Dadbod, part 4 (Patreon)

A dark pall was cast over Cresthaven. This place that had represented fresh starts and a new me, now it felt tarnished and dulled, as though there were Todds and Angels in every town, no matter where I went. 

Weeks had passed since my encounter with Todd (Mrs Cassidy had chewed me out over the noise of the slamming door), and a grey weatherfront had moved in along the coast, matching my mood. Most days I comfort ate while it poured down outside, and I did so alone. All the plans me and Paula had made - to check out the Turkish deli, the new Italian bistro by Stamford Park, the Japanese bakery, the flatbread place folks were always raving about (“so long as the line wasn’t too big”), and that place called CheeseLand - none of it came to fruition. She was always busy nowadays. Busy with Lance, who I still hadn’t met. I just hoped he was a heck of a guy, to have such a hold over my best friend. 

I felt alone. I ate to console myself, as a pick-me-up, and I ate because it turned me on. I was up to 287 pounds now, and it felt so hot. I had to buy new clothes. Not tight-fitting tank tops like they wore at The Gate (a place I was now avoiding like the plague), but button-ups that accentuated my growing dad-belly, polo shirts, bigger slacks; these were more my world. I felt myself rubbing my belly throughout the day, pressing my large hand against it, often daydreaming that someone would want me even bigger and rounder and heavier. The thought got me so worked up. I was spending a lot of nights pleasuring myself while I stuffed things like donuts into my mouth, imagining my hands were those of another; someone who would wanna feed me. 

Fatten me. 

I hadn’t forgotten about the muffin box. Though I had to admit to myself that I was never going to find out who’d sent it. Maybe it’d been a joke or something, who knows. Still, I kept the little note in the ‘condom pocket’ of my new size 44” jeans; I liked to reread it sometimes. 

“To the tall, ginger-haired man.”

It gave me some kind of comfort. Even just feeling the note between my large thumb and forefinger could bring a little light to this funk I was in. 

Maybe everything would be alright, after all.

‘You’re fired.’

‘Wait, what?’

I’d literally just arrived at work, bleary-eyed as usual due to the early start, and this was the first thing Mr Gerhardt told me. He was in the process of packing all of the stock into boxes, the reverse of our usual starts. 

‘Am I late?’ I asked, checking my phone (I was not). ‘Did I do something wrong?’

He shook his head in a curt movement. ‘I have to travel across the country. My sister needs me.’

This was Mr Gerhardt all over; minimal information. I clutched a squeaky chew-toy shaped like a squirrel; it didn’t feel right to pack it away. 

‘What about the stand? All this stuff?’

‘Someone else is taking the slot. I will be gone some time.’

I was crestfallen. Just as I’d started to feel my mood improving, this happened. I took a long, deep sigh. Mr Gerhardt made eye contact for a millisecond before returning to packing. 

‘You will find something else,’ he said. ‘Help me with these.’

The rest of my shift was spent boxing up the contents of the pet stand. It looked so sad and empty when we were done. I had to turn away a few regulars who showed up expecting to pick up their usual dry foods and treats. When we were done, I asked Mr Gerhardt, ‘Will I see you again?’ 

This was met with a customary grunt. One of the more hopeful-sounding ones, I wagered. 

What was I gonna tell Mrs Cassidy? She was still mad about the noise from weeks back. A lack of income was not going to do my prospects any favors. 

That could wait, I decided. I could put off Mrs C for a while. The market was open now and that meant Paula would at work. I’d missed her, truth be told. It would be nice to get her ear while I moaned about my day. 

But when I wandered over to the fruit stand, Paula had her cell phone cradled between her neck and shoulder, and was cleaning out the juicer. She was making little ‘mmmhmm’ sounds into her phone. 

When she saw me, her eyes lit up but she remained stuck in position. I could tell she was waiting for the caller to stop talking.

‘Hey,’ she mouthed to me. ‘Give me one second.’ She exaggerated the silent words with her mouth and held up her index finger.

I smiled and nodded. It was nice just to see her, honestly. She looked well. 

‘Sweetie, can I - Uh huh,’ she spoke into her phone. ‘Yeah, I just - Yeah...’

She mouthed ‘Sorry’ to me and made a kind of exasperated face. 

I waited for a while, but it became obvious that Lance wasn’t getting off the line anytime soon. I mimed that I’d text her soon and waved goodbye while she looked apologetic. 

There was nothing else for it; it was time to face the music back home. 

I trudged back to my apartment, deciding I wanted to shower off the work day and the general feeling of failure before facing Mrs C. I’d enjoyed working at the market and I was gonna miss it, all the sounds and smells. I’d tried delicacies from most of the stalls by now, and it showed. In the shower I took refuge from my own disappointment by lathering up my growing dad-belly. These days I was enjoying soaping this tank, running my hands all across it, feeling the stretched shine of it under the hot water. My love handles had grown too. The fat was spreading around my sides and to my ass, which had gotten more bulbous and meaty, by day filling my jeans nice and snug. Even my chest had thickened up some, as had my chin. My jaw was ever-so-slightly succumbing to fat, visible even beneath my ginger beard. 

I heard a knock at the front door. 

I damn near tripped onto my ass hurrying out of the shower and wrapping a towel around my waist (which was getting harder to do since there was more waist to cover nowadays). 

‘Just a second!’ I yelled. 

When I opened the door, Mrs Cassidy was standing in the pokey little hallway. She raised an eyebrow to my semi-naked state. 

‘I just got out the shower,’ I said, slightly out of breath. 

Curiously, she held up a plastic tupperware box. ‘I made too much pot roast,’ she said flatly, handing me the box, which felt warm. 

‘Oh! Uh, thank you...,’ I started, placing the box down. ‘I, uh, actually - Mrs Cassidy, m’am, there’s something I need to tell you.’

‘Vernon called me,’ she replied, heaving a sigh that made her enormous bosom rise and fall. ‘He told me about the stall.’

‘I’m gonna find something else, another job, I promise you,’ I blurted out. ‘Tomorrow, I’m gonna get right to it. I just need a little time, please.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘And I’m sorry about the noise the other week, I just -‘ I felt my voice crack, just a little bit. A slight twist of my throat. ‘I just had a bad - a bad...’ 

Losing my job. Recalling that night with Todd. The prospect of having this apartment taken away. It all started catching up with me out of nowhere. I had to look at the floor for a moment, and swallow. That was all. 

Mrs Cassidy waited, then said, ‘Don’t let that get cold,’ nodding to the boxed pot roast. For the first time there was a modicum of warmth in her voice. 

I nodded, and caught myself sniffing, just a bit, as she turned to walk back to the staircase. 

But before she left, she added, ‘You can help out downstairs, in the store. That’ll cover your rent. I wanna see you bright and early tomorrow morning, ready to go.’

I looked up. She was heading outside. I just managed to call out ‘Thank you, m’am!’ as she opened the outer door to descend the spiral staircase. 

My heart lifted instantly. This meant I could stay! Part of me wanted to run after her and hug her, but she’d probably hate that. So I settled for closing the door and whipping my towel off and doing a little naked dance around the room. I could stay here in this wonderful apartment that was so much my home now! 

Things were going to be okay. 

I wiped a little built-up moisture from my eye, and decided I was gonna stick on a favorite VHS and stuff myself with pot roast and feel my warm distended belly all night long. 

‘Welcome to Mid... uh...’

‘... Midtown Maps...’

‘... Midtown Maps and Gifts Emporium, how may I help you?’

‘That’s what you gotta tell them on the phone.’

‘Right.’

‘Now, the register, sometimes you gotta bang it real hard, here on the side, see?’

Mrs Cassidy spent the next morning running me through the particulars of the store. It didn’t seem so bad, especially since we had next to no customers. It got me wondering who even bought maps these days? Which got me wondering even harder how this place stayed afloat. Still, I was thankful for the job and happy to soak up the training. I placed a new wood carving I’d finished last night on the sales countertop, for luck or something - I wasn’t sure - and got to work. 

A tiny bell would ring everytime someone came into the store. It wasn’t a huge place by any means, and was made cosier by the dim lighting and wood paneling. Mostly folks came to peruse the more artsy stuff we had hanging on the walls, and with me manning the front, Mrs C was gone for much of the day, busy out back or in the basement, I guess. I think I made something like 2 sales all day, and soon got the hang of the register-banging trick. 

‘How much for the little wooden bear?’ someone asked me as I was dusting some shelves out of boredom. 

Without looking back I said, ‘Oh, that’s not for sale, sorry. I just made it for fun.’

‘You made this?’

And I heard the sound of my carving being picked up. I spun around.

‘Uh, sir, sorry that’s not for s-‘

The man by the counter was enormous. I mean like The-Hulk-enormous. Even through his jacket it was impossible to miss his massive bulging biceps, shoulders like boulders, a chest that stuck out like a shelf curving over his big, round, firm belly. He had legs like tree trunks stretching the fabric of his chinos. Under his beanie hat fell strands of perfect jet black hair. Good God, this man was beautiful. 

‘Uh... I, uh...’ I completely lost my train of thought. What was I saying?

‘It’s so cute,’ he said, delicately turning the little bear in his thick powerful hands.

‘Yeah...,’ I managed, trying not to stare. ‘It’s just...’

I think he caught wind of the panic in my voice, and drew a sharp intake of breath before placing the carving carefully back down on the counter. 

‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry!’ His apologetic grin gave me heart palpitations right there and then. ‘Do you make these bespoke?’

‘I just- It was-‘ I was tongue-tied. ‘I mean, I guess? I don’t know.’

I must have looked like a rabbit in the headlights. 

‘Could you make another one? I love him so much, haha.’

Jesus, his laugh. 

‘I... Maybe?’ 

Stop staring, Richard. But, I can’t! He’s so big, there’s nowhere else to look!

‘What about if I wrote my details down,’ he suggested. ‘Would you give me a call if you make another one?’

I breathed. I nodded. ‘Okay...’

‘Cool! Can I lend your pen and paper? I mean borrow your pen and paper, haha! Why would I lend - They’re yours, haha.’

‘Hahahahaha.’ My laugh sounded insane. I think I was sweating. He was the most beautiful human being I’d ever seen in my life. 

The store pen looked tiny between his mighty fingers. When he was done he shot me another smile that just about finished off my heart, and nodded a short, sweet nod. 

‘Thanks, see you.’

I might have replied. To be honest, I wasn’t sure. It may have just been a weird noise from my throat. 

The bell jingled and he was gone. I wiped my brow. Oh my God, I felt like a mess! 

He’d been the last customer of the day so I closed up the store, did up the locks like Mrs C had shown me that morning, and went about turning off the lights. When I came back to the cash register, I took a look at the note that mammoth man had written.

‘Yoichi Nomura, 652-7754, Sun Bakery, 6 Wavebreaker Ave’

He’d given me the address of the Japanese bakery. Sun; that was the one me and Paula had been meaning to go to for ages. 

Yoichi Nomura… 

I took a moment just to savor the picture of him in my head. The way he filled out his jacket and pants...

And he worked at the bakery. He was a baker. As if he couldn’t get anymore perfect. 

Then the thought seeped in. A trickle at first, then soon it bloomed into a tide. 

The Sun Bakery...

Without realizing, my fingers were in my ‘condom pocket’ playing at the note wedged in there. As I slowly slid it out, I felt my heart speed up. 

No...

“To the tall, ginger-haired man.”

I laid it on the counter top. Then I took the notepad Yoichi had written on, and placed them side by side. 

The handwriting was identical.