Haunted House Weight Gain Part 2

Haunted House – BHM Weight Gain

Part Two:  Friends, Foes, and Fatter

         It was the end of the spring semester after Bruce had discovered his ghostly friend.  Bruce was dressed in a loose new pair of red shorts and an old tight orange tanktop.  He checked himself out in the mirror.  He noticed that the fabric was tight on his new lovehandles and belly but didn't think anything of it.  What annoyed him was how pink his arms and shoulder looked after such a long cold spring.  He pulled the tanktop off and took another quick look in the mirror.  He accepted his chubbier shape as a fact, without shame, and headed to his room.  His formerly scrawny thighs had bulked up to the point that they always rubbed when he walked.  This sometimes caused his boxers to scrunch up uncomfortably.  A problem that he adressed on the way to his room.  In his bookbag he had some snacks and his Xbox controller.  He tossed the tanktop into the bag, slipped on his flipflops, and casually slung a strap of the bookbag over one shoulder.  Bruce's mom was in the kitchen watering her plants when he came in.  She was a slim woman.  Like Bruce she had the same small nose, blue eyes, thin eyebrows, and black hair.
         “Alright, Mom.  I'm heading to Chad's.”
         “Okay.  Have fun.  Where's your shirt?”
         Bruce finished putting the bookbag on, framing his belly and lovehandles between the black straps.  “In the bag.  I need to work on my tan.”
         Her eyes drifted to her fifteen year-old's unforeseen spare tire.  “No swimsuit?”
         “No.  I'm going to borrow one of Chad's.”
         “Do we need to go shopping again?”
         Bruce nodded.  “My old summer stuff is too small.”
         “Alright.  How about we go Sunday and we'll go try on some new things at Penny's.  They're having a buy-one-get-one-free sale and I want to get you set before the sale expires.”
         “Cool.”
         “You got your cell phone?”
         Bruce told her yes, waved, said goodbye and started heading toward the door.
         “Try and go easy tonight,” his mom said.
         “Huh?”
         When he turned around his pink belly swung into profile.
         “Make sure you don't eat Chad's parents out of house and home.”
         “Har, har.  Bye.”
          Once Bruce was out on the front porch he took a moment to check his reflection in the window of his mother's car with a little more attention on his belly.  For the first time in his life he felt a nibble of self-consciousness about the way he looked.  The feeling was pushed away by defiance.  I'm not going to let what anyone says ruin my summer, he thought.
         But before he could step foot on the street someone shouted at him.  He froze.  It was Jason's voice.  Jason was laying in a hammock across the street.  He was a few years older than Bruce.  No matter what time of year, day, or night it was likely that he would be outside and that he would be shirtless.  His brown hair and tan skin were always greasy, even when it was cold.  Bruce guessed that he never showered at all.  Jason was taller than Bruce and was so thin that his chest, stomach, and butt were the same thickness.  He was surrounded by trash, both burnt and unburnt.  Bottles of beer, Styrofoam, and a motorcycle that had never worked in Bruce's lifetime were scattered here and there.  A cigarette was burning in his loose fingers.
         “Hey. Come 'ere,” Jason called again.
         Bruce came to the edge of the minefield of broken metal, glass, and burnt garbage. 
         “You got beer?” Jason mumbled.
         Bruce stared at the thug.  Jason's face was covered in uneven stubble.  His eyes were glazed as he stared lazily back at Bruce. “Beer? No.”
         “Liar.  That's a beer belly.”
         The younger boy's pale face started turning colors.  “I don't drink beer.”
         Jason smiled, he was missing one of his upper teeth.  “Don't drink?  How'd you get that gut?  Pot?”
         Bruce's awkwardness was all over his face.  “No.  I don't smoke, either.”
         “Don't smoke.  Don't drink.  You're a party animal.  Dude doesn't get a gut like that unless he's party animal.  Chug, chug, chug.  You don't have a six-pack.  That's a keg.”
         “It's just my belly.”
         “Just a belly?  Alright, alright.  When you get something you better share it.  I want whatever you're filling that keg, party animal.”
         Bruce bravely told him he'd see him later and started walking to Chad's.  He reflected that in all the years they've lived across the street from one another Jason had never said Bruce's name.  Once he was far enough away he dropped his backpack and slipped his tanktop back on. 
         Chad greeted Bruce at the front door.  Chad was already in his lime-green trunks.  His skin was even whiter than Bruce's, with little freckles here and there.  Chad was just as skinny as he was in October but was two inches shorter than Bruce now.
         “Are you ready for some fun in the sun,” Chad said, “or would you rather take some more finals?”
         “Summer is boring.  Give me an Algebra quiz any day.”
         The friends laughed as they walked into the house.  Chad told Bruce that his spare trunks were in the bathroom.  There was a round above-ground pool in Chad's backyard and they planned to swim, play video games, and munch on pizza for a few hours.  His parents weren't there so Chad started singing the theme song of “Team America” and “Blame Canada” at the top of his lungs, which made Bruce laugh while he changed.
         After Chad had run out of lyrics that he could remember Bruce came into the kitchen wearing only his boxers.  “Do you have a bigger pair?”
         “I thought we were the same size?”
         They both looked down to where Bruce's stomach was overlapping the waistband of his Fruit-of-the-Looms.  His thighs tested their stretch.
         “No,” Bruce said unnecessarily.  “Can I ask you a question?  How much do you weigh?”
         Chad thought for a moment.  “One fifteen, one twenty.  Around there.”
         Bruce's face lit up like a stop light. “Okay.”
         “Do you mind if I ask you?”
         “Alright.”
         “Well?”
         “Two forty-seven this morning.”
         “Oh!”
         Bruce could feel, for the first time, the way his belly shook even when he lightly switched his weight from one foot to the other.
         “It's just us,” Chad said.  “You can swim like that if you want.”
         “You don't care that I'm bigger?”
         “I didn't even know that you had gained weight.”
         “You didn't know that I gained at least a hundred pounds?”
         “Not that much.  I noticed you were bigger.  Thin.  Fat.  You're still Bruce. Why should it matter?”
         Bruce put his hands on his belly and shook it, surprising himself with how much there was even as he did so.  “You don't think I'm gross or anything?”
         Chad took an appraising look at Bruce's soft middle and his face.  Bruce's hollow cheeks had gotten plump and round – from elf to cherub.  “It fits you.  You know?  You love to eat – everyone knows it – so why shouldn't you eat what you want and gain some weight in the process?  I think you would have gotten fat sooner or later anyway.  So why not just let it happen?”
         “You don't think I should loose weight?”
         “No way.  You're horrible when you're hungry. I don't want to hang around you when you're grouchy and starving.”
         Bruce laughed.  “Thanks.”
         “You're welcome.  Now can we go swimming or what?”
         “Can we pig out on pizza and powdered donuts?”
         “Don't we do that anyway?”
         “Maybe.”
         Bruce surprised them both by jogging fast enough to keep up with Chad, even with all the extra weight filling his body out.

         Later that night Bruce took the long way home.  In other words: he made his usual detour to the haunted house.  Bruce chatted with Teddy as he sat himself in his favorite chair.  The whole kitchen was lit up by candles that Bruce had found here and there inside the house.  He had them set up, but not lit, in the other rooms too.  Teddy began piling food in front of the hunger living boy.
         “Neato!” Teddy said.  “So the video game runs off of the car?”
         Bruce laughed.  “No.  The cars are in the video game.  The video game goes on –“
         “ –the television!” interrupted Teddy triumphantly.
         “Now you've got it.”
         “Neato!”
         It really made Bruce laugh to hear Teddy's out-of-date phrases.  Teddy had already gotten rice, coleslaw, a baked potato, and grape juice in front of Bruce before the story was finished.  Soon he had the main course: a big fat meatloaf. 
         “Hey,” Bruce said.  “Want to see a magic trick?”
         Teddy situated the dish in the center of the smorgasbord and his eyes grew wide.  “Magic?” 
         “Yeah.  I'm going to make that hole meatloaf disappear!”
         This sent Teddy into an ecstasy of laughter.  Bruce loved that even his worst jokes sent the other boy into hysterics.  Bruce fought his own laughter and set himself to work.  Over the past months his visits to Teddy's house had gotten more frequent.  At the same time, as his enormous appetite got used to his frequent binges he was able to eat more and more all the time.  Even Teddy's cooking (however he did it) needed to work faster in order to keep Bruce's formidable belly well-fed.  Even the way Bruce ate had changed.  Typically he kept a utensil in each hand so that one was always out looking for food while the other was at home packing it safely away.  When he chewed his mouth stretched wide to form a big O with his lips before pursing out to form a little o: there was so much food in his mouth he couldn't really close it all the way – besides, he was too eager to slow down.  He had trouble not eating this way when he was with his breathing friends and family.  With his belly sitting round and heavy in between his upper thighs, with his lovehandles sticking out on his sides, with his rump spreading out in the back and a smile on his rounder face, chewing, he had become the very picture of “fat and happy.”
         His mouth was full of food but he couldn't help that.  “You spoil me.”
         “Anything for a friend.”
         The very last of the meatloaf had found its way into Bruce's mouth.  He felt a jolt of pride in his eating ability as he leaned back.  So he rolled the skin-tight tanktop off of his belly and set his hands on both sides while he chewed.  Before, at Chad's, his belly felt like a jello mold; soft and wobbly.  Now it was more solid with less wobble, like a tight water balloon.  He smiled at his strange new tummy as if it was another new friend. 
         “Who wants pie?” said Teddy in a sing-song voice.
         “Yeah, man.  I'm game.”
         “Whipped cream?”
         “You know it.  Don't be stingy!”
         Teddy laughed.  “Never!”
         The strange inhabitant of the old house had changed over the months too.  He was less vague, with more color.  His eyes were green.  He didn't look like a living person but he was much closer than he was when they met.  Teddy could almost pass for a flesh and blood boy if you could see him in the right light. 
         “I love playing chef.”
         “You're pretty good at it.  I'd say I was better at playing the hungry customer but I think you win since you make real food out of thin air.”
         “It's like you said, we're a magic act: I make the morsels appear, you make them disappear.”
         Bruce laughed again.  “Yeah I do.  It's a good thing your chairs are heavy duty or my butt would have turned them all to splinters.”
         The ghost seemed confused and hurt.
         The living boy thumped his belly loudly.  “You know.  Because I'm so heavy duty myself these days.”
         Teddy looked offended on Bruce's behalf.  “You're not...fat.”
         This made Bruce really laugh.  “What's this thing?  A big mosquito bite?  Gas?  I have serious news, Teddy.  I'm pregnant.”
         “You shouldn't call yourself fat.”
         “It's okay to call ducks ducks.”
         Teddy was a little less visible.  His brows were hunched together and he was frowning.
         “It's okay,” Bruce went on.  “Chad and I were talking about this at the pool.  It's okay to be fat these days.  A lot of people are.  So long as a person's not unhealthy a little jelly on the belly's not a social crime like it used to be.”
         The ghost became more solid again.  “Really?”
         “Yeah.  I know plenty of awesome kids at school who are fat.  Boys and girls.  They have friends.  They go out.  They get dates.  It's like having acne or being short or tall; just another physical feature.”
         “You don't get made-fun-of?”
         “I didn't say that.”
         The ghost's green eyes grew a little greener.  “Someone made fun of you?”
         “Today's kinda been a weird self-reflection for me.  It seems like everyone has something to say about my weight.”
         “Who?”
         “My mom started on me.  She hasn't said I need to loose weight yet but I know it's coming.”
         Bruce took the cherry pie, which had been in Teddy's hands the whole time, and set it in front of him.  He took a big spoon and scooped a huge chunk into his mouth.  If he had been looking at the ghost he would have seen Teddy's face hideously changed.  His face became sunken.  His eyes disappeared into two corpse-like sockets filled with green light. 
         “But she made me a big pile of flapjacks with tons of syrup and whipped cream this morning,” Bruce said.
         Teddy's face returned to it's pleasant shape, although he looked troubled.  “She did?”
         Bruce looked back to Teddy.  “To celebrate the end of the year.  I was totally stuffed.  They were really good.  Not as good as yours, of course, but she does the best she can without magic.”
         “She let you eat as much as you want?”
         “She was a little reluctant, but she didn't put up a fight.  Not until she saw me shirtless, at least.”
         This gave the ghost a peaceful smile and his gentle eyes scanned the carpet.  Bruce had been cleaning the house bit by bit, slowly chasing all the spiders and dust bunnies out of the old house.  The kitchen was so clean a living cook could use it.
         “But that Jason guy,” said Bruce around a mouthful of pie.  “That guy is a jerk.”
         Teddy's eyes flared up again while Bruce's returned to his desert.  “What did he say to you?”
         Bruce retold the encounter with the neighborhood punk.  He threw in other anecdotes centered on that bully too.  There were other insults, worse ones said to other people.  Bruce was intent on gulping heavy mouthfuls of pie so it took a lot of questions from Teddy to get the full story out of him.  Bruce scraped the pie tin clean even as he finished off the last rumored bits of drugs, violence, and bigotry that he had heard.
         When there was nothing left to eat in front of him Bruce felt positively stuffed.  He licked his lips and turned to give Teddy his thanks when he caught the ghost in that terrible transformation.  Bruce screamed and Teddy instantly changed back.
         There was a long pause afterward.  Teddy looked ashamed.  Bruce looked amazed.  He hadn't been frightened of his friend since that night back in October.  He had taken Teddy for granted.  His companion was not exactly a human being anymore and that realization was profound.
         “I'm sorry I scarred you,” Teddy whispered.
         “Teddy, what was that?”
         It took a long time for the ghost to answer.  “I don't like it when they make fun.  It's not right.”
         “Can I ask you a personal question, Teddy?”
         “Yes.”
         “How did you...become a ghost?  How did you die?”
         “Not that question.  Don't ask that question.  Please.”
         Bruce nodded.  The house felt colder.
         “Are you mad?” the ghost asked.
         “I'm not mad.  Are you?”
         “No.”
         Neither boy could think of anything else to say.
         “I have to get back home,” Bruce said.  “My mom still thinks I'm at Chad's.”
         “Okay.”
         Bruce stood up and replaced his chair.  He repeated his ritual of stomach rubbing as he headed for the door.  “Dude.  That meatloaf was awesome.  And that pie.  Out of this world.”
         “You'll come back, won't you?”  The ghost looked frightened.
         “Of course I will.”
         There was a question burning in Bruce's mind but he had to find a gentle way of asking it.
         “You wouldn't hurt me or anything, would you, Teddy?”
         Teddy wrung his hands.  “No!  Not ever.  No, Bruce.”
         “You're a good friend, Teddy.  I think you're my best friend.”
         The ghost relaxed and smiled again.
         “I'll see you tomorrow.  Thanks for doing a fat kid a favor.”
         Bruce played a solo on his personal drum as he walked through the overgrown garden path to the front gate.  Teddy always had the last word:  goodbye.  Bruce pitied the lonely little spirit.  He knew that Teddy was honest.  He had cleaned the house to hopefully make Teddy's existence a little better.  Each step sent the contents of Bruce's stomach sloshing audibly back and forth.  To keep his boxers from riding up and his skin from chaffing he relaxed his pace to allow a little bit of a waddle.  He rubbed the soft skin of his belly and squeezed his lovehandles as he meditated on Teddy's situation.  What could you do to help the dead?  How do you make a ghost happy?  The best thing he could do so far was just keep him company.  That made them both happy.
         As Bruce turned onto his block he caught sight of no less than three police cars parked across the street from his house.  The fierce blue lights made it impossible to tell.  His mother was waiting at the door and so she opened it as he came up the steps.  She was too preoccupied to notice that Bruce's stomach was bulging with food.
         “What's going on?” he asked.
         “The police are here for that Jason kid.”
         “What did he do?”
         “You know that other boy he's always around?  The one with the big trench coat and that stupid hat?”
         “Yeah.”
         “He beat him.”
         “What?”
         “With a baseball bat.  He's in the hospital.”
         “Oh man.  What for?”
         “I talked to the police.  They think they might be drug dealers.  They've found something already but there's no proof that they're dealing it.  They're bad kids.  I don't want you around them.”
         “I don't want to be around them either.”
         “Good.  Don't go near them.”
         She led Bruce into the house.  He undressed and got into bed.  While on his back, rubbing his stomach again, he started thinking about the developments from his day.  He couldn't sleep.  He rolled onto his stomach.  The new gentle pressure of his weight on his belly was heavenly.  As he drifted off he could see blue lights playing on his walls which reminded him uncomfortably of a scene from “Poltergeist.”