A Round Peg, Chapter 3 (Patreon)

CHAPTER 3: SANDWICH BORED

Peg had missed the sensation of looking ridiculous while home alone. She enjoyed no one being around. The loss of solitude and privacy had been hardest since moving back in with her parents. So there was some enjoyment, walking back to the garage stuffed into a ridiculous dress on top and nearly naked on the bottom with a glass of wine. 

She looked through some of grandma Maureen’s business paperwork. Mostly ratios of cost to profit. Ingredient costs tracked through decades. She made a mental note to update the numbers, they were a decade out of date at this point. She was going to have to decide on new prices for the donuts. 

When she was in college, she remembered doing the math to find out how many donuts she could eat before it effected the profits. It was a lot of donuts, probably more than she could eat now, but still worth investigating.

There was a large box, tucked beside the filing cabinet, simply labeled “donut.” Peg had no idea what it was, but that’s what this night was all about so she dragged it out.

“Oh my god,” inside the box, was the donut costume. 

Easily the least favorite part of the job. On days when Grandma Maureen manned the Donut Hole, she’d send Peg out onto the sidewalk in front, wearing the donut costume and passing out coupons and handing out free samples. 

The donut costume was simply a donut, made of wood and plaster. Probably a duplicate of the donut sign that sat on top of The Donut Hole kiosk. The donut sat around your waist like an innertube and was held up by suspenders over your shoulders. Though by the end of her college break tenure, Peg didn’t really have to bother with the suspenders anymore as the donut costume sat firmly on her expanding hips. 

By now she was well chilled by nearly a full bottle of wine and bored of accounting paperwork. She picked up her glass and carried the donut costume back to the bedroom. The rest of the archives could wait, for now she wanted to complete her uniform. 

Peg placed the donut on the ground and stepped into the ring. She looked all around herself, measuring her hips. “I couldn’t even pull this up over my hips 15 years ago, over the head we go.”

She lifted the donut high over her head and let it slip down her arms, it quickly squeaked to a stop around the fat of her upper arms, her head inside the hole. She laughed, it was the dress all over again. But where as the dress stretched, the wooden donut had no give, it was smooth though, worn from decades of use. 

Peg wiggled and danced until the donut fell past her chin and allowed her the leverage to bring her arms down on top and start pushing it down. 

Her top half was already squeezed by the old uniform. This helped the donut costume slide down as she was already compressed and the wood moved easier against the cotton than her skin. She pressed the donut down past her boobs and it settled into the nook of her waist. She was getting the giggles. The sight of herself in the mirror was ridiculous, doubly squeezed by the dress and the donut. 

She sucked in and pressed down as hard as she could, twisting herself one way and other to shimmy through the donut hole. The all the wiggling was making the dress ride back up her belly. 

The donut and the dress went by like passing elevators. 

Peg grabbed the flesh directly as it appeared between the dress and the donut and pulled it up through the donut with one hand as she pushed down with the other. With a great heave she pulled her belly through and let it rest on top of the donut, the donut in turn rested on her hips and bum. 

Phew, it was on! “God that’s tight.” She went to take another silly selfie when-

PING PING PING

The three bottom buttons of the dress ricocheted around the room as the dress spread open across her belly.

Peg yelped at the flying buttons and then doubled over laughing at the fright. 

She sat down on the bed to catch her breath and her belly pushed out more, causing the split in the dress to bust wide open! 

“Eeek!” She lept her back to her feet in fright and she burst out laughing again. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, she leaned against the wall, she couldn’t keep herself upright anymore.

“Oh my, oh my, oh, oh, oh -HHHNNGH HAHAHA” she couldn’t stop laughing.

She stayed leaned on the wall as she fumbled to undo the buttons of the dress, the wine didn’t do her dexterity and coordination any favors. The buttons weren’t coming undone.

“Come on, I’m not that drunk,” Peg realized that it wasn’t the wine, but the dress stretched across her so tightly that there wasn’t enough give to turn the buttons back through their holes. “Shit.”

She still laughed, but now it was a tired laugh, the laugh of someone who’d rather be crawling into bed than dealing with a stuck dress. “Well that’s that then,” and she grabbed the ripped side of the dress and yanked the burst seam. RIP! 

The dress split up the side to the arm seam which took more pulling to undo. She threw the shredded dress on the floor and slumped back against the wall, her hands resting on the donut around her middle. 

“That was fun.”

Peg pushed herself away from the wall and went to lift the donut off. But her belly lifted up with it. She pulled again, this time with a little twist, but the donut wouldn’t slide up her belly the way it slid down when she was compressed in the dress. “Oh no.” She still laughed, but now it was a nervous laughter.

She pushed down hard with her hands and swayed her hips back and forth, but it wouldn’t move. She bounced up and down, alternating between lifting the donut and pushing it, anything to make it budge.  She was hot and sweaty now, which didn’t help her predicament. She took a moment to catch her breath, when a sobering realization hit her, she covered her mouth with her hand in shock.

“I’m stuck.”

There was a special kind of anxiety associated with that word. Nothing about being a fat woman in the world is easy, but there are some things that even the most confident, body positive, radical fat person tries to avoid: breaking something under your weight, not fitting somewhere and at the top of the list, getting stuck.

Thoughts of the fire department and the nightly news washed over her and she began to pace around the room, hopping and bouncing while she pulled and pushed, trying to get the donut to move.

Peg wasn’t laughing anymore. 

She sat down on the bed, out of breath. The donut felt even tighter with her belly spread out from sitting. 

“I need tools” as much as it would break her heart to destroy something her grandfather made by hand, she needed to break the donut.

She hoisted herself back up from the bed and made her way to the bedroom door. 

BANG

The donut whacked against the doorframe, too wide to get through.

“No!”

Peg threw herself and the donut at the doorway but it just made a lot of noise banging against the frame. She tried to lift it diagonally, but wedged how it was across her middle didn’t give her any maneuverability.

“I’m trapped. I’m stuck and I’m trapped.”

There was a lump in her throat, but she closed her eyes and breathed. She fanned herself with her hands. 

“You’re trapped, you’re stuck, you need help, so get help.”

Peg picked up her phone, the adrenaline made it hard to keep her hands steady. She opened the website for the local fire department. She stared at their phone number but moved to another browser tab instead. “That’s plan Z.”

She looked at the number of her ex-girlfriend, wishing she wasn’t so far away. “It would take her two planes and a bus to get here, but she’d probably drop everything and come.” She gave it more thought than she should have, but realizing there would be no more flights tonight and the soonest her ex could get here was tomorrow afternoon finally put the unrealistic thought out of her mind.

“I need someone closer to home,” she opened her Let’s Hang app, she hadn’t really used it since she moved in with her parents, but if anyone in her phone or social media contacts were nearby, they’d pop up.

She quickly scrolled past relatives, “I’d rather firemen.”

Old high school acquaintances. “Most of these people wouldn’t even know I’m fat now”

A beat.

“…fatTER, now.”

But then there was Jaye. 

Peg and Jaye had dated in college. Peg brought Jaye home the summer before her senior year. They broke up but Jaye stayed in Peg’s home town. Funny when someone loves your home town more than you do. They were still friendly. Occasionally flirty. But their last romantic fling was over a dozen years ago. All their interactions since had been online or in passing around town.

This was a lot to drop on a person. “Hi, we dated 12 years ago, I’ve gotten very fat since then and now I’m stuck, please help.”

Her face was flush. She was actually going to have to say that out loud. 

“Start with a txt, see if she’s free, ask if she wants to come over.”

That sounds like a booty call. How bad would it be if she didn’t mention being stuck at all?

PEG - Hi Jaye! I don’t know if you’re free tonight, but if you are, do you wanna do something?

“Something like, help me get unstuck?” Peg chastised herself for the awkward first txt, started typing again.

BING

It was Jaye!

JAYE - Peggy! I was just thinking of you the other day, I saw the gate of The Donut Hole was open! Is your family finally doing something with it?

“Not smalltalk, there’s no time for smalltalk.”

PEG - Can you come over?

“What are you doing you’re going to scare her away.” Peg was pacing around the room, trying to type a more coherent plea for help.

JAYE - I can, yeah. Is something wrong? Are you ok?

Jaye was always a good one.

PEG - I’m fine, I just need help with something.

She realized she couldn’t get out of her parent’s bedroom to answer the front door.

PEG - The front door is unlocked, I’m in my parents’ bedroom.

Peg stared at the familiar dot dot dot of someone typing and then deleting what they were typing and not saying anything. She shouldn’t have been vague, being stuck in a costume donut is weird but leaving things to a person’s imagination is weirder. She should send her one of the selfies. 

JAYE - I’ll be right over. 

PEG - Thank you! You’re the best.

Peg sat down, let out a sigh of relief that was cut short by her pinched middle. Now all there was to do was wait. Jaye used to live just 15 minute from Peg’s parents’ house, but that was years ago, she had no idea how long she’d be. She tapped her fingers on the wooden donut.