In this chapter, it's been two months since I posted and two months since Marcus left Gina's life forever. Richard has put on a lot of weight, but nothing compared to Gina (she thinks, melodramatically)…

The PDF is much prettier!

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Two months without Marcus had proven to be more than just a blessing for Richard. It had been an absolute, bonafide miracle.
The Arctic fox had never been happier, and it showed in every aspect of his life, from appetite to activity.
It was no secret that he had ballooned since spending more time with Gina. She was an active otter, and after spending all her time with Marcus for the duration of their relationship, she was accustomed to company and getting out around town, and now frequently called on Richard to fill the space. He more than filled it.
Ice cream dates were just Thursday afternoons. Yoga at his place happened every other day after work, they had dinner out at least once a week, take-away in and massages on Fridays, and long walks in the park on Mondays that he forced himself to finish no matter the consequences, because at least they finished with dinner at home with her and him sharing the cooking. She always made too much, and that was just enough.
Food comas were almost expected at every evening meal, and it wasn’t just for the large fox anymore. His habits were beginning to rub off on the otter. Little by little, she took more on her plate every day, some nights taking too much. It was so little that Richard hadn’t noticed.

Gina announced it, waking him abruptly from an afternoon nap on the couch that somehow he had outgrown.

“Richard!” Gina cried, startling his rolls into motion. “I’m getting fat and it’s your fault.”

Richard shook himself and blinked. Pudgy palms pushed his cheeks around as his broad fingers brushed the sleep from his eyes.

“Fat?” he repeated, peering down between his breasts. As if trying to see better, though he could see her full well, he leaned forward. His neck rolls billowed and his breast swelled, squeezed between belly and chins. He squinted to make a show of his disbelief.

“I’m sorry. Did you...” He smacked his cheek just to make his face and neck rolls wobble, and his “upside-down bicep” blubber wobbled with it. “Did you say you were fat?”

She scowled at his mocking doe eyes and folded her arms. The otter had let herself in, as she often did. It was faster and easier for both of them, cutting out the struggle for Richard to get to the door himself. It was a wonder that he could walk at all.

“I’ve put on ten pounds!” she exclaimed. “In two months!”

“Oh, horrors!” He swept the back of his paw against his brow, pushing his thick black hair out of the way..

“Don’t be dramatic, Rich,” Gina snapped, handpaws on her hips. “You’re a bad influence.”

“Me? I ate just enough not to pass out before you came along with too much food every night.”

“It’s not every night!”

“Close enough.” Richard frowned and looked down at himself.

How could she worry about ten pounds? In two months? He’d been averaging the same every two days.

The scale had given out last week. His foot went through the stairs the last time he had touched them. His sofas bent like boomerangs, the lowest parts touching the floor. They were stuck like that now, permanently. It almost made him feel guilty, as if they were living and he’d sat on them to death.

The difference to his girth was more than noticeable, too. In his body’s feeble attempt at helping his balance, his ass and tail had taken on an ample spread to counteract the outshoot of his stomach. An outshoot so far that it swallowed the coffee table that he couldn’t reach in any way, shape, or form with his paws.

He’d thought to belly-bump it away into a corner, but the thought made him sweat and tire and knead his shape self-consciously.

“So, I’m a bad influence on you, too,” Gina said. She was looking at him in the same way he was looking at himself; as if noticing his size for the first time. Anxiety paled her stare.

“No. Gina,” Richard said, leaning forward to try and reach her, his wide paws straining and barely passing his own breast, “you’re the only good influence in my life right now.” He reached, he reached, he reached until his abdomen gave out and he fell back against the seat and clamped his paws around his temples, wheezing quietly. “Oh, please come closer.”

“I haven’t seen you at work since Monday,” she said. She stayed put, shaking her head. “What are you afraid of? We’ve been doing walks, yoga, and dinners just fine. You aren’t sick, you aren’t immobile. What are you afraid of?”

Richard moaned, rubbing his temples. The muscles in his back were on fire. His round cheeks already felt hot.

Sighing, he pointed his nose to the ceiling and absently massaged his poor chest, kneading away that achy lingering feeling of compression. “I can work from home—where the doors fit me.”

“You’re a nutritionist,” Gina argued. “There are no labs at home.”

“Gina, I haven’t seen the labs for almost as long as I haven’t seen my toes.” Richard grimaced bitterly, his ears almost flat against his skull. “I don’t know what you aren’t seeing. This—“ he gestured to his mountainous front spread over the floor— “isn’t suited for lab work. It takes out anything in its path.”

The otter seemed to fluff up slightly, like a frazzled cat. She rubbed her arms and glared at the floor.

Richard bit his lip and tried to reach out for her again.

This time, she turned around and fell backwards into his outgrown paunch. She sunk in, almost swallowed from his sight, and rode the tumultuous waves she had started over his front. His belly, sandwiched between her slight frame and the coffee table, seemed to gain volume as it moved.

Richard slapped a paw to his girth to dissuade the jostling.

“Are you really mad about gaining ten pounds?” he asked quietly, straining just to reach her shoulder. As he doubled over, his belly swelled out to fill more space, and Gina was lifted by it out of his grasp. His paw trembled inches from her fur, shaking with the effort, then fell away.

Gina rode his movements apathetically, as if she were sharing a waterbed with someone she had known for too long. She sighed heavily.

“No,” she said finally. She put a hand under her tank top and felt the tiny, furry bulge. “It’s... fine.”

The Arctic fox hugged himself. “So, what’s wrong?”

Gina turned on her side. She was quiet and still for a few minutes before she wriggled higher up on his girth and nestled against his breast, within his reach. Now he was fully supporting her, her toes off the floor, curled against his gut. His white fur enveloped her, pressing between her thin arms and legs and grasping fingers in soft, warm lumps.

“I’m worried about you,” she whispered, squeezing a handful of his plumpness.

Richard sniffled and put his paws around her fragile shoulders. Ten pounds or not, he could still feel her bones. It was grounding to feel something so firm, so opposite to his own form. “I’m okay. It’s all okay, Gina.”

“What happens when you can’t walk, Rich?” she asked. “If this keeps going...”

He flinched.“I’m not there yet.”

“We aren’t far away.”

“We?”

“Yes, stupid.” Gina shoved her burning, wet face into his fat and clenched handfuls of his folds. Her warm paws radiated pleasant tingling through his bulk, tingling which made his heart race happily with every movement.

“I’m not letting you go it alone,” she said. “We’re a team.”

Richard’s eyes widened and he felt his heart melt away. For a moment, he forgot how to breathe. It came back to him along with a flood of tears. “Really? You mean it? You-you don’t have to—“

She clamped his muzzle shut with a blindly swung paw and spoke into his moob. “Shut up, stupid. You and me.”

Richard gulped, trying to squeeze the tears away with a long blink. There was a thick feeling in the back of his throat that told him there was no point in speaking—it would devolve into sobbing in no time.

Instead, he wrapped his arms around Gina and pulled her, with his breast, against his cheek. She was sandwiched between his gelatinous arms and the rolls of his uppermost body, such that she couldn’t move.

When Richard released her slightly, she wrapped her thin arms around his tire-sized neck and pressed her cheek hard against his. She pet his messy hair, then leaned in to kiss his wet nose, stroke his muzzle, and wipe his sensitive tears away.

“I’m sorry for stressing you out,” she said, cupping her hand around his dumpling cheek.

He averted his eyes as he felt his face grow hot.

“I’m... sorry you gained ten pounds,” he mumbled shyly.

They locked eyes for a moment. His brows climbed slowly higher, hers furrowed. Richard awkwardly cracked a grin and the otter started to laugh.

She slapped him lightly, playfully, across the face, then threw her arms around him again.

“You’re such a dick.” Her face pressed back down into his chest and she squeezed him tighter.

“Ugh,” she grumbled into his fur. “I love you.”

Every muscle buried at Richard’s untouchable frame relaxed at once, turning him to jelly in a snap. He stared, wide-eyed, at the wall straight ahead, his rounded ears flicked back flat against his skull.

Paw hesitantly lifting over her back, the Arctic fox gulped.

“I...” His thick fingers spread over her shoulder blades. With the slightest of smiles, he hugged her back, forcing his chins and breast to push into his jaw, and whispered, “I love you, too.”