(This story contains male weight gain.)
It was the evening of Valentine’s Day, and Jorge had stopped in a local bakery after work to pick up a chocolate torte for him and his boyfriend to enjoy that night. As the baker pulled out the box, Jorge looked at the design on top and smiled. Topping the dark chocolate ganache was a red icing heart, with a darker red icing heart leaning out from behind it, like a shadow Simple and effective.
After giving the cake his approval, Jorge stepped back to browse the shop a bit, as he’d never been inside before. With the shop closing at 6:00 PM on weekdays, he could rarely spare the time. As he browsed, he spotted plenty of cakes ready to have messages written on them. He spotted cookies and cupcakes and individual slices of cake ready for sale, along with a selection of savory treats that all fit in with the sweet ones.
But all those could barely hold a candle to what he saw at the end of the display, which grabbed his attention immediately and would not let go. At the end was a display container that looked newer than the rest, and it contained an entire section of pies, looking as delectable as if they were home made. Jorge recognized an apples pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, key lime pie--
“$7.86.”
--7.86 pie… wait.
“Sir?”
Shaking his head side to side, Jorge said, “Sorry,” and pulled out his wallet to pay.
“You eyeing those pies over there?”
With a pause, Jorge let out a self-effacing chuckle before he answered, “Yeah, I was. Used to be a competitive eater, and pie eating competitions were my speciality.”
“Really?” the man asked in disbelief. “You don't look like a competitive eater.”
It was a fair assessment: with a tall frame and more muscle than fat, Jorge looked like he’d be found in a modeling shoot before he’d be found at a competitive eating table. But he’d heard that countless times before, and he had an explanation ready:
“Well, looks can be deceiving. You might think the biggest guy has the biggest appetite, but it’s really about how much food you can fit in your stomach at once. And those big guys don’t necessarily have bigger capacities with all that fat in their bellies.”
“You know, that makes sense,” the cashier admitted, prompting a nod from Jorge. But it was only a half truth. What Jorge had said was true for many competitive eaters, but not him. Rather, what made him so unstoppable at competitive eating was his digestive system’s superhuman ability to digest and process food as quickly as he could eat it. Many guys got bloated stomachs during those competitions, but for Jorge, the bloat was just a façade to hide the fact that every time he did one of those competitions, he put on three or four pounds. Of course, he’d lose that weight by the next competition, which allowed him to keep his secret under wraps.
At this point, having moved on from the competitive eating scene, he didn’t feel like explaining his unusual stomach to every stranger he encountered. So it was convenient that he could fall back on that old adage from the competitive eating community to avoid having to explain himself.
With his torte paid for, Jorge walked toward the door, while the man working the cash register went in the back. As he opened the door, Jorge decided he should use the restroom before he hit the road. The door’s bell range behind him as he entered the bathroom while the cashier ran some sort of loud machinery in the back. After locking the door behind him, he put his torte on the sink so it wouldn’t have to touch the ground, and sat down on the toilet, finding the single-stall bathroom didn’t have a urinal.
