Lifeguard Off Duty: Chapter 5

 Written by: gainingfiction  

Bradley sidled up to the coffee cart with casual confidence. Peter had been picking up extra shifts at city hall lately, which gave Bradley plenty of opportunities to flirt with his favourite barista. Since he’d started seeing Peter, Bradley’s morning latte and cinnamon roll had become the best part of his daily routine.

“You coming to dinner at my place tonight?” Peter asked, after Bradley had placed his order. Since their first date, Bradley had started eating at Peter’s at least three nights a week. And “dinner” at Peter’s always included dessert—both literal and figurative. As if Bradley needed any more tempting, Peter added: “I’m dying for you to taste my grandma’s bibimbap recipe.”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Bradley answered.

Peter grinned as he passed Bradley his travel mug. He used to take his coffee black, but since Peter made him that first latte, Bradley had been hooked—the foamed milk was just so perfect for dipping. Their date set and his morning cravings satisfied, he headed back to work.

As usual, Bradley noticed the state of Malcolm’s attire: his grey dress shirt was fighting to contain his cleavage, his thick crop of chest hair barely peeking out between the straining buttons. Totally oblivious to any possible wardrobe malfunction, Malcolm was eating a frosted donut, a greasy paper napkin spread over his sprawling gut to catch any crumbs. That sort of display didn’t even phase Bradley anymore. Malcolm was a good worker and a nice guy, wasn’t that what mattered?

Back at his desk, Bradley got to work. He chatted with Eric throughout the morning, happily accepting an offer to share some of Eric’s Muffin Tops baked goods. At lunch, Bradley popped down to the coffee cart for another pastry and more flirting, before heading back to work and finishing off the last of Eric’s snacks. He left the office with a belly full of treats, but the thought of Peter’s cooking had already reignited Bradley’s appetite.

When he got home from work that day, he noticed a notification on his phone. Someone had followed one of his social media accounts. Swiping the screen, Bradley recognized Eric’s smiling face. After following back, Bradley scrolled through Eric’s profile. The most recent stuff was pretty predictable: a picture from three weeks ago showed Eric sitting next to an equally fat blond man, mountains of food arrayed in front of them. Further down, Bradley browsed dog pictures, selfies, vacation photos… And then, another picture of Eric and his partner, this one from a year before. Except, in the older photo, neither man looked quite as fat as they did in their most recent pic.

Curious, Bradley kept scrolling. Another picture showed Eric holding a cocktail and looking thinner still. In an even older picture, Eric’s build didn’t look much different than Bradley’s own did, lately. Finally, Bradley arrived at the first photos on Eric’s profile: one of them, posted about five years ago, showed Eric and his partner as a pair of twinks, looking ready to hit the clubs in their designer threads. Bradley had never seen a couple gain that much relationship weight. Feeling an unfamiliar sensation in the pit of his stomach, he shut the app and turned back to reality. He had a dinner to get to.

With a daily routine like his, Bradley knew that he wasn’t getting any slimmer. Still, he figured that his weight would start to even out pretty quickly. Even as it became obvious that he was still piling on the pounds, he hung on to that hope. What he hadn’t expected was for his weight to start climbing even faster. And yet one morning, as he pulled on the chinos he’d bought to replace the pair his ass had wrecked, Bradley experienced an unpleasant—but increasingly familiar—sensation. They were getting hard to button. With a groan, he took a long, hard look in the mirror.

Bradley was deep, deep in “chubby” territory, and “fat” was coming up fast on the horizon. It wasn’t just his paunchy gut anymore—Bradley’s expanding rump and thickening thighs were starting to catch up. Before, his slight overhang and prominent love handles had carried most of the added weight, but lately his hips and even his tits had been growing. It was hard to tell where Bradley was getting fattest, but he knew that his ass had packed on some undeniable size: every step was a fresh reminder of his newfound junk in the trunk. He cupped one of his swelling ass-cheeks, amazed at the way the flesh gave way beneath his fingers. Gone were Bradley’s tight, sculpted glutes: now, a pair of fat globes bulged outwards behind him.

Bradley’s buzzing phone snapped him from his daze. Sliding it out of his pocket, he saw that it was a message from Peter. Dinner tonight? and an emoji blowing a kiss. That was enough to shift Bradley’s focus to something entirely new: Peter’s talents in the kitchen and the bedroom. Bradley inhaled and managed to get his chinos buttoned. By the time he was finished getting ready for work, any diet plans had already drifted to the back of his mind.