Kinktober '22 #23: Trapped by Circumstance (Patreon)

Molly was perfectly fine staying home when things started to go south. She’d been preparing for years and had a huge stockpile stashed away. So when the TV news started droning about food shortages and other imminent disasters, she hunkered down, planning on tinkering at her hobbies and reading and watching lots of movies. She’d longed for the time to do just that for ages – an excuse to quit her job and just be the natural homebody she was, with no schedule or anything from the outside world imposing anything on her. It was unfortunate that it took the rest of the world crumbling for it to happen, but this was exactly why she’d taken so much time to prepare!

She eased into her new, languid lifestyle with relish. She made new, complicated recipes she’d never had the time to try before – things like homemade croissants and puff pastry, breads that took days to prepare, roasted meats and dense bean soups. There was always something new to make and enjoy, and there was something lovely about eating her fill of what she’d made while she read a book at her kitchen table. She checked every aesthetic box: a thin, pretty woman lounging around her small but beautiful home in cozy sweaters and simple, elegant sundresses.

That could only last so long, though. For all that Molly envisioned herself as a cottagecore prepper princess, she craved the stimulus and ease of the outside world. Having to prepare pizza dough and roll it out herself and cover it with toppings and bake it and make sure it didn’t burn every single time she wanted pizza. It was still delicious, of course, but not the same as lazily punching an order into an app and having it delivered piping hot into her hands an hour later.

She started to get lazy. Out came the boxed mac and cheese and all the other packaged and frozen goodies she’d been saving. She did punctuate her lazier meals with more labor-intensive ones, but the slide overall was toward whatever felt easiest. With that laziness came a lack of appreciation and a mindlessness about what she was eating. So what if she ate the entire box of mac and cheese and half a pack of hot dogs in one sitting? She had a seemingly infinite supply of them.

Slowly, her carelessness became greed. Having a full belly made her feel comfortable and safe, no matter what she was filled with. Her appetite grew, and it seemed like everything she did was accompanied by a “little snack” that once would’ve been considered a meal to her. She forgot what it was like not to be constantly digesting, belly perpetually agurgle and warm to the touch. She napped more and slept longer, giving her body ample chance to turn her excesses into fat.

She was rarely out of her most comfortable, oversized clothes, so she didn’t even notice the weight gain, even though it crept up on her fast. There was no one else to see her and she wasn’t particularly concerned about her appearance, making it easy for her new potbelly and beginning double chin to fly under her radar. By the time she did notice, her potbelly had grown until she had an overhang (albeit a small one), and her rump was so large it destroyed all the skinny-girl underwear she’d once been able to slip on easily.

Molly panicked a bit at first, wondering if maybe her mind was playing tricks on her. She decided to try on some of her smaller, more fitted clothes, trying to reassure herself that the chubby woman in the mirror was a phantom of body dysmorphia and solitude. She had to work so hard to get her jeans pulled halfway up her ass that she started ripping the stitching on the waistband. Her old work slacks didn’t even survive the trip up her chunky thighs. Old t-shirts that had once fit her perfectly, showing off her slim figure, clung to her, jelly roll of a belly squeezing out the bottom. She could only get one of her bras on, but it certainly wasn’t comfortable. The hooks at the back were horrifically strained and wouldn’t survive being worn for an hour. Her breasts overflowed the cups in every direction.

She spent the next few days feeling absolutely awful about everything. Her body was unrecognizable to her. She was despairing at first, refusing to eat even as her pampered stomach snarled to be filled. She didn’t feel like she should eat, or even deserved to! The second day, she tried to approach things more realistically. She had been rather lazy since she’d decided to hunker down at home. If she was a little more attentive to her portions and started an exercise regimen, surely the pounds would come flying off! She just needed to stick to a plan!

Her “plan” involved an entirely inadequate workout cobbled from one of the two workout DVDs she had in her collection. It was terribly boring and shouldn’t have been difficult for her at all, but she only managed to finish it all the way through once, on the very first day when she refused to quit. The way her body jiggled and slapped against itself (not to mention the sweat), she was uncomfortable the entire time. In an entirely expected move, after her workout, she assured herself it was fine to reward herself “a little” and wound up eating an entire vanilla cake and can of frosting after her already heavy dinner. She fell asleep on the couch, frosting smeared on her face, hands trying to rub the ache out of her overfed belly.

She kept the pretense up for a week, making it through less and less of the workout while never actually improving her eating habits. Breakfast through lunch, she was often eating so much that she turned herself into a hiccupping, sleepy, overfull mess who seemed only to have the energy to nap. Once she finally acknowledged that her workouts were only giving her more of an excuse to stuff her face, she quit them entirely, but couldn’t stop the runaway train of her appetite.

At that point, she gave up. It felt like too much effort to curb her cravings. She couldn’t think of a good enough reason not to eat. The rest of the world was struggling, and she’d been smart enough to plan ahead. Even with her current trajectory, she wouldn’t have to come up for air for years. Who cared if she got as big as a house? That just meant she was comfortable and safe, which was more than most people could say.