6 - Explore.pdf
The Foodie and The Food Dumpster
Luna squeezed her eyes closed, letting the cacophonous din of the restaurant fade in and out of her ears. She couldn’t hear the words, couldn’t concentrate on anything but her body. As was almost always the case these days, she wore stretchy leggings under a long blouse that had once been loose and flowy. The blouse now squeezed snugly against her chest and was skin-tight over her big belly, and she was pretty sure her leggings had no elastic left to stretch—if the iron-tight band around her middle was anything to go on.
“Get a pic of this flatbread,” Adley said, jarring Luna from her meditation.
Luna opened her eyes and fished her phone out of an industrial-strength bra. She pointed it at her girlfriend, making sure the entire pizza was in the frame. With her glowing auburn hair and dazzling smile, Adley was instantly recognizable as an ‘influencer’ even if you didn’t know about her half a million followers. Thin and athletic, with shining green eyes and a light dusting of freckles, Adley’s online popularity was over half the reason they could live this lifestyle.
***
It all started about two years ago when Adley burst into their apartment, bouncing on the balls of her feet, grinning like a kid back from Trick or Treating with a particularly abundant candy haul.
Luna glanced up from her game. “Hey, what’s up?”
“I bought something for us,” Adley said, “Come see!”
Pausing her Switch and hopping up from the couch, Luna followed he girlfriend outside. Adley was always smaller than Luna, even when they first met. But back then, the worst anyone could say about Luna was that she was out of shape. She abhorred exercise and spent most of her day sitting. She had a soft belly and chunky thighs but could still wear ‘real’ pants—even if she avoided doing so whenever possible.
“Tada!” Adley held both arms out, gesturing at the motorhome like a woman on a gameshow or perhaps a cartoon character.
If one were being generous, they might call the RV ‘vintage.’ At least two decades old, the swooping decals had almost all peeled off long ago, and Luna saw rust in the parts around the tires. What were those called? Wheel holes? Something like that.
Stunned and confused, Luna said, “Adley… what?”
“I traded in my car,” Adley declared—as if that explained everything.
“But why?”
“Why? So we can get out of this dead-end town and explore the country!”
Adley laid out her whole plan. They both worked from home now, and they could do that anywhere. What they’d spend on gas and the occasional campground would be less than their rent. The key to her whole scheme was Adley’s aspiration to become a ‘content creator,’ traveling the country and sampling all the food and drinks America had to offer.
It was a weird plan, but Luna had no grand aspirations for her own life apart from being wherever Adley was, so she was immediately on board—literally and figuratively. Looking around at the faux wood cabinets, she asked, “Can you even use a kitchen this small?”
“It’s not that small,” Adley said from the low spot just inside the door. “Plus, we won’t use it that much.”
Luna pointed at a bed that was Full-size at best. “That’s definitely small.”
“We’ll just have to cuddle,” Adley grinned. Luna was still dubious about her girlfriend’s scheme, but that grin made most of her concerns melt.
***
Luna recorded Adley taking a bite out of the slice. Her girlfriend described the flatbread to the camera—the crunch of the crust and the way the fresh marinara flavor complimented the basil and mozzarella slices. Later that afternoon, Luna would splice together clips of Adley eating with the audio of her description, combining photos and videos in different formats for her various social platforms. But that would happen later. Now, Luna was going to finish the rest of Adley’s pizza.
She set the camera on its little tripod to free up her hands while Adley rambled on about the restaurant and the town in her ‘influencer voice.’ She grabbed a slice of flatbread in trembling, pudgy fingers. The crust was crispy, and the flavors really did go well together, but Luna would have been just as happy with a two-dollar frozen pizza from the store. As each bite went down her throat, Luna imagined she could feel it press into the small mountain already inside of her. The table cut into her midsection as if her insatiable belly was trying to eat the pressboard slab the way Luna’s mouth was devouring the rest of Adley’s pizza.
Ever since they got past the awkward dating stage of their relationship, it had been this way. Adley was an unapologetic foodie, always looking for new flavors and culinary experiences, while Luna would eat nearly anything set in front of her, as long as it didn’t taste like coconut. In their small midwestern town, this didn’t mean much. The most exotic restaurant that wasn’t an hour’s drive away was the ‘Chinese’ buffet slash sushi slash Mongolian barbecue. Of course, the buffet was ideal for Adley, who only ever ate tiny portions of food to make sure she had room for the widest variety of flavors. Luna, on the other hand, always had room for more.
A claim she was starting to seriously question as she slowly chewed each bite, Adley’s narration fading into an incoherent melody.
***
Adley slipped one foot into a hiking shoe. “I’m gonna go check out that trail we saw yesterday, wanna come?”
Luna owned a pair of shoes just like Adley’s—she’d worn them fewer than a dozen times. Lying on the bed and trying to read while nursing a belly stuffed with what felt like ten pounds of breakfast food, she said, “Right now? It’s raining.”
Adley made a scoffing sound as she slid on her second shoe. “It’s misting—not even a drizzle.”
“I’m good. I went for a hike yesterday.”
“That wasn’t a hike. We just walked around the RV park; it was barely half an hour.”
Nearly a hundred pounds heavier than she’d been when they moved into the RV a year ago, Luna remembered their previous day’s exertion very differently.
“You go on ahead,” She said, “Make sure you take the bear spray.”
“–Tsk– There are no bears around here. But sure, I’ll bring it.”
“Have fun!”
Eventually, Adley stopped asking Luna to come with her on her hikes and bike rides. Luna ran the camera when she made content in camp—starting fires, grilling, and how-to videos about their gear—but whenever Adley changed into her hiking shoes and REI gear, Luna snuggled up in the rig to read, play a game, or simply nap.
Early in their relationship, Adley and Luna settled into a simple but consistent arrangement: Adley would order all the food she wanted to try and give Luna whatever she didn’t eat. There was always enough food for both of them, as Adley ate like a proverbial bird despite being far more active than her overweight counterpart. The plan worked perfectly. Adley got to taste all the diverse food that her palate craved, and Luna never left a restaurant hungry.
Once they went on the road, however, the menus got more diverse, and Luna’s feasts more frequent. Adley ordered, sampled, and reviewed while Luna ate, grew, and ate some more.
***
Chew and swallow, chew and swallow. Luna felt full a long time ago but dutifully supported her girlfriend as Adley kept finding things on the menu she “just had to try.” Luna felt like a food balloon, packed full of bread, meat, and cheese, and she wondered if her body would literally burst if she put any more food into it. But Luna was raised not to waste food, and Adley certainly wasn’t going to finish that pizza.
Bite after bite, the steaming circle of deliciousness was laid low. When Luna pressed the last bit of crust between her lips and swallowed it down, her arms dropped to her sides. A brief shudder of tightness ran over her, but that was all. She’d done it. She’d cleared her plate like the good girl Adley often said she was when they were ‘cuddling.’
“I’ll probably be over three hundred pounds after this.” Luna thought.
The idea tiptoed through her head but found nowhere it could stick to and wandered right out again. They didn’t keep a scale in the rig, and Luna hadn’t stepped on one since that time they went to the Heart Attack Grill in Vegas. The big display had read ‘278,’ and they were both a little disappointed that Luna wasn’t heavy enough for them to eat for free.
“Give it another year.”
The second unbidden thought passed through her head even quicker than the first.
The tightness in Luna’s middle drifted up into her chest. A cold panic ran down her neck, but the pressure merely resolved into a long belch that she managed to keep quiet… mostly.
Luna put a hand on the half of her belly resting on the table. It was mostly soft flab, but she knew the stomach within, her stomach, was drum tight underneath that softness. She had enough decorum not to squeeze her rolls in public to find out, though.
“More like six months at this rate.”
Another thought had, another thought dismissed.
The thought that did stick, however, was that a long, deep burp was a good sign that she’d had enough to eat. Adley was still talking to the camera, pointing at things on the menu and commenting, but she didn’t need Luna for that part. And their bed was outside in the parking lot. All she had to do was hoist her fat ass out of this chair and waddle back there. She could slip off her leggings and let her ridiculous meal digest. Maybe they still had some of those ice cream sandwiches in the freezer…
Luna suppressed a shudder at the thought. Ice cream was the last thing she needed right now. Yet even as revulsion passed through her mind, a soft gurgling under her hand said that her stomach, engorged though it was, loved the idea of a little treat.
***
The RV’s small bed had gotten more and more snug as the couple traveled the country, but Adley never seemed to mind. Indeed, she got more handsy with Luna’s body as it grew ever larger. More than once, Luna thanked whatever forces of random chance governed the universe that the motorhome was made with a wide door. She’d seen even fifth wheels and big travel trailers with narrow doors. Camper vans often had big sliders, but the insides were so compact that she’d have had a whole new set of struggles living in one of those.
“Hey, Ads?” Luna said one evening as they cuddled together in their afterglow. “Am I getting… too big?”
Adley’s body was snugged up against Luna’s back, and she ran a hand up her belly to squeeze a handful of one boob. “What makes you say that?”
“It’s just starting to feel a little… cramped in here.”
Adley stroked Luna’s belly. “You could always come with me on hikes? We could get another bike again.”
Luna groaned. “Hard pass.”
Adley pressed her body tighter against Luna’s, nuzzling her face into her neck and hugging her big belly. “I guess you’ll just have to stay my chubby girl forever, then.”
Luna’s partner never used disparaging words to describe her body. And if she ever used borderline words like ‘big,’ she said them with such affection that Luna never doubted their meaning. But even so, Luna couldn’t delude herself into believing ‘chubby’ wasn’t a generous label, even six months ago.
***
Luna’s eyelids felt as heavy as the rest of her body. She knew that the moment she got herself horizontal, she would pass out. Psyching herself up for the long walk back to the rig, she forced her eyes open. Adley had spoken to their server while she was finishing the pizza, so their check was probably on the way. If she crossed the parking lot now, her girlfriend wouldn’t be too far behind. Luna secretly hoped Adley would want to snuggle with her and take a nap together, but knew she would more likely want to explore the area and probably do another round of yoga.
Seeing that Adley had paused her prattle and was watching her, Luna said, “I think I’m gonna head back to the rig.”
Adley’s eyes widened. “What? We have another order coming.”
Cold fear ran from Luna’s crown all the way to her toes. “What?”
“Didn’t you hear me order? We haven’t tried the wings yet; I got twelve different flavors.”
Luna tried to wince, but even her face resisted that level of exertion. A low rumbling came from deep below thick layers of adipose, her traitorous stomach grumbling in a voice of unmistakable want.
Adley grinned. “I recognize that sound.”
Their server returned bearing a tray loaded down with paper baskets of wings, each a slightly different shade of reddish-orange. Even Luna couldn’t tell whether the soft moan that escaped her mouth was protest or anticipation. She watched Adley pluck a wing from the first basket, looking into the camera as she took a bite.
“Mmm. This is the honey barbecue. It’s not bad; better than the sauce at a chain, but still more sweet than spicy.”
Luna watched Adley clean the small bones, drop them in an empty basket, then slide the five remaining honey barbecue wings across the table to her. She knew better than to suggest they box them up to go—she’d lost that argument long ago. Struggling to raise her wobbling arm as if she were underwater, Luna lifted a sauce-drenched wing to her salivating mouth.
In her normal voice, Adley said, “Everything’s so good here. I don’t know what I’d do without you, babe.”