Mother Knows Best, Chapter 2 - Path 2

Hello! I am super excited to finally get to share this story. I've been working on a collaboration with a few other folks over on deviantart for AGES and the first round of this project is finally ready to post! It's a choose-your-own-adventure style WG story centering on a very fit, fatphobic MILF of a mom and her daughter, a recent college grad who has started to get a little chunky. You can read the first chapter here! (If you're on deviantart, make sure to thank polarisdreamer, the author of the first chapter, for kickstarting the whole project and keeping us all on track!)

The description of the first chapter also has links to all the branching paths that have been posted so far. Some (including this one) have the mom, Danielle, gaining, and some focus on the daughter, Lyla, blimping up. 

Also, fun fact: 90% of the reason I started writing Like Mother, Like Daughters was because I had a bunch of ideas for Lyla's gain, but since other authors had claimed Lyla's chapters anyway, I figured I would spin those up into a whole different series. (Now if I could just get that chapter finished...)

Also also: you may have noticed that you were not charged for April! I currently have my Patreon paused because my day job has been ramping up and my writing output has been tragic. I am hoping to be back to posting with more regularity in May!

**

Danielle

I was utterly mortified. It had been a day since Lyla’s embarrassing outburst at the bar. My stomach was still twisting into knots of discomfort, cheeks still flaring up with shame every time I remembered Charlie’s face when he realized I was Lyla’s mother.

It didn’t help that he had to witness me trying to soothe her out of a drunken tantrum, which must have made me seem even more motherly. So much for trying to seem sexy and youthful.

It took far longer than it should have to get Lyla out to the car, and we had argued all the way home. I… may have said some things I’m not proud of. Lyla kept needling me about how ridiculous I’d looked with Charlie, how I needed to “act my age” and not be “such a gross old cougar.” I’ll admit, I was angry, and even the best mothers lose their tempers sometimes. I don’t recall exactly what I said, but I do know I mentioned her weight. How could I not? She kept acting like I was some undesirable old crone, but between the two of us, who was really undesirable? If someone had to choose between a more mature woman who kept in shape and a tubby ex-athlete who was only going to get fatter, the choice seemed obvious to me.

That’s a terribly petty thing to think, but unfortunately true. If Lyla could just listen to me and keep her weight in check, maybe Charlie’s eyes wouldn’t have wandered.

Needless to say, when we arrived at home, Lyla stomped to her room and slammed the door, and we hadn’t spoken since. Having so much tension in the house was terrible, but I just couldn’t think what to say to her yet.

I’d wound up going for a drive to try and clear my head. I would’ve gone to the gym to try and work off some stress, but I was so exhausted after our little tiff and hardly sleeping all night that I just didn’t have the energy. I even ended up going to a drive-through and getting myself a little cone of soft-serve, just to try and soothe myself. It was something I would’ve chided my daughter for, but that was only because I knew she wouldn’t even bother to try and burn it off later.

The ice cream did calm me down some, and while I was still cringing over the entire kerfuffle, I did try to see things from Lyla’s perspective. Her own mother had swooped in and stolen her date! I started to feel a little guilty. I realized how hard it must be for Lyla to have a mother who didn’t really look or act very “motherly.” It must’ve made her feel ashamed to be so much bigger than her own mother and to have her own date make it clear who he preferred.

That did beg the question, though: why had I found it so satisfying to have Charlie choose me? Why was I so willing to swoop in and steal my daughter’s date? True, their date hadn’t been going well, but to any outsider, my behavior would look just as embarrassing as Lyla’s. It might even look worse, actually; Lyla was younger, less experienced, less in control. I didn’t have those excuses. God, how desperate was I that I was swiping my own child’s date right out from under her?

I crunched into my soft serve cone and suddenly felt even more awful. I have a very healthy amount of self-confidence, but realizing some might see me as a desperate woman going through a midlife crisis and turning to younger men for validation made me feel awful. If I’d been able to ask everyone in that bar who was really acting shameful, how many would’ve said it was me?

I swallowed the fact that Lyla hadn’t been entirely in the wrong and stopped at the grocery store, figuring I’d pick up some things to make one of her favorite meals that I normally avoided because it was far too heavy: beef stroganoff. Our whole argument had been so awful it was worth the hit to both our waistlines, in my mind. I planned on apologizing, having dinner together, and then suggesting we curl up on the couch together and watch one of her favorite movies and share some popcorn.

When I got back home, Lyla was out. I sighed, hoping she would be back soon. The calendar on the fridge where we wrote down our work schedules showed she didn’t have a shift, so she wasn’t working. I didn’t want to call or text her, worried it might spark another argument. I started preparing the meal, figuring if she wasn’t back by the time it was done I would just keep it warm for her.

As luck would have it, Lyla came through the door just as I was putting the finishing touches on the stroganoff. Every time I tasted it, all I could think about was how many calories even a small serving was. I’m really going to need to intensify my workouts after today, I thought, recalling the ice cream and thinking about the popcorn we were going to have with the movie.

“Mom!” Lyla called. “I brought dinner!”

I could smell fast food and hear paper bags crinkling as my daughter walked into the kitchen.

“Oh! I didn’t realize you were cooking…” She looked at me apologetically as she set the food down on the kitchen table. “I thought I’d bring something fun home for us to share. I know you don’t like fast food, but I figured a lettuce burger and your favorite diet soda would be okay…”

Part of me wanted to scold her for visiting a burger joint when she knew she was getting so chunky, but I bit my tongue. It was the thought that counted. “That sounds perfect, sweetie.” I put down the wooden spoon I was using to stir the noodles and reached my arms out for a hug. “I’m sorry about last night. I was not at my best, and I hope you can forgive me.”

Lyla’s lip trembled a little, almost like she was about to cry. She dove into the hug and pulled me in tight. “I’m sorry, too, Mom. And I’m sorry about dinner. Did you make stroganoff? That’s so nice of you.”

“We can eat it tomorrow. We’ll have what you brought home tonight. And maybe a little popcorn and a movie afterward?”

Lyla smiled. “You always know just how to make a girl feel special.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A week later, I was back in the gym for the first time, and I regretted almost every choice I’d made about food and exercise for the last eight days. After Lyla had brought home her little fast food feast, something shifted in our household. Before, I’d felt like I had mostly been able to control what food was coming into the house and how we were both eating, at least at home. But two more times that week, Lyla had brought home takeout–burritos one night, and free pizza from her job another. In between, we’d both been eating the stroganoff, every creamy bite feeling like it was sticking right to my hips. And once the stroganoff was finished, she’d begged me to make a few other calorie-bomb favorites. Seven days after our argument, I was feeling bloated and sluggish and like I would never finish digesting.

Lyla seemed delighted by the change. She was more relaxed at home, wearing skimpy shorts and tank tops that showed off her round belly and jiggling thighs. Normally, she lounged around the house in sweats and baggy t-shirts. She’d even started bringing snacks home, which I did chide her about. There was only so much I could take of my chubby daughter stuffing her face. Previously, she’d reluctantly listened, or at least pretended to. Now, though, she just sighed and insisted I needed to loosen up. “Yummy food is not the enemy, Mom, promise.”

Now, though, sweating on a rowing machine even though I was only a few minutes into the routine, it was clear that “yummy food” was definitely the enemy. I could feel that I’d gotten bigger. It wasn’t much - not even enough that anyone else would notice. But I could feel that my stomach was pooching out more than it should have been, and I just plain felt fat. Lyla had told me over and over that “fat isn’t a feeling,” but how else could you explain the terrible sensation of noticing every flaw on your body that you were sure everyone else could see?

So even though it was harder than usual after over a week off, I pushed myself through the pain. I knew I had to literally row my ass off if I wanted to avoid turning into the kind of middle-aged fatty no one even wanted to look at. By the time I finished my thirty-minute cardio workout, I felt like lying down right on the gym floor. I only just barely dragged myself through my strength training routine, and that was after shaving off a few reps.

I spent more time standing around sipping from my water bottle and trying to catch my breath than usual. My visits to the gym were firmly designated as Me Time and it was rare I even looked around much as I exercised, only occasionally glancing into the mirrors along the walls to check my form. But with all the downtime that day, I had time to observe everyone else. An especially handsome man caught me staring as he ran full-speed on a treadmill set to the highest incline. I was embarrassed to be caught staring, but he smiled and winked at me.

We kept stealing looks at each other as we moved from machine to machine. I made sure to keep my stomach sucked in tight whenever I felt his eyes on me. There was no way I was going to give him the chance to notice I was in anything less than perfect shape. That was easier said than done, though, especially with him looking so gorgeous and distracting. He was young - younger than anyone I really should’ve been interested in. If I had to guess, he was probably in his late twenties, not much older than Lyla. It felt a little naughty, which only made it hotter when he stretched between sets and caught my eye, making sure I was seeing his shirt ride up to show off his abs.

When I finally finished my last set of leg presses, I slowly made my way to the locker room, hoping he’d notice. Sure enough, he caught up with me. “I’ve seen you around here before,” he said casually. His voice had a little twang to it. How cute. I understood what he actually meant: I’ve been ogling you for months and this is the first time I managed to get your attention. “I’m Jessup, but you can call me Jess.” He reached out his hand to shake mine. Between his smile - gentle and inviting - and the warmth of his slightly calloused palm, I thought I might melt right there.

“I’m Danielle. It’s lovely to meet you.”

We chatted a bit for a few moments, mostly about our workouts since that was something we knew we had in common. It should’ve been a pretty boring conversation, but I found myself playing with my hair and blushing and giggling like a schoolgirl. After we’d exhausted our options for small talk, he asked if we could exchange numbers. “I’ll be honest, I’d love to take you out to eat sometime.”

I almost felt like jumping up and down as he handed me his phone. As I sent him a short text that said, “Hi, it’s Danielle!” I wished that Lyla could witness this moment. It would’ve been good for her to see how easy it was to meet someone no matter her age if only she kept in shape. (Goodness, the thought of Lyla at my age was not a pretty one in my mind. At the rate she was going, she’d be big as a house at forty.)

Jess and I said our goodbyes. The look he gave me right before I turned to go into the locker room was so scorching it almost felt like a first kiss. I knew I’d be flying high on our interaction for quite a while.

The locker room only bolstered my confidence that day. As always, it was filled with women of all shapes and sizes, and most of those shapes and sizes were a whole lot flabbier than me. Even the younger gals tended to have bellies that hung down and a little sprinkle of cellulite along their backsides. Maybe it was cruel for me to get so much confidence from knowing how much better I looked when I was naked than nearly every other woman at the gym, but it still made me feel good.

I did still feel a little self-conscious after the past week of binging. When I looked in the mirror, I could see an extra outward curve to my usually concave stomach. On anyone else, I would’ve called it a belly. But surely just a week of being a little more relaxed in my eating hadn’t made much of a difference? Was I just imagining it? Maybe Lyla was right and I did need to relax. After all, I was still the fittest woman in the locker room, and Jess had clearly liked what he was seeing.

After a shower and a little more time to let the endorphins from my workout work their way through my system, I felt like getting myself a little treat. I had a healthy dinner waiting at home, but after pushing myself so hard after such a long break from the gym, I felt like I deserved a little soft serve. I ordered myself a small cone from the drive-through. “Oh–and can I get a side of fries with that?” I hadn’t eaten fries in years, but I was craving the salt after working up such a sweat. They told me to pull up to pay. They handed me my usual small cone, and then what seemed then like a huge order of fries. “Wow! Is that the small fry?” I asked.

“Oh, sorry–you didn’t give a size, so I figured you wanted a large. Did you want a small instead?”

Not wanting to trouble anybody, and already intoxicated by the salty, greasy smell of perfect french fries, I shook my head. “No, that’s fine. I’ll make sure to specify next time. Thank you!”

As I drove away, I wanted to kick myself for ordering the fries. I knew the large was somewhere around 500 calories on its own, and the cone was another 200. I’d blown my whole workout and then some. I was disappointed in myself. A few licks of soft serve and a couple mouthfuls of perfect, salty fries assuaged my guilt. I’ll do better tomorrow, I resolved.

While I waited at a stoplight, my phone pinged with a text notification. I squealed a little as I opened up the message. It was from Jess, of course. Dinner on Friday night?

I took the edge of the ice cream cone between my teeth so I could reply. Sounds great! Pick me up at 7?

Lyla

“You’re not wearing that, are you?” my mother said reproachfully from behind me.

I turned away from the bathroom mirror where I’d been doing my makeup and rolled my eyes. “Really? Way to boost my confidence before my date, Mom.”

She leaned against the doorjamb and crossed her arms, and the motion pulled her shirt a little tighter against her torso, showing off the itty-bitty potbelly I’d only started to notice a few days before. “I just want to make sure you’re putting your best foot forward, love. And wouldn’t it be easier to move around in something less…” She paused, trying and failing to choose a phrasing that wouldn’t set me off. “...form-fitting?”

I only snorted in response as I turned around to apply a little heart-shaped highlight to the tip of my nose. I didn’t feel like starting an argument, so I figured I would just stay quiet. I heard her exasperated sigh and could tell my silence was even more irritating to her than anything I could’ve said.

“Sweetie, you don’t want to look plump on a first date. It’s unbecoming.”

I laughed as I added a little glitter to my cheekbones. “I must’ve forgotten to tell you that this guy’s first message to me was ‘Damn, I would pay to get crushed by those thick thighs.’ I’m not really worried about looking ‘plump,’” I replied, my fingers forming air-quotes around her attempted insult. And, if anything, I’d picked the short white sundress I was wearing to emphasize how “plump” I was - or at least my thighs and butt, anyway. Whatever my mom thought, I looked hot.

She huffed again. I saw her toss her hair over her shoulder in the mirror as I applied a layer of lip gloss. “I’m only looking out for you. There might be a few men here and there who claim to appreciate your current size, but their tune always changes when they have to bring you home to their mother.”

“Oh my god, Mom, stop! It’s just a first date, no one is meeting anybody’s mothers. At least I hope not, given how that went last time.”

My mother couldn’t think of a way to respond to that, her face somewhere between angry and embarrassed. She hovered for a minute more, then said, “Well, I hope you have a good time.”

As she turned to go, I noticed her shirt had risen up slightly in the back, exposing a strip of flesh above her jeans. My eyes widened a little as I noticed the barest hint of a muffintop creeping over the waistband. And she keeps calling me plump? But then, it wasn’t like she was anything close to fat, not really. But I’d never seen her looking anything less than perfectly trim. To see her slip even that much… well, it made me think about a whole lot of things.

Personally, the petty part of me felt a little vindicated. I’d always seen my mom’s thinness as an immutable characteristic, even though I’d seen a couple photos of her when she was kinda fat in her teens and twenties. I knew she put a lot of work into staying thin, but that was like saying I knew my mom breathed. As much as I wished she’d change, I kind of couldn’t imagine my mom giving up on diet culture or her obvious orthorexia.

That little teeny muffintop and that slight rounding of her stomach that I was seeing, though? That was a crack in my image of her. Proof that my mother wasn’t 100% in control of her “girlish figure” like she had always insisted she was. It made me feel a little better about myself. I wasn’t fat, not really, but standing next to my mom I always felt so huge. The thought of her maybe someday being bigger than me sent a rush through my body. Again, that petty part of me wanted to be able to tease her and nag her about her ass being bigger than mine. The thought of my mom sitting at home eating ice cream straight out of the container and getting fatter with every bite while I snapped up every hot guy she would’ve considered dating? Cruel as it was, I couldn’t keep the smile off my face.

Not like I would actually want that to happen. Even if having a little less competition would be nice… But no, I was better than that. Really, I wanted my mom to be happy. She deserved to be happy, definitely. Even though Dad had barely been dead a year and it felt super weird and definitely not kind of fucked up for her not to still be grieving the man she’d been married to for decades. Especially since she was apparently a giant cougar and would barely glance at any guy her own age…

But that wasn’t really my business. I did want my mom to be able to choose her happiness, not feel beholden to all kinds of strict rules society had handed down about how small her waist should be. She’d started putting on weight, and who was I to judge? Clearly there was some part of her that realized the joy of an occasional burger or putting ranch dressing on her salad was better than fighting so hard to be thin. That was progress, if anything. Even if it meant that all the guys who wouldn’t stop slavering over her ended up realizing maybe her time was up.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I found myself getting maybe a little too enthusiastic at the idea of my stick-thin mom embracing fat liberation. Consciously or not, I found myself trying to nudge her in the right direction. I started asking her to make some of my favorite dinners, especially stuff like pasta and pot pies that I had never been allowed to eat much as a kid. When she looked like she might protest, I’d give her big, pleading eyes and insist I just wanted to spend time with her.

Other nights, I decided to experiment in the kitchen myself, trying all kinds of new recipes that I hoped would make my mom fall in love with food. I wasn’t a great cook by any means, but I was getting better. My mom politely partook, usually keeping her servings small. I could tell she was still hungry, even when she insisted she was full, and I would challenge her on it, asking her questions like “Are you actually full, or are you just scared to eat?” “Is the food not good?” “Aww, but I made so much, are you really not going to have seconds?” A lot of the time, she would end up filling her plate a second time, which always felt like a victory.

I wasn’t trying to be manipulative or anything, just giving her a chance to actually enjoy herself. She’d worked so hard to stay fit for decades; she deserved it. I was only doing right by her.

When I wasn’t out doing my own thing, stuck taking pizza orders at Romano’s, or meeting someone for a date, I would do everything I could to keep her from going to the gym. Her fitness obsession went hand in hand with her fear of calories and carbs. I tried to keep her busy, taking her out to the movies or treating her to froyo, stuff like that.

Our relationship did genuinely get better, at least to me. Since she wasn’t constantly starving, she was way less inclined to be an asshole. Who would’ve thought that having a full belly would make my perpetually starved mom so much less argumentative!

There were some moments where she would complain about how “fat” she was getting, especially after I’d kept up my “make Mom body posi” mission for a couple months. She always complained the most after she came back from the gym. She wasn’t totally off base - she’d definitely put on a few pounds. But it was like, five pounds - maybe ten. It was a lot for my mom, but nothing in the scheme of things. All it meant was that she was looking a little less bony. Compared to her fat era in her early twenties, she was teeny, and still way smaller than me. She had needed to go up a pant size for the first time in who knew how long, but it’s not like going from a size 2 to a size 4 was “getting fat.”

I even pointed out to her that if she was really getting fat, her students would’ve said something. She’d been a sub for the local school district for years and she knew firsthand that kids could be brutal. “No kid has mentioned your weight, right?” I nudged.

She’d sighed and admitted that no, they hadn’t.

“That’s how you know you’re not fat, Mom. Some asshole middle schooler would’ve told you if you had.”

She’d laughed at that, knowing I wasn’t far off the mark.

I wasn’t the only reason she was relaxing, either. Some guy she’d met at the gym was taking her out for dinner at least once a week. Whenever she came back from a date, she was pretty mum about it, I think because she didn’t want to make me upset. But oh my god it was annoying how much she complained about how rich the food was. It felt like she was trying to make me jealous, reminding me that she’d somehow bagged one of the few cute guys close to my age who had his shit together and had the money to treat her to all the fancy restaurants in town all the time. I definitely wasn’t jealous because their dates sounded totally boring, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t still be a little annoyed.

I actually went shopping with her when she needed to size up. She hadn’t been able to do up any of her jeans that morning and had been in a complete crisis about it. She had a date with Jessie or whoever that day and was almost in tears at the idea of “looking fat.” “Mom, it’s fine. Bodies change. It’s totally normal. We’ll just get you some new clothes and you’ll be all set.”

“That might be easy for you to say. You’re not watching years of hard work come undone!” She had stood with her jeans unbuttoned in front of the full-length mirror in her room, lifting up her shirt so her little pooch of a tummy was exposed. “I look huge. I shouldn’t even be thinking about buying clothes - I should be at the gym trying to work this off! I’m turning into a pig.” She grabbed angrily at the bit of flab on her stomach. “Look at how hideous this is! If I keep blowing up, I’ll be bigger than y–”

She stopped before she finished the word. I knew she wanted to say “bigger than you.” It definitely hurt that she thought of me as some kind of whale when I could still fit into mediums at a lot of stores. “Mom, look at me.”

She turned around, her face red with shame.

“Do you really see anything wrong with me? Would it really be sooooo terrible to look like me?”

That shut her up. Even if the thought of catching up to me at a whole 160ish pounds (I never weighed myself, so I could only really guess at my own weight) made her want to gag, she couldn’t admit it to my face. That would be too mean, even for her at her worst.

So we went shopping, and she bought some bigger pants and tops and a couple nice date dresses. I made sure to compliment her a bunch when she modeled everything. “Those jeans look so cute! Your butt looks great.” “Oh wow, that shirt is really flattering!” Some of it must have stuck, because by the time we were done shopping she was smiling and happy and even bought us soft pretzels on the way out of the mall. That almost made up for her gushing about how her new boyfriend was going to take her to some fancy new place that had just opened up. I tried not to roll my eyes as I thought about how my last date thought splitting a Slurpee he paid for in loose change he found in his car was all I was really worth.

And, okay, maybe it was a little bit of a twist of the knife that as we were walking out of the mall some random guy who I had definitely matched with on one of the apps stopped us to tell my mom how beautiful she was and beg for her number. It seemed like that kind of stuff happened every other time we went out together. I tried not to think that maybe it was because my mom looked so much better when she was next to me. Ugh.

But, I mean, given that my mom was still going to the gym a few times a week and starting to look like one of the Instagram fitness models who actually ate food, I shouldn’t have been so shocked by it. Really, I should’ve been happy for her. She looked super healthy! I was finally starting to see where my big booty genes had actually come from. Though, it was a little frustrating that her slight weight gain had gone straight to her butt, thighs, and boobs with very little going to any so-called “problem” areas. Meanwhile, my boobs were less than generous and any new weight tended to go to my lower belly and hips.

I tried not to be bummed out that I was getting less attention than my mom now that she had a little more going on. At least she was happy, though, and she’d stopped harping on my weight so much. That had been my whole intention, after all.

So why did I feel so bad about it?