Easter Treats

Originally published April 23, 2017.
Contains: accelerated weight gain, inflation.

I try to always credit my inspirations, and this story was inspired by this photo by JK on Grommr (you need an account to view it), a photo of himself assumedly stuffed with Easter candy that he captioned, “90% Easter Egg”. That got me thinking about scenarios for a gaining story where a guy stuffs himself with Easter candy. I ended up with an employee at a candy shop who’s left alone at the end of the night, with all the leftover Easter candy, given free reign to eat as much as he wants.

In thinking about the progress of the story, I got the idea for the different candies he’s left with–sugar-coated marshmallows like Peeps, and chocolate eggs with creamy filling like Cadbury eggs–to affect him in different ways. So I ended up with a story where the marshmallows make him get fatter and wider, but not heavier, and he walks around feeling light and pillowy like a marshmallow. It’s a sensation that I imagine would be close to what inflation feels like, hence the “inflation… kinda” in the content notice. But when he moves on to the chocolate eggs, their creamy heaviness fills up all that heft with actual weight, making things a good deal more difficult for him.

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Dan was working closing shift at Cindy’s Sweets the night before Easter. Cindy herself had been helping him make the handmade goodies that were selling as fast as they could put them out, with throngs of customers picking up last-minute treats for Easter. They could barely keep up with demand, for the stream of customers continued up until the shop closed at 8:00.

Closing time caught the two off guard, as they’d been too focused on making candy to keep an eye on the clock. When Bruce, who was working the cash register, came in back to tell them the door was locked, they already had two trays of marshmallow treats and three trays of chocolate eggs out to cool. Both Dan and Cindy looked at the five trays of sweets before looking at each other. “Oops,” Dan joked.

“Guess we’ll have plenty sell at markdown on Monday,” Cindy said as she wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. With a shrug, she added, “There are certainly worse problems to have. Alright, Bruce, you take care of cleanup out front. Dan and I will clean up back here.”

Bruce gave the two a thumbs up before heading back out front. As Cindy started moving some of the mixing bowls into the sink, Dan spoke up, “Hey Cindy.”

“What’s up?”

“You’ve been here all day, right?”

“Since 7:00 AM,” she said with a sigh, while trying to sound enthusiastic.

“Why don’t you just go home? I can take care of the dishes, and I’ve only been here since 3:00. Take a break. You’ve earned it.”

Cindy paused with her hands holding a bowl under running water. She slowly turned her head to look at Dan with her tired but kind eyes. “You mean that?”

“Yeah.”.

“Well, uh…” Cindy slowly put the bowl down and turned the water off. Dan admired her dedication to her business, but he couldn’t help but feel like she had a hard time passing tasks off to her employees, like she had to do everything herself. Of course, he knew there was a probably a time when that was true. “Okay. Thanks,” she said softly.

“You’re welcome,” Dan said happily. They switched places so Dan could take up the work where Cindy had left off. As Dan washed, Cindy retreated into her office to pack up.

Soon, Cindy came back into the kitchen with her coat in hand and a bag slung over her shoulder. With more pep in her voice, she said, “Tell you what, you can snack on as many of those marshmallows and eggs as you want tonight.”

“Aw, thanks!”

“Just don’t leave a mess.”

“Of course,” Dan replied coolly, trying to mask his enthusiasm. Though Dan certainly thought Cindy deserved a break, he wasn’t the kind of person to just volunteer to do extra work without any incentive. But Cindy was in the habit of using candy to motivate her employees to take on extra tasks, and Dan was heavily motivated by food. As a result, Dan took on plenty of odd jobs around the shop, and Cindy rewarded him with a steady stream of sweet treats.

As a result, Dan’s waistline had been growing at just as steady a pace. When he’d started working at Cindy’s Sweets, he was already on the husky side, though a thick beard and baggy clothes deemphasized his heft. But it didn’t take long for Dan to gain a reputation as the office’s lobster, eating any leftovers he could: candy that didn’t come out right and wasn’t fit to sell, extras left over from the manufacture process, older candy that was too old to move but not so stale as to be inedible, and so on. Most of the employees lost their sweet tooth once they’d worked at Cindy’s for long enough, losing their appreciation for candy after having so much of it available. Dan did not have that problem.

By the time Easter rolled around, Dan was walking around the shop with a hefty belly that no amount of baggy clothing could hide. Even under his loose-fitting shirt, his belly still jiggled with a noticeable amount of bounce as he walked from the counters to the sink and back, cleaning up the mess he and Cindy had made. His gut was about the size of one of the larger mixing bowls, the kind they used for mixing up a gallon of raw marshmallow at a time. It had enough heft that his arms swung at his side as he walked, counteracting his newfound inertia.

Dan worked diligently to take care of everything there was to clean in the kitchen. He knew that once he started eating the marshmallows and chocolate eggs, there was no guarantee he’s be doing any more washing. Plus, if he waited for Bruce to leave, he could eat the treats as voraciously as he desired without feeling embarrassed.

Conveniently, as Dan was finishing wiping down the counters in the kitchen, Bruce called out, “I’m heading home! Can you come lock the door behind me?”

“Sure thing,” Dan called back before striding out of the kitchen. As he walked into the front of the store, he felt his phone vibrate and pulled it out. “It’s Cindy,” he said with a concerned tone.

“What’s up?”

Opening the text, Dan read aloud, “‘I almost forgot: Happy Easter! I know the Easter bunny will be good to you this year.’ She’s silly,” he chuckled.

“Maybe she’s talking about herself. She left you all that candy, after all.”

“Maybe. Given how much candy we slung today, she’s the closest thing to a real-life Easter bunny in this town.”

After a mutual laugh, Bruce said, “Alright man, catch you later. And, uh, happy Easter.”

“You too, dude,” Dan said as Bruce walked out, before closing and locking the door behind him. With Bruce gone, Dan walked back into the kitchen with a wide grin, shutting off the lights in the front of the stores as he passed by. He hastily finished wiping off the counters, ready to dig into the bounty that Cindy had left him.

Looking at the table in the center of the kitchen, Dan gazed at the five trays in front of him, taking in the sight of his reward. Each tray held hundreds of its respective treats, arranged in dense rows to maximize production speed. The first two trays bore marshmallow chicks and rabbits, respectively, covered with various pastel shades of colored sugars. Dan didn’t usually like Easter marshmallows, but Cindy made hers with her homemade marshmallow recipe, making them actually worth eating.

But what really excited Dan were the three trays of chocolate eggs. In turn, they contained chocolate ganache, peanut butter, and a sweet creamy filling like the chocolate Easter eggs most people were familiar with. All three were extremely delicious, and also very filling, as Dan had discovered while eating the ones that didn’t come out quite right. Between their quantity and their density, Dan was confident that he could enjoy the sweets to his heart’s content and leave plenty to sell when the store re-opened on Monday.

Dan took one last look outside to check that the door was really locked. He didn’t want to risk anyone walking in on him wolfing down those Easter treats. Once he was satisfied he was on his own, he picked up a blue marshmallow bunny and tossed the whole thing in his mouth.

Dan had snacked on plenty of the sugared marshmallows before. But after a long day of hectic production work, without even finding time to have dinner, the bunny tasted especially delicious. The crunch of the blue sugar was a satisfying contrast as it gave way to the soft, pillowy marshmallow underneath. Dan always enjoyed just how fluffy Cindy’s marshmallows were, but this batch seemed especially so. It felt like each bite brought yet more fluffiness out of the mallow, such that even as it dissolved in Dan’s mouth, there was still plenty to chew on.

With a satisfied “Mmm,” Dan swallowed the last of the marshmallow, savoring the sugary aftertaste. He basked in it as long as he could, because he knew he wouldn’t be savoring the rest of them. With a more aggressive “Mmm,” he grabbed two more bunnies and tossed them both in, chewing voraciously and swallowing them faster than the first.

With none of Dan’s coworkers around to make him self-conscious about his snacking, his pace sped up. He gobbled up the fluffy treats as fast as he could get them in his mouth, barely taking time to breathe between bites. Soon he was eating the bunnies three at a time instead of two, wolfing the creatures down easily. When he started eating the chicks too, though, he only ate two at a time, as they were a good deal bigger.

Other than that consideration, he only had one thing in mind: eating the sugar-coated marshmallows. And eat he did, swallowing more and more of the treats without even bothering to chew them fully. As it turned out, chunks of unchewed marshmallow were remarkably easy to swallow, slipping down to add to the pillowy pile in his stomach.

Dan didn’t pause his gorging until he felt his belly bump against the table as he reached for some more chicks. He bent over yet again, knowing he should have been able to reach where the remaining chicks lay. But his stomach stubbornly pushed against the table, preventing him from reaching the candies. So he leaned forward, pushing his flabby belly up and over the table. At that, he felt the bare skin of the underside of his belly touch the table’s cold metal top. He jumped back empty-handed from the surprise and looked down toward the source of the sensation.

It was then that Dan saw that his belly had grown a good deal wider since the start of the night. In addition, it jutted out farther, resulting in his once-baggy shirt wrapping tightly around him, like the burlap sacks the store’s sugar was delivered in when they were full. His gut had grown at least a few inches in every direction, his hefty paunch replaced with a bulging belly.

Dan was sure he had to be imagining things. But when he reached down to touch his newly ballooned gut, the feeling of its firm expanse underneath his fingers confirmed it was true. He tentatively ran his fingertips over his belly, dragging them along the tight cloth stretched over his abdomen, until they bumped over the bottom hem of his shirt and hit his bare skin. It seemed he’d grown so big that the shirt no longer covered him, leaving a wide swath of skin exposed at the bottom of his rounded belly. He understood now how he’d felt the metal tabletop on his skin.

But Dan didn’t feel all that different. As he swung his torso side to side and walked around the kitchen to get a feel for his new heft, he had no more difficulty moving than he had before. It was like his new girth was just as light and fluffy as the marshmallows that had probably put it on him. Though he could feel it bounce and jiggle with his movements, it felt like it didn’t weigh him down at all.

Dan was intrigued, and he couldn’t help but wonder if the effect would remain if he kept eating the marshmallows. And if his search for knowledge allowed him to eat more of Cindy’s treats, all the better. With a smile, he bounded around the table to reach the marshmallows on the other side of the trays. He could feel his belly rebounding with each step, but it moved easily with him, like he’d stuffed his clothes full of balloons. The only noticeable change was one of volume.

Once Dan reached the other side of the table, he started eating voraciously again. This time, he redoubled his eating speed, motivated by both his enjoyment of the marshmallows and his curiosity to see what would happen to his body as he kept eating. The deliciousness of the marshmallows was just a bonus at that point, a pleasant side dish to placate his taste buds. His real hunger was the desire to know if he would keep ballooning up as he ate.

So he kept wolfing in them down, stuffing the rabbits in four or five at a time, while the chicks went down in groups of three. As fluffy as the marshmallows were, Dan had some trouble chewing when his mouth was full of that much mallow. He felt like he was getting them down more slowly than he would if he ate at a more steady pace. But he couldn’t stop himself at two or three bunnies or two chicks at a time. Once he popped that many in his mouth, he still wanted more.

Dan didn’t even have to finish the marshmallows before he knew he was still expanding. The feeling of his bare belly on the cold metal table top was already familiar to him, but not being able to reach the marshmallows was new. With a third of the marshmallows left in a swath in the middle of both trays, Dan found he simply couldn’t lean forward far enough to reach them. No amount of rolling his rounded belly over the counter did the trick.

So he turned to the side, too caught up in his feeding frenzy to think of pausing or taking stock of his new size. With his arm no longer having to extend over his mound of a belly, he could reach the remaining marshmallows with ease. He grabbed them by the handful, no longer giving any thought to how many he took at a time, and shoved the entire handful in his mouth. He had to push them in to make that many marshmallows fit, but as soon as he felt the crunch of the sugar, it was worth it.

Though reaching was no longer difficult, Dan didn’t account for how much of a challenge chewing would be. With Dan eating so many marshmallows at once, he found his mouth stuffed full with the sweet treats after each handful. Just getting his teeth through all of them was hard enough. With his mouth stuffed so full, he couldn’t move the mouthful of pillowy sweetness around as he chewed. He was forced to keep biting at the same spots until he could swallow just enough to shift the rest.

But he loved the sensation too much to take smaller handfuls. Having his mouth full of Cindy’s sweets was bliss for Dan, a dream come true within what was already a dream job. All that sugar dissolving over his tongue was sweeter than anything the shop sold, and the marshmallows filling up his mouth was like pumping in marshmallow fluff until he couldn’t fit any more.

If anything, rather than slow down, Dan picked up the pace. By the time he’d emptied both trays of their marshmallows, his mouth was so full of chicks and bunnies that be couldn’t close his lips over the mound of mallow. With satisfied grunts, he kept chewing at the mass, knowing it was the only way he’d empty his mouth. With each swallow, he pushed the marshmallows farther in, until his mouth itself was full again. After a lot of chewing and a bit of whimpering, Dan finally closed his mouth around all the marshmallows. By then, he was a pro at mass eating, and got the rest down in no time.

Dan let out a long sigh once his mouth was clear. Lifting his head back, his lips hung open as he breathed heavily, his mouth finally free from obstruction. He leaned back as he caught his breath, before he brought his head upright again, keeping his sight at eye-level. As he swayed from side to side, he didn’t feel like he was any heavier than he was at the beginning of the night. If he didn’t know better, he would think he was the same size too.

But looking down revealed a different story. Dan’s belly had ballooned past the point of comparison to his former frame. It had grown so big that his once-baggy shirt was now bunched up around his chest, having been pushed up by the steadily advancing circumference of his gut. He meekly grabbed at the bottom hem and tried to pull it down, only for it to spring back up no matter how he tugged at it.

With how big Dan’s belly had grown, that was no surprise. His gut now jutted out in front of him like one of the industrial-sized sacks of sugar his shirt had once resembled. It was rounded out from being stuffed with so many marshmallows, like the malted milk balls sold out front, although one that big would have been one for the record books. If he could have pulled his shirt over his body, it would have looked like he’d put a large garbage bag over his previously hefty frame and blown it up.

That was how Dan’s new body felt too. Though he was now more aware of how much space he took up, he didn’t have much trouble moving his new heft around. As he wandered the kitchen, he didn’t find himself exhausted from the effort or straining to move his mass. He imagined this was how wearing one of those inflatable sumo suits felt.

But walking around wasn’t entirely the same for Dan. Though his added heft seemed to defy gravity, his increased volume presented its own set of challenges. As he walked, his arms stuck out diagonally away from his body, pushed out by the expanded pudge around his chest. No longer could they swing right next to him as he walked; instead, they jutted out limp like droopy antenna. When he looked down to take in his new frame, he could feel his newly grown double chin squeezed by the pressure.

Without being adjusted to his new size, Dan found himself bumping into things as he walked around the kitchen. He brushed against the counters and tables a few times, before his belly knocked a mixing bowl onto the floor. Without a second thought, he tried to bend over to pick it up, only to find that the globe sticking out in front of him made that impossible now. The more he pushed to bend down, the more his ample belly pushed back. Eventually, he turned so he could bend over sideways to pick the bowl up. In doing so, he knocked over a stack of trays, which came to rest on the counter with a loud clatter. Dan was just grateful they didn’t fall on the floor.

But the strangest part of an already strange night was that this new girth seemed to be all him. At first, Dan had concluded that his new size was simply the result of his stomach being stretched full by all the marshmallows he’d eaten. But from how his arms, chest, and chin had puffed up too, it seemed the sweets had gone right onto his frame and fattened him up, albeit in a light and fluffy way. Upon further reflection, he realized he didn’t feel all that full, making him more convinced that he himself had grown

With how wide Dan had already swelled up, he felt like he should call it a night. If the eggs had the same effect as the bunnies, that would only make it harder for him to get home. With the mess cleaned up, Dan decided it was best if he just left, went home, and slept off whatever was happening. Whether this growth was in fact permanent, or bloat from the marshmallows, or just a hallucination of his tired and sugar-loaded brain, he told himself he’d cross that bridge when he got to it.

Dan took inventory of himself before he headed outside. He knew the shirt wouldn’t do him any good, and he’d probably be better off if he just carried it. It might have been a bit cold to go out shirtless, but it would be less embarrassing than the sports-bra-like look he had going on. Feeling at his pants, he could tell that they were a bit tight, but they miraculously still fit. That fact felt less miraculous when Dan strained to reach under his bulging belly and felt that his fly had popped open and the zipper had slid down. He didn’t even bother trying to rebutton it. With a sigh, Dan steeled himself for what would be a strange and awkward walk back to his car.

But as Dan walked past the chocolate eggs, he paused. Having just been put out to cool, they reflected the light in a uniform pattern that was too tantalizing to look away from. He knew how delicious they’d be, having just been made, and it seemed a shame to leave without trying one. In fact, in the hustle and bustle of Easter preparations, Dan had never tried the ganache eggs. Surely, he reasoned, just one couldn’t hurt, especially at this point. With a shrug, Dan picked up a ganache egg and popped the whole thing in his mouth.

Once Dan crunched through the chocolate shell, the chocolate filling oozed out over his tongue. Since the ganache had not yet had the chance to set, it flowed through his mouth like melted chocolate. By the time the eggs would be put out for the customers, the ganache would come to have the more solid consistency of frosting, but making the eggs before then made them easier to fill. All told, Dan was getting to enjoy the eggs in a way the customers would never get to experience, and that he might never get to again until the next Easter. He was happy with his decision.

And given what a rare opportunity Dan had been granted, he knew it would be a shame if he didn’t eat a few more of the eggs.

Dan picked up another ganache egg and plopped it in his mouth. The taste of the filling was richer than that of melted chocolate, a taste that Dan was plenty familiar with after working at Cindy’s. Buoyed by the cream mixed in with the chocolate, the filling was much more decadent. Though it had a lighter consistency, it somehow tasted heavier, more substantial and filling than melted chocolate. And Dan knew from experience that melted chocolate was already quite filling.

In spite of how heavy the eggs seemed as Dan ate them, their size made it easy to keep justifying having “just one more”. When he could plop the whole thing in his mouth in just one bite, it didn’t feel like he was eating that much. He’d heard the statistic that cream-filled chocolate eggs had some ridiculous amount of sugar in them, but given that these were hand-made, he figured they had to be healthier. And what could be healthier than peanut butter?

That was all the reasoning Dan needed to start eating the peanut butter filled eggs. The ganache, as good as it was, was getting a bit too familiar from him eating so many of the chocolate-filled eggs, and he needed something to break them up. With a smile on his face, he bounded down the side of the table to the next tray, feeling his belly jiggle a bit with every step. Once he was next to the tray of peanut butter eggs, he took two in his hand and popped one in his mouth.

Dan knew Cindy didn’t put pure peanut butter in her eggs and other filled sweets, but he wasn’t exactly sure what she did to make her filing. It was similar to ganache, where it started off creamy and runny for easier filling, before settling into a thicker, more solid consistency that was better suited for eating. And like the ganache eggs, Dan got to try these eggs while the peanut butter filling was still more liquidy, flooding his mouth once he cracked the egg’s chocolate shell.

Like regular peanut butter, the sauce’s flavor was intense, giving Dan an overwhelming sensation similar to the richness of the ganache. But it was so delicious that he didn’t mind at all, lapping up the peanut butter sauce coating the inside of his mouth as he chewed the chocolate. If the filling had been pure peanut butter, Dan knew he would have needed a drink to wash it down, but the more liquidy sauce vacated his mouth on its own as he chewed, leaving him ready to devour the next egg.

Like the ganache eggs before, Dan could easily justify taking “just one more” when a whole egg fit so easily in his mouth. Though the experience was more intense, he enjoyed the peanut butter flavor too much to stop eating more. It wasn’t until he could feel the peanut butter sauce leaving a film over the inside of his mouth that he decided to move on to something else. By then, he’d eaten about two dozen of the eggs, judging by how many were missing from the pattern they’d been laid down in.

With only the classic sweet cream filled eggs left untouched, Dan strode down the table to stand next to their tray, his belly bouncing noticeably with each step. He popped one in his mouth and was met with that familiar flavor he loved so much. Cindy’s eggs were a lot like the big name chocolate filled eggs that came out around Easter, including a dollop of yellow cream in the middle to look like a yolk. But hers weren’t as overwhelmingly sweet, having more of a creamy taste than a sugary one, which made for a more satisfying product, in Dan’s opinion. And like the other two eggs, the filling had a more creamy consistency due to not having set yet. As such, it was easy for Dan to eat a few dozen of the eggs once he got going.

It wasn’t until two full rows of cream eggs disappeared off of the giant tray that Dan paused to consider whether he should be eating that much candy. He didn’t feel especially full, nor was he feeling a sugar high or low. When he looked down, his belly didn’t seem to have grown any bigger than it had from the marshmallows. With raised eyebrows, Dan smiled as he patted his bare gut, feeling even luckier than he had when his new heft didn’t come with any added weight. Eyeing the ganache eggs again, he decided he was in the mood for those, and turned to bound back to that side of the table.

But as Dan moved down the length of the table, his belly felt like it had more heft to it than it did before. Each bounce demanded more attention, and his belly required more accommodation as he walked. Dan found himself taking wider and shorter steps, even just walking from one tray to another. He looked down again, taking a closer look at his belly, but not seeing any signs that it had gotten bigger. With a shrug, he picked up two more of the ganache eggs and devoured them one after the other.

Dan kept strolling up and down the table, taking eggs from the trays as his whims dictated and chowing down on them one after another. With his mouth constantly full of chocolate and filling, all he could think about was scarfing down as many of the eggs as he could before he felt sick. It was a concern that lingered in the back of his mind as wolfed down more and more of treats, but it never seemed like it would come to fruition.

Once Dan had devoured all of the eggs within his reach from one side of the table, he let out a satisfied sigh, leaned back, and patted his belly, giving it some heartier pats than had previously. But something seemed different about his belly now. Unlike the taut, ballooned mass he’d been carrying previously, his belly now felt softer and more yielding to the touch of his hand. Narrowing his eyes pensively, he brought his hands back to his gut and let them linger on his flabby abdomen. Indeed, it was softer than before, and the plush surface let his hands sink in without much force.

Curious, Dan reached under his belly, took a hold of it from the bottom, and tried to lift it up. Previously had been so firm and tight that it wouldn’t budge when he tried to move it, but now there was a different force keeping it in place. His belly did move, but only with great effort on his part to lift its weight. When he let go, he felt his flab fall and bounce repeatedly before settling in front of him.

It was strange change to happen to his flab, but Dan didn’t consider it cause for concern. Once he started moving, though, that quickly changed. Unlike his buoyant stride before, Dan now found walking much more of a challenge. He could feel his legs being pushed apart as he moved, not just by his burly thighs crowding each other out for space, but also by necessity. With so much more weight to support, they had to spread out to give him better footing. He was taking much shorter steps as he moved, worried he might fall over if he took things too quickly. He also found himself leaning back as he walked, counteracting the weight of his gut pulling him down so he didn’t start tumbling forward.

Breathing heavily, Dan looked at the remaining eggs and shook his head side to side. He was done for the night.

Dan waddled out of the kitchen, shutting off the lights on his way out. Pulling the keys out of his pocket presented its own share of difficulties, as his pants were stretched so tight around his thighs that the outer flap of his pocket barely budged. Trying to fit his sausage fingers into the slit didn’t make things any easier. But he finagled out his keys, letting out a sigh once he had them in hand. After entering the security code on the alarm system keypad, he hobbled over the door, genuinely wondering if he’d be able to get out before the countdown ended.

Thankfully, Dan was able to get out of Cindy’s and lock the door before the countdown ended. It even beeped a while longer as he turned towards where he’d parked. His car was just down the street, but with all his newly added size, that walk seemed a lot longer. He pawed at his pants to try to put his keys back, but when he could fit them through the tight pocket hole, he thought it better to hang onto them until he got to his car. Otherwise, he’d have to spend another minute or two fishing them out again.

After a lengthy exhalation, Dan looked around the empty sidewalk and pulled his crumpled shirt up over his head. He held it in his free hand like a rag, as both of his hands dangled far from his body, pushed out by his encroaching chest. As he started waddling down the sidewalk, they lay limp at his sides rather than swinging with his steps. He needed them to help him balance as he carried his blubbery body down the street.

Dan could feel the passing breeze blow over his entire torso, emphasizing how big he’d gotten as it grazed past the outline of his sides. Looking at the shadow he cast in the light of the streetlights, he could scarcely believe it was his own. He’d have sooner believed he was being followed. But as he looked around nervously, feeling his chin jiggle as his head came to a stop, he confirmed there was no one around to see him, let alone cast a shadow. He could at least take comfort in that.