SpartacusDA
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The Restaurant
🕑 Added 2022-09-28 13:00:08 +0000 UTC
Note: This story is not suitable for minors. Everyone portrayed in this story is of consenting age.
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Contains: Breast Expansion as Weight Gain
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The Restaurant
Cresting the rolling hills of central Pennsylvania, the first rays of sunlight touched the dark slate shingling of a massive dark-windowed restaurant. Built of handsome limestone and ancient hand-hewn wood beams, the structure stood atop a cliff edge, with a wooden balcony overlooking the heavily wooded hills and valleys below.
In a musty, darkened room at the end of a dark and dusty hallway, a brown-haired young woman stirred. Her eyelids popped open to reveal deep brown eyes, which glanced around the silent room in surprised confusion.
Where am I?
Extending one pale arm, thin but strong, she pulled the little chain that operated the antique lamp beside her bed. The bed was a twin, old but clean. Jacquie kicked her legs out from under the blanket to rest on a rug. The patterned piece of decor didn’t quite keep the cold from reaching her bare feet.Jacquie stretched, interlacing her fingers and savoring the silent crackling of her spine.
The memory of recent events came back slowly as she woke. She owned a restaurant. A fancy ancient restaurant high in the hills of central Pennsylvania. Situated not too far from some popular skiing destinations, the restaurant was utterly deserted at this warm time of year.
At least it’s not so hot anymore.
The Grandview had become Jacquie’s home since her great aunt passed away. As her last living relative, Jacquie had inherited the ancient edifice outright. She’d lost her job some time before her aunt passed, but had a little money saved. So she lived in a restaurant now.
Jacquie slipped on her DD-cup bra, a plain green tee shirt, and some old shorts. She brushed her teeth and left the tiny apartment that had become her residence. As always a silence hung in the hallway the way the rows of old photos hung on the walls.
She passed the walk-in freezer and cooler, and walked into the eerily quiet and enormous kitchen. In an otherwise empty cupboard, she kept her protein bars and coffee pods. Grabbing one of each, she filled the reservoir on the coffeemaker she’d brought from her old place.
The machine’s gurgling seemed quieter in the larger space. It couldn’t penetrate ancient silence of the vast room, with its stainless steel workspaces and long-untouched pots and pans.
Unwrapping her protein bar, Jacquie bit into her vaguely chocolate flavored breakfast. The bars tasted just ‘okay,’ but they gave her energy for the morning, and she had to watch her calorie intake very carefully. Thinking about calories made thoughts of her last job start sneaking back, but she ignored them with an effort and fetched her fresh mug of coffee.
Sitting on a creaky stool in a corner of the huge room, Jacquie chewed her breakfast and sipped her coffee. Looking around at the dusty and scorched cookware, Jacquie updated her mental list of tasks to be completed at the restaurant.
The Grandview sat empty for years before Jacquie moved in, and her todo list before it could reopen seemed endless. Jacquie couldn’t afford to hire laborers, so she was doing the work herself.
Not like I have anything better to do…
Jacquie’s arm flexed as she ran the metal scraper over the hardwood table. Flecks and flakes of old lacquer fell to the floor in a steady spray. Sweat dotted Jacquie’s brow, and her substantial bosom wobbled and swayed with her rhythmic motion.
The dark haired girl enjoyed the work. The noise of the scraper seemed to give life to the crypt-like restaurant, and the rows of finished tables behind her gave a feeling of fulfillment she’d never really found at her old job.
Her old job… the blaring heart monitor… her judgmental boss…
“Condescending bitch…”
Almost startled by the sound of her own voice in the vast dining room, Jacquie scraped the tabletop a little more vigorously. The strain helped her push down the beginnings of hunger pangs in her middle. It was only mid-morning after all.
When lunchtime came, or near enough, Jacquie brushed the last flakes of old finish off the table, set her scraper down, and walked back to the kitchen. The main dining area was even larger and unsettling than the kitchen, but she felt like she was getting used to the space.
Might as well make the best of it.
The kitchen freezer was smaller than the walk-in, but still far larger than a normal freezer. Jacquie pulled the heavy door open to grab a vegan burrito from the bulk box. The industrial microwave defrosted and heated the tube of protein in no time, and she barely waited for it to cool before nibbling on the folded tortilla end.
Exposing the filling, she found that the burrito was bean and cheese, not the lentil and salsa verde she’d been expecting. Oh well, it wasn’t like she was actually vegan. And it tasted better than the normal flavor anyway. Finishing the burrito in record time, Jacquie ignored her stomach’s pleas for more and got back to work.
Brushing sticky new lacquer on the last edge of the dining hall table, Jacquie put the lid back on the can and wrapped her brush in plastic. Knuckling the small of her back, she stood and stretched. The table looked brand new, but she felt well spent. Her bra was pinching more than it normally did, and she was starving.
Back in the silent kitchen, Jacquie found a candy bar next to her box of instant ramen packets.
Where did this come from? It must be years old.
The wrapper seemed clean and new though, so Jacquie ripped into it without a second thought. The chocolate seemed as fresh as the wrapper. Jacquie sniffed at the sugary treat, then licked the exposed corner. It certainly didn’t taste old or bad. Biting into the chocolate outer layer, pleasure blossomed on Jacquie’s taste buds. The candy bar was gone before she knew what she was doing.
Oh well. I worked up enough sweat today to make up for one little indulgence.
Jacquie cooked and ate her ramen and staggered back to the little bedroom, too tired to notice the silence that radiated from the darkened hallway.
She was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.
***
Jacquie woke up in a small, dark, silent room. It took her several long minutes to remember where she was.
Right. I’m a restaurant owner. And I have work to do.
Sitting up Jacquie was surprised as always by the prickly texture of the rug beside her small bed. She might have called the pattern Persian, if she knew anything about rug patterns. Jacquie put on a clean bra. The shoulder straps were a little tight and the cups felt kinda small.
Maybe it shrunk in the wash.
Jacquie didn’t want to consider the possibility that her breasts were growing again. It had taken months after she got fired from the hospital to get back down to an E-cup, and she swore to herself she was going to stay there.
Slipping on a plain yellow tee, Jacquie left the room and headed for the kitchen. The people in the old photos lining the hallway seemed to be watching her, so she fast walked to the vault-like kitchen. Jacquie inhaled her protein bar almost before her coffee was done. She needed to keep busy or her mind would start wandering back to “that day.”
A few stray beams of light broke through the trees to illuminate shafts of dust as Jacquie scraped more lacquer off another table. Her lithe limbs flexed and shone, her sleeves were rolled up and she leaned forward to keep her breasts from blocking her view as she worked.
At lunch she was surprised to find chicken in her burrito. Jacquie kept to a vegetarian and mostly vegan diet since losing her job as a nurse, but chicken was a pretty healthy protein.
I need to make sure and double check the box when I go shopping again… must have gotten a variety pack.
Try as she might, Jacquie couldn’t remember going grocery shopping.
I guess I have been focussing pretty hard on my work… that must be it.
Despite her more rapid and vigorous pace, Jacquie still only finished one table that day. While the water was boiling for her ramen, she absent-mindedly pulled open the big fridge next to the freezer. There was a 20oz bottle of cola in the otherwise empty refrigerator.
Jacquie carefully twisted off the cap, wincing as she expected the contents to either explode, or be completely flat. To her surprise the liquid only foamed up slightly just like the sodas she used to drink when she worked at the hospital.
Jacquie put the plastic bottle to her lips to distract herself from that image.
So she enjoyed a nice fizzy drink with her ramen, and went to bed. She fell asleep before the oppressiveness of the small dark bedroom could weigh on her too heavily.
***
Jacquie rubbed her eyes as she sat up in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. Slowly the reality of her current situation came back to her.
I live in an empty restaurant. I’ve been living in a restaurant since…
She couldn’t remember how long it it been.
Hooking her comfortable F-cup bra and slipping on a plain blue tee, Jacquie brushed her teeth and tried to remember when she’d moved into the restaurant. There were no calendars in the building.
Any calendars from the last time this place was open would be years old and useless now anyway.
Padding down the dark, silent hallway, past the watching eyes of former restaurant owners, Jacquie made her way to what she knew would be an unsettling empty tomb of a kitchen.
There was someone there.
“Ah, good morning Jacquie!” A wiry woman who appeared somewhere in her mid sixties stood in the kitchen, using the stove. She wore a long dress and looked like she belonged in a murder mystery dinner party.
“Who… who are you!?”
In answer the woman merely laughed. She spoke in a thick East Atlantic accent. She flipped one egg and then the other in her skillet.
“It’s so funny you ask that every morning dear. You know me, I’m Elsie. I’m here every morning to cook for you before you start your work.”
Jacquie was certain she’d never seen this woman before, but didn’t want to appear rude. She had been having trouble remembering things lately…
Crossing the kitchen to the coffee maker, Jacquie stopped when she saw a steaming mug already poured. Well, no point in letting it go to waste. With her first sip Jacquie noticed the coffee had some kind of sweetener in it. It almost tasted like the coffee she used to drink when she was a Nurse.
Jacquie stamped the memory down with a gulp of coffee that almost burned her mouth.
She turned to see Elsie holding out a plate to her with buttered white bread toast and three fried eggs.
“Oh that’s alright, I—“ Elsie gave the younger woman a look that was equal parts reproach and disappointment. Jacquie took the plated breakfast.
Sitting at a nearby counter, Jacquie bit into the toast and nearly moaned in pleasure. It has been a long time since she’d eaten real food. As if in a frenzy, Jacquie cut up chunks of perfectly fried egg and alternated bites with the toast. Halfway through the meal she looked up,
“Thanks Elsie this is amaz—“
The kitchen was empty.
But Jacquie’s plate was still half full.
She ate more slowly, trying not to think too hard about anything other than the long-denied flavors hitting her tongue. Sliding the plate into the commercial dishwashing tray, Jacquie walked to the dining area to start refinishing another table.
Stepping away from a substantial pile of old lacquer flakes, Jacquie returned to the kitchen for her lunch. The kitchen was empty as usual, but her burrito this time was beef and bean.
Jacquie sanded a bit of stubborn finish off the detailed edge of a table. Her thoughts wandered to the restaurant and all the hundred of people who’d worked here over the decades, and the thousands of people who’d eaten here.
At dinner she found another soda in the fridge.
Maybe Elsie left it here.
Jacquie closed the fridge and started preparing her ramen. In her boredom waiting for the water to boil, she opened the fridge again and retrieved the soda. The sweet bubbles washed away her suspicion and unease.
On her way to bed, Jacquie noticed one of the photos in the hall bore a striking resemblance to the old woman who she’d seen that morning.
Maybe it’s her grandmother or something.
***
Jacquie woke up and got dressed. Her bra was a little snug but she paid it no mind. She half expected to find someone in the kitchen when she got there, but the room was empty as ever.
Jacquie scooped up the shavings of old lacquer into a bucket, and went to the kitchen to heat up her lunch burrito.
Elsie was back, putting a healthy layer of mustard on top of a tall sandwich.
“Who… wait. Have we met before?”
“Of course dear, I’m Elsie, remember?”
Jacquie didn’t want to appear rude, so she smiled politely and nodded, accepting the plate from the older woman without further comment. Something seemed off about Else, however.
“Elsie,” Jacquie began, taking a bite of the delicious sandwich, “have you been working here long?”
“Oh it seems like ages, dear. You know, the days and years just turn into a blur when you get to be my age.”
Jacquie forced a smile through her mouthful of food. The sandwich was layered with so much meat and cheese it was like she was back in the good old days. Those golden days before The Incident.
She lost herself in the flavors of her lunch to drown out the sound of orderlies yelling and the beeping of an EKG machine getting slower and slower. By the time Jacquie pressed the last bit of sandwich into her mouth, she was alone in the kitchen again.
Wondering where Elsie came from and where she ghosted off to led Jacquie too easily toward remembering the worst day of her life, so she shrugged it off and went back to work.
As she wrung a damp rag to prepare the table for its first coat of finish, she saw a large ashtray and tobacco pipe sitting on the stripped wood tabletop.
Where did this come from?
Jacquie shrugged and moved the large ceramic dish to another table nearby and got to work.
Nodding in satisfaction at a table that shined like new, Jacquie crossed the empty stadium of a dining room and into the restaurant kitchen. The room was empty, but there was a wrap on a plate waiting for her, with a mound of potato chips.
Jacquie hadn’t eaten chips since she lost her job. They were even more delicious than she remembered.
Going to bed with a full stomach for the first time in a long time, Jacquie woke up in the middle of the night to answer a call of nature. When she laid back down, sleep was slow in coming. In the stillness of the dark room, her thoughts wandered unbidden back to That Day…
Orderlies swarmed around the hospital bed as the attending physician pressed paddles to the man’s bare chest.
“Clear!”
–Bzzt–
–Beep…–
–Beep……–
–Beep-Beep………–
“Charged.”
“Clear!”
–Bzzt–
–Beep–Beep…–
–Beep…Beep…Beep…–
Jacquie sat curled up in the fetal position on the floor of the hospital locker room. Her boss Stacy burst into the room, then deflated somewhat when she saw Jacquie’s tear-stained face.
“Jacqueline, I told you last time that you should take a leave of absence…”
“It was an accident, Stacy!”
“I know that.” The middle-aged chief nurse sighed. “But this is the third time you’ve had an ‘accident’ like this. The patient was dead for almost five minutes! I managed to talk the board down from a full investigation, but if we hadn’t reacted in time the hospital could have been sued for malpractice!”
“That’s not fair!” Jacquie sobbed.
“Fair or not, it’s the way things are. Do you want to stand up before a medical tribunal and explain that you accidentally unplugged a patient’s respirator because your breasts have doubled in size in the past six months?” Stacy’s tone was firm, but not harsh.
Jacquie only sniffed, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Stacy squatted down and put a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder.
“Look, just resign. I’ll handle the paperwork and make sure you get a full severance package. If you can get control of yourself and your… condition, I’ll make sure you get good references at another hospital.”
The head nurse rose and moved to the door. Before opening it she turned an added, “pardon my French, Jacquie, but get your shit together.”
Laying in the small bed in the dark, silent room, Jacquie felt a knot form in the pit of her stomach. She decided to get an early start on her day.
***
Jacquie stalked into the kitchen in a foul mood. Thinking of the events of her last day at the hospital always put her into a funk. It didn’t help that her G-cup bra was pinching her shoulders something fierce. Nearly ripping the cabinet door off its hinges she grabbed a protein bar from the box. Biting into it angrily she didn’t even notice that it contained far more chocolate and nougat than protein.
The sun wasn’t yet up, but she flicked on the lights in the dining room and started on another table. There were hundreds still to go, and throwing herself into physical activity was the only remedy she’d found for the spiral of negative thoughts that came when she remembered That Day.
Jacquie’s muscles flexed and her chest wobbled as she attacked the weathered table with newfound ferocity. The wood was bare in nearly half the time it usually took. By then it was mid-morning and Jacquie was hungry again, so she returned to the kitchen.
It wasn’t lunch time yet, but Jacquie pulled a burrito from the freezer anyway. It was larger than normal, but she tossed it into the microwave and stood stewing over her thoughts.
Was it her fault the respirators were set up so fragilely that a ‘little bump’ could unplug them?
I almost killed someone.
Was it her fault she was born with a medical condition that made her predisposed to gaining weight in her breasts?
Someone might have died because of my tits.
Was it her fault working in a hospital was super stressful and instead of smoking — like most of the nursing staff — she enjoyed a treat from the vending machine once in a while?
They would be gone, and their family alone—
The microwave’s beep saved Jacquie from her self-abusive thoughts. The extra-large burrito was stuffed with beef and cheese. She moaned with pleasure at the first bite. The only thing beside working up a sweat that made her feel better and forget her misery, was the taste of good food.
***
The days passed in a blur. Jacquie worked on refinishing tables each day, sometimes taking breaks to polish cookware or scrub the dingy cabinets to a shine. Always when she reached for her healthy food supplies she found some more appetizing and calorific alternative, but she never complained.
Jacquie woke in a dark, strange room, and wondered where she was. On the chair beside her bed was her I-cup bra, so she fastened it behind her back and pulled on a plain violet tee shirt. Slowly the facts of her reality came back to her. She owned a restaurant, and was fixing it up. She was on a strict diet to keep her breasts from growing inconveniently large again.
Jacquie tried her best to ignore the heavy silence in the restaurant’s corridors as she made her way to the kitchen. One of the photos tickled some memory buried deep in her mind, but she couldn’t make the idea form fully. She ate a king size candy bar for breakfast, idly wondering whether she should have chosen a healthier option.
Oh well, I’ve got this whole big box, no sense in letting them go to waste.
The rows of unfinished tables seemed endless, though she could see more than a few that she’d done, so Jacquie fired herself up and got to work. The detailing on the legs of this table were particularly stubborn to get clean, and Jacquie’s knees ached as she scrubbed away the old lacquer with a soft wire brush.
At lunchtime she heated a burrito that was almost too big to hold in two hands. The greasy steak and cheese warmed her insides made her feel happy and content.
When at last she sealed the lid back onto the can of new lacquer, Jacquie knuckled the small of her back and stretched. It seemed like every muscle and bone in her body was aching, but it was a good, satisfying kind of pain.
When she entered the kitchen, the room was not empty.
“Who are you?!”
In answer the woman merely laughed, speaking in a thick East Atlantic accent. She flipped a large quesadilla in her skillet.
“You ask that every day dear. You know me, I’m Elsie. I’m here to cook dinner for you after you’ve been working all day.”
“Elsie… yes.” Jacquie said slowly. “I haven’t seen you in quite a while…”
“Nonsense dear, I was here yesterday.”
Jacquie didn’t want to insult the older woman, so she only nodded, accepting the plated quesadilla. It was delicious, and she dipped the slices in a generous dab of sour cream before each bite.
“Would you like some more, Miss Jacquie? You’ve been working so hard…”
Jacquie accepted the plate.
Through the order window behind the young brunette, one solitary dining table sat, shredded and gouged. A pile of splinters and chunks of wood piled up under it almost a foot high. Rows of weathered tables were stacked up around it, untouched, old yellowed lacquer peeling and cracked.
“Elsie,” Jacquie began, “were you ever the owner –chomp– of the Grandview?”
“Of course not Miss Jacquie, I’m just a cook.” Elsie smiled as she scrubbed a skillet.
“I swore I saw –munch– a photo with your name in the hallway the other day, –gulp– that said you were the owner…”
Elsie slid a thick milkshake toward the busty young woman.
“No, Miss Jacquie. You’re the owner. You’ve always been the owner.”
***
Jacquie woke in a small but well-decorated bedroom, threw off her covers and got dressed. Her M-cup bra was a little snug— she might have to replace it soon. She strode cheerfully down the wood paneled hallway to the kitchen, where Elise was sliding a stack of four pancakes onto a plate. The golden cakes were slathered in butter, and drowning in maple syrup.
“Here you are Miss Jacquie! Better eat up before the breakfast rush starts!”
The kitchen shone in the pre-dawn light, and a handful of staff worked, mixing batters and processing fruit for juices. Through the order window Jacquie could see a young couple, and a pair of older women, sipping coffee and enjoying the view of the wooded valley. The man was wearing a wool suit and smoking a pipe. The women wore pastel frocks and jaunty hats. The phonograph in the corner sent soft jazz drifting into the gorgeous dining room.
Jacquie sat at the counter and dug into her breakfast, twisting to the side so she wouldn’t get any food on her abnormally large breasts. She forked big mouthfuls of pancakes into her mouth, and never thought about hospitals again.
