardboard strewn around the couch. Amanda had requested midway through the last week that a large pizza be sent up to her every hour from sun up to sun down, a proposition which was eagerly accepted and that Amanda herself thoroughly enjoyed. All she had to do was reach over to her left--she had pushed the couch so that it was against the wall with the dumbwaiter the afternoon after her first attempt at eating all day--and the box containing the delicious pizza would fall right onto her grand belly. Speaking of which, the gnawing feeling in the pit of her belly that had awoken Amanda had renewed its assault, but Amanda wasn’t quite ready to give into it…yet.

She leaned forward, making her belly bunch into enormous rolls above her waist, to pat her belly in an attempt to sate it for the moment. Both her hands sank inches into the soft flab that enveloped her and sent ripples through her body. Turned on suddenly, Amanda grabbed her fat belly in her hands and kneaded the doughy fat through her fingers, feeling its pliant softness and shifting it back and forth. With each sweep across her legs, her massive belly slopped with fullness and gurgled with hunger; Amanda shook with glee. She slid her pudgy hands under her lower belly and lifted it up, letting it’s jiggling heft slide through the gap in her arms and land with a moist plop back on her legs. She slapped it, and it leapt to the side, she shook it and it flopped and swayed like warm, thick Jell-o, folding over her hands and arms, enclosing them within its heavy, velvety softness.

Amanda let the feeling permeate her body for several seconds before finally heaving herself off of the couch. This little exercise had become an increasingly difficult chore with each passing day. Amanda would have to lean and scoot herself toward the edge of the couch to inch her hefty backside out from the soft cushions of the couch, an action which then required her belly to roll forward and bunch itself into thick, cumbersome rolls that covered her lap. From there, she had to swing her weight forward for the momentum needed to lift herself out of the depression her fat frame had made in the cushions before actually getting to stand upright. When she finally did, Amanda would have been in the view of the world in all her glory if not for her secluded location. She had given up on wearing her clothes nearly two weeks ago when her expanding belly had blasted her shorts to pieces and her shirt no longer stretched over her inflating tits; the clothes weren’t getting any larger, and it was for sure that she wasn’t getting any smaller. Beside, seeming to get the hint, clothes had stopped being sent up when dirty ones had stopped going back down. Without anything to restrain it, Amanda’s fat simply hung down in globs all over her body. Her breasts swung freely across her chest and slapped her belly enticingly, but aside from them, it didn’t really matter. Amanda’s belly had taken over the role of underwear and shorts as it completely covered her pubic mound even when standing and jutted forward like a round, rippling herald of her arrival.

Amanda took slow, heavy steps to the bathroom, not to relieve her self--she had another purpose, which shook the apartment and sent every inch of her body into a furious bout of wobbling and quivering. Amanda thanked the bathroom door silently for being wide enough to allow her spreading hips passage and opened the linen closet inside. Tucked away on the floor just as she had remembered it was the scale she had seen on the first day. She hadn’t forgotten about it, she just hadn’t had any cause or desire to use it until that moment. She leaned down as far as she could, which wasn’t nearly enough as soon as her fat stomach started to squish together, so she quickly dropped to her knees and pulled the scale from its hiding place. Ceremoniously, Amanda placed the scaled in the middle of the floor and took two slow steps onto its cold pad. She heard its spring coiling and its dial spinning, but she couldn’t see anything; her giant belly was blocking her view of the numbers as they spun to a stop after a few anxious seconds. Getting excited, Amanda slid her hands under her lower belly and pulled the fat to one side, then craned her neck as far over her round boobs as she could manage. Success! …sort of. Amanda could see half of the numbers, so she had to repeat the process on the other side before she could definitely state what she had guess the first time, “Two hundred sixty-eight pounds!” she shrieked with glee. The thought of having so much fat…a whole other body growing out of her was practically orgasmic. She dropped her bloated belly and leaped off the scale, landing with a thud that resonated throughout the building. Amanda was ecstatic; she lifted her boobs and fondled them, then thought of her belly and fondled it, then her thighs, oh, her butt! It was too much; Amanda just giggled and shook, her entire body billowing in and out, bouncing and jiggling as if it was happy, too.

Amanda had made this little jaunt because, in spite of herself, she was getting bored again. As much as she was delighted with her new discoveries, eating and sleeping can only occupy a person for so long without a purpose. What Amanda needed was a goal. Well…not a goal really, just something to build off of, something to look at and feel happy about in the morning, something as simple as the number on a scale, and so now she did.

Still giddy with desire, Amanda rushed back to the couch and wrote a note asking for twenty…no, better make it twenty-five pizzas! She wasn’t sure that she could eat even half of them, but by god she was going to try! As soon as she had sent the note, Amanda readied herself to wait for the huge order. She slid her hands under her heavy belly once more and amused and aroused herself by juggling it in her hands, a tactic that worked marvelously for the very short time it took for the dumbwaiter to return. Empty. Amanda’s face fell. What was wrong? Shouldn’t there be food in there? That was the deal, right? Still in disbelief, Amanda looked again, more thoroughly, and it didn’t take long to alleviate her distress. In her frustration she hadn’t noticed her own piece of paper laying in the corner of the platform with new writing on the back:

“Wow. That’s quite an order to fill. Why the sudden augmentation?”

Amused, Amanda wrote back, “What? Can’t a girl get a little peckish?”

It came back: “Peckish? I get party orders smaller than that.”

“So,” wrote Amanda, “why do you care?”

“Why do I do anything? I’m just curious as to why you want so many. They’ll never keep, and I get enough trash from you anyway.”

“Well, you wouldn’t get any if I wasn’t here in the first place,” suggested Amanda.

“You know, you’re absolutely right. Well?”

Amanda sighed to herself; well, at least she gave it a shot. This was quickly starting to kill her buzz, so she decided the end it and get her pizzas as quickly as she could. She wrote, “Fine, it doesn’t matter anyway, but I just wanted to see how many of them I could eat.” There, that’s mostly true, she thought.

On a fresh sheet of paper, the note came back: “Why?”

Geez! What was this guy’s problem? Amanda testily wrote, “Alright, are you going to give me the food or not? I’ve been really patient with all of this. I haven’t tried to smash up your walls, bash through the floor or ceiling, or anything like that hoping that you would get bored with this stupid thing and let me go! But no, I’ve been here for months now with nothing, NOTHING to do! Now, I can start pounding on things if that’s what you want, and I’m sure that you know by now that I could definitely make one huge dent if just about anything if I really tried. Or, you could just indulge me my simple little request.”

“Alright, calm down. I never said anything about not getting them for you, but you know that more than two dozen pizzas just don’t magically appear. Also, I don’t think that it was a wise decision to threaten me considering your position. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t think of doing anything, it’s just an attitude like that isn’t very smart. Now, I know you said you were bored, but eating twenty-five pizzas is no way to relieve that unless you’ve got a reason. What is it?”

Calming down, but still defensive, Amanda wrote back, “I already told you. I just want to see if I can, that’s all. No reason, really.”

“No reason really, or no reason?”

“What do you want me to say? Yeah, there’s a reason: I’m bored, lonely, and fat, and I want to eat, happy?”

“Well, that’s closer. You like it, don’t you? The way it moves, how it looks and feels. How warm it is, and soft, right?”

Amanda was momentarily taken aback; this was making her nervous, and she was beginning not to want to write anymore. “Just what do you mean by that?” she wrote.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Of course you do. Your body. It makes you happy now, doesn’t it? You’ve really grown to like it, no pun intended, am I right?”

“Well, duh, of course I like it! I’ve always liked my body. Why should now be any different?”

“Did you? Did you really like it, or was it just there, not unsatisfying, but not pleasurable either? Just tell me so I’ll know: you like yourself better in a new way now, right? Or was I wrong from the beginning?”

“What?”

“You came in more than twice every week to buy expensive pizza, and now you’ve been eating it non-stop for months. Do you hate it? Have you ever wanted anything different, or did that even matter?”

Where was he going with this now? This doesn’t make sense, thought Amanda as she wrote, “No, I guess not. Why would I? It tastes good and food is food, right?”

“Exactly right! Perfectly right. Now, did you ever once wonder why I gave you only pizza, morning noon and night? Deep dish, extra cheese, the like? It’s pretty simply really.”

Amanda started to write, “No, I--” but stopped, dropping the pen and letting her mouth drop. My god… she thought, feeling empty inside. Furiously, she scratched out what she had written and scrawled, “YOU MADE ME FAT?! You manipulative asshole! What on earth do you think gives you the right to…” but she stopped again. Amanda couldn’t think of anything to write. She knew that she should be angry, but she wasn’t really. Sure, she was shocked and overwhelmingly confused…but she wasn’t angry. She set down the pen and placed her hand on her bulging abdomen. She moved it over her creamy, smooth skin and pressed it into the spongy, warm flab. A cold tingle of pleasure worked its way down her spin, making her body shiver and her belly quake. This isn’t bad at all, she thought. It really did make her happier, and now she had an instant source of gratification whenever she wanted as long as she had a little food handy. Why should I be mad now, thought Amanda. Sure, I had reason before…but sometimes the good outweighs the bad, she thought as she lifted her hefty belly in her hands and jiggled it. It gurgled back at her in hunger, seeming like it agreed with her conclusion. She finished her sentence in the note, then completed it, “…do something like this? It’s sick, selfish, and completely disrespectful to any sort of human rights. But, thank you. You’re right, I do love it.” She continued with a grin, “Regardless, never do it again! Now you tell me: why do this in the first place? Why me at all? I’ve never even met you.” Yeah, she thought to herself, rolling her eyes, it would just make my day if he was stalking me.

“You’re right, I’ve never met you, and it’s not very likely that you have seen me, either, or at least not so that you would know who I was if you have. But I have seen you before. You’re beautiful, and, no; I was not stalking you.”

That was all the note said. Amanda tried to send a note asking for more, but all that came back was the same slip of paper saying, “Your order is ready, now.”

Almost immediately afterward, the pizzas started coming up in droves, and Amanda was quickly put to work unloading them before the platform descended for more. She stacked them three at a time on the right side of the couch, then the floor. All told, all twenty-five pizzas and five unrequested but appreciated bottles of soda took three trips in the dumbwaiter and resulted in one very tired, very hungry fat girl. Still concerned over what she had just learned, Amanda opened the closest box to her and casually put away three slices without pausing. She continued to work her way through several boxes as usual while pondering her situation. Soon, thinking about somebody actually holding her hostage just to make her fat sent Amanda into an hysterical fit of giggling. It was ridiculous! Why go through all the trouble with the possibility that they come out hating you looming over everything? They more she thought about it, the more insane it seemed to her…there had to be some other reason, something else, didn’t there?

Thinking and laughing like she was, Amanda started to eat with more and more intensity until she noticed that she had already worked her way through five boxes of pizza. Oh, that’s right, she thought, I got these for a reason now, didn’t I? She opened a fresh box and inhaled its delightful aroma before lifting the entire pizza from the box and folding it half, squirting sauce out the back and onto her plump bosom. Disregarding the warm sauce creeping down her chest for a moment, Amanda brought the pizza to her mouth and tore into it with huge, ravenous bites. The sauce exploded from the crust in her mouth in every jumbo sized bite that was, due to her folding idea, twice and larger as her regular ones. Pausing only to breath, and she did even that sparingly, Amanda practically sucked the pizza down her throat, finishing it in just over a minute. She licked the sauce from her lips and scooped out the glob that had fallen into her heaving cleavage, sucking it off her fingers with relish.

After a moment of satisfaction, Amanda’s stomach cried out for more food, and she was only too willing to oblige. Taking a pizza, then another, and another, Amanda performed her same technique again and again until eleven pizzas had disappeared into her expanding gut. Getting a little winded, Amanda opened a bottle of soda and tipped it up, swallowing the fizzy liquid and quenching her thirst until she had drained the entire bottle. Amanda broke for a few minutes to rub her slightly distended belly until she let out an enormous carbonated belch and regained her excitement once more. Instead of folding them like in her initial spurt of gorging, Amanda simply held the next wave of pizzas over their boxes and took tearing bites from them, eating around them in semi-circles until she could pop the last bite into her mouth. Four, five, six additional pizzas were swallowed by her voracious appetite interrupted several times by long swigs that drained another bottle and a half of soda.

As she ate, Amanda’s huge belly slopped and gurgled with effort as it struggled to start digesting the wads of doughy pizza being forced inside it at an alarming rate, even for Amanda. It grew and grew, expanding over her thighs and down to her knees, growing taller and wider. It forced her bloated knockers and their erect nipples to the side and Amanda could feel herself sinking deeper and deeper into the couch as it grew. The folds of flab that formed when Amanda sat rounded out until her belly was one gargantuan bottom heavy ball increasing steadily outward.

Once she had cleared twenty, Amanda felt her stomach reach its limit and stopped eating mid-pizza. She was breathing heavily and her face was red with exertion and pain as Amanda let herself sink slowly onto the cushioned back of the couch. Looking over her breasts, Amanda looked on as she placed her greasy hands onto her overstuffed belly, smearing it with sauce. The veins were pulled tight against its skin and it was blotchy and red in some places, letting Amanda know that new stretch marks were to follow as soon as her belly had deflated some. That, of course, would be no small feat, thought Amanda in her cloudy mind. Her stomach was emitting squelches and gurgles and sent an occasional spasm of pain through Amanda’s body as it contracted and struggled to keep everything inside. As she rubbed her hands over her belly’s globular expanse, she began to get an idea of how huge it really was. When she reached its base, there was so little room left for movement that she couldn’t lift it without its top pressing into her chest, a very painful move which she decided not to try again. Knowing how painful it would be but letting curiosity get the better of her, Amanda patted her gut with her hand and heard a hollow thud through her wincing. Next, she prodded her stomach between its top and her navel, but couldn’t get anywhere; it was rock hard. Amanda let her hands slide off of her belly and lay limp on the couch. Then, she took a deep breath, a contented breath, a relieved breath, an immediately regretted and painful breath. Amanda felt on the verge of being sick, and her tremendously bloated stomach spasming and causing her constant pain wasn’t helping much. However, through it all, Amanda still wasn’t satisfied. She knew that if she ate any more, she would just feel worse and worse, but even though she wasn’t hungry, she couldn’t get the taste of the pizza out of her mind. She kept remembering the feeling as is swabbed over her tongue and disappeared down her throat, and not because it filled her hunger but because she wanted more of the taste. Her brain kept telling her she needed more despite her stomach’s protests, and she wanted more; it was just so good!

Amanda struggled to lift her head so that she could see over her found expanse of a stomach. There were still four unopened boxes on the floor and most of a fifth in front of her, as well as another two and a half bottles of soda…. Amanda knew she shouldn’t eat any more; she was done. She wasn’t hungry, she did even want to eat--a first for her in a long time--but she wanted the taste, the smell, the pleasure of it. Of course, she couldn’t have that without the pain. Amanda pondered her problem for a long time. Each time the thought of eating more entered her brain, the pain that entered her stomach shocked her out of it. Her mouth watered and grew dry over and over again, but with each recovery, Amanda’s will power grew just a little weaker. She started to rationalize, just a bit: what if she just ate it slowly? One or two bites at a time, just a nibble? Surely that wouldn’t hurt…but no, wait, it has to go somewhere, and when it does, it’s going to hurt, no doubt about it, and I’m not even hungry, she thought. But still…if it hurts, I’ll stop, why wouldn’t I? Of course I will, she thought. After all, I’m sure I can stomach just a little more…. And as Amanda lifted the slice of pizza to her mouth and started to nibble it away, bit by bit, from its end down to the crust, somewhere in the building below where she sat, a man smiled.

***

Sunlight streamed lazily through thin curtains and onto the apartment floor, casting swatches of light over the cheap furniture filling the bedroom. Amanda tentatively opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling while laying on her back. She was groggy and took a moment to piece together what was going on: why was she in bed? What time was it? Why did her stomach hurt so much? As the last thought crossed her mind, Amanda placed a hand on her belly in reflex, and when she did, everything came back to her instantly. Her hand sank deep into the soft, warm padding of her belly, but when she pressed it, it sank a little more and was stopped by a hard mass in the middle, her stomach. Amanda sat up quickly, and her fat tummy rolled out over her lap, still gurgling and pulsing with some of the fullness from the night before. She began kneading it and swirling it around in her hands, enthralled, as she recalled the previous day’s events. She had started eating by midmorning…and didn’t stop. When she became full, she just kept nibbling away at the food for hours until it was all gone, barely noticing the slow increase in her belly’s size and discomfort. Then, in the afternoon, she remembered with astonishment, she called for more! Four--no, wasn’t it five?--more pizza’s were sent up, and she ate them, too! By the time they were gone, her stomach was heaving with fullness and she was fighting back the urge to vomit out all of her wonderful food until she passed out. Thirty pizzas…wow, thought Amanda, looking at her gargantuan flabby belly and rubbing it in awe…wow….

Amanda staggered up and out of bed, swinging her belly in front of her like a prize and waddled to the door of the bedroom--WHAM! Amanda walked smack into a wall and looked around, dazed. What? That isn’t right, the door should be here, she thought, astounded. But it wasn’t. Wondering what was going on, Amanda turned around to see what time it was according to the clock on the bedside table. Again, Amanda was stunned: there was no clock, not even a table! Backing into a corner, afraid, Amanda looked around the room, taking stock. There was her dresser, wrong; her mirror, wrong; her bed, that at least was in the right place; and her bed sheets with the orange stripes…WHAT?! Orange stripes? Those were her bed sheets! Her bed sheets, not the ones from the loft! This was her dresser, her mirror, her bed, her bedroom! What was going on? Amanda bounded out of the bedroom and into her apartment, exactly as she had left it. There was her couch, her bathroom door, her TV, her--oh god be praised!--her kitchen! Amanda was ecstatic, she jumped up and down, pounding the floor with her tremendous girth and sending rippling waves through her fat body. She was home, she was home! This was wonderful, this was stupendous, this was…impossible! Amanda stopped jumping around. How could she be home? She was just at the loft above the Pizzeria Via Roma!

Amanda found her couch and sat down heavily in it, cupping her head in one hand and her belly in the other. Well, she thought while squeezing her tummy in her hand, at least this thing rules out the whole ‘it was all a dream’ scenario. But, then, if that wasn’t it, she really was in that other building for over two months without sight or sound of another human being. How on earth did she get home? Did Giuspelli take her? He had to have done so…but why? He had the perfect situation for what he wanted with her locked up on that floor, and he wanted her to get fat, didn’t he? And, boy, did he ever get it right, mused Amanda to herself, smiling and cradling her precious companion.

Okay…so he must have taken me home, thought Amanda, god knows I was out hard enough that I wouldn’t have noticed. Then, a peculiar thought crossed her mind. Amanda thought, wow…he must be pretty strong to have lifted me out of there and down those stairs--even with help…. Amanda brushed it off as unimportant for the moment. What was important, though, was that she was home! Ah, home at last, she thought, relaxing considerably. Amanda heaved herself off of the couch and lumbered back into her bedroom. She rooted through her dresser drawers and closet, not expecting to find anything that fit, but just to see her old clothes again, even though she knew she’d never be able to wear them again. However, she was pleasantly surprised. Mixed amongst the fours and fives of her old wardrobe, Amanda also found about half as many pairs of twenty-fours. As Amanda held a shirt up to her body, she knew that Giuspelli must have been planning this for several days if not a week because the clothes, though much more workable than anything she had before, were several sizes smaller than she was. Not wanting to stand around naked all day now that she didn’t have to, Amanda wiggled her tubby body into the tight clothes and barely containing bra. Wanting to inspect her new body fully clothed for the first time, Amanda bounded to the bathroom to gaze into her--oh, it felt good to think that again--mirror. What Amanda saw was the most beautiful, womanly, sexy sight she could have ever imagined. What the mirror reflected was her thick legs packed like sausages into new jeans, the waist band of which was obscured by her massive muffin top flowing over it. What parts of her belly were not hanging out from under it were squeezed into her red shirt, pushing up her breasts and making the cleavage bulge through the top. Amanda turned this way and that, working her pudgy arms up and down her body and jiggling the several inch extension of flab that was pouring out from under her top.

Once she had taken in fully the size of her new self, recently augmented by the many pounds of food she was still digesting from the night before, Amanda remembered another thing that she could do now that she was home: weigh herself! Amanda dug out her old, dusty scale and stepped onto it. Shifting her belly around the way she had done the day before, Amanda could see her new weight. two hundred eighty-five pounds, four ounces. Amanda felt about fit to burst. She pulled up her shirt and hugged her bare belly against her, squeezing with all of her might against its certifiably huge size and weight. She was fat! Really, really fat, and she liked it.

Almost drunk with ecstasy, Amanda lumbered, barebellied, into the kitchen of her apartment. During all of the excitement, the growling in her stomach had gone almost unnoticed, surprised as Amanda was that she could actually be hungry only hours after her food orgy. Amanda rooted through her cabinets and refrigerator looking for the food that her grumbling belly so desperately desired. To her dismay, all that Amanda could find was a new bag of the same cereal she had eaten on the day she left and a fresh gallon of milk. This was hardly enough to fill her massive stomach, thought Amanda indignantly. But, with no other recourse, Amanda heaved a sigh and plopped herself down in a chair that creaked dangerously under her weight. She ripped open the cereal and tipped its contents into her mouth, then took a long swig of milk to wash it down. Table manners were never anything to which Amanda had been accustomed, and her prolonged absence without utensils only aggravated this defect. It wasn’t long before the entire bag was empty and Amanda, still starving, was chugging down the remnants of the milk.

Amanda groaned. That was all the food in the house, and she didn’t have any money for more…didn’t she? Amanda found herself looking at a pile of envelopes placed on the opposite corner of the table which had gone unnoticed in her search for nourishment. Amanda tore open the first envelope hopefully. Inside was a notice from her super thanking her for her recent, and only, prompt payments of the rent and back rent that was owed on her apartment. The next few were only mail, a few sweepstakes, a magazine; junk. However, as Amanda opened the very bottom envelope on the pile, she found success. Inside was, in twenties, three hundred dollars. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something, thought Amanda. Surely she could feed herself for a few days on that.

Thinking about eating only made Amanda hungrier than before, so she tugged down her shirt and stuffed the wad of cash into her pants. She threw open the door of her apartment and bounded down the hall to the elevator sending echoing thuds all through the building. The elevator creaked its way to the first floor, and Amanda stepped out into the lobby devoid of all people save the building manger sitting at his front desk, reading the newspaper. He glanced toward Amanda, but, not recognizing her, went back to reading his paper.

Happy as a lark, Amanda jaunted down the street, soaking in the morning sunshine and taking long, full breaths of the cool air. To her the color of the buildings all around her seemed even more vibrant than ever before in the open air from which she had been sealed off for so long. It wasn’t long, and luckily so because Amanda was already becoming a little winded from her walk, before Amanda spotted her destination around the next corner: O’Malley’s Fresh Foods Market. O’Malley’s didn’t exactly live up to its namesake. It was essentially a run of the mill store stuck somewhere between a grocery and a supermarket, but Amanda liked it for its low prices. Considering the amount of food she was going to have to load up on and her low amount of cash, that detail was an important one to Amanda as ever.

The O’Malleys hadn’t actually run the store themselves for years, and Amanda never knew them. So, as she entered she strolled by the pimply-faced cashier without pausing. He, however, took advantage of her inattentiveness to take a long look at her as she passed, wondering to himself how long this woman had been dressing herself. It was bordering on indecent to show so much of that kind of skin in public! He shook his head and continued to bag the groceries of the people in line who were, consequentially, thinking along the same lines as they discretely shifted their eyes to follow Amanda’s rollicking gait to the shopping cart caddy.

Oblivious to the stares of practically every shopper in the store, Amanda began her collection of sustenance. She had to restrain herself mightily as her stomach groaned with desire for every delicious goody she passed and dropped into her cart. There were so many things she hadn’t eaten in so long! Cereal, milk, yogurt, ice cream, potato chips, fruit juice, cakes, cookies, pies, and chocolate! Oh, chocolate, how I’ve missed you, she thought as she tossed bag after bag of chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, and chocolate bars into the cart already brimming with salty, fatty treats. When she was sure that she was pushing her budget, Amanda wheeled her assortment into the nearest open checkout lane and started to unload. The cashier couldn’t help staring back and forth between the heavy foods he was scanning and the heavy women sorting out bills from her pocket, causing her tremendous belly to wobble from side to side. He didn’t say a word, but there were enough jokes flying through his head at the moment to fill a book.

Once the last item was bagged he rang up the woman’s total. “two ninety-seven sixty-two, ma’am,” he said, sniggering to himself. She handed him a wad of cash and took her change. Amanda thought, only two dollars and thirty eight cents left? But I hardly got anything, she though indignantly.

Then, looking at her many bags of food, she turned to the cashier and said, “Hey, a couple of you guys wouldn’t mind helping a girl carry her bags home, would ya’? I live just up the road.” She gestured toward her apartment, swinging her belly with her arm. Moments later, the two cashiers who had seen Amanda were watching her mammoth derrière sway back and forth as Amanda puffed her way home under the weight of her own fat body plus two bags of ice cream. The boys looked at each other and laughed under their breath when Amanda had to stop to pull up the rear of her pants that had fallen and exposed her ass crack by several inches. Their faces dropped, however, when they found that they would be taking and elevator up six flights to Amanda’s floor, which meant squeezing in along with armloads of groceries into a tiny room with little Ms. Fat Pants.

Once inside, no one said anything. Amanda was far too distracted by the thought of chowing down on her next meal; the boys simply felt too awkward. Upon reaching the third floor, the second cashier couldn’t stand it any longer and turned his eyes up to Amanda’s face. He had to admit, despite her big, round gut, this girl wasn’t half bad as a looker, and she had a nice rack to boot. Really, she wasn’t that much older than him…but as soon as one of he many eager gurgles emanating from her belly, drawing his eyes to it, the thought flew out of his head. Amanda caught this little moment out of the corner of her eye, and, seeing that the other boy was having similar thoughts, wanted to have a little fun. Setting down her bags suddenly, startling the two boys so that they nearly dropped their own bags, Amanda slapped her hands on her quaking belly.

“Oh, you guys like this?” she asked coyly while jiggling her exposed roll up and down. “I just picked it up a month ago! It rides really smooth, but you wouldn’t believe the mileage you get for what you put into it! I mean, I might as well be throwing my food away!” Amanda laughed and the boys chuckled, half embarrassed and half afraid of what the crazy fat woman was going to do next. They couldn’t wait to get off the elevator and were relieved to hear that Amanda would rather them leave the bags out than put them away. Not even thinking about a tip, they bolted out of her apartment and down the side stairs, not wanting to wait for the next elevator.

Amanda, still giggling over the two boys, couldn’t wait to dig into the food. She grabbed a spoon and the two nearest bags to herself and plopped herself down in her couch in her familiar eating pose. In the first bag were smaller bags of chocolate chips, and in the second were two jugs of fruit juice blend. Feeling lucky already, Amanda tore the chocolate open and dumped it into her mouth, washing it down with a few swigs of juice. Three more 16 oz bags of chocolate disappeared into Amanda’s gullet and were followed by the rest of the first jug of juice. Amanda opened the second one and chugged it down quickly. Amanda smacked her lips at the delicious, familiar tastes and patted her belly lovingly. It sloshed and gurgled at the sudden rush of liquid but was nowhere near full. Starting to get back into the swing of it, Amanda grabbed another bag and found a bucket of ice cream and dug into it with her spoon, tearing out huge hunks of the cold, creamy treat. Amanda worked her way to the bottom of the gallon bucket before once stopping. The next two sacks held two bags of potato chips each which Amanda downed in less than a minute. Now feeling quite thirsty again, Amanda reached behind her for a sack with a bottle of soda, chugging it down in giant, greedy gulps. Amanda leaned back and belched, still not full and making even more room for food in her crying tummy. Another bag carried inside of it, among other things, a medium sized chocolate cake. Amanda removed the top from its container and set the tray with the cake on it on top of her belly, now making a nice shelf for her while she was leaning back into the couch. Amanda ripped out huge chunks of the cake with her hands and stuffed them into her watering mouth, then, picking up the half of the cake she hadn’t eaten yet, brought it to her lips and tore out huge bites while her hands, sticky with frosting, stuffed it in her mouth. When she had finished, Amanda placed a hand on either side of her belly and shook it, listening to the erotic slaps it made against her thighs as it flopped up and down.

Amanda’s little ritual continued for bag after bag, her belly slowly inflating to its maximum size and the level of fullness to which she had become accustomed, until there were only a few bags left. Amanda threw away an empty plastic sack, then belched, making her stuffed belly convulse. Relaxing her body and sinking heavily into the creaking couch so unaccustomed to its owner’s new girth, Amanda took stock of the remnants of her first meal at home. There were only four bags that had been untouched, each one containing ice cream, cookies, more potato chips, and soda, respectively. Amanda patted her belly and watched it bounce with the fullness she desired. Wow, she thought happily to herself, I’m libel to get really fat if I keep eating like this. However, Amanda knew that, for the moment, that wasn’t a good thing. There was no way that she could survive on so little food for the rest of the day, let alone the rest of the week at this rate!

Amanda looked around her apartment and sighed. Well, she thought, it was fun while it lasted. Slowly and with much effort, Amanda turned herself out of the couch into a standing position. She yanked up her pants in the back so at least her butt was covered, but left the front, trapped as it was under the expanded roll of her belly. She tugged down her shirt which had ridden above her belly button during her gorge. Then, carrying one of the bags of chips with her for a snack along the way, Amanda left.

Ten minutes and an empty bag of chips later, Amanda arrived at a small pizza restaurant. The outside was plain brick, and there was a small apartment in the upper floor. It had one bedroom, one bathroom, one door, and two blacked out windows. Amanda stepped into the restaurant and walked to the counter where a man she didn’t recognize was taking orders and money from patrons. At the first lull, Amanda stepped up to him and said, simply, “Hi. I’m Amanda. Did you still need that cashier?”

***

Epilogue

Amanda lives in a new apartment and makes a decent wage from her job as a “cashier” for the Pizzeria Via Roma. Of course, not many employees have quite the position that she does with the boss.

The man at the register introduced himself to Amanda as Aaron Denis Giuspelli, owner and proprietor of the little establishment in which they were standing. Taking several pizzas with him, he closed down the store for the afternoon and walked Amanda home. On the way, she had a great many questions for him, and he answered every one of them. He had put the add in the paper just to find someone like Amanda, and she wasn’t the first one to apply. He told her to think of it as sort of a personal personals add. However, as soon as Amanda walked in the store and he saw her from behind the counter as he had today, he knew she was the one. She was beautiful, and he had to take the chance. He was more happy than he’d ever been in his life the day he found out he was right.

Though not exactly happy about finding out definitively how she had been on the verge of “experiment” status, Amanda accepted his explanation as the truth. Plus, she had been right as well. He was strong, and handsome; taller than she and olive skinned, around the same age… He was to Amanda as he had described the way she appeared to him: perfect.

Soon after they started dating and Amanda was sure about how seriously he was in love with her, she moved into Giuspelli’s apartment, which, contrary to what she had originally believed, was in a nicer neighborhood across town, not in the restaurant. This, of course, became obvious to Amanda in retrospect considering that she had never seen him and was herself living there for so long.

And so, with the two of them dating in their own peculiar way, Amanda lives off of Giuspelli’s more than adequate income which he is only too happy to supply in exchange for Amanda’s affections. Well, that and pizza. Fearing that if she kept eating as much as her stomach could hold every day that soon she would be too fat to properly enjoy herself, Amanda had to make her own sacrifices. She cut back her daily intake to around five a day, plus the snacking of various other kinds of food in between, of course. Her weight continued to increase but reached a plateau at just over three hundred twenty pounds. Even more wonderful, Amanda always thought, was that when the two of them finally slept together, she found that he may be the only person in the world who loves to play with her body more than she does.