Thicker Ch. 02

This is a short work of erotic fiction containing furry, or anthropomorphic, characters, which are animals that either demonstrate human intelligence or walk on two legs, for the purposes of these tales. It is a thriving and growing fandom in which creators are prevalent in art and writing especially.

Please note that all characters are clearly over eighteen and written as such in all stories.

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Thicker

Chapter Two

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Gehart didn't think of the food truck over the days that passed as the rush and bustle of work swept him up and away, the clamour of the office drowning out all else. He didn't have to worry too much about other things when immediate concerns snapped their fingers for his attention. Attention, attention! They seemed to shout, as imperious as a pompous customer in a restaurant above their station. Over here, waiter, over here! And yet it was the deer himself that was the waiter to important thoughts that pushed in against one another, each one fighting for attention over the one that came before it.

A half-day, however, to pop down to the DMV to renew his license was just the thing on the cards, even though it was never destined to be a quick visit down there. There were always lines, regardless of the time of day, and Gehart took deep breaths, preparing himself to head off, though it was fair enough that he had better things to occupy his mind first of all. Lunch, after all, was something that he enjoyed partaking in very much, the little bistro cafe on the street proving to be the perfect place.

John was an old friend, a boar with a slight stomach, though he was moderately muscled from his work as a hiking instructor. Khen had gotten on with him well and lamented that he hadn't been able to meet them for lunch as he would have loved to get some better ideas of trails to try out, even if that wasn't Gehart's thing, sadly so for him.

"It's great seeing you again," John said with a smile, though he shifted from hind paw to paw uncomfortably, everything a little forced about him. "What's it been, six months now?"

"Yes! Too long," Gehart agreed, shifting in his seat, the bulge of his gut pushing out defiantly against the edge of the table, refusing to allow him to scoot his chair in even an inch closer. "Oh, I'll just have a glass of..."

He chose a fizzy drink from the menu as the waiter hovered, John ordered food and a drink too, though his eyes did linger a little too long on Gehart to be entirely comfortable and friendly.

"Aren't you ordering something?" He asked. "That's rather on the light side for you."

Gehart laughed and shook his head, despite cringing internally. Yes, yes, he was the big eater, hah-hah, very funny. He'd heard all the jokes before and, well, most of the time they weren't even jokes either, which was the crux of it all. He just didn't need attention drawn to it.

"No, no... On another diet, you know, intermittent fasting. Khen said he'd cook tonight and, my, am I looking forward to it!"

John laughed but there was a flick to his eyes that dropped to Gehart's stomach that seemed more judgemental than anything else. Yet was it John or his stomach that was judgemental, both very capable of demonstrating and making a stand on his dietary choices just in case he was not completely aware of that himself anyway. Squirming in his seat, the little chair creaking beneath him, Gehart tried to make himself as small and innocuous as possible, although there was nothing he could have done to disappear, at his size. Sure, maybe someone much smaller and lighter than he was, with a svelte figure just like that otter on his calorie counting app, could have made themselves disappear, slip into something a touch more inconspicuous, but that was simply impossible for a fur who had always struggled with his weight.

"Ah, so..." He gulped and looked for his drink, although the waiter had not yet returned. "How's the family doing?"

It was menial small-talk and not the kind that he could relax into all that easily, wondering just how much he was imagining John's eyes flicking to his gut. It could not have been that obvious, could it? It had to be his imagination at work, didn't it? He nipped at the inside of his cheek, working the chunk of flesh between his teeth, but the lick of pain there too was not able to distract him as the chair creaked yet again beneath him, the tiny, round seat much too small for his ever-larger buttocks. They pushed out against the sides of the chair, spilling over, his belly rumbling and seeming to goad his body on into swelling all the more.

Have a few more cakes, his belly seemed to say. You've had so much to eat already. What do you think a diet is going to do good for you now?

Gehart frowned but said nothing in return. It had never done him any good before.

It was not the sort of cafe that Gehart liked to frequent anymore, not now that he was just a little bit larger than he had been used to for most of his life. His diet just couldn't have been working, not with how his belly was pushing out more and more. Even squeezing between the tables, when they'd needed to get to the one that they'd wanted to sit, at had been more claustrophobic than before, seeming as if the room itself had become smaller as he tried to simply make his way through it, just like any other fur. Gehart had huffed and tried to appear slim again but that was not something in the realm of his possibility as chairs scraped across the floor as he made his way through them. John, to his credit, had not commented, but Gehart had been all too aware of the glare of a fox mother and her cub, the high chair coming a little too close for comfort to his gut.

"Sorry, sorry..."

That had all he'd been able to mutter but Gehart still sweated, mopping his forehead with an old-fashioned handkerchief (better than tissues, he always said), though it didn't do much for the perspiration that had already soaked into his fur. He said something to John about his family, how they were doing, but he didn't hear the answer, the conversation seeming one-sided even though he could still navigate small-talk like that without completely paying full attention to the conversation.

Was it hotter than usual in there? Gehart shifted, scratching his stomach, although he tried to appear inconspicuous about it. No, no, it must have been normal, there was nothing strange about that.

"It's real good to see you again," Gehart said, even though that had already been said. "And what a nice day it is too..."

It wasn't their kind of small-talk but it was a safe topic, yes. The sunshine must have been what had caused him to overheat, his shirt clinging to him as if his stomach and fat were overcooked sausages straining to burst out of his skin. But the shirt was new and so were the pants, the belt cutting in even though he'd only fitted the clothes to himself the other day, surely. He couldn't have changed that much in only that time and it was silly to think that he could have gained that much weight in such a short amount of time -- he wasn't even having lunch there, for heaven's sake!

But there was something going on and Gehart could not deny it as the clunky chatter between them dwindled, although Gehart didn't want to think by any means that he was the elephant in the room that had caused it. John wasn't like that, no, John didn't care about his size. He knew just how sensitive Gehart was about his weight and he wouldn't have judged him for it, so just what was the problem as the boar looked him over time after time again, even a note of concern entering his gaze?

Food arrived and the sidelong looked continued, Gehart falling more and more paranoid as he drank his soft drink just to have something to do with his paws. The chair gave a worrying groan under him and he swore the legs bowed ever so slightly, Gehart struggling to sit there as lightly as possible, despite that it was impossible to think oneself lighter.

John quieted politely, enjoying his lunch, but Gehart could stand it for not a moment longer as he caught the boar, rather obviously, giving him a look that could have meant anything at all, hesitating for just a fraction of a second with the fork on its way to his mouth. Now that wasn't something that he could just pass over when it was that glaringly obvious! Huffing, Gehart ground his teeth together, sitting up a little straighter despite the anxious creaking of his chair, which he, perhaps, should have paid a little more attention too than he did.

"Okay, what's wrong?" He said, patience waning too thin. "You're looking at something... What is it? Have I got sauce on my tie again?"

John grunted in the back of his throat and looked away. He could not have possibly have looked more uncomfortable if he'd tried, although it was not, truly, something that he should have been uncomfortable with.

"Er, well..." He shuffled in his seat, fiddling with a napkin. "It's just that your shirt is riding up, looks like, errr..."

The sentence did not need to be completed for Gehart to know what he meant, sitting bolt upright and grabbing at his shirt in a fit of embarrassment. If there was one fur in the city, besides Khen, who knew that he hated attention being drawn to his weight, it was John, but that was the only reason, surely, that he felt as if he had to hide what the problem was from Gehart. For Gehart's shirt had ridden up so much that his belly was on show, the coarser fur there in need of a good conditioning.

"Oh!"

Gehart forced out a laugh, although it was far from genuine. It was hard to laugh sincerely when he was sweating so much, squirming and wriggling back and forth while he tried to make the best of the situation, to make light of it in some way. He had to, somehow, and another laugh that was just as insincere burst from his lips as he tugged and pulled at his shirt, shoving it back into his smart work pants, which he was still wearing from the office, over and over again.

Yet he couldn't even button back up the blazer over his girth as he tried to hide just what was the obstacle between the two of them. His belly swelled out as much as he tried to suck it back in, tensing what abs he had under all that fat, though he made more of a scene and a spectacle of himself in trying to do that. Huffing and puffing, he tried to make breathless jokes about how he must have had a big breakfast, everything sitting funny in his stomach, how Khen always liked to cook him a lot when he knew that he was going to, otherwise, be fasting until the evening meal. He knew though that John too understood that that wasn't true. And that, perhaps, was the problem that he was dealing with.

Is my diet even working? Is any of this worth it if I'm still just gaining?

Oh, it would have been so tempting, so very tempting indeed, just to give up as he wriggled there, fighting against himself to do something that, only a short while ago, he hadn't had any trouble doing at all. It was the way of it, somehow, and it wasn't the way of it too, his arms fatter than they had been, although loosening his belt another notch on a new belt hadn't caused him the concern that it should have. He was bigger than ever before but had not truly realised that as he bulked up in the wrong way, beefier and thicker, a sickening sensation sweeping and sinking desperately down to the very pit of his stomach.

Nothing he did was going to get his shirt tucked neatly and professionally back into his pants and there was not a damn thing Gehart could do about it.

John coughed politely and Gehart tried to laugh again, although it came out even more hollow and desperate than the ones that had preceded it.

"Darn, would you look at that... Bit tight..."

Oh, why, oh, why, did he have to draw attention to it? That was beyond the edge of embarrassment and, for him, into fully-fledged humiliation.

Out, out. He had to get out.

He stood without saying anything, muttering something, a mumbled apology, skin crawling with prickling drops of heat. John would understand, he was sure, yanking his shirt down again and again, though each pull of the tight fabric came with an ever-increasing air of frustration that should not have been present. And, yet, that was just how Gehart was and everyone had their quirks, the things that they just couldn't abide.

Gehart's was attention being drawn to his weight.

"I'm sorry to keep you," he blustered, fumbling over his words. "There's...uh..."

Oh, could he have made it any more awkward? John understood, however, as well as he could, and pushed his chair back as Gehart did, although the stag was still very much trying to pull his shirt down and cover up his stomach at the same time. Words were exchanged but Gehart did not remember afterwards just what had been said, muttering something under his breath and rubbing the back of his neck, a sheepish itch lingering there.

He couldn't pause to let his nervous tics get the better of him, however, as he waddled from the cafe with one paw tugging down his shirt on one side while the other rolled up, awkward to the very last moment. His farewells were bid to John but he had to make good on his exit, at least able to get his jacket from the car to get on his way to the DMV and get his licence sorted out, what he had been out to do.

Still, his stomach growled, huffing and puffing as he hustled and rolled himself into the car, blushing at how even the seats of his pants were filled out a little more. It was more comfortable when he was sitting, of course, but made everything else more and more difficult, his thighs straining against the fabric of his pants, annoying and obscene in equal measures.

Sighing, Gehart leaned back, comfortable but not, wanting the ground to swallow him up whole. It was a shame that the gluttonous rise of his belly was not able to do that too for him, more than considering how large it was. He may have had his bigger jacket back on, the one that still, somewhat, fit him, but that wasn't going to help him when the weather warmed up again. He still had the bulk of winter to get through, however, and toasty-warm cafes and restaurants to deal with first of all. And who knew what the rest of the season would bring?

Still... Something wasn't quite right. He pressed his lips together.

Something wasn't right at all.