Chapter 8: The Aftermath Dawns
The morning light was a liar. It streamed through Candy’s kitchen windows, all cheerful and golden, painting everything in a honeyed glaze that felt obscene. It illuminated the wreckage with a cruel clarity the neon pool lights had mercifully obscured.
The air smelled of stale margarita mix, drying chlorine, and sex. The scent had settled into the grout between the tiles, clung to the curtains, soaked into the very wood of the cabinets. It was the perfume of what had happened.
Candy moved through the kitchen with a serene, weightless grace that defied physics. At seven and a half feet tall, she should have been cramped, ducking under the hanging pots. She didn’t. She flowed. Her bare feet, clean now, made soft, sure sounds on the sticky tile. Her hair, that impossible platinum, was tied up in a messy, perfect bun, a few strands framing her glowing face. She wore one of Jimmy’s old t-shirts. On him, it had been tight. On her, it was a strained tapestry, the thin cotton fighting a losing battle to contain the monumental swell of her breasts and the sweeping, jiggling curve of her ninety-nine-inch ass. The hem stopped high on her tremendous thighs.
She hummed as she worked. A pop song from yesterday. The warped boombox was silent now, a plastic casualty on the patio.
The others were gathered, a silent council of the damned. They’d dressed in whatever they could find—oversized t-shirts, towels, bikini cover-ups that now stretched to breaking. They sat or stood in the kitchen like statues brought to life but unsure of their purpose.
Kim was at the small kitchen table, methodically picking at the label of a cerveza bottle. Her movements were slow, careful, as if her hands belonged to someone else. Tiffany sat beside her, staring at her own reflection in the toaster, her fingers tracing the new, heavy fullness of her jawline.
Lena and Beth stood by the sliding glass door, looking out at the ruined patio but not really seeing it. Their arms were crossed, a defensive gesture that did nothing to minimize the new, profound thickness of their bodies, the way their hips now filled the doorway.
Stacey was pouring coffee. A simple task. Her hands trembled, making the carafe clatter against the mugs. The coffee sloshed, leaving brown rings on the counter.
And Roxy. Roxy was on the floor, leaning against the lower cabinets. She wasn’t crying. She just sat there, knees drawn up, her face a mask of hollowed-out shock. The brash fire was ash. Her red hair was a tangled nest. The borrowed t-shirt she wore was comically small, riding up over the sprawling, heavy shelves of her hips and ass. She looked like a doll that had been left out in the rain, swollen and ruined.
Jimmy dominated the space by the refrigerator. He was naked, still, because nothing in Candy’s closet would fit him now. Eight feet of tanned, vascular muscle, a landscape of power. He leaned back, the fridge groaning under his weight, and watched Candy move with a dopey, possessive smile. The morning light gleamed off the ridiculous, semi-flaccid weight between his legs. He didn’t seem to notice the tension. To him, the kitchen smelled of victory and his girlfriend’s amazing new body.
“Mornin’, sunshine,” he rumbled at Stacey as she handed him a mug of coffee. The mug looked like a thimble in his hands.
Stacey flinched at his voice, nearly dropping the carafe. She didn’t meet his eyes. “Morning,” she whispered, the word scraping out of her throat.
Candy turned from the counter, a tray of mismatched mugs in her hands. She moved with the effortless balance of a cat, her enormous chest not swaying so much as floating before her. She began distributing the coffee.
“Here you go, Kim. Tiffany, sugar’s right there.” Her voice was light, friendly. The same hostess voice from yesterday, but underpinned now by that unshakeable, melodic certainty. It was the most frightening thing in the room.
She placed a mug on the floor next to Roxy. “Drink something, Rox. You need the fluids.” The kindness in her tone was absolute, and therefore completely terrifying.
Roxy’s eyes focused slowly on the mug. She didn’t move.
Candy straightened, her hands going to her hips. The gesture made the t-shirt strain dangerously. She surveyed her friends, her smile softening into something pitying and warm. “You all look like you got hit by a truck. A really fun, sexy truck.” She gave a little giggle. It was the old Candy sound, but it echoed wrong in the silent kitchen.
No one laughed.
Jimmy chuckled, a low bass note. “It was a pretty good party.”
Lena turned from the window. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her voice hoarse. “A good party? Jimmy, look at us. Look at me.” Her gesture took in her body, the once-athletic frame now padded with exaggerated, womanly fullness. “This isn’t… this doesn’t go away. I tried to put my jeans on this morning. I couldn’t get them past my knees.”
“So get new jeans,” Jimmy said, shrugging. The muscles in his shoulders rolled like boulders. “Bigger ones. Problem solved.”
“That’s not the point!” The words burst from Beth, shrill and sudden. She was the quiet one, and the outburst seemed to shock even her. She pressed her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide behind her glasses.
Candy’s serene smile didn’t flicker. She took a slow sip of her own coffee. “Beth’s right. It’s not the point.” She set the mug down with a soft click. “The point is, you’re different now. We all are. Fighting it… that’s just gonna make you miserable.” She walked over to Beth, her steps causing the plates in the cabinet to shiver slightly. She put a glowing, benevolent hand on Beth’s shoulder. Beth stiffened as if touched by a live wire. “You feel it, don’t you? That little… tug? Right here?” Candy pressed a finger lightly to the center of Beth’s forehead, then trailed it down to her sternum. “It doesn’t want you to be upset. It wants you to feel… good. To feel… close.”
Beth’s breath hitched. A tear escaped, tracing a path through the freckles on her cheek. She didn’t nod, but she didn’t pull away. That strange, warm loyalty Candy had mentioned—the aftereffect of the magic, of the submission—it was there. A low hum in their blood. It warred with the horror, muffling it, making it feel distant and fuzzy, like a bad dream.
“It’s weird,” Tiffany whispered, still staring into the toaster. “I look in the mirror and I should be screaming. But I’m just… calm. And I keep thinking about how hungry I am.”
“See?” Candy said, brightening. “That’s the spirit! Your body knows what it needs. It’s bigger, it needs more fuel.” She turned to the fridge. “Jimmy, sweetie, move. You’re blocking the food.”
Jimmy pushed off, leaving a sweaty imprint of his back on the stainless steel. Candy opened the fridge. It was nearly empty, a wasteland of condiments and a single, withered lime.
“Huh,” Candy said, hands on her hips again. “We kinda ate everything yesterday. And I don’t think a jar of pickles and some mustard is gonna cut it for this crew.” She turned, her eyes sparkling with a new, practical light. “We need groceries. A lot of groceries.”
Kim finally spoke, her voice flat. “I’m not going out there. Not like this.”
“Why not?” Candy asked, genuinely perplexed. “You look amazing. We all do. It’s just a new… aesthetic.”
“Aesthetic?” Roxy’s voice croaked up from the floor. It was the first thing she’d said all morning. It was ragged, stripped raw. “Candy, I can’t fucking walk. I tried to get off the toilet. I had to call for… for help.” She didn’t say who helped her. The shame was a living thing on her face.
Candy looked down at her, head tilted. “Then you need practice, hon. And better clothes. We all do.” She clapped her hands together once, a sound like a small gunshot. The women jumped. “Okay! New plan. We’re going to the big box store. The one on the bypass. They have everything. Plus-sized clothes, industrial-sized food, those giant carts. It’s perfect.”
A collective dread filled the room, thicker than the smell of sex.
“I can’t,” Lena said, shaking her head. “People will stare.”
“Let them stare,” Jimmy boomed, flexing an arm idly. The biceps bulged, a planet of muscle. “They’re just jealous.”
“Jimmy’s right,” Candy said, though her reasoning was entirely different. “This is who we are now. Hiding is just saying you’re ashamed. And we have nothing to be ashamed of.” Her glow seemed to intensify just a fraction, pushing back against the gloom in the kitchen. “We’re together. We’ll help each other. It’ll be fun! A field trip.”
The way she said “together” felt like a lock clicking shut.
An hour later, they were a convoy of profound strangeness rolling through the suburban Saturday morning.
Jimmy drove Candy’s SUV, his head brushing the roof, his massive thighs crammed against the steering wheel. Candy sat shotgun, having pushed the seat all the way back to accommodate the tremendous sweep of her rear. The seatbelt was a formality, a thin strap bisecting the staggering geography of her chest.
The other women were squeezed into the remaining seats, a tangle of expanded limbs and silent anxiety. They’d cobbled together outfits from the remnants of Candy’s closet and some stretchy yoga pants Kim found in her gym bag. Nothing fit right. Everything was too tight, straining at new seams, revealing flashes of swollen flesh. They looked like they’d been blown up by a gentle, perverse air hose.
The parking lot of the Mega-Mart was a sea of cars baking in the sun. Jimmy parked at the very back, taking up two spaces. The doors opened.
The emergence was a slow, agonizing process. Groans of effort, the sound of fabric protesting. Kim and Lena helped Roxy, each taking an arm, hauling her to her feet. Her legs, absurdly thick, wobbled. She took a step, then another, a slow, wide-legged waddle that made her massive hips swing like pendulums. A low sob escaped her.
“Breathe, Rox,” Candy said, appearing beside her. She wasn’t even breathing hard. She placed a steadying hand on the small of Roxy’s back. The touch was electric, sending a pulse of that forced calm through Roxy’s system. The sobs subsided into shaky breaths. “See? One foot in front of the other. You’ve got this.”
They moved towards the entrance, a bizarre phalanx. Jimmy led, a titan in a pair of borrowed sweatpants that were perilously short, exposing his colossal calves. Candy flowed beside him, a radiant beacon. The five other women followed in a ragged, shuffling cluster.
The stares began immediately.
A man loading bags into his minivan froze, a gallon of milk dangling from his hand. His mouth hung open. A group of teenagers by the bike rack fell silent, their phones forgotten. An older woman squinted, adjusted her glasses, and then simply shook her head and looked away, as if deciding her eyes were playing tricks.
It wasn’t just the size, though that was the first thing. It was the impossibility of the proportions. The way Candy’s body defied gravity and biomechanics. The sheer, dumbfounding scale of Jimmy. The exaggerated, top-heavy curves of the women trailing behind them, moving with the cautious gait of people in a dream.
They passed through the automatic doors. The blast of chilled air carried the smell of popcorn and floor wax.
The store was a cathedral of consumer normalcy, and they were heretical saints entering it. Conversations died in mid-sentence. Cart wheels squeaked to a halt. Every eye in the entryway followed them.
Candy beamed. She grabbed a shopping cart, then looked at it, then at Jimmy. She laughed, a sparkling, beautiful sound. “Oh, that’s not gonna work. Jimmy, get the flatbed.”
Jimmy strode to the corral and returned with a large industrial flatbed cart, the kind used for lumber or appliances. He pushed it with one hand.
“Perfect!” Candy said. “Alright, team. Let’s split up. Jimmy, you’re with me on food. Kim, you and Tiffany hit the clothing section. Get us all some basics. Stretchy stuff. Think… comfort and expansion. Lena, Beth, you go with Roxy. Get toiletries. The good stuff. Lotions, soaps, hair things. Nothing cheap. We deserve nice things now.”
She gave orders with the easy confidence of a CEO. The women nodded, numb. The “little tug” was stronger here, under the fluorescent lights, surrounded by normal people buying normal things. Obeying Candy felt like the only anchor in a world that had suddenly become too bright, too loud, too judgmental.
As the groups dispersed, the whispering rippled out like shockwaves.
Jimmy and Candy moved through the grocery aisles like a natural disaster. He reached for items on the top shelf without stretching. Six gallons of milk. Four family-sized packs of chicken breasts. Five dozen eggs. Bags of rice like sandbags. Candy guided him, her expert eye calculating their new caloric needs. She tossed bags of chips, boxes of protein bars, jars of peanut butter the size of paint cans onto the flatbed. The cart began to look like a relief supply drop for a village.
“We should get a second fridge,” Jimmy mused, staring at a stack of steaks.
“We should get a walk-in cooler,” Candy corrected lightly, adding a case of protein shakes. She caught the stare of a young stock boy. He was maybe nineteen, thin, with acne. He was staring, jaw slack, at the impossible panorama of Candy’s chest as she leaned over to inspect some yogurt. Candy didn’t frown. She smiled right at him, a warm, dazzling smile. The boy blushed scarlet, dropped his box of cereal, and fled.
In the clothing section, Kim and Tiffany moved through a world of XL and XXL tags, which now looked like children’s sizes. They pulled leggings, t-shirts, and simple dresses off the racks in the largest sizes they could find, holding them up, exchanging hopeless glances.
“This won’t fit her,” Tiffany whispered, holding up a floral-print muumuu meant for a plus-size woman. “Not Roxy. Not even close.”
“Just get it,” Kim said, her voice dull. “We’ll get… sewing supplies. We’ll have to make things.” The reality of their new existence was settling in, not as magic, but as logistics. As a lifetime of altered hemlines and custom orders.
Meanwhile, Lena and Beth were supporting Roxy through the personal care aisle. Roxy moved like a sleepwalker, her eyes empty. Beth guided the cart while Lena held Roxy’s arm.
“Rox, what kind of shampoo do you like?” Lena asked gently, holding up a bottle.
Roxy just stared at it. Her eyes filled. “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “Nothing matters. I’m a monster in a muumuu.”
“You’re not a monster,” Beth said, her voice firmer than she expected. That weird loyalty-thrum gave her strength. “Candy says we’re beautiful. We just… are a different kind of beautiful now.”
“Candy,” Roxy echoed, and a shudder went through her. Not of fear, but of recognition. Of the source of the thrum.
They met back at the front. The flatbed was a mountain of provisions. The clothing was a pathetic, small pile on top. The cashier, a tired-looking woman in her fifties named Darlene, rang them up with a practiced, blank-faced efficiency that cracked with every beep of the scanner.
“That’ll be… eight hundred and forty-seven dollars and thirty-two cents,” Darlene said, her voice barely a whisper.
Jimmy slapped down a credit card. “Keep the change,” he said, grinning.
As they began the slow, torturous process of bagging the impossible haul—requiring every available bag and the help of a bewildered manager—a final, defining moment occurred.
A little girl, maybe four years old, was sitting in the cart of the family in line behind them. She pointed a chubby finger at Candy, who was effortlessly lifting two massive bags of dog food (they didn’t have a dog) onto the flatbed.
“Mommy,” the girl said, loud and clear in the hushed store. “That lady is so shiny.”
Candy turned. She looked at the little girl.
A profound, unreadable softness passed over Candy’s face, something ancient and maternal. The girl’s mother snatched the pointing finger down, her own face draining of color as she muttered a frantic apology and shoved her cart backward.