Chapter 2: Necktie of Flesh
The world had dissolved into taste and pressure and a deep, organic sound like roots tearing through soil.
Chad’s jaw was a blaze of pain, stretched wide around the dense, expanding flesh of Angela’s foot. He couldn’t breathe through his nose anymore, the scent of her skin—now a potent, musky sweetness—overwhelming his sinuses. Black spots danced at the edges of his vision.
Then, with a final, wet pop from the arch, the growth shuddered to a halt.
Angela’s foot went slack in his mouth. The terrible, pushing pressure ceased. For a moment, there was only the sound of her ragged, ecstatic breathing and the high, singing pain in his joints.
She gently eased her foot back, sliding it from his lips with a soft, wet sound. He gasped, coughing, sucking in air that tasted of vanilla and salt. His mouth felt cavernous, useless.
“Wow,” Angela breathed, her voice slurred with pleasure. “That was a really good one.”
Chad blinked, tears of strain blurring his sight. The TV still played, casting strobing light over the scene. Angela was… different. The sweatshirt, which had been baggy before, now strained across her shoulders and chest, the fabric tight over her rounded stomach. The athletic shorts were nowhere near her knees anymore; they were barely containing the tops of her thighs, which had spread across the couch like risen dough, pressing against his legs with an immobilizing, warm weight.
The couch itself was a disaster. The central cushion, beneath her hips, had fully split, white foam innards bursting from a long seam like the guts of a stuffed animal. The frame let out a low, continuous groan.
“You okay?” she asked, looking down at him. Her expression was sated, curious, like a cat after a meal.
He tried to speak, but only a croak came out. He swallowed, working his jaw. “I… I couldn’t… breathe.”
“Yeah, that happens. You get used to timing it.” She said it like she was discussing a tricky baking recipe. She shifted, trying to sit up more, and the entire couch dipped violently towards the center. A sharp crack echoed in the room. One of the wooden legs under the frame buckled, splintering but not fully giving way. The couch listed to one side, tilting them both.
“Shit,” Angela muttered. She braced a hand—now broader, fingers more padded—against the back of the couch.“Okay. Easy does it.”
Moving with a caution that seemed entirely new, she began to extricate herself. It wasn’t a simple motion. It was a careful redistribution of massive weight. She rolled onto her side, facing him, and the tilt of the couch increased. Her thigh, now easily the size of his torso, slid off his lap. The relief of pressure was immediate, a cool rush where the heat of her had been.
“You’re going to have to help me up,” she said, matter-of-fact. “I’m stuck in the crater.”
He stared, his mind still stuck in the primal panic of suffocation. “The… what?”
“The crater, Chad. The hole I made in the couch. My hips are wedged. Give me your hands.”
He numbly offered his hands. She took them. Her grip was immense, swallowing his fingers entirely. She wasn’t just stronger; there was more of her to apply force.
“On three.Pull. Don’t let me roll onto you.”
“One… two… three!”
He pulled. She pushed with her legs, a tremendous, grunting effort. For a terrifying second, nothing happened. Then, with a sound of tearing fabric and shearing foam, she lurched upward. The broken leg of the couch gave a final, pathetic snap. The corner hit the floor with a jarring thud.
Angela was on her feet, swaying slightly, standing in the wreckage of her living room furniture. She looked down at herself, brushing bits of white foam from her swollen hips. The shorts had given up entirely along one side seam, revealing the deep, curved expanse of her hip and the side of her buttock. She didn’t seem to care.
Chad remained on the ruined, tilted couch, staring up at her. From this angle, she was monumental. The ceiling light haloed her head. Her shadow covered him completely.
“Well,” she said, looking at the destroyed couch. “That’s not going to work anymore.” She took a experimental step. The floorboard creaked a deep, heart-stopping protest. She paused, listening to the house’s complaint. “Hmm.”
She turned and walked carefully towards the small hallway bathroom, each step a deliberate, heavy placement. Chad heard the light flick on, then a long, low whistle.
“Oh, boy,” she called out, her voice echoing off tile.
“What?”
“Come see.”
He pushed himself off the slanted couch, his legs tingling with returning blood, and shuffled to the bathroom door. It was a standard size. Angela was standing sideways in it, trying to face the mirror. Her hips brushed against both sides of the doorframe.
“It’s like the couch,” she said, a strange note of clinical fascination in her voice. “I’ve been fitting by turning sideways for a month. Now…” She tried to turn to face the mirror squarely. Her stomach and chest pressed against one side of the frame, her back against the other. She was stuck. Not dramatically, but firmly. A woman corked in a doorway.
She started to laugh. It was a rich, full-bodied sound that shook her frame and made the doorframe dust sift down. “Are you seeing this? I’m literally stuck in my own bathroom door.”
Chad didn’t find it funny. A cold knot of anxiety tightened in his stomach. This wasn’t a kink anymore. This was a structural problem. “Angela, this is… we need to call someone.A doctor. Someone.”
The laughter died. She looked at him in the mirror, her eyes sharpening. “A doctor? And say what? ‘My ex-girlfriend has a fetish for growth and now she’s too big for her apartment?’ They’d section me, Chad. Or worse, they’d want to study me. Cut me open to see what makes me tick.” She tried to shrug, but the movement was restricted by the wood. “No thanks. I just need a wider door. And a stronger couch. And probably a reinforced floor.” She said it like a shopping list. “Now are you going to help me get unstuck, or are you going to stand there having a moral crisis?”
He moved forward, his mind reeling. He put his hands on her sides, just above the swell of her hips. The warmth of her through the thin sweatshirt was staggering. He pushed, gently at first, then harder.
“Rock back and forth,” he instructed. “On my count.”
It took three tries, a symphony of groaning wood and her own strained grunts, but she finally popped free, stumbling back into the hall. She immediately turned and faced the mirror, gripping the sink for balance. It was a pedestal sink. It rocked precariously.
She was silent for a long time, studying her reflection. Chad watched her. He saw the woman he knew, but stretched, amplified. Her face was rounder, cheeks fuller, neck thicker. Her shoulders had a new, powerful slope. The sweatshirt was a second skin, outlining the heavy, pendulous weight of her breasts, the solid barrel of her waist, the awe-inspiring shelf of her hips. She looked less like a person and more like a monument to abundance.
“I need a shower,” she said finally, her voice flat. “I feel… sticky. From the growth. It’s a cellular thing. Get me the scissors from the kitchen drawer.”
“Scissors?”
“I can’t get this sweatshirt off over my shoulders or my hips. I have to cut it off.”
He retrieved the scissors. She took them from him, her big hands surprisingly deft, and began cutting a straight line up the front of the sweatshirt, from hem to collar. The fabric fell away, revealing her body clad only in a bra that was clearly several sizes too small, its wires digging into the soft flesh of her sides and beneath her breasts, and a pair of panties that were lost in the divide between her stomach and thighs. The sight was beyond indecent; it was a physics problem. She discarded the ruined garment, then turned her attention to the shorts, cutting them away too until they fell in a puddle at her feet.
She stood there, nearly naked in the harsh bathroom light, immense and unselfconscious. The evidence of her growth was everywhere—the red lines where seams had bitten into her skin, the sheer, breathtaking scale of her.
“Hand me my robe,” she said, pointing a thick finger towards a hook on the back of the door. It was a plush, terrycloth thing, but it looked like a child’s garment in her shadow.
He gave it to her. She could only drape it over her front like a cape; tying it was impossible.
“I’ll manage,” she said, and turned to maneuver into the shower. The stall was a prefab fiberglass unit. She looked at it, then at herself, and let out a short, bitter sigh. “Or not.” She turned the tap on with her toe, reached in to adjust the temperature, then simply stepped over the low tub wall, one colossal leg at a time. She had to stand diagonally. Her shoulders pressed against both side walls. The shower curtain, when she pulled it closed, stretched like the skin of a drum.
The sound of the water hitting her body was a heavy, drumming rain.
Chad retreated to the living room, sinking onto the tilted, broken couch. He put his head in his hands. The taste of her was still in his mouth. The imprints of her fingers were on his wrists. The room smelled of her—that vanilla scent, now mixed with something earthier, like warm clay after a rain.
He heard the water shut off. A long period of silence, then shuffling, grunting. She emerged minutes later, the thin robe clinging wetly to every curve and valley. Water dripped from her elbows, her hair. She held a towel that was comically small.
“We need to talk,” she said, her voice clean and clear.
She walked to the center of the room, as far from the broken furniture as possible, and lowered herself to sit on the floor. The boards bowed beneath her. She gestured for him to sit opposite her. He did, folding his legs, feeling like a child across from a giant.
“You’re freaking out,” she stated.“Yeah. A little.”
“Good. It’s freaky.” She ran the tiny towel over her hair. “Here’s the situation. This isn’t stopping. The doctors said it might plateau.They were wrong. It’s accelerating. Stress, emotion, arousal… it fuels it. You just witnessed that.”
“Arousal?” he whispered.
A faint smile touched her lips. “You think that was just for your benefit? The growth… it’s linked. The release is… intense. It’s part of the cycle.” She leaned forward, her massive forearms resting on her knees. The floor creaked. “I can’t live like a normal person anymore, Chad. I can’t work. I can barely leave this apartment. Stairs are a nightmare. Doors are traps. Everything is a trap.” Her green eyes pinned him. “But I remember you. You were always good with… logistics. With making things work. And you weren’t scared of me. You liked it.”
“That was before you broke a couch just by sitting on it!”
“It’s the same thing, Chad. Just more.” Her voice was low, persuasive. “I need help. I need someone to get me food, to help me move around, to… to handle things. To be there when it happens.” She gestured vaguely at her body. “I have money.Savings. We can make this work. We can adapt this place. Reinforce things. Get custom furniture.”
“We?” The word leapt from his throat.
“You quit your job today, didn’t you?” she said softly. “You walked out.For me. What are you going back to?”
Nothing. He had nothing to go back to. The truth of it was a hollow pit in his stomach.
“Stay,” she said. It wasn’t a plea. It was an offer.A command. “Help me. Be my… anchor. And in return…” She let the sentence hang, her gaze dropping to his mouth for a fraction of a second. The implication was clear. The memory of the crushing, all-consuming submission, the taste of her, flooded back. It was terrifying. It was the most alive he’d felt in years.
“What about… everything else?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“What about it?” She shifted her weight, a tectonic adjustment. “We take it one day at a time. One growth spurt at a time.” She looked around the destroyed living room, at the tilted, gutted couch, at the doorway she could no longer fit through. “Starting tomorrow, we have a lot of shopping to do. And we need to find a contractor who doesn’t ask questions.”
She held out her hand to him, palm up. It was wide, the fingers thick. An invitation, a demand.
Outside, the rain had stopped. A sickly gray dawn was beginning to lighten the windows. In the quiet, Chad could hear the steady, deep rhythm of Angela’s breathing, the subtle groan of the floorboards settling under her weight.
He looked at her hand. He thought of the empty, silent pathways of his own life. Then he reached out, and placed his hand in hers. Her fingers closed around it, warm, immense, and utterly inescapable.
Her fingers closed around it, warm, immense, and utterly inescapable.
Dawn bled into a long, strange day. They ordered a staggering amount of food delivery, Angela calling out requests from her perch on the floor. “Extra-large pizza. No, get two. And the cheesy bread. And the brownie dessert thing.” Chad used her savings card, his mind numb. A contractor came, a gruff man named Ray who whistled low at the busted couch and the splintered doorframe.
“Big party?” Ray asked, tapping the fractured wood.
“Something like that,” Angela said from the hallway, not showing herself. “We need the bathroom doorway widened. Today. And reinforced flooring in here. Can you do that?”
Ray’s estimate was astronomical. Angela told him to do it. The sound of saws and pounding hammers filled the apartment, a brutal symphony to accompany their new reality. Angela spent the day on her floor-bed of pillows and blankets, directing Chad and Ray like a queen overseeing a fortress renovation. She acted as if this were all perfectly normal—a home improvement project, just with more urgency.
By evening, the bathroom doorway was a raw, wide mouth. The floor in the living room had new, thick plywood under the carpet. Ray left, shaking his head. A new, squat, reinforced love seat was delivered, a utilitarian block of firm cushions and steel framing. It looked like waiting room furniture from a prison.
“Perfect,” Angela declared, maneuvering onto it with a sigh of contentment. It didn’t creak. “See? Solutions.”
Now, the next night, a different movie played. A comedy. Something with bright colors and quippy dialogue. Angela had commandeered the new love seat entirely, leaving Chad with a folding chair he’d placed close by at her insistence. Her legs, bare and thick, were draped over the chair’s arms and into his lap, a now-familiar weight.
“Pass the gummies,” she said, not looking from the screen, her hand waving vaguely toward the family-sized bag on the floor.
He bent, the movement restricted by the heavy, warm press of her calves, and grabbed the bag. He handed it up. Her fingers delved inside, emerging with a sticky cluster.
“This part is stupid,” she announced, chewing. “The neighbor would have called the cops immediately.”
Chad nodded, trying to focus on the screen. But his awareness was tethered to the heat sinking into his thighs. He’d spent the day in a daze, fetching tools for Ray, ordering linens online in “extra-large” sizes, listening to Angela plan out a new, wider bed frame. A functional insanity had taken hold. Now, in the quiet dark, the bizarre physics of her body demanded his full attention.
He felt it first as a slight increase in temperature. A more profound warmth emanating from her skin where it touched his legs. Then, a subtle tautness. The flesh under his hands, where he’d passively let them rest on her shin, began to firm. Not with muscle, but with a deep, cellular expansion, like bread proving in a too-small pan.
He stared. Her legs were definitely lengthening. Slowly, so slowly it was almost imperceptible, the point where her heel rested near his hip began to inch further down his thigh. The swell of her calf grew wider, pushing his own legs apart beneath it.
“Angela?” he said, his voice tight.
“Hmm?” She popped another gummy, laughing at a joke on screen.
“Your… your legs.”
“What about them?” She finally glanced down, following his gaze to where her limb was slowly overwhelming the folding chair and his lap. She gave a small, dismissive shrug. “They’re comfortable. You mind? My ankles were dangling.”
But it wasn’t about comfort. The growth was a quiet, relentless invasion. The skin, already stretched glossy, tightened further. A network of faint, blueish veins became more prominent beneath the surface, mapping the pressure underneath. He heard it then—a faint, wet, cellular rustling, the sound of a thousand tiny fibers stretching beyond their intent. It was a sound felt more than heard, a squelching whisper that vibrated through her into him.
The weight intensified. His breathing shallowed. The heavy, dense muscle of her calf was now a crushing log pinning him to the cheap chair. His jeans strained at the seams where his thighs were forced apart.
On screen, characters shouted in zany argument. Angela chuckled, shifting her shoulders to get more comfortable. The movement translated down her body. Her hip, already spilling over the side of the love seat, pushed outward with a soft, grinding sound against the sturdy fabric. The new, slow growth in her legs continued uninterrupted.
Her foot, which had been near his hip, now rested squarely in the center of his stomach. Each incremental lengthening pushed it deeper into his diaphragm. He tried to take a deep breath and couldn’t. The pressure was a constant, smothering squeeze.
“Can you… adjust?” he managed, each word a struggle for air.
“In a minute. This is the good part.” Her tone was light, breezy. She was pretending. She had to be. The rustling-squelching was louder now, a continuous, biological process. The girth of her thigh where it crossed the chair arm had increased, the flesh swelling around the metal like rising lava, threatening to engulf it.
He was being buried alive by the casual, unconscious expansion of her. Sweat beaded on his forehead. The heat she gave off was stifling, a moist, biological greenhouse heat. The vanilla scent of her lotion was now undercut by a sharper, saltier odor—the smell of her body working, metabolizing, transforming.
Her foot pushed another half-inch into his gut. A small, pained gasp escaped him. Black dots speckled his vision. He brought his hands up, not to push her away—that was unthinkable—but to brace himself, his fingers sinking into the dense, unyielding flesh of her calf. It felt like kneading warm, packed clay.
Angela sighed contentedly, engrossed in the movie’s climax. She stretched her arms above her head, a movement that pulled her torso longer and, somehow, fed more mass into the limbs draped over him. The love seat’s steel frame let out a low, metallic ping of stress.
He was truly trapped now. The chair was an anchor, and her growing leg was the chains. His lungs hitched, fighting for fractional expansion against the incredible weight. The casual, cheerful dialogue from the television echoed in the room, a grotesque counterpoint to the silent, smothering transformation happening in the dark.
Her little toe, now wider than his thumb, pressed against his ribs. He felt the bone beneath the pad of it. He could only stare, mute and desperate, as the woman he once loved calmly finished her candy and watched the credits roll, her body methodically, inexorably, making more of itself across his lap.