Turn 4 of 6

Suggest you go on a proper date, you like her, and she likes you. It's obvious you like each other, and you need to help her fatten up after all, she's much too skinny. She shows up for your date with clothing that's barely fitting, as she was trying to fit into it earlier, but now she wants to fatten up enough to burst out of the outfit, and she wants your help to do it. You succeed in this

The desserts keep arriving, and you feed Mara with the focus and dedication of someone who has found their true calling. The peanut butter cheesecake disappears bite by bite between her lips, and by the time the Triple Threat Brownie Boat lands in front of her, she's stopped using the napkin. Chocolate smears her chin. She doesn't care. You don't care either — you think it looks beautiful, honestly, the evidence of pleasure written right there on her face.

"So here's a thought," you say, setting down the fork and leaning forward on your elbows, your breasts compressing into a warm shelf on the table. "We should go on a real date. Like, dinner. Candles. The whole thing."

Mara pauses mid-bite, brownie crumbling between her teeth.

"A date?"

"Babe. *Obviously.*" You gesture between the two of you — your massive body, her flushed face, the wreckage of four desserts. "You like me. I like you. I've been flirting with you since I walked up to your treadmill, and you've been blushing like a tomato for the last hour. I'm not subtle, and neither are you."

She laughs, and it's the freest sound you've heard from her yet.

"Friday?"

"Friday. I'm taking you to Bellini's. Wear something tight." You wink, and the brownie boat arrives for round two, and Mara groans but opens her mouth anyway.

Friday evening, you're waiting at Bellini's in a dress that hugs every fold and curve of you like it was painted on, when Mara walks through the door and nearly stops your heart. She's wearing a red dress that is clearly fighting for its life — the seams along her hips are pulled taut, the fabric straining across her belly where it didn't before, the zipper visibly protesting. She looks incredible, and she looks like she *knows* it.

"This was the biggest thing I owned," she says, sliding into the chair across from you, breathless. "I tried it on Monday and it fit fine. I've been eating everything you suggested all week and now —" She gestures at the seam that's puckering along her ribs. "It's already too small."

"You look *amazing,*" you breathe.

"I want it to not fit at all by the end of tonight," Mara says, and there's a gleam in her eye that's new — bright, defiant, hungry. "I want to bust the seams. Can you help me with that?"

You order appetizers, entrees, sides, two baskets of bread, a bottle of wine, and pre-order three desserts. Mara eats with an intensity that matches your own, and the red dress groans its complaints steadily through each course. You feed her forkfuls of tiramisu between her own bites of pasta, and somewhere between the second basket of bread and the main course, a seam pops along her left hip with a sound like a tiny firecracker. Mara looks down, then up at you, and her face splits into the most triumphant grin you've ever seen.

"*There* it is," you cheer, leaning across the table to kiss the chocolate from her lower lip. The second seam goes during the cannoli course, splitting along her belly, and Mara laughs so hard she has to hold the torn fabric together with both hands. By the time the third dessert arrives, the dress is hanging on by zippers and sheer stubbornness, and Mara is glowing — flushed, full, rounder than she was when she sat down, and utterly, radiantly happy.

"I think," she says, leaning back in her chair with a satisfied groan, one hand resting on the curve of her exposed belly where the fabric has given up entirely, "that I need a new wardrobe."

"I'll help," you say, reaching across to squeeze her hand. "We'll get things that actually fit. And then we'll outgrow *those.*"