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Mallory clutched her humble leather handbag as she stood in the snack lines of the Wonderplex Cinema, the biggest movie theater in the state. Tonight was the national premier of what had promised to be the biggest blockbuster of the summer, The Genesia Project, so it was no surprise that the glamorous Wonderplex was packed with all sorts of action-craving moviegoers. People crowded by the front doors and spread themselves in large clusters across the main room in hopes of seeing if this film was truly worth the hype it had gathered online.

Mallory had a mind much larger than her body (she was a fairly short girl), and she had no problem realizing that this so-called "MUST-SEE THRILLER OF THE YEAR" would be no more than clichéd, generic filler that appealed to crowds of testosterone-crazy psychopaths. However, she also had large ambitions, which undoubtedly interested her far more than whatever was blaring obnoxiously on the big screen.

Such ambitions revolved more heavily around one thing: concessions.

Growing up in a pseudo-urban city along the northeast coast, Mallory's peers had led her to believe that being someone of above-average weight meant that you were unattractive and disgusting. This had been the philosophy all girls, no matter what level on the infamous "school social hierarchy" they were, had followed strictly. However, as time had passed, the petite brunette had developed further beliefs courtesy of the Internet's ever-growing acceptance of women despite their body size.

She had since devoted a portion of her precious college student time to purposely gaining weight to prove a point - women can still be sexually appealing even when overweight. Her diet had shifted into a range of slightly more caloric foods, which in turn had given her relatively thin frame a bit of extra padding, most notably around the waist and hips. Her belly had softened, her butt had slightly blimped and her thighs had thickened, to the point where her clothes had grown noticeably more snug.

Wanting to further speed up her mission, Mallory had turned to the Wonderplex. The movie theater's snacks were all unhealthy junk food items full of empty calories and sugars, being regarded as some of the worst things a human being could put into their body. So her hypothesis was this: If eaten in a large enough quantity, these snacks would cause a major increase to the consumer's weight.

The Genesia Project was simply an excuse for her to purchase a ticket and infiltrate the Wonderplex. Now that she was inside, clad in a spaghetti-strapped tank top and black sweatpants that clung to her chubby form, it was time to initiate Part Two.

Mallory finally approached the counter after a long period of waiting. The cashier was a tall, lanky young man with a shaggy mop of brown hair curtaining his eyes. He blew it aside and let his left eye glance down at her.

"Hello, welcome to the Wonderplex Cinema. What can I get you?" he asked in a dull tone.

Mallory unzipped her handbag and retrieved a bundle of 5-dollar bills, totaling up to $250. The amount of money caused the cashier's one visible eye to widen.

"I hope you don't mind if my order takes a while," she turned and said to the woman behind her, who simply shook her head and smiled.

"OK, let me see... Can I get 4 - scratch that, 5 jumbo Coca-Cola ICEEs?"

"Sure thing," the lanky employee said, tapping something hastily into the register as a separate employee made their way to the ICEE machine.

"Cool. And, uh... How about 4 of those hot dogs?"

"You want mustard?" the cashier asked, to which she responded "extra on all." Yet another employee went into a back room to collect her food as her order was entered into the cash register.

"Alright. Also, can I get 4 pretzels with salt and butter, 2 pretzels with cinnamon, 3 jumbo buckets of buttered popcorn, 2 boxes of Butterfingers, 2 boxes of Skittles, 3 KitKat bars, and - "

"SLOW DOWN, ma'am!" The cashier was frantically tapping in the orders into the register, clearly stressed as he attempted and ultimately failed to keep up with the speed of Mallory's requests. The entire crew behind the snacks counter rushed to provide her with everything, placing everything in a pile between the cashier and their gluttonous customer.

" - and can I have a tray to put it all on?" Mallory finished. The cashier gave her a quizzical look.

"A tray? You mean, like a plastic plate?"

"No, like a catering tray. You know, the ones with wheels."

The lanky employee glanced down at the massive assortment of boxes, buckets, and plastic cups sitting in front of him. "Yeah, we can make in exception... in your case. That'll be $243.28, ma'am."

The slightly pudgy brunette nudged the bundle of cash closer to him. "That's $250. Keep the change."

Two minutes later, Mallory was wheeling a long, skinny cart loaded with junk food to her screening room, leaving behind a very confused and exhausted number of concessions stand employees. Moving with a very subtle waddle, she pushed the door open with the cart.

The golden glow of the house lights and an annoying preview for a cash-in animated movie welcomed her simultaneously, and Mallory couldn't help but feel nostalgic. She remembered going to the movies a lot when she was younger. It had been such a long time since she had actually seen one in theaters, and while she wouldn't be paying much attention to the actual film, the comforting atmosphere of the room brought a smile to her face.

Hell, even the large crowds of whispering people didn't seem to faze her. They were all a family in the screening room, and they all came to be entertained, quietly sharing their expectations and doubts, all making their own assumptions about what kind of story would unfold before them based on what they had seen from various trailers and online blogs.

After scouting out a perfect seat in the very back row, Mallory pushed her cart up the ramp, garnering a wide variety of confused and gaping stares from the moviegoers in the seats nearby. She simply ignored them, reminding herself that this was all for a very important cause.

"Stares are only a temporary thing," she muttered under her breath as she finally arrived at her seat, the closest one to the ramp. Mallory planted her rear into the plush velvet, set her handbag in the neighboring seat and slowly moved the cart in front of her, allowing it to be placed directly over her knees. The giant piles of food obscured her vision of the screen.

Crap, I need the movie to distract me from feeling full too early! she thought, before cautiously plucking one of the jumbo buckets of popcorn off the cart and into her lap. Doing so gave her a good enough window of space to see the majority of the screen.

Mallory didn't waste a single second before she began to chow down. As the preview continued, she shoveled fistful after fistful of greasy popcorn into her mouth. It tasted like the kind of artificial goodness you could only find at a movie theater.

Minute after minute of previews had passed, and the bucket in Mallory's lap felt lighter and lighter. Not even before the final one had finished, and her hand was already scraping the buttery bottom of the kernel-filled bucket.

Wow, that was fast, she pondered. And I'm not even close to full yet! She set the empty bucket down by her feet and wrapped her hand around one of her five cups of ICEE, still cold to the touch. She had been lucky enough to have each one come with plastic lids and straws that weren't bent or unnaturally short.

As Mallory slowly began to drain the watery, Coke-flavored contents of the sugary beverage, the last preview had drawn to a close, only to be replaced by an obnoxious Wonderplex message.

"We here at the Wonderplex Cinema wish nothing more than to provide each and every one of our customers with a pleasant and satisfactory cinematic experience. We would like to take this moment to kindly advise everyone in the theater to please, TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONES to avoid disrupting the experience of the surrounding audience. Also, please remember to REMAIN SILENT during the duration of the movie until it ends. This way, everyone can focus solely on what they are watching and not on any - "

*SLLUUUP*

" - around them. Thank you, and have a Wonderful time!"

A couple of audience members turned towards the back of the rows, where Mallory had just noisily finished the last of her first ICEE.

"Sorry," she said quietly, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks. Though having immense amounts of movie food in front of her didn't bother her, there was just something about making loud, stare-worthy sounds in a crowded area that felt unusually embarrassing to the young brunette. Trying to dismiss the incident, she set her empty ICEE cup down on the opposite side of the popcorn bucket and retrieved two of the warm, salty pretzels.

The house lights began to dim, signaling the evident beginning of the movie. Mallory quietly unwrapped the two pretzels, tossing the foil into seat holding her handbag, and began to take routine bites out of each one. One from the left, one from the right. Left, right, left, right.

Everyone in front of her let out a simultaneous hush as the movie finally began to play. As the introductory scene opened up in a quiet space-style laboratory, Mallory began to mentally go through her plans concerning finishing all the snacks.

First, I'm gonna have to finish all these pretzels, she thought as she crammed the last bites of both of her current victims into her mouth. Then I'll finish, uh... the hotdogs? Yeah, then the popcorn, the candy, and I'll finish with the ICEEs.

A twinge of fullness set in to her upper stomach as it began to digest, but Mallory simply ignored the feeling as she grabbed two more pretzels and started to wolf them down.

One of the movie's main characters, some kind of futuristic space soldier, made his way into the laboratory and greeted a scientist standing inside. "Ms. Langley, I presume?"

"Don't patronize me, Lieutenant," the scientist woman grumbled, tapping a clipboard impatiently. "Test reports have shown that your cybernetic technology haven't been used entirely for Corps missions, the main reason it was assigned to you to begin with."

Wow, Mallory chuckled. Already, this is the most confusing and yet somehow generic thing I've ever seen. Her mind immediately blocked out anything occurring in the scene, allowing her to focus up on finishing her two remaining salted pretzels.

The food she had been through was already enough to fill her stomach, but she persisted nonetheless, encouraging herself not to quit when there was so much more left. She grabbed the two cinnamon pretzels and disposed of their wrappings quickly, before bringing her main focus to the movie's new scene while continuing her alternating biting cycle.

This time around, Futuristic Solder Guy was standing in front of a hi-tech holographic screen, surveying several locations on an alien planet. He launched into a boring prattle about resources and foreign communications and whatnot, while Mallory quickly swallowed the lasts of the tough pretzels and let out a heavy sigh.

OK, that was one course down, she told herself, glancing down at how her full belly had begun to tighten against the already snug confines of her tank top. Now for those hot dogs.

Mallory found and snatched up the quartet of artificial entrees, placing their wrappings in the same loose cluster as the pretzel wrappings. She managed to get mustard smeared across her fingers in the process, which she licked off tentatively before bringing one of the dogs to her mouth and taking a bite.

The meat, despite being so obviously mass-produced and fake, still tasted appealing and blended perfectly with the soft white buns and copious amounts of sticky mustard. The satisfying taste brought a smile to Mallory's face, as she chomped down the first one in no less than three bites and almost instantly raising another to her lips.

Futuristic Soldier Guy had suddenly begun talking to another soldier, presumably the character who would inevitably die soon because he was the essential companion to the protagonist. "No signs of weaponry on the planet seem to be a threat to our ship's arsenals. I say we strike at dawn."

"Excellent," said Futuristic Soldier Friend. "And, uh... What do they call this planet, Lieutenant?"

"Sergeant, I believe the name is... Genesia."

As interesting as this obvious trailer fodder was, Mallory was more focused on the glob of mustard that had slipped onto her tank top. As expected, it was beginning to push forward with the gradual bloat of her tummy, which had begun to lose its cute little pudge rolls in exchange of becoming a tightening ball. Polishing off the frankfurter in her hand, she swiped her finger against the spill and licked it hastily, right before grabbing another dog and tearing the wrapping off.

Ooh, she groaned mentally. Just remember: fullness is a motivator, not an obstacle. She repeated these thoughts as she chomped down her third hot dog just as quickly as its brethren.

Through the process of annihilating the final sausage, the screen had begun to show rapid montages of weaponry firing against weaponry, no doubt showing the first of what would be several overblown Human v. Alien fights. All the while, it kept cutting back to Futuristic Solder Guy, who was watching the battle from a window for some insane and unexplained reason.

"Make me proud, Sergeant," he whispered in a melodramatic voice.

*Urp!*

A petite belch forced its way out of Mallory's lips, bringing her back to Earth in a somewhat humiliated state. The pain in her swollen gut had magnified several times over as the food had started to travel to her middle stomach area, signaling what could be the beginning of a torrent of grumbles and sloshes.

Ugh, I've eaten so much, Mallory moaned silently as her right hand rubbed the rounded surface of her near basketball-sized midsection. But I'm not gonna stop now! I have to do this!

Forcing all thoughts saying that this staggering amount of pain wasn't worth a first world "cause" out of her head, the brunette plucked one of the two popcorn buckets off of the cart and crammed a fistful greedily into her mouth. The amount of food she had devoured since the beginning of the movie left a much larger window of visibility to the screen.

Meanwhile in The Genesia Project, Futuristic Soldier Guy was kneeling over the corpse of Futuristic Soldier Friend, making over-exaggerated crying faces as he waved his Space Rifle thing in the air wildly.

"YOU FREAKISH ALIEN BASTARDS!" he screamed at the top of his cracking lungs as he spotted one of said "Alien Bastards," a tall and rather ugly creature that greatly resembled a larger version of Watto from Star Wars. The alien jabbed its Plasma Spear thing threateningly towards his direction, but obviously didn't stab the protagonist.

To her dismay, Mallory was actually getting invested with the movie. Sure, it was cheesy, but there was something so likeable about its predictability. Plus, it served as an available distraction to the impressive size her belly was beginning to adopt, now distending several inches onto her lap and forcing a widened gap between the bottom of her tank top and the waistband of her sweatpants. She brought the waistband lower to allow her growing gut more room, scooped another handful of popcorn into her mouth, and returned her attention to the movie.

Futuristic Solider Guy was currently back at the lab with Scientist Woman, who had somehow managed to seize one of the Alien Bastards' young, which looked just like a human child for reasons yet to be explained.

Scientist Woman placed her hands on her hips and frowned as she analyzed the creature. "I didn't expect the young of this species to bear such a resemblance to our own," she mumbled, tapping the glass of its containment pod. It glanced up at her with its empty black eyes and said something muffled and unintelligible.

Futuristic Soldier Guy, on the other hand, was more focused on his cybernetic arm, which had begun flashing random colors. "Miss, as interesting as this specimen is, I'd like you to explain the recent malfunctions in my technological enhancements."

Rolling her eyes, Scientist Woman turned away from the alien creature to face him. "Well, if you MUST know, Lieutenant - "

(Keeping her eyes glued to the screen, Mallory placed the second emptied popcorn bucket sloppily into the first one and grabbed the third, doing her best to ignore the mounting pressure in her stomach caused by consuming copious amounts of imitation butter and artificial meat.)

" - it would be because you were using your 'enhancements' as a way to push yourself through the ranks of our Corps. You were lucky not to be demoted due to this technical cheating; however, it has been the ultimate decision of the Council to temporarily shut down the functional capabilities of your assets, until you have fully reinstated their purposes to the direct benefit of the Corps."

"What?" Futuristic Soldier Guy half-yelled at her. She didn't flinch; however, the creature in the pod winced slightly at the sudden noise. "I wasn't able to properly assist my partner in battle because my enhanced speed and agility suddenly shut down! He was killed, damn it, and I wasn't able to be there for him!" Tears began to form in the corner of his eyes; it was pathetic.

Scientist Woman turned back to the alien creature as a dramatic piano's melodies crept into the room, uttering the final line of the scene. "It appears, Lieutenant, that this is a classic case of the boy who crie - "

*GLORP*

" - olf."

Mallory's cheeks flushed as her abdomen produced an audible groaning noise. Ironically, she attempted to shrink in her seat, but clearly failed as her globular belly gave her away as the clear culprit. She was impossibly full at this point, as the pain built inside her stomach had transformed into sheer numbness.

"Excuse me," she squeaked to nobody in particular. As embarrassed as she was, it could've been far worse - she could have burped.

The one good thing that had come out of that incident was the fact that she had noticed her final popcorn bucket was empty. Rather than disposing of it in the stack the other buckets had made, she had decided to act creatively.

Mallory ignored the groaning pleas of her beach-ball belly and gathered up the miscellaneous candies, sacrificing "crucial" moments of viewing time as she speedily tore the wrapping off of each slightly melted product. Once an item had been satisfactorily wrapped, it was dumped into the empty bucket.

Finally, the bucket which had once been filled with crudely fake popcorn was now loaded with a diverse supply of sugary chocolates and Skittles. Her fingers already digging into the mess, Mallory could finally return her main focus to the film, which had since entered its climax.

She had apparently missed more than she thought. At the current moment, Futuristic Soldier Guy was racing across a battlefield identical to the first one, with the alien child clinging onto his back. All kinds of Space Bullets and Space Cannon Shots and Space Lasers flashed across the screen, coming dangerously close to the protagonist, but he continued to push forward untouched.

"C'mon, buddy, we're gonna GET YOU HOME!" he screamed to the young alien on his back, no doubt symbolizing how his friend had never returned to HIS family, so Futuristic Solider Guy was now doing so for his apparent new best friend.

The lights on his arm were still flashing, revealing that Futuristic Solider Guy's technological enhancements had not been restored to working condition. He was doing this without any assistance from his upgrades, which would have been inspiring had he not managed to still do some pretty incredibly things without getting hurt, as demonstrated by a scene where he did a physically impossible 540-degree spinning torso twist in the air to dodge a single laser shot. Even the alien managed to stay on his back as he did so!

However, as Mallory watched the scene in cynical wonder, her ballooned belly couldn't help but release several more routine *GURGLE*s and *GRRRRRRB*s. Her chocolate-smeared cheeks became noticeably redder with each passing groaning noise. Panicked, she had nothing else to do but keep stuffing her mouth with candy and stare intensely at the screen, hoping that nobody in the audience was too bothered by her middle's rather noisy complaints.

To her surprise/relief, the brunette's delicate hand brushed against the bottom of the bucket for the second time, not even managing to find a single Skittle. Sighing heavily in relief, she set the bucket in the stack, thanking whatever she could that there was nobody staring at her; at least, nobody she could see.

Oomph, my poor TUMMY, she mourned quietly, bringing both hands to the sides of her gut in a feeble attempt to sooth it. Though its groans had since been softer, her burgeoning belly was still a grand spectacle, spilling nearly a foot over the waistband of her super-stretchy sweatpants and nearly lengthy enough to meet her kneecaps. Not only had it expanded in length, but in width as well, as it had grown in all directions like a balloon being inflated with helium. It was close to brushing against the sides of her seat's armrests, and was so solid that it could practically be used as a table.

In fact, as the movie was slowly drawing closer to its resolution, Mallory decided that to finish off her final opponent (the four towering cups of Coke-flavored ICEEs, no doubt completely liquefied at this point), she would take advantage of her abdomen's taut firmness. She hoisted one of the cups onto the top of her belly, balanced it carefully, raised the straw to her mouth, and began to slurp triumphantly as the movie's final minutes began to play out.

Futuristic Soldier Guy was standing before a cluster of what appeared to be the elder Alien Bastards, with the child now standing on their side. He cast them all a salute as a gesture of interspecies peace.

"I hope you can - we can find a way to end this war together," he told them all, to which they nodded and returned the salute in a fashion they were clearly not used to. "If only it we could do it by tomorrow, rather than year after complica - "

*SLURP* *SLOSH*

" - ear."

Mallory tensed in her seat as the two sudden loud noises abruptly brought her attention away from the movie's "big, emotional" resolution. Not only had she finished her second ICEE in record time, but her belly had resumed producing audible noises, this time sloshing rather than grumbling. She quickly placed her empty cup next to the first and replaced it with another.

Now, Futuristic Soldier Guy was making his way back across the battlefield. However, this time around, he was alone, and both sides had set aside their weapons and fighting to let him pass. He stared forward in solemn silence, as the camera focused on a dramatic side view of his face.

Finally, he returned to his ship after a needlessly long amount of time. As he climbed the ramp up to its open main doorway, he noticed Scientist Woman waiting with an indifferent look.

"The Council is waiting inside," she said softly, noticing his apparent state of emotion. "They're willing to negotiate the control of your assets."

Futuristic Solder Guy broke away from his longing forward stare to glance over at her. "Tell them... I'll be fine without control."

And with that, they both walked further inside, as the camera panned slowly outwards to show the battlefield's massive scale in all its glory.

*SLURP* *SLOOORSH*

Once again, as Mallory slurped down her third gigantic ICEE, her stomach had released another impressive sloshing sound. To her further embarrassment, this time around... she hadn't gone unnoticed.

"That's IT!"

A large man with a goatee and an obnoxious pair of aviators roared and stood up in his seat, nearly half the rows' distance away from Mallory. She yelped in shock as he did so.

"How is ANYONE in this entire damn theater supposed to enjoy their goddamn movie when you're sittin' there, loudly stuffin' your face and lettin' your huge stomach make more noise than a semi-automatic rifle?" he yelled at her. "I mean, do you have ANY respect for the public?"

Several other viewers in the surrounding rows nodded and "yeah!"-ed in agreement with the bulky man. In a state of complete and helpless panic, Mallory opened her mouth to apologize, but all that came out was -

*UUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHP!!!*

She wilted further into her seat, after somehow finding a way to humiliate herself even more. Many of the people in the audience were taken aback by her sudden belch. A few of them even masked their obvious giggles. But her blunder only further enraged her main attacker.

"If you can't learn to keep your damn noisy stomach to yourself, then MAYBE you should just wait until the fuckin' DVD release comes out, Tubby!" he fumed, his face turning a shade of crimson almost deep enough to rival hers.

Mallory's head spun with a million degrees of embarrassment and fear, shame and guilt. She couldn't do anything but sit there like a turtle on its back and absorb all the rage that she feared the audience would give her from her overeating and its side effects. And yet, despite all this self-conscious terror, there was something about the way the big man said "Tubby" that really pissed her off.

"JUST SHUT UP!" she screamed at the entire audience. "ALL OF YOU! EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU! I mean, REALLY? THIS MOVIE WAS ABSOLUTE GARBAGE, AND NOW IT'S OVER! IF YOU ALL HAD SUCH A PROBLEM WITH ME, THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN AN USHER! OR - HERE'S AN IDEA - HOW ABOUT YOU COME UP HERE AND TELL ME! HOW ABOUT YOU DO THAT NEXT TIME, INSTEAD OF SITTING THERE AND DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT AN ISSUE YOU ALL SO CLEARLY HAVE WITH ME!"

After letting her rage explode all over the audience, Mallory gripped her armrests and clenched her teeth furiously, staring them down. To her surprise, everyone had fallen silent.

Then, as if she had never existed, they all began to file their way out of the theater, with her bulky attacker having noticeably calmed down. Everyone dumped their trash in the bin and walked out, leaving Mallory alone in the screening room.

Mallory tried and failed to hold back tears of emotion, which stung her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. She had never expected such an angry reaction to erupt from her. In situations of public humiliation, she normally tended to slip out of the room in quiet horror. What was so different about this time?

Maybe it's because of the way he insulted me, she thought shakily, remembering the particular nickname the large man had called her. "Tubby."

She gazed down at her belly, which had grown to an unbelievable volume. The very end of her glorious gut had begun to droop ever so slightly past her knees, matching the size of a smaller-than-average beanbag chair. It had pressed firmly against the armrests, which had begun to form indentations into her taut flesh. To top it all off, it was still sloshing, though back at its quieter sound level. While marveling the sheer size of her midsection, she had barely noticed the movie had ended, and the once-busy screen had just faded to its shade of inactive black.

The entire point of me doing this was to prove that fat women are still attractive. And yet nobody in this audience seemed to have supported me...

Just then, the door to the screening room burst open, followed by the scuffling noises of a broom. As Mallory peered to her right, she saw none other than the lanky cashier from earlier sweeping up the carpets.

He turned his head and, despite having his vision almost perfectly obscured by his shaggy brown bangs, managed to see her. "Heyo," he called out nonchalantly.

Mallory simply blushed as deeply as possible and cast him the tiniest wave she could muster. Noticing her discomfort, the employee set his broom against the wall by the ramp and climbed up to her level.

"You know, the movie's over," he chuckled. "You can leave now."

Wilting at his confusing lack of social awkwardness, the bloated brunette grabbed the armrests and tried to hoist herself out of her seat. Unfortunately, her belly had lodged her into its confines for the time being.

The cashier clucked his tongue. "Oh, you look a bit bigger than before," he said, as if he had just noticed her predicament. "I just noticed."

Mallory sighed in exasperation, as a fraction of her previous rage returned. "Shut up. You're just here to laugh at me."

"Why would I be laughing?" he replied.

Mallory turned to look at what she could see of his eyes. "Wait, what?"

"Well, I could hear you ranting from outside the door, which was when I was supposed to start cleaning, but you got pretty worked up," he began to explain in a starkly casual tone. "Normally, as an employee I would have interfered, but I decided to let the tensions simmer down at the risk of my life. Besides, this seems to be something you care about a lot."

At his response, Mallory couldn't help but let out an awkward, hollow laugh. "I mean... yeah, I do care about this. People just don't seem to appreciate fat - er, heavier - girls in town like this. So, I decided to intentionally put on weight and see if I could somehow build an appreciation in this town for overweight people." She sighed, casting her eyes back down to her colossal tummy. "And that little mission of mine has brought me to do stupid things... like this."

She gave it a poke and blushed. It had jiggled slightly after even the slightest interval of digestion, something she was not expecting to happen. The lanky employee cleared his throat.

"Yeah, I can definitely see your point. A fat chick at my old high school got bullied a lot, and it was pretty hard to watch. But I don't really tend to care about that kind of thing."

"Wow, really?" Mallory turned towards him once more. "So, you don't really have a problem with... this?" Putting emphasis on the last word, she put a hand on the side of her massive middle.

The cashier smiled, a thin, tightly creased smile, and leaned against the cart, which had been pushed slightly backwards due to Mallory's gradual swelling. "Nope," he said calmly.

Then, in a slow motion, he set his hand gently on the top of her titanic belly. Mallory swatted his hand away, her blush returning to her cheeks in full swing.

"I'm gonna need a name before you start touching," she giggled.

The employee's smile faded, replaced by a sudden look of genuine concern. "Oh, uh, that would be Anthony."

Mallory giggled again. "Well, Anthony, it doesn't look like I'll be moving anytime soon, and what a shock! I still happen to have - " she reached over to the cart and grabbed its remaining contents " - two lukewarm Coke-flavored ICEEs! But I think I'm too full to finish BOTH of them," she joked.

Anthony's smile returned as he plucked one of the cups from her right hand. "Well, I have a good ten minutes before I have to get back to work, so I guess I'll have to finish one of these for you," he replied in the same joking tone.

Grinning broadly, Mallory took a quick slurp of watered-down ICEE before speaking. "I don't think I'll be able to leave my seat anytime soon," she said with a slight nod towards her belly. "So, hypothetically speaking, what would happen if I stayed in here and watched another movie for the price of one?"

"I believe a very courageous and equally stupid employee would have to cover for you," Anthony said through the side of his mouth not occupied with a straw.

"Cool," she said happily.

And for those ten minutes, those two had the best ICEEs of their lives.