This story is based on a shred of truth: I did visit Uluru National Park once. There was a petrol station whose petrol was WAY overpriced, and there was an exceptionally large girl working behind the counter with an older man. That was about five years ago though. For the sake of simplicity, I replaced her with myself.
Trying to make it sexy enough for FAs but to keep a true sense of romance and story too. This is basically a story of my own fantasy, but I'm not SO caught up on skinny boys in tight jeans and big lips that I would exclude anyone else. I just wanted a contrast to the main character, who doesn't have a name yet. She'll probably get one when she finally meets Joe again:).
Please tell me what you think! Be honest - I take my writing seriously:).

Story is here too:

My father worked on an outback petrol station. It was isolated but busy, especially in the holiday season, as it was situated on the main road between Alice Springs and the Uluru National Park.
It was just me and dad out there. Mum got sick of the work and the isolation, the dust and the sun when I was thirteen, and took my brothers and sisters back to the city. I was in a rebellious phase at the time and didn’t really like the prospect of going to school, so I simply stayed with Dad, helped him run the petrol station and continued my home school program via our satellite internet.
Being so isolated, Dad charged a good 75c per litre more for petrol than what you’d expect on the coast. Dad was rich, really, but a workaholic, and with nothing better to do I had no qualms about helping him in the store. Day in and day out that’s all we did for years: managing the till, taking stock, making orders, receiving orders, cleaning, fixing, calling, replacing. Thinking back on it now I think the isolation technically wasn’t good for me, but I never felt alone. Not for long anyway, as I had a very comfortable crutch.
You see, petrol wasn’t the only thing we sold. Just like any petrol station in Australia we dished up hot pies and sausage rolls, fizzy drinks and lollies, as well as ice creams, chocolates and potato chips. Whenever I felt lonely or upset, overworked, frustrated, angry, grumpy, nervous, ill, I’d simply walk into the store room, open a cardboard box and eat until whatever was inside made me feel better. I’d never been a normal-sized child, really, but when mum left there was nobody left to nag me, so when I wasn’t doing what dad wanted I was doing what I wanted. And what I wanted to do was eat.
I wasn’t really aware of my size. Well… that’s not true. I just didn’t have the kind of pressure most teenage girls did. Not all the time anyway. I didn’t go to school, didn’t really have friends to mingle with. For a while I used to fly to the coast to spend holidays with my brothers and sisters and mother, but by the time I turned fifteen her constant nagging soon put an end to that. Correction: her nagging AND the size of the seats in the aeroplanes. It soon became apparent that I was rather annoying the people next to me simply by existing in the dimensions I did, and so I soon started to dread plane rides. Mum’s nagging and blaming my dad soon stopped me from looking forward to going to the coast either. My brothers and sisters weren’t much better. So instead I soon found myself making excuses to work with dad over the holidays. “They’re his busiest time, mum. He needs me here…” “… yeah not this holiday. I haven’t been feeling so well.” So on and so forth. When we finally got a phone that showed where the calls were coming from, often I simply didn’t answer calls from mum. Instead I shot her an email… occasionally.
Most of the indications I received about my size came from myself. There was my ever-shrinking wardrobe which saw me outgrowing clothing as fast as I was getting them. Thankfully my second aunt was a seamstress and loved replicating pieces of clothing. As money was no objective, I simply sent off my best shirts to be replicated into something with a few more inches. Dad didn’t mind. He probably didn’t even know. I often used his card to order things for the store, and helped balance the books and whatnot.
There was my aching feet from standing behind the counter for so long. That was a pain. Literally. It hurt me in the ankles and in the arches of me feet, and I found myself always leaning on something to take the pressure off. I was a teenager though, so I simply found excuses for leaving for the bathroom if the pain became too great. I’d sit in the house for a while and rest my aching legs, usually snacking on anything I could get my hands on. When dad wasn’t around I could put a stool behind the counter too. Dad didn’t like it when I did that – it put me a bit far back from the till, so I was a little further away from the customers than was convenient, but he wasn’t always around, so I kept it tucked away in the corner and used it when he drove into town, which grew more often the older I got.
There were the stares the customers gave me. People can be downright rude. Especially tourists. Especially American tourists. “Look honey, we’re not the only ones,” I heard one lady say. Others would say it to my face: “Anything left for your customers, or have you eaten the shop out?” one grey nomad said once. I refused to serve him anything but the petrol he’d already put into his thirty-foot camper.
Even the walk from the house to the station didn’t present a problem for long. Oh, it started to, once I was large enough. In fact by the time I was sixteen I found walking that two hundred feet from shop to home to shop to be the most exhausting thing I did all day. I never really thought of myself as unfit, though. After all I could still lift down heavy boxes from the store room, and lift them up again, but walking was just something I decided I wasn’t very good at. And anyway I soon found a solution: we had a couple of mopeds, dad and I, and on the off chance he had some free time that’s what we did: motor around the outback on four wheels. Well, I simply parked one outside of our little excuse for a yard, hit the ignition and motored on up to the back of the shop. Getting on and off was tricky with my stomach and my legs, but it was a heck of a lot easier than walking the whole way.
There was how my body looked in the mirror. Now, I didn’t really hate my appearance. I’d never had anyone tell me I should, I suppose. Well, only while I was on holidays, and not chronically. I knew that at least my face was was traditionally pretty – I had dark brown hair, a light chocolate skin and big lips – strong hints of the native part of my gene. Kissing lips, dad said (I know: creepy). Of course I wasn’t always happy with the way I looked but I was… satisfied, I suppose. My double chin wasn’t overly huge, and I still had some definition in my cheeks due to the way the fat sat just behind my cheekbones. I took good care of my hair too, and it spilled over my shoulders in locks.
Ah… my shoulders. This is where things became a little more obvious. I’ve always been a rather top-heavy girl, and this of course included my shoulders. The fat on them generally gave the impression that my shoulders were broad, even though this wasn’t really the case (skeletally, at least). Not to mention my chest, which was also big, and the fat under my arms tended to prop my arms up, especially when I was sitting (the fat on my hips tended to bunch up with the fat on my body which bunched up with the fat around my chest… I’m sure you get the idea).
Otherwise, I was well proportioned. My hips were only slightly wider than my bust, which just managed to eliminate the fridge-with-a-head-on-it look I would have had with these square-shaped shoulders of mine. Despite serious discomfort issues I thought it was a good thing my breasts poked out slightly further than my belly, and no matter how much weight I put on that didn’t really change. I couldn’t really see myself getting bigger, but I could see that I was big. If I sat on the end of the bed in front of my mirror I could see my stomach falling between my knees. Thankfully stretch marks were never an issue for me – young skin I suppose – but I could see the folds deepening. Particularly on my legs… I had quite fat legs. I had these funny ankles that seemed quite skinny at first but then ballooned out just above the ankle bone so it looked like I was constantly wearing Aladdin’s pants. A very baggy, lumpy version of Aladdin’s pants. But still, it’s not like I sat there staring at myself very often, so it was only a reminder if I chose to examine myself. I did this occasionally, but not in a bad way. I had trawled the internet enough to know that there did exist out there a group of people who “admired” bbw, and I often wondered if they would appreciate my curves… or rather, lumps. I liked to think so!
The most constant source of discomfort arising from my weight was the shower.
Our house was an old house, with an old, old shower. The kind that dumped a truckload of water over your head at nearly zero pressure and had those tiny sliding doors that never seemed to open more than two feet. The doors were the real problem. By fifteen I was squeezing in an inch at a time sideways so as not to break anything. By sixteen I did break something, told dad, and he simply went and fixed it. Not once did it occur to him that I wouldn’t be able to fit through that tiny little gap. So instead I got a stool, placed it in the bath, and dipped my face towel into the bathwater to wash over my body. It took forever, but it worked. I used a bucket to wet my hair and get the shampoo out. I don’t mind saying that the details of this are embarrassing, but really, you don’t know who I am from a bar of soap. So who cares if you find out? I don’t. Just don’t tell Joe.
Oh that’s right. I haven’t mentioned Joe… .
It was off-season, so business was slow. Dad had driven into town to visit his girlfriend, so I was sitting at the counter on my stool, with my elbows propping up my face.
I wasn’t expecting any customers, so I was just sitting there staring into space. I did that quite a lot on the off-season. I wasn’t bored. My mind was usually racing with this thought or that, daydreaming about the books I’ve read or replaying music in my head. I would often absent-mindedly eat at times like this, but not today.
I heard the automatic doors open and saw the customers walking towards me – a tourist family, all complete: mother, father, two sqwabbling younger children and a sulky older teen boy, about my age at the time. I think I was kind-of expecting them to go look among the aisles first, but instead they marched straight up to the counter.
It was then I realised the sulky older teen boy wasn’t a boy at all, but a young man, eyes as wide as saucers.
It took me a while to figure out why. It was because of the way I was sitting. As my widely-parted elbows supported my head, my breasts squeezed between them and rested firmly on the bench.
My brain clicked in and I sat bolt upright.
“Uh hi,” I said, putting on my professional smile, which Dad said was very good. “Can I help you?”
“Pump five, thanks,” the father said, and handed me his card.
I could feel their stares on me as I punched in the numbers to withdraw $150 from his account. It was a good thing I was slightly dark, as I could feel my face flushing. Nevertheless I put on my smile and handed back the card… and that’s when I noticed the boy smiling back.
I suppose I never really looked at boys before. He had large lips like me, high cheekbones, dark hair but pale skin… was skinny and wearing a black t-shirt with some aboriginal art on it. His pale skin contrasted with his naturally red lips… my heart stopped beating in my chest.
The father took the card, mumbled a thank-you, then the family walked away. The children squabbled and begged for treats, but the boy lingered, then left, looking sideways over his shoulder. They all headed back to their camper van, and I watched his skinny jeaned bottom retreat towards the white monstrosity... smaller and smaller... Then the automatic doors closed, and the father slid open the door of the camper to let the children in.
It was at this point I jumped off my stool and ran.
Well… it wasn’t really running, but it was my version of running. I shuffled around the counter and down the aisles of merchandise, and out into the pumping station, under the hot Australian sun. The camper van seemed so close, but I was moving so slow. Too slow. The campervan's engine started so I quickened my step, but my body just refused to cooperate. Hot desert air seared my lungs and my fat legs refused to smoothly move past each other. Instead the bulging fat under my skirt wobbled and thunked into one another as my legs swung past one another. My breasts bounced like a couple of wrestling pigs under my t-shirt, and my stomach slapped against my thighs.
By the time I reached the van, I was breathless, and definitely blushing heavier than I had been inside.
The family were all looking at me, but I knocked on the sliding door. The young man got up to answer it.
“Hey… want to swap numbers?” I panted, holding my phone.
His face dropped then. He was embarrassed. Embarrassed to be asked by such a huge beached whale. He glanced at his parents nervously then said, “uhhhh… sure.”
My heart stopped again. He gave me a cheeky little smile as he read out his number, and giggled as his phone beeped when I texted him, "Testing!" Then he closed the door, waved, and the camper van trundled up our bumpy dirt drive and onto the mainroad to Uluru national park.
I stood and watched for a while, then shuffled my way back inside.
That night I didn't let the mobile phone leave my side. I took it into the bathroom with me, put it beside me in the shower, but no phone call ever came. I tried calling him come midnight but the phone rang out, and I remembered: there would be no reception for a phone like his all the way out here. I had to be content with waiting.
Days went by, and I still didn't lose hope. He's probably just not returned to an area with reception, I thought. Weeks past. Every night I left my phone on and lay awake thinking about him, about those gorgeous lips, those skinny legs in jeans. I'd never sketched before but I tried sketching him... I know that's creepy. I practiced and practiced until I had those pouting lips just right, then drew him smiling, because both was cute in its own way. I pretended to kiss him, pretended running my hands over his muscly back. I figured he smiled because he was a chubby chaser, so I looked them up online... saw what they liked doing, and imagined lying on bed as he fed me chocolate or ice cream and kissed me between every mouthful.
But the call never came. A month passed before I realised I had been rejected. School returned and I picked up my studies. There was no way he was still travelling or out of cell range. So I gave up.
I figured he probably had a myriad of good reasons. Perhaps he was from the coast, and just too far away to seriously consider dating me. Perhaps he found another girl. Perhaps he didn't like fat chicks. Perhaps he found me ugly, my ugly body too disgusting.
I put all his drawings in a corner and resolved to get on with life, but it wasn't that simple. Doubt started to creep in. For the first time in my life I WANTED a boy, and I doubted that I could get one. I began feeling my loneliness, but I was too afraid of rejection to go online and look for a partner there.
I can remember the night it happened. I had pulled out his drawings for "one last look," intent to throw them away, but I never did. Instead I went to the fridge, got out a tub of rocky road, and ate the lot before I finished yet another drawing. I'd never eaten at night before. I snacked between meals, but things always seemed to stop after dinner. But now I found myself ordering extras from our supplier - extra tubs of ice cream and yogurt, bars of chocolate, cornettos, magnums, bags of snakes, not because customers were buying more, but because I was eating them by the bucket load. Night, after night, after night...
Years passed, and of course, I grew fatter...