Tender Loving Care
      
      
      “And that’s that for the day,” Roarke said aloud with a satisfied smile as he flipped over the sign that hung in the door, turning the side that read “Closed, come again tomorrow!” to face out toward the street. As he leaned back, readjusting to a proper standing posture, the pressure on his gut gradually decreased, no longer so heavily compressed as a result of him having to push in upon the immense globe of creamy yellow flesh which sprawled out from his abdomen, barely contained by the confines of the shirt he wore, just to be able to reach anything in front of him. A particularly good thing as the strain served only to remind him of how empty his stomach was at this point after hours of working in the shop; it took a great deal of effort and energy just to lug his immense form around, let alone perform any particularly engaging activities.
      
      “Ah, and what a day it has been,” a gentle, musical voice called out from behind the shiny Lucario, and he turned around, feet shuffling in place as his thighs ground against each other, to once more greet his temporary employer and mother. Nina was perhaps exactly the type one might expect to see running a bakery such as this, a woman getting on in years with pale streaks running through her hair, but she managed to maintain a degree of comeliness, no doubt in thanks to the evidence of how well she sampled her own confections present in her full-figured proportions. Though drastically dwarfed by her son as she approached him, she still bore broad hips and luxuriant thighs, jeans stretched tight over their surface, and an apron draped over the prodigious slopes of her chest and stomach. “It has been so long since you last came here to help out,” she said as she sidled up against Roarke, wrapping her arms as far as they could reach around his gargantuan girth, “you make everything so much more bearable.”
      
      “It’s only been like a month, mom,” he replied with a chuckle, though he still held her close, the smaller Lucario sinking into his folds of flab, “but you know I always love coming in to see you and help around the family store.”
      
      “Oh absolutely, I know very well how much you enjoy it,” Nina crooned in that knowing tone that only a mother speaking to her child can manage whilst one hand took a particularly hefty helping of his belly between its fingers and squeezed, “and I particularly know the one part that you enjoy the most.”
      
      “I can’t help being predictable if you lead me on so often,” he said, grinning back, and they disengaged from each other and moved toward the back of the building. Roarke couldn’t help but idly recall a time when a process like this would have been simple, not a chore of having to squeeze the overflowing width of his midsection and rump through the opening that led behind the counter and then the door leading into the back room. Years of having to deal with these endeavors gave him ample practice to manage himself, but under present circumstances he was particularly motivated to move as quickly as possible.
      
      The kitchen of the bakery was where all the magic happened, though by now most of the ingredients and cooking utensils had been cleared away, the flour washed from the tables, and the ovens turned off, leaving a clean and sterile environment. All that remained was a large pile of baked delicacies upon one of the counters, sad muffins and croissants and cookies and others that had had the misfortune of not being picked up by one of the customers passing through the doors of the store over the course of the day. Nina would often take some of these for herself, but for as much of an appetite as she had for sweets she still had her limits, and many would have to be thrown away, except for these occasions when she had a far more effective means of disposal available.
      
      “Oh how I have been waiting for this…!” Roarke said, licking his lips in anticipation, rubbing his paws together, as he loomed over the waiting morsels, a predator ready to lunge in for the kill; even after sitting out for hours and having lost much of their original heat, they all looked so delectable. “I’ve been keeping my eyes on the displays all day, I could barely hold myself back…I’m surprised hardly anyone wanted the cinnamon croissants!”
      
      “And I know how much you love my cooking, darling,” his mother replied from beside him, looking on in hair-tingling excitement as she waited eagerly for the spectacle to begin, “that’s why I made sure to bake plenty, so there would be enough left over for you. Don’t hold yourself back any longer, I can tell that you’re itching to dig in.”
      
      Indeed, as if on cue, there was a loud gurgling within the massive Lucario’s stomach, an ominous rumble akin to an earthquake, and ripples spread out across the pliable surface of his abdomen. Unable to suppress the yearning to fill the emptiness within him any longer, he fell upon the counter and began to tear into the gathering of baked goods with reckless abandon, picking up one in each of his hands. His waiting maw took greedy chunks out of the tasty treats, consuming each entirely in only two or three bites, only pausing long enough to savor the delectable flavors of the flaky crusts and sweet fillings, before reaching to pick up the next one. Crumbs fluttered down over his chest as he ate, chocolate and jelly smearing the sides of his cheeks, but no amount of wastefulness diminished the degree to which his stomach slowly but surely began to fill up with food, silencing the yearning grumbles which had been plaguing him.
      
      As with the sign on the front door, the process of reaching these delicious desserts required Roarke to bend over and press his gut against the edge of the counter, his arms straining to reach beyond the extents of his bulk. As his binge continued, however, this effort gradually became more and more difficult to accomplish, his stomach pushing him away from the countertop with increasing force, though he didn’t consciously notice anything, determined as he was to continue eating, simply adjusting his posture as necessary to be in the optimal position. The unnoticed reason for this resistance was his already behemoth belly further expanding in its girth – not merely growing round and taut as it was filled gradually closer to maximum capacity, but rather clearly still the sagging consistency of fat, bulging out ever thicker. The hem of his shirt silently rose up and up further over the surface of this yellow-furred globe, whilst still struggling with the mass of his doughy chest, while behind him his shorts emitted low groans as they were stretched even further, the flesh of his buttocks and thighs bulging around the edges.
      
      The pile of pastries, enough that it might have taken a family of four quite some time to devour entirely, was decimated by Roarke in a matter of minutes, and he then languidly stepped back from the countertop, a few moments later letting out a deep belch that resounded in the closed walls of the room. “Oof…always hits the spot,” he grunted to himself as he gave a hearty slap to the side of his gut, unaware of how it now hung noticeably lower to the ground than it already had before, sinking far beyond his knees. His clothes were now grossly undersized, his shirt only left to keep his chest covered, the sagging moobs filling it so tightly that their shape was clearly identifiable through the cloth, and his shorts were only able to contain roughly half of his astronomical ass. “And to think that you can wonder how you’re the most popular bakery in town, mom.”
      
      “Now you know I don’t like to brag, son,” Nina replied with a playful giggle and a wave of her hand, “but I must admit that I seem to have made…a bit of an oversight.” She stepped to the side, and Roarke saw behind her, upon another part of the counter, was another assortment of baked goods upon a plate, though somewhat smaller in size than the one he had just finished devouring. “I seem to have not realized until just now that I had some more pastries lying about,” she said, giving an almost comical shrug, “I swear that I’d forget my head sometimes if it weren’t attached to my shoulders. ‘Tis a pity, I know you must already be plenty full and, busy Lucario that you are, you must have places that you must be going to by now. I won’t keep you any longer, I suppose I’ll just have to throw these out.”
      
      “Well I-” But Roarke was interrupted before he could even finish forming his thought by his own stomach giving another loud groan of protest, yearning to be filled once more, to be inundated with sweets despite all that he had just finished eating. “I…I suppose it couldn’t hurt to have some more,” he eventually admitted with a wry smile, already aware that he was starting to salivate, and with even more laborious steps he trudged forward, every part of his voluminous figure jiggling profusely at the slightest of motions. His hands reached out in front of him automatically, eager to take hold of these new morsels, but he suddenly found himself coming short, unable to progress any further; his stomach jutted out too far in front of him for him to reach beyond its breadth, no matter how hard he pushed or shoved. He still remained unconscious of his increased bulk, and only after some moments of struggling and grunting did he back away and lean forward even further, letting the mass of his gut pool across the cool surface of the floor.
      
      Upon his first bite of a donut, the Lucario’s eyes widened – somehow the taste was even more rich and delectable than any of the food he had just finished consuming. It was so overpowering that he didn’t even notice that it was of a far fresher composition, still warm, far more than any of the leftover goods from the day ought to have been. There was a low gurgle within his midsection as he progressed through the small confectionary ring, and no sooner had he finished than did his body surge outward in newfound flab once more, nearly as much as he had grown from the entirety of his last meal. All at once there were loud rips and tears as his clothes had enough and fell to pieces, tatters of his shirt hanging from his shoulders while his shorts burst, leaving his buttocks to freely sag outward, beanbag blobs of yellow fat, while his belly oozed further across the floor.
      
      Though his determination to feed fueled him to a limitless degree and his brain was filled with a haze of hunger, movement gradually became more and more cumbersome. The effort required to move his arms, to reach forward to pluck one of the tasty treats and lift it to his mouth, grew increasingly strenuous as the limbs became swaddled in sleeves of flesh, choking his shoulders and elbows, his hands becoming doughy mitts while his fingers shrunk into meager sausage-like nubs. Although he remained standing in one place at the moment, it was unlikely that he would be able to get much motion out of his legs anymore now that they had swollen to the size of tree trunks, his buttocks sagging downward such that they were nearly indistinguishable from his thighs, and his calves and ankles would soon be assimilated as well. Even opening his mouth and gnashing his teeth together became a chore with his face growing increasingly crowded, his muzzle surrounded on either side by bloated cheeks while his neck pushed up from below, engulfed by tiered rolls of fatty folds.
      
      There was a long groan as Roarke finally finished eating and stepped backward – or, perhaps, attempted to, as he simply fell with a colossal thud, shaking the entire room, rattling the windows and the contents of the shelves around the walls. Fortunately his rear end served more than adequately to cushion his landing, a shelf of yellow that jutted out far behind him and to his sides, wider and plusher than a sofa, allowing him to simply sink into himself. Toward the front, his gut sprawled out to an even greater degree, an avalanche of flesh out across the floor in a mass larger than a boulder, larger even than the mass of his entire body before his binging began. His height was far outstripped by his width and depth, a blob of Lucario that filled up nearly a third of the space in the kitchen. He could scarcely move, only managing to pat his hands against the sides of his stomach and rubbing in circles, content in his hunger being sated.
      
      “Oh I’m so proud of you sweetie,” Nina’s voice suddenly called to him through the mist of mirth that had clouded his mind, at the same time feeling an additional hand squeezing against the side of his immeasurable gut. His mother gazed upon him, the vast acres of fat almost too much for the eye to take in all at once, and so she settled for leaning against him, sinking into the oceanic body. “You really did a wonderful job of tucking that all away, I was worried I might have had to let it go to waste! You did so well, in fact…I think that you’ve earned yourself a reward.”
      
      Through his bleary post-binge vision, Roarke glanced toward the smaller Lucario, eyes infringed upon by the slopes of his cheeks, and he saw that she was holding something in her other hand: a tray carrying six cupcakes with multicolored frosting. He didn’t think he could possibly be hungry still, but he nonetheless groaned eagerly, hands making faint jiggling motions as if to reach toward the newly offered treats, but they could hardly lift enough, let alone to the extent of raising them to his mouth. “Not to worry, darling, let me give you some help,” she chuckled, unable to hide her sly grin as she clambered up onto the mountainous bulk that made up Roarke’s body, lying upon his upper stomach and chest so that she could look directly into his eyes, “it’s the least I can do to repay you after all that you’ve done.”
      
      Roarke could only respond by groaning again, the pressure of Nina sinking into his body both strenuous and pleasurable, and he opened his mouth, allowing one of the cupcakes to be offered into his fleshy depths. As he chewed and swallowed, there was a low gurgle as his body surged outward once more, spreading to now encompass half of the room’s confines, mashing up against the walls, his features becoming further engulfed by flab. “Ah how long it’s been since we were last able to indulge like this together as a family,” Nina mused as she fed another one of the cupcakes to him and her bed of belly grew even bigger, “I can hardly even help myself. Don’t worry, little Roarke, I’m going to make sure to take plenty of care of you…for as long as I can.”