Kinktober Day 15: Buffet

The worst part about doing this kind of writing is coming up with something like this, then being like "I want to go to there." A very specific kind of self-own.

***

A good all-you-can-eat buffet understands its clientele. Top Notch Buffet (or its owner, at least) seemed to understand their niche well.

It was a Friday night, the busiest evening of the week by design. While Top Notch’s prices were low every other day of the week, a Friday seat cost nearly quadruple what it usually did. Top Notch’s usual customers—families looking to feed everyone cheaply and without having to do any dishes, mostly—steered clear. They were replaced by customers with deeper wallets and the kind of appetites only a buffet could satisfy.

Like clockwork, every Friday at 5:15, they arrived: dozens of women in business casual outfits, already licking their lips as they walked in the door. Some arrived singly, others in groups. All of them brought rumbling bellies and a week’s worth of work-related frustration along.

The owner of the buffet mostly stayed behind the scenes, watching video feeds of the restaurant from his office. He liked to keep an eye on things, especially his Friday regulars.

One of his favorites, a blonde woman who was always impeccably dressed despite her remarkable size and always grumpily typing out work emails when she first walked in, showed up promptly at 5:27. She was seated at her usual table, and of course he had an excellent view (and from multiple angles, thanks to some forward-thinking camera placement). This woman always paid extra for a personal server for the evening (a perk only offered on Fridays, of course), and always kicked off her heels beneath the table before she began rattling off her order. She seemed particularly hungry that evening, and more attached to her phone than usual. She only put it away once her food arrived, and by the first bite it was clear she was officially in weekend mode. She cleared her first plate rapidly and requested a second before she’d even finished. The owner would have to check in on her later to make sure she left satisfied.

He pulled up the video for a corner table. This woman was also a regular and had been for years. She was slimmer than most of the women in the room, perhaps because she only showed up once per quarter. She served herself each time, and never once did anything savory pass her lips. Instead, she piled plates high with every dessert she laid eyes on. The owner had noticed this some time ago and made sure to rotate in new varieties of sweets a few times a year. Whether she noticed or not, he had no idea. She didn’t seem particular when it came to what was on offer. She tried everything, and got seconds and thirds of it all. While others were still polishing off dinner, she was tearing through whole platters of brownies and chocolate eclairs, bowls of mango pudding and soft serve, and shoveling plate-sized cookies into her mouth. She was in fine form that Friday, clearly ready to glut herself full of every sugary goodie she could find. He wasn’t even sure if she was chewing. It almost made him want to install personal soft serve machines at some of the tables, just to see if her sweet tooth was so overpowering that she would just turn it on and sit beneath it, filling her belly with frozen cream until she could barely move.

The third table he checked was made up of relative newcomers. They liked to arrive early, turning their late lunch into an extended dinner. He had spoken with some of them when they had asked for a slightly discounted group rate. They had a book club and had decided that they would rather shell out the extra cash to meet at Top Notch once a month rather than hosting. The fact that the six of them collectively ate enough in just a few hours to put a small diner out of business had nothing to do with it, he was sure. They were more slow and steady eaters, taking time to talk over that month’s book. As the meal wore on, though, they began to talk more about the food, stealing bites off each other's plates, talking with their cheeks bulging. Eventually, all conversation would subside as their attention shifted entirely to their third or fourth plates, fat upper arms jiggling as they stabbed another bite and brought it to their still-hungry mouths.

He checked back in on the blonde beauty. The server had been clearing away her empty plates diligently, which the owner appreciated. Everyone ate more when there were fewer reminders of how much they’d eaten. From the looks of her, though, and based on the speed at which she was eating, he guessed she was somewhere around plate four. She had slowed some, but not by much. The dress she was wearing, a charcoal gray suited to a quiet office that probably gave her the illusion that it made her look slimmer (which, at her size, was frankly an impossible task), had grown tight along the sides as her full stomach stretched forward, tugging at the fabric. She looked so single-minded that he wouldn’t be surprised if she ate until the side seams of her dress split. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

The owner pressed a key on his keyboard and took a look at Dessert Girl again. She seemed to be having a full-on love affair with a slice of chocolate cake at first, but in moments, the cake was demolished and she was on to a cup of chocolate mousse. The buttons on the red silk shirt she wore were beginning to pucker around her stomach. A beautiful sight.

The camera switched again to the book club’s table. One of the newer members had finally given up. She was sprawled back in her chair, a hand resting on her belly as the other covered her mouth. Every twenty seconds or so, she hiccupped, sending ripples through the plush fat encasing her entire body. She was already a big girl, and it gave the owner a little thrill imagining what the influences of the even more gluttonous members of the book club would do to her in the coming months and years.

He leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head, and let the viewscreen default to its standard view of the entire dining room. Everywhere he looked, he saw indulgence. Everywhere he looked, he saw the fruits of years of emphasis on creating a safe space for a particular kind of woman to let her inhibitions go. He looked upon his success and wondered if it might be time to think about opening up a second location. But nah—he would never. He liked his customers too much. The work just wouldn’t be the same without the personal attention he could give each of them.