Originally published January 18, 2016.
Contains: long-term weight gain, direct encouraging, supernatural encouraging.
The Munchies come from an old PSA which warned kids not to eat just because they’re “bored or blue”, instead encouraging them to go outside and play or exercise. It personified this kind of eating via grey blobby creatures that made you eat if you fell victim to them. Kind of ironic that so many gaining fiction writers have co-opted the idea for their stories.
This was most directly inspired by ADigitalWarrior’s story, Munchies: Apartment Complex – Jake. I was particularly intrigued by how they wrote the Munchies as always talking in rhyme. It had a hypnotizing quality that I thought worked quite well.
I wanted to try my hands this kind of story, so I wrote the story of Mike, a beleaguered office worker who’s been putting on weight because of his frequent late nights at the office leaving him needing to eat delivery or take out and not having the energy to do much other than watch TV when he gets home, making him a perfect candidate for the Munchies’ schemes. Hope you enjoy!
Mike pushed open the door to his apartment and stumbled in around 8:00 PM on a Friday night. He let out a long sigh before dropping the paper wrapper from a meatball sub in the trash bin. Having to spend another late night at the office had left him without the time or energy to make dinner himself, but what else could he do if he wanted to finish his project on time?
This had become the routine for Mike: staying late at the office, ending the day exhausted, and getting delivery at work or picking up dinner on the way home. He wasn’t sure when work had come to dominate his life like this. Maybe it was when got too excited about being offered new projects to turn them down, even when he already had plenty on his plate. Maybe it was after his performance award for his work on the new version of his company’s flagship software had made him an in-demand name. Either way, arriving at the office at 7:30 AM had become his norm, and he was lucky if he got out by 6:00 PM.
The consequences of his lifestyle were showing on his waistline. Though Mike had gone into the working world with a fairly average build, years of late nights spent eating delivery or grabbing take-out on the way home had started to pile up. He used to have time to work out, but after he stopped, the advance of his belly over his khakis was left unimpeded. The 2XL polo shirts he wore these days wrapped tightly around his torso, jutting out over his chest before giving way to his protruding gut, wrapping around him like a sausage casing. His shirts were just barely big enough to cover him, and if he stretched his arms, they rode up to reveal a glimpse of his ample belly. He’d been putting off buying bigger shirts, half out of procrastination, half out of denial.
Tonight certainly wasn’t going to be the night he bought them. He stepped into his bedroom to undo his belt and take off his pants, happy about no longer needing to wear them. He kicked them onto the bed, where they came to rest just on the edge with one leg dangling off. With just his boxers and shirt on, he turned toward the living room and shuffled over to the coach, ready to take a load off at the end of the week.
Once he’d reached the couch, he sat down in the middle, making the remote bounce. He reached out and grabbed it, turning the TV on and smiling when he saw that Mythbusters was on. He settled in to watch the show, folding his arms on top of his gut and letting them rise and fall with his breaths.
About midway through the show, during the brief silence before one of the commercial breaks, Mike heard what sounded like something falling off the kitchen shelves. He pushed himself off the couch and meandered into the kitchen, where the source of the sound was immediately apparent: a large bag of chips had fallen onto the counter. It was strange: Mike didn’t remember buying a bag of chips this big. It was labeled “jumbo party size” and was twice as big as the party size bags he usually saw. But then again, his shopping trips ever since he’d stopped regularly cooking for himself were mostly comprised of him wandering around the grocery store putting whatever looked good in his cart. He could very well have taken that bag off the shelf without thinking about it and forgotten it until now. Either way, the chips looked good, so he grabbed the giant bag and brought it back with him into the living room.
Mike plopped back down on the couch and opened the bag of chips, having to stretch his hands rather far apart to open it all the way. He ate the chips one or two at a time as the commercial break dragged on. But once the show resumed and he was wrapped back up in the Mythbusters’ exploits, he paid more attention to show and less on how fast he was eating. One episode glided into another as Mike stayed planted on the couch, mindlessly chomping away. He didn’t realize how quickly he was having to reach farther into the bag to grab more, until the second episode neared its conclusion and he dipped into the bag, only to find it empty.
It didn’t click with Mike at first. He swiped his hand along the bottom, having to stick his arm in past his elbow to reach. When he shook the bag and heard only the rattling of crumbs, he paused. He pulled his arm out and brought the bag closer to look inside, only to find that there were indeed only tiny pieces of chip left. He stared in the bag in disbelief, amazed that he’d eaten so much, before shrugging and putting the open rim against his lips, pouring the crumbs in his mouth.
Mike crumpled the bag up and staggered up off the couch, letting out a belch once he was standing. In it, he could taste the greasy starch of the chips alongside the marinara sauce from his meatball sub. As he felt his stomach settle from releasing the gas, he realized he’d built a perceptible lump in his belly between the sub and enough chips to feed a party his apartment probably wasn’t big enough to host. He loosened his abdominal muscles, letting the mass in his gut push out. As a result, his shirt rode up enough that the bottom edge of his belly showed out from under it even when he tried to pull it down.
Mike chuckled and reached down to his side to grab the remote and turn the TV off. He strutted into the kitchen, feeling the extra bounce of his bloated gut, tossed the chip bag in the trash, and retreated into his bedroom to turn in for the night.
Standing in front of his full length mirror, Mike pulled his shirt off slowly, feeling the tight hem on the bottom of his polo stretch over his belly like a giant rubber band. Tossing it into his laundry hamper, he looked at himself standing in his boxers and turned his torso as he stood in place. His gut had always been round, but all the extra mass from the chips made it look extra spherical. Mike didn’t dwell on it for too long. He brushed his teeth and fell into bed to sleep off the stress of the week.
Another week came and went. The next Saturday, Mike attended a birthday party for his niece. While he appreciated the opportunity to catch up with his family, the pickings at the party were rather slim. The event was scheduled from 1:00 to 5:00, and Mike had not eaten lunch before, assumed it would be served. Instead, the event only had hor d’oeuvres: cheese and crackers, veggies and dip, cookies and cupcakes, and the like. Mike didn’t want to eat more than his fair share, and he didn’t want to be rude and leave early, so he was left with a growling stomach when he said his goodbyes. Before heading home, he drove to the nearest place with a drive-through.
“What can I get for you today?” asked the worker through the speaker
“I’ll have two double cheeseburgers and a large fry, please.” As this would effectively be his lunch and dinner, Mike had no qualms about ordering two meals’ worth of food.
“Anything to drink?”
“A large coke.”
Mike pulled up and picked up his order. “Here you go. Have a nice day.”
“Yeah you too,” Mike sputtered, not intending to seem impatient but still ravenously hungry for his food. He took the bag frantically, put in on the passenger seat, and drove off, holding the wheel with one hand while reaching in for a burger with the other. For as long as he’d had to wait for this meal, he didn’t want to wait until he got home to start eating. He pulled into a red light that gave him enough time to unwrap the burger, after failing to do so with only one free hand, and he dug in. It wasn’t anything special by burger standards, but as hungry as Mike was, it hit the spot.
Mike tore through the first burger in no time at all. Still hungry, he reached for a second one. This time he was able to unwrap it with one hand, and it disappeared down his gullet almost as fast as the first one. The second burger sated his hunger, so he snacked on the fries for the rest of the drive, finishing them as he pulled into the parking lot of his apartment complex.
Mike grabbed the bag and got out of his car, pulling out his drink so he could throw the bag away. He did a double take when he saw the cup, as it looked like the restaurant had given him an extra large. With a shrug, he thought, “Their loss, my gain.”
But stranger still, he couldn’t hear any ice cubes rattling as he pulled out the drink. After throwing out his bag, he pulled off the lid and found he’d been given a chocolate milkshake instead of a coke, albeit one that was closer in color to cola.
“Well how about that!” Mike re-capped the cup and brought it up to his apartment, closing the door behind him and leaning back against the counter to savor the unexpected treat.
On first sip, the shake tasted much more rich than any chocolate shake Mike had drunk before. He concluded they must have accidentally added much more of whatever powder or concentrate they made into the shake than they usually do. That would explain why the color was so dark, he reasoned.
Regardless, the shake was too decadent for Mike to resist. After drinking it through the straw proved unsatisfyingly slow, he tore the lid off and drank it right from the cup. What started as a steady pace turned into gulping as he couldn’t hold back from downing the delicious drink. He drank at a frenzied pace, until the cup was tilted up and empty.
After savoring the last few drops, Mike became acutely aware of how full the shake had left him. Whatever had given the shake it’s deeper color and richer flavor must have also made it more filling, he reasoned. Or maybe this was just how full one got when they drank an extra large shake that quickly, Mike wondered. Having never done that himself, he didn’t know.
Regardless, Mike found himself breathing extra heavily as he leaned against the counter. After pushing himself into a standing position, the distance his gut now jutted out forced him to lean back to compensate. He dropped his cup in the trash and reached under his belly to undo his belt, a task made harder by the fact that his gut didn’t budge when he tried to suck it in. His arms brushed against the now-bare bottom of his abdomen, his warm mass pushing back against his forearms as he tried to undo his pants. Once his belt and button were loose, he let out a sigh of relief and gently patted his distended abdomen, still swaying a bit from how full he was.
Mike didn’t feel up for doing much else in his present state, so he hobbled to the bedroom and sat on his bed. He lay down gently, lest he disturb the contents of his stomach to the point where they decided they wanted out. Feeling his bloated belly rise and fall with the ebb and wane of his breath, he let his eyes close as he drifted off to sleep.
Friday that week found Mike in a lunch meeting that he had no expectations would stay within the 11:00-2:00 time frame it had been scheduled for. The only redeeming thing about these meetings was the free food, and that day, lunch came from Georgio’s Pizza. Mike was familiar with Georgio’s, having ordered delivery from them on many a late night in the office, and their pizza made a meeting like that almost worth it.
The meeting paused around 12:15 when the pizza arrived. Mike eyed the boxes laid out on the table, labeled “cheese”, “roni”, “veggie”, “MACL”… Mike glanced over the last one, not recognizing it at first. But after settling on the pepperoni pizza, his eyes shot back to the MACL box, and he realized what it was: the meat- and cheese-lover’s pizza. It was a pie that combined the extra variety and volume of cheese of the cheese-lover’s pizza with all the meats of the meat-lover’s pizza. In all his late nights of ordering in, Mike had determined that the meat- and cheese-lover’s pizza was easily his favorite, but the company hadn’t ordered it for lunch meetings before. Maybe this meeting wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Mike took two slices of the pizza, not running into any competition for them. With how filling the meat- and cheese-lover’s pizza was, two was plenty for him for lunch. Even when he ordered a small to be delivered on those late nights, that usually left him with enough for lunch the next day. When people started going up for seconds, he went up for another slice, surprised to see that no one else had taken any slices from the MACL box. When the meeting ran past 2:00, he went up for a fourth slice, thankful that the pizza was almost as good cold as it was hot.
When the meeting finally wrapping up around 3:00, Mike’s boss, Gina, ended with, “Thank you for your time, everyone. Have a great weekend. And please, take some pizza with you!” About half of the attendees did so, though no one touched the meat- and cheese-lover’s, leaving a whole large pizza and a half once everyone else had left the room.
“Guess I’m the only one who likes the meat- and cheese-lover’s,” Mike remarked to Gina, who’d come over to take some for pizza herself.
“Guess so. It’s yours if you want it.”
“All of it?” Mike asked in surprise.
“Yeah, of course! It’s better than it going to waste.”
Mike stared in disbelief for a moment before chuckling and replying, “Alright!” He closed the lid to the top box and picked them up from the bottom.
“You know, it’s odd. I didn’t order this pizza, and it didn’t show up on the receipt, so we weren’t charged for it, and yet here it is. I’m not sure how it ended up in our order.”
Mike shrugged, pizza boxes still in hand. “Maybe they accidentally gave us someone else’s.”
Gina raised her eyebrows with a “Hm.” She smiled at Mike and said, “Their loss is your gain,” prompting a smirk out of him. “You’re a good sport for sitting through that whole meeting, Mike. Tell you what: why don’t you head home early? It’s Friday; you deserve it.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t. I have that thing for quality assurance to work on and–”
“It’ll be here on Monday, Mike,” Gina interjected. “Go on, get out of here.”
Mike paused a moment, looking at the floor in reflection, before nodding and turned toward the door.
When Mike got back to his apartment, he put the pizza on his kitchen table to save it for dinner. He took off his shoes and pants and exchanged his polo for a tee shirt, one that fit only slightly more comfortably than his work shirt. His weekend wardrobe was in need of an upgrade too, he reckoned.
Mike walked out of his bedroom toward the living room, but stopped to eye the pizza on the table. Though he’d planned to save it for dinner, he asked himself, what was the harm in having some now? He grabbed the top box off the table and a soda from the fridge and sat on the couch, reaching for the remote and turning the TV on to House Hunters.
A meeting as mind-numbing as the one Mike had to sit through that day left him ready and eager to switch off, and once he got settled in, he did just that, absentmindedly munching on a slice of cold pizza as the afternoon passed. When he finished one, he reached for another, slice after slice of cheesy, heavy pizza building up in his stomach on top of what he’d eaten during the meeting. But he paid it no mind, watching the show and letting his mind shut off. His shirt rose up slowly as he ate, showing an impressive strip of his flesh by the time he finished the last slice.
Mike had only finished a small meat- and cheese-lover’s pizza once or twice, on particularly late nights at the office when he’d had a light lunch. He’d never finished a large before, but he didn’t give it much thought as he tossed the box on his living room table. He opened the soda and drank it as the show blared on in the background, the beverage settling around the food in his stomach. A large belch lept from his mouth after he took the last sip, before he screwed the cap back on and tossed the bottle to the side.
It wasn’t until Mike tried to get up during a commercial break that he gave any thought to how much he’d eaten. His gut had expanded out over his reclining position, and it pushed back against him as he tried to lean forward. After a few feeble attempts marked by some weak grunting, he fell back on the couch with a sigh. He rested his hand on top of his distended paunch, absentmindedly rubbing it with a tired chuckle. His eyes glazed over as the din of the commercials ran in the background, his feeling of fullness all he focused on as he massaged his gut.
That was, until he heard a high-pitched giggle that sounded like it came from behind the couch. Mike assumed he was hearing things until it started to move around the couch and in front of him, when a grey blob of a creature came into view and revealed itself as the source of the laugh. It had big round eyes and an even bigger smile, and soon more like it came into view, revealing it wasn’t alone.
“What the…” In Mike’s turgid state, he couldn’t muster much more surprise than that.
“We’re the Munchies, our good man. We’re here to lend a helping hand.”
“Wha… help with what?”
“You’ve sat here, bored as can be. We’ll make it feel like you’re hungry! You’ve shown us you can eat with vigor, now we’ll help you eat to get bigger!”
“Bigger? Why would I want that? My shirts already don’t fit.”
“You tell us, our good friend Mike, why you picked up the pizzas and put down your bike.” One of the creatures was on the couch and poked Mike in the belly, its soft finger gently making an indentation before Mike half-heartedly swatted it away. “You’ve swelled up plenty on your own, and now you won’t have to do it alone!”
“You think… I meant to get fat? Boys, that’s just…” Mike struggled to push himself into an upright position, with little success. “…a work hazard. Long nights at the office, so I can’t make dinner, and I don’t have the energy to work out when I get home. This just… happened.”
Mike’s defense only made the Munchies giggle. “You think your story’s new to us? Why do you make such a fuss? We’ve watched you idly pass your days, watching your shows in a bored haze. We tested you with surprise treats, and as expected, we watched you eat! The chips, the shake, the pizza too, were all treats we laid out for you. You love to eat, it’s clear as day,” they chanted as two of them carried the second meat- and cheese-lover’s pizza around the couch, “and we’ll make sure nothing gets in your way!”
Could it be true? Could the munchies have been behind them all? A bag of chips Mike didn’t remember buying. An extra thick milkshake when he’d ordered a coke. Two boxes of his favorite kind of pizza being delivered to the lunch meeting when no one ordered them. Considering Mike had never seen anything like these creatures before, he was inclined to believe anything at this point.
“Here’s another pizza to enjoy,” they chanted as the two Munchies put the box down in front of Mike. “After all, you’re a growing boy!” Lifting the lid, they revealed that the meat- and cheese-lover’s pizza was now hot, as if it had just been taken out of the oven. The grease one would expect to see on such a pizza, before the cheese cooled and soaked it all up again, formed tiny puddles in the valleys created by the meat. The cheese looked gooey and hot, as good pizza cheese should be. Mike had never seen this pizza like this, looking fresh out of the oven, since he’d always ordered it to be delivered.
One of the munchies next to the box picked up one of the slices. The cheese made strings with the rest of the pizza before snapping as the Munchy brought the slice up in front of Mike. Mike took it by the crust and gave the Munchies another suspicious look, before eyeing the pizza. As full as he was, he had to admit it looked rather appetizing. In spite of his better judgement, he took a bite. He expected it to taste lackluster, given how full he was, but it tasted just as good as he knew the pizza could.
“Isn’t that so good and cheesy?” Mike nodded, unable to disagree, and took another bite with an audible “Mmm.” “That’s our job: to make eating easy.”
“As good as this is, you have an easy job ahead of you,” Mike admitted through a mouthful of pizza as he took another bite. Before long, he’d eaten the whole thing. “That was good. Thanks, guys.”
“We knew you’d think that it tastes nice, now open up for another slice!”
Mike chuckled and waved his hand in a dismissive motion. “No thanks guys, I’ve had plenty.”
“We know you could eat so much more,” the Munchies said, undeterred. “No way is your tummy already sore.” Indeed, though Mike had already engorged himself so much that he couldn’t get off the couch, he didn’t feel stuffed. “We warmed up this pizza just for you. Why stop at one slice when you can have two?”
In spite of his better judgement, Mike was quite keen on the idea of taking another slice. “Alright,” he relented in between labored breaths. “One more.” The two munchies on the table hopped up and down excitedly and brought the pizza box over to Mike’s right side, pushing it up against his love handle to put it within his reach. “But don’t push it.” The Munchies merely giggled as Mike started eating another slice, chewing slowly with a drowsy, contented look on his face.
The Munchies stayed mostly silent as Mike ate, save for the occasional giggle when he belched or let out an “Mmm.” The Munchies’ silence might have normally been unnerving to Mike, but it didn’t bother him now. In his food induced stupor, he didn’t give much thought to anything, including whether he really should have taken another slice of the pizza after finishing the second one. A wave of excited murmuring spread through the Munchies as Mike took the next slice. After taking a big bite out of it, he mumbled through his full mouth, “You like that?”
“We’d agree, it’s most obvious, that you enjoy it as much as us.”
Mike chuckled through his full mouth and took another bite. “Touché, little guys.” He finished chewing and swallowed before he added, “You’re alright, guys. Maybe a bit pushy, but you’re alright.”
“Pushy? Why, Mike, we’re no such thing. We only show up if you want what we’ll bring. Sure, we brought plenty for you to chew, but eating it was all up to you.”
Mike chuckled and sarcastically remarked, “Okay,” knowing the little blobs were full of it. But when he finished his third slice, it didn’t take any encouragement on their part for him to take a fourth, and he didn’t give their giggling a second thought.
“Doesn’t that just hit the spot? We knew that you could eat a lot.” Mike might have felt like they were teasing him if it weren’t for the fact that he’d eaten almost an entire large meat- and cheese-lover’s pizza in just the time he’d been sitting on the couch. They were really just pointing out the obvious. “You know there’s nothing like watching the telly, and filling your big, round, swelling belly.”. Mike chuckled and slapped his engorged gut with his free hand, prompting the Munchies to cheer. He felt over his distended abdomen and found that his shirt had ridden up over his belly button. “Don’t mind if your shirt doesn’t fit. Eat up, dig in, there’s no reason to quit.”
Mike let out an affirmative grunt as he stuffed the remainder of the slice in his mouth, feeling like he was putting on a show for the Munchies. They responded in kind, cheering and giggling to show their approval. Taking another slice, he let out a moan of approval as he took a bite, like this was the best pizza he’d ever tasted. As delicious as it was when it was that warm, it just might have been. “We know people who love to eat, and that’s what we have here in this seat.”
Mike grunted through a mouth full of pizza, like he wanted to affirm the Munchies’ observation. “It’s so good,” he mumbled, his mouth too full for the words to come out whole.
“There’s no need for all your chatter. Just eat until you’re rounder and fatter!”
Maybe the Munchies were pushy after all. But Mike wasn’t going to pretend that wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do. Taking another slice in hand, he grunted as he took a bite. This time it wasn’t for show, but because eating had become difficult with how much pizza was filling out his stomach. But the last thing he wanted to do was stop before finishing the pie the Munchies had brought him.
Mike kept munching in his dazed stupor, one slice after another, until they were all gone. With the last bite swallowed, he let out a tiny burp, his swollen stomach not left with much room for air. The munchies cheered his accomplishment, laughing along with their jubilation, as Mike’s head swayed back and forth from his stuffed daze. He didn’t even want to think about getting up, his ballooning belly bulging out too much to let him move. He could barely lift his arms to massage his gut, let alone feel how much it had grown. All he could do was look over it, only seeing the faces of the laughing Munchies, a sight that got blurrier as his eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep.
Sleep and digest your meat-lover’s feast.
You ate enough for four people, at least!
You ate and ate with unrivaled vigor,
And now it’s inside you, making you bigger.
We’ve left you stuffed, but don’t think we’re done.
The next time you’re bored, the Munchies will come!
When Mike came to the next morning, the sound of the TV gave him a rather rude awakening. He reached for the remote on his left side and turned it off before leaning back again, rubbing his eyelids. His recollection of the previous night was fuzzy, fraught with memories that seemed like they had to be dreams. Anthropomorphic blobs encouraging him to eat more. Eating a whole large meat- and cheese-lover’s pizza and a half in one sitting. Only in a dream could these kinds of things make any sense.
But after Mike pushed himself into a sitting position, he saw any empty pizza box in front of him on the table. Looking to the side, he saw another, both of them labeled “MACL”, both of them open and empty.
It was too early in the morning for Mike to give much thought to the sight. He pushed himself off the couch, chalking his difficulty doing so up to the fact that he’d just woken up, and walked to the kitchen to get some breakfast. He pulled his shirt down as he walked, not paying much mind to the fact that he couldn’t pull it all the way over his stomach. He looked in a cabinet and settled on raisin bran, pouring a bowl of it and getting some milk from the fridge He poured some of the milk in the bowl and was about to put it away, when he realized he could also use something to drink.
Being that Mike lived alone, he had no qualms about drinking milk right from the jug, so he lifted the just-over-half-full gallon jug to his lips and started chugging. He put his other hand on the fridge to help him balance against such a heavy container. Milk started to dribble down the side of Mike’s face as he drank, but he kept gulping it down, concluding he was thirstier than he thought. He didn’t stop even as his hand raised the jug higher and higher, even as it got lighter and lighter, even as his stomach got fuller and fuller.
He didn’t stop until the milk jug was nearly vertical above his head, empty. Dribbles of milk had run down his face and gotten his shirt wet, and he felt off-balance as he walked to the trash to throw the container away. “I’ll need to buy more milk,” he grumbled as he hobbled over to the table to eat his cereal.
Mike ate his cereal with fatigued regularity, too tired to think that he might have been too full to eat it after drinking a half gallon of milk. Instead he mechanically ate it spoonful by spoonful, scrolling his social media feeds on his phone with his other hand.
When he fished his breakfast, he got up and hobbled to his bedroom, his tired steps not helped by his sloshing stomach. He still had to go to the big-and-tall store to buy new clothes, so he grabbed the pair of slacks he’d worn to work the day before to get dressed. He found bending over to put them on troublesome, as his sodden stomach didn’t like being compressed. Things didn’t improve when he finally got his pants up, as they refused to button. As full as Mike was, trying to suck in his stomach didn’t give him any leeway.
After some grunting and several failed attempts, Mike let out a frustrated breath and found himself facing his mirror. He saw that has shirt had risen up his gut and the bottom hem was resting over his belly button. The flaps on either side of his pants’ zipper were flopped over, his boxers plainly visible. “Figures,” he remarked, shaking his head.
Mike knew he couldn’t leave the apartment looking the way he did. There was something ironic about it, that he had to own clothes that fit him to go out and buy clothes that fit him. He dropped his pants and swapped them out for a pair of sweatpants, the only pants he owned that he expected to fit. He couldn’t do much about his shirt, as he didn’t own any bigger ones, so he grabbed a sweatshirt and slid that over his torso. It was still tight, rounding out his figure to make his belly look even more spherical than it did before. But it covered the part of his abdomen that his shirt couldn’t, which was all he needed. With a sigh, he grabbed his keys and wallet and left for the store.
Mike didn’t like shopping. He didn’t like the crowds, and he especially didn’t like the tedium of trying on clothes. But he had to make sure his clothes fit before he bought them, so unless he was buying socks or underwear, he had to go to a store. Thankfully, Barry’s, the nearest big-and-tall store, never attracted dense crowds, and they always had clothes that, though not exactly stylish, were at least comfortable.
But needing to buy a whole new professional and casual wardrobe still took a lot out of Mike. He got to the store around 10:00 and didn’t get out until 11:30, having filled a shopping cart close to overflowing. Once he’d put all the bags in his car, he leaned back in his seat and sighed, his eyes closing as he did so. He was so tired he didn’t think about lunch until he got back to his apartment complex. He didn’t want to make lunch, but going out somewhere meant more driving. Neither were attractive options.
Thankfully, there was always delivery. He brought his bags up to the apartment and called up Remmy’s Grill, a local pizza place. A small meat-lover’s pizza didn’t cost enough to reach the delivery minimum, so he added an order of French fries. In the time it took the driver to reach his apartment, he put all of his new clothes away, swapping out the clothes that used to fit him and piling them in his closet in case they ever fit again.
Mike finished just before he heard the driver from Remmy’s ring up to his apartment. He buzzed him in and waited by the door. When he heard the knock, he opened it and saw a young man in a red and green uniform holding two large brown bags.
“Hi, order for Mike?”
“I’m, uh, I’m not sure you have the right order.”
The driver got a quizzical look on his face and looked closely at one of the bags. “The receipt here says small meat lover’s pizza and an order of fries. Is that you?”
“It is. And there’s nothing else on the receipt?”
“Nope.”
“Because those bags look bigger than what you’d need to carry an order like that.”
The driver considered the bags for a moment before pursing his lips. “You know, you’re right. They both have your name on them, though. Tell you what, you’re the last person on my route, so if you want whatever else is in these bags, it’s yours, no extra charge. They’re probably just going to throw it away if I take it back.”
Mike liked the sound of that. As long as his pizza and fries were in the bags, any extras would be a nice bonus. But then he remembered the strange dream about the blobs that encouraged him to eat more. Something about them testing him by slipping him extra food… but it wasn’t worth dwelling on some dumb dream.
“Alright, sure.”
The driver nodded and smiled. “You’re doing me a favor, man. Saves me from having to explain to my boss why I didn’t deliver all the food they gave me.”
Mike paid the driver and took the bags to the kitchen table. Looking inside one of them, he saw his pizza on the bottom and a container of fries, in addition to a large order of chicken tenders, a large order of mozzarella sticks, and some paper wrapped up in the shape of a sub labeled “meatball”. Looking in the other bag, he saw a family-size container of baked ziti deep enough that it took up the whole interior of the bag.
“Well that’s dinner for a few days, at least.”
Mike went to his bedroom to take off his sweatshirt and sweatpants now that he didn’t have to see anyone for the rest of the day. He realized he was still wearing one of his ill-fitting shirts and briefly considered swapping it for a new one, before deciding it wasn’t worth the effort.
Mike walked back out to the kitchen and took his pizza and fries out of the bag, bringing them with him into the living room. He turned on the TV and flipped the channels until he got to some old action movie. Deciding this would do, he sat back and ate his pizza, enjoying the first few slices before he mindlessly munched on the rest. The fries went down just as easily, as the novelty of the old film lost its allure and started to bore him. Mike didn’t care to change it, though. After finishing the fries and tossing both boxes on the table, he settled in on the couch to watch the dumb movie to the end. That was when he heard the giggling.
“It seems you’ve only started your feast. We thought you deserved a banquet, at least!”
Mike didn’t believe his ears. He froze in place, eyes on the TV. When he saw the clouds of grey creep in on his peripheral vision, he looked around and saw the grey blobs walking out from behind the couch and crowding in front of him.
“So it wasn’t a dream.”
“If you could eat that much in your sleep, you’d count the pounds like you count sheep. But like most, you only eat when awake, so we’re back to help you up your intake!”
Between how exhausting his day had been, the fatigue of digesting that heavy food, and the dullness of the action movie, Mike didn’t have much will to protest. “But the food is in there,” he objected meekly.
Mike didn’t even have to say it, as two of the munchies were already bringing the two bags in from the kitchen. “We brought you all this food on us. There’s no need to raise such a fuss. If you didn’t want food galore, you’d have said no at the door. So sit back and enjoy your haul. With our help, you can eat it all!”
Mike didn’t need much convincing. He didn’t have anything else going on, so having some more of what the delivery guy brought seemed as good a way to pass the time as any. The munchies put the two bags on either side of Mike, so he reached into the one on his right and pulled out the box of chicken tenders, a large order containing twelve. Mike pulled out one and took a bite. The outside was crispy and crunchy, while the inside was so greasy that his teeth went right through it. The first chicken tender went down easily, as did the second, and the third. The Munchies watched with wide eyes and wider smiles as one tender after another disappeared down Mike’s gullet.
Mike tossed the box on the table and licked his fingers, leaning back as he did so. The chicken tenders, on top of the meat-lover’s pizza and the French fries, had created a noticeable lump filling out Mike’s stomach. He patted his belly as he gazed back at the television.
“Why stop there? There’s food galore! You can’t deny you could eat more. We know you think this food is yummy, so eat some more and fill your tummy!”
Mike was already reaching for the box of mozzarella sticks before the munchies finished their rhyme. There must have been at least two dozen sticks in the order, though Mike didn’t care enough to count before he started tossing them in. As the din of the action movie fell into the background and his glazed eyes rested in the direction of the TV, Mike ate stick after gooey stick, the mozzarella sticks having remained remarkably warm for how long they’d been out. They went down easily, Mike munching mindlessly until the box was empty.
Without taking his eyes off the TV, Mike reached into the bag to grab the meatball sub. Upon unwrapping it, he saw that the foot-long sandwich was dripping in sauce and the hefty meatballs were so covered with cheese that they were hard to see. Normally a sight this decadent would have excited him, but he just curved his lips into a mild smile before he took a bite. The meatballs were greasy and juicy, while the cheese was gooey and heavy. The sauce spilled out of the sub and onto Mike’s cheeks, but he just wiped it off with the back of his hand before taking another bite. With the sandwich as loaded as it was, it was quite an effort to chew each bite, but Mike barely noticed. In his glutted daze, he just munched each bite of the packed sandwich until he could swallow it before taking another.
Mike slowed down as he ate the sub, taking longer to chew each bite. When he finished it, he became acutely aware of how full he was. All of the bread and cheese and meat and sauce had coalesced into one gigantic, weighty lump in his stomach. His shirt, already too small before he started eating, had ridden considerably higher up his swollen belly. His feeble attempts to pull it down were met with little success, leaving the bottom hem of the shirt stretched well above his belly button.
Mike crumpled up the paper that held the sub and put it in the box that held the mozzarella sticks, tossing them both on the table. In his stupor, he’d forgotten all about the munchies, still standing around him with expectant looks. “You’ve eaten well so far tonight, but we know what will end it right. We brought baked ziti, so good and cheesy, baked just right to go down easy. So eat ‘til your shirt doesn’t fit. Go on and eat all of it!”
As full as Mike was, it should have seemed impossible. But in his gorged daze, it didn’t take much for the Munchies to convince him. He reached in the other bag and pulled out the large family-sized container of ziti and a plastic fork. The tin was so tall that even as it lay on his belly, the top was level with his mouth. As he took off the lid, the scent of sauce wafted up to his nose along with the steam. It was still nice and hot, the cheese still gooey. Mike dipped his fork in the pasta and pierced a few pieces, only for the cheese to pull up a half dozen. Mike shrugged and plopped the whole thing in his mouth, contentedly chewing it as his eyes glazed over.
The rest of his stuffing passed in a haze. The action movie blared away unnoticed as Mike ate mouthful after mouthful of the pasta, so dense with cheese that every forkful came out of the container bearing more ziti than he expected. He kept munching until his random stabs at the bottom of the container bore no more pasta, merely yielding the ding of his fork against the metal. By then, the top of the container had risen above eye level due to the swelling of his stomach. Mike dropped the fork inside and laid back, leaving the tin on top of his swollen gut.
In Mike’s tired state, he was barely cognizant of how engorged his gut had become. He struggled to keep his eyes open as his stuffed stomach seemed intent on pulling his eyelids down. He meekly lifted his arms to try to feel how swollen he was. With what little energy he could muster, he felt that his shirt had risen up past where it rested before and was now resting loosely around the top of his belly. Any attempts to pull it down barely budged the cloth, before he gave up and let his arms fall.
This brought a wave of gleeful laughter out of the Munchies, who alternated cheering and chuckling as Mike laid back on his couch, letting his bloated belly hang out. Even his breathing felt labored, as his diaphragm struggled to push against the newly formed mass in his gut. All he could do was lay back, pinned by his swollen abdomen, and listen to the Munchies laugh at his plight as his eyes finally closed and he drifted off to sleep.
Another night, another stuffing,
Left you so full your breath was huffing.
You ate all the entrées in sight.
We’re quite impressed with your appetite.
Sleep for now. We’ve just begun.
We’re sure we’ll be back for more fun.
As long as we play your provider,
You’ll keep growing even wider!
Mike’s nap lasted until late in the afternoon, when the TV channel had switched to playing an old period drama. Mike felt for the remote and turned the TV off, too groggy to handle the noise. He rubbed his eyes before opening them slowly. Leaning forward, he forgot about the empty tin on his stomach, which fell before he could catch it. As the room came into focus, Mike saw all the empty food boxes on the table and grumbled about the mess he’d have to clean up. He looked down and was relieved to see that the tin had landed on the floor right side up with the fork still inside.
Mike tried to get up, but his newly bigger belly had other ideas. He fell back against the couch with a noise somewhere between a grunt and an “oof”. He tried again, still too tired to take in everything that was going on, before falling back against the couch. With a sigh, he leaned to the side and pushed himself up in a roundabout way, finally managing to sit upright. He let out a massive belch, the taste of the tomato sauces overpowering everything else. Leaning forward, he put his hands down to put them on his knees, only to find he had to bend them around his gut to reach.
Mike put his hands to his sides and pushed himself off the couch, struggling to keep his balance as he did so. He swayed a bit when he stood, before finding his balance and standing straight up. With the extra room, he could feel his swollen abdomen push out. He tried to pull his shirt down, to no avail. Though he remembered it being too small for him before he fell asleep, he was sure he could at least get it near his belly button before.
At that, he was forced to contend with the fact that the seemingly unbelievable events of the previous night and that afternoon were not the creation of his slumbering mind. It was all real, as was the extra weight he’d put on as a result.
Mike shrugged and walked into his kitchen, hobbling at first until he got used to his added inertia. Looking down, he saw the marinara stains on his shirt and decided it wasn’t worth saving. He pulled it off, struggling against its newly tight fit, and threw it in the trash in his kitchen before walking into his bedroom to pick a different shirt. He opened his dresser and pulled out one of his newer shirts he’d bought earlier that day.
But when he pulled it on, he found that even his new 3XL shirt was already snug. It fit about as well as his polo shirts did before he’d bought new clothes. It barely covered his abdomen, and when he lifted his arms, he could see in the mirror that it rose to show the bottom of his stomach.
Mike felt like he should have been frustrated, but he merely sighed and walked back into his kitchen. Maybe it would fit better when he wasn’t so full, he reasoned. He hoped so; he wasn’t going to go shopping for new clothes twice in one day.
But what was he going to do the rest of the day?, he asked himself. The clock showed 6:04 PM, so there was enough time for him to go out and do something. Maybe he’d hit up some of his friends and ask if they were free to hang out. Maybe he’d check out that new Chinese restaurant he’d heard so many good things about. Maybe he’d finish one of the many books still lying in the “in progress” section of his self.
But he knew he didn’t really want to do any of that. Instead he hobbled back into his living room and turned on the TV. He considered changing it from the period drama that was playing before, but decided against it; leaving the boring show on would probably work better. He sat there and let it drone on as the well-dressed British people fretted about their inconsequential problems, head in his hand with a bored expression on his face.
That was, until he heard the giggling. Then he smiled.
When you’re bored or feeling blue, call on us, the Munchies.
We’ll find ways of making you munch when you’re not hungry.
You were just an office drone, bored out of your mind.
Lazy from your tiredness, tired from the grind.
Your could eat better than most, munching like a pro.
So we tested you a bit, thought we’d have a go.
Now you’re gorging every night, gaining by the day.
Too big for a scale, no idea what you might weigh.
Doesn’t matter when you’ll get heavier anyhow.
No denying, you’re in the grasp of the Munchies now!
Mike pushed open the door to his apartment and stumbled in around 8:30 PM on a Friday night. He’d had to stay late at work to finish a project, and he stayed a little later to order new shirts. His 10XLs were getting snug, and as he showed no signs of fitting in them again, he had to move up to 12XLs. Even Barry’s didn’t sell shirts that big.
He also had to order them at the office, because he knew that once he got home, he wasn’t going to get anything done.
Mike kicked his shoes off and hobbled right to the couch. He hadn’t had the chance to adjust to his new size, not that having a gut bigger than an exercise ball was something he could adjust to. He swayed back and forth as he walked, his body moving side to side as his gut bounced with every step. He never seemed to get the hang of moving with his increased girth; as soon as he started to get used to it, he grew even bigger.
But this was fine with him. He enjoyed the constant challenge of needing to adjust to his new size. He enjoyed the astounded looks of his coworkers, all too polite and professional to say anything about it. He enjoyed getting home and knowing exactly what he was going to spend his time doing.
When Mike finally reached the couch, he lowered himself slowly onto it, lest he fall too quickly and break it. Even then, the cushions sunk a ways beneath him before they could hold his weight. He reached for the remote and turned the TV on, bringing up a commercial. Having experimented a bit, he knew that turning the TV on wasn’t a necessary part of the process, but it was like a part of a ritual now. I seemed to speed up their arrival, and having something blaring in the background that he could ignore was part of the fun.
Soon he heard the giggling come up from behind him. It never ceased to amaze Mike that the Munchies never stopped taking as much joy in their work as they did on day one. Before long, they surrounded him, knowing he had no desire to put up a fight. Several of them hopped up on the couch and removed his shirt, which Mike dutifully raised his arms for. Two others undid his belt, goading a sigh of relief out of Mike as they pulled his pants off. Even more of them started massaging and kneading his belly, so big that the munchies on either side of him couldn’t see over it. Yet they still moved in a rhythm that left Mike swaying as his head leaned back, mouth agape, eyes closing from how relaxing it was. Their plush hands pushed into his soft belly, overwhelming him with waves of pleasure that left him lethargic and fatigued. His muscles all loosened up as he lost any will he might have had left to get off the couch. When they stopped, he leaned his head forward, mouth and eyes still half-open.
“Sluggish like a tranquilized beast. Ready to enjoy your feast?”
Smiling as wide as he could manage, Mike slowly nodded.
The Plot Thickens 
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