The Stop Watch

The Stop Watch

Cecily had never been a thin girl. One of her so-called friends once joked that Cecily would be as big as a house if she could eat all the time. But Cecily couldn’t eat all the time. For one, she was constantly broke. She had three roommates to keep her monthly rent as cheap as she could, and it had only taken one of those months for all of them to ban Cecily from eating their snacks. It wasn’t her fault groceries were so expensive, especially the really good ones. How was she supposed to see Natalie’s open package of Oreos on her way through the kitchen without grabbing a few? Meghan couldn’t even finish a jug of milk before it went bad; wasn’t Cecily doing her a favor by “borrowing” some cereal to keep the milk from going to waste? Jo had a “real job” and always bought the fanciest chocolate, but Cecily never even got a taste.

Whenever they all went out to eat, on the rare occasions that their days off aligned, Cecily suggested buffets. The other girls would roll their eyes and mutter about quantity over quality, but once in a while, they let Cecily have her way. And yet, when she stood up from the table to fill her fifth plate—only her fifth—they started in complaining again.

“Careful, Cec, they’re gonna kick you out.”

“How many plates is that, seven?”

“We’ve been here for over an hour.”

After her friends guilted her out of the restaurant, Cecily broke off from the group to use the mall bathroom. She wished she had the nerve to simply go to the buffet by herself. Then, she wouldn’t have to deal with her judgy, impatient friends. But the thought was simply too embarrassing. It was bad enough she was five-three and over 200 pounds; going to a buffet by herself would just be pathetic.

“I wish I had more time to eat,” Cecily muttered as she emerged from the restroom hallway and walked toward the main promenade. An odd smell caught her nose. It was like a generic Italian spice blend with a layer of something earthy. Damp, rich, fresh-cut grass and raked leaves.

Cecily looked around for the source of the smell and saw an odd shop that had no business being in a mall. Most every mall has its “weird” shop. Something full of odd wizard statues and shelves full of crystal geodes, with a random suit of medieval armor next to a replica of Thor’s hammer. This shop was much weirder than those. It was dimly lit, with translucent scarves and beads hanging everywhere. Oddly-shaped candles and tarot decks decorated shelves packed with random knick-knacks one usually only found in thrift stores and flea markets. Cecily wandered slowly into the shop, unsure what she was looking for or why she’d even gone in.

“Good afternoon to you, miss.”

Cecily almost jumped at the voice, but it was just an old lady. An employee, or perhaps the shop’s owner.

“Hi.”

“Can I helping you find anything?”

The woman matched the vibe of the shop. Her long, graying hair was clean but not particularly well-groomed. She wore a long skirt, a cardigan, and a knit shirt with a scarf over her head. Every last piece of fabric was brightly colored, with no rhyme or reason to the ensemble’s palette. Cecily pondered her question. What was she looking for? Why had she even walked into this weird shop?

“No, thank you. Just looking around.”

“No need to being shy, miss. Anyone who finds my shop is looking for something.”

Cecily couldn’t place the woman’s accent, but she was faintly perturbed at her presumption. She turned to leave.

“Wait, please!” The woman cried. “Please, I can help you if you only ask.”

Somehow, the woman’s prompting put Cecily at ease. She blurted out the last thought she’d had before entering the odd shop. “I wish I had more time.”

“Ah,” the woman said with a smile, “Is, how you say, a classic? Everyone is wanting more time. But you seem a nice girl. Old Agnés can help you.”

Agnés opened several drawers in the cabinet behind the counter, fishing through their contents. To Cecily, they looked like junk drawers, packed with even more miscellany. Finally, Agnés pulled out an old-timey pocket watch on a chain. She held it out to Cecily, who took it in both hands, examining it. The watch had once been gold-plated, but years of handling had worn it to the white metal on every raised surface in the patterns on its shell. Cecily pushed the button on the side, and the cover snapped open, revealing an analog watch face that was still precisely accurate.

“This is really nice,” Cecily said, “But I usually just check the time on my phone.”

Agnés scoffed. “Is not for telling time—though is very good at that, yes? This watch is for giving time.”

Even the woman’s soothing tone couldn’t overcome Cecily’s empty bank account. She held the watch out. “That’s alright; I’m sure I can’t afford it, anyway.”

Agnés took Cecily’s hand in both of hers, folding the girl’s fingers back over the watch. “It’s a gift, Miss Cecily. Pull the dial whenever you need more time.”

Before Cecily could protest or wonder how Agnés knew her name, she found herself back in the mall concourse. She spun around, but the shop was gone. There was nothing but a solid wall where it had been, a printed mural advertising the big department store at one end of the mall. Remembering her roommates, Cecily shrugged off the encounter, looking around for them. They were supposed to be waiting for her at the cluster of couches a few dozen feet away, but she couldn’t see them. She hadn’t been in the weird shop that long, but her friends must have gotten tired of waiting.

She spotted them walking past the fountain way at the end of the promenade. She rushed to catch up, but they walked faster than she did. With a belly full of food and nearly a hundred extra pounds weighing her down, Cecily simply couldn’t close the distance. Fighting down panic, her fingers started fiddling with the old watch still in her hands. She’d always done this. Countless pens over the years had met their end at Cecily’s fiddling during school classes and work meetings. She opened the clamshell cover of the watch, then clicked it closed. She ran the delicate chain through her fingers. She spun the little dial around the button that released the cover’s catch. Then she pulled on that dial. It extended a fraction of an inch, and the world around her stopped.

Cecily’s momentum carried her a few more steps. She stood, looking around the concourse in disbelief. Families, young couples, old women, groups of teens, babies in strollers, clerks at shop counters, bored twenty-somethings sitting at kiosks on their phones, cashiers and cooks in the food court; every last one of them was still as statues. Even the water in the fountain was frozen like a three-dimensional photo. In shocked surprise, Cecily pushed the dial back into the watch, and time resumed.

Then she pulled it again.

Just past the fountain, she saw her roommates rounding the corner, two of them already out of her line of sight. With everyone frozen around her, Cecily took her time walking. Careful not to touch anyone, she wandered through groups and couples and solitary souls until she was standing by the fountain, just a few feet away from her friends. She unfroze time and caught up with them.

“There you are,” Meghan said, “We thought maybe you fell in.”

“Ugh, groan!” Jo cried, “No dad jokes!”

Cecily slipped the watch into her pocket.

“What was that?” Meghan asked.

“Nothing,” she said, “Just my earbuds.”

Meghan felt certain she’d seen something bigger than earbuds but said nothing.

***

Meghan knew something weird was going on in the apartment. Cecily was gaining weight, but that was nothing new. Food was going missing, but the plump, short-stack blonde always had an alibi. Meghan had been into bigger girls since even before she knew she was gay, so she certainly didn’t mind watching Cecily grow more delicious by the day, but the mystery, the how of it, haunted her.

She knew Cecily must be eating her food, and probably Jo and Natalie’s as well, but she could never catch the big girl in the act. One day, she came back from the grocery with three full bags, spotting Cecily sunk into her usual divot in the couch watching TV. Meghan dropped her bags on the counter and started unpacking them.

“That’s weird…”

“What’s weird?” Jo asked from behind her laptop at the kitchen table.

“I could have sworn I bought two things of muffins, but there’s only one.”

Jo only shrugged, uninterested in Meghan’s brain fart.

Meghan emptied the rest of her bags, finding more things missing. An entire carton of milk, a bag of gummy worms, and a box of cereal. She walked back into the living room, where Cecily was still beached on the couch like an overlarge dollop of cream. As the blonde idly scratched at her round belly, Meghan couldn’t be certain, but she thought Cecily’s shirt looked a little tighter than it had a moment ago. Was it riding up that high before? Surely, she would have noticed the wide sliver of flesh sticking out under the hem.

She went back into the kitchen and checked the trash. Beneath the junk mail and a banana peel, she saw the corner of an empty cereal box, and the pieces started clicking into place. Somehow, Cecily was stealing their food. It was the simplest explanation, but the math wasn’t mathing. Aside from the mysterious disappearing food, the fat blonde hadn’t switched jobs or gotten a promotion—she would have bragged incessantly about either—and even though she seemed to spend every spare dollar on snacks, Cecily barely got any bigger in the year they lived together. Until this past month, during which—by Meghan’s estimation—she’d put on at least twenty pounds.

“I think I’ll make dinner tonight,” Meghan announced.

“Cool,” Jo said without looking up from her computer.

Meghan made a huge pot of spaghetti, twice as much as four women in their twenties could reasonably eat. During the meal, she watched both Cecily and the pot of spaghetti like a hawk. She chatted with the girls so she wouldn’t look obvious as she snuck glances at the pot or the blonde. Every so often, she’d see the spaghetti spoon move, and the level of sauce-drenched pasta in the pot would be slightly lower. Cecily’s head or arm would move slightly in the time it took Meghan to blink, and once she even saw that beautiful belly get a tiny bit bigger in an instant.

Meghan’s curiosity wouldn’t let her leave it alone, but she had to be cautious. It wouldn’t do to confront Cecily in front of Natalie and Jo. She didn’t actually want her gorgeous friend to stop growing. It took a few days, but she concocted a scheme, sending Cecily a text one morning.

[I have a long lunch break today, wanna meet at that buffet in the mall?]

Cecily responded with a thumbs-up emoji, which Meghan correctly assumed was an understated reaction.

***

Meghan got to the restaurant first and claimed a table while she waited. Cecily showed up in a loose, flowing sundress that did little to hide her massive breasts and round belly. Meghan didn’t even bother trying not to stare. The blonde was so big and round. She imagined lying on her back with Cecily sitting on her, wondering how much of her chest that belly would cover. Would it reach all the way over her nipples? Would she be able to see Cecily’s face past those mommy milkers?

She’d picked a half booth with chairs on one side, sliding into the bench side first. Cecily eyed the chairs dubiously, letting Meghan daydream about those massive ass cheeks spilling over the sides or the metal legs bending under her weight. The big girl looked over at Meghan’s side of the table, so she patted the bench beside her.

“I don’t wanna block you in,” Cecily said.

“It’s fine. We’ll just go up at the same time.”

Meghan slid over to give Cecily more room, but the blonde’s thick legs almost touched her own. She wanted so badly to lean into all that glorious flesh but took several slow breaths to calm herself.

A server took Cecily’s drink order, and they went through the buffet line together. They chatted about work and TV shows and movies while they ate, and Meghan tried not to be too obvious as she tracked her friend’s plates.

Meghan was more than full after her third plate, and Cecily seemed satisfied as well. Meghan decided to push her luck.

“All done?”

Cecily scratched softly at her middle. It was pressed against the tabletop now, and the floral print of her dress was pulled tight. Meghan slid a little closer so that her shoulder and hip lightly touched Cecily’s beautiful curves.

“What about dessert?”

Cecily’s stomach rumbled, and she reached a hand into her purse. The bustling restaurant fell into eerie silence, and Meghan looked around. Everyone but she and Cecily had stopped moving. The blonde looked over at her, wide-eyed.

Meghan grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “So… that’s your secret…”

***

Panic flooded through Cecily. She’d been using the pocket watch for over a month without getting caught. At least, she thought it’d been a month. Having some of her days last twenty-five to thirty hours was really messing with her circadian rhythm. She didn’t even know it was possible to bring someone with her into frozen time. It must be because Meghan was touching her when she pulled the dial. Meghan was still touching her. The points where her hips and upper arm connected with her friend burned with the contact. She’d had a crush on the redhead since they met but was never bold enough to make a move. Besides, it wasn’t as if a pretty lesbian like Meghan would be interested in a fatass like her.

“Please, don’t tell the others,” Cecily begged, “I’ll switch it off.”

She thrust her hand back into her purse, fishing for the watch. Before she could find the dial, she felt Meghan’s hand on her shoulder.

“Wait, don’t,” Meghan said. “I have so many questions, but I won’t tell Jo and Natalie, I promise you.”

Cecily stared into Meghan’s emerald eyes. She saw no judgment or criticism but something that seemed… happy?

“Let me out,” Meghan said, “I’ll go up for you.”

Cecily had questions of her own, but she obeyed. In truth, heaving herself out of the booth and wading through the frozen people around the buffet tables was kind of a pain in the ass. It took barely a moment for Meghan to rush through to the tables and return with a plate in each hand. One was full of shrimp alfredo, and the other was stacked high with cakes and pies. Cecily gaped at the plates, but Meghan dropped them on the table, then cozied up beside her on the bench.

“How many times did you go up when I wasn’t watching?”

“…three.”

Meghan’s hand rested lightly on her belly, making tingles run over her whole body. She cooed, “That’s not enough food for a growing girl…”

Her hand started to move, gently stroking Cecily’s full stomach affectionately. Heat rose between Cecily’s legs, and she stared at Meghan. Those green eyes shone with delight as they looked back at her. That slightly upturned nose, dusted with freckles. Her plump lips were glossy and pink as her mouth hung slightly open.

This perfect creature she’d wanted for months was touching her, watching her. Was it possible? Experimentally, Cecily leaned a little closer to her friend. In a flash, Meghan’s perfect lips were pressed to her own. Her tongue slipped between her teeth, and the redhead’s hands were all over her.

Cecily pulled back, grinning despite the insecurity and doubt racing through her mind. “But, but how…?”

Meghan put a finger to her lips. “We can figure that all out later. For now, eat up. This belly’s not gonna fill itself.”

The servers at the buffet failed to notice the redhead and her obese friend vanish, leaving a very generous cash tip. They were too busy wondering how several steam trays and an entire row of desserts could empty in the blink of an eye.