The Appartment

                                                  The Appartment
                                          or: A Little Pizza Heaven


Sunlight streamed lazily through thin curtains and onto the apartment floor, casting swatches of light over the cheap furniture filling the great room.  Amanda stirred as the beams of light drifted their way over her eyes.  Groggily at first she stirred, and then at last and somewhat reluctantly she turned over on the couch, causing a soft rustling on top of her abdomen.  She turned her copper eyes to the greasy box and the crumbling remnants of pizza crust within it that lay haphazardly across her torso.  As she sat up she let it slide off of her and onto the floor with a dull thump, spilling cold sauce and crumbs over the worn carpeting.  Amanda brushed her matted amber hair from her eyes and glanced, still only semi-consciously, over her wrinkled tank top and began to sweep the stale crumbs off of her body.  She pulled herself fully upright, yawning, and spied a bit of crust with a pepperoni still clinging to it that had slipped from the box onto her left thigh and picked it up, quizzically.  She swung her shapely legs off of the couch and leaned back into it, still pondering the slice she held in her fingers.  Then, shrugging, she popped the crust into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed; hey, why let perfectly good food go to waste?  And beside, she hadn’t even had breakfast yet.  Speaking of which….

Amanda heaved herself up stiffly and drew her arms skyward for a full body stretch, arching her back and stretching absentmindedly in a feminine, feline grace.  Ah, breakfast!  The thought brought a smile to her face.  Suddenly overcoming her former sloth, Amanda strolled leisurely into the tiny alcove that she was forced to call a kitchen.  Opening a few cabinets, she reached for the first thing within reach: cereal.  She somehow managed, just like every morning, to perform a master-class degree of balance and juggling in order to get the bowl, spoon, juice glass, and box of Lucky Charms--well, not Lucky Charms exactly, but a comparable bargain brand--in one trip before going to the refrigerator for milk and juice.  After pouring herself a bowl and raising the first spoonful to her mouth, she impulsively thought better of it and retrieved a box of donut holes from the counter before plopping eagerly back into her shambled, peeling chair.  This was all Amanda really needed, after all, she reflected as she spooned the cereal into her mouth, tasting the sugar coated bites and marshmallows mingling with the sweet glaze of the spongy donuts.  Amanda never was the type for college and the like.  She was already enrolled in a secretarial school, and that was more than enough for her.  It didn’t bother her one bit that her apartment was small and cheap; it’s not as if she really used it for all that much anyway.  The smaller and cheaper the better; all it meant was less work for her to do around the house.  Who did she have to impress with big rooms and extravagant belongings?  The only thing that her, or in her humble opinion anybody else’s for that matter, apartment was good for was eating and sleeping--especially both together--in that order.

Amanda had never been that big of a girl and the thought never even crossed her mind as a possibility--why would it?--and at that particular moment it didn’t make all that much difference to her.  The most she cared to improve her physical appearance were those endeavors which required little to no effort on her part to effect.  Despite her limited income, to say the absolute best of its merit, Amanda found it of the utmost importance, for example, to spend no less than five hours in tanning salons per week, leading her skin to be a silky bronze over every inch of her body, much to the disapproval of the salon managers when they found her “all-overing” in their public beds.  After tilting the remnants of the milk from her morning repast to her lips and swallowing it in one long draught, Amanda’s left hand moved reflexively to her abdomen to rub down the satisfying fullness as her right plucked one of the few remaining pastries from the dwindling supply in the box and placed it into her mouth.  While she chewed and swallowed, her hand moved up and down her stomach contentedly, feeling the unremarkable layer of softness enveloping it which would be considered by no one to be anything more than the structure of the natural feminine form.

Several moments into her leisure, Amanda’s mind began to churn back into the wakefulness: Hmm…now what was it that she had to do today?  A quick glance toward the couch encompassed the pizza boxes scattered about it in various states of decay reminded her of her bi (or tri…sometimes quadruple) weekly resort to her favorite restaurant in the world: the Pizzeria Via Roma.  Real Italian pizza with all the sauce, cheese, meats--but mostly cheese--that a girl could ever want and, consequentially, had as often as her budget would allow.  But no longer.  Today Amanda was going for broke: her rent was coming due in a week or two (she couldn’t quite remember which) and she could have unlimited access to the best pizza this side of heaven.  All she had to do was one, simple job interview.  If there was anything in this world that Amanda knew how to do, it was being a cashier.

                                                         ***

“So, Ms. Bellman; you’re here about the position we have available?” asked the perky, middle aged woman that sat behind the desk in the cramped office at the rear of Pizzeria Via Roma.

“Um…” said Amanda, a little uncertainly, “yeah…sure.  You guys need a cashier or something, right?”

“Yep,” said the woman cheerily, “sure do.  Let’s just have a look at your resume here, shall we?”  She glanced over the crinkled paper for a moment as Amanda blinked silently with a vacant expression from the tiny chair opposite the desk .  “Oh, my!” exclaimed the woman, excitedly.  “Well, you certainly do have a wealth of experience in this department, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Amanda, shrugging, “I guess.”

Still smiling, the woman said, “Well, why don’t you just scurry on out into the restaurant and I’ll come and get you after I speak with the manager, okay?”

Standing, “Sure,” said Amanda, “That’s fine.”  The woman hopped out of her chair and exited through a barely accessible door at the rear of the office, and Amanda squeezed out into the lunch-rush crowded lobby of the little restaurant.  The pizzeria wasn’t much to look at from the inside: only a few tables crowded into a small dine-in area, a faded orange counter to pick up and pay for orders; but that didn’t matter.  As Amanda’s living space proudly testified, the vast majority of Via Roma’s profit came not from eat-in diners, but rather from deliveries and takeout orders.  Amanda hurried into an unpadded chair in the far corner of the room, a rare vacancy in the small but prosperous business.  She sat there alone until she began to doze, watching the crowd of people constantly flowing in and out in a hurried blur.  Just as she began to nod off, her interviewer returned briskly.

“Hello there, miss!  Miss?”  Amanda jerked her flushed face up to see the woman standing over her, holding her resume out for her to take.  This did not bode well.

“Congratulations, Ms. Bellman!  You’ve got the job.”  Amanda, wide eyed and relieved took the proffered paper and stood to shake the woman’s eager hand.

“Wow,” she said listlessly, still half asleep, “thanks.”

“Oh, golly no--don’t thank me.  Thank your new boss!”

“Oh…right.  Where is he?  Er…I mean, when does he assign me my hours?”

“Ah, well about that.  Mr. Giuspelli has requested that you come up to his apartment for that; he says it’s always to busy down here to ever get any real work done!  Hoo hoo!  Isn’t that funny, dear?”  Amanda laughed halfheartedly.  “Ooh hoo…now, anyway; it’s that staircase over there on your left,” she said, pointing appropriately, “see it right there, dear?  Good!  Off you go now.”

Amanda hesitated; this didn’t seem quite right to her.  “Hey, wait.  Doesn’t it seem kinda weird to you?  Has he always done this with all of his new employees?”

The woman looked puzzled, and then grinned from ear to ear.  “What, hon, you mean me?  Oh gosh no; how would I know?  Mr. Giuspelli just called my agency last week; I’m just a temp dear.  All I was supposed to do was look you over and check your resume.”

“Oh…” was Amanda’s only reply.  This was getting a little weird for her taste.  Nevertheless, Amanda thanked the woman for her help and watched her wave and wish her good luck through the shrinking strip of light as Amanda closed the door behind her and began her ascent of the staircase.

Amanda blinked as she entered the dark stairwell, her only light being the dim red glow of an “Exit” sign buzzing somewhere above her.  From the street it had appeared to Amanda that the apartment was only one floor above the busy shop (she could still smell the pizzas baking, the smell wafting under the door), but as her eyes adjusted to the light, or lack thereof, she could see that the stairs were somewhat longer than she had expected.  They doubled over themselves twice, making the climb uncomfortably low and narrow as she cautiously scaled the steps.  When she reached the top, Amanda found herself staring at a heavy metal door much like the kind she had seen at the rear entrances to movie theaters that she had many times used to sneak in for free.  There was a large dead bolt above a plunger handle that opened by swinging it a quarter of the way around its hinge.  Cozy.  Riveted into the top of the door was a metal plate that read “A. D. Giuspelli.”  Amanda placed her hand on the handle of the door separating her from her new job and apparently unusual new boss; there was no light coming through the bottom of the door.  It was sealed against anything from the outside; this guy must really like his privacy, thought Amanda.  Taking a deep breath, she slowly turned the handle and opened the door to find…nothing, no one.

Inside was a rather plain looking apartment; not so much unlike her own.  It was a little less threadbare, perhaps, but strikingly similar in its utilitarian design to Amanda’s little home.  There was an obviously cheap beige couch in the middle of the room, a few end tables and a coffee table in front of the couch, and a floor lamp adding the small amount of light that filled the deserted room--the overhead light was not on.  The carpeting was equally drab but felt soft underfoot.  Around the corner of a short hall at the rear of the room Amanda could see another, smaller room.  It was apparently the bedroom by the looks of the neatly made queen sized mattress visible through the doorframe--one without a door in it.  Feeling all of a sudden quite alone, Amanda began to explore the apartment.  It didn’t take her too long: the only other room was a bathroom connected through the bedroom adorned with only a combination shower-tub, a modest commode, sink, and a small closet with a scale under its lowest shelf. It was stocked with what looked to be many weeks’ supply of towels, tissues, and other toiletries.  Nowhere was her would-be employer.  Even stranger, or so it seemed to Amanda, was the apparent lack of every home’s most important room: the kitchen.  Thoroughly puzzled, Amanda walked back into the main room and noticed something else that she had not before.  A large rectangular section of the room’s right wall seemed to have slid open.  She leaned her head into it for a closer look at what turned out to be an oversized dumbwaiter, and sitting neatly folded on the raised platform was a sheet of paper with a single word printed on the outside: “Amanda.”  She picked it up, becoming more and more confused by the second, but as she unfolded it, her awe turned quickly to shock.  Written very neatly in hand writing she had never seen, Amanda read:

“Hello, and may I say first of all, congratulations!  From what I could see in your application, you display every quality that I ask of an employee…and a little bit more.  As you may have already guessed, I am not in this loft, and there is to be no further job assignment.  However, what I will ask of you is that you stay here until such a time as I see fit for you to leave.  There is no need to worry about bills or food, least of all the latter; this is after all, the apartment of a restaurant owner.  Food will be sent up three times every day to start.  If you require anything else or just want to say ‘hello,’ simply leave a note with the dumbwaiter--you’ll find a pen and some paper in the table drawers.  Thanks again for applying, and please enjoy your stay!

P.S.  Go ahead and try all of the doors and windows if you must; you’ll find that they are each quite impassable.

Sincerely,
A. D. Giuspelli”

Amanda dropped the note back on the tray and raced to the door, slamming down on the handle, only to find that it wouldn’t budge.  She tried again and again, hammering on it with her fists and kicking like mad, screaming for help that would neither hear nor come.  Exhausted, Amanda went to plan B: windows--the apartment had two, and if she couldn’t climb out, she could definitely yell for help.  She yanked open the first set of curtains and her face fell; the glass was blacked out and the barred.  Try as she might, she couldn’t wedge it open and there was nothing strong enough to break the glass and thin enough to fit through the bars anywhere in the apartment: Amanda was well and truly trapped.  Slowly, she slumped into the couch, tears welling in her eyes.  She was just about to break down when she heard a squeaking coming from her right.  The dumbwaiter had disappeared and reappeared; only this time it was carrying a steaming pizza box and a bottle of soda.

Amanda didn’t even bother to open the box.  She stormed to an end table and rummaged through its drawer.  She found inside it a single pen.  She stomped back to the dumbwaiter and scrawled on the lid “Fuck you and your god damned pizza!!!”  She slammed the door down on the dumbwaiter and heard it creak away.  She stood panting in rage for a few minutes, and then heard the platform coming back up to her.  The door slid open and the same pizza and soda sat on the tray.  Under Amanda’s message was a single neatly written word: “Maybe.”

Amanda spent the rest of the day sitting with her back against the impenetrable door, staring at the floor.  Eventually, she grew drowsy, turned off the lamp, and went back to her post to fall gradually into a dead sleep.

When she awoke, Amanda’s only indication that it was morning was an old digital clock sitting on the bedside table in the bedroom proclaiming 8:13 down the hall in its blocky red numerals.  She felt like she had just woken up from a nightmare, but a quick glance at her surroundings told her that it was all very real.  Amanda rose slowly, stretching and popping out the kinks from her uncomfortable night’s rest.  The living room was exactly as she had left it the night before with only one, slight difference: last night’s pizza had been replaced by a fresh one, the soda by a carton of juice, and with the addition of short glass.  Along with this was a neatly folded change of clothes; nothing fancy, just a t-shirt, shorts, and underwear.  Amanda checked their tags; they were her size.  Amanda was quickly made aware of another problem: she was ravenously hungry.  It didn’t take her long to come to a conclusion--she hadn’t eaten since breakfast yesterday--she didn’t know exactly what was going on here, but she wasn’t going to think any more clearly by starving herself.

She opened the box and practically inhaled the delicious aroma that it poured forth.  The pizza was pepperoni, her favorite.  Somehow, that didn’t surprise her.  Gingerly, she picked up one of the slices and brought it to her nose; it certainly smelled alright.  She nibbled the end and rolled it around on her tongue; it tasted fine, too.  Hungry enough to take the chance, Amanda took a bite…then another…and another until she had finished the piece.  Well, she wasn’t dead yet, but now she was thirsty.  Amanda poured herself a glass of juice and, after a small sampling, drank it dry.  Her thirst sated, Amanda chose another slice from the excellent selection within the greasy cardboard, this time sure that it was not going to harm her.  She did this again with her third and managed to choke down a fourth and another glass of juice before considering herself full.  That mild distraction dissipated, Amanda turned her focus to the clothes that she had tossed onto the couch.  Amanda turned them over in her hands; they were simple: a yellow top, black nylon shorts, and a white bra and panties, nothing special, nothing spectacular, everything on which she would bother to spend her own money.  Looking around, Amanda thought it best not to change her clothes right in the middle of the room; god knows what kind of person was probably watching her at that very moment.  So, taking them into the bedroom, she brought them into the bathroom with her for her next logical choice, taking a shower; something that she could not long avoid.

Once inside, Amanda gave the room the thrice over, peering into every corner, standing on the toilet to inspect the ceiling, tracing every inch of the wall, even the piping of the shower head, but the bathroom, just like the rest of the apartment, was completely sealed off from the outside world.  Confident in her privacy, Amanda bathed for over an hour, letting the warm water wash over her soft skin and trying her very best to relax.  When she was tired of the rhythm of the falling water, Amanda climbed out of the shower and changed into her new clothes, carefully laying her old ones in an empty corner of the linen closet.

She walked back into the living room and sat in the couch.  Then, she waited.  She waited for anything, anyone to do something, send her something to do, to while away the hours; there was no television, no magazines, no books, nothing.  So there she sat, helpless and going mad with boredom for what seemed like an eternity.  She twisted positions, flipping and flopping all over the couch, clutching the cushions or throwing them across the room, but nothing lasted more than a few seconds.  Eventually, her numb gaze fell upon the pizza still sitting in the chute and she moved to it.  Picking up a slice in her hand, she bit off the end; it was cold, but it was still delicious.  Taking the slice back to the couch, she slowly nibbled away at her excitement until she had eaten it all.  She sat up, then, just as bored but now realizing that she was hungry, just as hungry as before, maybe even more than before.  She grabbed another piece and brought it to the couch, not wanting to bring the box just to give herself more to do.  She ate this one a little faster than before, but still trying to go slowly to take as long as possible.  Her little ritual of boredom carried on until the box was empty.  The picked up the carton of juice and drank its remnants, then closed the door of the dumbwaiter, disgusted that she had eaten the entire pizza in less than two hours.  What was worse, she didn’t even feel full, and even if she was, she doubted that she was awake enough to notice.  She slumped, listless, back into the couch and stared at the ceiling, trying to count the little nodules poking down at her.

She didn’t get too far.  In only a few minutes she heard a squeaking sound and drew her tired gaze over to the dumbwaiter.  On its platform was another steaming box and a liter bottler of soda.  Confused, Amanda got up to look into the bedroom and saw the clock…her clock.  It read 12:02.  Lunch.  Amanda groaned quietly to herself.

Amanda let an hour pass in defiance before giving into her boredom.  She grabbed the box from the dumbwaiter and opened it on the coffee table.  One by one, minute by minute, she chipped away at its contents until it was empty and the bottle lay filled with nothing but air on the floor.  It was only 3:46.  Finding nothing else to do, Amanda did her best to try to fall asleep on the couch, which she did, but only for short bursts, waking up every ten minutes or so and thinking that hours must have passed, praying that they had, her prayers unanswered.

Six o’clock…dinner time.  Not surprisingly it was the same as lunch, but Amanda forced herself to have no appetite.  She picked herself up and slowly dragged her feet into the bedroom to try and fall asleep in a more usual fashion.  She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, lights out, under the sheets.  Her stomach ached a little from all the food with which she had occupied herself for the past ten hours.  She placed her hands on her stomach; it felt like there was something hard, way down in the pit of it; it felt that way to both to her hands and her heart.

Amanda woke up groggily but still considerably better rested than the previous day had found her.  She had slept in her clothes, and both they and her hair were matted and sweaty.  Her dreams had not all been pleasant.  Looking around her, Amanda had to assure herself that she was still trapped in the little apartment.  She moved to the living room and found her “breakfast” waiting for her, still warm in the box.  It was pepperoni again, and, despite her situation, she found it hard to complain about her rations.  Along with the food there was another change of clothes, the same as before, and after showering, Amanda placed what she had worn the previous day on the tray and shut the door, listening to it creak away.

Amanda had not been as hungry as the day before, stopping herself at two slices to save more for later.  She had made a resolution to herself during the night: no matter how bored, how desperate she became, Amanda would never ask for anything.  No television.  No radio.  No books, magazines, music…nothing.  There was no way that she was ever going to take anything from this nutcase…except food.  She couldn’t get around that.  There was no way for her to be sure that he wouldn’t just let her starve to death if she stopped eating, so why punish herself?

Amanda spent the rest of the morning on the couch, leaving only once to relieve herself.  She stared at the ceiling again, tried to sleep, anything that she could imagine given her limited resources to entertain herself, but mostly she ate.  Between every little dot in the ceiling, ever bat of her eyelashes, she took a small bite of the pizza until the slice was gone.  Then, she took another piece from the box until it was empty.  She managed to eek this out until ten thirty.

At noon, Amanda’s lunch arrived, the same as yesterday’s, and her dirty clothes had apparently been taken away out of courtesy.  How terribly gracious, thought Amanda before beginning to gnaw away at her afternoon entertainment.  Still full from the morning, Amanda didn’t quite finish her meal, a few slices remaining, before dinner came.  She whiled away the hours, now laying this way on the couch, now laying that, all the while continuing to snack on lunch’s remnants and as much of dinner as her stomach, even in her boredom, would allow.  Her mind in a daze, and her stomach full beyond being comfortable, Amanda finally trundled into bed, already half asleep, near midnight.

Amanda woke slowly as the silent gnawing of her hungry stomach roused her from sleep.  She opened her eyes and stared upward groggily.  Getting her bearings, Amanda lifted herself upward and forcing a roll of flab to roll over the waistband of her substantially tighter underwear.  Amanda had been in the apartment for over two weeks--she had lost track of the days exactly, but she was sure that at least two weeks had to have passed.  Well, she was as sure about that as she was about anything else in her new home.  Amanda swung her legs over the side of the bed and her feet made a small thud as they contacted the floor.  Amanda looked at her bare legs.  They were closer together than she had remembered and thicker, too.  Moving her eyes toward her torso, Amanda saw the little roll of flesh peeking out at her from under her shirt, red near its base from her panties’ waistband rubbing against it all night.  As she rose slowly, Amanda’s new companion disappeared, but her stomach protruded several inches and made her shirt stretch to accommodate it.

Just like every day before, Amanda found a carton of juice and a pizza waiting for her, piping hot.  Amanda had gotten used to waking up closer to the time of her breakfast’s arrival with each passing day.  Taking the pizza with her, Amanda plopped down on the couch, making her new tummy pop out into the open once more.  There was nothing to do now but sit, wait, and eat.  Amanda, having found more room inside her stomach each day, put away four slices easily before her morning shower.  Only this time, when Amanda attempted to don her shorts, she found them unbearable.  Unlike Amanda, her clothes had stayed the same size for as long as she had been in the loft; she still refused to contact her captor, and he had returned the favor in kind.  When she pulled the shorts up to her waist, they, even with their elastic, squeezed her butt and thighs tremendously and made her stomach pooch out even more, rolling over the top of the waistband.  Her shirt was pushed up a little, showing her still tanned--but with the color deteriorating rapidly back into her normal pinkish-white flesh--stomach to the base of her navel.  Amanda didn’t notice this, all she cared for at the moment was the biting of the waistband of her shorts into her tender flesh, but she was far from ignorant of it.  Amanda knew that with each passing day her body grew just a little bit heavier, not much, but over several weeks it had built up to what she guessed had to be a few dozen pounds.  Oddly, however, or so it seemed to her, she didn’t really care.  Normally she would have thought that if she had gained weight she would have cared a great deal, probably just from the difference that it made in her, not that she cared that much about her physical appearance.  After all, who was there to see her now anyway?  Amanda had long ago abandoned the prospect that there was some secret peep hole or exit way into or out of her fully furnished prison cell; at least, not that she could ever find, and at that point Amanda had begun to harbor the philosophy that if anyone had gone through that much trouble to conceal some way of looking at her, then probably deserved to and were welcome to it.  It was sort of a backhanded compliment.  No, Amanda had thought that if she would have cared about anything in regard to her weight, it would be that she would have to go through to trouble of accommodating her life to deal with her augmented weight if she ever gained any, but in such confined quarters virtually void of any sort of entertaining stimuli, there wasn’t much to which she had to adjust at all.  The only thing that bothered her was that damned waistband.  Taking off her shorts, Amanda returned to her pizza and spent the rest of the day alone with her confused thoughts and consolidated herself by filling her time and stomach with the delicious pizza.

By midmorning, almost two weeks later, Amanda was fed up.  It was barely nine o’clock and she had been sitting alone with her empty pizza box and juice carton for nearly twenty minutes.  Also aware that with each passing day she had been able to finish the bulk of her pizza and eventually the entire thing in progressively less time, Amanda had become increasingly concerned over what she was going to do to keep herself from going crazy.  She rose into a sitting position on the couch, causing the additional pounds that had been packed onto her growing and visibly distended belly to sprawl all the way down to the top of her thighs, all but fully obscuring the waist of her ruthlessly uncomfortable shorts.  Her thighs, too, were struggling to bulge over the legs of her shorts, and her breasts, also swollen from her weeks of fatty feasting, showed more quivering flesh bulging over the top of her bra and through to neck of her top than was actually stuffed inside it.  The night before she had had nothing to do for the entire evening after the first half hour, she was so hungry from all the time she had to kill after lunch, which she had exhausted after only two hours of painfully slow munching, that she practically inhaled it, and she knew that she would start to go nuts if that went on for much longer.

Sickened by her only option, and knowing that it was his intention the whole time, Amanda grasped the pen in her pizza-grease soaked hands for only the second time since she had been locked in the apartment.  Placing the box back into the dumbwaiter, she wrote as calmly and sincerely as she could manage given her opinion of her captor: “Alright…you win.  I’m finally asking for something,” Amanda heaved a sigh before continuing.  “Please send up more food from now on.”  She closed the door on the dumbwaiter and heard it creak downward.

She immediately regretted her choice.  There was no reply, though she had expected that there would have been.  Amanda began to panic about what was going to happen.  What if he cut off her food supply all together?  What if he sent too much and it all started to rot in the tiny apartment?  Most of all, she regretted how weak and foolish it would make her look.  She had officially given in to his power over her, and there was no turning back for her now, and she hated it but could do nothing.  When an hour had passed without a reply, Amanda didn’t know what to think.  She only lay down sideways on the couch, letting her belly lay on the cushion, and waited, deeply worried and busied by her thoughts while the hours passed.  At noon, Amanda finally received a sign of life from below her: the dumbwaiter was making its creaking ascent.  When the panel slid open, Amanda was shocked by what it contained.  On the tray there was not one pizza, not even two; there were three, three steaming hot pizzas and a bottle of soda the same as before.  Amanda sprang to the platform as quickly as she possibly could to see if there was anything else; there was a piece of paper with a short note written on the top:

“I was wondering when I was going to hear from you, and, frankly, I’m surprised that you waited this long.  You didn’t have to be so cordial; I already told you that I would get you almost anything that you want, but I appreciate the effort nonetheless.  I hope that these will do for now.”

Amanda was elated. Not only had she expected the worst and received the best that she could have hoped for, albeit a little patronizing, but she was starving and had more food in front of her than she could possibly eat in one afternoon, and probably the same amount coming for dinner.  She dug into the first pizza with gusto, practically inhaling the first half of it and slowing down to savor the rest, finishing it around fifteen minutes after she had started.  Her stomach more than full and noticeably distended, Amanda sat up with her hands on her stuffed belly, contented, and looked at the note which she had carried to the coffee table along with the pizza box.

She still wasn’t comfortable with asking this guy for anything; it just seemed off to her.  What she was really confused about was the way she felt after eating an entire large pizza for lunch.  She pressed her fingers into her belly.  They sank in a little over an inch, but she could tell that they would have gone further if she wasn’t so full.  Her stomach was definitely full, but it wasn’t hard, and it still had some yield when she pressed it.  It gurgled back at her in response.  What surprised her was the way it felt: good.  She didn’t feel normal, like she had just satisfied a need to survive or anything, and she did feel a little uncomfortable with the pressure inside her stomach; but, she liked it and didn’t know why.  It just felt pleasurable to her to be so full and to press her stomach like she was doing.  She stopped suddenly, a little uncomfortable with the idea of being turned on by overeating, and gave her full attention to the note once more.

Feeling more relaxed and a little confident, Amanda decided to see how far she could push her good luck and wrote back.  Removing the rest of the pizzas and the unopened soda from the dumbwaiter, she replaced the note along with the little addition she had tacked on to it: “Alright, then…how about a magazine?  It gets really boring up here.”  She had wanted to add ‘or don’t you already know that?’ but had decided that the magazine was more important than being bitter at the moment.  After she shut the door and heard the platform move away, Amanda plopped back down on the couch and drank her soda about half way down.  In a few minutes, the dumbwaiter returned with a new addition of People and the same note saying, “See; now it isn’t that hard, is it?”

Amanda tore the magazine from the platform with glee and practically bounced back to the couch, confident that her newfound method of entertainment would keep her snacking habit at bay.  She turned to the first page of an article with relish, and made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t read more than one article an hour, even if she had to read over the same one again and again.  As she read, slowly, she didn’t even notice that after a few minutes had passed and she was only a quarter of the way done with the first article that she was nibbling at the end of a slice of pizza from one of the new boxes.  When she realized, she had already taken a few bites, but quickly put it back in the open box like it had a plague.  Trying to ignore the delicious aroma of the pizza, Amanda read on with increased concentration, but always gnawing in the back of her mind was the smell of the pizza and the pleasure that its taste could bring her.  She made a valiant effort, but Amanda, urged on by her new girth, couldn’t stand it any longer after an hour.  She still held onto the magazine, still enthralled by something to read, but grabbed the slice she had started to eat earlier, by that time it had become cold, and finished it while reading.  She reached for another one, it was as cold as the first one but just as good, and devoured it, and then another as she whiled away the hours, reading through two more articles before she broke into the third box.  Her stomach was practically in pain from all the pizza she had consumed and it bulged out over her thighs, making her shirt ride over her belly button and forcing her shorts and panties downward, but all she cared about was the taste in her mouth, not how full she was.  By the time her dinner rations arrived, the same as lunch, Amanda had plowed her way through two thirds of the third box, which she finished as quickly as she could so she could start on the new batch before they became cold.

Hours and two and a third more pizzas later, Amanda was exhausted.  She had lain flat on the couch after she started to eat her dinner pizzas to stop the pain that enveloped her stomach when she was sitting, making it bend.  Feeling sick, Amanda tried to sit upright.  As she heaved with her arms, a sharp pain shot through her distended belly, and she dropped back down in shock, causing another pain from the sudden jar.  Trying another route, Amanda slowly brought her legs over the edge of the couch and lifted herself forward and up at the same time so that with one mighty heave she was standing upright and fighting for her balance.  When she found it, Amanda looked down at herself, or what of herself she could see.  Amanda’s new flabby tummy was bulging out more than a foot in front of her breasts, which were themselves pushed slightly apart by her enormous, quivering gut.  They were pushed up so much that with every breath she took they sloshed on top of her bra and made her belly shake with their momentum.  Her shirt had risen almost up to the bottom of her breasts, and it looked like it was straining at the sides to hold together, even at that level.  Amanda lifted an arm and placed it on the top of her belly.  She pressed into it and found that any pressure she applied sent a tremor of pain through her skin stretched tight over her bloated belly.  She patted it anyway and enjoyed the tingling sensation that followed, but there was a little voice in the back of her head telling her that she was still uncomfortable with the thought of stuffing herself silly and getting pleasure from it.

Bracing herself for pain, Amanda lumbered slowly toward her bed and lowered herself slowly into it.  As she covered herself, she realized that she was still wearing her clothes, but quickly dismissed the thought of getting out of them at the moment; it would be nigh impossible and extremely painful.  Amanda slipped her arms under the covers and rubbed them up and down her belly with her eyes closed, feeling the pressure from inside and out until she drifted off into a deep, torpid sleep.

Amanda woke immediately and completely at 10:43 the next morning.  When she opened her eyes and saw the sheets around her, she was momentarily taken aback.  Not only did it appear as though she had not moved since she fell asleep, but the height of the sheets didn’t seem quite right, either.  They were pushed up further than she remembered them ever having been before and her legs were laying flat.  Amanda threw the sheets off of her body and jumped out of bed heavily, feeling refreshed.  Wondering what was different, Amanda looked down at herself seriously for the first time in weeks, and when she did, she was more than a little surprised.  The first thing she noticed was that her shirt, though fully extended, was riding well above where it should have been on her belly.  In fact, her belly was exposed from its bottom to almost five inches above her navel.

Her belly looked different, too: it was barely tanned any longer and had grown from being small and a little soft, as she had remembered it, to being large, heavy, and round.  It hung over the waistband of her shorts in a thick roll completely obliterating the band from view and jutting outward by almost eight inches.  She cupped her hands under it in wonder and lifted it.  It came up as one large mass and tried to flow through her fingers.  When she let it go, it flopped down onto her upper thighs, bouncing and jiggling in waves up through her breasts for several seconds.  Amazed, Amanda shook her thick tummy from side to side, making it jiggle and sway heavily.  She patted it with her hands and it bounced back and forth making a slopping sound.  Satisfied for the moment with her belly, Amanda explored the rest of her now alien body which seemed so much rounder to her, but was really only slightly larger than it was before she had eaten so much food the day before.  The prospect of her breasts was alluring, and Amanda cupped each in her hands, feeling their heft and round softness.  She felt her body all the way down her thighs, but stopped where the legs of her shorts dug painfully into her tender flesh.

She reached under her belly for the waistband and tugged her shorts down sharply, then kicked them off, making her entire body jiggle in response.  Next, she yanked her shirt off over her head, a much harder feat than the shorts considering that most of her weight was accumulating in her belly and breasts, and when she pulled it up, her shirt became caught momentarily under her boobs.  With her shirt off, the only thing confining them was her now tiny bra, against which they had been struggling mightily but were still painfully contained.  Amanda unclasped her bra and it practically sprang off of her.  Her breasts jumped forth and quivered like balloons of fat on her chest for several seconds.  Her stomach was also freed from her shirt and jiggled almost happily at being set free.

Amanda sat heavily on the foot of the bed and put her hands under her butt to feel what it was like, too.  She found that it was thick with new fat, and when she squeezed it, it felt like she was trying to move her hands through warm pudding.  She ran her hands down her freshly exposed thighs, finding them much the same, and patted her calves to watch them sway.  Amanda was fascinated; she had never felt this way before.  Every part of her body was so warm and soft that it was almost…sensual….  Amanda shook her head, trying to snap herself out of this craziness, but the thought had already taken root, and it was still seething in the back of her mind.  She looked down at her belly again, placing a hand on either side of it.  She pressed it together, making the flesh bunch up and fold over her hands…it felt…good.  She did it again, and again; swirling her fat tummy in her hands, lifting it up and down, bouncing it, anything that she could think of to continue the feeling in her belly and the tingling beginning to moisten the area between her legs.

Suddenly, Amanda stopped and stared at the ceiling, removing her hands from her shaking gut and leaning back on them, breathing heavily.  She had to stop…this was just too much.  Tearing her mind away from her body, Amanda heaved her naked self upward and waddled into the main room of her apartment, determined to keep her mind preoccupied.

There was still two-thirds of the last pizza she had eaten the night before laying in its box on the coffee table.  In the dumbwaiter there were three more pizzas, all of which, having sat there for several hours, were cold--except the one in the middle of the stack--and a fresh pair of clothing.  Not wanting to be completely naked, Amanda struggled to hook on the bra, squishing her breasts tightly together.  She pulled the panties up to the middle of her thighs before they became too tight.  She pulled and slowly rolled them up with her fingers until the fabric was stretched within an inch of its existence, but they were at least covering her pubic hair, and she was fairly confident that they would be held in place by the pressure of her butt cheeks swallowing them into her crack.  Ignoring her half finished magazine, Amanda grabbed the middle pizza and brought it back to the couch.  Taking one slice from the old box and one from the new, she sandwiched them together and began to take huge, tearing bites, filling her mouth completely with each one.  She barely took the time to chew and swallow before stuffing as much pizza as she could into her mouth.  The two pizzas commingled inside her mouth so that together they were lukewarm.  At that rate, Amanda had managed to stuff both the remaining third of cold pizza and the whole new one into her stomach in only a few minutes.  Beginning to feel ravenous, Amanda grabbed the other pizzas from their perch and did them same with them as with the first two, stuffing slice after slice into her mouth as fast as her mouth could cram them into her gurgling belly.  When she had nearly completely devoured the last of the pizza, Amanda began to slow down a little, but continued to stuff the food into her mouth as long as it was in front of her.

Finally, Amanda swallowed the last bite and brought the daily carton of juice to her mouth, tipping it back and chugging the whole thing.  Exhausted, Amanda flopped back into the couch and let her stomach settle onto her thighs.  She placed her hands on it and began pressing and rubbing it to sooth the pain it was sending her in sharp waves.  She wasn’t surprised that she wanted to rub it; her belly seemed huge.  It had expanded to handle all of the pizza being stuffed into it so suddenly and had grown outward by several inches.  As good as it felt, Amanda quickly realized that her plan had backfired, and that by rubbing her stuffed belly, she was even more turned on than she was in her bedroom.  Rolling on her side to reach the table on her right, letting her belly flop onto the couch cushions, Amanda reached into the drawer and pulled out the pen and a fresh sheet of paper.  Heaving herself up mightily and throwing her heavy belly into waves of jiggling, Amanda trudged to the dumbwaiter and, before she closed the door, deposited on it a note bearing a single, important word “MORE!”

Amanda dropped heavily back onto the couch and waited, doing her best to keep her mind blank and to only stare at the wall where the food she was awaiting should appear.  Ignoring the pressure in her belly and the gnawing hunger in her mind, Amanda focused on the anticipation that was threatening to drive her insane.  The time she sat in silence but for her heavy breathing seemed immeasurable to Amanda, so when she finally heard the dumbwaiter return, she was elated.  She leaned forward and shifted her weight from the couch to her feet so she could waddle uncomfortably over to meet the dumbwaiter.  When it reached the top and the panel slid open, Amanda’s eyes widened and her jaw slackened.  Inside were five large pizzas and a couple of two liter soda bottles, more then she had expected and far and away more than she knew she could eat.  Amanda looked down at her round gut and placed her hands on it, feeling both the soft yield it still gave under her hands and the moistening inside her that the thought aroused, Amanda brought the pizzas to the couch began to eat.

In the evening, Amanda had managed to stumble into bed and was out like a light.  Under the sheets, she was laying naked.  Hours ago her panties had shredded and her bra had broken at the clasp as her belly continued to expand and push her other equally prominent assets upward and outward.  Dinner that night had only been one pizza instead of three or five, but all told, Amanda had managed to swallow almost nine whole pizzas in one day.  Her stomach had expanded enormously and had grown by more than a foot outward, forcing Amanda to sleep on her side to let it rest some of its weight on the mattress.  By the end of the day, she was in such tremendous pain that it was the only thing she could think about, but Amanda knew that the damage had been done.  Past midmorning, Amanda stopped focusing on preoccupying herself and kept eating out of her desire to do so.  She couldn’t resist the flavor of the pizza in her mouth and the pleasure that each bite she swallowed brought.  Until the pain became overwhelming, Amanda began to look at the size of her inflated belly, thinking back to how it had felt in her hands in the morning, and wondered how it would feel if it were bigger…enormous and heavy and soft; what if it were bigger when it was empty than it had been when she was stuffed full?  That thought kept her eating, and she no longer cared about being turned on by being fat.  She knew that she liked it, and she was going to make it even better.  Why should she restrain her new passion?  She had a free (apparently) and virtually endless supply of food whenever she wanted, and she may as well take advantage of her situation.