Aaliyah

Jacob loved fat women.

It was an unpopular sentiment even in today’s world of body positivity. There was something about it that just made some people angry—something they felt the need to judge and condemn. Today, though, he didn’t care. He’d manned up and asked out the woman he’d been swooning over at the office, and she’d said yes.

Aaliyah was her name, and she was a dream of a dream. The way she ate that piece of chocolate cake across the table from him was like watching a sexy sunset—it was a thing of beauty. Her plump lips parted slowly, gently, her eyes closed in anticipation. She bit through the moist dessert until her teeth just barely touched the tines of her fork, then pulled away gently. Her eyes kept closed as she let out a muted, blissful sigh that Jacob could tell she had tried and failed to suppress.

His heart fluttered. He loved that she couldn’t contain her delight even in a public space, and found himself wishing he could appreciate food like that. But watching her was nearly as good, maybe better. It was delightful to see her so happy and content.

“Sorry.” She tittered a little and held a tiny, pudgy hand to her lips. The nails were squared off at the end, effeminate and made smaller in comparison to her fluffy arms. “It’s just…so good.”

“Yeah,” Jacob’s voice almost cracked. “It’s uh… They do a really good job here.”

“You’re not going to have any?” Those green doe eyes and long lashes caught him by the throat.

Aaliyah had no idea how gorgeous she was—she couldn’t. They were both in their thirties, and as she told it, she’d had few suitors which made no kind of sense to Jacob. She was absolutely stunning in every possible way. Cute face, full breasts, burgeoning hips, and soft thighs. Her proportions were out of this world—an exaggerated hourglass. And he wasn’t about to get started on her freckles, subtle but still very visible against the backdrop of her latte-colored cheeks.

“I’m uh—I’m good.” Jacob swallowed.

Oh, boy. It was going to be hard not to ruin this one. And with the stakes being the acceptance of the most beautiful woman he’d ever met, it was hard not to anticipate failure. He had dated a handful of skinny young things in his late teens and twenties, but he’d never found the courage to approach someone like Aaliyah.

She just seemed so out of his league.

Aaliyah put her fork down, patted her cloth napkin to her lips, and cleared her throat. She looked down and off to one side.

It was clear that the fact he wasn’t sharing the cake was making her nervous. Did she think he was judging her? If only he could tell her how completely ridiculous that was without sounding insane.

“You know what?” He smiled, suddenly stumbling across his courage and wits. “I’ll take a piece.”

She laughed as if to release some tension, and said in that soft, confoundingly accent-less voice, “Oh okay, good. I probably don’t need all of this to myself anyway.”

She bit her lip, but only for a second. He could tell the words were obligatory—a forced reverence to society’s expectations that had been built up around her love of food like the walls of Alcatraz.

“Oh…no, please,” Jacob managed. He reached across the table that suddenly seemed way too long and had a bite.

His hesitant words repeated themselves over and over in his head as he munched. But how was he supposed to respond? He couldn’t exactly tell her that watching her eat was like watching a sunset…

She’d probably suspect he was some kind of freak. A feeder or something. That’s what they called those people that wanted to keep stuffing food into women’s mouths until they were groaning in pain, and weighed as much as a house. He wasn’t judging—there were girls, feedees, that loved that—but that also wasn’t him, not really.

There was definitely something sexy about women that were so well cared for and indulgent that the pounds just piled on, filling out their breasts, and hips, and thighs, or even those cute, soft bellies. Aaliyah had one of those too—it even rested in her lap a bit as they sat here now—but it was small in comparison to the rest of her.

But no, that wasn’t it for Jacob. He didn’t really want her to get fatter, even if he wouldn’t mind if she did. She was just beautiful to him in a way that nothing else was. There were pretty, slender women, sure, but they were pretty like paintings.

Aaliyah was a goddess.

He felt bad suddenly. He didn’t want to be just sitting here thinking about how sexy she was, he wanted to treat her like a person—like a lady. He wanted to have rousing conversation; to learn and remember all the small, subtle details. She deserved a man that would do that for her.

“So where’d you grow up?” he said, finally.

Her beautiful eyes opened wide above her freckles, as if she were mortified that he’d caught her in the middle of another bite of cake. It was cute, but he hated whoever the hell had made her so insecure. He guessed that she’d never been thin, and she’d only put on more weight since she’d settled into office life.

He’d overheard a colleague teasing her once, trying to give her diet advice. It’d made him furious, though he hadn’t known either of them long enough to step in, and they had been too far away anyway. Still, it’d bothered him into the evening and he’d never been able to look at that girl the same way again.

“Georgia.” She swallowed. “Atlanta, actually.”

“How’d you like it there?” he asked.

“I loved it!” she said. “There’s a lot to do, and it’s grown a lot over the past couple decades. The suburbs were mostly farmland back then…when I first moved there, I mean.”

“Yeah? What’d you do for fun?”

“Well…” She tittered and motioned to her body. “I liked to eat, obviously. My mom used to make the best cakes, not…not unlike this one actually…”

He could tell she wanted to take another bite badly by the way her lips gently parted, but she suppressed the urge. Was he talking to much?

“Anyway,” she waved a hand at him, “I also like books. I like to read fiction, mostly, but anything’ll do. I love Sunday afternoons, lazing around at home, sipping coffee, and reading stories.”

Fireworks.

Too soon, he told himself. He had a tendency to get ahead of himself with these things, and as an adult, he’d finally been able to restrain his passion. Sort of. He supposed there was no curing romanticism, really, and why would you want to anyway? It could be a treat as long as you managed it right.

“I love books,” Jacob said. “Not many people do anymore! Sci-fi is my favorite, actually—military sci-fi specifically.”

He made a point to calm himself down and shut up to give her room to speak. Otherwise he would have pontificated at length about all the different stories he’d read, and which were his favorites, and on and on. But he’d had enough of himself: he wanted to know her!

A smile lit up her whole face. “I like sci-fi!”

“Oh yeah, what’s your favorite?” Jacob couldn’t help but smile just as widely.

“The Forever War,” she said. “But I like other things too. Romance, mysteries, it really doesn’t matter. Fiction just gives my brain some space and lets me take a step back and re-evaluate what’s important to me. Sometimes I feel like I get too stuck inside the day-to-day: wake up, go to work, freak myself out about trivial things. Books calm me down. They introduce me to people who remember that there’s things out there that matter.”

“So true. And the Forever War is one of my favorites, for the record.”

Was this…actually going his way? He’d never really had too much trouble talking with other women—it was easier than talking to men sometimes—but this was different.

As a teenager, he used to wonder what all the fuss was about. He’d talked to girls, thought they were cute, but he never felt tongue-tied or anxious. Aside from society never putting fat women in the limelight, his pension for fitness had also led him astray. He used to think tomboys were awesome, and still did—it just turned out he wasn’t that attracted to them. Back then, though, he’d dreamt he’d meet up with some toned fighter girl and they’d open a gym together.

Funny thought, that.

“Oh my goodness!” Aaliyah licked a spot of icing off her lip. “I’ve almost finished this thing by myself. I’m probably gonna eat myself into an early grave.”

This time Jacob had to say something—this was one of his least favorite cliches. “You know, I always thought the anxiety and social pressure around feeling like you had to be a certain weight was way worse than the weight itself. I read that overweight people have similar lifespans, and even women who are class three obese only lose about five years off their life, with those that fall in between somewhere around 2 years. Seems kinda within tolerance, and if you love food, well…there’s just so many other things that you should probably be more worried about.

“And that’s not even counting that marginally lower lifespans might be related to the fact that a lot of those people are just eating junk food. What about the people who eat healthy and also indulge a little? I just…feel like we blow all this stuff out of proportion is all. Even the studies are skewed toward the prejudices of our culture.”

Aaliyah slapped the table and retreated in on herself, impressed. A little ironically, it accentuated her double chin, which wasn’t really big enough for you to see very well when she looked at you straight on.

“Well you’ve done your research, huh!” Aaliyah said. “Ya know, I have similar sentiments, sometimes myself, but it’s hard not to crack under the social pressure sometimes. You find these old tapes playing in your head whenever you’re not paying attention, and people reinforce ‘em all the time.”

“Yeah!” Jacob chimed in again. “And why aren’t there ever any curvaceous women in the movies? I mean, what’s the best you got recently, Thunder Force? And that was a comedy. Fat women are hot, damn it! They oughta take the lead in serious, major roles sometimes!”

Aaliyah tittered again and placed both hands on the table in front of her. “Why Jacob, I didn’t know you were into the big girls. You’re just full of surprises!”

Jacob grinned, happy to fully embrace that fact for the first time in his long, stupidly suppressed life. “I am! And you know what, a lot of other guys are too. I don’t even know who these stickly models are for. I personally have no interest in a woman that looks like a dude. I know some do, and I’m probably ‘skinny shaming’ right now or whatever, but a man likes what he likes!”

Aaliyah grinned wider, relieved. “That‘s great, because it has been a long week, and I really want another slice this cake.”

“My treat,” Jacob said.