"C'mon El what's taking so long?"

Hopper was calling El from the other side of her closed bedroom door. He impatiently tapped his foot on the worn wooden floor as he knocked lightly on El's room with his folded middle finger, waiting. Hopper checked his watch, the short hand pointed downward towards eight o'clock.

"One minute!" El called back.

Hopper sniffed hard through his nose, and sighed.

"Alright, but hurry up whatever you're doing in there. You're gonna be late, and I'm not going to speed again to get you around town."

El heard Hopper's heavy footsteps grow fainter as he walked back across the living room. She had indeed been in her room a while, but contrary to her usual morning dawdling, today El was busy.

She stood in the middle of her room facing the large mirror above her dresser. She had been silently struggling to get dressed for nearly 20 minutes, and was not about to accept defeat now.

She was topless, wearing nothing but the small, white, training bra she has slept in. Sockless and shirtless, most of El's struggles had been due to the stubborn pair of jeans that were now digging into her thighs and lower butt. El had been trying to force the jeans up for most of the morning but her now noticeably larger waist and rear were determined not to be contained by the blue fabric. After a lengthy attempt to wrestle the pants up over her waist, El's cramping hands finally forced her to give in. Red faced and sweating, El collapsed backward onto her bead, breathing heavily, with the jeans still wrapped around her knees.

Though frustrated, El could hardly be surprised by this wardrobe malfunction. It had been nearly three weeks since her little intimate exchange with Mike, and her plan to eat herself into his arms had been in full effect ever since. El had been stuffing herself silly at every chance she got, between double helpings of everything at every meal, constant snacking, and a hard determination to get bigger as quickly as possible, El had experienced another serious increase in her already chubbier body.

Her thighs and butt had changed; in contrast to the skinny, pallid legs from the years before, El now had a generous layer of fat covering the inside of her thighs, which rubbed together when she walked, and giggled when she ran. Her previously boney butt had now expanded, creating a sloping shelf off her lower back, and stretched out her shorts so that the upper tag of her underwear was often sticking out over the back.

Her arms were thicker too. She had noticed a few days ago the small pockets of flab hanging of her upper arms, which admittedly she didn't know would happen. Her chest and neck had changed as well. El's previously non-existent breasts had now developed into a pair of perky little boobs. Nothing to speak of really, but undeniably present, and becoming consistently too big for her training bras.

But none of these could hold the candle to her belly. El's formally flat stomach had already been distinctly bigger during her evening with Mike, but it had really been only a paunch. Now El's middle had swelled into a full potbelly. It stuck out over the front of her pants, and swelled out over the sides forming little love handles. Her sides were now totally coated in a layer of flab, creating a trio of small belly roles under her now squishy back.

El sat up on her bed, slowly. She had noticed recently a change in her athleticism, getting out of breath more easily, not being as flexible as she used to be, things like that. Struggling to sit up was a prime example. Rollin over to one side in a not-so-graceful twist, El watched her side roles become more pronounced, only to return to normal when she seated herself on the bed.

El looked down at her now sizable potbelly. It rested on her lap, completely covering the front part of her underwear, and drooped over so that it obscured the front of her panties.

She put a hand on her gut and smiled sheepishly at it. Despite this mourning's inconvenience, El felt a great deal of pride in her now chubby self, and had no intention of slowing down. Though maybe a bigger wardrobe was in order. She thought of Mike rubbing her flabby gut, and felt the same tingly sensation she'd gotten three weeks ago. Turning pink and shifting her position on the bed.

Grabbing onto her belly, El gave it a jiggle as she stood up. Turning around and facing the mirror, she gathered herself, and prepared to give one last heave to the stubborn jeans. After a few moments of struggle, El finally squeezed her ass into the tight fabric. Not wasting a moment El quickly stuffed her belly fat into the front of the jeans and jammed the button through the buttonhole in one movement.

Wow it was tight. El winced as the unrelenting waistband dug into her sides, and pinched her gut. Sticking her fingers into the sides of the pants, El felt a momentary give in pressure as she gingerly extracted her lower belly from the jeans and let in hang out over the top of the waistband. Observing the angry red line disappear from her belly, El turned sideways and looked at herself in the mirror at a profile.

She really was chubbier; her belly drooped over the top of the jeans creating a smooth little layer of fat that obscured the front of her waistband from view. Her breasts, while modest, had started to push out her training bras, and now were clearly visible at a profile, creating a smaller, but easily noticeable bump above her belly. Even her arm fat was visible as she pressed her forearms up against herself, letting the fat around her triceps swell out backwards.

Sliding on a shirt over her now wider torso, El walked over to her closet and rummaged through a mess of old laundry and paper, finally removing a large shoebox from its depths. Opening it, El took out a cheep plastic scale. She had found it in Hopper's basement a few days ago, and was now recording her weight at the start of every day, mostly for the satisfaction of watching the numbers go. Placing it on the ground by her bed, El stepped on the scale with her still bear feet and waited.

It flashed for a moment, then changed so that El saw a series of numbers on the small screen, changing and flickering fast so that El couldn't read them. Finally the numbers stopped, and glowed out blue against the dull plastic of the scale.

130 lbs.

El smiled brightly, today had been a good day. Not three months ago she was barely breaking 100, but the constant stuffings had lead to El's skinny body piling 30 pounds of solid fat.

Unable to keep the smile off her face, El snuck a large candy bar from the stash under her bed, replaced the scale back in the shoebox, and skipped out the door, thinking of what Mike would say, if he could have seen her now.

"You sure took your time this morning." Grumbled Hopper.

He was waiting outside leaning up against the hood of his dirty white police car. El walked out of the house carrying a small grey backpack and slid into the passenger seat. Hopper lumbered into the drivers seat and checked his watch, leaning his forearm against the wheel.

"I think we'll be alright for time, but if you take that long every day you'll be late for something eventually."

El, was in too good a mood to take Hopper seriously. She smiled out the side window as Hopper pulled out of the pebbled driveway.

He spoke again, not taking his eyes off the road.

"I know your grades don't really matter so much to you, and hell you know they don't matter so much to me, but being late to class tells your teachers that you don't care about what they're teaching you."

He paused for a moment as they merged onto the highway. El still didn't pay him much attention.

"I guess it's fine if you don't care about your teachers, but they won't see it that way, so just, you know, just keep that in mind." Hopper said.

He was clearly trying to make an impression, a feat in which he was definitely failing. El still said nothing, but stared out the window with the same sheepish grin as before. This did not go unnoticed by Hopper.

"You're awfully chipper this today," he said. "What're all the smiles about"?

El turned to Hopper grinning wider then ever. Remembering a line Dustin had used at the arcade the other day, she decided to try out his metaphor.

"I guess I got a new high score!" She said.

Hopper had no idea what she meant by this, and continued to glance at the back of El's head as she turned back towards the window, still with that same exited smile firmly hitched on her face.

"Has anyone else noticed that El's been acting weird?"

Hours later, and Mike could be found sitting at his usual lunch table in the cafeteria surrounded by his four friends. His head slumped against the table, looking bored and disinterested, staring at a spot of paint on the waxy counter. It was Dustin who spoke, and Lucas who answered him.

"You mean weirder then usual? Her normal is weird, what has she been hanging around you lately?"

This drew a half-hearted chuckle from Max.

"No, I mean weirder then her usual weird." Replied Dustin. I mean, look at her, what's she doing over there by herself?"

Mike looked up from the table, and stared across the lunchroom in the direction of El. She was indeed sitting by herself at the far end of a table that hosted a large group of chattering sixth graders. El was surrounded by various empty Tupperware and candy wrappers, and was clearly gorging herself on a lunch that could feed at least three people. She ate with the same kind of detached gusto that she had shown every day this week.

Mike couldn't take his eyes off her. Watching her eat at lunchtime had now become a regular pastime of his, one that was becoming increasingly rewarding with each passing day.

Mike thought back to the evenings when El had slept over. She had been sleeping over at Mikes house almost every day for the past month, much to his enjoyment. His plan to fatten El up had been far easier, and far more productive then he could have anticipated. No matter how many waffles he put in front of her, she always asked for more, no matter how much candy he left on the D&D table she always finished it off.

In some ways this new gluttony had been startling for Mike, El had always been a fairly reserved person, this dramatic change in attitude was a little off-putting.

But just look at her, thought Mike

He stared at El as she ate, watching her mouth, which now always seemed to be full of something. Seeing her plumped up thighs and butt, her rounded belly, and growing boobs, made his ears burn, but he couldn't help it. Mike blinked and found himself constructing a fantasy world in his head, a world where El was twice as big as she was now, and was letting him rub her swollen belly as she stuffed herself ever larger.

Mike felt his ears burn and his cheeks turn red. Putting his head back down on the table, he buried his face in his forearms and groaned to himself. He felt embarrassed by his own thoughts, and immediately tried to think of something, anything else.

But he couldn't, she was right there in front of him, stuffing herself with candy and waffles and whatever else.

"That's a pretty jerky thing to say!"

Mike looked up, he'd been so absorbed in his own thoughts he hadn't even heard what Dustin had said, or why Max was derailing him for it.

"But she has!" Dustin argued, "I'm not making fun of her, but I mean jeez, just look, it's not exactly subtle."

"Even if your right," shot back Max "it's rude to comment on a girls weight, it's just not something you do."

"Fine! Fine! I'm sorry, jeez."

Mike could guess what Dustin had said to upset Max. But no matter how much Max said otherwise, Dustin did have a point about the subtlety of El's weight. Even now Mike noticed the lunch table cutting into her upper belly, creating a sort of shelf, with her bloated stomach stretching the fabric of her shirt skin-tight.

"I'm gonna go talk to her." Mike said abruptly.

He got up from the table, the eyes of his friends following him as he walked across the lunchroom to where El was sitting. As El saw Mike approaching, she momentarily stopped chewing, a short pause in her relentless intake of food.

"What are you doing here sitting by yourself?" he asked.

El just shrugged as she resumed chewing, but still kept her large eyes fixed up on Mike.

"You want to come sit with us?" Mike asked.

El shrugged again.

Mike didn't know what to do, she really was acting weird now, not just with her eating, but El had always sat with the rest of the group. What had changed?

"Well…um… why not? You mad at someone? Did Lucas say something again?"

She still said nothing. Mike was trying to be as patient as possible, but watching her stuff herself right in front of him was not exactly helping his concentration.

"Well…um…I guess if you just want to be left alone-"

"Can you sit with me?" El interrupted. She said it quickly, nervously, as if she had forced the words out of her at the last second.

"Oh…um…sure, ok." Mike replied, a little taken aback.

Mike circled around the side of the table and sat down on El's left, twisting himself around to face her. She was still munching on a chocolate bar, but continued to look directly at Mike, staring at him with her large brown eyes. Mike noticed the small ring of chocolate around her lips, he found this adorable, but couldn't think of what to say, they were just sitting staring at each other, and she was clearly waiting for him to start a conversation, but his mouth felt like sandpaper. Unable to take his eyes off her chewing Mike just said the first thing that popped into his head.

"So…um…that's a big lunch you got there."

Mike physically winced, what on earth did go and say that for. Max had clearly said not two minutes ago how rude it was to talk to girls about their weight. He braced for the impending explosion, but it never came. Surprisingly El broke into a huge smile, keeping her lips tightly sealed, as her mouth was still full of chocolate.

"Yeah, I've bee eating really well." She said brightly.

Though El tried not to show it, Mike commenting on her eating habits was all she could have asked for. Him noticing her gorge herself had made every stuffing and bellyache she'd had to endure this week worth it and then some. Glowing with this new confidence, she pushed further.

"I think eating so well has made me…well…"

She sat back and patted her swollen stomach. Mike's eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets as he stared at her new chub. This made El, if possible, even happier. Mike on the other hand could not hold himself back any longer. Abandoning caution, he reached out and poked the front of her belly fat, watching as his finger sank deep into her gut.

"It really has." He said, seizing this opportunity to speak his mind at last.

All at once Mike was brought back to his senses. The mood of the conversation shifted, El's previously smiling face was now filled with something that Mike couldn't quite place. He retreated back to his part of the bench, and nervously looked into El's face, searching for confirmation that he hadn't overstepped. El said nothing at first, but then spoke in a small shy voice.

"Mike?"

"Yeah?" he replied, mirroring her tone.

"Could you do that again?"

Mike froze. This was it, this was all he'd been dreaming about for the past few weeks, but now that the opportunity had presented itself, he wasn't sure he could go through.

"Um…right now?" he said, trying to stall for time.

"Or later," El said franticly.

She was terrified if whether she'd said the wrong thing, and was hastily trying to cover it up.

"Or not at all, I mean, if you don't want to that is. You don't have to if you don't want to."

"No, no, I do." Mike replied.

His face turned red at that, but El feel on top of the world. She had been confident he liked her before, but hearing Mike say it out loud like that gave her a whole different kind of tingle.

"Just, maybe not here, y'know. I mean we're in the middle of the Cafeteria." He said, turning his head and looking around the room.

"Oh, right of course." El said, turning slightly pink.

"What if…what if we have another sleep over tonight?" he asked, quietly.

El beamed.

"Yes, that would be…um…really good."

They smiled at each other, looking into each other's face. It was a pure sincere smile, one that said everything on their minds without having to say a word. But just as Mike opened his mouth to say something, he was cut off by a voice from behind.

"A sleepover? Were you going to tell us about this sleepover?"

It was Dustin. Mike slouched foreword as the beautiful moment between him and El popped like a balloon. He would hang out with Dustin ten times out of ten, but if just this once the whole world could have melted away, it would have been fine with Mike.

"A sleepover sounds awesome!" said Max, appearing out of nowhere behind Dustin.

"At Mike's place?" asked Lucas, using the same appearing act Max had.

"Yeah he was just talking about it."

All Mike could do was watch in horror as all his plans evaporated like smoke.

Before long, the whole gang was around the table planning a group sleepover. What each of them would bring, plans for games, and whether or not Lucas looked old enough to buy bear. Dustin dramatically proclaimed that this would be the best Thursday night he'd have all week. And Will openly wondered if his mom would let him stay out so late. All Mike and El could do was stare at each other in a puddle of gloom.

"No way you look 21." Max laughed at Lucas

"What if I put on a fake moustache?" He replied.

"You'd get arrested so fast, it'd make your head spin."

Mike tried one last-ditch effort to fix the whole thing.

"Um…guys. Actually I was kind of thinking maybe…" But it fell on deaf ears.

"So I'll see you at six!" Called out Will as the bell rang.

A nod of agreement from around the table solidified six o'clock as the meeting time. As the four friends filed out with the rest of the school, Mike sat firmly in his seat, wallowing in his own bad luck, and wishing he would have just grabbed El's tummy when he'd had the chance.