A Little Extra Room- Part 8

Trixie pulled open the door, already cringing internally at the extra-large backward step she was forced to take in order for the path of the doors swing to clear her comically bloated gut, and pressed her eyes closed as if it could somehow impact her sister's vision as well.

“Trixie!” Katie cried without hesitation, shocking Trixie so thoroughly that her eyes fluttered open on instinct.

Before she had the chance to take her sister in, Katie had wrapped both arms around as much of Trixie’s lard-thickened waist as she could manage, a fraction of Trixie's true width, and was squealing excitedly, the same way she’d reacted when she’d last seen Trixie three years ago. Trixie blinked hard, confounded at both Katie's immediate recognition of her and lack of acknowledgement of her near-impossible massive gain, and lifted her wobbling arms to return the hug.

“Hey Ti,” she breathed, the bag of now half-eaten pretzels still clutched in her grip as she and her sister embraced. 

Trixie shifted uncomfortably after a beat, once a hugger and now very solidly the type to prefer a handshake or a nice wave for fear that a stranger would feel the fleshy, bulging contours of her overfed body and judge her for just how soft and heavy she’d allowed her roll-laden figure to become. She was still concerned about that possibility with Katie, but the oddness of the whole thing made her slow on the draw, and it took her a moment to realize she may not want Katie to know exactly how bad things had become. Katie took a step back, beaming at Trixie like she’d just been awarded a prize, and grabbed her hand. 

“I’m so glad you’re here, Trixie! I’m so glad you came.”

“Me too,” Trixie agreed hesitantly, studying Katie up and down as if a visual analysis of her youngest sister could elucidate the answers to any of her pressing inquiries. 

How had Katie recognized her? How had she known that the morbidly obese, clearly insatiably greedy woman blocking every inch of space in the less-than-narrow doorframe was her formerly fit sister? Her own mother hadn't even recognized her, wouldn't have it if it weren't for Justin, and Trixie had been preparing to literally re-introduce herself to both her sisters at the grand reveal of exactly how she’d been spending her time since she’d last seen them. 

Instead, Katie's face didn't seem to register a single one of the emotions her mother had clearly fought through, and neither surprise, disgust, confusion, nor judgment were anywhere to be seen on the typically-straightforward Katie's face. Seeing Katie had been one of the elements of this whole ordeal that Trixie was most worried about, much more so than seeing Tina despite the fact that she and Tina were closer, and the moment had passed without comment. 

Trixie continued to stare at at her sister, almost wanting to put herself directly in the line of a particularly aggressive fire by asking Katie why she hadn't acknowledged the hundreds of new pounds adorning Trixie's once petite frame, but found herself too stunned to do anything but stare. 

“You brought Justin?” Katie asked, her exuberance nearly palpable.

“Yea,” Trixie confirmed with a slow nod. “Yea, he's in there with dad.”

Kate side-stepped Trixie's enormity on nimble, toned legs and all but skipped into the living room, already calling “Daddy!” before she’d fully rounded the corner. 

“Katie cat!” her father responded in kind, conversations with his youngest daughter the only time he was willing to return a display of girlish affection. 

Trixie rolled her eyes, smiling lightly. Katie had always been her father’s favorite by both a wide and obvious margin, his preferential display anything but a boon to the relationship the three sisters had forged growing up, but after all these years, Trixie couldn't help but be endeared to the softness that Katie brought out in her typically gruff, stoic, and unaffectionate father. Although the conversation at the door may not have reflected this fact as obviously as she would’ve liked it, James Citron was a loving man who cared for his daughters, wife, and community deeply. 

That being established, he was also part of the generation that hadn't been taught how to show it, meaning that his tirade about how fat Trixie had gotten wasn't coming from a place of malice, but rather a place of genuine concern. It didn’t make the situation any less humiliating however, and Trixie sighed as she waddled towards the sounds of Katie's excited chatter. She had no idea Katie was so interested in seeing Justin, could hardly even remember if they’d so much as spoken over FaceTime, but she was glad that Katie's focus seemed to be so firmly elsewhere that she could slip (or more accurately waddle) by unnoticed. 

Trixie reached the living room to find Katie sitting beside her father on their old couch, one of the few pieces of furniture that had managed to survive the purge of the move, with her feet already tucked beneath her in a way that Trixie’s fattened thighs, swollen cankles, and overall declining flexibility to never manage. She was turned to Justin in what appeared to be rapt attention, a bright, open look on her face, and Justin was studying her back with an expression Trixie couldn’t place, a curiosity that clearly went deeper than just a simple introduction. 

“-years,” Justin was finishing as she made her way into the room, the crinkle of the pretzel bag announcing her arrival. 

All three of them looked up, her father with that same split second of forgetful surprise her appearance in the kitchen had solicited from her mother, and Trixie smiled hesitantly.

“What years?” Trixie asked, trying to make her tone as casual as possible. 

What was that look Justin was giving Katie? Why was it that even after Trixie had entered the room, he was sneaking glances at her sister?

“Oh- uh,”  stumbled Justin, his gaze springing back to Trixie's. “Just - uh, years I’ve done CrossFit. She does too.”

“I know,” Trixie retorted a bit too quickly, unsure of what exactly she was trying to prove. 

“Trixie,” Katie cooed again, "I can't believe you’re really here, I'm so, so glad you came.”

Trixie nodded, uncomfortable at the repetition and wary of Katie's sudden increase in both interest in and affinity for Trixie and her relationship.

“Sit, sit,” Katie insisted, pointing to the love seat to the left of the couch despite the fact that there was an obvious empty spot between her and Justin. 

There it is, Trixie thought. 

She knew it was impossible that Katie hadn't noticed that Trixie had been gorging herself like a mindless, prize winning pig for the last few years, and the immediate recognition that Trixie literally wouldn't fit in the seat that made the most practical sense was the acknowledgement Trixie had been confused she didn't receive at the door. So if Katie knew, which she very obviously did, why was it that she didn't have anything negative to say? How was she not shocked?

She lowered herself gently into the seat, the massive, heaving shelf of her cleavage wobbling dramatically as her gut bunched into two thick distinct rolls of pure lard and forced her tits even higher, the tops of her breasts literally brushing her chin before she was able to straighten up and spread her legs in order to let her gut fl between them and land on the surface of the chairs seat with an unavoidably noticeable jiggle. 

Everything that she did left her lardy, cellulite covered body wiggling slightly, but as of late she’d been noticing more and more wobbling for longer and longer stretches, her fat truly beginning to develop a mind of its own as she ate herself further and further away from any chance of ever regaining her slim figure. She’d known that any hope of returning to the way she once was had long eroded, but now the very idea was beginning to become impossible. She was too heavy, too fat, too lazy to ever attempt the kinds of things she used to, whether that be in the gym or in the kitchen. Just the thought of portion control made her sweat, but so did the eyes of her father, sister, and Justin on her as she struggled to adjust herself into a seat meant to fit two. 

Her hefty, flabby saddlebags brushed each side of the extra-wide chair, and although it surprisingly hadn't creaked, it may as well have cracked beneath her with the look her father was giving her. 

“So Trixie, how's home?” her sister asked, another deserter of her family's hometown, much like her parents. 

“Good,” Trixie answered simply, too confused for much pretense. 

“Oh, c’mon, how's the mall, how's Mooneys? Anything new?”

Trixie snorted despite herself and Katie joined her barely formed laughter immediately.

“Ok, ok,” Katie acquiesced without waiting for Trixie's sure-to-be-incredulous response. “Ok. I know there's nothing new, there's never anything new.”

Trixie nodded. 

“The mall is like, wiped out,” she offered. “They basically have nothing left, it's crazy.”

“Nothing left?” her father interjected. “Or nothing left that still fits you?”

Trixie immediately went red and Justin shrank back, but Katie simply smiled as if he hadn't spoken and continued on, stepping over his jovial yet pointed question as if it were no more than a peddle in her path. 

“You know, Tony still lives there, “ she offered. “He said they opened an Italian place.”

This time, it was both Trixie and Justin's turn to laugh, eliciting even more laughter from the now easygoing Katie. 

“Yea, if you can call Sabbro’s ‘an Italian place’ Justin joked. “No, there's not much. Never has been. But it's perfect for us.”

“Aww,” Katie cooed again. “You guys are so cute.”

Trixie blinked, taken aback for what felt like the thousandth time since her sister had arrived. What could she possibly mean by that? The perpetually snatched Katie had never been a pound over 115 a day in her life and had always been harshly judgmental of those larger than her. At just 9 years old, she’d informed an 18-year-old, sports-toned Trixie that she looked fat in her prom dress, and had hardly evolved in her thinking since then. Or at least, the last time Trixie had spoken to her. 

Katie loved to point out ill-fitting clothes struggling to cover burgeoning blubber, loved to whisper about ‘fatties’ at the gym she favored, and had always done everything possible to avoid extra pounds at all costs. Since when would she have called a couple like Trixie and Justin, total opposites on the fitness scale, cute? Since when would she have left Trixie's new bulk wiggle by seemingly unnoticed?

Justin smiled and Trixie pressed on a tight one as well, hoping it looked nowhere as insincere as it felt. What was going on here?

Nervous, Trixie reached into the bag of pretzels and shoved in a handful, her crunching competing with the announcer's calls on the still murmuring television. Trixie's father sighed a loud, exaggerated breath, an obvious response to her snacking, and Katie turned and shot him a look so withering that his jaw snapped shut nearly audibly. Trixie's brows furrowed in further confusion, eyes darting between her father and her sister. 

Katie never, never stood up to her father, especially not when it came to Trixie. Katie had never really had a reason to exchange a cross word with him as spoiled as she’d been growing up, but there she was, defending Trixie's overeating problem against the man who was normally Katie's greatest familial ally. 

“Wow,” Justin said with a point, directing everyone's attention back towards the TV in a less-than-covert attempt at distraction. “A triple.”

“Three bagger,” her father agreed, the distraction perfectly optimized for his tastes. “Don’t see that every day, he could've taken it home.”

“Nah,” Justin contradicted, clearly hoping to keep Trixie's father on the topic. 

“Easy!” Trixie's father countered. Could've stolen home like that, he had at least 3 seconds. 

“Three seconds when Gonzalez pitches a 96.6 on an off day? “Yea, right,” Justin cheerfully disagreed. 

“Trixie, you wanna come to the kitchen and check on Mom with me?” Katie asked suddenly. “Leave the boys to their little game?”

And where did the sweet girl who would sit and watch every game with me go, huh?” Remember when you always used to cry for the players in the dugout cause you thought it made them sad?” Trixie’s father teased. 

“And now watching baseball at all would make me cry,” Katie said, popping up with the joint dexterity of a high schooler and leaning down to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Besides, Mommy needs our help. Right Trixie?”

“Um,” Trixie began, panic already rising within her. 

Without even making an attempt, she was positive that she wouldn't be able to get out of the chair of her own strength. She could barely haul herself off of the furniture in the home she and Justin shared, furniture optimized for her widening ass and ballooning belly. 

Her parents’ furniture? There was simply no chance. 

She hadn't even been able to sit up in the bed without Justin's help, and now she was expecting to heave herself, her belly, her tits, and her ass all up with her. Even if it weren't for the massive amount of weight Trixie had gained in such a short time, she had been so sedentary lately, so lazy and pampered, that she likely would've needed help standing even if she weighed a full hundred pounds less. Letting Katie, and worse yet, her father, witness that humiliating struggle sure to end in failure was too much for Trixie in the moment, and she stammered, mind racing for an excuse with even a marginal degree of believability. 

“Actually, you should stay here with Justin,” Katie thankfully about-faced the second Trixie felt herself begin to redden. “You know Daddy, he’s probably already been interrogating him.”

Trixie nodded, the relief like ice water on a sweltering day, and Katie skipped out of the living room, her singsong voice calling “Mommyyy” before she even reached the kitchen. 

Trixie gulped. Although confusion was her primary emotion by a wide margin, she still felt some sense of gratitude that the confrontation with Katie had truly been anything but confrontational. Katie had defended her on two separate occasions, and not just from anyone, but from her father. That in and of itself was nothing short of a miracle, but that didn't erase Trixie's questions and suspicion about Katie's sudden acceptance of the portly despite her lifelong snarky comments. 

That gratitude was short-lived however, as the second Katie's and her mother’s voices began to overlap in the kitchen, her father turned to her with a grim expression. 

“Look, Trixie. I don’t mind having this conversation with you because clearly no one else is willing to, and I tried to approach it nicely, but-”

He looked to Justin as if for assistance, but Justin was studying his fingernails with the intensity of a premed major prepping for the MCAT. Trixie's father sighed again, this time seemingly at Justin's unwillingness to do what he was about to do, and forged ahead unassisted. 

“...But you have a serious weight problem. I mean, you’ve absolutely exploded; it's just not healthy. I can't understand why you’ve chosen to do this to yourself, then you sit there scarfing unhealthy snacks as if it's not gonna make the whole thing worse?”

Trixie's face was burning with embarrassment and Justin was beginning to shift uncomfortably, but despite the obvious air of tension in the room, Trixie's father continued.

“You used to be so fit Trixie, so thin, and now you clearly haven't worked out in years, you’ve clearly just been-”

“Trixie works out," Justin interjected in a near panicked tone, the rushed out lie clearly the only defense he could think to draw against the tirade her father was building up. “She does. All the time, she, uh-”

Justin swallowed hard. 

“She’s on a fitness journey, actually.”

Trixie's father’s expression softened slightly, and Trixie took the opportunity to chime in, eager to head off further questions and improve her father’s estimations of Justin in one fell swoop. 

“Yea,” she confirmed quickly. “Yea. Justin helps me. He’s been helping me try to get back in shape.”

“Well,” her father said decidedly, clearly still considering what he’d heard and comparing it to the blobby lump squeezed into a two-person chair in front of him. “Well. You have a long ways to go. Quite a long ways to go. But at least you’re trying, I suppose.”

He reached over to pat Justin on the shoulder, an almost consoling touch.

“Good on you, son,” he said, as if Justin were the one expending effort to move Trixie's overfattening body around instead of simply telling her the kind of workouts to do. 

Trixie held her sigh, irritated at her father's acknowledgments of Justin's hard work in her imaginary weight loss journey while refusing to acknowledge hers, but at least he’d called Justin son, a first that had left Justin ever so slightly beaming with pride. As much as she didn't want to be here, this idea of Justin was so new to her and yet somehow so dear to her already. To see his vulnerability, his insecurity, his almost child-like desire to be liked in juxtaposition to his normal attitude made her want to care for him the way he always cared for her. 

Trixie continued to munch on pretzels while her father looked on disapprovingly, but the three of them chatted, mostly about baseball and developments with old neighbour's and acquaintances back in Trixie's hometown. She found herself reaching the bottom of the bag more quickly than she expected or wanted to, and she went red once more as she set it down, irritated to be so embarrassed about consuming less than 1000 calories in one sitting. It was a comparatively minuscule amount for her, but her father didn't know that. Although he must, in some sense. One can't get that fat from eating pretzels in reasonable portions. 

“I’m gonna hit the head,” her father declared, standing and draining the dregs of his Corona.”

Trixie rolled her eyes good-naturedly, her civilian father's ever-present habit of utilizing navy speak still a mystery to every member of her family, as he plodded out of the room, clearly intending to check on dinner before his return. The second he left, Trixie locked eyes with Justin, hoping he’d feel her urgency. 

“I need to get up,” she hissed as quietly as she could muster, aware of how sound carried in the echoey lower level.

“Huh?” Justin asked, in no way reading her mind the way she’d hoped. 

“I need to get up,” she insisted at the same volume, unwilling to raise her voice regardless of how badly she needed him to hear her. “I need to get up, I need your help. I’m kinda..I’m kinda stuck,” she admitted. The chair’s too low and I need to get up before anybody gets back.”

Justin sat, still staring at her as the beginnings of a smile eased across his face. 

“No, Justin," she instructed firmly, already aware of exactly where his head was at. “Absolutely not. Just help me up and keep it in your pants.”

At that last line Justin jumped up, now afraid he would be the one exposed by their whispers. He made his way to the chair and grabbed both of Trixie's soft, tubby hands in his, gripping her firmly (and to Trixie's constant chagrin) bending his knees slightly as one does when lifting something heavy. She knew how big she’d gotten, but her parents' furniture was a glaring reminder that she could have easily gone without. She already felt mammoth in her day-to-day life, and every facet of that life was perfectly curated for a greedy, food-swollen woman as big as she was. Now, in a place in which life was designed for the average-sized person, people with the ability to control their portions, people who didn't have partners that got off on how much weight they were gaining, Trixie felt twice her size; cartoonishly, unbelievably fat. 

Justin pulled once, grunted a bit, and then gave one last tug, clearly using most if not all of his strength in order to pull the jiggling Trixie to an unsteady stand. As she began to feel her doublewide ass lift from the loveseats surface, her belly bunched up once more, pushing her cleavage into her face and nearly smothering her. She was trying as hard as she could to help Justin, but her waist-sized thighs were quivering with the effort and she knew she had no more to give. 

Justin exhaled once more, clearly trying to keep quiet, and with one final heave, Trixie was up. She was sweating lightly although she’d barely put any effort into the process, and Justin was staring at her with an expression she’d seen more times than she could count. 

He grabbed her by a fleshy love handle pushing over the waistband of her yoga pants and pulled her towards him, bringing his face close to her ear while his trademark grin widened. 

“God baby, it's never been that hard to get you up before,” he murmured, still conscientious of their potential audience even in the face of the desire radiating from him like heat. “I’m gonna have to start lifting more just so I can… god,” he cut himself off with a sigh, the deep rumble of his near growl enough to make Trixie quiver once more.

“Trixie? her mother called from the kitchen, causing the two of them to all but jump apart like caught teenagers. “Trixie, can you come here for a second, hun?”

“Coming,” Trixie called, turning heel quickly to avoid the chance for eye contact with Justin that was sure to make her even weaker in the knees than trying to lift all of her bulk out of the chair.

She waddled away, certain Justin's eyes were glued to her titanic, swaying ass as it wobbled with each step, and made her way to the kitchen.