A Round Peg, Chapter 10 & Epilogue (Patreon)

CHAPTER 10: A SQUARE HOLE

When they first got back together, everything was too exciting, everything was an emergency. When they reconnected again, they were too constrained, too restrained. But now Peg and Jaye’s relationship was entering a third phase, not the fluttering highs of panic or the pedestrian lows of denial, but a middle way. 

Jaye didn’t have to hide her fantasies or her fetishes or her feelings for Peggy.

Peg trusted Jaye and felt safe to experience aspects of her body and her sexuality that she’d never explored before.

And the effects were noticeable. 

Peg woke to the beeping of her alarm. She removed Jaye’s sleepy hand from around her belly and sat up. They were living with each other, though they hadn’t said as much out loud. Jaye lived alone and Peg lived with her parents, so by default, Peg stayed with Jaye. Peg wanted to find an old exposed-brick loft with giant windows, she didn’t want to move in with Jaye (though she already had), she wanted them to get a new place, together.

Peg spied Jaye’s eyes, sleepy but open, as she stepped out of the bathroom, towel around her head. “I thought you were asleep.”

“And miss my favorite show?”

Peg rolled her eyes, getting herself dressed had turned into quite a performance recently, lots of dancing and struggling and straining. Clothes not fitting the way they should still frustrated her, but she loved the feeling of Jaye’s eyes watching her. 

The uniform dress pinched Peg’s upper arms in a way she hadn’t felt since she first tried on her old uniform ages ago. Her upper arms where like the canary in the coal mine for ill fitting clothes, clothes that didn’t fit around her arms rarely fit around her belly. 

She threw a glance over her shoulder at Jaye, who was watching intently.

“Feels like this is the end of this dress, so I might as well let you watch.” Peg turned to face Jaye, starting with the button just under her breasts at her hypothetical waist. Things were tight but with a bit of pulling and sucking in, she was able to button all the buttons. The problem was that they gaped, every one.

Peggy looked in the mirror, and then back at Jaye, “well you do spend most of the day hidden behind a counter.”

“I’m just glad now you made me get those 24’s.” Peg undid the buttons, leaving the dress on but open as she pulled out another uniform from the closet. 

“Huh,” it was a size 22. 

Peg dug in the closet for another uniform, size 22. Another, size 22. If she was holding all the size 22’s in her hands, what was she wearing? She pulled the back of her dress and twisted her head around to see the tag and gasped. Size 24.

“What’s wrong?” Jaye asked? She had been planning on fingering herself during this private show but had thankfully held herself back. 

Peg frantically rebuttoned the dress she was wearing. Tugging it and pulling it and straightening it in the mirror, trying to make it look like it fit. It did not fit. She put one hand on her expanded belly and the other on her cheek. “This is my size 24.”

“When did you go up a size?” Jaye wanted to rip the dress off her and fuck her right then and there, but she could tell Peggy needed support. 

“I don’t know, I don’t remember. I thought these were my size 22s getting tight but…” Peg thought about how tight the rest of her wardrobe was becoming, her uniform was the most comfortable piece of clothing she had, it had been for a long time. “I must have been wearing these 24’s for like, months.” 

Jaye sat up, trying to decide how to respond in the most delicate way.

Peg could see Jaye go into loving-supportive mode, but she wanted to handle this herself. She pulled out a red apron and put it on over the gaping buttons. “I’ll call Seamstress Sally today and get a fitting scheduled this afternoon, she can probably turn around new uniforms in a week. Size 26…” she threw a look at Jaye, “and some size 28s just in case.”

Jaye got up slowly, as if Peggy was a deer she might frighten off in the meadow, “and are you okay with that? Being a size 26, a size 28 just in case?”

“Whether I’m okay with it or not, I am a size 26. If I’m a size 26, I should wear a size 26.”

“And you’re okay with how you got here?” Jaye wanted everything out in the open, she was afraid to let Peggy leave the house and stew all day, she was afraid of another nightmare. 

“I knew I was getting fatter. We were having fun and when we have fun, I get fatter.” Peg was trying to sense if she was really upset, or just that she felt like she was supposed to get upset. “I mean, you were feeding me, what did I expect, right?”

“If we’re going too fast for you, we can slow down.” 

Peg had actually been afraid of reaching this point months ago. She was surprised, once she made the decision to allow Jaye to feed her, how slowly she gained weight. The feeding hadn’t been the physically-restrained forced stuffing of her nightmares, it was the slow, sensual forkfuls of a slice of cake after dinner occasionally. Far more vanilla than she imagined, she wondered if she should push Jaye a little. She probably gained more weight from her increasingly frequent indulging in donuts at work, but she hadn’t even considered that feeding. “I’m okay, I think.”

Jaye wrapped her arms around Peggy, “are you sure? You know you can tell me anything.”

Peg kissed her petite love, she wanted to reassure her, “I was just surprised, I crossed a threshold and I didn’t even notice.”

“Next time I’ll throw you a party.” Jaye didn’t sense any panic in Peggy, it felt safe to joke. 

“Happy You’ve-Gone-Up-A-Size-Again Day” 

Jaye loved when Peggy played along, “it would need to be a pretty big cake to write all that out.”

“You promise to feed me every bite?” Peg loved the power her words had over Jaye.

Jaye laughed a dorky, unfiltered laugh, the flirty teasing had overwhelmed her. 

“I love you you silly dyke,” Peg kissed Jaye, “don’t make yourself late for work masturbating again.”

Jaye fumbled for a comeback as Peggy headed out the door, “you stop being so sexy first thing in the morning!” Good one.

Peg enjoyed her early morning walk from Jaye’s apartment to The Donut Hole, much nicer than the bus she had to take from her parents’ house. If she was on the bus, she’d probably be on her phone, but walking gave her time to think.

She couldn’t count the number of times in her life outgrowing a piece of clothing had upset her to the point of tears. She had braced herself this morning for a flood of negative emotions, but they hadn’t come. She didn’t feel terrible, she loved her body, the ill fitting clothes were an inconvenience, a simple problem to solve, like replacing a tail light. 

There was a spring in Peg’s step, she had faced one of her oldest insecurities, and had come out the other side happy. 

As the first donuts came off the conveyor belt though, Peg made a decision, not emotional but pragmatic. She had to resist the temptation to eat donuts until Seamstress Sally finished her new uniforms. She could already feel her belly fat pushing out between the buttons, they wouldn’t last another week of her usual eating habits. 

Curse her nostalgia for Grandma Maureen’s old uniforms, she could have screen printed the Donut Hole logo on dozens of oversized t-shirts and she never would have had to worry about any of this.

Not being able to eat donuts left Peg more antsy than usual in the cramped quarters of the kiosk. 

“Two dozen donuts please,” a quiet young woman with hair in her face put her money on the counter.

“Coming right up!” It was usually construction workers and suits who ordered donuts by the dozens, everyone else usually wanted only a few to g- HEY WAIT A MINUTE

Peg turned from the donut maker to catch the young woman leaning in the window to reach the cash pouch under the counter. The thief returned! “Hey! Stop!”

Everything seemed to happening in slow motion, Peg still didn’t feel like she was reacting fast enough. The young woman backed out of the window, cash pouch in hand. Peg leapt after her, hands grasping for the pouch. She felt the frame of the window close in around her as she dove through, her upper arms, her shoulders, her boobs, her belly- she reached the pouch!

“Gotcha!” Peg had both hands on the pouch now.

The young woman jerked back but she didn’t let go, she grabbed the pouch with both hands and pulled. 

Peg was being tugged through the window of the kiosk, inch by inch. “Stop! Thief!” 

The thief did not stop, she yanked at the cash pouch, thrashing. Peg wondered how far she would take this, maybe she should let go, but she stubbornly tightened her grip on the pouch at the thought.

Peg’s considerable weight combined with the narrow Donut Hole window turned her into an anchor. She was confident that she wasn’t going anywhere and confident she wouldn’t let go of the pouch, but she still needed help. “Police!”

For the amount of people on the street around them, Peg expected more help, was anyone calling the police? “Somebody take a picture of this thief!”

That brought the phones out. 

In a flash the young woman released the bag and ran. Two good samaritans gave chase.

Peg was laughing, victorious, “and don’t come back!” 

Two thin young women ran over to Peg, one put her hand on Peg’s shoulder, “are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” the adrenaline was rushing through her, “thank you.”

The women gave each other looks, they looked more concerned than Peg thought they should, the other woman tried, “do you need help?”

“No, she’s long gone, but she didn’t get away with the money! Wow, what a rush.”

“No, I mean, do you need help getting back in?”

Peg still didn’t understand what these women were talking about or why they were staring at her like that, but slowly, the adrenaline wore off, and her breathing slowed down, and she could feel the restriction of the window frame around her belly. The horribly familiar sensation brought her back down to Earth. Peg turned red. “Haha, oh yeah, sure, just, help me back in, that would be great.” With a woman on each arm, Peg leaned back.

Inside the Donut Hole, Peg’s feet hung in the air, unable to reach the ground. She thought once she made the motion to back up, gravity would pull her weight down and she’d slide back in through the window. But she didn’t move. She kicked her legs to try to jump start the process, but nothing happened. 

Outside, Peg looked at the two skinny women holder her arms. Peg’s arms were the size of their waists. She could feel the panic coming. She didn’t want their help. She wanted Jaye. “This isn’t going to work, I need my phone.”

Peg remembered her phone was on the shelf under the counter. “Do you think you could, just step back inside there and get my phone for me please? It’s under the counter.” 

The two women exchanged another glance and one volunteered, “sure thing.”

The thin woman opened the door to to the kiosk, “oh wow.” 

Peg guessed the woman was referring to the size of her ass, “do you see it?”

The woman bent down and reached for the phone, trying to avoid Peg’s incredible swinging legs, “got it!”

“Thanks,” Peg dialed Jaye, she noticed the two thin women exchanging more concerned glances, “you two can go, really, I’m fine, my friend will be here soon to help.”

“Are you sure?”

Another woman, Peg’s age and not as fat, but plus sized, noticed the commotion and came over, “I can stay with her until her friend gets here, you two go on.”

Peg appreciated having another woman of size around, “thanks for that.”

“No problem.” The woman noticed a passerby taking a photo of Peg with their phone and she turned to block the camera. 

“Jaye! Thank god you picked up, you’re not going to believe this.”

It was true, Jaye did not believe it. But she ran out of work anyway. Whether it was really happening or Peggy was just telling her a story to get her to run over for sex, either way she was on her way.

“You don’t have to wait with me, I’m fine really.” While Peg knew she’d probably need all the help she could get, she was also eager to be alone with Jaye, or as alone as was possible in a crowded public street.

“I’ve got nowhere to be. I’m Maddy.”

“Peg, or Peggy, whichever you like.” She both wanted Maddy to leave but was relieved to not be alone while she waited for Jaye.

“Peggy!” Jaye sprinted down the street. 

Maddy jumped out of the way to not get bowled over as Jaye ran straight into Peggy’s arms. “Oh Peggy, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m stuck, but I’m fine. This is Maddy. Maddy, Jaye, Jaye, Maddy.”

Jaye surprised Maddy with a hug, “thank you for stepping up.”

“If it was me, I’d want someone to stop and help.” Maddy had empathy for Peg’s situation, getting stuck was every fat woman’s fear, but she guiltily felt grateful to not be as fat as Peg. 

“Let’s get you out of there.”

Peg found Jaye’s optimism and can-do attitude calming, even if she didn’t really believe Jaye could get her out.

“Maddy, you stay out here with Peg, I’m going to go inside and pull.” Jaye stepped into the kiosk, immediate met by Peggy’s enormous ass, legs hanging down off the counter. 

Jaye took a hold of Peggy’s hips and put her foot on a shelf for leverage, “okay here we go.”

Peg appreciated Jaye skipping the counting, especially for such a non-event. She didn’t budge. Too much of her belly had been forced through the window, it sat around Peg like a perfect donut of fat and it would not squeeze back in the way it came out. She felt Jaye give up.

Jaye stepped back out, “okay, new plan, Maddy, you go in and pull and I’ll push from out here.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” though it scared Peg to say it, “we call the fire department.”

Both Jaye and Maddy were taken aback, it felt like they were skipping ahead.

“Let’s just try my plan and see first.”

Maddy reached inside the Donut Hole and grabbed Peg by the ankles, she stood outside with her leg up on the door frame for leverage. On the other side Jaye put her hands on Peggy’s shoulders and gave her a kiss, “you ready?”

“Ready.”

“Okay Maddy, pull!”

The strain was greater, but the result was the same, Peg felt like she had a better chance of her legs getting pulled off than getting unstuck. She could tell Jaye was frustrated by the lack of progress.

Jaye moved her hands from Peggy’s shoulders to her belly spread out around the window frame, she was familiar with the feeling from their first reunion with the donut costume, soft and supple fat, transitioning to compacted, constricted, wedged fat. That was tight, this was tighter. The entire Donut Hole kiosk shook from their effort. She registered the discomfort on Peggy’s face. “Okay stop, stop!”

Peg was sweating, out of breath. Maddy reappeared from around the Donut Hole, discouraged. 

Jaye looked into Peggy’s eyes, “you’re stuck.”

“I know,” Peg pulled her phone out from where she held it in her bra, looked up at Jaye.

“Plan Z?”

Peg dialed 911.

Maddy gave her phone number to Jaye, “I have to go, but please, just send me a message to tell me when she’s out and home safe okay?”

“I will, thanks for your help.” Jaye watched Peg hang up the phone.

“They’re on their way.” 

Peggy’s hand was shaking, Jaye held it tight.

“The kicker is, I’d actually remembered to move the profits to the cash box today, there’s only fifty bucks of change in this bag.”

A firefighter confers with Peg and Jaye at the window to the Donut Hole, while a female firefighter surveys inside. The street has been taped off and their firetruck blocks the view of most of the onlookers. 

“It’s all welded cast iron, nothing we can easily unscrew or take apart.”

Peg knew this was coming, it was all in her dream, “you have to tear it down.”

“We’ll pop out all the glass first, then we’ll work our way down from the roof, we’re emptying everything out now.”

They watched as all the ingredients and donut equipment was stacked in the street beside them.

“The saw is loud, there’s going to be sparks, but you’ll be safe, we’ll put one of our coats on you.”

“And one for my butt too, right?”

The firefighter laughed, “you’ll be covered, don’t worry.”

“And how will you get the window frame off of her?” Jaye was worried.

“We’re going to cut that too, very carefully.”

Peg was glad she hadn’t stuffed herself with donuts today like she would have normally, that outgrown dress turned out to be quite serendipitous.

With the glass out and the large donut sign off the top of the kiosk, the firefighters went to work with the cutters. Peg and Jaye wore ear protection and helmets. Firefighter coats were draped over both of them. Sparks rained down as the saws sliced through the cast iron.

“I’m so glad you ran over.”

“Of course I ran over, I had to, you’re my Peg.”

Peg laughs, anxious tears in her eyes, Jaye kisses them away.

“Your round Peg.” 

Kiss.

“In a square hole.”

There was an instant relief around Peg’s middle the moment the cast iron frame broke. Firefighters rushed in to lift Peg out and get her away from the Donut Hole. 

Peg and Jaye sat on the back of the ambulance. Peg was bruised but not badly hurt. They watched as a mini excavator knocked over the remainder of The Donut Hole, the firefighters said it would have been a hazard to leave it standing. When it finally collapsed, Peg dropped her head on Jaye’s shoulder, she didn’t want to look. Jaye patted her head.

“Hey, there’s something still in there,” the construction worker hopped down from her excavator. 

Peg lifted her head up.

The firefighters gathered around the rubble. 

Peg and Jaye walked over, holding hands. The construction worker turned over one of the walls. “It’s hollow, give me a hammer.”

“I thought I tore everything out in the renovation.”

The construction worker pried open the interior wall, folders and papers fell out.

Peg picked up the folder, recognized Grandma Maureen’s handwriting.

“What is it?”

Peg flipped through the papers, more and more as the worker pulled them out. 

“They’re Grandma Maureen’s, stocks, bonds, deeds, going back seventy years.” Peg remembered what her Grandma used to say,“there’s always money in The Donut Hole.”

She looked at Jaye. “it’s a fortune.”

EPILOGUE 

“You can open your eyes now.”

Peg, fatter, sits in front of the dining table with her hands over her eyes, she spreads her fingers to peek through and giggles with glee. 

A giant cake, in the shape of a donut, on the table in front of her, with “Happy You’ve-Gone-Up-A-Size-Again Day” written in icing. 

“So like, did you have this on standby at the bakery, just waiting for the day I couldn’t button my jeans?”

“I’ve got a standing order with them now to just send us one every month.”

Peg dips her finger in the icing and brings it to her lips.

“Ah-ah!”

She quickly licks her finger.

“I’ve got one more thing to show you first.”

“Can it wait until after cake?”

“It can’t.” Jaye took Peggy’s hand and helped her up from the chair, she guided her past the giant windows of their exposed brick loft to the living room area.

“Is this what the construction workers were doing? Why you wouldn’t let me out of the bedroom this morning?”

There was something over the tarp in the middle of the room, Jaye nodded to Peggy, “go on.”

Peg pulled the tarp off, gasped. 

The Donut Hole sign. The one removed from the roof of the kiosk before it was demolished. A giant wooden donut, hand-made by Peg’s grandfather, a duplicate of the wooden donut costume Peg broke. Bolted upright to the hardwood floor, standing at waist height. 

“You found it! How did you find it! I thought it ended up at the dump!”

“I saved it.”

Peg hugged Jaye, then she noticed something. “What’s that?”

Jaye blushed, “well when I was having the stand made for it, I had the woodworker…um.”

She flipped a secret latch and the wooden donut opened in the middle on a hinge, like a medieval pillory, “build in an-uh, escape hatch.”

Peg’s eyes were wide, her cheeks flush, “To escape from what?”

Jaye closed the donut, she walked around the sign and then put her arms and head through, sliding through the hole in the middle easily, “to escape from, any -uh, trouble, a person might get into.”

“Well it was no trouble for you,” Peg stood on the opposite side of the donut, she bent over and slid her hands in, “you forget I’ve done this before, I’m an old pro, easy, peasy, squeezy.”

Jaye smiled, she was losing her breath already, “I-I don’t know, that was a long time ago.”

The fat of Peg’s upper arms squeaked against the wood as she pushed them through, easier than dropping the donut over her head because she could push with the full force of her weight. Her arms and head were out now, “are you saying I’ve gotten fat!” she wiggled her bum in the air for emphasis and put on a mock shocked expression that she couldn’t hold for long before giggling. “I can’t believe you’re just going to just display our sex toy out in the middle of our home like this.”

Jaye was dumb-struck, sweating, “who’s to know?”

It was indeed much tighter this time. Peg admired the craftsmanship of the stand, supporting all her weight as she pushed herself through, it didn’t even wobble. Her breasts were out now, she was working on her belly, “it is a bit tighter than I remember.”

“Is it?”

“Maybe I have gotten fat,” Peg gave Jaye a wicked smile. She pushed with her legs, and pulled with her hands, forcing as much of her belly through as she could, shocking Jaye with her willingness and enthusiasm. She was out of breath, “and if I get into trouble? Will you help me?”

Jaye dropped to her knees in front of Peggy, “I will.” She put her hand on the latch to free her.

Peg pushed Jaye’s hand off the latch, “not that kind of help,” she threw her eyes to the giant cake on the dining table.. 

Jaye kissed her, Peg took Jaye’s face in her hands, there were tears in Jaye’s eyes, Peg kissed them away and whispered into her ear.

Jaye disappeared and reappeared with the cake, she was shaking.
She took a piece in her hands and lifted it up to Peggy’s lips, an offering.
“Peggy Sue,” Peggy took the bite, “I love you.”

THE END