Aniq turned slowly at the sound of the needy, narcissistic gurgle that sounded from behind him.
“Dear oh dear Mister Patel, seems like once again you're in violation of the parking system. Tut tut I might say.”
His eyes widened to accommodate his addresser. What had once been a smart, neatly pressed, well fitted mid blue shirt now bore a visually cacophonous assortment of grease stains, sauce marks, mucky hand prints and a disturbing assortment of luridly coloured prints, possibly attesting to a worrying dependence on convenience stores more chemically constructed snack treats. The buttons down the front were mainly for display purposes, they were stretched to such a degree that great diamonds of chilly white flesh peeked through, first over the impressive span of her bust line, taking care to show off the details of the lacy red bra nestled between the twin orbs, before exploding wildly outwards to cover the globular expanse of flesh that began it's outward arc from immediately beneath them, at it's peek allowing a view of a navel, small and unremarkable, pierced with a tiny red crystal on a delicate silver curve. Perfectly framed by the struggling blue fabric.
What had once been a svelte, healthy , physically unremarkable police officer had now become... this.
Officer Jaime Hernandez drummed her fingers loudly on the sides of her adipose waistline, and raised one immaculately shaped eyebrow over the top of her mirrored shades.
“You're move, Mister Patel.”
“This is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous I am telling you. I am only parked here while I am unloading of my truck, there is nowhere I else I could be parking it. This has been going on for weeks, I tell you. You are harassing of me, I tell you, you are harassing me and I will not stand for it!”
Jaime resettled her glasses on her deliciously tanned nose, and spoke very quietly.
“Mister Patel, this does not have to get ugly...”
She walked, very slowly and very carefully forwards. Slowly, she pressed the ungainly bulk of her engorged midriff into him, forcing him backward against his van. She leaned into him, her feet rocking forward to deliver the greater portion of her non too minuscule weight onto his personage.
She increased the pressure.
Aniq began to sweat.
Further she leaned, harder she pushed into him, her flabby midriff a soft celled prison around him, constricting him, enveloping him.
Aniq began to curse, at first softly, then louder.
She leaned harder, she was practically on her tip toes. Placing both hands on the small of her back she arched it, forcing her flesh into him.
Her stomach moaned abruptly. She felt his ribs creak.
“Alright, alright, I am giving in. Let me go, I have something you can be having in my store.”
She relented her assault, her bulk mercifully lifted from his personage he scuttled into the dark depths of his store, and returned with a large cardboard box. Her eyes widened at the sight of filthy grease halos seeping through the box.
“I got these today, fresh I am telling you, fresh. Was going to sell them six dollars each. You take, and you not bother me again, you hear!”
He thrust the greasy box into her eager hands. She prised the lid flaps apart just enough to let the smell out, a great waft of pastry and chocolate and culinary delights. Unconsciously, one hand slipped to her belly as she inhaled the rich aroma and massaged the hungry flesh.
“Why, what a charming gift, Mister Patel, What a charming gift. I will have to share this delightful box of confections with the lovely boys down in the traffic department and see if they can't get make some kind of concession for you and your little store here.”
“This has been going on for weeks. Weeks!”
“Same time tomorrow then, Mister Patel.”
She turned, and attempted to sashay her hips in a way that would convey a sense of smug victory, but instead simply amplified the waddle produced by her rather wide hips and bulging posterior.
Aniq yelled something at her in Gujarati, but she chose not to hear, and with great difficulty manoeuvred her bulk into the patrol car she had parked a short distance down the street.
“Now, let's see what we have here then...”
*****
Jaime arrived back at the precinct in short order, but one quarter of the delights within the box had not. They were a sort of rich cream éclair, full of delicious brandy infused butter cream, packaged within a mouth watering hull of rich pastry and layered in what she fully suspected was genuine Belgian chocolate. There were forty in the box to begin with, each around the size of a man's fist. Now there were around thirty. Jaime checked her face in the mirror, licking a corona of dark chocolaty evidence from around her full lips, but neglecting to notice the large cream spatter that had extricated itself from one of the pastries and landed with an undignified squelch upon her left breast.
It took considerably more effort to extricate herself from the car than it had taken her to get in in the first place.
Jaime finally erupted from the drivers side door after a few minutes of awkward tooandfroing, waited for a moment for her prodigious girth to centre itself before removing the pastries from the car and making her way inside. She was barely past the front door before someone grabbed her by the arm.
“Jaime, it's the chief, he wants to see you in his office ASAP, and he sounds pretty pissed to me.”
Jaime smiled languidly at the young man who had accosted her.
“And what exactly would he want with little old me?”
“I dunno, he had an anonymous tip off you'd been seen taking a bribe or something off some little Indian guy after you'd tried to crush him to death.”
Jaime's face remained motionless. She grinned a little wider, but noticeably a little tenser.
“Why, I haven't the faintest idea where someone could have got that idea from...”
“Fair enough. What's in the box, by the way, is it your turn to get the break room treats?”
“This is garbage. Nothing more. Now don't you have somewhere to be? I know I do.”
The officer eyed her suspiciously, but turned on his heel abruptly and left. Jaime let out a sigh of relief, before realising what she had to do...
She rushed as fast as she could to her desk. Out of the top drawer, she took a fresh, clean shirt, and ran as fast as her plump legs would carry her toward one of the private evidence study rooms. She slipped inside, locked the door, and quickly undid the struggling buttons running down the front of her shirt. She stood for a moment, shirt hanging open, allowing her large, blimp like stomach to hang out, ghostlike in the tiny room before she ripped the top from the box and set upon it's contents. One, two, three, the pastries fell into her waiting mouth, barely time to chew them Jamie thrust them into her maw in a mechanical manner, speed rather than taste her prime concern. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, she barely registered the incoming traffic, her swollen stomach gurgling and grumbling as an avalanche of food proceeded down her throat and into her fattened belly. Twenty, twenty one, twenty two, she was over two thirds of the way through the box in record time, but the pace was taking it's toll. Her left hand, originally employed in the two handed shovelling of food, had slipped to her gut, massaging the ripe surface in gentle rhythmic motions to alleviate the growing pressure inside. Twenty five, twenty six, she was slowing, but not done yet. Twenty eight, twenty nine, her stomach growled menacingly, and she paused, the final confection in her meaty grasp. She closed her eyes, thought of the delightful nap she would have in here later, and forced the final pastry down her throat. Her stomach heaved, whining and moaning like an animal, the feeling of intense gluttony replaced by the relief of having disposed of the evidence. They're all mine, she thought, the break room can go fudge itself, I've had plenty...
She quickly changed her shirt for the clean one, noting how this one was even harder to do up than the other, and taking a moment to wipe her face and run an appreciative hand over her gargantuan and tightly packed gut she unlatched the door and made her clean getaway. She dumped her old shirt in the garbage outside, and strode confidently toward her superiors door.
She was almost there when it happened.
She turned the corner, and entered the reception to the chief's office, where his secretary sat, typing dutifully.
“Officer Hernandez, the chief wanted to see... ugh...”
Her hands pressed cautiously into her stomach. It's bloated surface felt strangely unyielding to her touch, hard and smooth, over inflated almost.
“Are you alright, Officer?”
The secretary looked down his thin nose at the rather plump officer. She cradled her belly somewhat maternally.
“I'm fine, yes, the... er... the twins, you know?”
“You shouldn't be on patrol in your condition. Go right in please.”
“Thank you... burp.”
She belched rather petitely in the man's face. He made a face best likened to what would be expected if he was has his temperature taken with a Joshua tree.
Jamie let herself into the chief's office, and sat herself down without the man so much as turning in his chair to acknowledge her entrance.
“Officer Hernandez?”
“Yes sir...”
“I've been... hearing things about you. Have you any idea what they might be?”
“No sir, I couldn't begin to... imagine.”
She winced slightly, her stomach convulsed under her grasp.
“There have been reports of a white female officer, red hair, dark brown eyes, five foot six inches tall, badge number somewhere in the vicinity of yours, doing rather illicit things under the pretence of protecting and serving members of the public.”
“I'm... burp... at a loss sir.”
She had begun to feel an acute pain from somewhere deep within the immense swell of her overstuffed abdomen. Somewhere within the over fattened coil of her bloated gut something was very wrong.
“I'll continue. Not just any members of the public, but members of the public associated with the convenience food industry and the un enfranchised fast foodstuff take away restaurant business. Allegations of harassment have been made, as they are to just about every officer, but more seriously allegations of bribery have been made. But no cash money has ever changed hands, oh no. Rumour is that someone is going round giving out unlicensed parking tickets and performing illegal health and quality inspections, and then taking bribes, Officer Hernandez. Bribes of said convenience and un enfranchised fast foodstuff take out. Care to comment?”
“I...ooh... I... urp... I haven't... ooooooooh... I mean, I didn't... owwww...”
Jaime clutched her stomach. Something positively tectonic was occurring within it's fecund walls, and she didn't like it one bit. It rolled and groaned and shifted in her hands, bloated and terrible it moaned loudly, proclaiming her guilt.
“Spot of indigestion, Officer Hernandez? A close friend informs me you were seen with an entire box of Viennese éclairs, delightful things they are, but they do play havoc with your waistline, being roughly nine hundred calories each. Let's see, were it you hypothetically who consumed the entire box, at let's say forty per box, that would be, oh I don't know, somewhere in the region of thirty six thousand calories all in all. That'd be enough to give anyone indigestion, wouldn't you say?”
Jaime could only moan in reply.
“Get yourself to the infirmary, Officer Hernandez, then report back to me when you find yourself less... encumbered.”
Jaime stood with great difficulty. The colour drained from her face, she was distinctly greenish around the gills. As she straightened up, a single button flung itself from her presence, pinging loudly from the back of the chief's head.
“Now, if you don't mind Officer Hernandez. I believe Doctor Forbes is in today, she'll take good care of you.”
*****
No-one asked later could be quite sure how a woman in Jamie's condition could have made it to the infirmary examination room, down two flights of steps none the less. But she did. And upon her entrance, Doctor Forbes was waiting for her.
“Ah, Officer Hernandez I presume. Please come in.”
Jaime shuffled in, and collapsed onto the table at the centre of the small examination room. She groaned in melancholy despair, her enormous stomach making sounds akin to a beached whale, somewhat completing the illusion.
“Now, what seems to be the matter?”
Doctor Forbes slid on a pair of latex gloves, and tucked her blonde hair back behind her ears, adjusting her thick rimmed glasses as she did so.
“My tummy hurts...”
Jaime gasped out the words, hands encircling the grotesque swell in front of her.
“Ah, I think I see the problem...”
Doctor Forbes approached the quaking leviathan slowly, taking in it's ridiculous dimensions. She laid one cautious hand atop the volcanic surface, jerking back as it gave a primordial growl and lurched sharply at her touch. A gasp escaped Jaime's lips.
“I see... I see...”
She cast her eyes over her patient, noticing the tiny jewel embedded in her navel.
“Can you remove your bellybutton ring so I can examine you?”
Jaime made a feeble attempt to comply. Her hands flailed helplessly in an attempt to reach it.
“You know what, I can work round it... don't trouble yourself...”
Jaime was almost there. All she had to do was lose about twenty inches off her waistline or grow it on her arms. Either might take a while. Jaime crashed back to the table, her face pink from the exertion. Her stomach sloshed around angrily on it's sterile plinth, another few buttons falling in the battle with the bulge. Forbes took this as a sign to proceed. Carefully, she undid the remaining few buttons on Jaime's shirt, marvelling at the impossible curve of her immense stomach, feeling it's warmth through her gloves. Surprisingly, once the last few buttons were undone, it expanded out further. Jaime moaned in agony, her stomach gurgling agreement.
Carefully, Forbes rested first her hands, then her ear against the flank of the immense white swell. It was hard, unyielding, and painfully tight, and her eardrum pounded to the digestive rhythm occurring within. She took a step back involuntarily. Jaime lay like a great monument to gluttony on her examining table, her bra scant protection for her otherwise naked upper body, her breasts encapsulated within delicate black lace rimmed red cups, their delicacy in stark contrast to the monstrous curve of her abdomen. The tiny red jewel rises in and out of view as her stomach distorts around it, her navel an otherworldly convexity in the face of the immense concave swell of Jaime's belly.
Her hands reach feebly up it's flanks. She sobs in pain, clearly she is regretting the decision to consume the entire box of pastries.
“I'm not sure what I can do for a girl in your condition, Officer Hernandez, other than leave you to digest whatever the hell you have in there in peace and quiet.”
“All... mine... they're all... mine... ooh”
Jaime winced as a shock wave passed through her engorged midriff. Her hands protectively pressed into it's sides.
“Here, I think I have something for indigestion...”
The doctor rummaged through a drawer and produced a bottle of pills.
“Ah, antacids. Marvellous. Here, the recommended dose is two, but I think maybe you're beyond that.”
She took a generous handful, and waited for Jaime to open her mouth. She moaned, long and loud, a cry of fear and pain as her stomach rolled and shook like the forming of a new world under her grip.
Doctor Forbes made her move. She shoved the pills in, and clamped her hand over Jaime's nose and mouth.
Jaime's eyes, until this moment screwed shut, sprung open as she swallowed reflexively. Doctor Forbes moved her hand away, and in a second realised this was not a good move.
The bulge of the medication moved down Jaime's throat, and onwards into the vast unfathomable depths of her stomach. That is, it met with the immovable mass of pastry unable to proceed from her over populated stomach into her massively overwhelmed intestines.
Something akin to the sound of tearing paper could be heard from somewhere in the region of her bellybutton, an angry, malevolent sound echoed out from the hollow behind the tiny red jewel, and with an almighty groan, Jaime began to rise.
In hindsight, Jaime didn't rise. Her stomach did, however. It grew, and it grew, and it grew.
Doctor Forbes gasped.
Jaime wailed.
Her belly grew bigger, and bigger, and bigger. It grew rounder too, stretching out in all directions, puffing up like a balloon. Whatever had been struggling to compress what was inside her obviously wasn't doing so anymore. And so she expanded, her flesh squeaking and roaring as it expanded. Red slashes jumped across the pallid white flesh as it grew, growing too fast for even her own stomach to handle.
She squealed and moaned in agony and terror, her belly reaching for the sky, her hands vainly attempting to reach around it's circumference, and failing miserably.
Doctor Forbes took a step back, and turned to shield her face.
Jaime arched her back in pain, sticking her gut out one last time, as large as it could possibly get. Massive, colossal, awe inspiring, Vast, gargantuan, inhumanly large.
Jaime screamed.
Jaime writhed.
Jaime's belly exploded.
*****
What met the first few to enter the room was a curious sight. Doctor Forbes stood cowering against the back wall of her examination room, her hair all over the place and her glasses lost. She gibbered something incomprehensible, and was quickly led from the room, and later sent home for the week.
The entire room had to be scrubbed clean.
It was covered.
Floor to ceiling.
In cream.