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Chapter 1

“Oh my gosh, Brent!” exclaimed Blaire in surprise as her husband led her into the kitchen by the hand. “You keep outdoing yourself, haha — I don’t deserve this kind of treatment!”

“That’s ridiculous, of course you do!” smiled Brent as he opened a steaming dish on the stove, liberating a rich cloud of fragrant steam, and revealing an elaborate chicken pot pie. “It’s the least I can do, you know, as a stay-at-home husband.”

“Stay-at-home! Would you stop it!” laughed Blaire, leaning her body into Brent’s. Standing at a diminutive 5’1, and clocking in at a paltry 100 pounds, Blaire had grown used to throwing her whole weight into her husband when he cracked a joke. Since Brent was 6 feet tall and a full 200 pounds, it didn’t really matter what Blaire did to him with the force of her weight. He barely even felt it. 

“You work just as hard as me!” Blaire continued in protest. Her eyes were momentarily arrested by the pot pie. Her husband certainly was a talented amateur chef, and these little date night dinners on Friday had become something that she looked forward to all week. 

“Now we both know that’s not true, honey,” chuckled Brent, handing her a bowl and encouraging her to spoon herself out a helping. “I work 9 to 5 in the lab, just like most of the other grad students. But you…haha, well, when your mind is operating on your level, normal business hours just don’t really apply, do they?” 

“You’re too much,” giggled Blaire, blushing at the compliment. She helped herself to a small portion of the pot pie and made to move towards the dining room table. 

“Hey!” burst out Brent. “Are you trying to insult me? That’s all you’re getting?” 

“I mean…I don’t wanna overindulge,” said Blaire meekly, looking up into her husband’s face. 

“Overindulgence is the point of these meals!” laughed Brent, blinking his eyes slowly as he shook his head down at his wife. “Come on, get some more! What are you afraid of?”

“Getting fat,” said Blaire quietly. But she walked back and heaped another portion into her bowl. It was true — she was very hungry, and it had been quite a long week. She smiled up at Brent as his face creased down at her in a returning grin. What the hell — she’d eat as much as she wanted tonight. He made her feel safe. So what if she gained a pound or two.

“Please…getting fat,” said Brent sarcastically as he helped himself to a large portion. “That…uh…that would be…haha, uh, pretty tough to accomplish for you I think.” 

Brent always got a little nervous whenever body size was brought up between him and Blaire. She was very pretty…radiant, even…but for years, Brent had secretly harbored a desire that she would somehow get bigger and curvier…much more so…to the extent where she would be enormous compared to him. He was very attracted to this idea, this fantasy, but he had never spoken about it, because he knew that it would make Blaire self-conscious. She was already insecure about her small, frail body, since, as a child, it had been hammered into her head to be preoccupied with staying thin. It was a weird kind of contrasting, competing conflict in her head. On the one hand, she wished that she had more curves and thickness, and on the other, she was terrified of going overboard and getting fat and bloated. Brent felt for her predicament, and so he was more than willing to let his own private fantasies lie dormant. What was really important was making sure that Blaire knew that he loved her no matter what her body was like. 

“Well, if I do get fat, then I know exactly who to blame,” teased Blaire, sitting down in the dining room. Brent joined her, and a minute later they were knee-deep in a conversation about how their respective weeks had gone. 

“So that’s why you were up in the lab so late last night?” asked Brent as he chewed. 

“Yeah, there’s no way I could’ve slept before looking at that new data from Kidd Mine,” said Blaire. “It’s too bad that we depend on these corporations to get us their data, but that’s the world we live in, I’m afraid. Anyway, you wouldn’t believe the extremophiles that they discovered last week. These guys live 7900 feet below the Earth’s crust.” 

“Jesus, how do they even survive so far down?” asked Brent. He was a geneticist, so this was all way out of his field, but he always loved hearing about his wife’s research. Brent knew that he was a curious, competent, solid scientist himself, but he was more than aware that his wife was a few steps above, a veritable rising star in the biochemistry field. He had never before met anyone who made him feel like he had to catch up during scientific conversations, but with Blaire, there was no doubt that he was constantly playing catch-up. And he loved it. She was so smart and driven that it was hot. But perhaps the most alluring aspect of Blaire’s intelligence was that she seemed totally unaware of how smart she actually was…or if she was aware, she didn’t really care. Her mind was teeming with potential solutions to unsolved problems, and she couldn’t be bothered with trifles, like comparing her intelligence to others’. 

“That’s the thing!” said Blaire excitedly, putting her fork down. “These microorganisms don’t need oxygen to survive.”

“What, then they’re not carbon-based?” asked Brent. 

“No, no, they’re microorganisms,” said Blaire, waving her hand dismissively. “They’re bacteria — they have nuclei and cytoplasms and mitochondria and all the rest. Totally all carbon-based. But it’s their anaerobic processing that is so fascinating. Get this: they basically breathe sulphur.”

“Sulphur?!” exclaimed Brent with interest, finishing up his helping of pot pie. “Seriously?”

“Yep,” said Blaire with an excited grin on her face. “No oxygen needed for their normal cellular function. And think of it…almost 8,000 feet down. We’re only just beginning to understand how these bacteria function.”

“Haha wow,” said Brent. He saw that Blaire was about to take another breath and keep explaining, but he cut in, gesturing to her bowl. “I wanna keep listening to what you’re saying, but I also want you to eat your food before it gets cold.”

“Haha oh yeah, of course,” said Blaire, and she shoveled several big spoonfulls into her mouth. Brent watched her eat like this, and he felt a guilty twinge in his pants as his cock got a little hard. He knew he shouldn’t entertain his fantasies too often, especially not when he was literally sitting right next to her. But the way she had just wolfed down her portion, and the way that her cheeks were bulging now as she chewed…it just turned him on. 

“Anyway,” said Blaire, “And mmmmm, my god, this is deee-licious — last night I was looking into the specific anaerobic respiration mechanisms that make these bacteria so fascinating. They utilize sulfate as their terminal electron acceptor, and then reduce it to hydrogen sulfide. But we already knew that — I found that out a couple weeks ago and wrote it up in a lab report.”

“The one that’s gonna get published in a couple months in the FEBS Journal?” asked Brent, beaming with pride at his wife.

“Yeah, that one,” she said, spooning the last bit of pot pie into her working cheeks. She took a few seconds of silence as she swallowed. “But last night I was trying to study how they oxidize inorganic sulfur compounds. Like dithionite, thiosulfate, tetrathionate, you know, on and on. It’s absolutely fascinating.” 

“Well I just…yeah, I can’t pretend to know everything you’re talking about, but I’m just…I love you so much,” said Brent warmly. 

“Awww, I love you too!” said Blaire, reaching across the table and squeezing his hand as hard as she could with her own small palm and fingers. 

“Even if I don’t get published in the best journals twice every month?” teased Brent. 

“Oh stop it — you’re getting your first publication next month, right?” laughed Blaire. 

“Yes, the first one,” said Brent. “And you’re on…how many publications are on your CV now?”

“Uh…haha I don’t know,” giggled Blaire self-consciously. “I don’t know? 8? 10? Who knows…who cares.” 

“Well anyway, how about your classes this week?” asked Brent, standing up from the table and clearing their plates. 

“Oh godddd,” said Blaire, rolling her eyes. “That’s a whole other deal right there.”

“That bad, huh?” came Brent’s voice as he put the dishes in the sink. 

“I just feel like they don’t really respect me,” said Blaire in frustration. “Like they’re all just sitting there, playing on their phones under their books, listening to me drone on.”

“I’m sure you don’t drone, honey.” 

“Well it feels like I do sometimes…and oh god, don’t even get me started on…you know…”

“That girl still giving you trouble?” asked Brent, turning around concernedly from the kitchen. “What was her name?”

“Sharon,” said Blaire, shaking her head as she turned in the dining room chair to face her husband. Her feet were dangling a little off the chair. “And yes. Twice this week she made it a point to come up to me after class to ask about a grade she had received on her labs. And I know…I just know…that she’s doing it to try and intimidate me. She’s like, over 6 feet tall…probably like 6’2 or something, and she makes it a point to stand close to me as she complains about her grade. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do — I can’t give a lab report that doesn’t have an adequate methods section more than a B minus, and that’s being generous.” 

“Well, maybe you can report her for intimidation?” offered Brent. 

“No, no, that won’t work — I can’t really quantify any obvious, deliberate intimidation technique,” said Blaire helplessly. “I know I shouldn’t let it bother me, but I just know that she’s trying to just…to just remind me how small I am.” 

Blaire sighed out in frustration and looked up at the ceiling as her legs swung from the chair. “God, sometimes I just really, reeeallly wish that I was bigger.” 

“Aww honey, you’re perfect just the way you are,” said Brent, walking over behind her and embracing her in an ell-encompassing bear hug. She pouted softly in his embrace. Blaire didn’t get a lot of time to air out her insecurities, and it wasn’t really in her nature to do so very often. But she and Brent had been friends since they were children, and their relationship had blossomed into such a deep and wholesome mutual love that they were both able to let their guards down around each other and seek reassurance. 

“You don’t think I’m too small?” she said in a small voice, looking straight forward as he hugged her from behind. 

“No, baby,” he said, ignoring the real truth deep down inside. 

“Not too mousy?” she kept on. 

“Not at all,” he said into her ear. He turned her around, squeezed her shoulders, and smiled brightly down at her. “I love you, Blaire. And this — ” and he gestured to her whole body, “ — is you.” 

Blaire blushed and closed her eyes, embracing her husband full-on. And the rest of the night passed by in familiar, cozy fashion.

 

Chapter End Notes:

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