The Process Forum - Curvaceous Cardinal Vices

"I'm telling you though, I'm starting to think that service you set me up with was cursed," Sidney said as he helped stock the shelves with Kevin. "It's been pretty much a disaster this whole last week."
"Yeah, well, that was pretty lame, I'll give you that," Kevin said, pushing each box of tea back towards the wall as he filled the shelf he was working on.
"Lame?" Sidney scoffed. "That bill pretty much cleaned me out, I'm gonna have to borrow money just to make rent this month..."
"I'm sorry, man," Kevin said as he moved to the next shelf down. "If you wanted, I mean, I could maybe..."
Sid shook his head. He and Kevin both knew how the rest of the conversation would go: Kevin would offer money, Sid would refuse, and they'd both feel awkward for broaching the subject. Kevin knew Sid wouldn't take his money to pay for Gail's mistake; As far as Sid was concerned Kevin didn't owe him a thing.
"I've got some stuff I can sell, probably," Sid said as they finished up with the shelves, wheeling their cart towards the back. "It'll be a lean month, but whatever."
Kevin sighed and shook his head. "Sometimes, Sidney, I think you're too good for your own good."
Sidney just shrugged. "I'll tell you one thing for sure, no more dates through that service. I know it was a gift and all, but, I'm sorry, it's been nothing but headaches," He said as he took his place at the register. "I can take the next in line over here," Sidney said, lifting his hand above the racks of cigarettes and candy.
"Me me me!" a rotund woman said, jogging her cart up to the checkout. Correction, *two* carts, one pushed in front of her and one pulled behind her, both heaped high with food. "Sorry, gotta get this put away before it spoils."
"Wow, sure," Sid said, laughing. The woman was dressed in a green tank top and a blue sarong, two gray pigtails batting about her shoulders as she turned her head and moved around, loading food onto the small conveyor.Her hair parted in the center, leaving her bangs to scratch at her cheeks, while behind her back a large, thick pigtail, braided like the two smaller ones, reached back nearly to her bottom. Sid tried not to grin as he checked each item through the scanner, her arms, sides, and even her neck shaking a little with every movement like the classic line regarding Santa Claus' belly.
"Having a beach party?" Sid asked as Kevin bagged the groceries and stacked them in the first of her two carts.
"Beach...?" She asked, before blinking and shaking her head. "Oh, the food! No, no this is all just for me. I'd never been here before, and saw so much good stuff!" She said, beaming.
Sid smiled. "Wow, okay. I'll be sure to tell the manager he's doing something right." Sid continued to scan, but even as fast as he was the sheer volume of food made the empty span interrupted only by the steady beeping of the scanner awkward. "So, uh, you new in town?" He asked.
"Excuse me?" the woman said, looking up to Sid as she finished digging the last of the food out of the carts and putting it on the conveyor.
"Well, you said this was your first time here," Sidney explained. "Are you new to the city, or to this neighborhood, or...?"
"Oh, that!" She sid, laughing. "No, it's just that I've cleaned out all the grocery stores near me, wanted to try something new and different," She said.
Sid smiled and nodded. "I can see that. Variety is the spice of life and all that."
"Exactly," The woman beamed. "Say, what's your name?"
"Sidney," He replied, finally scanning the last of the food and tallying the amount.
"Gina," the woman replied.
"Well, Gina, your total comes to, wow, two hundred and-"
"Wait," Gina said. "Sidney? As in Sid? Sid Graham?"
"Uh... yes?" Sid replied, now frantically searching his memory for the face or the name of the woman on the other side of his checkstand.
"I'm so sorry!" She said, clutching her hands to her heart. Sid glanced at Kevin, who was finishing up the bagging of Gina's groceries with the exact same bewildered look Sid was sporting, so obviously he had never seen her either.
"S-sorry for what?" he stammered.
"For last night!" Gina exclaimed, rooting through her purse. "I'm Gail's half-sister, Gina- er, I already said that- and I heard about what happened last night!"
"Er, well, that's not your-" Sid started, looking at the line already formed behind Gina before he found himself with a stack of twenty-dollar bills in his face.
"Here, let me pay you back, she felt really rotten about it, and I can get the money back from her no problem," Gina said.
"But- I mean-" Sid started, not used to customers giving *him* money instead of giving it to the till. "Um, your total comes to..."
"Oh, right!" Gina said, leaning forward to stuff the money in Sid's apron before snatching the receipt away and plopping another stack of bills down onto it, shoving them back across the counter to Sid. "Here, and keep the change!"
"Well, wait, but-" He started, looking down from the money to Gina to the register and back. Finally, he just stuffed all the money in the till, and closed it back up.
"Listen, can I take you to dinner tonight?" Gina asked, leaning over the counter, the rolls of her paunch bunching up like a giant-size package of hot dogs on her front.
"Wh-what?" Sid asked, twisting his head to look over his shoulder, next customer's can of lychees hovering over the scanner.
"Nothing fancy or awkward, I promise," Gina said, scooting over as the next customer impatiently crowded her. "Just... Lemme make it up to you. And pay off the tab Gail stuck you with. Please?"
"Uh..." Sid started, looking from Gina to the line of impatient customers, deciding to take the path of least resistance. "Shhh... Ssssure," He said, turning back to his next customer.
"Okay!" Gina said, skipping over to her carts. "I'll be back later!"
"Wait, tonight?" Sid asked, but she was already on the sidewalk with her two carts, and his conveyor was backed up with purchases.
"Wow," Was all Kevin could say.
"It's been like that-or worse-, all week," Sid replied, shaking his head as he worked his way through the next customer.

* * *

"Sid, there's some fat girl outiside the store who asked if you were still here." Linda said as Sid sealed the tubs with the produce in them for the next day.
"What? Oh, that girl... shoot, I forgot her name..."
"What, you know her? I thought you said after last night you'd sworn off the dating service."
"No, well, I mean, yeah, I did, but she's the girl from last night's sister, and she's going to pay me back and wants to take me out to dinner, too."
"You sure they're not just trying to sucker you twice?"
"No, it's not like that. She seems a lot nicer than her sister. More down to earth."
"Okay, Sid, but you be careful out there. You're too nice sometimes."
"I've never really thought nice was something you could be 'too'..."

"Sidney!" The woman exclaimed as he left the store, waving to him. "Hi there!"
"Hey there," Sidney said, still trying to remember her name. "Got here a little early, did you?"
"Oh, I didn't want to miss you! I'm so sorry for what happened with Gail last night, she was really broken up about it."
"Er, that's... nice to hear, I guess," Sid said, trying to be diplomatic.
"She's actually out of the country right now, but wanted to apologize. That, and have me give you the money back, she really didn't mean to stick you with the bill."
"Well, thanks," Sid replied, still not really wanting to go on another date. "So, I've got the receipt in my wallet..."
"Great, I'll just add it to the tab after dinner."
"Um, we don't have to-"
"Oh, don't worry about it," She said, waving him off as she took his hand. "None of those stuffy places Gail likes with the tiny portions and the snooty waiters," She continued. "I'm talking good old-fashioned home-cookin'!"
"Well, uh, oh! Hey, wait a sec," Sidney said, attempting to pull out of Gina's hand but finding it like trying to pull against a handcuff. "Er, please?" He said.
"Oh, sure," She said, stopping. "What's the matter?"
"Just... I hate it when people do this," Sid said, bending down to pick up a few empty containers that had fallen out of the trash can on the sidewalk. "It's just, if the can's obviously full, just wait for the next one, sheesh." Sid paused, turning over one of the packages and looking at another one on the ground. "Hey, these... these all look like they came out of Mr. Kim's store," He said.
"...Oh?" Gina said, twiddling her pigtail.
"Yeah, but, I mean, it's all empty, so..."
"Well, you know, maybe someone just got a snack and ate it."
"I guess, but like, look, this is a whole tin of nuts. Who's going to stand ten feet outside a supermarket and eat an entire tin of nuts?" Sid shook his head, cramming the last of the refuse into the trash can and wiping his hands on his pants.
"Heh, yeah, life in the big cities, huh? All kinds'a weird types..." She said, guiding Sid down the sidewalk.

"So, uh... what do you do?" Sid asked as they walked down the sidewalk.
"I'm a chef!" Gina chirped, beaming.
"Really?" Sid asked. "With who?"
"Oh, here and there," Gina said. "I have a *very* refined palette. If you want to know how to get the best taste out of your food, you call Gina Gastro!" She smiled, thrusting a finger in the air.
"Haha, very nice," Sid laughed, grateful she finally said her name again. "So you like cooking, Gina?"
"What do you think?" she asked, slapping her belly and laughing. "Never trust a skinny chef," she said seriously, before breaking into a grin again.
"I'll admit I don't meet many," Sid smiled. Maybe this wasn't gonna be so bad. "So, you said Gail was your sister?"
"Half sister. We've got the same dad, it's, ah... complicated, but Gail's mother wasn't around anymore, so when dad had me, Gail was part of the deal, basically."
"Huh," Sid said, suddenly regretting prying.
"Oh, don't worry about it. It was a *long* time ago, we're over it."
"Do... do you guys spend a lot of time together?" Sid asked. "You seem so... carefree."
"...Which means Gail did her usual 'Money money money' routine on you," Gail laughed as they turned another corner.
"Heh, a little, yeah," Sid nodded. They were going deep into Chinatown from the looks of it, the places where there was little if any english on any of the storefronts. Sid had picked up a few words living where he had, but he was completely lost as they passed incomprehensible sign after incomprehensible sign.
"Okay, here we go," Gina said, stopping in front of a small red-lined door with a sign next to it.
"This is the restaurant?"
"Yeah, a local place, much better than the chain places in the touristy section," She nodded, reaching for the handle but pulling back when Sid's hand darted to it before she got there. "Why Sidney, thank you," She said, doing a little curtsey with her sarong.
"Ladies first," He replied, smiling and gesturing inside.

The inside was very quiet, even with a good number of people inside. Everything was in dark wood and lacquered red, with silk tapestries on the walls and elegantly-carved wooden screens between the tables.
"Sohhy, we'ah close," The hostess said curtly.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Sid started when Gina let out a quick burst of smooth and fluent-sounding Chinese, or at least it seemed like Chinese the way the hostess reacted. Her brow furrowed and she shot back a quick retort, but Gina's smile never broke as she repeated herself, adding what sounded like a name at the end of it. The hostess looked down at her podium, frowned, then vanished behind a curtain.
"Uh... is somethng the matter?" Sid whispered, noticing some of the other patrons staring.
"No, it's okay," Gina replied. "I know the owner, eaten here a bunch of times before. She must just be new."
Sid nodded, feeling like they were underdressed in spite of the quiet, homey atmosphere.
In short order an elderly Chinese gentleman appeared from behind the curtain, flanked by the dour-looking hostess.
Gail let out a short salutation, bowing her head, and the elderly Chinese man's eyes popped wide. Slowly, he spoke a few measured words to Gail, who smiled, nodded her head, and spoke a few more words. The Hostess looked to the elderly man, but he spoke to her before she could, and she went off into the dining area.
The elderly man looked back at Gina, and raised his head before saying a few more words and disappearing behind the curtain. Although Sid hadn't understood a word of the exchange, he'd heard that tone and seen that raised nod from Mr. Kim enough to know what it meant. It was the same tone and look Mr. Kim gave whenever the health inspector or the zoning commissioner or any other collector came by. The elderly man wasn't being polite to Gina- he was making a payment on a debt.

"Well, it look like our table's ready!" Gina said, pointing at a table the hostess had finished setting. Sid pulled a chair out for Gina, but she went around and pulled a different chair out and sat down before noticing. "Oh!" She said, laughing, "I'm sorry, I guess I was just a little too eager to eat, ha. I thought you were getting that chair for you."
"No problem," Sid said, taking the seat for himself and scooting up to the table before putting his napkin in his lap.
"You're very chivalrous," Gail smiled as she picked up a menu. "Very old-fashioned."
"Aw, it's not anything special," Sid said, opening his own menu only to find it entirely in Chinese. "Er, you can read as well as you speak, yeah?"
"Oh! Yeah, no problem, I can order for both of us. What kinda appetizers do you want?"
"Er... What's good?" Sid asked, not wanting to order something as mundane as egg-fried rice in front of an apparently accomplished gourmand.
"Oh, well, when we're talking Chinese, I always like to start off with some Zha Jiang Mian- that's noodles in meat sauce- a couple tea eggs, and some fried rice. What do you like your rice fried in? My favorite's pork, but shrimp's good too, and beef sometimes..."
"Egg, actually," Sid said, smiling.
"Aw, no meat?" Gail asked, shoulders slumping. "Wait... you're not a... vegetarian, are you?"
Sid laughed at the obvious disdain in her voice. "No, no, I just really like egg," he said, putting his hand up.
"Oh, okay," Gail said, her smile returning. "I can't *stand* vegetarians, sorry."
"Animal rights?" Sid asked, arching a brow.
"What? No, I mean, animals eat each other, that's how the world works. I just think it's insulting to the idea of food that somone would willingly seal themselves off from an entire category of food. It's like saying you're going to go through life never seeing the color purple, just... *why*?"

Sid couldn't help from smiling, but it was tempered by the appearance of the hostess, looking stiff and forcibly polite.
"Oh, hey!" Gina said, apparently oblivious to the cool response. She rattled off what he assumed was their order in Chinese, counting off dishes on her fingers while the hostess dutifully wrote them down on her notepad. After listing nearly a dozen dishes, going by her fingers, she stopped and smiled at Sidney.
"wow," He said, laughing. "All that?"
"Oh, it's not that much," She said, waving him off. "Now, what were you feeling like?"
Sid blinked, taking a second to process the question. All that food... was just for *her*?
"Er... I like stuff with lots of veggies in it," He started, scratching the back of his head and opening up the menu, even though the Chinese was no less incomprehensible the second time.
"And?" She asked, arching a brow at Sid.
"Beef?" He offered.
"Okay. Anything else?"
"Er, I'm not in much of a mix-and-match mood tonight," Sid chuckled. "Just beef and veggies."
Gina pursed her lips, thinking for a second before nodding. "Okay," She chirped, turning back to the waitress and rattling off a few more dishes. The waitress cocked her head to one side, looking from Gina to Sid and back before haltingly asking Gina a question, her cold and stoic demeanor overridden by apparent confusion. Gina, for her part, laughed at the question, waving it off and giving a short reply. The waitress shook her head and went off to the kitchen, leaving them alone again, save for the occasional curious look from the other patrons.

"Oh, I should have asked," Gina started, folding her hands on the table, "But I got us Oolong tea. You like Oolong? I could change it to green or black if you don't like it."
"No, it's fine, Oolong's fine," Sidney said.
"Okay," Gina said, nodding. "I'd hate to order you something you knew you didn't like."
"Ah, I'm pretty easy-going," Sid said.
"Yeah, but, I mean, you've had green and black teas before, right?"
"Oh yeah," Sid nodded.
"Okay, just making sure," Gina said, scooting her chair a bit closer to the table.
"Ha, you're really serious about your food," Sid said, fiddling with his water glass. "Occupational hazard?"
"Heh, not a hazard, no," Gina said. "Just, I never pass up a chance to try something new. You never know if your favorite food in the entire world is the one thing on the menu you've never gotten."
"Well, I mean, I'm not that much for shellfish," Sid started.
"And that's fine," Gina interrupted, "so long as you *know* you don't like it. I have a friend, really a dear friend, who finds one thing, *one* thing, at any place we eat she likes and gets it over and over and *over*. Drives me *nuts*. Sure, she says she's found something good, okay, I get that, but doesn't it ever cross her mind there might be something else on there she likes even *better*?" Gina shook her head. "So, okay, maybe when she tries something else, but at least- well, you said you weren't really fond of shellfish, right?"
"Er, yeah," Sid replied.
"But you've had lobster before, yeah?"
Sid nodded.
"Shrimp? Crab?" When Sid indicated in the affirmative, Gina folded her arms over her chest, causing no small amount of flesh squishing against flesh, her plush form not made for being constrained. "So, okay, fine, you don't like them. At least you *know* you don't like them. I mean, I don't know where or when you had them, if they were in season, whatever, and it's not like you've had one steak tartare you've had them all, but at least you know for certain in a general sense that you're not crazy about shellfish, as opposed to just not liking the sound of it."

The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the waitress, serving their tea. Gina thanked her in Chinese and took her cup, taking a long draught before setting it down. Sid tried to take a sip himself, but the heat of the tea caused him to pull the cup away, even the briefest contact searing his lip.
"Ahh!" He said, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand.
"What's the matter?" Gina asked, looking at Sid funy.
"Just, uh, mine seems to be really hot," Sid said, blowing on his tea.
"Oh!" Gina said, looking at the steaming kettle. "Haha, me too," She continued, blowing on her own cup. "Just got a little too eager, I guess." She blew on her drink again before taking another draught. "My friends always said I put the 'gut' in 'gusto', after all."
Sid smiled. "...You're... a very interesting woman, Gina," he said. "Most women I know would be more, well, concerned, you know..."
"About being fat?" Gina smirked as she poured herself another cup of tea.
"No, I didn't-" Sid started.
"Hey, hey, none of that," Gina said, shaking her head and furrowing her brow slightly at Sid. "I'm fat, no bones about it. I mean, seriously, look at this," She said, raising her arm like she was flexing and shaking the sizable flap of meat hanging from under her bicep. "Compared to most of what you see in your magazines and tv shows these days, I'm a whale." She paused a second to let Sid process the statement, then broke into a wide grin. "And I seriously couldn't care less."
Sid sat in thought for a moment, blowing on his tea and then finally taking a sip, the tea still hot but no longer scalding. "Okay, I'll bite," he said, setting his tea down. "Why not? I mean, I'm not saying you *should*, but most girls..."
"Most girls today have no idea what they want," Gina said, shaking her head. "They know what the books and magazines and overpaid, underfed, airbushed, cut-up waifs tell them they should want because that's what *they* were told growing up."
"And you?"
"Think of it historically," Gina said, leaning forward on the table with her elbows, creating an impressive collision of flesh as her soft and pliable body seemed to wrestle with itself for space before finally settling. "Back in the middle ages, fat was where it was *at*, socially. If you were well-rounded of figure, it meant you were eating well, you weren't sweating out half your calories in a field. Fat people were the ones who had it *made*, back then, it was a status symbol. You think every Tom, Dick, and Jane working the fields and mills and the tanneries could afford to walk around with a gut and jowls? Not a chance! It was the rich and powerful, the men and women of leisure who could actually afford to gain those soft edges. And yet somehow between then and here we lost that."
Sid's eyebrows had slowly raised through the entire speech, and he shook his head as he blinked his surprise. "I... don't suppose I've ever thought of it like that," He said, taking another sip.
"Well, hey, my entire life revolves around food in one way or another," She replied, shrugging, the motion jostling her entire torso. "Personally, I blame the industrial revolution."
"I- what?" Sid asked, blinking again.
"Once it became easy to automate the production of food- starting with the lowliest cans of beans and jars of preserves- the whole 'Fat people have it made' mentality just kinda went out the window. Slowly but surely, it became quicker and easier to harvest crops and raise cattle, the supply of food increased, the cost of it went down, and presto, a couple decades down the line and no one has to sweat for their food anymore, at least not in the classical sense. After that you start getting processed foods, fast food, and suddenly it's no longer hard to be fat. It's easy to be fat, any schmoe off the street can down a can of cheeze-whip and a sixer and wind up with four thousand more calories than they need in a day. Four thousand calories! You know how much food that was back in the day?"
"So... once fat was easy, fat was no longer special, and so it was...?" Sid asked, genuinely interested in the conversation at this point.
"It's not that fat was *bad* all of a sudden," Gina said, quickly swallowing the last of her tea and reaching for the pot. "It's that what was associated with it was bad. If you see a king reclining in a cashmere lounger with a fur robe and gold rings and a jewel-encrusted crown, you're going to think 'hot tamales, I wanna be that guy!' You see the same guy in a barcalounger with potato chip crumbs on his tank-top and boxers, there's not so much envy going on there."
"So the problem isn't being fat, it's..."
"It's that people took all the *glamour* out of it!" She said, taking another swallow of tea before continuing. "Fat has nothing to do with lazy, fat has nothing to do with slovenly, fat's got nothing to do with ugly! I know for a fact it's perfectly possible to be fit, healthy, attractive, and fetching on five thousand calories a day. I've got a great six-pack under all this- it's just in an ice chest, all right?"
Sidney laughed out loud at that one, covering his mouth with a hand so as to not diturb the other diners. A refreshing change of pace from her sister, at the very least, Sid thought as he took another sip of his tea.

* * *

"...I don't believe this. Out of all of us, *she's* doing the best so far?" Greed asked, arms folded above and below her bosom.
"Ahh, don't give fat-ass any credit yet," Wrath said, tapping her foot and swinging her tail as she stood watching her mirror. "She's just talking still."
Lust nodded. "This is foreplay, just fooling around for him. Wait 'till she tries to convince him of anything, that's when we'll see if dollface goes all the way."
"So long as that accursed tongue of his stays still," Pride said, glowering. She wasn't particularly displeased with Gluttony- in fact, she was doing better than most, so far- but the mortal's luck bordered on unbelievable. She wondered, briefly, if perhaps there was some manner of angelic influence, some sort of script being suggested to him, but she quickly dismissed it; if there was so much as a whiff of frankincense anywhere near Mr. Graham she would surely have detected it. It just wasn't possible that such an obvious sign of interference would slip past her, she was far too keen and cunning.
"Well, the food's arriving," Greed said, pulling Pride out of her introspection.
"Where's the backhoe for fatass' share?" Wrath scoffed.

* * *

"...I think maybe we should've gotten a bigger table," Sid said as the rims of the various plates clanked together, the lip of his broccoli beef creeping over his edge of the table from Gina trying to fit more and more plates on their table as they were disgorged by the army of waiters and waitresses it took to bring them all out.
"No, it'll be fine," Gina said as she gently pushed plates out of the way, clearing space in front of her as the last of the plates finally reached the table. "Once we start clearing a few plates we can stack the new stuff on top of the old plates."
Sid merely shook his head, looking at the carpet of food spread out before him. It seemed an impossible banquet for two people, but as Gina rubbed her hands together, a hungry glint in her eyes, he knew that he was about to see a worthy attempt made at the very least. In front of him was a mound of egg-fried rice large enough to feed him for a day, flanked on three sides by other dishes he assumed were for him. Beef strips with broccoli, beef medallions wrapped in lettuce, beef cubes with snow peas. His own fault for not being specific, Sid mused; he had, after all, said "Beef" and "vegetables", so he certainly couldn't fault her for accuracy.

Sid began eating, though as good as it was he found himself dramatically outpaced by Gina. Where he'd grab a single stalk of broccoli or a piece of beef between his chopsticks with each bite, Gina seemed to be able to pull up whole handfuls of food at a go, somehow popping them into her mouth without spilling so much as a drop of soy sauce on her outfit. Sid had to admire her chopstick skills; it was like the food was magnetized between her sticks. He could hardly fault her gusto, either; the beef was tender and the broccoli was soft yet still crispy, probably the best Chinese food he'd ever had. Gina looked positively glowing; if Sid had thought she was in high spirits before the food arrived, she looked to be nearing ecstacy, each new dish the gastrointestinal equivalent of a sunset vista or a symphonic suite.
"...Good food?" Sid asked, smiling.
"Mmm!" She nodded, putting a finger to her lip to catch a stray piece of bean sprout. "Oh, this place is *so* good!" She said. "Ever since they started this place up, I've been coming whenever I was in town and wanting Chinese. Places like this *make* chinatown, and all the 'place-towns' around the world. Easiest way to a different culture's heart is through their stomachs, heh."
"Heh," Sid chuckled back. "So, Gina, tell me about your sister? She seemd nice enough, if a bit... driven...?" He said, noticing Gina had a finger up to Sid in a "one moment" gesture, eyes closed and a huge pinch of pork meat hovering by her face. After a few moments, just on the cusp of being awkward, she snapped out of her pose and scarfed down the meat. "Sorry," She said as she swallowed, "But you kinda surprised me with that one and I didn't want to ruin a good bite of Mu Shu Pork with the bad taste in my mouth last night conjured up."
Sid chuckled. "All right, sorry," He said, "Though I am curious. The bill was pretty crazy, and I'm happy she wants to pay it back, but..."
"Oh, that's just her," She said, waving him off with her chopsticks before they swooped down and snatched up a won ton. "She's got all these business dealings all over the world, so it's like, there's always someone needing to close some kind of deal somewhere on earth. You wouldn't believe the calls she gets. I mean, I'm on call too a lot of the time, but I get 'We need someone who knows Kenyan Barbeque for a function', and she gets 'the bank's coming for everything I own.' Ugh. That's why she uses the dating site, so when she finally winds up with a semi-free night it's just like 'okay, I want a date *now*' and she can find one," She said as she moved one of the full plates that was farther away from her onto one of the ones close by she'd emptied. "But it's just always business with her. I can enjoy food in the privacy of my own home, even when I'm not on the job, but what's there to enjoy about money by yourself? Ooo, you get to look at a bunch of numbers on a statement or have a pile of papers on your desk, whoop-de-do. I mean, I know she's got her job, but sometimes..." She said, pantomining a strangling motion with her hands, sending a wave of jiggles over her flesh. A... rather large wave, he thought, his head tilting a bit as he looked closely at Gina, a piece of broccoli and beef hovering inches from his mouth.
"What?" Gina asked. "Did I spill?"
"N-no, nothing," Sid said, shaking his head and putting his chopstick-bound food in his mouth. "Um, so... what's your favorite food, would you say?"
"Oh, gosh, well... Geeze, out of everything? Okay, I think just to start I'll go by nationality. As far as Italian goes, I think I'll have to start with Venetian Gnocchi..."
While she talked, Sid took the opportunity to examine Gina's body more closely, his brow furrowing just a bit as he watched her eat and talk. Where her clothes were snug on her before, she was practically overflowing them now, the straps of her tank-top digging into and almost being subsumed by her pillowy breasts, her jowls a little more pronounced and puffy, the skin under her arms swinging a little farther than it should given her size when they met. Sid's mind instantly flashed bck to his date with Lucy, her impossibly-large breasts pressing into his arm as they walked together... she couldn't be growing, could she? Sid shook his head. Impossible. Just impossible, no one could-
"What, you don't like Russian food?" Gina asked, snapping Sid out of his thoughts.
"What? No, I wasn't- I mean, I don't think I've ever had Russian food..." He said, embarrassed that he'd been caught pursuing a line of thought completely outside the conversation he was supposed to be listening to if he'd been polite.
"Well, I mean, I understand that sour milk doesn't exactly sound like a great ingredient, but if it's prepared right, with the other vegetables in good balance to one another..." She continued on, apparently not cottoning on to Sid's mistake. Sid breathed an inward sigh of relief as she continued on about her favorite foods, but his eyes kept wandering to the protrusion of her belly, the girth of her breasts, and the layer of fat that seemed to wrap ever more loosely around her arms...

* * *

"He had to have asked her about food," Greed muttered. "The way he looks bored to tears she must be going on about this delicacy from that country, blah blah blah..."
"You're merely frustrated because that strangling motion was most likely directed towards you, what with leaving him with the check as you did..." Pride said, a smirk coming to her lips in spite of herself. She was still cross enough to preclude intentional levity, but rubbing others' faces in their failures was something of an inescapable joy for her, so she allowed herself to relish it for the moment.
"Hmph," Greed huffed, her lower pair of arms unfolding to put their fists on her hips.

* * *

There was no denying it- after a few minutes of observation, Gina was definitely getting larger as she sat there, each mouthful of food seeming to be instantly metabolized into fat, puffing up her chest, her arms, and especially her belly, the buldging curve of her front flowing over the tabletop as she sat there, cramming her ever more tightly into her seat. Sid kept thinking back to the restaurant with Lucy- was it the same thing? And what could "it" be? Was someone spiking his drinks? Were they wearing some sort of prosthetics?
"...Something the matter?" Gina said, causing Sid to start. "You look like you've got a stomachache or something."
"Uh... Um..." Sid started. "No, I'm fine, just, uh... kinda got lost in space for a bit there."
"Oh..." Gina replied. "Um, everything's still okay, right? The food and everything? Am I babbling? I know I can get going sometimes and not stop, especially about food..." She said, fiddling with one of her pigtails.
Sidney blinked, cocking his head at Gina. "How on earth are you swelling like a balloon" seemed like a logical next step, but seeing her so concerned about boring him gave her an air of vulnerability Sidney found himself wont to add to. Something strange was going on, he knew that much, but just the same he was reluctant to make it her fault. It was so insane, anyway; how on earth does one broach such a topic?

Not knowing what or how to say, Sid decided to engage in a tried and true date-stalling tactic: he ate.
"So, it's good, then?" Gail pressed, her brow furrowing a bit. "No problems?"
Sid nodded his head as he stuffed it with the sauteed broccoli; for everything else, the food *was* phenomenal.
"Um... so tell me about yourself, Sidney?" Gina ventured, wriggling in her seat. It appeared to Sid that she seemed to be noticing her own expanded girth for the first time.
"Um... Well, what's to say, really?" Sid shrugged. "I was born in Aromas, a little town near Gilroy. Far enough away that I don't permanently smell like garlic, thankfully; some of those kids would smell like it even years and years after leaving, it just got into your skin, heh."
"Oh, I've ben by Gilroy," Gina said. "Especially during the garlic festival. It's almost liberating, in a way, because your particular garlic breath is indistingushable from the haze of garlic that town becomes, so nobody even worries about it. Kinda like washing ashore on a deserted island with no clothes after a shipwreck- who cares? It's not like any of you can help it."
Sid laughed. "Yeah, I guess so, huh?" He said, smiling. "Anyways, after high school, I tried some college for a while, and I liked reading and learning and all that but I never really had a path in mind- no career goals or anything like that. Some friends suggested I move to the city, maybe find my opportunities there. So, I found someplace cheap, found a job, and that brings us to today, more or less."
"Do you like your job, Sidney?"
"It's okay," He shrugged, "But it's not really going anywhere. Not like Mr. Lee's going to start opening franchises," He laughed. "But it's honest work, and it's good enough while I figure myself out."
Gina nodded, setting aside another cleaned plate and beginning on another one.

* * *

"Ahh," She said, stretching her arms to the sides, the accumulated flab from her meal hanging off her biceps like saddlebags, "That was... mmm... great!" She finished, giving her shoulders a shake and setting off a ripple all along her rotund frame, the modest tank-top she'd worn to the restaurant now visibly straining to contain the trio of huge, jiggly, fat-laden spheres her front had become dominated by, her gut buldging over the front of the table and the armrests of her chair and her breasts straining scandalously against the straps of her top.
"Well, I'm... glad you enjoyed yourself," Sid said, taking the last couple bites from his broccoli beef. Between Gina's puzzling girth and the lively conversation, he'd eaten maybe half of his first beef dish and a third of his other two, and was nearing his appetite's limit for the night.
"Well, it's not just about me, what about you?" Gina asked. "You've barely touched your food."
Sidney looked down at his food, making sure that all the food he thought he'd eaten had indeed been consumed, then back to Gina. "You know, I'm just stuffed," he said, leaning back against his chair. "Er, would you like some...?" He offered, looking at the stack of cleaned plates by her elbow.
"Oh, well, if you're not gonna eat it..." She said, leaning forward and reaching across the table to grab one of Sid's plates, skin mashing against skin like some sort of jell-o tidal wave flowing across the table, the simultaneous creak of fabric and wood making sid's hands subconsiously clench in dread.
Gina was halfway back to mashing her enormous bulk back into her chair, licking her lips, when her eyes went wide like she'd just remembered something. "Er, but, um, you should still have some of your leftovers! They're never as good cold, you know."
Sid looked at his two remaining dishes, then shook his head. "Nah, I'm full."
"...Was the food not good?" Gina asked, pouting as she took her first bite of Sid's food.
"No, no- I mean, yeah, the food was *great*," He said, waving her off. "I just.. I'm stuffed, you know?"
"Oh, pshaw," Gina smiled, downing another bite of food. "What does full have to do with it when it tastes this good?"
"I'm just saying, there's no need..."
"And you never need to sautee onions and mushrooms to enjoy a good porterhouse, but you do it anyways because it tastes great," Gina quipped back. "C'mon, didn't you just love the crunch of the broccoli mixing with the tenderness of the meat?"

* * *

Pride shifted her weight from clawed foot to clawed foot, first folding her arms over her chest, then clasping her hands behind her back, just above her tail. She hovered near her viewing mirror, watching Gina attempting to cajole Sid into eating his increasingly diminished food as she stole bite after bite off of Sid's plate.
"Come on, you worthless sack of blubber," She growled under her breath. "Don't fail me as easily as these other cretins."
"...Does she know we can hear her?" Envy asked, leaning over and whispering to sloth. Sloth looked at Envy, then to Pride, shrugged her shoulders, and went back to watching Gluttony in the mirror.

* * *

"Well, okay, then how about some dessert?" Gina asked, finishing off the last of Sid's beef medallions. "Start off with some almond tea? Peking dust? Oooh, or, I know there's a chef here who can make sublime eight treasure pudding..."
"Dessert? After all this?" Sid said, chuckling in spite of himself. "No way. I'll admit it's probably wonderful, but I'm not that much a glutton for punish-" Sid's dismissal was interrupted by a furious, whooping cough, Gina's whole body shaking and heaving as she choked on her last bite of food, the chopsticks between her fingers snapped into a v-shape as her fist clenched, the other hand covering her mouth. Sid shot up out of his chair, half out of genuine concern but the other half because he was afraid of her bolting just like Gail had the night before, and he wasn't getting stuck with two bills in a row. But as Gina kept coughing, Sid's better instincts began to take over and he moved alongside Gina, wondering if she needed help. But what could he do if she did? It'd take three of him to reach all the way around her at the size she was if he wanted to do the heimlich, she seemed nearly as big around as was tall now that he was close to her.
"G-Gina? Are, uh, are you okay? Should I slap your back or anything?" Sid asked. As Kevin would continually remind him, he wasn't exactly an old hand at dating, but he was pretty sure choking on a first date wasn't something typically covered by Miss Manners.
Gina shook her head, pointing a finger up in the air for "One second" as she reached for her tea with the other hand. Finding her cup empty, however, she grabbed the pot by the handle, drinking stright from the spigot as she tried to wash the offending item down. Sid looked up and saw the elderly man peeking out from behind the curtain to the kitchen, eyes wide. But it wasn't fear or concern Sid saw on the old man's face- it was hope.
"Aherm! -heck, hocch- herm! Okay, uh-hurm, I'm fine, I'm okay, sorry," Gina said, hitting what of her sternum she could reach between her breasts with a fist as she put the teapot down. "Sorry, just, hmm, went down the wrong pipe there," She said.
"...You okay now?" Sid asked, still hovering by her. He hated to admit it, but after having four other women just up and disappear on him suddenly, he was a little bit antsy about any sudden moves from these dates of his.
"Yeah... yeah, I'm okay, sorry about that," She said, wriggling her ponderous frame into her chair. Sid was certain now that there was something off about Gina, just like there'd been with Lucy, but the whys and hows still escaped him.
"So, we were about to order dessert, right?" Gina asked, setting her final empty plate on the stack, right on top of her shattered chopsticks.
"Not unless it's just for you," Sid said. "If it's all the same to you, I've had... a good time, really, but I've got work in the morning..."
"Oh... Well, okay, I'll get the check, then," Gina said, calling out to the waitress, who brought over the book with the receipt inside of it, disgust obvious on her face. Well, good, Sidney thought, at least it meant that she saw how big Gina had gotten as well.

Gina reached into her purse, pulling out a small stack of large bills and counting them out in her fingers, arms resting on her belly and chin tucked between her swollen breasts. Sid shook his head as she put some of the bills in the folder and left it on the table, folding the rest of the bills in half and pinching them between the knuckles of two fingers. "All right," she said, "Let's be on our way then, yeah?" She said, heaving her great bulk backwards over the creaks and protests of her chair, the effort of squeezing the ponderous masses of her rear and stomach out from the spaces of the chair where it had literally grown into causing her to grunt and strain.
"Phew!" She said, wiping her brow as she finally got upright. "Okay, Sidney, here you go," she said, holding the folded bills out to him. Sidney came around the table and took the bills, refraining from counting them out in front of her.
"Well, thank you very much," Sidney said, nodding. At least something was going right on this date- inhumanly large as she might be, at least she was honest in paying for the meal and for Gail's tab as well.

"So," Gina said as they got into the night air, the door shutting behind them just a little too hard for gravity to explain it, "I know this great ice cream stand not too far from here..."
"Wha-a-at?" Sid asked, laughing and shaking his head incredulously. "What is it with you wanting to get me to eat?" He said, grinning in spite of his furrowed brow.
"W-what? N-nothing!" Gina said, flushing and playing with her pigtails. "I just, you know, while we're walking..." She stammered. "B-but hey, if you're full, that's fine," She continued. "Um, walk you home?"
Sid looked at Gina, who had gone from looking merely pudgy to seeming as though she was smuggling a beachball and a pair of watermelons under her skin, and shook his head. "You know what-" he started, before an idea struck him. "...sure, why not?" He said, starting off towards home.

They both stuck to neutral topics, small talk, but Sid was more than aware of the enormous space Gina took up, the bewildered stares and whispered comments. He was sure none of it bothered Gina, but it was mounting evidence that it wasn't Sid's imagination. And that means that it wasn't his imagination with Lucy, either. And what of that strange, spongy texture he'd felt when he was waking up with Sally? It certainly wasn't flesh he'd been squeezing.
What was going on, Sid thought, that he'd get five such strange women one after another? Was it something wrong with the dating service? Or maybe... No, Sid though, shaking his head. It couldn't have anything to do with him personally.
Could it?

"Well, this was... interesting," Sidney said as the arrived at the steps to his apartment. "I had some really nice food, and-"
"Oh, wasn't it great?" Gina responded. "And you, you're a very nice person, Sidney," Gina said. "I can't remember the last time someone pulled a chair out for me. No one this century, that's for sure."
Sid laughed. "I'm sure it's not that rare," He said, smiling in spite of himself.
"Well, in any case, I'd sure like to see you again," Gina said, turning to Sid and accidentally bumping him away from her with her belly.
"Um, well, you can get my information from Gail, right?" Sidney said, intrigued. None of the other girls had stuck around long enough to ask for a second date.
"Yeah, but... Well, my schedule's sort of out of my hands for the next little while," Gina said, looking sidelong away from Sid.
"That's okay," SId replied. "Just drop me a line when you can, if you want."
"Really?" Gina asked. "That's great! Thank you, Sidney!" She exclaimed, lunging forward in a hug that made Sid feel like he was being put in a headlock by the stay-puft marshmallow man. "Goodbye!" She said, turning and heading down the street at a brisk pace, turning to wave as her mountains of fat jiggled and swayed with every step.

Sid shook his head, running a hand through his hair as he ascended the steps to his apartment. Something was definitely going on, of that he was certain. It seemed like most of the girls knew at least one other, some kind of chain of relationships linking them all somehow. What had seemed odd coincidences before now took on a more calculating, sinister tone. It hadn't ever worried him before- living in San Francisco quickly built up one's tolerance for the strange and unusual- but with Gina, one final piece had fallen into place. He had thought it odd before that Lucy and Sally and the others had been given his home address so readily from the dating service, but Gina was different. Gina had met Sidney at work, yet on their way home Sidney had intentionally trailed Gina a little bit, and yet she still knew the route to Sidney's house perfectly, with no prompting or guidance from him. Sidney shook his head again as he opened his door and went inside. One stalker would be creepy. Five? That was beyond unsettling.

Gina turned the corner, heading for the closest unholy nexus she could feel, an all-you-can-eat buffet that was practically dripping with her vice. "I don't get it," She muttered to herself as she went around to the back of the restaurant, close enough to draw herself between the planes and transfer over while remote enough to not be seen doing it. "The food was so *good*, but he wouldn't even take one more bite..." She concentrated, feeling the barriers between the worlds weaken, the smell of brimstone seeping into the air, a hot wind blowing her pigtails about her.
"Shoulda gotten some takeout first..." She muttered as the flames engulfed her, leaving nothing but a small scorch mark in the stained concrete.

* * *

Gluttony began reverting to her infernal form as soon as she appeared in the summoning room, her clothes vanishing into her usual two-piece, allowing her wings and tail to sprout from her back unimpeded as her beetle jaws grew from her head. The other sins were waiting for her in the summoning room, gathered in a loose circle, Envy in one corner and Pride standing with her arms folded by the door.
"Well, congratulations, fatass," Wrath sneered. "You're so friggin' fat they could probably see you from space."
Gluttony looked down at herself, experimentaly poking her enormous belly. "...You think he noticed?"
Greed put two hands to her face while the other two raised their palms to the sky.
"At least we won't have the horsewomen grousing at us again," Lust said, laying on her back with one leg up on her bent knee.
"And his cursed tongue has finally seen fit to quit embarrassing you," Pride finally said, brow furrowed and eyes closed as she stepped away from the door. "I'll be taking the next attempt."
"You think you can do better?" Wrath scoffed. "The kid still hasn't shown any weaknesses at all. If it wasn't for the 'no mark' thing I'd swear we were getting close to the endgame."
"Maybe no weaknesses *you* can see," Pride said, one hand on the doorknob, "But you forget I've read father's letter."
"Yeah, which you still haven't shared with us," Wrath grumbled.
In reply, Pride's wings suddenly flared out to their full extension, causing Greed and Wrath to jump back into defensive stances and every other sin in the room to tense up, save for Sloth who hadn't been paying attention.
A wicked smile crossed over Pride's lips as she turned her head enough to see the other sins cringing away from her.
"I believe I've made my point," She said, opening the door the rest of the way and leaving the summoning room.
"Er... SO I guess I can go now?" Gluttony asked, twiddling her pigtails. "I still kinda want some ice cream..."
Wrath and Greed shared a look before leaving as well, the other sins filtering out and going back to their rooms.
"...One way or another, someone's getting majorly screwed when she goes topside," Lust said, looking up at Pride's door before entering her and Envy's room.