Not-so-Little Red
II
The walk from Red’s house to Wolf’s cave was not a far one; Wolf himself made the journey in just under an hour several times a day. And yet, once the adrenaline-fueled fervor of Red’s temper tantrum abated, the burden of her ponderous proportions had come crashing down on her in ounces and pounds, in omelets and muffins.
Over two hours after they left her mother’s house, with its collapsed fence and gaping wall, Red panted, wheezed, and whined as she took another laborious, waddling step.
“Haaa haaaa… How much farther?“
“Not long now,” Wolf said. “I’ve got a whole sack of donuts waiting for you.“
Wolf hadn’t been keeping track, but he could tell Red’s steps were getting slower and slower. He was pretty sure she could eat an entire donut in the time that passed between each of her lumbering footfalls—possibly even two.
At long last, a low rocky bluff came into view.
“Is, is that it??“ Red asked excitedly, gulping bushels of air.
“That’s it.“
Red’s fatigue melted away in a moment. Incredibly, she hopped on her fat toes, creating tremors Wolf felt in the pads of his feet.
“Finally,“ Red cheered. “Now I can finish my breakfast!“
Wolf bit back an observation that it was far closer to lunchtime and followed Red as she waddled toward the cave mouth.
“Where’s the entrance? I’m starving.”
“Just to your left.”
Wolf’s home was a natural cave, cozy and dry, and more spacious than one would expect from the size of its opening in the bluff. The entrance was more than wide enough for Wolf’s own muscular frame—and the sacks of food he often carried—to slip in and out with ease. When he’d made the snap decision to lure Red to his home, the question of whether she’d fit through the roomy tunnel hadn’t entered his mind. But now that her inflated form waddled toward that very tunnel, now that he could see both his front doorway and Red’s voluptuous backside, Wolf began to worry.
She pushed aside a cluster of vines over the cave mouth, and Wolf exhaled. Despite the breadth of Red’s indulgence, the entrance was wider still.
Red seemed less convinced. “It looks awfully small…“
“It’ll be fine,“ Wolf lied. “You fit through that tiny little window, right?“
They were both silent for a moment, contemplating the absurdity of this statement.
Wolf laid a comforting hand on Red’s shoulder, resisting the impulse to squeeze the pliant flesh beneath his digits. “It’s bigger on the inside. Now go on in—I’m sure you’re dying to sit down and relax after walking all the way here. I’m pretty sure I even have a pie or two.“
At the mention of pie, Red’s trepidation melted like sugar crystals on the tongue. She surged into the tunnel so quickly that Wolf had to bound after her. Being a natural stone formation, however, the passage was not of a uniform width. Wolf had simply never noticed that the tunnel tapered down to its narrowest point just before opening into the main chamber of his home.
As he padded after Red’s booming steps, Wolf didn’t realize his plump companion had stopped until he collided with her plush form. Red let out a gentle squeak as her hips caught on the tunnel walls and then a squawk as Wolf crashed into her backside, jostling her through the choke point with a soft pop.
True to his word, the main chamber of Wolf’s home was spacious indeed—easily twice the size of Red’s entire bedroom back at her mother’s cottage. She spread her wobbling arms wide and spun in one slow, tottering twirl. Every part of her rippled and sloshed like a collection of balloons pumped with pudding. Wolf’s breath caught in his throat as something tightened in his belly.
Red flopped onto a pile of soft furs, barely feeling the fall between the padded surface and her more-padded bottom. She sighed as she let her screaming legs go limp. The walk had been so far, much farther than when she was pretending to take a basket to her grandma. Her mother used to pack such yummy food in those baskets. Though she’d been cruelly strict lately, she was actually a fantastic chef. A merciless hunger raged through Red like a storm.
It took every scrap of Red’s feeble self-control to keep her voice steady. “So…?”
Wolf’s face looked strange. He stared at her with such wide pupils that his eyes were almost completely black. Red was too ravenous to be scared.
“Um… Wolf?”
He blinked slowly, then shook himself in a decidedly canine manner. When he looked at her again, his eyes seemed back to normal. “What is it, my sna— My sweet?”
Red reached her heavy arms over her billowing belly—Why did it seem so big now?—and touched her index fingers together. “You said something about pie…?”
Wolf ran a paw over his snout and through the shaggy fur atop his head. “Goodness, where are my manners? You sit tight; I shall return with refreshments post haste.”
He ducked through a narrow opening into a cave that sat lower underground than the main chamber. It was cooler than the other rooms, making it the perfect place to store food. Though it had taken more and more food to keep Red from noticing how much she was eating, there were only a few times in the day when Wolf could get to her without her mother catching them. Undeterred in his quest, Wolf had continued looting and pilfering from the village, storing the excess in this very cavern. Bags of fruit and pastries sat between jugs of milk and barrels of sweet honey mead. Stacked boxes held donuts and pies amidst entire cakes and roasts. Wolf grabbed as many pie and donut boxes as he could carry.
Red sat and tried to breathe. Her stomach clenched and roared. Her whole body felt tight and hollow and wrung out. She was freezing—no, she was burning up. The room spun. She inhaled for a count of three, then exhaled for a count of four. She didn’t know what was happening to her, but she did know that if she didn’t get a snack soon, she might explode.
When Wolf returned to the main cavern, he found Red in a twitchy, delirious heap. Her eyes were glassy, and sweat trickled down her chubby cheeks. In a flash, he set down his burden and was at her side, stroking her hair and making shushing sounds. “What is it, Red? What’s happened?”
Wordlessly, Red lifted a trembling hand toward the stack of boxes he’d left on the cave floor, well out of her reach. Her body heaved as she tried to lunge forward. It took Wolf an embarrassing several moments to connect the dots, then he pressed gently on her shoulders.
“Shh, don’t get up.”
Wolf opened the first box on the stack and handed a fruit pie to Red. She lifted the tin to her mouth with one hand, scooping sugary peaches with her fingers. She was making a mess, but she’d been eating without utensils for weeks. In a matter of seconds, she was curling the tin into a funnel to dump the crust and crumbs into her greedy mouth.
A voice in the back of Red’s mind said that she should pace herself, but it was a mouse whispering against a riot mob. She tossed the empty tin aside, licked her fingers, and said, “More.”
Wolf had a box of donuts ready.
***
Some time later—she wasn’t sure quite how long—Red came back to her senses as Wolf was handing her a particularly robust roast chicken. As she tore strips of succulent meat from the bones and stuffed them into her mouth, soft thoughts flitted in and out of her mind.
How long had she been eating? How much had she eaten? How big was that low cave where Wolf kept the food, and was there even anything left in there?
As quickly as each thought appeared, it vanished again. Red found she simply couldn’t bring herself to care. After all that time stuck in that stupid window, she was finally free. Free to indulge to her heart’s content. Without that wooden frame choking her like using a bracelet for a belt, without sore shoulders from lying on her elbows, or an aching back from carrying her unsatisfied belly, Red could eat in comfort again. Already she felt delightfully snug, as if there was a creature inside her, expanding, growing, and her skin was just barely strong enough to hold it in. And the best part was, she still had more to eat. Bite by bite, the chicken hit her tongue, met her teeth, and slid down her throat, where her beast waited with patient eagerness.
Red’s hands slowed, and her eyelids drooped, as the herculean exertions of the day caught up with her. Wolf emerged from his food cave again with two boxes of muffins.
“You look like you could use a nap, my sweet.” He set the boxes on the furs where Red could reach them. “Here’s something for you to nibble on while you’re falling asleep.” He gave her middle a soft pat. Beneath a thick layer of jelly, her stomach was firm as an underripe melon. “I need to go into the village and get you some more food.”
Red watched Wolf scamper into the tunnel. She picked the last bits of meat from her chicken and reached for a muffin. At some point, she’d make a plan. She should probably visit her grandmother, make peace with her mother, and find a proper place to live. She could find a job, maybe find a partner.
Those were goals for Tomorrow Red. Today Red had been through an ordeal and a half. She’d more than earned a lazy, indulgent evening.
***
Of course, it wasn’t one evening. It wasn’t an evening and a morning. It wasn’t even an entire week. Wolf and Red settled into a routine very similar to their old one. He collected, and she ate, in abundance, in both cases.
Red discovered to her surprise that Wolf could read. After she apologized for her prejudice, they read stories together in the snippets of time when Red was full and Wolf wasn’t out pilfering. He got better at judging her moods and mental states, learning when she was too deep in the thrill of her appetite to listen or engage with him over anything but more food. After a dish or two, Red would settle down, and Wolf read to her from a growing collection of storybooks he sometimes found in picnic baskets or left on window ledges.
One day, Red woke from her mid-morning nap before Wolf returned from his food-gathering. He’d found a particularly large collection of pancakes for her breakfast, in addition to donuts, muffins, and other pastries, so she’d been thoroughly replete before her nap. Which, for Red, meant packing herself with food until she felt so tight and stretched that her beast might outgrow her skin—then nibbling on donuts as she drifted off.
Now she was awake. And though the voice of her craving was still drowsy and faint, she could feel it beginning to rouse. Luckily, a box and a half of donuts from her breakfast remained undevoured. Red settled in for a graze while she waited for Wolf to return with her lunch.
In the village, Wolf carefully lowered a pot of roasted potatoes into his sack. It nestled beside a stack of pies, a box of dinner rolls, and three different casseroles. With the harvest festival approaching, the wives of the town were making his special project easier, but he still ran through the list in his head, wishing he’d brought the book with him.
Red was bored. More importantly, Red was out of donuts. She hauled herself to her feet, tottering for a moment as she gained her balance. One large and two not quite so large weights pulled her forward, balanced by the weights dragging her back. She looked around the vast cavern for any other snacks Wolf may have left her. Weirdly, the cave seemed somewhat less vast than it once had. There wasn’t time to ponder that mystery because there wasn’t one solitary pie or chicken or even a muffin in the entire cavern.
Red dropped to all fours, feeling cool stone press against her poor, neglected tummy, and crawled toward the opening where Wolf stored her—their—extra food. It wasn’t very big, but she’d seen him scamper in and out of it hundreds of times, and he was the Big Bad Wolf—surely Little Red could fit through. When her shoulders snagged on the stone, Red twisted to the side, but her plump breasts kept her from getting far enough to even see into the chamber. Well, she was a grown woman now, after all. She’d obviously inherited her mother’s voluptuous figure.
Red stretched one hand into the opening, ignoring the way the stone walls rubbed against her upper arm. She felt around as far as she could reach, but found nothing but cold stone. Withdrawing her arm, she slumped into the furs as her stomach gurgled in frustration. She could do this. She used to wait hours between Wolf’s visits. She just needed to distract herself, that’s all. Red reached for a book Wolf had left nearby.
Wolf nosed a pot of cranberry sauce into his bag. The drawstrings almost wouldn’t close. He’d had to search the entire village and nearly got caught twice, but it had been worth it. He had everything he needed. His bags were the fullest they’d ever been, and his back burned as he started the long walk to his cave.
Red scanned through the pages, flipping them back and forth. She’d seen many of her mother’s cookbooks and almost thought she recognized this one, but Wolf couldn’t cook… could he?
The bookmark was planted in the middle of a feast. A harvest festival feast. Recipes and directions for a myriad of side dishes, share platters, and desserts. The photos and ingredient lists were making Red’s stomach angrier by the moment. Her mouth watered so furiously she nearly drooled on the glossy pages.
But something was wrong.
The centerpiece of the feast was a whole roasted pig.
Could Wolf carry a whole pig? Could he even steal a whole pig without the villagers sending a search party after him? Even if he somehow could manage to burgle a whole pig, how would he ever get it into this cave? The entrance had been a tight squeeze for her, and she was just a chubby young woman—a literal pig would never be able to fit.
Unless…
Red tried to shush the voice of her survival instincts even as it screamed its most reasonable explanation.
The pig was her.
All those days and weeks—surely not months—bringing her food, offering her plate after plate, pies and cakes and cookies and meat, meat, meat! He knew she was weak, knew she couldn’t resist. Her appetite was a beast inside her that she couldn’t leash, couldn’t tame, could barely steer. If Wolf put food in front of her, she would eat it; such was its power over her. He knew that and had taken advantage, sending her past chubby all the way to plump so she could be his own personal harvest festival feast!
For all of Red’s clarity, she was blind to the vast difference between Wolf’s body and her own. She’d grown far beyond the most extravagant feast a single wolf could consume, even a Big Bad one.
She had to get out of here. She’d finally take that trip to her Grandmother’s that she’d failed to do back when this all started. She might even stop by her old home and apologize to her mother. She’d been right—Red’s lack of self-control really had gotten her into trouble.
Red climbed to her feet again, wobbling anxiously toward the cave exit. Her arm slid into the tunnel, then one leg as she turned sideways. She shuffled her pudgy feet, inching herself deeper. Before she’d managed to squeeze even one breast into the opening, Red’s progress halted. She backed up, tried different angles and approaches, but never got any closer to her goal.
Since she’d squeezed herself into Wolf’s home, Red had indulged. She’d guzzled and devoured and gorged until she was well and truly trapped. She took an honest look at her expansive body for the first time in a long time. She’d been beyond chubby, beyond plump, when she’d gotten stuck in that window. She’d been more than fat when Wolf brought her here, and she must have gained at least fifty pounds since then. The number was closer to a hundred, but Red had never been good at math.
Her mother’s voice echoed in her mind. Why, if you get any plumper, you’ll get eaten up by the Big Bad Wolf for sure!
At least she’d never have to hear her mother say “I told you so.”