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Thicker

Chapter Five

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534

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Gehart whistled to himself as he headed back to work, just taking a bit of time out for a visit that, usually, he would have put off until there had been no other option left for him. Of course, no one liked going to see the doctor (well, maybe those with a particularly stringent form of hypochondria, though that was pushing things a little too far) but he was one of the worst for it.

He would never, not even in a million years, have gone to the doctor about his admittedly massive weight gain, now topping five-hundred-and-thirty-four pounds, his bulbous mass moving at a waddle at all times. They would only say the same thing, he thought, about diet and exercise - the usual stuff. They never wanted to do any tests, even when he very clearly was having an allergic reaction that time, blaming everything on his lack of activity and, ultimately, his diet too. They'd seen it all before and he just wasn't worth it to any of them when they could put it all down to his weight so very easily.

Of course, Khen was worried about his health and had to push things more and more, say whatever he needed to persuade his partner to go. There weren't any family or friends who were close enough to them to help out with anything of that manner. Anyone who knew about Gehart's weight problems and could have said anything anyway was just as much aware of how little he liked to talk about it, how he squirmed and flinched if anyone dared to mention it. It just wasn't the done thing, not with him, and he couldn't help that he didn't like to talk about it. Not everyone had to be perfect.

Yet Khen had been persistent, bringing it up repeatedly even though it, admittedly, strained their relationship somewhat. There were only so many subtle hints that the deer could drop and, in true form, they went completely and utterly over Gehart's head until, ultimately, he was forced to be direct. It was not a conversation that anyone would have liked to have, Gehart grumbling and squirming and doing absolutely everything possible to get out of the matter that was well and truly at hand. The elephant in the room... Well, that much was obvious.

And, so, he had gone, as directed by his loving partner.

Damn him.

That time, however, he found that the doctor could only say that he had come out top. Against all that they would have liked to say, the doctor had only been able to purse his lips and mutter, with a very sour expression, that Gehart was perfectly fine. In fact, he said that Gehart was in better health than he had ever been before, all of his vitals up. How that was so was beyond Gehart's comprehension but was by no means something that he felt like at all questioning at a time like that. All he needed to know that he was as well and as healthy as a smaller fur could be and that was the end of it.

"Fit as flea," the doctor said, trying to dredge up something a little more light-hearted, as much as he seemed to want to tell Gehart that he needed to lose weight when he was already dieting and exercising. "Had a patient once that kept losing even though they were eating six-thousand calories a day - not a thing wrong with them! Metabolism!"

Whether it was his metabolism or not, he was advised to keep up with the exercise and he had Khen to help him along with that whenever he did, admittedly, require a little extra motivation to go. The buck always had his best interests at heart. However, he knew that Khen liked how he looked too, the deer's eyes roaming his body whenever he was naked and, often, when he wasn't too. It was just what Khen liked and, truly, if Gehart could be spherical and still retain his health Khen would absolutely have adored it.

Anyway, so the doctor's visit wasn't so bad and he headed back to work in his far more comfortable, larger new outfit, thoughtfully purchased for him by Khen. It was just another way in which the deer could show his support and appreciation of Gehart's size, even though his feelings about it were all twisted up in wanting his lover to be healthy too, a convoluted mess of it all. Of course, Gehart did need clothes that fit well and he smoothed his paws down the collar of the suit with a small smile, the car professing tighter confines around him still as his buttocks squeezed into the seat. The car may not have fit him well but his formal work wear, well... Now, that was a much better matter entirely!

He should have been paying closer attention to the road but the stag was too busy wriggling in place, trying to find a comfortable position even while quietly revelling in how well the clothes fit him, perfectly tailored to his form and size.

Khen is going to be shocked at what the doctor said, he thought victoriously, his grin spreading wider and wider. He won't know what to think! I may even just have to bend him over his desk again to show him I was right all along...

_ _

He should have been focusing more on the road than he was, shocked back to reality as a slender, white cat wearing far too much jewellery darted out from between two cars, her paw raised as if he was trying to hail a taxi. Gehart's breath ripped from his throat in a curse as he slammed on the brakes, time slowing down, far too close to comfort, heart pounding all in the wrong ways. The car jolted to a stop and he swore again, slamming his paw down on the horn, the front bumper only a foot or so from the cat who scowled at him, her head lifting haughtily high in the quivering twitch of her whiskers.

"Look where you're going!"

"Me!" Gehart shouted back even though she surely could not hear him where he was in the car. "What the - you ran out, lady!"

Anger was but a by-product of adrenaline mixed up with the relief of not actually hitting her, blaring the horn again even as the cat scoffed and flipped him the bird - not a very ladylike thing to do at all. That said, Gehart was not acting like very much of a gentlefur either, swearing and cursing, though what else could he do after such a near miss? At least he had not been more distracted than he already was...

The cat fled the scene in a brisk clip of high-heeled footwear and he rolled his eyes. Any arousal that he may have felt was long gone as he wiped sweat from his brow before it had the chance to soak into his fur, licking his lips where they had become dry in the worry of the moment.

"Nothing like an idiot to get rid of an erection... What was she -"

The car jolted forward with a groan of metal and his head snapped back, jaws closing with a sharp click. Head pounding, the airbag set off in his face and he cursed with what little breath he had left, dazed and barely able to take note of what had happened. His paws had been up in exasperation, he thought, but he could not tell just why as he struggled, fighting with his gut and the airbag to worm them down, squeeze the release of his seat belt, needing to get out, out somehow. It was too claustrophobic in there to remain and he wheezed viciously as he squeezed his fat bulk out of the car, the spinning of his head dulling somewhat to a throb that was only slightly more bearable.

"What..." He blinked, the bright sunlight doing little to his sense of clarity. "What happened?"

But it all became clear as his vision cleared enough to take in the other car sitting behind him, the badger within spouting off as he fought to tuck away his erection, a scantily-dressed stoat in the seat beside him biting her lip. Much slimmer than the badger who was clearly her partner of some kind, she yanked tissues out of the centre console, drying her paws even as Gehart strolled over, anger simmering just beneath the surface of his rolling bulk. As if cleaning off her paws would wipe away the crime!

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" He growled, slamming a paw into the roof of the car, leaning over them. "You just rear-ended me!"

That much should have been obvious but the badger rolled his eyes, leaning back with a sigh that was by no means one of repentance.

"Seriously, mate, you should look where you're fucking going," he drawled, not even making eye contact with Gehart. "Sitting there in the middle of the fucking road like that... Just what do you think you're doing, hey?"

He seemed pleased with himself and just what he'd come up with, Gehart gasping and working his jaw open and closed, practically apoplectic with rage.

"Me?" He managed to force out at last. "Why, I tell you..."

"What seems to be the problem here, gents?"

So caught up had Gehart been in at least attempting to snarl at the badger and the stoat for their incredible act of indiscretion, he had not noticed the police car pulling up, the hawk with a thick belly frowning as well as any creature with a beak could. Gesturing to Gehart, he asked silently for him to back away from the car, the badger sliding out to join them, although he left the stoat, whether she was his girlfriend or his wife, behind to hide from what she had surely, at least in part, been instrumental in causing.

Gehart pressed his lips together. The badger was as thick as he had been before, his gut pushing out but he was in sweat pants and there was little to hold back his belly as it spilt out grotesquely. The stag shuddered. It was not so much that the fat repulsed him, of course, but more that it was becoming harder and harder with every day to look at other larger furs, the late winter tingling and prickling at his fur, even though spring was in the air. When everyone was wearing lighter, more revealing, clothing, it would be harder to even ignore his own state, stomach gurgling, yawning with hunger.

Thicker...

_ _

Gehart flinched. Leave me alone, he wanted to say to the intrusive thought that he had, eventually, related to something like a disembodied voice. It had never worked before, it wasn't him, of course not, it couldn't be him, but that word followed him through his day, through everything he did, clinging to him like a wart that no manner of treatment could remove.

Thicker...

_ _

"Ergh..." He grunted, poking the bulge of his stomach, ostentatious in its presentation. "Can't you just be quiet?"

By way of reply, his stomach growled again as if it was mocking him and he slapped a paw to his forehead.

"Damn it!"

"Now, who's going to let me know just what happened here?"

It should not have been something for an officer to deal with but there must have been something in the set of their bodies that had made him pull over in the first place. There was only one of them that could have spoken up and Gehart sucked in a breath, steadying his flustered nerves.

"It was him!" The badger shouted, dramatically pointing at Gehart with a single, accusatory finger. "He's been jamming on the brakes again and again, just trying to causing a fucking accident! What, you trying to get an insurance payout or something, you fucking fat dick?"

Gehart's jaw dropped, which was probably just as well as he bristled with anger.

"I beg your pardon?"

The badger rolled his eyes, his partner quailing back in the passenger seat of the car.

"Oh, sure, act all like fucking innocent now, you fat fucks are all the same. More interested than scarfing down fries than watching the road. And just what did you think you were doing swerving over the whole road like that? You're going to get someone killed!"

Gehart stepped forward, the badger hesitating as he clenched his jaw, trying to force down his anger. Who did he think he was trying to throw him under the bus like that? Sure, he couldn't expect the badger to be completely honest (his partner, after all, had had her paw wrapped around his cock, clearly) but there were surely witnesses to the fact that he had been the one to rear-end the stag through no fault of Gehart's!

"You listen here - that's not what happened and you know it!" He drew himself up tall, as the officer stepped in to de-escalate before things ramped up out of control, lest something more than a little unfortunate happen to the badger. "You went straight into the back of me right there and that's the truth of it!"

"Okay, okay!" The police officer frowned and held up his paws, though his authority should not have been questioned. "Both of you get back! Away from each other - right now!"

They backed off, another police car pulling up with another couple of officers. Gehart hadn't even heard him calling for backup but he could only presume that it was a slow day for them.

Separately, Gehart was asked for his side of the story and, considering just how the badger had tried to get him in trouble, to say the least of it all, he spared no details. There was no need for anger as he dispassionately recounted events, but he was sure too that the officer could see the anger in his eyes, the way he quaked. He was no fool and the fury of being falsely accused was quite righteous too as he recounted it all to the sorry end.

Still, in the back of Gehart's mind, there was that word.

Thicker.

Always there, always waiting for him to let his guard down. It wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. His belt seemed to tighten a little and Gehart shifted his weight as his gut gurgled, worry curling into the pit of his stomach. His belly even seemed to already fill out and bulge through the suit that he'd liked so much, pushing it up, his shirt straining as the buttons allowed a little of his fur between them. He shivered, striving to focus. But how could the fit of his suit have changed so much in so little time?

There wasn't time for that.

"Ah, yes, officer," he said, trying to concentrate on the matter at hand, even though he was quite aware that he had not been as focused on the road that day a she could have been, even if he had not technically done anything wrong. "Well, there's not much more I can say, though the damage to the car..."

He trailed off. Under normal circumstances, he could not have considered it not that big of a deal to polish out a few scratches on his car. It was not a big deal, not really, and accidents did happen but the badger had tried to stick him on the wrong side of the law and quite furiously too. Why should he do anything nice for him? Karma was not something that Gehart, personally, put much stock in.

Sweating from the nerves of it all, Gehart shook his head, digging in his pocket for a tissue with which to mop his forehead.

"I'll have to speak to my insurance. Can I jot down his details? Or is there more to do here?"

The police officer who had taken him aside, an elephant and not the hawk that had pulled over first of all, nodded and handed over a clean notebook and a pen for Gehart to at least get what he needed to start the process. He doubted that he was getting a phone number off the badger but the cops could take care of that for him.

"Don't worry," the officer said. "We've already run his plates and, with his traffic violations, it's clear who's telling the truth here."

It wasn't just that, of course, as bystanders had come forward, however tentative to involve themselves, to give their statements too, which had surely sealed the deal for Gehart. His shoulders slumped in relief, pools of sweat showing through under his arms, but he could not be more relieved that everything had come out okay, despite the stress of it all. He was going to have a sit down with a nice cup of hot coffee (with cream that time) to calm his nerves and get him back in the mood for the work day after his good mood had been so rudely quashed. There was only the matter of the hawk officer bringing back his ID and he should have been good to go, settling other matters off the roadside.

If only it was that easy.

"Err, sorry..." Even the hawk seemed awkward to be saying such a thing, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked over the ID again, the small card that was so innocuous in its presentation. "This can't be right - have you picked up your friend's ID or something?"

Gehart blinked.

"What?"

The hawk officer held up his ID, the picture of Gehart staring back at the stag, who saw nothing wrong.

"This ID..." The hawk seemed to struggle not to roll his eyes. "It looks nothing like you. This can't be you."

"Of course it is!" Gehart burst out, eyes wide and gut shaking. "I only had that done a few weeks back! It's me! Ask me anything on the license!"

But that was not something that the police officers had to do by any means and his license was duly confiscated despite the impeccable driving record that they assured him that he had. It was a formality, they said, something they had to do, they said, but that didn't make it any better for the stag who was now off the road. Sure, he was lighter in the ID photo than he was there but surely there could not be that much difference between that stag and the one standing at the side of the road, flummoxed and wondering what on earth he was to do...could there?

Of course, his gut had enlarged, his cheeks were chubbier, his fingers were fatter. Even the meat of his tail seemed thicker too - there it was, that word again. It came and it came, his fat, tree-trunk legs barely able to bear his weight with how they ached, much less when he dragged himself, on Khen's direction, to the gym for his five-times-weekly workout sessions. No amount of working out could easily get him back down to the stag on the ID photo but the fact that it had only been issued a short while ago sealed the deal for the officers: they just didn't believe it was him.

Off the road and having arranged for his car to be towed home, Gehart sealed away his protests; it did not do to aggravate the officers that could have very easily have listened to the badger instead of him if eye-witnesses had not stepped forward. For that, he was glad but he would have been gladder still as he heaved and grumbled, very quietly under his breath, if he hadn't been presented with an entirely new problem to deal with too.

"Damn it..."

Nothing was ever simple and he sent Khen a quick message to let him know that the car was being towed home and that he was alright. The full story would have to all come out in the wash later but he wasn't going to unduly worry his partner right then if his scraped-up car was deposited in the driveway with no more than a second word to the befuddled buck.

An Uber, of course, was the only way he was going to get to the office, unwilling to walk and realising that being around the corner still put him a few blocks away, considering the work being down on the pedestrian areas. It would have meant a detour to lug his weight around, dodging road signs, and he was not so sure anyway that he was able to squeeze through the small pedestrian areas, in some places, that they'd left for passage. Everything was a tight fit and even his car, as much as he wanted it back and driveable, had proven more and more difficult to heave himself out of or roll into, tending to let gravity do most of the work when he was able. It was not the most dignified way to be but, well, what else was he suppose to do?

The cop said it could never have been me...

_ _

He frowned, lips turning down. Had he really changed that much? The doctor had not been that worried, despite trying like the blazes to find something wrong with him. He'd said he was fine, that he just needed to keep doing what he was doing. How could he have possibly have changed so much that his new ID didn't even look like him anymore?

Glancing in the window of a parked car, he tried to position himself so that his appearance was the clearest in the murky, blurred reflection. It was not the best way to check himself out, seeing only a blob, but that was perhaps the worst of it. His shape was no longer stag-like except for his antlers anymore and he was, indeed, more of a blob than anything else when his discerning features were wiped out. Soft and squishy and jiggling, even his backside was so much bigger than it used to be, comfortable to sit on while the rest of his body ached from the extra weight and strain he was putting on his body.

His weight had been skyrocketing, more and more quickly. Closing his eyes, Gehart pinched the bridge of his nose, breathing slowly and evenly. Thicker and thicker and thicker - would it ever end? Why was it even so? It didn't make sense, none of it, the cold air nipping at his nose even while the mass of his fatty body barely felt it. It was one good thing about carrying extra weight around, although the benefits of such were few and far between in his eyes.

The hawk too... He'd had a badge on and then he had not, though Gehart didn't want to think of it all over again. His Uber pulled up and he bit the inside of his cheek until he drew a spot of blood, the police officer's badge having read a single word that was not a name.

"Thicker."

Of course, it had said "thicker". Why would it not?

The Uber car was a smaller vehicle and he made a face as he scrambled and wedged himself into it, getting one half of his buttocks into the seat before letting his weight fall back, jerking and rocking the car. He huffed and puffed, dragging his legs in after him, but even they did not seem to fit in what leg-space he had been permitted there, everything too small, too tight, closing in around him. Heaving in what breath he could, Gehart swept his paw back through his hair, trying to smooth it down, though the bumping of his antlers on the roof at least told him, in a way, that it was not just him having trouble and, indeed, the car was just on the small side.

"Where to?"

"The Tenor building, please."

The driver nodded to him briefly, turning the radio up as some singer that he didn't know the name of warbled over poppy beats about being "thick and juicy". That one may have been a coincidence. He didn't know anymore.

Maybe the taco lady knew something I didn't...

_ _

But what the meaning of that all was, Gehart could not say.