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**Thicker

Chapter Seven**

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622

At work, he could distract himself from his growing weight, teasing up more and more. The scales lied, he told himself, lying to himself even then. He had to look at himself, take his fitness into account, although his workouts were not suffering, not as yet. He was still moderately okay at the stair machine but that was about it on that front, barely able to squeeze himself onto it anymore. He didn't know what he would do or consider himself okay at in the gym after that was swept from.

He could have seen the doctor but he was only going to say the same thing, surely, for the stag felt better than he ever had. Although he had energy, he could not use it for very long, stamina decreasing more during everyday tasks. Things were off-kilter and he couldn't keep life on track, straining to even get a coffee cup from the staff kitchen without knocking everything else off one of the small tables crammed into the admittedly cramped space the same time. He didn't have time, every day, to go down to the coffee shop or cart outside the office building though and had to barge his way through with gritted teeth when it was quieter, people not wanting to linger and chat at abnormal break times. Even that messed with his schedule and just turning about had him knocking chairs over with his backside and his gut, both lethal weapons in such a circumstance.

The phone on his desk rang, jolting him out of his reverie. As was the case with office phones with the ability to transfer to other lines within the office itself, it was corded and he yanked it off the hook with more force than necessary, scraping the base set over the desk with a roughed-up scrape.

"Yeah?"

He was not his usual polite self there but he had enough "good feeling" stored up in many of his colleagues for a few things to be allowed to slip here and there. That was the good thing about being a high performer and one reason that people there hadn't even commented on his weight all that much. They liked him and they wanted to maintain their relationship with him, which was a good thing when it came to subjects that may well have been considered just a little more sensitive than most.

"Mhm... Yes, that should have been on the report."

He wasn't paying attention to what his colleague down the hall was saying, the main office set out into cubicles, which at least gave more of a semblance of privacy. They were taller than most but still allowed furs walking by to see over the top despite the noise-cancelling properties of the dividing boards. It was a blessing to be able to take things more privately there but there were always others around and the back of his neck prickled uncomfortably as someone walked by but he paid them little mind actively.

What about the taco truck, the old crow? What did she want for him? Was he crazy to even think that she was behind everything that was happening to him? The phone line hissed and crackled and he frowned, twisting his lips together.

"What was that Jason?" He said, trying to be heard down the suddenly bad line. "Something bigger?"

"No..." Jason's voice was faint, unaware that he had to strain to be heard. "The deal is thicker."

Gehart flinched.

"Say again?"

"The deal is going ahead."

Of course. He still heard it everywhere, his mind working against him as he growled and tightened his grip on the phone, knowing that Jason, at least, would not hear the growl. He had some leeway there when things were not particularly going to plan but that was all well and good in the grand scheme of things. The talk was all normal, perfectly normal, and he didn't have to worry about anything, just listen to him talk himself out, working through odd thoughts in his head that really should have been worked out on his own. All Gehart proved to be for that one-sided conversation was a sounding board for ideas that Jason didn't have the stomach to find other ways to work out.

There were worse things to do and worse things to worry about. Absent-mindedly, as his colleague rattled on down the phone line about something or the other, he twisted back and forth in his computer chair, the armrests at just the right height for his chunky arms as he made the right noises at the appropriate times, convincing Jason that he was listening intently.

The chair squeaked and Gehart grunted. That was annoying. Would maintenance fix that? Again, the squeak came, sounding more and more discernible as something else the more that he swivelled and turned, striving to work it out.

Thiiiickeeeerrrr.

_ _

Gehart froze, heart pounding. What was that? He looked down at his chair with comically wide eyes, though there was nothing there but the chair that he'd had for many years. Why had it suddenly made a sound like that?

"Gehart? Are you there?"

"Yes, yes, of course!" He blustered, still rocking and swivelling the chair, a nervous habit of his. "It's okay, it's all okay, what were you saying?"

"That everything is the same, that we need to work out what's happening here... Maybe IT could get involved?"

"Yes, that sounds about right..."

As the conversation went on, he tried to pay better mind to Jason's words, interjecting a few of his ideas that, still, were steamrolled over. Still, he could not stop himself from swivelling back and forth anxiously, trying to know, still wanting to understand. Nothing was normal and nothing was right, grumbling inwardly to himself that things had been so clunky that day, getting in his way and getting on his nerves too.

And then it came again, a loud squeal of "thicker" coming from the wheels of his chair, so loud that it simply could not be ignored. It creaked and groaned as if the word itself was rising from the aged vocal cords of someone who warbled out a cry with their last breath, the wisdom of the years all coming up at once.

Jason was still talking - but Gehart couldn't have that!

"Quiet!" Gehart snarled, heart thumping painfully in his chest. "I heard it - didn't you? Didn't you hear that?"

"What is it? What's wrong? Are you okay there?"

"Can't you hear it?" Gehart forward, tipping over in his chair, hunching over his desk like a lumbering beast. "That sound? Thicker?"

"Thicker?" Jason, quite rightly was confused and Gehart could almost see him tilting his head in canine confusion down the phone line. "What are you on about? This has nothing to do with the contract! It's what we've been talking about the whole time!"

Maybe the phone line was worse than Gehart gave it credit for as Jason tried to explain to him. His stomach gurgled, blocking out what Jason was trying to say.

"This is what I've been trying to clear up with you, Gehart - thicker!"

Heart pounding, Gehart blinked. Wait, had his colleague really said that? It wasn't just a trick of the dodgy phone line? His stomach rumbled.

"Oh... What was wrong with it again? Something to do with the report?"

It was rude of him to interrupt and even ruder of him to assume that his colleague was rambling on and on (as usual) without actually listening first but there seemed to be something else at play there.

"I've been trying to clear up with you why the document, the one that should have the client list and notes, just says "thicker"? Is there someone up there playing a prank on you, Gehart? If so, it's a good one for you but mighty frustrating for me."

Gehart shook his head.

"No, no..." No, that couldn't be right. "No, I sent everything as usual, there was nothing odd in that document. What are you saying?"

"Just what I've been saying!"

Understandably, Jason was a little more frustrated than Gehart, but there was nothing more to be done about that. The deed was done, whatever it was, and he glanced at his computer screen with a startled, gurgled snort.

Thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker thicker THICKER THICKER THICKER THICKER THICKER THICKER THICKER THICKER

_ _

THICKER THICKER THICKER THICKER THICKER THICKER THICKER

THICKER THICKER

THICKER

Gehart's gasp could be heard down the phone line but the blood roared so furiously in his ears that he could barely think straight. Jason said something but it didn't matter anymore as he hardly listened to him, squeaking back and forth, back and forth, in his chair, his computer screen now back to whatever it was that he'd been working on before. No trace of the word "thicker" remained, even though he was quite sure that he had seen it there.

He tried to wrap his head around it, what Jason claimed was true, swinging the chair around - and then all hell broke loose, the chair giving out beneath him with an almighty crash. One moment he was on the chair and the next his voluptuous buttocks were connecting with the floor, the deafening ring almost beyond belief. The phone went with him, knocking half of the things off his desk in the process, scattering him with paperclips and pens and notepads that looked entirely out of place on the floor.

"Gehart? Gehart are you there? What was that noise?"

Yet he'd even dropped the phone in his fall, moaning and groaning, pain lancing through his body even with so much fat in place to cushion his fall. It was hardly comfortable in the slightest, although the humiliation of it all was yet to set in as he rocked and heaved, fighting to roll his hugely obese body to his knees.

Thicker.

_ _

His stomach churned and gurgled. He had to get up, get up anyway possibly, other furs crowding to his cubicle, trying to push their way in to help him. Alas, all they did was make an even bigger spectacle of him, his bulk stopping them from getting into his cubicle to help him up, as much as they flapped their paws and made noises of sympathy.

"Oh, Gehart, your coffee!"

"Are you alright?"

"It must have been an old chair."

"Are you okay?"

"Can we help?"

Of course, he had to wave them off, pretend with one of his jovial grins that everything was okay, quite okay, better than okay, in fact. He'd never been better, he said to someone as he laughed falsely and rolled with great difficulty onto his knees, although that was not the worst part of it all. Staples showered off him from the box that he'd dislodged in his fall, the chair awkward and clunky and just getting in his way with those ergonomic armrests. But he had to get his hind paw under him as he pushed up, grunting in the back of his throat from the exertion.

His bulging belly sought to drag him down even as he strained to get back to some semblance and sense of normalcy, climbing up the desk as if he needed far more assistance to rise than he had thought would have been the case originally. He hauled and he heaved, making the desk groan so viciously that Gehart feared then for a moment too that it was about to collapse on him, though that was not something he should have been thinking about. He should have been thinking about just how he was going to play off such a horrifying humiliating situation, damp circles of sweat forming under his arms as he tried to laugh it off, just laugh it off. If he laughed it off like it was one big joke, everyone else would go along with him, surely...

The phone was still dangling as he stood, not even daring to crane his neck around to see if his clothes had survived the ordeal. Smiling and waving (fine, I'm just fine), he shooed everyone away and laughed hollowly, grabbing the phone where Jason was still calling him, the pitch of his voice, curiously, rising more with every exclamation. He had to put the poor guy out of his misery.

It was only a shame that there was no one around to ease either his misery or his embarrassment, the broken remnants of the chair reminding him, quite vividly, just what his weight had done. And there was no going back from that.

"Er, yes, Jason, I'm afraid I've got to go," he said hastily. "Something's come up. I'll send a non-corrupted copy over to you pronto, don't know what happened to that one."

But Gehart knew exactly what had happened.