Retrograde

Idly she waited. And waited. And waited. Waiting was boring, the fat pegasus decreed to herself as she lay in bed, facing the open door frame, but waiting is what must be done. At least for a little longer.

Happily the wait wasn’t long. Her brother Grey poked his head fleetingly around the door, “Yo Kim, your friend’s here,” She perked up noticeably as Grey withdrew, leaving room for her guest to enter. The eager, grinning face of a young racoon boy stood before her.

Nicasio was Kim’s friend. Maybe even her best friend. Their interests aligned unnaturally well, with an adoration for games, fast food and self-interested pursuits of a fairly dorky nature shared equally between them. They each revelled in their interests and rejoiced in sharing them with others—hanging out was starting to become quite a frequent occurrence in these summer weeks.

Even with Nic being more than ten years her junior, Kim’s carefree approach to life brushed away any weirdness about the whole affair. Nic’s nostalgic affection for fads of a decade he wasn’t even around to see were supplemented by Kim’s halcyon memories of the same fads. While Nic could only replay trivia, Kim could put it in a cultural context and embellish it with whatever personal experience she had; stories that Nic simultaneously found fascinating and ridiculous in equal measure.

Their similarities stretched out into the real world too; their monochromatic grey coats an obvious counterpart, second in consideration only to their sheer size. With Kim and Nic at some 750 and 650 pounds respectively—and neither standing more than four and a half feet tall—they were both obese to the extremes for their species. Nic especially, aged barely into double digits, outweighed even a heavily obese adult, and for all anyone knew Kim could’ve been the fattest pony in the city.

Nic stepped haphazardly over the precipice, his hips scraping the sides of the doorframe as he entered. Kim’s floor was littered with random junk that she had failed to bother removing and, as usual, he did his best to tiptoe gently around it all in case he accidentally triggered a trash-quake. He clumsily pirouetted towards the couch (his usual seat) brushed it clear and plonked himself down, filling half of it up in an instant. Deftly he pulled a plastic case out of his bag. “I got Goldeneigh 007 on the way here!”

The next several hours passed with Nic playing the game and Kim watching. Hooves, experience had taught them, were inadequate control mechanisms for first-person shooters. Instead, she reminisced about the console, the console wars, seeing Goldeneigh in the cinemas and just how terrible she was at the game even at release. They slurped down milkshakes and scoffed nachos as they played, Nic working the controls as Kim tried to recall the map layouts and secrets from memory.

Grey, meanwhile, cleaned up around them, grumbling to himself as the gluttonous pair sat unmoving from their perches, shifting themselves only to reach for more food to push into their hungry mouths. They eventually paused for a hearty meal of YouTube and greasy burgers from the local joint (another favourite they shared) before launching back into Goldeneigh and pop song sing-alongs (Kim’s contribution to most hangouts) until the sun started setting and Nic—at the insistence of his mother—would have to head home.

This was their routine. Meet up, eat, play games, eat more, sing top 40 hits whilst playing games, and eat even more. Three times a week, sometimes four, and almost every day when Nic was off school for the summer like he was now.

Nic paused the game as he looked out to the darkening sky, “Guess it’s time for me to go…” he muttered in dismay. Gently he slid himself off the couch, the huge racoon boy having to move carefully so that his gut wouldn’t smash against the floor as he dismounted. He waddled to Kim (who hadn’t left the bed all day) and embraced her thick side, hugging into her abundant warmth. “See you tomorrow, yeah?”

Kim smiled softly, trying to return the affection with a heavy hoof, “Same time?”

Nic nodded in agreement and went on his way, his hips pressing just a little harder into the doorframe as he departed.

* * *

“Kim!”

“Nic!”

Nic grinned as he tugged his way through the now uncomfortably tight door, his stretched out shirt exposing his enormous belly; the great mass sloshing around as he forced his way inside. The racoon kid had visited Kim almost every day for the last two weeks and the effects of a seven-day fast food and video game diet were starting to show on him.

Kim had fared even worse. Her 24/7 unfettered access to junk food and ever present entertainment in the form of Nic meant she had barely moved in the last fortnight. With her increased girth it was debatable whether she could leave at all with such a narrow doorway standing between her and the outside world. She was laid, as she was every single day, on her bed, her ballooning gut starting to sag softly over the sides of the thick mattress.

Nic bounded towards her with all the grace of a ship in a storm, his gut smacking into the bed frame as he embraced Kim’s swollen chest (and lowest chin) in a tight hug. “I brought my Ponymon cards!” he exclaimed, glee glistening in his eyes.

“Really?! I love Ponymon!” Kim exclaimed back. She wobbled thoroughly, apparently in some lost attempt to exclaim excitement through body language. “I’ve not played the card game in yeeeaaaars! I still got all my cards!” She motioned a hoof expectantly towards the lowest shelf of a nearby bookcase, eyeing Nic expectantly. If that pony could still move she didn’t seem very willing to do so. Nic obliged her; the racoon’s eyes touching upon a thick, yellow binder, heavily faded by sunlight and age. He pulled it free of the bookcase and felt its heavy weight fall into his hands, the cover adorned with a barely surviving image of the series’ mascot and a messy scrawl of “KIMBERLY” along the bottom.

Entranced, he carried it over to his usual couch and sat down, the furnishings creaking under him. “Can I open it?” he whispered, curiosity crackling in his voice. Kim nodded, and he turned to the first page.

Ponymon cards. Hundreds of them. Maybe even thousands. All of them from the base sets, the first releases, organised by Ponypædia number and preserved in worn plastic. These little pieces of card were nearly twice his age, they’d have been out of circulation for years by the time he was even born, and now he was holding them, right here in his paws. “Wooooow! These must be worth loads!”

Kim laughed, her rolls slapping together as her weight shifted suddenly. “My goodness no! Everyone was into Ponymon back then; even someone who didn’t care about Ponymon at all probably still has hundreds of cards laying around somewhere,” she paused a moment to regain her composure, “There’s probably a few in there worth something, though!”

They spent the next while just going through the binder together, admiring the card art, the changes in the designs over time and the occasional misprint. Nic conveyed his trivia about how certain Ponymon cards had never been reprinted in future sets because of legal reasons, and Kim commented on their battle capabilities… at least what she could remember of them.

They only stopped when Kim complained of hunger and requested an early lunch, she even convinced her brother to bring them a tray of snacks and drinks while they waited for their usual burgers to arrive. Nic continued flicking through the binder, commenting on odd pieces to Kim, but she seemed oddly preoccupied now that there was food in front of her. The burgers arrived swift as ever. Grey dragged the wet, greasy bags through to the bedroom, depositing them by Kim with his usual murmur of disapproval.

Nic was… confused. Kim had more than doubled their usual food order and she was already desperately stuffing her face with the burgers. They were both big eaters—that much was obvious—but Kim today was nothing he had seen of her before. She was ravenous; her hooves aimlessly dragging burgers to her maw, three at a time, chewing them minimally before she practically swallowed them whole. Her pile of greased goods was gone before he had eaten even half of his own—shocking given he was usually the first to finish their lunches (thumbs, it turns out, were useful.) The glutted pony topped it off with a long, wet belch; blushing profusely as she remembered her company.

“Err, Kim…?”

She faced Nic, her grease and cheese-slathered chins shaking as she turned. The raccoon was grinning from ear to ear. “That… that was AWESOME!” Nic screamed, the room quaking as he jumped out of his seat and his ponderous gut promptly smashed into the floor. He waddled over to the bed, sinking a paw deep into her overflowing gut, eliciting another, shorter belch from the behemoth mass.

“It… it was…?” Kim blushed profusely, not expecting praise from something as mundane as her eating habits, “I’ve just been really hungry lately, so I figured I’d get us a bit extra,” she attempted (and failed) to shrug, “it’s no big deal,”

“But, but you ate it all soooo fast! And that was so many burgers! Are you full? Do you want more?”

She mentally scolded her grumbling stomach for answering for her, “I’ll get more later, Nic. Those are your burgers, no matter how hungry I get,”

Nic nodded, resuming his seat and unwrapping his next few burgers. Kim tried to turn the conversation back to Ponymon, but it was Nic who was preoccupied now; too busy trying to emulate Kim’s gorging tactics and calamitous belching to pay much attention.

* * *

Despite her excuses, Kim’s increased portion sizes remained for the next week, and with them Nic’s fair share of the calorie-laden bounty. Kim was growing noticeably fatter by the day (she must be eating that much several times a day, Nic mused), and Nic’s already ill-fitting shirt was becoming more like a support bra for his moobs than a defender of decency; a development that notably bothered neither of them. He had a new, whale-like role model to follow, and Kim never wore clothes to begin with, so no big deal, right?

Nic huffed breathlessly as he finally heaved himself through the doorway. The trip from the front door was arduous when you had your own belly to fight against on the way. It had grown and sagged, brushing the ground as he stood, a constant obstacle to his freedom of movement. He stumbled across to the bed, planting his face into Kim’s lowest chin and arms into her abundant sides. A thick, lard-swaddled hoof attempted to embrace the racoon kid in return, but mostly just succeeded in smothering his head in more flab.

Kim had all but surrendered herself to her appetite and the results had come around fast. Her body rose five feet above the mattress line and sagged one foot below it. Her two forward hooves alone were probably the same size as Nic’s whole body when put together; her basketball cheeks forced her to squint constantly and they wobbled with every slight movement; even her wings were more endowed with fat than Nic thought possible. It was becoming clear from the lingering food stains that Grey had given up on washing her.

“Morning Nic,” she smiled weakly, dimples pressing into her thick cheeks, “Nice skirt,”

“Morning, blobby birdhorse buddy!” Nic grinned back, turning slightly so she could get a better view of the wide purple and black skirt he was wearing. “My trousers weren’t fitting properly this morning, so my mom found these to wear. We think my cuz left them behind once,”

Nic took his usual spot on the couch, gently rubbing Kim’s sagging gut as he moved around her, his own swelling sides encroaching on the seat’s armrests more by the day. He had taken an attentive fascination with Kim’s size and appetite this last week, much to her amusement. It wasn’t retro or niche like the usual interests he exhibited, but he always seemed a little too willing to poke and tease her about it when the opportunity arose, and always enthused to talk about the subject when it came up in conversation. She had to admit, it was nice to have someone compliment her girth rather than put her down for it like her brother. Nic’s own growth wasn’t lost on them either, and Kim slowly got into the groove of returning his jibes in kind.

Today’s entertainment consisted of some strange video game where a bird and a bear were trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle. It was a rare occasion that Kim didn’t have much to add to proceedings, but this was seemingly one of them, she relegated herself to watching in quiet fascination, slurping on drinks and snacks as Nic played. Lunch came and went as it had for the last several days, with Kim furiously stuffing her maw with half the burger stash and Nic trying desperately to keep up with her. The larger portions still made him feel uncomfortably full, but he pushed himself to eat everything like his friend did, and hopefully soon as quickly as she could too.

Post-meal conversations steadily devolved into a cavalcade of exaggerated teasing. Nic was the fattest kid in town. Kim was soon to be a room-filling immense blob. Nic would be one too. Kim probably weighed as much as a loaded van. Nic could probably eat a loaded van. Nic would eventually resume gaming but their back-and-forth jibing continued long into the evening, the outcome always that the city would soon be buried under their collective fat. Their snack intake increased in line with their waistlines, the time between hungry mouthfuls starting to get perilously short.

Over the next weeks the days seemed to rush by faster and faster, and time swiftly came for Nic to go home one more time—school resumed in a few days and his mother wanted him to spend that time at home, given they’d barely seen him all summer.

He pushed himself forward off the couch, immediately meeting resistance that forced him backwards. He tried again, grunting painfully but met with similar results. He could feel the carpet under him; but not under his feet—under his gut. Curious, he leaned back into the seat as far as he could go and he could still feel his belly squash heavily into the matted carpeting.

“Kim, I’m stuck…” He vainly tried to heave himself forwards again, his overindulged body wobbling as he struggled to break free of the couch’s gravitational pull.

Kim grinned, “Hang on, I’ll get Grey. GREY! GREY! GREY! GREY! GREEEEY! GREEEEEEEEY! GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-!”

“WHAT!?” Grey screamed from the doorway.

“Nic’s stuck.”

Grey’s irritated gaze turned to the morbidly obese racoon kid, who was now blushing a crimson red.

Attempts to shift him proved fruitless. Grey alone just didn’t have the horsepower to move that much mass, and the lack of hands with which to grip anything didn’t help either. The exasperated (and now exhausted) stallion relegated himself to calling Nic’s parents and explaining—in the most loathing of terms—the predicament they had made for themselves.

Nic’s parents came by, both exceptionally obese creatures themselves, apparently, providing their son with a brief and somewhat half-hearted chastising before giving their permission that he could stay, at least until school resumed in a week. They also offered to fund his ongoing expenses, much to the poorly disguised joy of Grey and his bank account.

Nic’s parents didn’t leave until long after it had gone dark. Grey had left the house to cash the cheque. Kim and Nic sat silently in the darkening room together, quietly coming to terms with what was happening now.

“Sooooo…” Kim muttered, “You put the game back on and I’ll order us some dinner, yeah?”

* * *

The summer had really seen both Nic and Kim really grow as individuals. Their mutual indulgences in greasy food and the pop culture of old had laid catalyst to a self-sustaining cycle of gluttony and hedonism that had gone unabated for almost all of the holidays. All care and pretence was gone now, their last days together spent gorging themselves in spectacular fashion.

Now on the floor, perched upon the few inch thick ruins of a bed sunken by her titanic mass, was Kim. She coated nearly half of the bedroom in her bulk, looking less like a pegasus mare by the day; the only possible similarity being if the pegasus had somehow swallowed a fully grown elephant first. She more closely resembled a sprawling grey landscape of rolls and crevices, with every extremity packed to the brim with plush, sagging lard. Devoid of all mobility and with sight and speech quickly dwindling, she had simply resigned to keeping her muzzle buried into a similarly fat feedbag, groaning in desperate desire to sate her incredible appetite.

Nic had, for now, fared better from the experience, expanding heavily in the lateral directions, he had successfully expanded to fill the entire three-seater couch. His gut had continued its trek across the floor, covering several square feet and leaving the remainder of the couch lost to his rump and trunk-like legs. The torn remnants of his shirt and skirt were still present, struggling to cover a fraction his bloated bulk.

Sunken atop his stomach were moobs each large enough to hold an XXL pizza (something learned from experience), currently home to a game controller as his hands were occupied with holding a two litre soda bottle up to his mouth; an increasingly difficult exercise as his flabby arms and chins fought to keep each other separate. The jibes about Nic being the fattest kid in town were starting to seem like an underestimation of his ability—he was probably the fattest kid in the world.

He released the emptied bottle, letting it roll off down onto the floor as he simultaneously manufactured a deep, hearty belch just like his idol. He sat in silence for a moment as he surveyed the room, the pegasus, and the accumulated filth of their extended glut.

“This has been great,” he said contently, “Sucks I’ve got school again tomorrow.”