Kinktober '22 #26: Bottomless Stomach (Patreon)

Harper was a greedy woman. She preferred quantity to quality, generally, and in every aspect of her life. “More” was never enough—not when it came to money, sex, food, or any possession she could dream of. She’d been described as “insatiable” by both exhausted ex-boyfriends and in glowing performance reviews at work.

Harper saw very little wrong with this state of affairs. What was so wrong with wanting and having everything you wanted? Her only complaint was her own waistline.

At twenty-nine, Harper had been battling the overabundant softness of her body for as long as she could remember. At her biggest, she was a belly-heavy apple shape with a flat but squishy backside and plump thighs. Her face tended to roundness, with a naturally soft jawline that quickly produced a double chin when she was heavier. She used every trick in the book to make herself appear thinner: heavy contouring makeup, specific haircuts intended to give her the appearance of a slimmer face, clothes that accentuated her not ungenerous bust and deemphasized the potbelly she could never quite get rid of.

She sometimes found it ironic how desperately she wished to be thin, given her preference for partners far larger than she was. Something about a man so thick all over that he had a hard time fitting into off-the-rack clothes just did it for her. Quantity, in excess.

Despite her preferences, she was constantly trying new diets and constant exercise regimes. That along with abuse of quite a few weight-loss aids (some of them not-quite-legal) kept her from becoming too large. Her work was frequently undone with ridiculous, week-long binges she just couldn’t resist, but that didn’t stop her from trying.

Which was how she wound up in a little shop hidden on the dingy third floor of an old office building run by a woman whose advertisements claimed she had some kind of miracle weight loss product. Harper was always willing to try a new way to slim down, even if the claims were dubious.

“So, how does it work, exactly?”

“It’s a spell, honey. It works by magic. It’s all in this booklet,” the woman told her, handing her a booklet only a few pages thick. The pages had been hand-bound together. Very DIY, to Harper’s eye, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying it.

“Are there side effects?” Always important to ask.

The woman laughed. “Oh, yes. But I don’t think you'll mind ‘em, honey. What matters is: you stay slim. No matter what you eat or drink or how much, or how much exercise you get, or don’t—you’ll look perfect.” The shop owner was quite thin herself, with the kind of gentle curves Harper had only rarely achieved.

So she paid for the booklet and rushed home to read through it. She’d gotten chubby again and was willing to do anything, even some silly magic spell, to drop the weight. She flipped through the pages, skimming it to find out what exactly she had to do. She skipped the page that said something about the effect the spell might have on those close to her and got right to the juicy bits.

She lit a candle like it said, burned a few drops of her own blood and some of her hair, and spoke the spell aloud. It was all in Latin so she wasn’t even sure what it said.

The next day, she didn’t notice much of a change. She stood in front of her bedroom mirror, pouting as she squished her belly and thighs. Just another scam, then.

It was counterproductive, but she ordered a whole bunch of takeout to drown her sorrows in. She’d figure out another way to get skinny somehow. And of course, right as the food arrived, her handsome neighbor from the apartment across the hall happened to be coming home. She was in her rattiest PJs, so she couldn’t even pretend it wasn’t all for her. Thankfully, her neighbor was way too skinny for her to really be concerned with his opinion.

She ate like she always did, bottomless pit that she was. It felt good, packing her belly like this. But she didn’t feel as full as she normally did. She plowed through a half-dozen donuts like it was nothing. She didn’t even look full, like she usually did when she really stuffed her face. She kept eating, relishing the flavors and textures. Soon, she’d left a boneyard of empty containers scattered around. She felt pleasantly full and spent the rest of the day pampering herself with home spa treatments and trash TV.

The next day, she went about her business, trying not to feel embarrassed that she’d thought a magic spell might work. A few days later, she’d pretty much forgotten about it; her work week was brutal, and she got home late every evening. She’d had to work through lunch, and by the time she got home she was starving. It turned into a week of whole pizzas and quarts of ice cream for dinner.

It wasn’t until that weekend when she finally had some time to think that she noticed: she didn’t feel like she’d spent a week glutting herself. She stepped on her bathroom scale, expecting to cringe at the damage. As it turned out, she’d lost weight. Weird, but you wouldn’t catch her complaining.

The good news motivated her to go for a jog. She put on her workout clothes and headed out the door. Her neighbor across the hall – Zack? Jack? something like that – happened to be arriving at the same time, also in workout gear. His t-shirt was drenched in sweat, clinging to his skin. It also looked just a tick too small for him, the flat stomach he usually sported looking slightly convex. Trick of the mind, Harper told herself. Harper had a bad habit of hoping the people around her would put on weight. They said quick hellos. He mentioned that he was trying to amp up his workouts. “Feels like I’ve been putting on weight lately, even though I haven’t changed anything.”

Harper didn’t think anything of the conversation once he went into his apartment and she headed off on her run.

***

A month passed, then two. Harper’s figure had changed drastically. For the first time in her life, she boasted a flat stomach and toned limbs, her double chin and round cheeks finally gone. She’d never been happier with her body.

She also had no idea why she was looking so thin these days. She’d been eating absolutely hoggishly, unable to deny herself the pleasures of every bit of junk she laid her eyes on. She hadn’t had time to exercise, and hadn’t been taking the laxatives and stimulants she’d previously used to keep trim. No matter how much she ate, she didn’t gain a pound.

It wasn’t until her neighbor across the hall knocked on her door one Saturday morning that it clicked.

He was dripping wet, clad in a robe that barely seemed to fit, the tie around his waist barely able to knot around his thickened middle. Harper tried not to stare, but couldn’t help clocking the soft moobs hiding beneath the strained fabric and the pudginess around his jaw. She nearly started salivating wondering what he looked like without the robe, and whether his new belly was criss-crossed with scarlet stretch marks. (It had to be, given how fast he was growing, she was certain.)

“I’m so sorry to bother you like this,” he said. She realized his hair was all soapy, like he’d been in the middle of shampooing it, and he was holding some clothes. “The water in my unit just stopped running. I called maintenance, but they won’t be here for a few hours. Could I maybe come in and use your shower to finish rinsing off?”

It took Harper longer than it should have to collect herself. “Of course! Come in. Do you need towels or anything?” He accepted a couple towels gratefully, apologizing once again.

Zack was out of the bathroom in less than twenty minutes, dressed and looking ripe enough to bite into. His clothes clung to him even though they all should’ve been quite forgiving – a t-shirt that would’ve been oversized on him once, a pair of basketball shorts that looked deliciously snug. He had a plump potbelly front and center, and the rest of him looked meaty in a way he never had before.

She offered him something to eat, unable to hide the greedy gleam in her eye. He declined, looking ashamed. “I can’t. This is so embarrassing, but… I mean, you noticed, right?” He gave his potbelly a jiggle and Harper nearly passed away. “I’ve really been packing on the pounds lately, so I’m on a strict diet.” He looked a little deflated.

Harper wasn’t one to take no for an answer. “Well, I could always make you something diet-friendly.” The thought of feeding a man something low-calorie wounded her, but if it meant getting to see more of him, it was worth it.

“That’s really nice of you, but I really probably shouldn’t.”

“Oh, psh, we’re neighbors!” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Come over tomorrow evening and I’ll make something nice, and I promise it won’t be fattening.”

Somehow, she even kept that promise. She made salad (salad!) and made sure to keep all the fixings separate so he could add them as he liked. An uncharacteristically generous move. There was roasted chicken breast, a sour-sweet cranberry vinaigrette, homemade candied pecans, and slices of apple and cucumber.

When they sat down to eat, he gave himself the barest serving of salad with only the tiniest drizzle of dressing and the teensiest bit of chicken he could serve himself. Meanwhile, Harper loaded up a massive bowl with plenty of everything. They each crunched through their greens as they chatted with each other. Harper found herself going for seconds, then slicing up some French bread that she bathed with softened butter (which she did offer him, and he politely declined), and then a third helping.

Even though he’d only eaten a palmful of food, he began to look stuffed as they ate. His belly rounded out further, and he kept stifling burps, blushing with embarrassment. “It’s like this all the time lately,” he said, hand discreetly trying to rub his stomach. “I barely eat but I feel so full all the time.”

“That is weird.” Harper finished half the large loaf of bread and most of a stick of butter all on her own before offering him dessert. As expected, he declined. Harper, unable to keep from making a pig of herself, polished off half a blackberry pie. At that point, Zack was looking like he might pop, face reddened and having trouble breathing.

Seeing him, and realizing just now not full she was made something click for her.

She hadn’t stopped gaining weight. She just wasn’t the one gaining it anymore. That ridiculous spell had worked. The little book had told her that the people closest to her would feel its effects, too. She felt ridiculous for not seeing it before. Zack was her closest neighbor, physically. She’d been eating everything in sight for months, and had completely escaped the consequences because he was experiencing all of them now. He was fat because she couldn’t keep her gluttony in check.

Looking at him, it was hard to see why she’d even want to. He was swollen up like a prize hog, belly rounded and resting heavily on his thighs. She almost felt bad for eating as much as she had. He kept trying to shift, to get comfortable. His shirt rode up as he leaned back.

Without thinking, she lifted up his shirt, exposing the round gut she’d blessed him with. She felt her mouth watering at the sight. So many stretch marks. He’d grown fast, and he was still growing, rounder and fatter and more perfect with every bite she took. She ran her hands over his stomach, amazed at how warm it was, hard at work digesting. He looked like he wanted to wiggle away, but he was so ridiculously full he couldn’t move at all except to press his belly further out, right against her cool palms.

She pressed a little against his side, and he groaned a little before letting out a loud burp. “Is that better?” she asked, pulling her hands away and starting to pull his shirt back down. He grabbed her wrist.

“Please keep going. That made it feel so much better.”

She smiled like she wasn’t the immediate cause of his discomfort. “Of course. Happy to help.”