"Are you all right?" Rachel's mother asked as she came back downstairs.
"I'm fine. Just really had to go to the bathroom. The food was delicious," she lied in order to change the subject. She began looking through the kitchen cupboards.
Her mother peered through the doorway from where she sat at the dining room table. "Rachel?"
"Just looking for desert!" Rachel called back.
"Honey, I didn't make anything tonight because we're out of ingredients."
Rachel's fruitless search confirmed that the house was a hundred-percent chocolateless. Her stomach was feeling very ornery now, and the hunger pains made it hard for Rachel to stand up straight without wincing. "No problem! I'll be right back!" She bounded out of the house before her mother could finish asking what she was doing.
The corner store was only a few blocks away, right outside the neighborhood were her house was. It wasn't so late that Rachel was concerned about being out alone. It was the middle of summer, so even at this hour the sun had just set and the sky was a fading blue haze.
She walked right up to the counter and slammed her credit card down on it. "How many boxes of Hershey bars do you have?"
The clerk eyed her curiously. She gave him a stern expression that told him she wasn't fooling around. "Um...I can check."
"Hurry up," Rachel said. She was surprising herself with how forcefully she was acting. Oh, the things she would do for a chocolate bar right now...
The clerk came out of the back room with six unopened boxes. Rachel had never been so glad to see the Hersheys brand name in her life.
"Um...so there's thirty per box...uh...," the clerk tried to ring Rachel up.
"One hundred eighty bars," she said impatiently.
"Oh. Uh..." The register dinged. "You're right. So that's a total of--"
"Just swipe my damn card, please!" Rachel demanded. Her body was quivering in anticipation of devouring those delicious bars.
After another agonizing minute, the register printed out her receipt. Rachel signed with a large "X" and then ripped one of the boxes open. She grabbed a bar and tore off the wrapper, finally sinking her teeth into the luscious chocolate. She murmured loudly in satisfaction as she stuffed the entire thing into her mouth. It melted slowly, oozing across her tongue and delivering the long-awaited sensations she had missed so much.
The cashier stared at her. "Uh, look, you've gotta leave."
Rachel eyed him like a predator who was trying to take her sweet treasures for himself. After shoving a second candy bar into her mouth (not having completely swallowed the first one yet) she picked up the boxes and trudged out of the store.
They were heavy, and dragging her down. She'd never make it home in time before she starved to death. She came upon a bus stop bench, and eagerly plopped down to sample some more bars. Time no longer existed for Rachel, as she was back in her chocolate heaven. This sensual daze created a tingling inside her, which she responded to by slipping her non-chocolate-covered hand down her tightening jeans. She was lucky it was late in the evening, and the cover of the bus stop canopy shielded her from the exposing light of the street lamp. She was free to eat her meal in peace...or rather, in ecstasy.
She didn't know how long it had taken her to eat an entire box of Hershey bars, but she didn't care. The stars were shining brightly as she trudged home. Now that she had only five boxes to contend with, her arms felt a little better. However, the weight of thirty bars in her stomach was still keeping her at a slow pace.
She quietly entered her house, being careful not to smear chocolate on the doorknob. She hustled up the stairs to her room--a task which now caused her to huff and pant slightly. She dumped the boxes into her closet and flopped onto her bed, rubbing her belly. It was quite distended now, forming a distinct paunch that couldn't hide underneath her shirt, which was now pushed up, exposing several inches of bare skin. Her jeans felt uncomfortably tight, and she attempted to unbutton them, but she couldn't build up the strength. Her stomach was packed with gooey chocolate, creating enough of a satisfying feeling to kick start production of melatonin. It wasn't long before Rachel dozed off to a pleasant slumber.