Winter's Warmth P.1 (Patreon)

The Masque of Winter is the premier fashion show on the Eastern coast.

Black-iron lamps are set into mounds of powder throughout the massive hall, each spreading an arctic light from bare bulbs, almost like looking at the sun through a layer of ice. The tables are small, circular high-tops with silver-white sheets, and their seats are customized to look as if hewn straight from ice.

Ribbons hang from the second-floor banister, a massive structure which has been specially assembled for the extravagant hall. The upper deck flanks and crosses just past the tip of the runway, where an immense evergreen is decorated with beautiful ornaments and gift after absurdly large gift.

But, as ornate as the hall is, it cannot compare to the wealth of its guests.

A small number wear the standard, lavish dresses and darkened tuxedos, but more play into the theme. Glimmers from gemstones, the sparkling laughter of a finger tickling a low-hanging neckpiece, the bareness of skin covered in soft silver dust. Young women dress like elves, or angels, or some other such creature, wearing holly in their hair or golden flecks on their wings. Young men dress in kind, bare chests and strong middles, with crimson arrangements coloring them as high-born devils.

To enter the hall is to step into another world, as if you’ve crossed the threshold into the world of Faerie and are to admire the court of the Queen of Winter. From New York to Cincinnati to Miami Beach, everyone who is anyone is attending the party...

And almost everyone there is wearing some sort of mask.

Not physically, mind. Some are; those of such stature that they care not for the camera might wear some such arrangement while milling about in the corded off sections, but too many in the hall crave the burning spotlight, and their masks are the most hideous.

Sammy was not wearing a mask.

Sammy was wearing a gray dress that she got for $5 at Walmart, a pair of furry gray ears that she’d gotten for $1.50, and her chubby cheeks were decorated with three lines of makeup on either side that her friend, Nat, had done for free. She was by far the most underdressed person in the hall, and because of this, she shined like a chubby white star.

“And not a creature was stirring… save one… hungry mouse…”

The dessert-stuffed blonde allowed herself to exhale a low, long breath, aware that her belly was stretched to capacity and not giving the slightest of a care in the world. She wanted to grin, to wink knowingly at the sea of disapproving jewels, but she was afraid that she’d laugh. Laughing was problematic right now.

Laughing might make her burst.

So she ate instead.

Sammy was not thin. She used to be, but now she was a fat girl in a fatter body. A tubby blonde whose life of sloth and unfulfilled desires had spoiled her to softness, always impressed how easy it was to keep taking ‘Just one last bite.’

Her first ‘last bite’ had been two plates ago, her belly so full that it pressed up to the table. But it was as if their glares were what carried the next fudge brownie, as big as her palm and nearly as chubby, up to her plump lips. Their sneers would then push it through, forcing her chubby cheeks to chew and to swallow and sigh and glow.

Her belly whined, not in hunger or want but in pain and pressure, the warm and wet noise of a stomach stuffed pink. Their disgust tasted almost as sweet to the blonde as their puddings and ice cream and their delectable chocolates.

A dribble of sweat flecked from her temple. She could feel the exertion in her arms, the strain of thighs smothered by her belly. But more than that, the bitter chill of her internal laughter and hatred for this bougie palace made Sammy feel as if she were light enough to sit atop of a cloud.

A cloud of cotton candy which she could chew and laugh and throw at the sneering false-angels that surrounded her.

“A-another… Just one more…” she wheezed to herself, her chest billowing between strangled breaths. This next ‘last bite’ was another chocolate confection, one decorated lavishly with frozen peppermint ice cream which had begun to melt.

She lifted it to her mouth, watched the steam from her gasps encase the confection and heat it quicker. Cream wet her thumb and forefinger, and though the dessert was just big enough to necessitate two bites, she’d no choice but to toss it in all at once, lest her heat cause the treat to dribble down on her middle.

“Ommmggghhh,” she groaned, feeling herself go cross-eyed as the deliciousness impacted her tongue, and the regret screamed up from her belly. It was as if another fat girl were sitting on her waist, squeezing Sammy’s diaphragm between thick thunder thighs!

Yet there was something in that mental image, the warmth that the pain caused her to feel. Feeling how the fabric of her dress tickled her breasts, how her pantyhose pinched at her hips... She swallowed, and her stomach was forced to make space, pressing up against the table and pushing her sideways.

Unthinkingly, her glazed eyes pulled up another ‘last bite,’ then another. She was still processing the slop of the ice cream when she tasted the cherry tart and the chocolate-covered strawberry, already tumbling down to the muffling pile and eliciting cries of anguish from her skin.

She’d gone too far. Too many sensations overloaded the fat girl’s brain, too much gluttony and this wrathful pride. On autopilot, her fingers searched her plate for another last morsel… and came up empty.

Only when she felt the ribbon on the giftbox in front of her did Sammy blink and return to herself. She saw her fingers pinching the wrapping, the gift tag that read in Nat’s cheery print, ‘Open in case of chocolate emergency!’

Sammy was not having a chocolate emergency. She was enduring a sugary slaughter, a calorie catastrophe… but she’d the sneaking suspicion that the gift given to her was not meant for her.

Then, with sight restored, she once more heard the whispers.

‘Christ. Look at her…’

‘What a pig.’

‘I think that’s a mouse.’

‘Not the costume you idiot!’

‘Oh.’

It made her mad. It made her shiver. It made her hungry.

Sammy knew why she was here. She’d known from the moment she’d seen the name on her invite. Printed in immaculate cursive, on a twenty-dollar card strapped to a two-hundred dollar ‘gift,’ was a five-letter name that made Sammy cuss a five-letter word.

Auvie <3

If the card had set off warning bells, the red-and-white dress and the invitation contained released the howls of tornado sirens, and those sirens became screams when Sammy had tried the dress on.

Muffled screams. Into her pillow.

Because the damned thing fit, and it was cute too.

It was designer, of course. Auvie was the type who didn’t know the meaning of ‘resale outlet.’ Gorgeous velvet hugged Sammy’s sides, enunciated her curves, and it even came with a white belt of silk to be worn on the waist, matching the fur trim. It didn’t make her belly too big, didn’t make her thighs too fat. It did make her breasts and hips look pretty well stacked, but it was more of a pleasant plus-size rather than her usual serving of hopeless obesity.

For Christmas, Sammy’s closest friend, Halie, had baked her a whole tray of double-fudge brownies. She’d been intent on making it last, planning to have only one square each Friday as a little treat for making it through the week. But that night, Sammy ate the whole tray, still wearing the dress, and washed it all down with Mr. Pibb soda to ensure she was too busy hiccupping to swear anymore.

Once she woke from her cocoa-coma, the blonde shoved the designer dress to the back of her closet and waddled out of her apartment to begin putting together something insultingly cheap. She knew from the card that she couldn’t turn down the invite, but she wouldn’t be a mouse dancing to some bitch’s tune.

Auvie was not Sammy’s friend.

The invite, the cheerful greetings, the dress, it was all a façade. She wasn’t invited here as a guest.

She was here as an oddity. An extreme, something to give the diamond necklaces and golden wings something to look at and gasp, ‘Gracious me!’ Hence the fancy invite, hence the fancy clothes. But here, at her table, glutted on plate after plate of these rich people foods, Sammy was the one who set the music.

The dress would have made her a sideshow, but dressing down had, insultingly, made her their peer.

“I think… I’ll have… another,” she huffed, her breath so warm that it came as puffs of steam. She said it just loudly enough that those who were watching could also hear, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the golden halo of an angel twinkle with rage. It was thrilling, so much more than Sammy could have ever expected, even if it made her stomach quaver with fear.

Trying her best to hide her smile and to look without looking, Sammy watched towards the angel as she pushed back from the table and made to stand.

She was stopped as her eyes flashed white with sudden pain, a hideous blossom like her stuffed-solid stomach had just compressed her own lungs. She twitched, one hand coming to her gut, the other trying to grip the lip of the chair. It could not find it beneath the fat of her rear.

Sammy hissed, and her gut answered with a low and painful rumbling *Ouuugggghhh* of melting sugars and fatty creams. “Haa, haa,” she breathed, the ache in her belly like a sprained ankle, pressing through the gaps of her compressing fingers.

“Are you well, Yong Miss?” someone asked.

The woman groaned, turning to see a man wearing an open vest that showed a strong center and bronzed skin out of one squinted eye. “I’m… f-fine,” she said, waving off the server.

The man lifted an eyebrow, and a smirk along with it when her belly loosed another pleading groan of sweet pain. “You do not sound… fine,” he said, his speech flowing with a rich accent.

A deeper groan came, as if her stomach were trying to answer for her, and Sammy lifted her hand in a fist to cover her mouth. Her next pant was warmer, and she could almost feel the bubbles of digestion bursting inside of her. “W-water,” she breathed. “Just need some… more water.”

“Aha. Right away, Madame.”

She didn’t think. Her hand moved on its own, slow but unmistakable, a finger touching the man’s wrist as he turned to leave. Ahead of her, aside of her, Sammy saw the colorful jewels and their dark whispers.

“Is there something more?” the man asked.

The blonde swallowed the heat. It bubbled inside of her, but she forced her words to be strong and steady and as spiteful as she felt for this gaudy place. “Get me a Frappuccino,” she said tersely. “Double chocolate.”

She didn’t look at him. She was too busy trying to spread her glare to everyone else. But she felt more than heard the low noise of his amused hum come before the man bowed and said, “As you wish, Señora.”

Then he was gone, and Sammy sank back in her seat, all alone… save for every pair of eyes that glared at the girl and her fatty grin.

She did not try to stand, again. She could scarcely breathe. However, the attention she had made her feel drunk, and she came so close to finally laughing, until her eyes glazed over at the thought of the drink…

A Frappuccino was heavy, made with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. But it could give the girl a strong injection of her beloved caffeine… Mhmmm, and it was delicious too… She could almost feel herself getting lost in the imagined flavor, a bovine grin spreading across her soft face.

An energy kick was just what she needed. With that, she’d manage the strength to get up, stretch… and then she’d waddle her way back to the stairs, which would creak and cry beneath her thunderous thighs before plodding along to the desserts table.

Surely, she could manage just one last bite~

Sammy let her head lean back, and at the angle she sat, her belly was able to swell and to stretch. She faced outward, her elbow resting on her crumb covered table, the absent grin filling her face. If only just for a moment, for the first time in a long time, Sammy felt as if she’d regained some small amount of control.

She began to drift back to sightlessness, her devastated senses trying to figure out if her body was enamored or filled with pure hatred, when there was suddenly a hand on her soft shoulder and the hot breath of an angry whisper in her ear.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!?”