The sign was in French, but my
brother Grant was positive it was the right place. He looked at me and said
something in French. “What?” I replied. “Don’t worry Pete this will be fun!” he
answered. I was skeptical. I’m not the kind of guy that can go to a foreign
country for a year and relax. We were staying with our other brother who moved
out here to be with his girlfriend and her family. We haven’t seen Jerrod in
over six months, but we talked via instant messaging all the time. Apparently,
Anjulie, his girlfriend, has been dying to meet us. That and her family comes
from a long line of pastry chefs that have owned a bakery in Paris for
generations. That’s why Grant was sure this red brick building was the right
place, there was an old looking bakery attached to it with cakes in the window
that Jerrod often described. Jerrod described a cake called a croquembouche.
It’s basically a cake made out of doughnuts. Anjulie baked him one for his
birthday. In his words, “It was so good I ate the entire thing by myself and
Anjulie’s parents just laughed.” I guess gluttony is less frowned upon here.
Grant knocked on the door and of course Anjulie answered. I’ve only seen
pictures of her before and she looked just like the one’s Jerrod sent over. She
was a little more full in the face than I remember. She introduced us to her mother and father and cat who were all
perfectly lovely. But then Jerrod walked into the room. Grant and I were both
in a little bit of shock for Jerrod looked like he had gained some weight… a
lot of weight in fact. Jerrod was the athlete in our family. He loved to hike
and swim and play soccer. He used to have abs, but it looks like he hasn’t seen
those in months. Jerrod had a soft belly that protruded from the tucked in
dress shirt he was wearing. I could also see an outline of fat that had formed
around his pecs. His legs were stockier and he had a much fuller, rounder
bottom than he used to. Grant was the first to make a move. He didn’t break eye
contact and simply said, “Hey Jerr, you look good.” I could tell Grant was
trying to point out the elephant in the room. Unfortunately he failed since
Jerrod simple replied, “Thanks, so do you.” I felt like I had to say something,
“Hey big guy, has France been treating you well?” He replies with a proud yes
and continued with some stories so we would get caught up. A lot of his stories
involved food, no surprise there, food that Anjulie’s parents made, food from
the bakery, food from restaurants all over town. As he told these stories he
was sitting down on the sofa where is gut hung over his waistline and rested on
his lap. Does he not notice? I
thought. Just as I was about to say something, Jerrod invited Grant and I to
one of his favorite bars. There Grant and I had a beer, but Jerrod had just
finished off his fourth beer and ate nearly all of the deep fried bar food we
ordered. “You must’ve been hungry huh?” I said. “This is nothing, just wait
till we get back, Anjulie is probably gonna have some éclairs or something for
us.” Jerrod replied. “So much for treating your body like a temple.” Grant
joked while patting Grant’s belly. Finally
someone said something. “Yeah I’ve gained a few pounds since moving out
here, but I love it.”
“Really” Grant said in disbelief.
“Yeah, Anjulie doesn’t mind, her
parents love that I love their food. In fact I hope you guys brought
comfortable pants because I imagine they’re going to feed you too.”
When we got back to the house there
were the éclairs that Jerrod had promised. He had two, but then had to unbutton
his pants to have the third. I didn’t realize how hungry I was. I ate three as
well while Grant only had one. Anjulie’s father came up to me and said in a
very thick accent that he liked the way I eat and then gave my stomach a pat. Then
he said to not worry because there’s plenty more that came from. Like What? I wondered.
It had been a little over a month
of living with my brother Jerrod. Despite Anjulie’s family’s dismay, we put
Jerrod on a diet. He lost about five of the forty pounds he had gained, which
wasn’t much, but at least he wasn’t eating greasy bar food anymore. As for
Grant and I we haven’t worried much. Anjulie made us amazing desserts every
evening. I kept telling her she has gone to too much trouble doing this for us,
but apparently all the food we were getting were just leftovers from the
bakery, “They’ll just go to waste if a couple of nice young boys don’t finish
them for me.” We couldn’t resist her and her chocolate pies. I was especially
excited because today was my birthday and Anjulie guaranteed the best
croquembouche she’s ever made. I sat down to dinner, which was a four-course
meal with the doughnut cake for dessert. The croquembouche was massive. How did Jerrod eat this entire thing? I
looked over and saw that an inch of his gut was sticking out from under his
shirt and realized the answer was clear to me. I took a large portion from the
top of the cake and the pastry melted in my mouth. It was followed by a
sweetness that was so good I immediately had to take another piece. Jerrod and
Grant were too full from the meal to taste the delicious cake, but I just
thought, “More for me!” Before I knew
it only the metal plate was left. I had eaten the entire cake! Grant then
looked at me and handed me an object, “I found this on the floor.” He
whispered. It was a button, the button from my shorts. I looked down to see
that my shorts had completed burst open sometime during the feast. After the
inevitable food coma I waddled upstairs to the bathroom. There was a scale that
measured pounds for my benefit. I hopped on and foolishly hoped to see 150, my
normal weight. The scale crawled all the way up to 167. How did I gain 17 pounds?! Oh yeah, the three foot tall cake… Grant
walked into the bathroom with me standing on the scale, “Did you gain some
weight too?” he asked. “Too? Did you gain weight?” I asked. “Yeah check it
out.” Grant lifted up his shirt to reveal a layer of fat that hung over his
waistline. “The scale said I gained 15 pounds last week.” He hopped on the scale.
“Make that 18 pounds.” He said. I looked in the mirror to find that I had a gut
roughly the same size as Grants, although his wasn’t as bloated as mine. What’s going to happen five months from now?
It had been five months since I
asked myself that question. Well for a little while I tried to eat better, but
Anjulie was always there with cake, pies, and other delicious pastries. I
rolled out of bed in nothing but my boxer briefs on. They were so tight I
might as well have worn briefs. I went down into the living room with a box of
doughnuts that Anjulie had left us. I sat on the sofa where the cat met me and
decided to sleep on top of my belly. Speaking of my belly, it had become much
larger in the past few months. It was soft and fleshy which I liked. Grant had
gotten a much more solid, round gut, which always felt hairy and uncomfortable
whenever he made me touch it. I finished the last of the doughnuts and gave my
belly a little slap and a jiggle for good measure. Jerrod walked into the room
looking for the doughnuts I had just finished off. “You know those were to
share.” He said.
“You don’t need any more doughnuts
buddy.” I joked. It was ironic because I was just as big if not bigger than
Jerrod at this point. He gained back those five pounds plus another ten. “Okay.
It’s time you got off your fat ass and weighed yourself.” He said. I hadn’t
weighed myself in months. I figured it wasn’t something I had to worry about
since getting fatter was inevitable. I hopped on the scale still wearing my
boxer briefs and it read 215. I had gained 65 pounds since coming here. I put
on some clothes that barely covered my body and did some push ups with Jerrod
(against my will I should add). I did about ten before I had to stop. Besides
our bellies kept banging on the floor resulting in complaints from the
neighbors. I walked downstairs to see Grant was helping Anjulie make lunch. “I
hope you like Monte Cristos!” she said. Grant had a look of absolute glee on
his face, but looking down you could see his shirt was barely covering his
navel. “Nice spare tire Grant.” I said. Grant looked down and desperately tried
to stretch out his shirt enough to cover up his ball belly. Grant ran off to
change into some larger clothes but even the large t-shirt he brought along
just to sleep in didn’t cover the last inch of his gut. We all sat down and ate
three monte cristo sandwiches, probably two and a half more than an average
person would eat, but none of us really cared. Anjulie looked exactly the same
as she did when I first met her, but looking around the table my brothers and I
had completely changed. We used to take pictures of us comparing our abs and
posting them to Facebook. Now we compare beer bellies. Jerrod was tall and
weighed in at 240 pounds the last I checked, but since he’s been unbuttoning
his pants at every meal he might have gained more. Grant had a large ball belly
that he never had before. Almost 70 pounds of solid fat rested on his lap as he
picked his teeth. As for me at only five foot eight, 215 pounds puts me up with
the obese. I looked down to see my jeans were unbutton, my large, soft belly
sitting on my lap. I had man boobs that rested on the roll of fat above my
belly. Love handles that protruded from my sides and rolled over my waistline.
My legs were stockier too. I have learned to waddle to avoid having my thighs
rub together. Then I realized I have only lived here for six months. What’s
going to happen the rest of the year? I foresaw a second corquembouche three
times the size of the last one and me eating the entire thing piece by piece
with my brothers watching me.
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