“The Cram Session” (An ONA: The Tutor Prequel)

(Nota Bene: This is the first in a series of prequel vignettes for our latest weight-gain adventure game, One Night Adventure: The Tutor.  These take place in the months prior to the in-game action, expand on its occurrences, and make allusions to other tales from the "Maverick-verse.")   

“Do you think I should say something?”

Kaye Jackson glanced from the dinner table into the living room where her daughter, Shelby, sat on the sofa in a tank top and shorts watching Two and a Half Men, her long limbs splayed akimbo across the cushions.  Normally, that would have been enough to draw Kaye's eye and ire, but she was distracted by the potato chip bag in Shelby’s lap and the pillow of belly flesh it rested against.

Kaye’s husband, Dennis, sat opposite her at the dining table. “Absolutely not,” he said without lifting his eyes from his newspaper.

“Then maybe you should say something?”  Kaye whispered.

“Hell, no.”  Dennis licked his thumb and turned the page.

“I just don’t want what happened to my surgeon’s daughter to happen to her.”

Dennis peered over his newsprint shield. “Which surgeon?  The Asian guy?  Nip tuck?”

“No,” Kaye scowled. “My lipo guy. Dr. Cumberbatch. His daughter gained so much weight not even he can help her. It’s too bad. She had such a darling figure.”

A snort from Shelby joined the canned laughter blaring from the TV.  “Dad, you should come watch this!" Shelby shouted between crunches of chips.  "It’s hysterical.”

“Be there in a minute, Sweetie.  Save a few chips for me!” Dennis smirked at Kaye. “There, I said something.  Happy?”

Asshole.  Kaye shook her head and gazed into the living room, where Shelby was shoveling another handful of chips into her face.  Most found her mouth, but a few escaped into the cracks of the cushions and her cavernous cleavage.  Kaye cringed.  Her beautiful daughter was becoming a slob.

“Fine,” Kaye said, rising from the table.  “If you won’t do anything, then I will.”

Kaye strode purposefully from the dining room into the living room. After planting her feet beside the sofa, she put her hands on her hips and glared at the sprawled-out teenager.

Shelby shivered beneath her mom’s icy gaze. “What?”

“We’ve talked about eating in the living room.”

“You said it was ok!”

“When you had your cast on.  It’s been off for weeks.”

Shelby rubbed her meaty right thigh. “My leg still hurts.”

“It’s probably the way you’re sitting.” Kaye pushed her daughter’s feet off the sofa. They fell to the floor with a thud and an avalanche of crumbs.

"Jesus, Mom, can I just watch the show?"

“No.”  Kaye mashed the power button on the TV.  “Your father and I need to talk to you.”  Kaye glanced back to the kitchen.  Dennis was gone.

Asshole.

“What is it?”  Shelby huffed, pulling another handful of chips from the bag.

Without the blare of the TV, their crunch was even more obnoxious.  Kaye snatched the nearly empty bag off Shelby’s lap. “These were supposed to be for the entire family.” She pointed to the starburst graphic on the bag designating it ‘Family Size.’

“What do you care?” From the dwindling pile in her hand, Shelby popped a few chips past her lips and munched defiantly.  “You don’t eat junk food, remember?” she said, her rhetorical quip muffled by a mouthful of deep-fried calories.

What Kaye didn’t care for was Shelby’s condescending tone.  The only thing growing faster than her figure was her attitude.

“I was thinking,” Kaye replied calmly, “of your father and brother.”

“Sure you were.”

Kaye was silent for a moment, then forced a tight-lipped, “You’re right.”

Shelby stopped chewing, stunned that her mother would admit she was wrong about anything.

"I wasn't thinking about your father and brother," Kaye continued.  "I was thinking about you."

“What about me?”

“Shelby, it’s your senior year.  You’ve worked hard to get here.  Don’t lose focus now.”

“School hasn’t even started yet!  Can’t you let me enjoy the last couple weeks of vacation?”

“That’s what I want you to do!  But sitting on your butt and watching TV all day isn’t healthy.”

Shelby swallowed hard. “Why don’t you just say what you’re really thinking?”

“What am I thinking?”

Shelby lowered her watery eyes.  “That I’m getting fat.”

“Oh, honey…” Kaye joined her daughter on the sofa and gave her a hug.  Despite visual evidence to the contrary—specifically three muffiny rolls that spilled over the waistband of Shelby’s shorts during their embrace—she quickly added, “You’re not fat!”

After their hug, Kaye brushed a tear, and a rogue crumb, from her daughter’s cheek. “I just want you to be careful.  It’s a slippery slope, y’know?  One minute you’re on top of the world, fit as a fiddle, and the next you’re Tabitha Cumberbatch.”

“Oh my God,” Shelby gasped.  “You heard about her?”

“Are you kidding?  She’s the lead story in the paper.” Kaye grabbed the front page off the coffee table and showed her daughter its headline: 2.6 Earthquake Rumbles East Texas.  Scientists Suspect Fracking. The middle-aged matriarch smiled slyly. “What the frack do scientists know?”

“Mom, you are so bad!”

The two women giggled like schoolgirls. After regaining their composure, Shelby added, “I was actually thinking about visiting the public pool to see for myself. She’s a lifeguard there, apparently.”

“That’s the spirit!” Kaye gushed, elated at the prospect of her daughter being scared straight. “And that reminds me—I have a little back-to-school gift for you.” The diminutive housewife scurried into the hall and quickly returned with a blouse-sized box.

Shelby tore into her gift like she had the potato chips…but was confused by the drab, utilitarian-looking garment inside. “Is it a bathing suit?” the buxom teenager asked, holding up the elasticy beige one-piece.

“It’s shapewear!” Kaye gushed proudly.

“Shapewear?  Like a girdle?”

“No, of course not.  I know it looks old-fashioned, but trust me, it’s the latest thing.  No one will ever know you’re wearing it.”

Shelby dropped the underwear back in the box with a weak smile and an even weaker, “thank you.”

Kaye patted her daughter on the knee.  “Trust me—you won’t need it for long.  Just until you lose your summer weight.”  Then she stood up, taking the chips with her. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll look for some healthy recipes. Maybe we could cook them together like the old days?”

“Sure.”

“Goodnight, Sweetie.”

“Goodnight, Mom.”

Kaye blew a kiss, gave a wave, and then disappeared into the hall. Echoing taps from her footsteps ascending the home’s marble staircase slowly faded, leaving Shelby alone in silence, staring at the bland hosiery in her lap.

With a heavy sigh, Shelby tossed the box on the coffee table. Then she stood, brushed the crumbs from her belly and breasts, and headed for the kitchen. She paused at the refrigerator, reflecting on her mother’s words, before opening the freezer door and reaching behind the bulky ice tray. Her fingers found the cold cylinder container she knew would be there and removed it from its hiding place.

Butter Brickle. Yuck.

She hated Butter Brickle. Of course, that was probably why her mom chose it. Oh, well. Bad ice cream was still ice cream.

Shelby ripped off the lid and tossed it on the granite island, then she grabbed a soup spoon from the silverware drawer. In the past, she’d use a teaspoon or tablespoon to trim a few bites off the top, but present circumstances called for more drastic measures.

By the time she returned to the living room, the large spoon was already poking the container’s paperboard bottom. After a quick click of the remote and a woosh of air from the sofa cushions, she was back in front of the TV, enjoying another rerun of Two and a Half Men and the rest of her mother’s ice cream.