With a final whistly sigh, she stood back up. She really didn't have to bend all the way down, did she? Sweet cheese and crackers, her tush must have looked enormous. She smoothed down her shirt over the gentle rise around her middle, sighing as she furled her fingers together. It was okay. She was okay.
With a final breath, Judy rose to face the goat, her expression steady.
Stephanie smiled warmly back. As if she hadn't just… done that to an officer of the law!
"Okay… first of all, thank you for the collars." Judy nodded, allowing a genuine smile through. What? She did like the designs. "And for the words of encouragement. And for the…" Judy’s tongue looped to her lips, cheeks pinching for an instant. "Kind words regarding my appearance." She nodded and Stephanie rose an eyebrow. "I-I-I do appreciate it, really!" She leaned on her professional speaking competency courses. "I think you look wonderful, too -- I love your smile!" That earned a wink. "And my mother and some of my sisters are generously proportioned themselves. There's a nickname for that in my family! And they all are and all feel beautiful and happy with how they look…"
The room around slowly receded as her mother swam into view, all softness and curves and sweetness and charm, bathed in a golden light as warm as her smile. And as warm as her hugs. Judy sighed and she swore her mother's scent filled her nose.
"Oh?" Judy startled straight into the goat's glinting smile. "And have they said anything to you about your… predicament?" Judy felt the eyes on her middle again, nothing but a curious fizz filling it.
"Well… actually, they’ve been great about it, really." An ear flopped sheepishly to her side and she traced her fingers down it. "Well, a couple made cracks about it the first time they saw me with all this…" Judy swayed, claws raking through fur now at the memory of Jessica asking her what happened to her little patootie booty as she guzzled a soda, her nose burning and her ears hotter. "B-but most of them have been okay, or they haven’t said anything." Judy blinked, cheeks pinching, ears ringing to the laughter of an uncle gleefully plating up an extra large portion for the growing girl. "And my Mom’s been amazing about it. I… Outgrew my pants last holidays and I guess I must have been wearing that on my face when I came out of the hand-me-down room." Judy smiled, paw instinctively smoothing her belly. "She just… put her paw on me like this, gave me a little smile, and said 'Just because you changed sizes, doesn’t change you'." Scritching her middle, Judy slipped back into the warmth of her mother's smile.
"Sweet."
"Yeah…" Judy beamed, comfort drizzling over her giddy tingles. "That, and she said I've got some way to go before I get to her size, so…"
Well… did she now. It had only been that morning that she had stood in her apartment, freshly showered, eyes bright and ready to kick whatever the day threw at her to the kerb! That she had finished munching her way through a hearty bowl of oatmeal with extra jam, shoulders swinging to Gazelle's latest bop, when her eyes spied her mother in the mirror, ripe curves and plushy stomach and soft jowls and all, wearing her shirt.
That she had stared at herself again, heart stopping and teeth freezing, with the flaps of her next-size-up pants refusing to meet around her belly.
"I wish I had her confidence about it."
"Really…" drawled Stephanie, tugging Judy back into the room. "Why? Are your coworkers giving you any grief?"
Judy chuffed, unable to hold back a grin. "Nope!" She chuckled. "I know! Guess it must come with the territory because it seems like one big joke. If anything, they go easier on me than my family!" Judy scritched her chin, smile still growing. "It's all 'ooh, don't leave her alone in the breakroom, she'll clear it', and 'I knew we'd rub off on you eventually, Hopps!'" She chuffed, the portly zebra patting her belt-dipping belly behind her desk loud enough to box her ears even as a memory. "And 'I didn't know bunnies hibernate'." Judy sighed, eyes falling, her smile just a bit taut. "It only gets me a little, honest. Just a bit repetitive, honestly…" Sure, she meant that, with her paw blurring against her ear. "Still, it usually stops when Bogo reminds them I'm still in the top three for sprints." She smirked. She never thought he cared.
He didn't. It was just the best way to shut them up.
"Hmm…" Stephanie twirled her hood through her chin tuft. "How about your other half, if you have one?"
Judy caught the squeak in her throat and buried it, ears suddenly molten in her slippery paws. "Um…" He swam before her, perfectly smug grin breaking to ask her if she was sure she wanted another slice of cake. That he made. For her. "Well, my partner…" Her foot itched to thump but she held it. Her toes settled on curling instead, the fox strutting across her mind with her usual lunch order bulging, wafts of salt and grease weaving heaven on her tongue. "He's…" Flames licked her cheeks from deep within her, stoked by the glint of his eyes as they followed her leaving the locker room, trained to her straining pants, his tone innocent as he declared there to be something different about her and asked if she lost weight. "Well… he’s not…"
"Into it?"
Her stomach recalled in exquisite detail the feeling of his paws cradling her swollen middle, he wrapped around her under a blanket as they vacantly watched a comedy special, her mind instead highlighting every crinkle of her pads.
"No…" Her chin sank to her neck, ears surely melting down her back. "We're… not together, exactly…" One cheek bunched into a smile, the other too crisp to try. "But…" His pinkie. Oh, sweet potatoes. It snuck into the gap in her shirt and he wiggled it in her navel and she knew he knew… "I am pretty sure he's into it."
She sucked her teeth. Either he was into her swelling butt, or he was a far better actor than she ever realised.
"Really?" Stephanie rested on her elbows, hooves folding as evilly as her smirk. "And yet, here you are, feeling down about your enhancements despite such support."
"Well…" Her cheeks flared again, the word practically neon in her head. Enhancements. Her podgy flanks, her chafing thighs, her pendulous butt, her softening tummy, her pinchable cheeks, her… actual bust, were enhancements? Wait… She hmphed. "I don't always feel down about… this," she murmured, paw tapping her cheek, clawing her mind away from the feel of another raking her belly. "But sometimes I do, and… it's just…" Her paws balled, flaring by her sides. "... Confusing!"
Her lips quirked. "Like, sometimes I'll treat myself to a dessert when me and my partner get lunch, or he'll just push his stuff into my paws--" Seriously, how did she not get her fox before? "--and I'll eat, and it's so good, and it feels amazing to be so full, but then I'll spot a kit staring at me, and all of a sudden I'll feel huge and flabby and all the frosting on my cheeks." And the fire building in her. "Or just last week!" She raised a finger. "I went to collect a statement from someone in the Meadowlands, all routine, no big deal, maybe I didn't need the doughnut, but when they opened the door they said they didn't know the ZPD hired another rabbit… And… just… I’m not that big!" she cried, now letting herself stomp. "Yeah, I've put on four pounds since I left the academy, but I'm two-six, I'm tall for a bunny!" Her eyes screwed shut. "I'm still a medium!" A high medium. "This…" she pawed at her shirt, heat pooling with every ripple of her middle. "This is my original uniform." And it was snug. And that felt. GREAT.
"Sounds like a them problem, to me," Stephanie huffed.
Judy did the same. Yeah, she knew that. And didn't she not know when to quit, either? Some example of bullheadedness she was now… "I know, and honestly… I'm making a bit of a meal of all that." And more, lately. "Most of the time I just let that stuff go. Heck, I waved at some geezer beaver who tutted at my lunch the other day." She grinned. Yeah. He can be fertiliser for all she cared, she demolished that bagel. "But… it's not just other mammals." Again, her paw stroked her tum. "Sometimes, I'll beat myself up because I used to run ten-kays, and now I can only do five before my knees give out, but I'll still get a double-order on the way home and gloat about smoking everyone in training." Her eyes burned. "I'll feel great for a whole afternoon snacking while on patrol, but the moment I put my street clothes on it's like I took a cold shower because, oh yeah, I've gone up two pants sizes in a year and I'm huge and I hit the gym for an hour, and then I feel worse so I heat up a big batch of my mom's casserole at home." Her claws jabbed her palm. "I'll go out on foot, or catch up on paperwork, and I can feel how tight my uniform is around my belly. I know it's gotten bigger, everyone can see it and I know that.” She slapped it, more wobbles rippling its surface. "And I feel self-conscious and I wait for someone to bring it up, and no one does and I go home and feel so stupid, and then I look in the mirror and love what I see!" She craned her chin, ears pounding. "And then my partner turns up and just the look he gives me…" That glint. It haunted her. She needed it.
She groaned, burning her eyes into her palms. "I just feel so… so…"
"Conflicted?"
"Yes!" she cried, eyes popping wide. "Oh my gourd, yes." She huffed, eyes again cradled in her palms.
"Well…" Stephanie stepped out from behind her counter, head tilted sympathetically. "I may not have every answer for you. I do'’t know you closely, after all, but…"
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