Bath Bomb, Chapter 7: Stuck

Chapter 7 of 16 of my 6th stuck story, Bath Bomb.

CHAPTER 7: STUCK

Lori had spoken those words before. But this time they had new meaning. Lori had said the phrase “I’m stuck” in response to dozens of scenarios that she would no longer count as being stuck. The moment she found herself in redefined the word for her in real time. 

Her mind went back to two years ago when she and Lexi stopped at an old fast food joint during a road trip. Swivel chairs bolted to the table. Lori had squeezed herself in, but after their meal, when she’d tried to get up, her belly, both on top of the table and underneath the table, wouldn’t give. She was pinned between the chair back and the table. In her struggle to get up, she’d whispered the words “I’m stuck” to Lexi. But just as Lexi offered her hand to pull her free, Lori had already heaved herself out and up to her feet. 

The moment lasted a lifetime in Lori’s mind. The panic she felt stretched those few seconds into hours. 

But she got out. 

Almost as fast as she’d said the words “I’m stuck,” she was unstuck.

Ignoring the long bath she’d just had. Even if she’d counted being stuck just from the moment she attempted to get out, she’d already been stuck a thousand times longer than that moment in the restaurant.

Lori had referred to the time she couldn’t get through a turnstile at the old amusement park as being stuck, but what really happened was that she couldn’t fit and then immediately backed out to go over to the wider wheelchair access gate.

All these traumatic moments, were just that, moments. Brief, fleeting.

Lori got one arm under her fat and onto the edge of the tub and reached the other hand out, heaving herself to one side as if she could fly out of the tub. Her flesh squeaked her back down to earth. She caught her breath.

“Look up how to say “jaws of life” in Italian in case I get stuck.” Lori had said that to Lexi before she shoved herself into the rental car in Europe. She’d called it being stuck, but from her new vantage point in the bathtub, she merely struggled to get in and out. They drove that micro-car for weeks across Europe. They even had sex in that tiny car.

That wasn’t being stuck.

Lori tried to heave herself upright again but fell back into her back rolls again.

This was stuck.

Well and truly stuck. 

Her full tummy didn’t appreciate all this struggle. She’d been hoping to ride this fullness right into bed and to sleep. Instead this was the most physical exertion she’d had in months.

Even the last time she’d been in this very bathtub, with Lexi years ago. She’d referred to it as being stuck. But several hundred pounds ago it was just a tight squeeze. 

Lori lifted her phone, it was 9:30. Lexi wouldn’t be home until midnight at the earliest, sometimes these private parties went until alcohol sales stopped at 2am. Lori wasn’t trying to spend the whole night stuck in a bathtub, she needed help.

The first time Lori had needed Lexi’s help getting unstuck was in a dress while they were still dating. Lori’s weight gain had started early in their relationship. After a date, wearing a dress that was tight even before she’d met Lexi, but now impossibly so, Lori had intended to ask Lexi to unzip her, not realizing her fat had already pushed the zipper off the tracks at several points. Unable to undo the zip, and unable to get the dress up over her belly or down off her hips, Lexi finally had to cut her out of it.

Her weight gain relatively mild at that point, Lori had actually enjoyed that night. Bursting out of her dress, being cut out of it, the sex they had afterwards, it was weird, kinky fun. At that point, Lori had attributed her weight gain to being in a happy, stable relationship. She felt safe, content. Three hundred pounds later, she realized the feeling hadn’t gone away. Even with her frustration, their separation, she felt safe with Lexi, content, happy… fat.

As she scrolled to the restaurant phone number, Lori looked at her naked self in front of her. Calling Lexi into her wet and naked and stuck like this was arguably worse than asking her to operate the vibrator earlier. What was happening to all the rules they’d made since their separation? All their boundaries were coming crashing down in one night.

“Lexi! Phone call!”

“Please tell me you’re not calling me to get you off again.”

Lexi’s teasing accusation was met with stunned silence, “Lori? That was a joke. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she wasn’t fine, “just still in the bath,” tell her. Tell her-tell her-tell her.

“Calling to make me jealous?”

“I can’t get out,” Lori don’t be coy, tell her.

“I know what you mean, the worst thing about a bath is getting out. I’m calling dibs on the bath tomorrow, I’m going to need it after the night I’ve had.”

“No, I mean-“ say it Lori, say it, say it, say it.

“Lori is something wrong? You’re worrying me.”

“I’m stuck.”

Now Lexi was stunned silent.

“I’m stuck in the bathtub.”

Lexi’s face was red, she felt like she was on fire again she was so hot.

“Lexi? Hello? Are you there?”

“I-I-I’m on my way.”

“Oh no, I don’t want you to leave work,” but she did.

“It’s okay, I’m on my way, hang tight-sorry I mean-“

“Thank you so much, Lexi.”

“Lori, my love, you don’t have to say that, I’m your wife.”

Tears welled up in Lori’s eyes as she put the phone down. Even after this bizarre year of separation, that she initiated, Lexi still dropped everything to come to her rescue, “I love my wife.”

SNUFF the candles reached the end of their wax and fizzled out, plunging Lori into darkness.