Part of a trade with  Ian-exe

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Ding-a-ling-ling!
The scent of the spice in the air was thick enough that any normal being would feel full open simply entering Jacko’s Junkfood. It was a Wallaby’s wonder. A Dingo’s daydream. A kangaroo’s cozy kingdom.
And the roo that had just entered, jingling the quivering bell above the door, felt comfortably at home. It was his keep. His realm.
Even though he’d never graced the establishment before, he was confident in his ability to put himself on every chalkboard and every record book. There wasn’t a chef in town who didn’t know his name, who didn’t fear his heavy, dutifully bounce through an increasingly worried door frame. This new restaurant, touted for its varied buffet and outstanding table service, had never anticipated the red-and-gold renegade of respectable cuisine. It would never forget the evening of the ravenous roo.
Heads turned, almost as if sensing him like the cold gust of a ghost. The door closed gently behind him, allowing space for his unfathomable form. Portly, one might say. Rotund. Suitably satiated, perhaps. Whatever you call it, you knew that he was one for seconds.
He was a determined fellow. His name was Tally, and he’d lost count of the number of challenges he’d conquered. Upon hearing of the Jacko Junk challenge, he made quickly for the restaurant, eager to keep his title firmly in place. The scents were to him as gold is to a hoarding dragon. A calling, a meaning.
Patrons around him knew exactly why he was there. He was no mystery to them, and the silent cue to scatter was diligently obeyed. Murmurs muttered and whispered wavered through across the stiffening atmosphere.
Tally curled and flexed his fingers, a cowboy readying for his kill. His gut, profound and protruding, gurgled in waiting, a rabid dog.
And his voice boomed.
“What is this challenge that ruffles the fur of my ear?!”
Silence befell the patrons. The waitresses and the cooks halted all movement. The gauntlet had been thrown.
It didn’t escape the attention of the head chef. From behind the kitchen door she emerged, a stern stare on her scaly snout, sheltered by the rim of her sagging white cap. No sign of fear, no hint of intimidation, was apparent from her visage. She was no stranger to gluttons.
She was one herself.
“Hey there, honey,” she spoke with a cold, sarcastic sneer. “You’re looking a little thin. You should sit yourself down.”
Tally inspected the fat gator gal from afar. A buxom creature herself, he could tell that she, too, delighted in her dinner-devouring devotion.
He did not sit down. No. He was in charge here. “I’m here to claim my title,” he boomed. The vibrations of his claim rumbled over the planetary surface of his gold-furred gut.
She grinned a devious grin, pointy white teeth gleaming in the restaurant lighting. “You have to win it before you can claim it.”
He wasn’t used to such adversity. Leaning forward, he began to hop over. Every bounce was an earthquake, urging the windows to shudder and the table legs to tremble. The fat marsupial sized up to Darla. He stood perhaps five inches taller and just as wide. A good match.
But this was not a physical fight. Not strictly.
“You know of our challenge?” Darla asked, not at all distracted by his stomping approach.
“Jacko’s Junk,” he replied. “That’s all I know, but there’s no buffet alive that can beat me.”
Darla smiled. “Everybody gets beaten someday.”
“Ha!” Tally guffawed, slapping a paw across his gut. It seemed to lurch forward like a balloon ready to burst. “Stupid gator. So naïve. I will win your little challenge, and you shall tremble in fear of my gallant girth! Who holds the title you claim to be so indomitable?”
She stands triumphantly, slapping at her own gut in response. “Me.”
“You?! HA!” Tally laughed again. “Pathetic! And your record, might on inquire?”
“Four Jacko Buns,” she hummed proudly.
Tally could barely believe his fluffy ears! Four?! He operated purely in triple digits! It was nothing. Pittance!
“Bring me twenty!” he demanded.
For the first time, the gator was taken aback, her eyelids widening just enough to make clear her alarm.
“Very well,” she uttered. Then she turned, whipped her fat tail, and stormed back into the kitchen. “Jacko Buns! Twenty! Go, go, go!”
He swore that he heard her say extra fattening, but he couldn’t be sure.
Four buns, he thought to himself with delight, I would say that the record is mine, but that would be underselling myself!
He found an empty table close to the serving counter – at least, it was empty once he glared at the patrons sitting there – and took a seat. He shifted it backward, allowing his proud paunch to bask in broad view. The chair wailed beneath his generous rear end.
A waitress came over, a shake in her step. She looked nervous, apprehensive. Never had she seen such an enormous kangaroo. “G-good evening, s-sir,” she stammered. “Can I g-get you a d-d-drink?”
He had no intention of scaring the staff. His attention was fully focused on food and the smug gator who thought him inadequate to challenge her record. “Yes, please, my dear,” he replied with more kindliness than he’d shown so far. He even offered a smile. “A milkshake. Chocolate… Make it two.”
“Y-yes, sir!” She skittered away at speed.
Tally had enough time to make himself feel at home, a centerpiece in the little restaurant. He noticed the paintings by local artists on the walls, little price tags dangling from the corners. He appreciated the large grandfather clock standing to one side, even though it was in stark contrast to the overall modern, abstract theme.
It was a very nice little place. Quaint, he considered. Such a shame that he would have to put them neatly in their place.
Before the food arrived, he finally caught sight of a small chalkboard in the corner above the service counter. It was a list, under the stand-out title Junko’s Challenge. There were three names, labelled 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. The gator, Darla, was in first place, a proud number 4 written in green. Below that, the other notable contestants had only managed two each!
How pathetic! It was almost as if it wasn’t meant to be a challenge at all! It was barely a snack, a morsel of one.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
Tally didn’t expect the male voice from behind him. A dingo, chubby cheeked and bountifully bellied, bent down to speak privately with the roo.
“What?” Tally blurted innately.
The dingo looked toward the kitchen door, then back to Tally. “I don’t think you wanna eat that many of Jacko’s buns, mate! You’ll pop like a champagne cork at Christmas!”
Tally wasn’t impressed. “What is this mockery? Has the foul reptile trained her monkeys to shackle my spirits?!”
“No, mate,” the fat dingo replied. “I tried the challenge myself. I got through one bun. Those in there aren’t your ordinary buns, mate! They’re bloody magic, or something.”
Tally huffed impatiently. “Magic?! Balderdash! Claptrap and twaddle! Go back to your wafers, minnow.”
“I’m being serious, mate!” the dingo urged. “That dirty gator’s got some tricks up her scaly sleeves.”
“The day a gator gets the better of me,” Tally growled, “is the day I fit through a plastic straw. Now, be gone, pest!”
“Another thing,” the dingo insisted before disappearing. “Why are you speaking like that, mate? Is it something terminal?"
“Be gone…” Tally seethed.
The dingo knew what was coming, but this reckless roo was certainly in for a rude awakening. He retook his seat elsewhere in the restaurant as Darla re-emerged from the kitchen. She never served, but she wanted to deal with this crude customer personally.
“Here is your first five buns,” she said with faux innocence, setting the large tray on the table before him. “We’ll prepare more if you manage to get through these. If.”
Tally observed the buns. They looked like cinnamon buns, and about the same size, too. He could fit two in his monstrous maw with little effort, if he so wished. Just a quick swallow would get him on the leaderboard with the most minimal effort.
He sniggered and gave Darla a knowing look. “You are insulting me, surely. This is your challenge? Cinnamon buns? HA! Bring the rest out, all twenty, and I shall gulp them down in a measly minute!”
Darla cocked her head with a grin. “Is that so?”
“It is so, fat alligator female.”
“If you say so. It’s your funeral…” she uttered, before heading back to the kitchen with a noticeable swagger.
Tally looked at the buns. Sniffed them. They seemed to be nothing more than ordinary, everyday delicacies, diligently topped with icing and raisins. The sweet scent swirled in a waltz with his nostrils, but he wished to wait for the rest. He would face them all at once. He was determined to send a message.
The milkshakes arrived before the rest of the buns. The waitress, still spooked, place them onto his table atop a tiny metal tray. The milkshakes, chocolate, were topped with coiled ice cream, two straws cushioned into the sugary mixture.
She whispered something so quietly that he had no chance of hearing on first attempt. It almost went unnoticed.
“Speak up, please,” Tally said. “I didn’t hear.”
She gawked at him with wide eyes, and then moved closer to his twitchy, tufted ears.
“They’re extra fattening,” she explained.
“Extra f-… the milkshake?” he pondered.
“The buns!” she whisper-shouted. “It’s her special recipe. A single bite is enough to-”
“Here are the rest of your buns!” Darla called. “Excuse me, Harriett, dear, buns coming through. The sugary one, too!” She laughed and waddled passed the waitress to drop another tray – a much larger tray – on his rapidly-filling table. Fifteen more beautiful buns bundled boastfully together.
Tally huffed, a smug expression across his furry face. “Thank you, gator. Now watch, as I put your pitiful record to shame!”
Before dipping into the main course, he took a swig of his milkshake to clear the tunnel for the oncoming traffic of baked goods. It wasn’t so much a swig. He downed a whole shake, sighing contentedly as he places down the empty glass, accentuating his pleasure with a small burp.
Darla watched on confidently. “Starting with milkshake,” she commented. “Brave.”
“Hmph! Brave…” he uttered back her. He reached forward to took the first bun between two doughy digits. When he lifted it, he found that it felt heavier than cinnamon buns he’d eaten before. It was surprisingly weighty. “Hm. Tell me, gator, what concoction did you create to cause such heft?”
“My own special recipe,” she said in a slithery tone.
Tally glanced at the waitress, who watched from afar.
Whatever, he thought, and took a second bun in his other hand. He placed both rich rolls onto his teasing tongue. Up went his jaw, and down went the buns in a single sordid swallow.
He expected the gator to look gob smacked. Instead, she looked deeply satisfied.
“Worried?” he asked of her.
“No,” she replied.
“Hmf!” he coughed. “Well, you should be! Say goodbye to your record, reptile!” He grabbed three of the cinnamon treats in his meaty digits and crammed them all into his mouth. Another great swallow, and the delicacies disappeared.
Tally cheered in taunting triumph. “Easy as one, two, three… four, five! Five buns without even – uuurp – trying! Gormless gator, your defeat is assu-UURP!”
And yet, Darla did not seem so disappointed. She leaned forward with one elbow on the table, watching the roo with ravenous intent. It were as if she waited for something. He couldn’t quite connect the curious dots.
He was content for a moment, and reached for the next batch of buns, when a suspicious slosh shook his stomach, so much so that he had to cast his gaze to the vast golden orb below his chin. There came a ghastly groan, and the stretching sound of an overblown balloon. Upon resting his hand on the squishy girth, he realized that something deep within was growing, expanding. This was not how normal cinnamon buns tended to perform once ingested. Another look at Darla told him that she knew exactly what was going on. Was it some secret sauce? A hidden herb? He had to find out, such was his intrigue.
This time, he took but a single bun, placing it gently on the surface of his tongue. Rather than swallowing, he dug his teeth into it, Immediately, he felt the thickness, sensed the dense compression of the bread. There was no wonder that the buns were so weighty. That dastardly gator stuffed them so full that they were bun bombs ready to burst!
A burst? More like a busy swell. He could feel it all growing within his guts. It tingled and teased.
Darla snarled gleefully and prodded at his paunch with a cruel claw. “Remember, you only win the challenge if you keep it all down. Good luck, foolish marsupial!”
She cackled, clutching her heaving breasts with elation. She thought she’d won!
But Tally was no common customer, and he knew that very well. He’d fallen prey to such sinister tricks, time and time again. And every time, he’d come out triumphant. Even if that meant being unable to walk home for two whole days. He had this, and he was not afraid to take a risk. In fact, he wanted to prove her more than just wrong, but foolish and naïve. Who was she to underestimate such a mighty mammal?!
He grabbed four more buns in his fingers after defiantly devouring his sixth. The added four, all at once, into his mouth brought his tasty total to ten! With this sudden, unexpected movement, the satisfied smirk on Darla’s snout subsided. This was not meant to be happening! He was meant to be clutching his stomach and delivering its temporary new residents back out into the world, but it simply wasn’t happening!
Though, it wasn’t as if Tally wasn’t feeling the effects of his feed. He hid it well, sure, but even such an experienced gorger felt unsure about the intense swelling of the ingredients in his innards. His belly was bulging noticeably, straining against his already tight pants and pushing against the underside of the table, the orb creasing against the hard edge. The foreign pressure forced a strained belch, disturbing what remained of the four buns and spraying loose crumbs across the table, some lodging themselves in the cream of his second milkshake. Halfway through his ordeal, he reached for that waiting glass and chucked it down the vast chasm of his throat.
“Ahhh!” he exhaled easily. “Very nice. I shall make this a regular routine!”
Darla glared, anger sapping away her ecstasy.
“UUURP!” Tally commented abruptly. The burp offered him a little more room, and so he dipped in for two more treats.
As he ate, his waistline strained. The table was now pushed upwards, balanced on a brace of legs. What little chatter chatted around the restaurant was all but chased away, replaced by the dynamic groans and sloshes of a gorging stomach. The kangaroo was fast becoming a blimp!
“Okay, that’s enough…” Darla seethed. “Stop it!”
“Not like- uuuuurp! – ly!” Tally replied with a cacophonous roar of laughter. “Say goodbye to your record, reptile!”
Another two cinnamon rolls went in! Up to fourteen, his belly was taking the brunt of the buns. He’d never been so stretched, so unfathomably fat. His cheeks and eyes were bulging with the pressure, but he valiantly forged on. In went another two, and then another!
“Oooh…” he groaned. It was unclear where the groan came from. “Very… nice… buns…”
Darla was dumbfounded! She watched the beached balloon, mouth agape and tail flat against the floor behind her. “No…” she whimpered. “How can anybody be so gluttonous?!”
Tally thought of replying with spoken words, but instead thought that she deserved nothing more than a loud bout of flatulence.
“Last two!” he called out heroically. His body lurched with another sudden bloat, and his skin strained, creaked. There was a distinctive pinkish layer emerging from between fur, each fiber of which found itself further and further from its friends. The table gave up the game and toppled over, spilling the final buns to the floor. The waitress picked them up and dusted them off with a cloth.
Tally smiled at her. “Ah, thank you for rescuing my little friends. Care to give them a new home?”
The waitress judged the situation, took note of all the observant eyes in the room. Darla was the only one turned away in a grump. Tally’s head was lifted some way off the ground by his round rump and burgeoning belly. She would have to climb, and she did, stepping up onto his squishy – though noticeably firmer – stomach. It took an extreme effort to yank herself up to his head that was almost swallowed in swollen bulk. He smiled kindly and then opened wide, allowing her to place the final buns. He closed his jaws, and with an audible gulp! the cinnamon rolls were gone. The waitress jumped off his belly, forcing another burp from the overstuffed roo.
“Wonderful…” he hummed.
The two last buns added to the wild mixture deep within him. The mass of ingredients continued to balloon, pushing his body boundlessly outwards. Tables toppled, and patrons parted ways. The dingo shook his head with disbelief from the other side of the restaurant.
Tally was a bomb waiting to go off, but never quite making it. His form was tight, his clothing barely managing, fiercely holding on with its final fibers. He was a red-and-gold eyesore in the center of the establishment.
And when all the swelling with done and dusted, he announced his victory with the most boastful of belches.
“Well, gator, it seems you have a chalkboard to adjust.”
Darla squeaked her displeasure. “You foul glutton! You fat… rotund… blimp!”
“Why, thank you!” he replied.
“I’m not…! I wasn’t…! Oh, forget it!” The grumpy gator stormed back into the kitchen, throwing her apron down in fury as she did.
Tally settled in his place, a dopey smile upon his snout. Once more, he was victorious, the conqueror of cuisine.
And then the waitress came into his view. She’d climbed his belly again, ascending to such a height that her head almost hit the ceiling. “Oh, you again!” he said with a chuckle. “Here to bring me another milkshake?”
“No,” she said. She had a distinct tremble in her tone. “The bill.”
“Oh. Fine, fine,” he laughed. “Please, show it to me.”
She did, and his eyes bulged. Shock!
“I can’t believe…!” he started with a gravid growl. “That dirty, slimy…!”
The gator could be heard from within the kitchen. Laughing.
“I’ve been ha-UUURRP! – had!”
On that day, he learned a very valuable lesson about greedy gators: They’ll find any way to rob you blind. Whether it be simple theft, bribery, blackmail…
Or buns priced at $1000 each.