The Rendering Pit Chapter 23 (Patreon)

As the stresses of her new post begin to overwhelm Genevieve, she takes comfort in conversation with an unlikely friend.

This chapter written and illustrated by me! Contains plot, feelings, and more!

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Things were starting to get a little ridiculous. 

It had to be some sort of payback, Genevieve thought grumpily to herself. She must have upset Professor Victoria, or one of the other teachers, and this was how they planned to have her thrown from the school. The obese vixen poked her stomach and grumbled to herself. She would be rolled out, if things kept progressing like they were.

Over the past few weeks her gut had truly grown, it was a white boulder of blubber that easily hung down to her knees, no longer content to rest upon her legs but now heavy enough to push them apart. Not that the rest of her hadn’t grown, either. Pout as she might that her breasts had barely expanded much, her ass certainly had taken up the slack, pushing her to look for double-wide chairs when she was out and about, and forcing her to squeeze through narrow doorways sideways. Thick thighs tapered down to admittedly petite ankles, but given the way her bones had started to ache lately, she considered she might have to get a skeletal reinforcement mod one of these days.

Such thoughts, Genevieve pushed from her mind. At least for now, while she was in public. She could lament her fate all she wanted behind the closed door of her dormitory room, but it wouldn’t do for the others to see her groan and sniffle whilst she was out and about, not when she was hardly the biggest person around. Adjusting her shirt over her gut and making her way down the school’s gardens, Genevieve remembered the shocking sight of Nathan after she had found him struggling to get dressed in their dorm room. The lizard had always been kind of large, when they had met he’d almost been as big as she was. Now though, he rivalled her in size, seemingly a feat managed after barely a handful of days. And from the frantic messages he sent from the nurse’s office, something had apparently happened to Rigel, as well, and Genevieve was inclined to believe it was probably little more than a growth spurt. 

“Miss? Miss lunch lady?” 

Another student, a small doe girl, waved from the side of the pathway to try and get her attention. Genevieve scowled and looked the other way. She was not the lunch lady! When would the other students get that through their skulls? She had neither the hulking, latex clad stomach, nor the pig snout that the actual lunch lady possessed. She was simply a substitute, helping to ease the workload, so to speak. 

“Miss lunch lady? I was wondering what would be on the menu tomorrow. Only my friend absolutely loves crepes, and I was wondering if...” 

The student was persisting, matching Genevieve’s slow waddle easily, smiling as she no doubt thought about what desserts she could wring from the vixen if she tried. 

“Look, kid!” Genevieve whirled as fast as her gut would allow her, jabbing a pudgy forefinger into the doe’s chest, the doe who couldn’t have been much younger than Genevieve, if at all. “I’m not the lunch lady! I’m just a substitute, I don’t have any control over the menus.” She paused, watching the sudden confrontation sink into the doe’s eyes. “But,” a grin spread over her muzzle, “if you keep bugging me, I might make an exception and make you tomorrow’s menu!” 

The doe’s eyes finally grew so wide, Genevieve worried they might actually pop from her skull, before with a squeak, she turned tail and sprinted away from her down the garden paths, back towards the dormitories. Whatever sense of satisfaction she might have momentarily felt at watching her influence so easily exerted evaporated when she realised she had legitimately terrified the other girl. That wasn’t the kind of person she had ever wanted to be.

“That could have gone better.” 

The voice was familiar, it sent a little shiver down Genevieve’s spine. She had never heard it outside the cafeteria. Turning back around, she saw the Lunch Lady sitting in, occupying, really, an entire bench on the side of the path. The Lunch Lady cast an impressive silhouette, it was a wonder Genevieve hadn’t seen her before, what with the way she was almost entirely spherical, a stomach with arms and legs attached. That gut of hers rest now, heavily on the ground, burbling so loudly, Genevieve could hear it from where she stood, several feet away. Behind it, and wrapped in a silky shawl that covered barely more than her shoulders, the Lunch lady’s eyes were locked on her own, looking through her. A gentle smile spread across her porcine snout and she shrugged, “But I was much the same way. When I first started. Help me up, would you?” 

She would be lying to herself if Genevieve said she didn’t think of turning around and leaving. The Lunch Lady was the cause of so many of her problems, and it was trying to fill her job that had left Genevieve so fat in the first place. But she couldn’t help but wonder how much the Lunch Lady was truly to blame for all of that, for all Genevieve knew, she might be just as caught up in the weird designs of the professors as everyone else was. Besides, she needed to talk to someone right now, and it felt like everyone else on campus thought she was part of the faculty. She waddled slowly over, grabbed a hold of one of the pig’s arms with both of hers, and groaning, struggling, pulled her forward. Watching the older woman’s stomach surge across the ground was a strange experience. It pushed against her, pressing firmly against her body, sloshing and wobbling, warm and soft. After what felt like minutes of struggling against that wall of sloshing blubber, the Lunch Lady appeared to be upright and standing, teetering for a moment on her feet before somehow managing to find her balance. Considering the size of her, Genevieve was surprised it didn’t take a small team of people to help her to her feet, though she had felt lighter than she should have. 

“So, what’s got you down?” She asked, turning her gaze along the pathways and starting off at a slow, slow waddle. “I’m guessing you don’t just yell at every student you come across.” The pig added, shame brightening Genevieve’s cheeks.

“N-no.” She mumbled, following along after the Lunch Lady. She could go anywhere, yet here she remained, talking to this other woman. “I guess it’s just... everything. The whole package. The constant cravings, the after-shift binges, the study-effecting food comas. Everything.” Listing it all out, it almost didn’t sound so bad. Who complains about free food? But the pig’s reply had the kind of weight to it of someone who understood what it was like to go through all that, and then some.

“You get used to it.” She replied, with another small little shrug and a soft glance towards the vixen. “If you can keep it up and study at the same time, you’ll be doing better than I did.” Genevieve paused for a moment. The idea that the Lunch Lady used to be a student shouldn’t have been a surprise to her, and yet it was. She continued. “The thing is, you like it, don’t you?” 

“Yes...” Genevieve hadn’t really had to think about the answer, it just came from her, like something that had been trapped, waiting to come out. The Lunch Lady smiled, and she blushed and looked away.

“Well then, what’s the problem? Really? You enjoy what you do, even talking to the other students, I know I’ve seen you crack a smile once or twice on shift. So what’s really got you down?” 

Suddenly Genevieve thought of the other student, Tiffany. The way that the jackal had looked at her, not with disinterest or disgust, but with what seemed like actual desire. All her life, she’d been taught that being fat was the ultimate taboo, that in a society where the technology to remove one’s excess weight was so easily accessed, being fat was to flout every standard of beauty imaginable. And there she was, for the first time since her journey in The Rendering Pit began, feeling genuinely desired. She fell quiet for a little while, and around the two, student life continued and the gardens swayed gently in a warm breeze. When finally she could muster an answer, the words again felt like they were coming from somewhere deeper, “I guess,” she started, unsure at first where the thoughts were heading, “I guess I just wonder if, after all this, I still-“ she paused, the words catching in her throat, “deserve someone like that.” Tiffany had been beautiful, smart, a little charming, and during the hour they had spent talking and eating, Genevieve had wondered if she would ever make a friend of someone like that. 

The Lunch Lady cast her another soft smile. “Sounds like you’ve got someone in mind. You should go to them and find out, perhaps.” She paused, barely a moment, “Genevieve, you’re a good girl. You deserve happiness.” 

Genevieve blushed, suddenly she felt foolish, confiding her half considered emotions to someone she barely knew and even worse, receiving such kind words in return. The Lunch Lady made a good point though, if Tiffany was a question, there was one sure way to find the answer. The vixen nodded and waved, “Alright. I think I will. Thank you.” 

The Lunch Lady held up a hand, “Oh and Genevieve,” the vixen paused, “call me Jenny.” 

***

SignalQueen: That you Tif? It’s uh, me. The junior lunch lady

PlatinumPaws: Oh

PlatinumPaws: Hey Gen

PlatinumPaws: How’d you get my net ID?

SignalQueen: I have my ways.

SignalQueen: Wanna hang out?

PlatinumPaws: Sure, come by my room, I’ll send you the location.

SignalQueen: omw

***

She took some time to collect herself and fab some more presentable clothes, but by the time she made it to Tiffany’s door, it didn’t seem like enough. Genevieve could practically feel herself sweating into her new blouse. Thankfully it was a dark blue in colour, and the smart fabric of the blouse itself did wonders to disperse the heat that moving a body as large as hers tended to generate. She had a fashionable looking shawl draped around her shoulders, that she hoped might do something to obscure the way her muzzle had sunken, piggishly into her face, and a skirt that covered her large, wobbling thighs, with the added bonus of having wireless nodes sewn into the side, so that she could keep up with her children easier. 

The constant buzz of information had dimmed as she had focused on the door in front of her, but now Genevieve was reminded that she was never truly far from the wireless drones she had somehow managed to create. She could spot two bee shaped robots, watching the halos of their wireless transmissions, and knew another five were nearby. It was comforting, in its own way, and it gave her something to think about as she procrastinated raising a chubby hand to knock on the door. After another few minutes of collecting strange looks from the students who passed her by, she decided knocking on the door might be less embarrassing than being discovered just standing outside, and so she knocked. A moment or two later, she heard footsteps approaching.

“Oh hey! There you are!” Tiffany seemed just as bright and cheerful as she’d been in the cafeteria. She didn’t seem to have made much of an effort to clean up, but with her body she didn’t have to. The old looking shirt she wore clung to her slender curves and her claws were still radiant from the gold nail polish she was wearing, along with a charming kind of smile. Genevieve faltered, how could she have come here? Didn’t she know she’d just be turned away, or laughed at? Nobody that pretty could want anything to do with her. 

But Tiffany didn’t laugh, she smiled, took one of Genevieve’s paws and helped pull her inside. “Come on in! Sorry I didn’t get to clean the place up, my roomies would’ve just trashed it anyways.” 

Genevieve looked around, but she didn’t see any roomies. She saw piles of unwashed clothes and a handful of empty food cartons, but that was something she saw on a regular occasion in her own room. She just smiled and tried not to think about how dorky she must seem, stumbling around. “I-it’s okay.” She managed, as Tiffany cleared a space for the pair to sit on a couch. 

Tiffany gave another of her smiles, “Thanks! Hey so I took the liberty of ordering something to eat, but that won’t arrive until later. Wanna watch some vids with me? I hear Tales of Horror Implants is suitably goofy!” 

“Yeah, sure.” Genevieve felt especially large, manoeuvring her body around such a small space as a dorm room, but Tiffany didn’t seem to mind. As she was waddling up to, and lowering herself into the couch, she found that the jackal brushed up against her a handful of times, on her way to collect one thing or another. Before she knew it, the two were seated, Tiffany pressed gently into one of Genevieve’s lovehandles, a large bowl of popcorn shared between them. 

It was going to be a good night.