Desmond was a cunning nine-year-old squirrel. His mother held his hand in hers as they walked up the path toward his grandmother's bakery. His grandmother was an old squirrel, and wore incredibly thick glasses that dwarfed her graying face. She was very kind, but Desmond's mother had informed him that her memory was fading. She had some sort of disorder. It was his mother's hope that his company would help aid the old squirrel in some way, or at the very least keep her happy. 
	As soon as they reached the door, his mother kissed him on the forehead, knocked, and said goodbye. She was already in the car when his grandmother answered, big-eyed and smiling behind her coke-bottle spectacles. 
	“Oh, is that Desmond? Is that my grandson?!” She was very kind. He followed her to the kitchen, heavy with flour and the smell of baking treats, and she gave him a cookie as big around as his head. “There's a sweetie for my sweetie.” 
	Her bakery was a two-story affair, with the kitchen and store down below and her apartment up high. To help with her memory, the older one kept lists. The most important one she carried with her in her shirt pocket, and updated it with new orders and baking times and the like. It allowed her to keep up with the daily hassle of running a business. Very little made her as happy as baking, but with Desmond around, she had something else to shower with affection. 
	She gave him treats enough for several children, before finally easing up on the little fellow. She could see how full his little belly had grown, and his cheeks were fit to burst as he chewed his latest snack. He asked her where he might get a drink, and she gave him directions to the upstairs kitchen. She had just made lemonade that very morning.
	Desmond climbed back down the stairs toward the bakery. He entered the lower kitchen to see his grandmother, apron covered in flour, as she slid another tray of baked goods into the large oven. 
	“Hi, grandma!” She started at the greeting and looked around . Her face lit up when she saw him.
	“Oh, is that Desmond? How is my little grandson doing?” Then she treated him to another round of cookies and cakes and fruit pies, and Desmond marveled as she talked to him about the exact same things as before. It dawned on him that she had forgotten all about their previous encounter, and Desmond took advantage of this fact as soon as she stopped giving him snacks. 
	“Do you have any lemonade, grandma?”

***

	By the time Desmond's mother picked him up, his stomach was very upset indeed. His shirt was covered in crumbs and his jaw was sore from chewing. She asked him about his day. As he told her about the various things the old squirrel had baked, she noticed that his belly was peeking under his shirt. Her little boy was growing for sure. Time for some new clothes. 

***

	Day after day, week after week, Desmond spent his free time at his grandmother's bakery. He relished the fact that he could trick the old woman into giving him extra snacks. However, as clever as he was, he didn't notice at first how tight his clothes had grown. Every weekend his mother brought home a new shirt for him only to see it riding up his belly by the next.
	Several months passed. Desmond was too absorbed in the thought of his daily treat-buffet to notice the rolling waddle he'd been forced to adopt, or how out-of-breath he became between the car and his grandmother's door, or the fact that his massive stomach proceeded him into the bakery and every room beyond. He had no idea how very worried his parents were that the 3XL t-shirts his father got from a work friend didn't fit him any more. 
	The other children made fun of him as he waddled through the school hallways, and they called him names because the teachers had to requisition bigger desks to accommodate his girth. The school staff held bets to see how much he could eat at lunch, and the winners would often buy him things from the snack shop with their winnings.  The janitor even told him once that the school had ordered a wheeled trolley to get him to his classes. None of the jokes ever got to him though, because he knew he was cleverer than all of them. He could fool an old lady whenever he wanted to.

***

	She had been horribly busy all day, what with the wedding cake and everything. Her memory was especially bad on busy days, and she thought this must be the busiest she'd ever had. Her lists barely kept her going, and she checked them very often. Someone knocked at the door. The old squirrel wiped her flour-dusted hands on her apron, and answered it. She took in the sight of the short, wheezing blob on her doormat and took a long moment to realize that it was her grandson. 
	“Oh, is that Desmond?” Had he been this incredibly fat the last time? She thought that he might have been. “Come in, dear, you look absolutely ravished!” She was very worried about his heavy breathing as he rolled his body back and forth with every step. He had to squeeze past the door, and she noted that his shirt didn't meet his shorts in the front. “How's my little grandson doing?” He panted as she pinched his blubbery cheek. His voice sounded low and burdened when he spoke.
	“Do you have,” he said before he took a shuddering breath, “any of those chocolate cookies?” A quick look at her list informed her that she did. She led him to the kitchen, and within moments he had a massive cookie in his pudgy hands. She glanced at her list again, then at the clock. The main layer of the cake had been finished, and the next was nearly done baking.
	“Would you like a nice piece of cake, Desmond? It's for a wedding and I can only spare a piece, but it's yours if you want it.” Desmond lit right up inside. Just one piece, huh? He'd see about that.
	“Yes, grandma.” Crumbs fell from the boy's mouth and littered his shirt atop his veritable table of a belly. The old one could have sworn he had had proper table-manners at some point... but that wasn't important. She cut an especially large piece of cake for her grandson, and handed it to him on a plate. Then she immediately resumed her work, checking her list and preparing ingredients. 
	Desmond leaned against the back wall as he ate, his legs positioned just in front of his heavy mass. His grandmother had forgotten to give him a fork, but that was no matter at all. He ate with his hands, the baked goods clenched tightly between his sausage fingers. When he was finished, he held out the plate and got his grandmother's attention.
	She jumped just the slightest bit at the sound, and saw her grandson behind her holding out a plate. Her head span for just a bit before she remembered she had offered him some cake. She took the plate, cut a piece, and gave it back to him. 
	“Sorry, dear, must have forgotten! Busy day, you know.” She went back to work, and Desmond marveled at the new slice of cake. It had never been that easy before! He dug in, filled with sudden hope that he wouldn't have to walk up the stairs today. He had another piece, and then another. When he was busy stuffing the sixth large piece into his cake-stained maw, his grandmother hesitated.
	Had she sold some of the wedding cake by accident? There was a whole row missing from the end of the cake. She rooted for her icing and a spatula, and began to cover the open end. The cake was large enough to accommodate a hundred people easily, and they hopefully wouldn't notice. She didn't, however, mark this on her list, and when there came a light cough behind her, she started at the sound, saw her grandson, and offered him a piece of the fantastic wedding cake she'd been preparing all day. 
	The cake got smaller. She kept covering the exposed end as it emptied. Eventually only half of the cake remained. She checked her list again and again, baffled as to where it all could have gone. She glanced at her enormous grandson, whose jiggling face was covered in icing and crumbs as he ate the slice she had just handed to him. She wondered if she'd been selling pieces of the wedding cake. Oh, well. The next layer was about to come out of the oven. It was smaller than the base layer, but she could use it to repair what was left. She lined it up, cut it into shape, and began to ice it.
	Oh, was that her grandson!? Well, surely he would like the trimmings from the layer she'd just shaped. She marked her list as he inhaled the fresh, hot confection, and began to prepare another second layer. 

***

	Desmond's stomach ached. Jeez, his shirt was uncomfortable. His mother must have bought a size too small again – he could feel it slip back over his belly button whenever he tried to adjust it. His grandmother was busy repairing the first layer for the third time, and he was just about ready to do something unprecedented - he was going to refuse the next piece of cake. He couldn't handle it any more, and was gasping for breath in the hot kitchen. The old squirrel seemed more preoccupied than ever, though, and only noticed him for a moment before turning and preparing another slice of cake. Even as he finished his current one, she placed a new one on the plate. Had she not noticed him chewing?
	He thought something might be wrong as she placed a second and then third on his plate withing moments of each other. He took a deep breath, and tried to power through them.

***

	The day was a disaster. It seemed she had been selling the wedding cake – she had recorded in her list at least a dozen replacements for the base layer. She sighed as she fitted the most recent – and last – replacement. She had had to call the wedding couple and cancel the cake. Curse her damned memory. There had been a message for her on the machine, too (she had written it down right here). Her daughter was going to be working late, and Desmond would be staying the night. Her head span. Was Desmond here? The sun had gone down some hours ago! She span around and gasped.
	It took her several seconds to recognize the thing's hair color and fur markings – it definitely was her grandson, but it was... grotesque! His body was immense, and his belly alone stretched half a dozen feet in front of him. His legs, buried under layers and layers of flesh, were stretched horridly to either side, and his feet barely brushed the floor.  There wasn't an inch of bare floor between them, as his body strained outward to cover it. His rump, two massive, oblate orbs, dominated the space immediately behind him, pressed bodily against the back wall, and hid the vast majority of the squirrel boy's fluffy tail. 
	His arms were in a similar situation to his legs, and were caught in the in-between of laying against the contours of his body and held outward by their own plump barrels of flesh. He seemed barely capable of lifting them at all. His chest loomed on top of his stomach, immense and heaving as he wheezed and gasped. His head, the most difficult of his features to be seen, was buried in the valley between his moobs, shoulders, and back rolls. His face was distorted by numerous chins and pillow-esque cheeks, his eyes nearly buried by the mounds of flesh that rolled down his forehead. His maw was virtually covered, and his face quivered as he drew shuddering breath after breath.
	His clothes were in shambles. Had he taken off his shorts? They were on the floor, barely visible beneath his mass. He was left in a pair of white underwear that had been stretched horridly beyond its limit, and she saw patches of fur beneath various holes that had formed. His shirt had ridden far up his considerable mass and now served to cover his bulbous chest more than anything else. It looked uncomfortably tight around his arms, and seemed to aid in their restriction. His mass, as she had noticed before, heaved as he breathed, and sweat visibly ran down his matted fur and drenched his clothing as he “stood” in the heat of the kitchen. Crumbs and icing caked his face and stained his shirt directly in front of his gaping maw.
	He seemed to be whimpering.
	“D... Desmond? Is... that my Desmond?” He moaned from deep withing the caldera atop his monumental, oblate body. Could he possibly be hungry? If the mess down the front of him was anything to go by, he seemed to have been snacking behind her back. She considered the ordeal, and figured the trimmings of her recent cake repair would go to waste anyway... what could a little more snacking hurt? She put the trimmings on a plate and held them out to him. His arms waggled, and his head seemed to move a bit. It was hard to differentiate individual motion in a sea of moving lard. 
	He hadn't reached for the plate, and was moaning insistently. She couldn't believe it. Did he expect to be hand-fed? Was he that far gone? She would have to speak to that daughter of hers. She took a small handful of cake and held it to his lips. Hot, sticky breath played across her hand, and she tried not to gag. It was her grandson, after all. She pushed the confection between his lips, and then prepared another handful.
	As she fed him, though, his groans became more and more insistent, so she grabbed bigger and bigger handfuls. By the time she finished the plate, her hand was drenched in icing and saliva, and her grandson was groaning constantly. How could he still possibly be hungry? She looked around in desperation for something else to feed him. The cake... it didn't matter. She had canceled the order anyway, hadn't she? She may as well put all the stress behind her. At least somebody would enjoy the thing. 
	She heaped a massive helping onto a plate. This should do it, shouldn't it? How much did he eat on a daily basis, anyway? She continued, and handful after handful found their way into his heaving maw. It seemed as much cake found its way down his chins as into his mouth, however, and by the time she had finished off the monstrously-piled plate, he was only complaining louder. She went back for another plate, then eventually another, and strained to lean over his body without touching it to get the sustenance to his waiting jowls. 
	Jesus Christ have mercy, this kid didn't know the meaning of self control. She would have her daughter's ear the very next morning, she would.

***

	Desmond couldn't scream. There was simply too much cake in his mouth, and in the moments between swallowing and another fistful of cake he just couldn't spare the opportunity for sweet, cooling breath. His body was an oven, and he felt like he was cooking there on the tile floor of his grandmother's kitchen. The most he could do was moan, and no matter how loud he got she wouldn't stop. The entirety of his body burned, and could feel everything – for example, he knew his skin had stopped giving some half-hour ago, and he nervously eyed the rest of the cake as his grandmother forced plate after plate of it down his throat. 
	There was just so much left. He knew deep down, buried so deeply beneath all the flesh and fat, in the darkest corner of his black, greedy little heart that he could never do it. But she just wouldn't stop. Plate after plate filled his gob, and he did his very best to push as much as he could out of his mouth, but he had run out of room there – his chins and chest had created an upward-curved bowl that trapped whatever he tried to spit out, and his grandmother just pushed it back in.
	Tears streamed down his mountainous cheeks as he watched the cake disappear down to the last, high-piled plate. Despite the horrible stomach pain and the unbearable heat of his body, despite the slick, sizable puddle of his own sweat beneath him, his greedy heart filled with hope. It wasn't so bad. Just one more plate. How many had he done already? Just one more couldn't be so bad. As she fed him, he grew bold and smug. He stopped his groaning and wolfed the treat greedily down. 
	The other kids could call him what they wanted. The janitor could wheel him around all day. He'd look up at them and know they weren't good enough. How many wedding cakes had he eaten that day? How much money had gone into feeding him, one young boy, who had connived and tricked his way to what would surely be an incredible sugar coma? He grew excited. How long would he be out for? He might get days off of school! And these clothes... He could easily guilt-trip his mother into hiring that specialist tailor dad had talked about. The clothes she bought him were always so small and uncomfortable....
	He chewed and swallowed. The last plate was almost finished. He was going to make it! His pained groans turned to proper, insistent grunts as he scarfed and chomped from his grandmother's hand. He couldn't believe she was actually feeding him, the old fool! 

***

	She finally got the last of the cake into Desmond's mouth, and he chewed at it zealously. She was utterly disgusted as his fat face formed an unmistakable smile when he swallowed. Was... was he laughing? At any rate, he finally seemed to be sated. She put the plate down and looked herself over. Her arm was slathered in cake remains and spit. She shuddered. Her apron was drenched in the boy's sweat. She was going to need a thorough wash... and she seriously considered a trip to the dumpster out back. She dreaded the thought of ever wearing this outfit again.
	There was low groan - or was it a rumble? -  from deep within the massive pile of flesh and fat before her. From the way his head tilted slightly back to the way he opened his dripping maw the smallest bit wider, she figured he was about to belch; it looked to be a doozy. The sound moved upward, from his stomach up his esophagus, and his eyes went half-lidded in what she thought was a rather smug expression. Then the sound stopped. His eyelids opened again. Then they went very, very wide – it seemed to have caught in his throat. She watched his distorted facial features shudder as he tried to swallow. The noise grew and grew, but nothing came out of his mouth – what was going on in that gargantuan gut? His bloated sausage fingers waggled as he tried unsuccessfully to move his arms, to do anything at all. His eyes were positively bulging. She stared, dumb-struck.
	Then he grew. She watched as his body visibly expanded before her, motion that lasted no longer than a few seconds before the forces that had built up inside his massive prison of a body rent it asunder, and knocked her clean on her back. When she finally stirred she learned three things. The first was that the front of her was covered head-to-toe with cake and icing. The second was that the blast had blown out her windows and shattered all of the glassware on her counters.

	The third was that the slobby little bastard must have eaten all of her cake.