Rivals

Originally published May 26, 2018.
Contains: stuffing.

Yup, another stuffing story. I guess that’s just the headspace I’m in right now. We’ll (probably) be back to your regularly scheduled gaining soon.

There’s a gif I reblogged on my Tumblr not too long ago, which features Rufus and Bob from Street Fighter and Tekken, respectively, passing by each other in a narrow hallway as their massive bellies bump. In the source video, this leads to them fighting. But I’ve long fantasized about a scene where instead of settling their rivalry through fists, they do it through seeing who can eat more. So I came up with this story, about two old rivals with unspecified history who meet at a buffet and try to out-eat each other.

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Ronald left the restaurant bathroom with an impressive cacophony, slamming open the door before he let out a loud groan of relief and pain. This wasn’t uncommon for him: with over six feet in height and enough weight to create a rotund belly nearly the size of a yoga ball that jutted out in front of him like an unwieldy backpack worn backwards, he was naturally something of a klutz. Over the course of his life, he’d learned to be more careful as he moved around, but all of that learning went right out the window once he got a little bit of booze in him. It only took a post-work beer or two, and you’d be able to hear him coming by the string of crashes, each followed by a “Sorry.”

For Ronald was imposing in his size, and he knew it, which was why he was so quick to apologize for his blunders. His face bore cheeks just as bulbous as his gut, but it also bore a goatee that many read as threatening. He just liked how big it made his cheeks look. His outfit certainly didn’t help matters, as he wore a khaki jumpsuit that he’d unbuttoned all the way down to the beltline, having argued with the staff that it wasn’t all that different from a woman wearing something that showed of her cleavage. And considering that his chest and stomach managed to miraculously remain contained within the garment, his argument carried enough weight that he always got away with it. It was the only way he could make his work outfit feel more casual, so he was insistent on wearing it that way, allowing all to see his impressive girth.

That night was no different, as Ronald left the bathroom with his firm chest peeking out from on top of his globular stomach. Arching his back, he let out a final groan as he stretched his arms, finding very little room to expand in the restaurant’s hallway. Instead, he headed out, intent on grabbing something to eat.

As Ronald let his arms down, he saw another man approach the bathroom, a wide man like himself who took up most of what little space the hallway provided. His massive body was draped in a button-down shirt that was tucked into jeans that were held up by suspenders, framing a belly that was less rotund but no less hefty than Ronald’s own. His frame seemed to put on fat more evenly than Ronald’s, though he still had plenty of belly to speak of. And with the man seeming intent on walking past Ronald to use the bathroom, their bellies would have to rub against each other as they passed.

Though neither man made eye contact, they both turned sideways, with their hefty guts facing inward away from the walls. Their bellies came together with a quiet but deep sound, the “plop” of flesh on flesh and their bulbous guts finally colliding. As they passed, Ronald felt his belly graze against the other guy’s ample midsection, bouncing over suspenders as his stomach’s skin felt a cotton button-down shirt that still radiated body heat. It was a tight squeeze for both of them to walk past the other, but with a bit of grunting, they made it. Both men stumbled a bit as they came apart from each other, waddling forward until they regained their balance and kept walking.

But Ronald didn’t keep walking for very long. The lethargy of his after-work beer wore off immediately once he realized whom he’d just stumbled past. Turning around as quickly as someone of his size could, he looked back toward the bathroom and called out, “Bart!”

The man came to a stop slowly, his arms settling at his side as he stood in place. Turning around just as unethusiastically, he turned to look at Ronald with tired eyed. That was, until his head was facing Ronald head on enough to recognize him, at which his eyes opened up wide. “Ronald.”

“Fancy seeing you here,” Ronald snarled as he started walking slowly toward Bart.

“Indeed. I see you’ve… put on a bit of weight.”

“Hhpm,” Ronald chuckled. The last time he and Bart had seen each other, his belly as less than half its present size. “I see you’ve put on… a couple pounds yourself,” Ronald said, returning the minimizing compliment to a man who looked 200 pounds heavier than he did that last time they’d seen each other.

“Oh, I’ve picked up a few here and there,” Bart confirmed with a sneer. “So… what brings you out here?”

“I’ve come to enjoy a nice, big dinner,” Ronald declared as he stepped closer and closer to Bart.

“What a coincidence; so have I. Might just go whole ham and do the buffet.”

“Hmph, I see you stole my idea,” said Ronald, who had intended to order a sirloin steak off of the menu, but that was no longer an option if he wanted to outdo his old rival.

“All the better to fill up this hungry belly,” Bart said as he gave his gut a few hearty pats. It seemed he had every intention of outdoing Ronald, and Ronald had no intention of letting him.

In the midst of their trash talk, the two finally collided again, with their bellies coming closer together until they bumped. Both men pushed their bellies into each other, subtly at first, before abdominals stretched big by plenty of giant meals pushed out with enough force to make them sore. Rather than sink into each other’s flab, both men pushed the other away as they pushed out their guts, asserting their dominance. By the time they were ready to eat, they both stumbled in place as their stomachs returned to a more relaxed state. “Well then, shall we grab a table?” Batt asked

“Let’s. As much as I would love to see you get stuck in a booth, something tells me we’d both be stuck together, and I’ll be damned if I give you a companion in embarrassment.”

“Aren’t you just peachy?” asked Ronald sarcastically.

“I’m exactly as peachy as I think the person I’m with deserves.”

With a smirk and “Hmph,” Ronald turned around and lead both men out of the hallway. Once they were out of the confines of the bathroom hallway, their arms swung wide at the their sides as they walked, forcing them to give other tables and staff a wide berth as they passed. Once they got back to Bart’s table, both men had to push their chairs far back from the table to sit themselves and their bulbous bellies down with enough room.

“Hello, gentlemen,” the waitress soon greeted. “What can I get for you?”

“We’re both going to do the buffet,” Bart said confidently. “And I’ll just have water.”

“Same for me,” Ronald concurred.

“Makes my job easy,” the waitress said as she took the menus and folded them up before putting them under her arm. “The buffet is against the back wall. All we ask is that you stick to one plate per round per person. You decide the rest. Enjoy, gentlemen!”

With a smirk, Bart stood up from his chair and arched his back to make his belly look bigger. “Well, let’s get to it!” As he strolled confidently toward the buffet, Ronald stood up and shuffled as fast as he could to catch up with him. Thankfully, neither of them had far to go, and soon they reached the buffet and took a plate in each hand.

Shelley’s prided itself on having a little bit of everything on the menu, and that was true of their buffet selection as well. At the buffet could be found Chinese food, Italian food, American Southern food, whatever cuisine one might want to eat in excess. And the selection changed constantly, with each large tray of heaping portions often replaced with something different when it ran empty, making it nearly impossible to sample the whole buffet selection. It was the perfect spot for big eaters like Ronald and Bart, who probably could have sampled the entire buffet if the selection never changed.

Once the two reached the end of the buffet spread, they both grabbed jumbo plates and walked down the line, piling their plates high enough that spillage seemed almost inevitable. But both men managed to get their first round back to the table without dropping any food. Their plates looked like they’d been arranged by men who liked to eat more than they liked the food itself, as individual items and dishes were piled on top of each other in whatever way allowed the most volume to stand on the plate. The two had certainly taken a wide array of items from the buffet, as the range of colors made clear. But one would be hard pressed to determine where one entrée ended and another began.

With two mountains of food in front of them, Bart grinned and dug in without another word. Ronald raised his eyebrows before digging into his own food, not wanting to be outdone. The two men ate in relative silence, only punctured by occasional competitive grunts. For two men with such big appetites, the first plate was just foreplay, a first step toward courses that would actually make them feel full. It was just a snack.

And they finished with the appropriate amount of haste for a snack, scarfing down the packed plates like the starters they were. Finished around the same time, the two looked up and put their plates aside to make room for the next one. “Full yet, Ronald? That was an awful lot you ate just now.”

“Hardy har har. Come on, you and I both know we both have a lot more to go before we’re done.”

With a nod of concession, Bart followed Ronald back to the buffet, where they piled another pair of plates with enough to food to force a lesser man to loosen his belt. The meal hadn’t yet filled them enough to affect their walk; they just waddled because they were fat. And so they waddled from the end of the buffet back to the table, to wolf down yet another round of food.

Neither of them would have admitted it, even to themselves, but they both ate a little bit slower as they worked their way through their second plates. And a little more slowly as they ate their third. By the time they’d cleared their fourth plate each, those plates piled not quite so high as their first, both men were starting to feel the pile of food accumulating in their stomachs weigh them down.

Of course, they tried to play it off like they were just as ready to eat as they were when they brought back their first plates. But both men grunted as they rose from their seats, having to push themselves off from the back of their chair before they could stand up. The buttons on Bart’s once form-fitting shirt were now a bit strained as the cloth between them was being pulled apart by his growing midsection. Ronald’s belly, meanwhile, was pushing a bit farther out from in between the sides of his open jumpsuit.

Once they were both standing, the two were breathing heavily, but they gave each other a nod and moved toward the buffet. Both men found their bellies leading the way a little more than they had before. But those bellies still had room for more, so they approached the buffet and filled up yet another plate each. Both men stuck to the entrées they liked most, filling their plates with their favorite foods in the hopes they would be easier to scarf down. But given how much they’d already eaten, nothing was going to be easy for them.

As they started their fifth plates, the two ate at something resembling a normal human eating speed for the first time since they’d challenged each other. With so much food inside both of them, they had to eat at a slower pace so their stomach could find room for it all. Their postures had also changed. Rather than hunching over their plates like competitive eaters reducing the distance the food had to travel to reach their mouth, they both leaned back and sat up straight. This allowed their packed stomachs to jut out in front of them and take up the extra room they needed. As big as they were growing, that was becoming a necessity.

After all, with the fifth plate down and in their belly, and the sixth, and the seventh, it was becoming more and more obvious that their bellies had expanded to accommodate all that food. For with that seventh plate down, as both men leaned back in their chair, they heard an inevitable ripping noise from Bart’s belly. Both men looked down and saw that several buttons had popped off of Bart’s shirt, allowing one to glimpse the soft, flabby stomach underneath.

“Looks like your shirt is throwing in the towel,” Ronald chuckled as he leaned back in his chair, his own hand gliding up and down his overstuffed gut, feeling the firm top of the belly, full of food, give way to the flabbier, softer bottom. The firm top had definitely grown since he first started feeling it over, expanding with food and pushing out well past his jumpsuit.

“It may be, but I’m not. Come on,” Bart grunted as he pushed himself of his chair with a struggle. “I’m not done with my meal, and I know you’re not done with yours.” With a sigh, Ronald pushed himself up from the chair he was sitting in, and after a good deal of grunting and struggling, finally managed to stand. With both of their bellies now exposed and jutting out in front of them like a marching band’s bass drummer, they sauntered up to the buffet and filled their plates yet again.

Eating was slow-going between the two as they worked through their eighth, and ninth, and tenth plate each. They seemed to have eaten enough that their stomachs no longer had the capacity to quantify how full they were. They felt less like rivals in an eating contest and more like growing sacks of food with arms and legs and a head attached. And yet, not wanting to concede defeat to the other, they kept shoving more and more food into their bellies.

It was after the tenth plate that it looked like both men would have to concede defeat. They were reduced to breathing through their mouths as they laid back in their chairs. Their massive guts jutting out in front of them, simultaneously ascending to tower above them and pressing down to pin them in place. A few more of Bart’s buttons had popped off, reducing his shirt to two flaps of cloth that flanked the massive mound of fat between them. Meanwhile, Ronald’s jumpsuit had receded back even farther, pushed out of the way by the ever widening stomach it couldn’t contain.

As both men rubbed their hands over the guts, trying to provide them some measure of relief, they let out quiet groans in unison. Groans that were interrupted by grunts coming from Bart’s side of the table. Looking up, Ronald’s tired eyes, pulled down by his full stomach lulling him to sleep, shot open when they saw Bart trying to push himself off of his chair, and in the midst of succeeding. At that, Ronald knew that if he wasn’t going to lose, he had to find a way to stand up and go fill his plate yet again.

Ronald took a deep breath as he strained himself for the Herculean effort it would take to hoist himself into a standing position. He then took several more breaths, as just existing with a stomach as full as his was exhausting. How he was going to stand up, he didn’t know. Until he saw Bart successfully stand tall, lean back, and let out a belch before rubbing his exposed gut. Ronald knew he didn’t have much time. With audible straining and groaning, he pushed as hard as he could with his legs before pushing against the chair with as much force as he could muster. He could feel his limbs shaking as he tried to rise, his body straining against its own desire to stay in place. But with enough push, he rose yet again, letting out a belch of his own, just in time to follow Bart to the buffet.

Up until that round, both men had been taking less food each time they went up to the buffet, their braggadocio forced to take a backseat to the reality of how much they’d eaten. But as the two tubs of fat waddled to the buffet to show each other who was boss one last time, they had other ideas. Knowing that might be the last time they could get up for more food, both men stacked their plates as high as they could with all the food the buffet offered. By the time they reached the end of the line. Their plates were stacked as high as they had been during the two’s first round going at the buffet. And they both looked down wondering if they could possibly finish them.

Not that they would let the other know that. With determined faces, they both exchanged daring looks before they sat down at the table. Both men landed in their chairs with something resembling a thud, and a groaning noise as well. Leaning back, they let their bellies stick out into the air in front of them as much room as they needed to grow. With all that space and more set aside for their guts, they started digging in.

Both men ate slowly and loudly, every morsel of food making their stomach expand noticeably once it hit the mound inside, causing them both to grunt and groan as they ate. The pain of how full their bellies were kept them awake as food coma threatened to halt both of them in the middle of their eating. That and their desire to show up the other. No matter how full they got, no matter how stuffed their guts were, no matter how much they’d already eaten: if the other could take another bite, so could they.

It was that determination that kept the two going as they plowed slowly but surely through the massive piles of food in front of them. With each bite they swallowed, they could feel their stomach strain as it stretched to accommodate yet another morsel. With such hefty mounds of food inside of them, both men had to lean back to give their stomach the room it needed to expand outward. Neither man burped very often as they ate. It seemed there wasn’t much room left in their stomachs for anything but food.

Whatever room was left, the two managed to find just enough to clear their plates one final time. Upon finishing their meal, both men dropped their cutlery on their plates with a clang and laid back in their chairs. Both of their humongous bellies now hung well out of their clothes, mounds of fat precariously balanced on their chairs that were packed so tightly they dared not move. Both men rubbed their guts in a vain attempt to provide some amount of relief, but little could be found after how much they’d eaten. Instead, their touch just served to aggravate their ballooned bellies, stretched tight and not receptive to any sort of comfort.

Not that that stopped the two from trying. Groaning constantly, they leaned back in their chairs and let their flabby hands run over the firm top of their packed bellies. Both men’s bellies had ballooned to the size of yoga balls with all the food inside of them. In addition to the hope of relief, they also rubbed their bellies in awe of just how big they’d grown. It was hard not to when neither man had seen their gut that big before.

“I take it you two are all set?” the waitress said, after approaching the two so quietly she caught them both off-guard.

“Yep,” they both groaned in unison.

“Great, I’ll bring the check.”

With a sigh, Ronald resumed rubbing his gut, still astounded at how much he was able to eat. His belly had grown so huge and round that he could barely see Bart reaching into his pants pocket to try to pull out his wallet. “What’d’ya think you’re doing?”

“Exactly what you think I’m doing.”

“No! I convinced us to do this. Let me pay.”

“No. You ate more each round than I did. If that doesn’t mean you won, I don’t know what does.”

The two argued a bit longer, before the waitress got tired of listening, took both credit cards, and said she’s split the bill between them. Neither of them was particularly happy with that outcome, but at least it would get them a little closer to getting out of the restaurant.

Once the split checks were signed, both men remained in their seats, silently rubbing their guts until they felt ready to stand up again. They weren’t sure how much time had passed, but about 15 minutes later, the both looked at each other and nodded. Though standing up was certainly far from easy, by then, the two had enough practice lugging their heavy bellies from sitting to standing. After some struggling and grunting, they were back in standing positions, leaning back to give their guts all the room they needed to push out.

Ronald walked up to Bart as both men breathed heavily, mouths agape as they looked at each other with flat expressions. That was until they both laughed in unison, there laughs broken up by their gasping breaths, but no less jubilant for it. “Just like old times,” Ronald said.

“You know… I missed this,” Bart admitted.

“Maybe we could do it again some time.”

“I dunno. You think it’ll be just as fun if we don’t meet randomly like that again?”

With a chuckle, Ronald patted the side of Bart’s belly–very gently, knowing how sensitive it must have been–and said, “Once you have an empty stomach again, I don’t think it’ll be hard to convince you to come back.”

Bart laughed himself as he concurred, “You got that right.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Ronald said as he slung his arm over Bart’s shoulders. After Bart did likewise, the two started their walk out of the restaurant, which seemed to rumble as they moved. Though they walked slowly, they still found their mammoth guts bumping into each other as they walked. Their waddles were disrupted by every impact, causing the two to stumble their way out like two bumbling blimps that couldn’t get out of each other’s way. And from the smiles on their faces, it was clear they wouldn’t have it any other way.