Spaghettification

[swahilimonkfish]

5 hours ago, >_< 0_0 said:

She just gained nearly 400 pounds in one chapter! Absolute madness! Just how big is she going to get?

Yeah, I wanted that "shit just got real" feeling. For a race against time against the apocalypse, the story felt a little laid-back. Hopefully I've ramped up the consequences and stakes now. She's now 400lbs heavier and Grendel is nigh

[swahilimonkfish]

A lot going on in this chapter, I just hope it doesn't get too confusing.

Chapter 12

 

Strauss’ Thus Spake Zarathustra horned around my bedroom, as it filled with light, waking me up from a nightmare that I could vaguely remember. Those banging drums echoed around the room before I could really register what was happening. It as bellowing and crass and not what I wanted to wake up to.

“Hey Google, shut the fuck up!”

The music kept playing, blaring louder and higher in pitch as it reached that famed crescendo.

“Hey Google, stop”

And at last silence.

“Hey Google, what date is it?”

“May 23rd” the electronic voice informed me, like it was no big deal. But it was a big deal. It was a massive deal. I had to save the world, and I had jumped three weeks into the future. Grendel was a fortnight away and I had to save the world.

All 529lbs of me.

“Hey Google, restart alarm in 15 minutes”

I needed 15 minutes to collect my thoughts.

 

I pulled myself up out of my duvet, grunting and groaning as I did. I felt my joints groan in disapproval as I did so, clinking and clanking uncomfortably under the strain that my newfound mass had inflicted upon them. Well, I say newfound mass, but it wasn’t newfound to me. It had been years in the making. Years and years in the making. God knows how many years in the making, how many years I had spent trapped there in a Groundhog day of gluttony. I sat and paused, feeling the strange sensation of waking up in a bed that didn’t have a chandelier for a light fitting. I had been sucked into a nightmare for so long, lost in an oblivion of over-indulgence, and now I was confronted with the inevitable rude awakening.

I was big. I could see myself in my mirror and the reflection staring back was big. There was a weird distorted disconnect between this reality and the one I had been trapped in, as if I was waking up for a bad dream only to realise I hadn’t been dreaming. This was me. All of it. Puddles of me, spilling everywhere. It was the little things that really felt prominent, such as the way that the arms by my side actually rested outwards, pushed there by my widthways expanse. It was the warmth of my lap as all those ribbons of fat from my stomach tumbled down with fleshy insulation. I was someone else. I wasn’t Gwen any more. Gwen had died. Gwen died in a tsunami that hadn’t yet happened, and I was all that was left of her remains. I started to cry.

The alarm kicked in and brought me out of my whirlpool of self-pity. I may have been in an alien body, trapped within acres of fat, but I was still humanity’s best chance and I now knew how to save the day. I knew who Charon was, I knew I needed to talk to them, and I knew how. And so I got up.

Or, at least, I tried. But, fuck me, it was not as easy as I expected. As I pushed myself up into the standing position, I felt every ache of every joint. I felt the unease of imbalance as I tottered around to make sure that I didn’t fall. I exhaled heavily just from the exertion of getting to a standing position. It was disorienting, and utterly terrifying. But I had bigger things to deal with than even me. I had a world to save.

I walked fairly gingerly towards my closet and put on clothes that fit me. They weren’t clothes in the sense that I was used to, they were just a landscape of cloth with holes for my head, arms and legs. And despite its voluminous excess of material, it still toiled against the bulging copious quantity of flesh that I now consisted of. The denim of the jeans squeezing every part of my lower half, the white, buttoned top grossly illuminating every bubbling mound of flesh on my upper half. I was beginning to resemble the crumpled billows of spacetime. I was so incredibly fat now, and the clothes were conspiring against me to emphasise that fact.

 

The walk to the elevator was a trial. I felt my hips sway, wobble and bounce with each step. I felt my breath get louder and more frequent just from the short trip to the lift. Once I got in, I collected my breath with deep inhales and exhales, whilst wryly noting the upper limit of the elevator being 4000lbs meant that it could only carry seven of me. Wow, that was a daunting thought to have rattling around in your brain when you’re supposed to be focusing on saving the day.

The walk to my chauffeured car was no less fraught either. It was still very early but some people were up and the looks on their faces were brutal, with loathing, disgust, or just plain pity. Pitying the fact that I was starting to get warm from all that walking, or pitying the fact that I had to take each step down to the car one at a time because that was all I could manage. But pitying either way. And the looks probably didn’t let up when I tried to get into the back seat of the car, squeezing behind the driver’s seat with my enormity pushing up against it. I even felt the back of the car seat lower as I sat, like the suspension was straining. I felt so embarrassed. But I had to concentrate on the important matter of saving the day.

“Ma’am, apologies for being blunt but you’ve appear to have put on some weight of late” the chauffeur asked politely and without any malice.

“Yeah, you can say that again. You’re not going to believe how it happened” I replied, smirking but without pride.

“It wasn’t one of them time-loop things from the news, was it? My sister’s boyfriend was caught in one. Terrible business it was” the chatty chauffeur confided.

“Wait, they’re public knowledge?” I replied, shocked.

“Yeah, it was you that told us about them. Only, you were a bit thinner back then” he elaborated. Of course I had, I remembered now. I remembered admitting to the world press that one of the symptoms of Grendel’s proximity was the time loops. It was all coming back to me. Oh, it was so hard storing so much in my brain. Memories of being trapped in a feeding frenzy and memories of the things I did in the meantime, all stored in my poor aching brain. Memories of things from the future that hadn’t happened yet. Memories of things from the past that hadn’t happened at all. I even had memories of things that didn’t involve me at all. Memories that didn’t make sense at all, of Chinese food and of… other stuff.

Suddenly, the car threw me across the back seat as the driver swerved. I heard yelling and shouting coming from outside the vehicle, and a thunk as something hit the back of it.

“Apologies, ma’am. Fucking protesters, we’ll have to take a detour” the kindly chauffeur explained as the raucous riots outside the vehicle got louder. Heavier and heavier projectiles were hurled at the vehicle, banging and denting the car’s body. I shuddered in fear each time.

The chauffeur put his foot down and accelerated away from them, but there were more on the following corner. All hell was breaking loose. It had been for a while. As the apocalypse drew nearer, the people got more restless and they took it out on those that they perceived as doing too little to prevent it. The wealthy, the privileged, the chauffeured. I remember now. These riots had been a long time coming.

Suddenly, I ducked as I heard the deafening eruption of gunfire. A staccato burst of fire piercing my ear drums with its loud volume. It was the first time I’d ever heard gunfire. But not the last. I was going to hear it again. Earlier.

The gunfire came from the Australian Government’s military patrol and it was aimed at the rioters, as the two forces clashed in the streets of Sydney. Peering from the window, I saw angry human faces and bodies turn into corpses as bullets ripped into them. Some of the protesters ran, some of them tearfully tended the poor people who had fallen, and others attacked the military officers in anger. It was a warzone, and it was happening on the other side of the car window. And all I could do was watch as people were widowed and orphaned by the sheer destructive force of munitions tearing through the fleshbag that is a human body.

Our car roared away in the melee but I felt chilled and cold in the back seat, the echoing sound of gunfire reverberating in my mind. The sense of fear and panic in the protesters, the uniformed anonymity of the military force laying waste to them. If it wasn’t for the fact that the world was currently ending anyway, I don’t think I would have ever recovered from it. But, it was ending and I had to refocus. Besides, it soon won’t have happened anyway. I had to keep telling myself. It soon will never have happened.

 

Finally, we arrived at the building and I hurried as fast as my ballooned frame could muster towards the door. I rushed through the entrance protocol as the guards stood with their fingers on the triggers guarding the entrance. And, eventually, breathlessly, heart-poundingly, I made my way into the foyer where there was a sudden rush of serenity. The whole place seemed cocooned from the madness on the streets outside, madness that was getting closer and closer. I, again, waddled hurriedly to the elevator, shaken, panicked and out of breath. I, again, noticed the 4000lb limit. I again exhaled heavily once the doors shut beside me. But, this time, I closed my eyes and sobbed as it began its ascent to the correct floor.

Once I got to the floor, I slowly walked down the warren of corridors to the lab. My steps were a slow trudge this time as I digested the sights and sounds of civilians being mown down by gunfire. By the Government, against its own people. No, I had to concentrate. I could fix this. I could fix everything. I got to the laboratory, and paused to wince before entering. I was exhausted from being on my feet this long, exhausted from seeing what I had seen, exhausted from the jetlag of jumping back in time. Just exhausted.

I stepped in.

 

“Bloody hell Gwen, you alright? You look… massive?” Clefty exclaimed, rushing towards me in worry as I squeezed through the doorframe.

“Yeah, fine” I said, coldly. Quietly. Feeling every bit as deflated as I was inflated.

“What happened? A time-hiccup? Where, when and how long were you trapped? Oh, you poor thing” Clefty’s despairingly sympathetic face did little for my flaked self-confidence. She meant so well, so kindly, but it all sounded so patronising. As if I was some sort of freak. Was that what I was?

“I was trapped. With Kyle. For years. About three weeks ago.” I said, burying my emotions under all the additional layers I had accrued. It can’t have been well disguised though because Clefty launched into a massive hug. “Sorry Clefty, can I sit down? I feel like a pregnant woman and my feet ache.”

“Oh bloody hell, sorry Gwen. For fuck sake, of course. I tell you what, I’ll see if I can find you a non-mechanical seat for you. I don’t think this office chair will fare very well” Clefty said, darting around and grabbing a pair of stools. One for each arsecheek apparently. What a fucking freak I was. I sat down and exhaled in relief.

“Anyway, I need you to do something for me Gwen. I need you to change the algorithm and starmap to stop looking back for the source.” I said, gathering my breath and my concentration.

“Hang on, what?” Clefty exclaimed in shock.

“We need to look for future ripples in spacetime now, not past ones. And we need to do it ASAP.” I said, firmly. Still cloistering my emotions.

“Why? What’s your plan, Gwen?” Clefty said, nervously.

“I need to speak to someone. I need to speak to Charon.”

 

I can’t remember how I worked it out in the first place, but it dawned on me at a funeral. I was at a funeral and I realised who she was. And then a tsunami hit and I lurched back in time, weeks and weeks back in time, and I forgot all about it. I just had CHAR written on my arm as a reminder. But I remember now. I remember who it was.

It had been the only other thing in the news. The forthcoming release of the strangest serial killer in modern history. She was the woman we were asked about in the press conference at the airport all those weeks ago. She had been the woman Devon had been joking about shagging when I first joined the lab. They called her the green-eyed monster. A beautiful, stunning woman with glistening emerald eyes and hair as black as the arse of Satan. I don’t know how I knew, I just knew that I did. I just remembered somehow realising that she was the key to all this. I had to speak to her. I had to speak to her, but she was dead.

Her forthcoming release was in the news up until her suicide was. She had left a trail of destruction behind, wherever she had gone. Interviews suggested that she considered herself too dangerous for the outside world. The suicide note implied she was doing the world a favour. Well, she owed the world a favour, since she was the cause of all this.

“But, if she’s dead, how are you going to talk to her…. Oh shit, you cunning wanker. You’re going to try to jump back in time aren’t you? Is that even possible?” Clefty smiled at the revelation. And she was right. I was going to jump back in time. As far back in time as I could go. Before she was even arrested. I needed to get to her before she was imprisoned, because I needed to ask her some questions. I needed to get some answers. Because I know the date that Starmap and the running mathematical equations were going to find if we left them running. I know, I remember them finding it the first time around.

“Yes, so I need to do some research. And you need to get me that data. I need all the large oscillations that you have from the past, and the next large one for in the future. I need to have a word with Kyle, because I’m going to need a private jet. And I need to have a word with Chipo and my dad. I need to say goodbye to them. I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again” I said, firmly, calmly.

“Oh, and Clefty. Thanks. For everything. I’m going to miss you”

 

Chipo was sitting eating breakfast with her parents when the phone rang. Her world was an idyll in a raging ocean of national malcontent. Shut away from the riots and violence on the streets outside, Chipo was safely shrouded in her own little oasis. She had her parents by her side and little else mattered. That the world was going to end didn’t really mean much because she got to see her parents before he died. That was what mattered. For the woman who had achieved so much in her life, breakfast with her parents was the last thing on the bucket list.

“Hello? This is Doctor Chipo speaking?” she answered, unused to the sound of her old mobile chirruping.

“Hi Chips, it’s me, Gwen” I said, breathlessly relieved to hear the voice of Chipo after so long trapped in a hellhole with President Kyle Malcolm.

“Gwen! Oh I am so happy to hear your voice again!” she said, and her easy warmth was nectar to me. I missed her calmly optimistic spirit. Her cautious relentlessness. Her friendship. I missed her friendship the most.

“Oh me too, Chips. Me too. Oh, I’ve missed you Chips, I’ve missed you so much” I unburdened myself and just let all my emotions pour out. I had been trapped with a sadist for years, I had quadrupled in size, I had just seen civilians murdered right outside the car I was in. And I was about to attempt the recklessly impossible.

“So, have you got good news or is this bad news?” Chips asked, her voice subtly slipping into a more professional tone. As much as she tried to run from it, as much as she tried to deny it, she was invested. She was a scientist and a humanist and she didn’t want the world to end.

“Good news, I think. I mean, hopefully. I’ve… I know who Charon is. But I’m going to have to use one of these time-hiccups and hope it throws me back in time so I can meet them. And I need to do it before a tsunami hits a funeral, I think. Or something.” I said, and I heard how mad it all sounded as I put the thoughts into word form. I was crazy, or at least I sounded it. I had gone through so much and maybe I was just unravelling. Maybe this is what losing the plot felt like.

“But, can you do that? I mean, we have no understanding how it works. You might be thrown forwards, into the future? Are you sure this is safe?” Chipo asked. And it was a fair question. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t safe at all. But we had reached last chance saloon. The world was falling apart, a glance outside the office window revealed that much. And this was before the storms came, as the gravitational force of Grendel began wreaking havoc on our fragile ecosystem. And then death would come for us all. So, no, it wasn’t safe. But neither was doing nothing.

“I have to Chips. You understand, I know you do. You taken on the odds before, taken a leap into the unknown and defied everything anyone has ever said to you. It’s my turn.” I said, and my voice was still cracked with emotion. I wanted to be Chipo, I always had. I was jealous of her brilliance. As a student, I envied her magnificence. Her achievements. Her celebrity. Her triumphs. But she never deserved envy, only respect. And I had such respect for her too. And I was doing this out of the latter, not the former.

“I just want to say how much you mean to me, before I do this Chips” I said, and I could feel the tears getting trapped in my eyelashes.

“Don’t make it sound so final Gwen. This isn’t going to be the end. I have faith in you, I always did.” Chipo said, with maternal care. Chipo was my best friend, but she was also the mother figure I had been deprived of for so long over the course of my life. Her consoling eased me on a primal level.

“It is, I think. Whatever happens, this is the end for us. And I need to tell you that you are my hero and my best friend and I can’t imagine my life without you wisdom and kindness by my side. I’ll never forget you Chips. You forget so much when you jump back in time, but I’ll never forget you” I said passionately, tearily. And then I hung up, in too much pain to hear her return the favour.

And now I just needed to get hold of my dad, as soon as he answered the bloody phone.

 

“Fucking hell, what the fuck happened to you Gwen. Is it whale season already?” Devon bellowed to announce his arrival into the room. I really didn’t have time for his shit. Clefty and I were hard at work, trying to gather all the opportunities to time-jump. And my dad wasn’t answering his phone.

“Fuck off Devon, I’ve cracked it. I’ve cracked Grendel. I just need an hour or two, and then I’m about to literally save the world. So just shut the fuck off for a couple of glorious hours would you, you antipodean bellend” I snapped. I really wasn’t in the mood. And I was still red-raw sensitive about my weight, about Chipo, about witnessing a massacre outside.

“Seriously though Gwen, you’re… bloody massive. Girl, what the fuck? You look fucking ridiculous mate” he jibed, taken aback by my colossal growth.

“Just. Fuck. Off.” I yelled, aiming for fury but sounding more like vulnerability. He came over to me to inspect with idle amusement. The ignorant twat.

“What’s wrong, missed breakfast have we?” he said, with a grin. I sat, stony still as he walked up to me. Clefty, by my side, was silent too.

“Please Devon, just give it a rest” I pleaded.

“No, I need to know what happened. You were always… bigger than the ideal woman, but this is something else. This is just freakish.” His words arrowed into my soft, unguarded flesh and drew blood. Every snide remark hurt. I was ruined and I didn’t need reminding of the fact.

“Pleas Devon… just, just go away” I again pleaded as he encroached further. I felt naked against his comments.

“Not until you answer the question...” He continued, not even blinking. It was all just a joke to him, but this was my body. This was who I was. I am not a punchline. I am not a punchline.

Then an eruption of deafening sound rattled across the room. I knew the sound. I had heard it before. It was the sound of gunfire.

Before I could gather my bearings, I could hear Clefty scream wildly. I looked at her and could see why. She was covered in blood, and other material. Was she shot? God, she was wailing so loudly, I couldn’t think straight. Was it her blood? Was it mine? I looked down at myself and I was also covered in blood and matter, but it wasn’t mine either. I then turned back to Devon and I saw his body lying limp on the floor, and his head ruptured.

And behind where he stood was President Kyle Malcolm pointing a sidearm.

 

I panicked and manically started wiping off all the blood and brain matter that was on my head, in my hair, sprawled across my chest. It felt like an abomination, to be coated in the insides of someone else’s head. Frenziedly, I scraped and rubbed to get as much of it off me as I could. And Kyle walked towards me. The room got cold. His bodyguards dragged the corpse away.

“My, you magnificent woman. Look at you. Look at what you’ve done to yourself” he said, relentlessly smirking.

“You… you just killed him. You shot him” I stammered.

“I was defending you. You’re too precious to be abused like that. A woman like you. It was the time loops, wasn’t it? That’s how you’ve grown. Oh, you magnificent whore, I’m going to fuck you and feed you until you are so much bigger” he smiled now, but it didn’t look right on his face.

“Please… I need to work. I have got lots of work to do. I think I’ve cracked it” I eked the words out, but he wasn’t listening. He wasn’t thinking. He was just yearning.

“I haven’t seen a woman grow like this for a long time. You’re special, Gwen” he said, and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Leave her alone, you cunt” Clefty hissed, by my side. Defending me. Recklessly. Fortunately his bodyguards pulled her out the room before Kyle lost his temper with her. And now it was just me and him.

“I really do need to stop Grendel Kyle. And I can. I know how” I tried to engage with him, but he didn’t seem to care.

“But if Grendel goes, and the time hiccups go, you won’t be able to grow as fast” he said, with saturnine devilishness. And he meant it, I could see it in his leer. He didn’t care about the apocalypse. He just wanted me to grow at the same inordinate rate. He wanted me to get fatter for him. Wait… get fat for him? That sounded familiar, somehow.

“You killed him quickly Kyle, but you don’t get to kill me slowly” I said to him, looking him fiercely in his eyes. I was remembering things. Remembering things that hadn’t even happened to me. Trapped, dancing along a timeline in the same room, and I had begun to remember other things that had happened in that room. Kyle’s face went pale.

“What did you say?” he spluttered, losing his patented composure.

“It won’t work on me. I’m not addicted to you Kyle. I’m not addicted to you” I said, and continued to meet his gaze.

“How do you know about that? About her?” he said as his eyes widened.

“Never you mind. But, Kyle, I need to do something for me. I need a private jet, I need a shit-tonne of food, and I need my dad to answer his fucking phone” I insisted, and I found confidence from somewhere. Honestly, I had just ran out of fucks. They were depleted. I had none more to give. I had a world to save and a dad to say goodbye to before I did, and his libido meant nothing to me.

“Y...ye...yes, yes. Of course. I’ll sort that out for you” he said, his skin turning pale with horror and his eyes wide with fear. I knew his darkest secret, and I wasn’t going to let him fatten me up like he fattened her up.

And while I waited for Kyle to sort those things out for me, I looked on my arm where CHAR was written, and I filled in the rest of the name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHARNWOOD

 

 

I needed to go back in time and speak to Green Eyed Monster. I needed to speak to the most bizarre serial killer of modern times. I needed to speak to Minnie Charnwood.

 

[dania201]

This is great!! Hopefully that jet can lift off!

[swahilimonkfish]

10 hours ago, dania201 said:

This is great!! Hopefully that jet can lift off!

Hahaha! That would be hilarious!

[swahilimonkfish]

Apologies for the last chapter seeming so rushed. I've tidied it up a little on my DA page, but it's still a bit messy. Can't edit chapters on here so if you want to read the smartened up version, head over to the DA page in my signature. But, tbh, it might not be worth it, it doesn't add anything. Just labours over some of the story points that I rushed over

[swahilimonkfish]

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

“And we go over to our reporter, James Tanner, who is outside the courts now. James, what is the feeling down there at the guilty verdict”

“Thank you Mike, and yes, down here, the verdict has shocked some and cheered others. Minnie Charnwood, aka The Green Eyed Monster, is very much a divisive character. A lot of people see her as a victim, others as a serial killer. Some say that it’s her enchanting looks that make people more forgiving of her crimes, and others say that it is her gender that makes her more fiercely reviled.”

“And was it a surprise? Or was this what the people who watched from the viewing gallery expected?”

“It was always a likelihood. Remember, she did confess to the murder Shania Kroeger and Hamish McDonald, though she claimed the latter was in self-defence and the former was the result of temporary insanity. She vociferously denied the kidnapping charges. The suggestion that she kidnapped Ramona Castleton resulted in a fiery tirade that caused the judge to demand order, as she protested that they were lovers running away together. But the real controversy was always over the death of the young American woman Rutherford Stones…

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

I rested her weary self back on her stools. Each pillow-like arsecheek sat atop each stool, and spewed around it like lava from a volcano. My gigantic breasts thrust forward to a degree that made typing inconvenient. And my centrepiece, my stomach, just sat on my broad thighs heavily. Everything was more difficult at this size. Walking, sitting, standing, typing, even breathing was an increased challenge on this poor Welsh girl. But I was focused and committed at this point. All these aches and pains were just background noise to me. I had research to do. I needed to learn about this Minnie Charnwood character, and work out what that has to do with a supermassive blackhole on our doorstep. At least until my dad returned my calls.

All the news reports were preoccupied with her beauty. The silky sheen of her obsidian black hair and the witchy glow of her famed green eyes, her angular features with that malevolent glint and that slim and muscular body of hers. They were interested less in her crimes and more in her. This girl with an otherworldly air. The way she could oscillate between sympathetic and diabolical in an instance. That broad Northern accent of hers on such a lithe frame.

Of the crimes that warranted coverage, the one that hogged the attention was of an American student called Rutherford Stones. She was studying back home in Brighton University, my university, when they met. And the rumours about their relationship often teetered on mythology, but there was always the insistence that their relationship was consensual and loving. As she fed the poor American to death. As a girl who had been on the receiving end of President Kyle Malcolm, I could relate.

Related to the crime was another American girl who knew Rutherford back from Georgia state. Her name was Shania Kroeger, or Shay, and she apparently came over to Britain to be a third wheel in this weird sexual feederist relationship. And that Minnie killed her in cold blood out of jealousy. This all happened back in Rutherford’s home state of Georgia, apparently. From what I could gather, they left Brighton during their second year at university and returned to the States.

There was less coverage about the other two that had found themselves in the claws of the green-eyed monster. Hamish McDonald and Ramona Castleton were living in a remote Scottish island. Hamish was apparently killed in self-defence and then Minnie Charnwood claims her and Ramona ran off together to evade capture, until the police arrested them in Glasgow. On September 23^rd 2024. I needed to travel back earlier than that.

To do that, Clefty had given me heaps of the data that Starmap had worked through. It told me where there had been large fluctuations over the past 13 years. I would presumably need a number of them, and a large appetite, to time-loop all the way back to before she was arrested. But if I could do that, I could ask her the all important question. What happened between October 2018 and October 2020? Because that was when it all started. And somehow she was involved.

 

I tried my dad again. He should know better than not to answer his phone. What with the end of the world and whatnot. Maybe the satellites were suffering, there had been the odd report of tempestuous weather as Grendel started to affect the planet’s climate. But either way, I wasn’t jumping back in time without speaking to him first. I loved him, and I wanted to make sure he knew it before I risked everything.

In the meantime, I took the opportunity to do further prep time. I took note of lottery numbers. Oh how very time-travel movie of me. But I always liked that sort of thing. Doctor Who, Back to the Future, that old Avengers movie (Endgame? Something like that? I watched it at the cinema as an undergrad. It was great at the time, but it’s not aged well). But my favourite were The Terminator films. I was going to be like Schwarzenegger. I’d say ‘I want your boots, your clothes and your motorcycle’. Only I don’t think I’d find anyone my size.

I tried my dad again. Oh come on! Pick up the fucking phone, you old bastard! I haven’t got time for this. Almost literally.

That was when Kyle came back in to the room. I was ready for his perversions and his power this time. I could handle him. He wasn’t all that intimidating when he wasn’t in control. He looked like a scared little boy when he came into the room, too. His face was ghostly pale. And not just in a devilishly handsome kinda way. Actually, something was wrong. He didn’t look right. He looked… sad?

“I’ve just had a phone call from… from a political friend from Britain. A police commissioner I know from my university days. Anyway, he um… he rang and… I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you Gwen” Kyle said, barely meeting my gaze. I’d never seen him like this before. And I’ve been caught in a time-loop for years with this man.

“What is it?” I asked, worried. And then I realised. My dad hadn’t been picking up the phone, had he?

“It’s your dad, Gwen” he said. Oh god, of course it was. He would never not answer the phone unless something was wrong. Something was clearly wrong.

“What is it, Kyle? Tell me!” I say, my eyes welling up at the prospect of the bad news.

“There was an incident at his farm...”

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

 

2 days ago

 

Owain Hughes sighed as he pulled himself up off the sofa. He’d only just gotten the chance to put his feet up after another long day slogging away. The carnage of panic from people, fearing Grendel’s impending guzzling up of humankind, had caused demand to go up at his place. He was working around the clock while everybody else was in a state of disarray. But he had his faith, did Owain. Faith in God, and faith in his daughter. If God wouldn’t stop it, then his Gwenny would. She was unstoppable like that.

He walked towards his front door with a heavy sigh. It was after 6pm and people shouldn’t have been knocking at this hour.

“Dave Proctor, you can’t keep calling at this hour. You wife will start to think we’re having an affair” he bellowed as he traipsed to the door, laughing as her did. But it wasn’t Dave Proctor at the door. It was some people from the church.

“Gethin. Eve. What can I do you for? I’ve got a lamb pie in the oven if you’re interested” Owain said, politely inviting them in.

“Actually, that’s what we wanted to talk to you about” Eve said with an unemotive face.

“Well, come inside and get out the cold either way! I’m not being funny but you’ll catch your death out there” Owain said, waving them into his house.

“We don’t want to die” Gethin added, cryptically.

“Well, neither do I. So come inside where you at least won’t catch a cold.” Owain continued. But he was sensing something was off. They seemed more distant than they normally did. Less warm.

“We think Grendel is God’s way of punishing us.” Gethin continued, as he pulled back his long raincoat to reveal a shotgun. “We eat all that manufactured food. Grown food. It’s not natural. Not as He intended.”

“Well, I agree with you there actually. But I’m not sure why that warrants that big old gun you’ve got there, eh Gethin lad.” Owain stepped back gently with his hands between him and the weapon.

“Well, we need your animals Owain, that is all. We don’t want a ruckus. Just we need you to feed the local people. There are people filling themselves with all that unnatural food, not God-made but machine-made, and all of a sudden the End of days is here. Is that a coincidence? I don’t think so. He is punishing us. Punishing us for drifting from the path. The path of righteousness.” Eve continued, her eyes staring. “So, we thought we would give you this gun to protect yourself Owain. Because you’re more important than ever Owain. And we worry about you, out here when there are all those riots going on”

“Oh, thanks. I’m not going to lie, I wish you’d lead with that last bit. You were getting me a bit worried. That’s very kind of you. Now, that pie then?”

And the couple from the church came inside. They handed Owain the shotgun as their gift, for his protection, and then walked into the warm kitchen.

“Oh, that smells like a cracking pie, that Owain. It’s very generous of you to share it. In these times, we have to be a community. We have to be here for each other. We want to be here for you, and we’re grateful that you’re here for us… Owain?” Eve said, before noticing that Owain hadn’t followed them into the room. Gethin walked into the hall, and saw Owain leaning against the wall and going pale fast. His breath seemed stifled. And then he passed out.

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

“It was a heart attack, Gwen, I’m afraid. Nothing that could be done. No foul play, nothing sinister. Just a heart attack. I’m sorry Gwen, I really am” Kyle said, tenderly.

“Thanks Kyle”

“He works in mysterious ways, doesn’t he?” Kyle saided, somberly.

“Yeah, I guess he does.”

 

I sat there, stunned to silence. My brain felt like it was travelling at the speed of light, but externally, I was stony still. I just couldn’t comprehend it. I kept bashing my head against the stupidity of it all. The futility of it all. All this. Finally reconnecting with him after all these years, only to have him taken away. A man who’d worked all his life, choosing now to have a heart attack. It wasn’t fucking fair. It just wasn’t fair. I didn’t want him to be dead. I loved him. And I wanted to spend time with him. I wanted to save the world and then spend the rest of my life helping my dad on the farm.

Wait. Hang on a second. Maybe I still could.

I was jumping back in time. To before he died. Maybe I could still have my happy ending with him after all.

“Will there be a funeral?” I asked, weakly.

“Yes, and I’m letting you use my private jet to get over there in time. And, if you happen to gain some weight while you travel...”

“Really not the time, Kyle!” I hissed.

I needed to get to that funeral. My dad’s funeral. To respects, yes. But for other reasons too. Because I knew what was going to happen at that funeral. Because it was at this funeral that I realised who CHAR was. It was at this funeral that a super-tsunami appeared on the horizon. It was at this funeral that I jumped weeks back in time. And I needed to do it again. My dad wasn’t dead. Not permanently. Not if I had anything to do with it. I was going to use his funeral to jump back in time. And find out what Minnie Charnwood knows.

 

It was going to be a 16 hour flight in total. I had 16 hours on a round-the-world flight, to get to my dad’s funeral. The funeral where I jump back in time, again. But this time, I do it and I save the world. I had a 16 hour flight and I was going to need to eat as much as I possibly could on the way. Which could mean only one thing. I guess Kyle was going to take a flight to Britain with me.

 

Kyle hadn’t been the same since I’d misquoted the line “I’m not addicted to you” to him. Some of it felt like regular shell-shock. Which made sense. It was the ultimate skeleton in his closet, that he had fed a girl to death simply by requesting that she do so. But it wasn’t just that which unnerved him. Something else had dampened his power-walking vigour. His stride had shallowed out, his chest deflated. His eyes cracked a little around the edges.

I had taken the control away from him. He asked me to do something. To sacrifice the world and have food-based sex with him. He essentially asked me to get fat for him. And I said no. He didn’t have his sway over me. Previously, defying Kyle was a dangerous mistake. Chipo nearly lost the chance to reunite with her parents as a consequence. But Kyle seemed wounded this time. Humbled by it. But the offer to come aboard and be my personal feeder while we flew back to old Albion rejuvenated his soullessness a little. He agreed, and became the one taking orders for a change. Maybe it was him that was addicted to me.

The food on offer was more focused on being plentiful that varied and excited. Mass-produced food dishes were best, nothing too laborious for his personal chef. So that would be pasta dishes. 16 hours of pasta dishes. It would be authentic spaghetti carbonara with its oily fatty sauce. It would be penne all’arrabiatta with its warm but sweet sauce. It would be mac and cheese, with its gloopy cheesy decadence. It would also include spaghetti bolognaise, with its sweet tomato sauce and mince to provide some bulk. Talk about spaghettification – all these dishes would be sloppy, messy meals. And 16 hours of them might be the end of me. But time was the one luxury I didn’t have.

To get to the airport, we took his private helicopter from the helipad on the roof. It helped avoid the rush hour traffic but also the rush hour riots. The rush hour tear gas. The rush hour firing squads mowing down the rush hour civilians. I didn’t want to see it, Kyle didn’t want me to see it, and we flew instead to the airport ready for the long-haul flight. His chef and his team would meet us there.

We boarded hurriedly, or at least as hurriedly as a woman of my size could muster. Hurrying was no longer my forte, and the speedwalk to the plane itself was a marathon to me. Those final steps to get on the plane coerced my heart to thump in my chest. However, we were quickly on the plane and the chef was despatched to use the advanced kitchen equipment that this state-of-the-art plane provided, while I sat down across to seats to get myself comfortable.

“We’ll be up in the air in 5 Mr President, and will land at around 6am GMT” the pilot explained, before returning to the cockpit. This would be approximately three hours before the funeral was due to take place. And perhaps four hours before a super-tsunami wipes out most of Northern Europe. And four hours before I lurch back in time hoping to find the next time-loop so that I can jump back even further. Again and again until I clawed my timehopping arse all the way to before Minnie Charnwood’s arrest.

Kyle Malcolm then rolled up a trolley to me loaded with sweet goods, and that malevolent glint in his eye was returning. His dander was up, and other parts of him were up too. He had lofty aspirations of doing his worst to me. He had more experience of doing this than he knew, feeding me for years and years in a timeloop until I grew to love it. And boy did I grow. But this was different. This was business. He had to pull out all the stops. And I had to eat all the food. It was pretty much that simple. Starting with a white chocolate cake that looked to be diabetes-inducing in isolation.

This was going to be a long flight.

 

The cakes were easily dealt with. I had so much experience from my time with Kyle in the timeloop that such rampant indulgence was as easy as pie. As easy as the mud pie that I had just finished, in fact. I had, without realising it, been training for moments like this for years. Honing my aptitude and expanding my bodily limits. And here was where it got to pay dividends.

The carbonara came up first. It was delivered by the pan. It was not pasta for one person, it was pasta for one family. It sat in front of me and the smell of pancetta wafted through the air. This was the one dish that this binge would have in common with the one back at that private hotel with just me and him and all the time in the world. This carried the same aroma. Smoky and salty. And it tasted as nice as it smelt. The pan was finished and we were only an hour into the flight. And I hadn’t even worked up a sweat yet.

We were still over the Indian Ocean when I finished off the arrabiata. It was warmer than I would have liked, given the quantities involved, but the lack of meat made it less bloating and quicker to eat. The macaroni cheese came next and this bore similar traits to the carbonara. The same saltiness from the bacon, and the same gloopiness from the sauce. But this had a crispy top, it was a cheesier centre and a lighter feel. I was fairly hastily 3 pans down. I could do this all day.

And indeed I did. Kyle got more and more like his usual sado-masochistic self the more I ate. It was sweet to see his evil mojo be restored just before he would be wiped out by a tsunami. I was the best of both worlds, the gluttonous thrill of his sinister dementedness followed by his short-lived death and karmic comeuppance. But, in the meantime, I had to get through more pasta than you could believe possible. It slowly mutated into something ugly. Something resembling Chinese water torture. Just the cruel and painful bombardment of yet more carbohydrates. I reached my upper limit with ten hours of the flight still to go. But this wasn’t the time for holding back. This was a Hail Mary. It was all-or-nothing. Every morsel not consumed would be a regret that I would later have. I needed to prevent that. So I continued on.

Kyle wanted so badly to have sex with me as I chugged through round two of the spaghetti bolognaise. I could see him literally licking his lips (licking his lips, the fucking weirdo!) as he looked at me, covered in sauce and persevering through all of my pain thresholds. But other indulgences had to wait. This trip was all about one thing. I needed to have changed weight enough that when that tsunami hit, I travelled far back into my past. I kept reminding myself each time I contemplated giving up. I couldn’t give up. Not really. Not with the entirety of humankind on the line. Not with my dad on the line. No, I just had to continue eating. More and more and more. Until there was nothing left uneaten.

I wanted to cradle myself in pain and self-pity at this juncture, but I was taking a bullet for team Humanity. For team Dad. And this suffering was the price. Instead I waddled out of the plane in gross discomfort and made my way to the car waiting for me to take me to the funeral of my father. I guess this was my chance to say goodbye to him after all, not over the phone but not in person either. However, hopefully not for the last time. I was going to fix this for him. Even if it was the last thing I did. Which it might well turn out to be. This was for you, Dad. If you’re listening, this was for you.

It was only when I reached the cemetery that I realised an uncomfortable truth. My dad was dead. I was going to bring him back, you can damn well believe I was going to bring him back, but, at this precise moment in time, my dad was in a casket, dead. What were his last thoughts as the pain of his heartache pulsed through him. Was he scared? I couldn’t imagine my dad scared, he’d never been scared of anything in his life. But in his death? Oh dear god, I hope he wasn’t scared.

Maybe he thought of me. I hope I think of him when I die. And if he did, would it be with pride? I always wanted to make him proud. But, perhaps selfishly, I always wanted to do it on my own terms. I wanted him to be proud of me for doing the things that I wanted to do. Maybe I should have compromised more. Maybe next time I will. I will get a do-over. I will get one more chance with him. It can’t end like this, it just can’t. Fuck Grendel, this is about my dad. I will bend and contort the fucking universe to save him. Don’t believe me? Just you watch me. I will defy the laws of spacetime. I will fold the fabric of it like a fucking burrito wrap. Nothing will stop me from saving him. This is not goodbye. I had not made a 16 hour flat to say goodbye to the body that my father used to reside within. Fuck that. No, I was going to save him. Just you watch. Just you watch.

 

Eve came up to me, tears in her eyes. She was with him when he died. She just stood by and let it happen. She puts her hand on my shoulder and I just feel patronised. Some “there, there” bullshit wasn’t going to bring my father back. I was going to bring him back. That was how it was going to be. Fuck God. Pulling this shit. Moving in mysterious ways my arse. He was taking my dad from me, but I was going to bring him back. He thought that was just for his Son, but I was about to do it too.

And all I heard this Eve say was stuff about God’s plan. Have faith. Saccharine platitudes. Who wants to hear that when their dad has died? Who does that help? If your God is the one who’s behind this, then fuck your God. Okay? You don’t get to do this. Okay?

And how was this God’s plan anyway? Had fate brought me here? At 529lbs and in the cold blustery conditions of a mid-Wales cemetery in the morning. She says everything happens for a reason, and I should trust His plan. Which is the sort of thing my dad would say. “Have faith Gwenny, everything happens for a reason”. It sounded just as frustrating coming out of his mouth. Oh, I wish his words hadn’t annoyed me as much as they did. I wish I didn’t lash out at them. I wish I took the time to listen, really listen to them. Because they’re gone now, and all I’m left with is half-listened to memories. Fading memories, built in sand.

He would say “I’m not being for anything Gwenny, but this all here is happening for a reason. You just have to find it”. But, standing here, what was the reason? The rain was getting worse now, forking down angularly while the wind picked up to a harsh bluster. It made the tip of my nose cold. What was the reason to that? To forecast an impending tsunami? What was the point in Eve recycling this theistic bullshit to me? To reaffirm my belief? What was the point in all these other people here gathering, some of whom I knew and recognised from my younger days, all disrespectfully using his fucking corpse as an opportunity for a get-together. For a chit-chat. Blathering on about that fucking green-eyed monster suicide when they should be talking about my fucking father! What was the point in tha…

Wait.

Her. Her name again. She kept popping up more and more in the news and on social media. Too much to be a coincidence. My dad said everything happened for a reason, then why, when the apocalypse is nearly upon us, is everyone fixating on this one girl? Maybe I needed to have faith. Take a leaf out of my dad’s book and show a little faith. Take things as a sign? Is that what happens? This was not a coincidence. She was the key. She was how to stop Grendel. God, fate, coincidence, the universe. Somehow, I’ve ended up at my dad’s funeral, just about to be wiped out by a super-tsunami, just about to be thrown back in time by a time-loop, and the people are talking about Minnie Charnwood. A girl that went to my university? A girl famed for fattening up Rutherford Stones, another student at my university. When weight gain and these time-ripples seem inexplicably linked? This meant something. This had to mean something. Fuck science. There had to be more. This had to mean something, because, if not, by dad’s dead. And I wasn’t going to let that happen.

No. I needed to get out. Like I did last time. I pulled away from the masses of people that had congregated to hear my speech and headed for the cemetery gates. It would have seemed utterly disrespectful but I had to get out. I needed to get out. I was a slow walker, by weight like an anchor wrapped about my every limb. I wonder if everybody was gossiping behind my back about that too. Like I give a fuck.

Eve tried to cut me off with kind words and warm messages but her words meant nothing. She tried to tell me that I was putting on a brave face but I didn’t care what that bitch had to say. She let my dad die and I was not going to forgive her. And anyway, I knew how to stop Grendel. I knew that now. I understand that this didn’t matter. The funeral, the storms, the scandal of my weight, the scandal of my relationship with Kyle. None of it. Not really. What I was about to do made it all for nought. I was about to be the hero that saved the day, but there would be no headlines to thank me, no awards to acknowledge me and no recognition to celebrate me. However I could at least ensure there was a world waiting for everyone in ten days time. Whatever time meant these days.

 

I climbed up the nearby tor. Again. It overlooked the cemetery. I’d climbed this before, in a half-remembered dream, praying for a phone signal. But not this time. I was ready for what was about to come. I was about to be extinguished, but this wouldn’t be the last of me. I needed to speak to Minnie Charnwood and I needed to save my dad.

I climbed up the hill valiantly, fighting against the swirling conditions and trying to keep my feet on the ground. I climbed over a fallen tree and up on to the highest tor in the area and gripped the ground in desperation as the gale forces surged. The wind was escalating from nowhere. The turbulence on the plane had been minimal. But, ever since we landed, it slowly grew. Once we got to the cemetery it had evolved from drizzly to stormy. And now it was feeling ominous.

And that’s when I saw it. Hiding back so far away it was almost behind the horizon, but so tall that it towered above it. It seemed like some bizarre topological feature, like a flat mountain that coated the entire landscape. But it wasn’t anything so benign. It wasn’t anything so safe. I saw before me, towering over the horizon a wall of water as wide as the eye could see and as tall as Everest. It was a supermassive tsunami and it looked like it was about to wipe out an entire continent. The continent that I was on.

I dropped my phone and just stared at this hellscape of water rising up and surging towards me. This monolithic death knell wrecking ball of ocean that rose and rose as it got closer to me. Other people below the hill were noticing now, and frenzying frantically. The poor people were running away from the direction that this hurtling monstrosity of water as if they could outrun it but it was futile. I knew that. This was how my world would end. This time. Not with a whimper but the crushing bang as the Atlantic erected above me look it was Poseidon himself. And rise up it did until it was the backdrop of the sky. Rise and rise as it grew closer to us. Rise and rise until it towered so high that it blotted out the sun. I was going to die. I had solved it, I had actually cracked the case, only to be crushed by this Goliath of water that blistered towards me.

It was so close now that I could almost feel the spray. It was so close that it sheltered me from the wind. This colossus of water was swallowing up the land before me and I just watched.

 

 

And then a firework of pain erupted in my head. An explosion of dynamite that splintered the insides of my skull. Pain like nothing I had ever experienced before. A marching band of juggernaut energy crushing my brain as it set fire to my neurons and synapses with pyromaniacal glee. The worst pain I had ever felt. I was getting the migraine!

I had my plan and I knew that, this time, I would remember what the plan was, and I needed to hope that the headache took me before the tsunami took me. I was in its shadow now, and I could see it if I looked directly upwards. It seemed tall enough to claw out satellites and the shade it cast me in sent the temperatures plummeting and my hand started to shake. I remember this now, vividly. Each moment, each intake of breath is met with chronic deja vu. I remember the smell of the ocean rising above me.

The pulsating surges from within my head was making it difficult to concentrate. And then water, as tall as the eye could see, hit me like a wall of cement and my bones crushed and my breath stifled. And I hoped I had eaten enough to rescue my dad.

 

 

 

[swahilimonkfish]

Apologies for the declining standards recently. Been in a bit of a lull recently. Hopefully this will help pull me out of it

Chapter 14

 

The thunder cracked above her ferociously, four seconds after a flash of sheet lightning had illuminated the sky. The storm was getting closer, definitely time to get back indoors. She trudged back towards the cottage through the driving rain, her wellies heavy with mud from the field. She’d been out checking on her neighbour, Alasdair before the storm hit. He was an old man, though he fiercely protested otherwise, and storms as severe as these often took out the power. He did have a back up generator, as did most of the residents of the island, and he seemed comfortably settled in for the dark night that spilled overhead. There was just one more person that Ramona decided to check on before she retreated to the sanctuary of the cottage, where warm stew would be waiting for her. First, she had to check up on the new girl. The one with emerald green eyes and hair as black as the sky above. Apparently, her name was Danni.

She was staying at the old barnhouse, overlooking the sea. It was an old dilapidated husk of building to be honest, worn by the harsh North Atlantic winds to within an inch of its life. The windows would rattle and the roof was liable to leaking. Like most things on the Isle of Barra really, on its last legs and creaking. She was new and green, and not from around these parts either. She might not be prepared for the severity that a storm can bring. Ramona trudged a little faster, sensing the intensity of the rain increasing, now so heavy that it was difficult to see ahead of her even with a torch. She got to Danni’s place and knocked loudly as another camera flash of lightning exploded through the air.

“Danni, it’s me, Ramona. I live just down from ye at the old post office, we met yesterday” she yelled as she hammered on the door. Very little noise came from within.

“I’m just checking you’re okay, the weather’s going to be real nasty tonight and I’m just checking on ye.”

The door lock clicked and eventually the door opened. In the doorway stood the girl that Ramona had met yesterday at the new post-office, that also doubled as a convenience store and petrol station for the sparsely populated island. She was about 5ft9 and her hair was short and jaggedly cut in an aggressive pixie style that just drew more attention to mystical allure of the rest of her face. Sharp cheekbones, stern eyebrows and enchanting eyes.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you knock love, yeah, no, I’m reet, I’m good. I’ll be fine. I’ll just wait it out, it’ll be reet, fine sorry” the woman answered, her uncut Yorkshire brogue distinctive to even Ramona’s Scottish ears. Most English people just sounded English to her, but she definitely recognised this accent as Yorkshire.

“You’re fine? Ace. And that roof of yours causing nor bother, I know it’s seen better days” Ramona asked, looking into the house from the sheltered porch, and seeing water dripping down heavily like a left on faucet.

“Yeh, I mean it’s leaking and everything but, it’s an old property. I’ll be fine. I don’t mind a draft and a bit of drizzle” the Yorkshire girl said, without any real conviction. She spoke woundedly, with a distant sadness that seemed to emanate from deep. A listlessness to her dazzling eyes, that 5ft9 posture a little hunched to make her seem shorter. Of course, compared to Ramona’s 5ft1, she still seemed like a giant.

“Oh, don’t be such martyr. Come back to mine and Hamish’s for the night. We have the logburner going and our windows don’t rattle. He should have some hotpot brewing too. Come on! You are the nearest we have to neighbours anyway” Ramona coaxed, with a smile on her face. But the other girl seemed unsure. She dug her nails into her arms as she curled her posture over even further.

“No, I appreciate it love, I really do. But, I don’t want to cause any bother, y’know. I’ve had me fill of that over the years” she smiled weakly at Ramona, trying to push the hint across to her. But Ramona was resilient.

“You, madam, are coming over whether ye like it or nor. Now, hurry up, the weather is frightful out there and it isnae gunna get any better this side of Monday. So, chop chop Green Eyes” Ramona said, and Danni obliged sheepishly reluctantly.

Ramona may have been a little forthright in her insistence that Danni come over, but it wasn’t just borne of fierce community spirit. Ramona had an ulterior motive. Ramona fancied her.

 

They had bumped into each other the day previous, Danni getting a few food purchases under her belt of lifeless vegetables and slender portions of meat, while Ramona was helping out on the tills. It was a small island and there was a lot of that sort of thing, people doing a few hours here at one job and then a few hours there at another, to keep the island ticking over and the taxman from the door. And Ramona was just going through the motions, chatting to the elderly woman who came in every morning to pick up her morning newspaper from the mainland, when she glanced at a fresh face for the first time in a while. The elderly lady pointed out that it was the girl who now resided at the old barnhouse that the recently-deceased fisherman Andy Ferry used to live at. A new girl on the island. An oasis of vitality in a sea of silver-haired biddies rattling about.

She seemed so exotic, with a foreign accent – the Scottish mainland was considered foreign, so England sure as fuck was – and such radiant beauty. She had tried to disguise it under a tweed jacket and dark green galoshes that were very much the islander look, but it was unmistakeable. Thin, but strong, and with such piercing green eyes. Ramona was transfixed.

Headspun even. She rushed home and mentioned it to her husband. A new girl on the island, and such a pretty one too. She seemed pleasant enough, but distant. And Ramona endeavoured to introduce herself more formally ever since. The following day, and the storm gave her the perfect excuse.

 

They got back to the cottage, soaking wet to the bone. They tore off the footwear and hung their respective anoraks over the radiator to dry. Ramona was right, this house was better insulated. The windows made nary a sound, despite the bludgeoning rain and howling gale outside. In the old building, there was an air of serenity and calm. And warmth.

“Aye, there she is. Let’s have us a look at ye, see the pretty young thing hidden inside that monster coat” Ramona smiled a friendly smile at the sheepish girl, who felt awkward and self-conscious at such flattery. It had been a while since anybody had said anything so complimentary before. She missed it. She hadn’t heard it since… and Danni began to choke up on the spot.

“Oh what’s up hen? The weather isnae that bad is it?” Ramona hugged the girl who quietly sobbed into shoulder of her jumping, stooping down to do so.

“Sorry love, just a long day” Danni said, regaining her composure a tad and smiling back in thanks.

“Oh, well Hamish should have the hotpot ready for us so you can tell us all about it over some hearty scran” Ramona tried to buoy Danni’s spirits, but she suddenly went ghostly pale. Well, even paler.

“No, sorry, no, I’m not hungry thanks” Danni said, twisting uncomfortably. She was making a fool of herself, first crying and now acting up at the offer of nourishment, but Danni figured it was just collateral damage anyway. She wanted to be alone. It was better that way. Safer that way, for everyone.

“Sod off you daft bitch, if you pardon my French, but you are all skin and bones, wee ‘un. It would do you good to grab some grub.” Ramona insisted and Danni writhed awkwardly.

Hamish interrupted at this point by sidling in from the kitchen, kitchen towel draped over his shoulder.

“And who do we have hear Mona?” he asked calmly, eyeing the tall frail beauty looking like she didn’t belong.

“This here is… Danni? Yeah, Danni. The girl I told you about from yesterday, the new girl who’s bought Andy’s place. Her place was leaking like a sieve, so I thought she might stay over until the storm dies down. Somewhere warm. I’m sure the hotpot will stretch to three, right Hamish?” she said, sharply. There was a touch of frostiness in the air between the two of them that, had the other girl not been so self-conscious, she might have noted.

“Yeah, sure, whatever” he said, rolling his eyes. But, deep down, he didn’t mind. He was bowled over by this 24 year old’s beauty. He was 33 years old, bookish and balding. And, while he might have technically been married, he wasn’t in a relationship. His wife was gay, and the marriage was just a cover. A cover for her sexual orientation on a judgemental and closed-minded island, and a cover for his struggles with women. He was feeling the nagging pressure to settle down with a woman, even though none seemed to pay him any attention from such a very limited stock, and she just wanted to avoid the prying eyes of nosy neighbours. Their marriage was the perfect cover story. It was a marriage of convenience, but most resoundingly not one of love, or even of like. So, to see someone new over was a treat for him. For both of them really.

 

They talked over bowls of mutton stew. It had been cooked for a while, so wasn’t too tough, and the potatoes and parsnips were sweet, and the carrots cooked until soft. Ramona and Hamish were slurping feverishly as the heated food warmed their cockles, but Danni only ate slowly. Begrudgingly. It would require another 30 crunches to fix this before she went to bed.

“Oooo, a writer. How fancy! Anything we know?” Ramona said, with a smile on her face as she pried into the reluctant visitor.

“Probably not, no” was Danni’s unhelpful reply.

“No, try us, you’ll be surprised. I run the local school library, which you should pop round and help out at by the way, so I’m pretty savvy with fiction. Is it a crime book?” she asked. Again, more questions into the evasive Danni’s life and past.

“Um… yeah. Called, um, The… um… The End of Shay” she said, wincing as she said it.

“No, not one I’ve heard of. But that’s fantastic. I’d love to write but never was really any good at it. Wrote some fanfics when I was younger, but never really took it any further. I’m more of a hands-on girl than a hands-on-keyboard girl” she said, without any lack of self-confidence and laughing at her own joke. Danni tentatively joined in.

“So… Danni… on your own then?” Hamish followed up, more obvious with his ulterior motive.

“Yeah, just me on me lonesome. Nice and quiet.” Danni said, feeling interrogated.

“Oooh, perfect for writing I imagine. Now, tell me, and apologies if this seems forward but we’re neighbours which, on an island this small, makes us family, why no boyfriend? Or girlfriend?” Ramona cottoned onto the conversation.

“Ummm… bad last relationship. Ended very badly. Just want to put some distance between me and that” Danni said.

And the conversation continued until late. Mainly Danni ducking and diving to avoid answering questions, but she also learned a bit about the two who’d invited her in. Hamish was an engineer on South Uist, working on the Starmap project. A large telescope pointed at the sky from one of the clearest places in Britain. It paid well and kept him occupied. Ramona, on the other hand, rarely had cause to leave the island. It was only really for clothes or Christmas shopping, otherwise she had her days filled helping out at the library, the post-office or even organising the ‘Barra-thon’, an island-round trip that was run twice a year. It had some national acclaim from its kooky name and scenic sea views.

Danni, for her part, only really let on that she was single and not looking for a relationship. She had spent some time in America, and had studied in Brighton, and that she was estranged from her parents. But everything else was kept locked away, an iron curtain preventing the couple attaining any further information on the secretive girl.

Eventually, they called it a night. Danni settled on the sofa with a blanket thrown over her while the other two went upstairs. Once they had gone, she snook back out of the covers and did her nightime routine. 50 crunches, 30 squats, and 20 supported press-ups. Without her heavy clothes cloaking her frame, it was more obvious now just how sharp her form was. Her triceps were defined, her abdominal muscles visible, the muscles on her legs like rope pulleys. She was in strong shape. And there was very little evidence of the excess skin that she used to possess.

Upstairs, Ramona and Hamish went up their bed. They shared the bed but Ramona had firmly insisted that there was to be nothing physical between the two of them. It upset Hamish, who was fairly partial to the 26 year old on the other side of the bed. Her hair and spectacles disguised a really pretty girl, and her short and chunky frame, while not scintillating in his eyes, was endearing. He was growing increasingly sexually frustrated lying next to an attractive woman and not even being allowed to spoon her. And now there was an even better looking woman downstairs too.

“I so want to fuck her” he said quietly. “I see why you fancy her so much”

“Haha, I told you she was pretty. But hands off, she’s mine” Ramona lightly joked back.

“I tell you what, there’s only one way to find out. Tomorrow, shall we make our moves?” he said, his heart increasing in rate at the thought.

“You have no moves Hamish, that’s why you’re married to a lesbian, remember?” Ramona said, needling him further.

Ramona then got out her tablet, and began searching Amazon for that book that Danni had written. ‘The End of Shay’. It would make a nice addition to the local library and would be a nice gesture. But nothing came up. Surprised, Ramona tried again, but this time just Googling the book title. No books came up with that title. But there was a newspaper article. About two American girls who had died, murdered, at the hands of what they called the green-eyed monster. Ramona’s eyes widened at that description. Hurriedly, she scoured for a photo of the lead suspect. This green-eyed monster. And while she didn’t recognise the name, she recognised the photo.

 

Ramona woke up sharply to a loud clutter downstairs. She jumped up alarmed, and then saw Hamish was not by her side either. Maybe we went down to get some water. Or maybe it was that girl downstairs. Ramona rolled her eyes, threw on a dressing gown and went down to find out what was going on. Hoping it was nothing.

She slowly walked down the stairs as the cottage fell into deathly silence. She could just hear the hoarse howl of wind outside and the steady bombardment of rain on the windows. She crept down the stairs, each step creaking in an otherwise quiet house. One at a time, she descended them and stepped towards the kitchen to see if the noise was Hamish making a drink. It was empty, and it looked like nobody had visited it either. Which just left the main room. Ramona tip-toed towards it, and creaked open the door.

On the other side of it was Danni, sobbing, rocking in a sitting position, and muttering to herself. Lying next to her was Hamish, lying limp on the floor, with a steady stream of blood seeping from his crown. Still silently, Ramona walked up to Hamish and pressed her fingers against his neck to check for a pulse. But there was none. Hamish was dead.

“Hey, Danni, what happened? Are you okay?” Ramona said nervously. She stammered the final syllable as she tried to squeeze out the words.

“Not again. Not again. Not again” was all the green-eyed girl could say, still rocking and sobbing.

“Did… did Hamish hurt you?” Ramona said with wide-open eyes, alert with fear and dread as she walked stealthily towards the other girl.

“He tried. He tried. And I asked him not to. I asked and I asked. Why didn’t he just leave me alone? I just want to be left alone...” the sobs revealed. Ramona, against her better judgement, rushed to console her. She should be terrified. A hunted murderer and her husband’s dead body next to her. But, blinded by attraction, the desperately lonely Ramona just saw a traumatised girl.

“Thanks Ramona” she said, between sniffles. She was still shaking. In fear, in shock, with the cold. Ramona wrapped her arm around the fiercely attractive girl tightly for reassurance.

“Hey… don’t mention it Danni”

“Actually… oh god… I’m so sorry but… but my name isn’t actually Danni. I’m so sorry Ramona, but I’ve really fucked up and I’m really scared. You wouldn’t believe the shit I’ve done. I’m so sorry. I killed your fucking husband. I’m so sorry” the girl wailed inconsolably.

“No, it’s my fault. I invited you over. I had no idea he would try anything, but I shouldnae have let that happen. This is on me, not ye… Minnie” Ramona said, and hugged some more.

“Wait? You know who I am?”

“Aye. I know who you are. But, you’re not a monster Minnie. I don’t believe you’re a monster. I don’t believe you’re a monster”

[Deoxyribo9]

Those names seem pretty familiar...

[swahilimonkfish]

1 hour ago, Deoxyribo9 said:

Those names seem pretty familiar...

[swahilimonkfish]

Chapter 15

 

“Why don’t you hate me?” Minnie asked, looking at Ramona wearily. Her soul pined for a reason to not feel guilty and circumstance just kept providing her with the opposite.

“You said it was self-defence, and I believe you” Ramona said tenderly. This wasn’t the reason, but she had convinced herself it was. It was her loneliness. Trapped on a remote island in a loveless marriage – literally a loveless marriage. Minnie was like exotic food to her. She had an air of ‘other’ about her. She hid it as best she could but the Isle of Barra just didn’t have people with her innate glamour. There was a mystery to her, an enigmatic quality that Ramona yearned to solve. Being the only gay girl on the island had dampened her belief of ever falling in love. Minnie’s green eyes had reignited that hope. And, above all else, it was that hope that meant that Ramona couldn’t hate Minnie. To hate Minnie would be to give up on hope.

“You don’t get it though. This… this sort of thing happens to me. I’m… I’m an infectious disease. I’m like Typhoid Mary. I’m contagious and it’s only other people that get hurt. There’s something wrong with me Ramona, something fundamentally corrupted.” Minnie sobbed as she lay next to Ramona.

She’d been lying next to her all night. Neither of the girls wanted to spend time next to the dead body downstairs. That was an issue for daylight. The storm was forcing everyone to hunker down anyway, so they had time to find a solution. But in the meantime, they just lay next to each other. Leading themselves into temptation, hoping to deliver themselves to evil. But, while Ramona’s senses were tingling with anticipation, and while Minnie sensed the stirring throb of her sexual fetishes burgeon, they just lay next to each other in the bed, listening to the rain hammer on the window and appreciating the physical comfort of proximity to affection.

“You know I’ll have to go as soon as the storm passes. Even though it’s self-defence, I’m wanted for murder. I have to go. I’ll always have to go” Minnie said, and the dark reality of being on the run was clear to her as she said it. She’ll never be able to settle. She’ll never have the comfort of another woman. She’ll always be moving. She’ll always have to go.

“I could go with you?” Ramona asked, allowing a little hope to slip into her words.

“Absolutely not! You’d… you’d be… what is it… an accomplice? I think that’s right. It would be illegal. I am not jeopardising another person’s life. I’m sick of ruining people’s lives.” Minnie sharply said, staring out at the window as the rain continued to batter it.

“I haven’t got a life for you to ruin. Everyone here would just see me as Hamish’s widow. Like they only see me now as Hamish’s wife. I have what? A job at the post office and the gossip of old women? I’m stuck here on a remote island. Trapped here Minnie. And I thought I’d always be alone. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be alone any more. I don’t care about the consequences, just let me experience not being alone” Ramona pleaded, staring into the shimmery pools of green on Minnie’s face.

“I guess… I don’t want to be alone either”

 

The storm roared for another couple of days, but as soon as the ferries were running, the two girls made their escape. They snook off, hoping not to attract the attention of the snooping mainstays of the island. Minnie felt a flicker of hope again, just as all hope had been torn away from her. And Ramona felt a flicker of adventure, something to spark the inert boggy marshlands of her being into life. They were running off together, and leaving a corpse in their wake.

They found a place to crash in Glasgow. It was a dingy flat at the scary end of the city, just above a drug den hideout. It was the last place any sane person would ever want to be. But who said anything about them being sane.

They hide out for a week, just slowly, incrementally getting to know one another. Ramona was clawing away at Minnie’s firmly attached mask, whilst also bearing her soul.

“I’ve never even kissed another girl” she said, forlornly. “There was nobody to kiss. Even at upper school, there were only 35 girls in my year. They were probably all straight. And even if not, I couldn’t have coped with the abuse. I felt like an alien. Like I didn’t belong there. Always hiding who I really was. What I really wanted. I just dated boys, and pretended I was into them. But I’ve never even had a chance to kiss a girl” Ramona admitted.

“It’s… it’s nice. I remember the first girl I ever kissed. It was Rutherford. She wasn’t particularly big back then, though she’d started to put on a few. She told me about her fetish, and I should have been there for her as a friend. But instead I toyed with her. I felt unloved, I was… I was a bit bigger back then. So I kissed her.” Minnie recollected.

“What was it like?”

“It felt like the wrong thing to do. It tasted like mischief. I could feel my heart beating faster as I did it. It just felt so wrong. It was amazing.” Minnie said, lying in the bed and staring at the ceiling. Her thoughts were interrupted by the girl next to her.

“Kiss me” Ramona asked. “Kiss me, if just so I know what it’s like. Everything could be taken away from us in an instant. This adventure could end at any time. I just want to know what it feels like to feel a lass’ lips. I just want to know what it’s like to be kissed by a girl.”

“I can’t… I shouldn’t. I’m sorry, I just can’t.” Minnie said, and she pulled away out of the bed. And then straight into the position to launch into another set of crunches. It was her go-to move every time there was a flicker of temptation. Ramona just lay on the bed and tried not to cry. Unsuccessfully. Minnie slowed down from her exertion as she heard the sobs. She just wanted to do the right thing. She didn’t want another person tangled up in her web. But wasn’t it already too late for that? And, besides, if this was the right thing, then why was Ramona crying? The kind thing would be to kiss her, but rise above temptation.

She got up tentatively and controlled her breathing. She could do this. She got back onto the bed and crawled towards her very deliberately. She looked at Ramona, whose whimpering had abated as she looked at the taller girl on the bed with her. And Minnie’s lips drifted towards her, slowly, delicately, enticingly. And soon they met with hers. And suddenly Ramona couldn’t describe the physical sensation, because her brain was dripping with relief, with pent-up relief. Endorphins flooded and her eyes closed. She was kissing a girl at last, and she liked it.

Minnie pulled away with steely resolve and looked into the eyes of her normally-bespectacled friend. And her resolve, as it so often did, wilted. And Ramona got to experience a lot more than her first kiss with a girl.

 

“Thank you Minnie” Ramona said, almost tearily in bed next to her. “That was… perfect.”

“Perfect? You dreamt of losing your virginity in a shithole above a crack den?” Minnie teased, a smile on her lips for the first time since Rutherford passed. “But, yeah. It was pretty amazing for me too”

“Why were you so scared? Why did you not want to kiss me?” Ramona asked, partly out of empathy, partly out of insecurity.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to kiss you, love. I did, I really did. If anything, that was the problem. I’m just scared of getting what I want. Because when I do, I tend to want more.” Minnie said, opening up.

“You can always have more of that, you don’t have to worry about that.” Ramona said, with a smile. Minnie smiled back.

“No, not exactly. No… more… of you. More of you. Like, how much do you know about what happened with me and Ruthers?”

And Minnie explained it all. She explained how they met, how the 4 musketeers met. About the free hit. How they grew. How she liked it. How it got out of control. And how Rutherford promised to be her control valve.

“She said, however much I forced on her, she could take it. She was already really big at that point, and it wasn’t my fault. Not yet. But I made her so much bigger. And she wanted it. She wanted me to do it to her. So I kidded missen that this made it alright. If she wanted it, then how could it be the cruel thing to do?” Minnie explained.

She then explained Shay’s arrival at the flat. An ex-friend of Rutherford’s. How she connived to contribute to Rutherford’s growth. So she could laud her newly slim figure over her all the more. To get her kicked out of university and to return back to Georgia to humiliate her. The first part of her plan worked. She dropped out of uni just before the second term started. She never left the flat, never attended lectures, she just grew and grew and grew. So she headed back to Georgia. And she went with them.

Rutherford was bedbound before long. Trapped in a bed and Shay and Minnie were feeding her to oblivion. And then Minnie realised she needed to stop. That Rutherford’s health was more important than her fetish. But Shay wouldn’t stop, she was possessed. And Minnie was just too weak-willed to really stop her. She just let it happen.

“Rutherford died about a year ago. Her heart just gave out. But I’d done it, really. I like to blame Shay, I like to justify it by saying that she wanted it. But the love of my life died and I enabled it. It was me, it was all me” Minnie sobbed, wiping tears from her cheek.

“And Shay?”

“Well, I stabbed the bitch with a knife. I wasn’t ready to accept blame for my actions at that point. I blamed her instead of me. I mean, she was complicit. I didn’t kill Rutherford by myself. But I should have stabbed me too. I deserved the same punishment as Shay, at least.” Minnie sniffled.

“Hey. Don’t say that! Don’t you fucking dare say that!” Ramona aggressively rapped.

“But I’ll be bad for you too. I can’t help it. Chaos courses through my veins.” Minnie wasn’t looking up at this point, just staring downwards in shame and self-loathing.

“It sounds like to me, that your problem is you bring too much chaos, and my problem is I have to little chaos in my life. I think we might be the perfect match” Ramona said, with a strained smile.

“Well, you’re on the run with a serial killer, so I think I’ve remedied your lack of chaos issue” Minnie said, offering a ray of hope with a sliver of a smile.

“Oh, I don’t know. I think I could muster a little more chaos in my life” and Ramona drew Minnie back towards her, and they made out once more.

 

Keeping a low profile in this part of town wasn’t hard. It had gone to the wolves anyway. Pimps and dealers ran the streets, gangs of aggressive youths were the closest the area had to the police. It was a terribly unsafe place to be, but also the safest place for them. Nobody pried in this part of the city. They were always left to be.

And, over time, the two girls felt the strangest of sensations. Contentment. They were making do in some awful conditions, but they had each other. They were there for each other. And that was all that mattered. Until Ramona asked the silliest of questions.

“Would you like it if I put on some weight? You like that sort of thing, right?” she asked while they sat in front of a bare wall, just leaning on each other.

“No, I wouldn't. I mean, probably. But it’s a slippery slope for me, I’m much happier just having things as they are, love.” Minnie said, tensing up ever so slightly.

“It’s just that, I was thinking, it’s crazy difficult for me to keep the weight off. I’m only a wee ‘un and everything I put in my mouth ends up on my stomach. And it’s torture for me to rein my appetite in to nearly nothing. And I’m with a girl who likes the opposite anyway” Ramona said, running her hand over her slight stomach. She wasn’t fat, or anywhere near approaching it, but she was compact. Short and a little stocky. It suited her unglamorous look.

“Oh, I’m sorry love. I don’t mean to put that on you. It’s not even a size thing, really. It’s a… like a gaining thing, or a control thing maybe. I like the loss of control. So you don’t have to stay thin for me, just don’t do it on purpose. Please? I really can be a monster” Minnie pleaded.

“You can’t be a monster. I know you too well. But I might loosen up on the dieting” Ramona said, pleased with herself. Minnie gulped to herself.

 

Months were passing, and, while it wasn’t exactly bliss, it was the happiest that either of them had known. They were in the most dangerous part of town and they had never felt safer. They had each other, and there was nobody else left to judge them. And Minnie kept to her rigorous fitness routine, hiding and suppressing her demons by adhering to a restrictive schedule. All to keep a lid on things, to suppress her most dangerous appetites. One of which was getting harder, and Ramona finally stopped fighting against her body’s inability to keep the weight off. Slowly but surely, she had softened a little over the months. And it just made Minnie exercise more.

“I might have to go back on a diet Minnie, I’m up to 133lbs. That’s the biggest I’ve ever been” Ramona sighed, looking at herself in a mirror that they’d picked up from a carboot sale. Minnie tried to maintain her composure and act nonplussed.

“Have you love? Well, it’s up to you” she said, trying not linger on her girlfriend’s figure. The new width in her hips and the little ripples on her waist.

“Do you think I need to? I’m being serious Minnie, I’m feeling insecure” Ramona said, not realising the extent to which she should be treading on glass with this topic.

“You’ll always look beautiful to me” Minnie offered, unconvincingly. Her eyes were still avoiding her figure.

“Yeah, I guess it’s back to the diet.” Ramona sighed, reading the lack of conviction in Minnie’s voice as a lack of moral support.

“No, no, no, don’t do that. I’m sorry, I’m sorry love. I just… y’know...” Minnie offered feebly.

“What? You’re scared that I’ll become enormous?” Ramona sulked, as she figured out what Minnie was alluding to.

“No, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s hard for me, okay. It’s a sensitive spot, that’s all. Has bad memories attached. But you look great, really. Better than ever, even. Honestly, don’t diet for me” Minnie said, scrunching up her hands as she said it.

“No, I’m sorry hen. I shouldn’t have brought your ex up like that. It was crass. It’s just, I feel like I’m not getting all of your attention. Every time I feel like we connect, you rush off into doing your exercises. You don’t need to do them, I don’t want you to do them. I want you to do me.” Ramona confessed.

“I suppose loosening up won’t hurt. There’s a big difference between a free hit and just not being quite so uptight. Yeah, you’re right, love. I’ll tone down the toning up, and you can afford to cut loose a little. And I’ll stop being so distant when I’m tempted. This is different. We’re different. I’m stronger now, I’ll be fine”

 

The changes in their routine happened slowly. Gradually. Innocently.

Ramona just felt like she could eat a packet of crisps without a wave of guilt. Treat herself to dessert without feeling like she had to deprive herself the following day to compensate. She had nowhere to go, nowhere to be. She could just spend time with the woman she loved, and not worry that she was too big and not attractive enough. It was just a weight off her mind.

And Minnie didn’t think her routine was changing excessively either. It was all in control. She just dropped the sit-ups, the crunches, the supported press-ups. She didn’t fear food like the plague. A chocolate bar wasn’t like shooting heroine, she could eat one occasionally without diving off the deep end. And the temptation of Ramona wasn’t wreaking havoc either. Sure, she noticed and even approved as the little Scot got a little less little. A smidge softer, a touch curvier, a hint wider, a tad heavier. She wasn’t encouraging it, nor was she discouraging it. She was behaving perfectly responsibly. Maybe she was over her issues.

“I don’t mean to be rude Minnie, but I think you’re looking really cute at the minute” Ramona flirted.

“How, how could that possibly be rude?” Minnie said, with a smile on a face. She was getting used to smiling these days. The facial muscles that had once atrophies away were now returning.

“I mean, now don’t freak out, because you’re not looking so sculpted” Ramona said, weary of how Minnie would take the compliment. And, immediately, Minnie grimaced and turned away. “What part of ‘don’t freak out’ involved grimacing, Minnie? I didn’t mean it in a kinky way, or a letting-yourself-go way, just a normal regular easier-to-cuddle way. Not everything is about your kink, you know hen”

“I’m sorry, you’re right. I’ve noticed it too. I’m not as hard as I was. I guess not being as hard isn’t a bad thing necessarily. I mean, it’s not losing control, I’m just looking a little more womanly. Right, love?” Minnie looked at her lover for reassurance.

“Exactly. Womanly. Nothing wrong with looking more womanly, is there? I hope not, because I’m a lot more womanly than you” Ramona smiled. “I’m up to 139lbs now”

“You look gorgeous” Minnie said, her smile coming back.

“I really do, don’t I? Curvy and gorgeous.” Ramona said with a smile, as she went in for another kiss. “Hey, since we’re celebrating being curvier, how about we see if Kenneth at The Fish Plaice has any spare chips. He’ll be closing about now, and he just loves giving us curvy ladies some chips.”

“We have already had dinner?”

“Shhhh… I’m curvy and womanly remember” Ramona put her finger on Minnie’s lips to stop her from talking. It didn’t stop her from smiling, however.

 

And more time passed, and the girls became increasingly comfortable in their skin. The doubts that had driven Minnie almost to the point of madness had evaporated in the warm company of her girlfriend. They belonged in a universe all of their own, independent from the cruelty and judgement of the outside world. Things never felt more secure.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I’ve put on weight. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you step on the scales for a change?” Ramona retorted.

“But I never said anything.” Minnie smiled as Ramona realised she was over 145lbs. She didn’t wear it particularly well or particularly flatteringly. But it hadn’t stopped Minnie’s attraction to her. If anything, the opposite was true. She was becoming increasingly alluring.

“I know, I’m just messing. But, when was the last time you weighed yourself?” Ramona asked.

“Oh god, ages ago. Like, when I were with Rutherford maybe. I was down to 122lbs. I bet I’m a bit more than that now” Minnie smiled with curiosity. She had lost that sinewy strength for a gentle, delicate softness. It contributed to an alluring slink in the hips as she hourglassed into something more womanly and feminine. Ramona smiled back as she handed Minnie the scales.

“Wow, 142lbs? That’s like 20lbs more? God, should I be worried Mona?” Minnie looked up with worry.

“Are you kidding? You’re telling me, you are twice as tall as me and I still weigh more than you? No, I don’t think it’s you that should be worried” Ramona giggled. “I’m only tiny you know”

“Tiny, heightwise” Minnie teased with a big grin.

“Oi, watch your tongue, green-eyes. I’ve got pizza and chips in the oven, but if you’re giving me attitude, maybe I won’t share it. Since I am only tiny, heightwise” Ramona teased. Minnie, paused, but then her smile returned. Everything was okay now, she didn’t need to keep worrying.

“Don’t share it. Have it all. Please. I’d like it. I’d like it a lot” Minnie said, tentatively. Ramona met it with a beaming smile.

“Really? Do you mean that in a kinky way...”

“Yes, I mean it in a kinky way, love. I want you to eat the pizza and chips by yourself. And I want to watch” Minnie said, staring deep into her eyes. Ramona smiled gleefully. She finally felt worthy. All this time, Minnie had been holding back on her and citing her ex-girlfriend. It always made her feel like she was second-best. That she could never please Minnie the same way that this Rutherford could and did. That she could never turn Minnie on in the same way. But, maybe that was starting to change.

“Well, they’re nearly done so… I’m going to bed. I fancy eating dinner in bed.” And the two girls smiled at one another and kissed.

And as Ramona ate her two portions of pizza and chips to herself, Minnie crawled under the duvet and made a beeline to her girlfriend. And has her head went between Ramona’s short legs, Minnie’s talons came out. She still remembered every trick in the book.

 

Things returned back to normal for a while after that. The same routine of restraint and moderation. But it was always there, humming in the back of each of their minds. Neither wanted to confront it. It would mean Ramona would have to confront her jealousy of Rutherford, and Minnie confront her guilt over Rutherford. So the two girls returned to their former routine, but with dangerous thoughts buzzing about in their head.

The two girls had no money. They were essentially squatters in an abandoned flat, and they relied predominantly on the generosity of strangers to get by. The two girls did get some work, but it was all off-the-book stuff as they tried to keep a low profile. Neither of them ever reflected on what would possibly be going on back on the Isle of Barra, it was not a pleasant thought and one they pursued to ignore.

So, they carried on living their minimalist existence, going from day-to-day without giving to much worry about the next. They slowly forgot that this was all inherently impermanent, and that the stack of cards would, at some point, topple over. They were just living for the now.

And it showed on their respective frames. Especially Ramona. Because she wasn’t explicitly trying to gain, the floodgates had opened in her mind. The feeding/fucking session and the growing reverence that her growing frame induced, meant that Ramona was subconsciously looking for ways to over-indulge. And she had the kind of metabolism that begrudged every calorie and a body that grew at the sight of every meal. She didn’t want to admit it, to herself or to Minnie, but it turned her on seeing how much it turned Minnie on. Finally she was worthy of her full unbridled attention. She had captivated her.

And she was captivating in Minnie’s eyes. To see a girl who was once 125lbs now at 163lbs. And the weight went everywhere. Her arse were oblate spheroids of chunkiness, her stomach started to hang down when she stood, her chin was now the proud owner of a second chin, her arms were thick and meaty. It was only her scrawny legs that remained unchanged and looked strange on her otherwise dense composition.

Minnie hadn’t kept pace, though she was also dabbling in bad habits. Consistent slight overindulgence with occasional spikes in gross overindulgence as her grip on self-restraint weathered and weathered with temptation. The sensations were too familiar to her, the unhealthy routines like ruts that she kept falling back into. And 153lbs were the consequence.

She wore it really well. If anything, the gain flattered her. Sure, her stomach was pronounced. It started to pooch forward like it did the last time she gained. It gripped the outline of tight tops to show its outward curve. But she didn’t have Ramona’s barrel-shaped tendency. She had real curves, just curves that were getting plumper. She was still the most attractive woman any of the fast food joint employees had ever seen and the curves tended to embellish rather than diminish. She slowly started to develop a reputation as a viscerally attractive woman. And this silenced the prospect of any developing doubts.

“Minnie, you realise 163lbs makes me officially obese?” Ramona commented with a grin.

“Fuck off, love. Really?” Minnie replied, shocked. Ramona just nodded. “And how doers that make you feel?”

“Good. Like, surprisingly good. I think it helps that I know that you’re into it” Ramona said with a smile and a bite of her lip. Minnie giggled. She was definitely into it. “So, I was thinking. Maybe we do this properly”

Minnie straightened up and looked at her severely.

“Oh come on, don’t give me that. We’re over that now. Don’t fall back into self-doubt, you’ve come so far. Let me put on weight for you. I see how much you like it. I feel how much you like it. Let me do it for you. I want to get fat for you, Minnie” Ramona cooed.

“Umm… go on, fuck it, you’re right. I do want it. Yeah, let’s do it. But on one condition. We do it together. I can’t have that feeder/feedee relationship again. I need us to split the load.” Minnie compromised, her breathing accelerated, her heart pumping. She wanted this so much. She could do it. It would be different this time. It would be perfect this time.

What was the worst that could happen?

 

4 months later

There was a knock on the door, and a yell from the other side of it.

“Open up, this is the police. We have a warrant for the arrest of Minnie Charnwood...”

[swahilimonkfish]

Penultimate chapter folks, not long to go

Chapter 16

 

Minnie walked up to the door and opened it, worried.

“Come with me if you want to live”

“Wait, what?” she replied with a confused expression.

“I said, come with me if you want to live. As in from The Terminator movies? Anyway, the police are going to be knocking on this door in 10 minutes, so you really do need to come with me” I said, looking the green-eyed monster in those sparkling emerald eyes.

“Wait, we’re not going anywhere until you tell us who the fuck you are and what the fuck you want?” Minnie said to me, sternly.

“Fine, okay, but you better get changed while I tell you because us two are leaving as soon as I’ve finished, the police are really not far behind.” I said firmly, whilst gesturing with my eyes for her to get her clothes on. “Okay, my name is Dr Gwendolyn Hughes and I am literally from the future. And you are responsible for the apocalypse, so I need to speak to you urgently”

 

Minnie stood there in shock, just shaking her head disbelievingly.

“Ugh, fine. What can I tell you to make you believe me. I…. know about Rutherford. No? Umm… I know about your fetish? What can I say? Oh, I know. I know that mischief courses through your veins” I said triumphantly. That was the line that she kept using in her defence. This was how she saw herself. This was how she thought of herself.

“How do you know about tha...”

“I’M FROM THE MOTHERFUCKING FUTURE! Okay? Capiche? So get your clothes on and we’re going. The longer we wait, the closer the police will be and I’m not really designed for running these days” I really wished to give her more time, but time was the one thing I didn’t have. I’d finally, after waiting for all this time, heard the police announce her address over the scanner. But I didn’t have much of a headstart.

“Okay love, umm…. I guess I believe you. But… a couple of problems. One, I’m not going anywhere without Ramona. Two, I can’t put on some clothes, they don’t fit. And three, are you not the police?”

Some of these were fair points. I was technically a policewoman, and I was in a police uniform. You wouldn’t believe how Xs come before the L in my uniform size. Secondly, I could see why she might be having trouble with clothes not fitting. She wasn’t as svelte as she was in the photos. All the photos in the press were from her trial or from her time in America. In both she was stunningly thin. But, her time in the States was a couple of years ago and her time on trial wouldn’t be for another six months. Her current size was a fair bit bigger than I had anticipated. She still had a rather seductive shape with an indulgent outward flick at the hips, but a tightly swollen stomach, heavy breasts and doughy legs were less adherent to beauty conventions. And thirdly, Ramona wasn’t a hostage after all? But, rather, a lover?

But we would sort out these questions later, first we needed to get a wiggle on. I signalled that Ramona could come too, so Minnie threw on the only clothing that still fitted. The large over-sized anorak that they wore when they fled the scene of a murder on the Isle of Barra. It wasn’t a stylish look, straining at the zip of her bulging midriff in a way that caused it to run shorter at her legs, revealing most of her supple thighs. But it would do.

No such look with Ramona. The past four months had wrought havoc on the little lass from Barra. Minnie’s malevolence had clearly been in full force beyond all recognition. It was staggering to see what Minnie could actually inflict on a person in such a short period of time. I threw my police jacket over her, which embarrassingly draped her. For as fat as she was, and she looked so fat to me, she was still nowhere near my size. It really drummed home how big I was. Again.

 

We scurried down towards where my car was parked, round the back. It was fortunately the one car that the police wouldn’t be looking for. A police car was the perfect getaway vehicle. They got into the backseat as I heaved myself into the front seat, my mass pushing up against the steering wheel as it did. And then, carefully, I drove off, hoping not to arouse suspicion.

“Okay, we’ve done what you asked, but I think you owe us some answers Dr whatever-your-name-was.” Minnie grumbled from the back.

“Fine, I’ll explain...”

 

So, I’d landed four months ago, with no idea of how to find them.. All the information from the media reports mentioned her time in Barra but they didn’t reveal her address in Glasgow. So I needed to find her, somehow. I needed to join the police force.

Fortunately, Scotland in the 2020s were in the process of leaving Great Britain, having won Indyref2. And this upheaval had seen a drain on personnel in places like medical staff and the police. Due to this, applying to the police was easier than ever. No physical training was required, no interview even. Just an online form filled in. And next thing I knew, I was invited onto the force as a constable.

That wasn’t the only thing I was doing in the meantime. Remember, I had also memorised lottery numbers close to major time-loops. So this meant you were looking at the wealthiest ever police constable in the force’s history. Euromillions rollover - £455 million. I didn’t go public with it, quietly deposited the cheque and used most of the money to buy an airfield in Glasgow, and the rest to hire a pilot. All ready for today. The past four months had been gruelling preparation, but I was as single-minded about this as about anything else in my life. These past four months were all in service of this getaway.

They, as a result, hadn’t been particularly kind to my already suffering figure. Trapped for years on end in a time-loop with a feeder had done a number on my eating habits and now I was left with a ceaseless insatiable hunger. I had to put up with brutal jibes from fellow officers about my size and eating habits, and yet my size and eating habits only grew. I was broken and doomed to a life of gluttony now. This was why I was now 584lbs of Welsh excess.

I told them all that, but I didn’t really get down to explaining about Grendel, because over the police scanner came the news that the girls had fled just before the police had arrived. And now the police were on the lookout for them, combing the streets and setting up roadblocks to see if they could capture them.

I switched down to second gear as she took the right turn. The flashing blue lights from the police cars nearby rippled across the dark Glaswegian streets, shimmering starkly. I took a deep breath as I tried to regulate my breathing in this stressful situation, and drove as normally as I could so as not to arouse suspicion. A call came over from despatch.

“We believe the two suspects are no longer on foot and are now in a vehicle. Please remain vigilant until we confirm make, model and number plate.”

They must have been already scanning camera footage in the area, it was only a matter of time before they cotton on to which vehicle we were in. I was going to have to step on it, and drive a little bit more aggressively. My SatNav showed 35 minutes until we reached our destination, and if I didn’t make it there, everybody would die.

I changed up from third into fourth, and then again into fifth. The road straightened around the next corner and I would be able to make up some time once I got onto it. I just needed them to not identify this vehicle until I got onto it.

“You two okay back there, things might get a bit hairy so fasten your seatbelts!” I called back to the two girls in the backseat. The one I didn’t recognise, Ramona, responded quietly, while the real reason that I was here sighed loudly before obeying her instructions. For my part, I had already got mine on, though it was painfully tight thanks to my obstructing largesse swelling out ever closer to the steering wheel.

I took the corner, and then began ratcheting through the gears once more as I lifted the car’s speed sharply but without causing a commotion. Then police despatch piped up with the news that we didn’t want to hear. They must have found a street camera identifying what vehicle it was that I was driving, so I stepped on it as the make, model and registration came over the speaker, switching on my own sirens to cajole the traffic nearby to get out of the way. Subtlety was exhausted now, it was now just a question of speed. They knew it was my police car that was carrying the suspects.

 

It didn’t take long before a helicopter was flying above the car, relaying my route ready for police interception. It was 20 minutes until we reached the destination and I was beginning to worry we weren’t going to make it. I pressed down harder on the accelerator as I drew towards the destination.

The destination was the one thing left that I had going for me. They would have no idea where I was headed. Nobody knew that I owned an entire fucking airport, nor would it cross their mind to think that I might. It wasn’t the major one, but a private one predominantly for charter planes. But I had a pilot and a private jet waiting for me. I just had to get there.

The tyres screeched as I nearly overshot a corner. Driving was never my strong suit, though I had been taught as a kid to even drive a tractor. But the simple assumption that more time with your foot down on the accelerator would mean the sooner I would get there was perhaps a little reductive. Nonetheless, now was not the time for experimenting. Now was the time for driving as fast as I could. 15 minutes until I reached my destination.

I called the pilot and told him to get the plane ready, I’d be there in 10. And I was coming in hot.

And, no sooner had I relayed that message did I see flickers of crystal blue in the sky again. They were looking to cut me off ahead. The fools. It was the obvious point, a junction were two fast roads merge. Too obvious. I had been planning this for four months, and I had seen police protocol up close and personal. I knew exactly where they would try to cut me off and I worked that into my plan. I slammed on the breaks and tore down a dirt track to the side instead.

The road was bumpy and not designed for fast speeds. But it took me through across a farmer’s field to a coppice just South of the airport. I’d be able to go through that, and use the trees for cover until I reached the airport. I’d left the gate open on the South side ready for this moment. Once I got into the forest, I realised I had underestimated how challenging the terrain would be. Visible routes and uneven topography made me have to drive a lot slowly than I had hoped. And that police helicopter was scouring the woodland from above, using breaks in the foliage to peer in and ascertain my position.

I could also hear the sound of sirens behind me know as they raced after me. I was really cutting things fine here. But, suddenly, I saw the gate that I’d left open appear in front of me, and I slammed back on the accelerator and worked my way back through the gears. The helicopter zeroed in on me as soon as I entered the small airport and it wouldn’t be long before I had company on the tarmac. But I pulled up alongside the jet and we hurried up the steps as fast as we could. Police cars were now pulling up too, so I ordered the pilot to fire up before they blocked the runway to stop us from getting airborne. Fortunately it was a small, lightweight aircraft that could turn sharply and quickly, and before long we could feel it gathering its momentum before that reassuring uplift told us we were finally free of police pursuit. I took a deep breath in relief. I had done it! I had kidnapped the most famous serial killer of the modern age.

 

“Where are we going?” Ramona finally asked. It was the first thing any of us had said in the first fifteen minutes of the journey. We were all just getting our breath back.

“Svalbard. No extradition since Russia invaded so we would have a bit of time.” I let them know, my planning had been meticulous.

“A bit of time until what?” Minnie piped up.

“Until I travel back further in time to stop the Apocalypse. To stop Grendel. But, to do that, you need to tell me Minnie… what happened between the dates October 2018 and July 2020? Because, whatever it was, it caused time and space to ripple into creases.” I said. And finally I had my chance to ask her the big question. How did these ripples begin?

“Oh fuck” Minnie said under her breath. “You’re talking about A Free Hit”

“A Free what?”

“A Free Hit. Those dates were when A Free Hit happened.”

So, one of the things we know about spacetime is that it didn’t like it when I changed weight. I had a different mass at the same place and time, causing an irregularity that made me time-loop. Well, it seemed like it was this idea of changing of mass in a short space and time, done to extreme level heretofore never witnessed, that had been the cause.

Minnie essentially told me that back in October, she was at University when she remarked that she had put on a few pounds. She was still really thin, so much so that she was nicknamed ‘Skinny’. But then this classmate of hers gave this big old speech about A Free Hit and that, while they were at University, they shouldn’t fret over such trivial things as watching your weight. Live life etc etc etc.

That very day, she was put into a group project with this student, Rutherford and this Polish girl that I’d never heard of. And this Free Hit, accompanied by Minnie’s self-destructive tendencies and Rutherford’s feederism, resulted in all the girls gaining loads of weight in a short space of time, all while living under the same roof.

“But it would have to be extreme Minnie. We’re talking about corrupting the very fabric of spacetime. A few Freshman 15s isn’t going to be enough to alter the course of a supermassive black hole.” I pointed out.

“It wasn’t just a few Freshman 15s though”

“How much? How much was it?”

Well, In the course of one academic year, Rutherford had gone from 134lbs of American cuteness to over 400lbs of supersize. I mean that boggled even me, and at my size, not a lot should boggle me. By the time she had to return to America, she was over 800lbs! In just a year and a half! From a cute and slim girl with a goofy grin and hipster film habits, to being ¾ of the way to a half-tonne. But she wasn’t the only one either. Wiktoria had gone from the 114lbs at the start of the first year to nearly 770lbs. And this was a malnourished heptathlete. I was shocked at this point. And then I heard even Minnie had gained weight.

Of course I could see she had the propensity. Her oversized anorak was now so perilously small on her that she had to keep her legs cross lest she go all Basic Instinct on us. But she’d apparently gained 250lbs in one year, and then lost that same amount the following year. And all these weight fluctuations were occurring within the confines of one property in such a narrow time span. Maybe this would explain it after all.

“And then there was Leona...”

“Wait, who’s Leona? Wait, Miss Clefton-Bridge? The English professor? I know her, I work with her. I didn’t realise...”

And yeah, she was part of it too. I couldn’t believe it but apparently she used to be thin also. The idea of A Free Hit and two teenage girls had caused all this? Some 135lb teacher who was famously attractive across the campus transformed over the course of 2 years into a 700lb woman? All these people, in the same roof, gaining a quarter tonne each? This was madness. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

“Oh, and Shay lived with us for a bit...”

Apparently, in the second year, Shania Kroeger, the girl Minnie murdered, lived with them until Rutherford had to go back to America. She arrived at 135lbs and left at 220lbs. My suspension of disbelief found this literally incredible.

“And there were regular guests, like Betty and Zara Bollingbrooke and...”

“Wait, Betty Bollingbrooke was thin?”

Like a pencil apparently. I remember her as the girl who drank and ate and smoked like fish, a Viking and a chimney. Famously sued the University for wrongful dismissal. Well, the notorious glutton was apparently once a virtuous goody-two-shoes the size of a sparrow. This was ridiculous. I’d heard enough, I think we now know how it started. I just had to work out how to finish it.

 

But I had 6 months until the next jump. So I had 6 months to work out a plan of action. And 6 months with two wanted criminals in the Arctic circle with £40 million left in my bank balance, a bank balance that I had intentionally kept offshore and beyond our Government’s reach, in a country with no extradition to Europe or America.

I guess that meant we had a 6 month Free Hit. At nearly 600lbs. With the most famous feeder alive. What’s the worst that could happen?

[swahilimonkfish]

Technically the final chapter, but I'll be posting an epilogue chapter that will wrap everything up. But at least this chapter has some proper weight gain in it for a change

Chapter 17

 

The Final Free Hit

 

“So, in 6 months time, you’re going to fly around the world while I stuff you like you’ve never been stuffed before?”

“Yup”

“So you can travel back in time to stop A Free Hit from ever happening?”

“Uh-huh”

“So you can stop the crumpling of spacetime?”

“Yeah”

“Which results in a supermassive black hole from swallowing the Earth?”

“That’s about the gist of it”

“Oh”

 

It was proving a lot to take in for the two girls. I sometimes forget quite how mad it sounds. I had been learning so much of these things piecemeal, I can’t imagine what a shock it must be to learn all of this in one go. So I gave them space and time. Fittingly enough.

 

“When you go back in time, what happens to us?”

“Well… you presumably will never have happened”

“Never have happened?”

“Yeah”

“So I’ll never have met Ramona?”

 

And here was the other thing that they were struggling with. If I go back and time and stop it all from happening, I stop them from ever meeting. Really, if it wasn’t for a free hit, Minnie would never have gone to America, found herself on the run for murder and then hidden away on the Isle of Barra. And they would never have met. I must admit, I hadn’t thought of that. I think of all the things that I was going to fix, I didn’t think of all the things I was planning on breaking. Like their relationship.

 

“Well, we won’t help you then”

“The world will literally end if you don’t”

“I don’t care. All of it, everything, it would all be worth it. I don’t want to live in a world where I haven’t met Ramona”

“Oh”

“Could I come with you?”

“No, it… it ruins your life.”

“Ruins your life?”

“Yeah, I’m 600lbs and 35 years old, and I’m supposed to be 120lbs and 25 years old. I want nothing more to meet my dad, but he won’t recognise me. And he thinks he’ll never see me again. I’m giving you the chance to see your parents again.”

“But...”

“And you’ll be back to however you were before A Free Hit. Before it all went Pete Tong.”

 

Because time-travel was a one-way trip. There was no going back. I wasn’t doing this for me. But I was willing to suffer for everyone else. For Chipo. For my Dad. And if I was the price to pay, then I was the price to pay. I was going to jump further back in time, stop this whole charade and then… who knows what. See if my dad will still love me, I guess. I miss him. Oh god, I miss him.

We chilled at this nice property that I’d had built. Money talks. Especially in Russia. It was a nice swanky building, clean lines and white walls and lots of glass. An oasis in a city of rough and ready properties. Longyearbyen may have been Svalbard’s capital city, but it still seemed fairly rundown.

We sat in the lounge, helping ourselves from the cocktail bar while we discussed. Well, while they asked questions and I did my best to answer them. The two girls were now suitably clothed. I’d gone and bought them something more weather appropriate and closer to their size. Longyearbyen wasn’t notorious for their clothing range either, but it was the best for now. If they wanted nicer clothes, we’d have to get it imported. As it was, they were both dressed in jeans and a fleece. The clothing combo flattered Minnie. She really did suit her curves. The jeans hugged her soft chunky legs and bulging arse, and the fleece smothered her stomach. And her face, untouched by make-up, had an ethereal magnificence. Ramona wasn’t quite so lucky. Her build meant that the fleece made her look even more pudgy than she was, and her strangely skinny legs didn’t suit the jeans. But they seemed happy enough, lounging about, drinking, eating and chatting.

 

“Does this place have a scale? So we can weigh ourselves?”

“I mean, yeah, I guess. Why?”

“We won’t exist, right? After 6 months, you’re going to just make this never have happened. So we really do have a 6 month free hit. There really will be no consequences to our gain. We can finally really let it all out.”

“Wait… you haven’t been doing that already?”

“No, this has been me holding back”

“Shit...”

 

I suppose, when everything else is scary and changing around you, you cling onto the things that are familiar. And for Minnie, it was weight gain. Her perennial vice. It was her safety net. When all else was crumbling around her, she latched onto the comfort blanket of weight gain.

She tottered upstairs to grab this scale, while me and Ramona sat around confused.

“So, you like her, huh?” I asked, scrambling for casual conversation so we weren’t trapped with silence.

“Yeah, I love her. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me” she replied, clearly smitten. It was adorable really. A touch creepy perhaps, but still adorable.

“And the weight gain?” this I had to know. All of this had been off the back of a fetish I didn’t understand. Kyle, Minnie all massively impacting me, and it just confused me. Well, maybe I’m protesting too much. I think back to that time with Kyle and maybe it wasn’t as inexplicable as all that. My shoulders shuddered at the memory, but with a perverse delight.

“I see how happy it makes her. So now it makes me happy too” she said. It sounded hauntingly like the sort of response Kyle Malcolm would invoke, but she didn’t seem addicted. Just loved up.

Minnie came back down with a maniacal grin. She elected to stand on it first, eager to hear the results. 179lbs. It made her technically overweight but only just. In reality, she looked just on the large side of stunning.

Next up was Ramona, who had a big goofy grin on her face and all. Strange bunch of perverts. 204lbs. No wonder her clothes didn’t flatter her. She had contrived to be 25lbs heavier than her girlfriend despite being 8 inches shorter.

“And you Gwen. We’re all in this together”

“No, I’m good. Ignorance is bliss. Besides, you’re going to be thin in 6 months no matter what. Some of us don’t have that luxury” I grumbled.

“Don’t be silly. You need to practice. Expand your appetite ready for the flight. Training.” Minnie said, with blatant ulterior motives.

“I’m pretty good already. I literally ate pasta for 16 hours straight to get back here, I’ve got eating plenty covered.” I protested, a little intimidated by this famed murderer.

“Puurrrlease. I once got Betty to eat for 36 hours straight. And that was without personal coaching.” Minnie said. Shit, she had me there. My primary duty was to saving the planet. I needed all the help I could get. I couldn’t be so vain. I had to be willing to sacrifice myself. I had to let myself be Minnie’d.

I stood reluctantly on the scales. 603lbs. Fuck. I didn’t realise I was over that 600 threshold already. Minnie smiled. I worried. We had enough money for Minnie to go utterly crazy with gluttony, and nobody went crazy with gluttony quite like Minnie.

 

While Minnie set about her devious indulgence, I set about more prep time. This was what I was good at. Lottery numbers – revised. Locations – revised. Dates, times, surnames – revised. I knew when and where to intercept. Using all the information that Minnie had given me, I knew exactly which strings to pull to unravel the who thing. I was ready.

Minnie wasn’t having such joy. Her and Ramona were having words.

“I thought you liked me, but I saw the way you looked at her. That’s how you should look at me.” Ramona cried. She’d given up everything for this girl, and this girl’s eye was wandering towards me.

“You’re the only one for me, love. It’s just… it’s hard. She’s… I dunno… I remember Rutherford being that size is all” Minnie admitted to her impulses. There was not a fat girl that she hadn’t made a move on, and it was hard for her. Old habits die hard.

“But you said you love me. I sacrificed everything...” Ramona continued to cry.

“No… no, I love you. More than anything. I would do owt for you. I love you and I want to spend the last six months of my life with you.” Minnie begged passionately.

“Prove it...” Ramona hissed as she left the room. Minnie sat down on the white chair in the white room, in a white house in a nation white with snow. She sat there and felt alone.

 

I was suddenly realising how much work I was going to have to do. And I was beginning to worry about my size to physically do it. I had so much work in front of me, or rather behind me. Or, however time worked. I had to prevent A Free Hit. And all that entailed. Rutherford, Betty, Leona, Wiktoria, hell even Minnie herself. I had the basics down, the information ready, but I had six months to get all my ducks in a row, else it was all for naught.

And it couldn’t be for naught. My dad was still alive. Now. Right at this instant, somewhere in Wales, grumbling about fence posts probably. Missing me. I missed him. But I was there at his funeral. I saw the casket. My dad wasn’t allowed to die. I wasn’t going to let it. And everybody has a dad, or a Chipo, a friend or a family member, someone whose death would make them feel like my dad’s death made me feel. Duty first. For King and Country. For Dad.

Minnie walked into the room with her head hanging low. I’d heard her and Ramona arguing and figured I knew why.

“You okay over there?” I asked, peering up over my laptop.

“Ramona hates me” Minnie said, forlornly. “And she’s right to. I don’t know how to fix it. I need to make things better and I don’t know how. I don’t want to lose her. Now, or in the past.”

“Well, I can’t help the second one. You’re going back to factory settings I’m afraid. You’ll never have met. You met Ramona because you were on the run. You were on the run because you were with Rutherford. You were with Rutherford because… A Free Hit. And I’ve got to stop that” I said, sympathetically.

“Is there nothing we can do? You can do? I mean, you’re going back in time, can’t you match us up?” she asked, with worried eyes.

“Would it work? You like her now, she likes you now. But would 21 year old Minnie like her, would 23 year old Ramona like you?” I asked. I understood what she meant. Ramona was her someone. I had my dad. She had her Ramona. I was sacrificing everything for my dad and she wanted to do the same for Ramona. “You know what. I’ll do something, leave it with me.”

“Really?” Minnie said, her green eyes exploding with hope.

“I believe in fate. I found you because of fate. Not science, fate. You found her because of fate. And I’ll make sure you find her again. Trust me. I’m an astro-fucking-physicist.” I said, and I offered a smile.

“Oh, and Minnie, before you go… you don’t have to feed me”

“What? But I thought we decided you needed to...” Minnie said, her arrowed eyebrows relaying her confusion.

“I do need a feeder. But you should spend the last 6 months of this life, however it works, with Ramona. Don’t worry, I know a guy” I said. And I did. I knew a guy. I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew a guy who might be able to help.

 

I had to extend my plans now, to accommodate Minnie’s request. This was going to be a lot of work. But saving the world wasn’t supposed to be easy. I was going to keep my word. I was going to give fate a little helping hand, and push these two little lovebirds together.

And then I was going to ask somebody at the Svalbard consulate to get hold of a young Australian man. Goes by the name of Kyle Malcolm. Would probably be living in London at this point. Maybe he hadn’t met the love of his life yet, or maybe he had and he was well on the way to feeding her to oblivion. But, if he was, he was going to have to take a pause. Because if I needed to develop my appetite even further, there was really only one man for the job.

 

 

“So Minnie, where did the idea of A Free Hit come from?”

“Shaun. The prick. He left during his first year anyway. He stood up to his boss or summat and went back to work full-time”

“And if it wasn’t for that, nobody would gain weight?”

“Well, maybe not”

“Explain”

“I mean, I’d still have the urge, just maybe not with those girls. But there’s something wrong with me.”

“How do I stop that? When did it start?”

“Umm… maybe the pregnancy. I got pregnant, had an abortion. After that, I self-harmed, got depressed. Had control issues ever since.”

“Oh. I had no idea.”

“Yeah, 19^th birthday party. Dunno who. I’m not sure it would fix me, but it wouldn’t do any harm to stop that party from happening”

“Riiight. I can do that.”

“And, of course there’s Rutherford”

“Ah, the Shay incident?”

“Well, she had urges before then apparently. It’s a fetish, not sure of the cause. Oh, but I remember her saying about how she’d try to coax weight gain onto instagrammers. Using bots or summat. It actually worked on some Chinese-American girl.”

“Ah shit. Okay. So I have to go to America?”

“No, you just need her handle. It was of one of them old Italian directors. Classic ones that she was into.”

“Scorsese?”

“No, like proper Italian”

“Fellini?”

“Yeah, that’s the guy. What’s his most famous movie?”

“La Strada? 8 ½?”

“Yeah, that one. The second one. Her handle was that. Fellini812.”

“And that is the root cause?”

“Well no. Just when it started getting out of hand. The root cause was her crush on the actress Saffron Spenser. When she put on loads of weight early on in her career. She’d, apparently, spend ages just googling her.”

“Oh great. I’ve got to stop a Hollywood movie star from gaining weight”

 

A cold draught poured in as I poured over the details of my plan. The rooms here were well heated because the Russians didn’t believe in climate change, but something was making the place go cold. It could only mean one thing. Kyle was here.

“Who the fuck are you and why the hell am I… oh shit, you’re huge” Kyle marched in on a tirade and paused at the sight of me. He was about the only man alive who I would have that effect on, and it was nice to know I still had it.

“Yeah. I’m huge. I’m from the future. Blah blah blah. The real point, I know who you are. I know what you like. Women addicted to you, getting fatter that kind of thing. I know you become the President of Australia...”

“Australia doesn’t have a president.” He corrected smugly.

“Not currently. You fix that. Or break that. Or whatever. You become a dictator president who arrests journalists that stumble across your fetish. Does that sound like the kind of person you might become?” I asked to this mini-Kyle. He wasn’t quite like the Kyle I knew. Not as hardened, not as fierce. He was a little more baby-faced, he hair was a little thicker, his chest a little wider. He didn’t have his scar underneath his chin yet. So much for a shark attack.

“Ummm… and what do you want?” He seemed less sure of himself. His cocksure swagger dissipating. I had that effect on him.

“I want you to help me develop my appetite” I said, as diplomatically as I could.

“You seem to have that one down already, by the looks of you” he said, and there was a younger version of his crooked smile. Oh, how I’d missed that crooked smile of his. I’d missed him. Fuck it, I know it sounds like maybe I’m addicted to him too. I’m not, but my God I miss him. And now I have him.

“This, my Australian friend, is just the starting point. I have a long way to go” and his crooked smirk flourished into a beaming smile. He was so sweet and innocent. I can’t believe I was going to be the one who corrupts him. My, how the tables of food have turned. This was going to be fun.

 

Minnie walked into the room where Ramona was, gently and hesitantly. She was feeling guilty and guilt wasn’t an emotion that she processed with particular efficiency.

“Hey Mona. I just wanted to say sorry, love. I fucked up and I’m sorry” Minnie said, looking at her feet.

“It’s nor your fault Minnie. I’m just nae good enough. Maybe with the slim pickings of the Isle of Barra, but next to someone her size, I’m insignificant.” Ramona said, quietly.

“Fuck off Ramona. I love you. I love you. I don’t know why, I just know that I do. And I’ll prove it to you, love. I’m not going to feed Gwen.” Minnie said, desperate to win the love of her life back over.

“If you love me, then would you lose weight for me?” Ramona asked, her eyes fixing on Minnie’s.

“Yes. If that’s what you want, then yes. For you, yes I would.” Minnie said, pleading.

“If you love me, then would you let me lose weight?” Ramona asked also, her eyes not leaving Minnie’s. Minnie took a step back in recoil, and paused to think.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course I would. If that’s what you want, then of course. Because what I want is you. And nothing else matters” Minnie said, surprising herself. Ramona’s face lit up, her eyes widened and her cheeks regained their colour.

“Well, in that case, let’s order in, I’m hungry” Ramona said, her smile scrunching up her eyes in eagerness.

“I don’t… I don’t understand?” Minnie looked confused, like she’d been tricked.

“I dunnae want to lose weight. I dunnae want you to lose weight. I just wanted to know that you’d be willing to. I just wanted to know where your priorities lay. They lie with me. And I want to get fat with you, Green Eyes. So let’s order in.” Ramona said, and Minnie’s face lit up. She had everything she ever wanted, and she had it for 6 months. No consequences, for real this time. Just A Free Hit for six months. And Minnie could do so much damage in six months.

 

While you might have thought I had enough to keep me occupied with plotting to save the world, but saving the world was the second most time-consuming aspect of my days up in Svalbard. Being fed by Kyle was number one. The pretence was always to expand my appetite, but it soon devolved in sexy feeding sessions.

I would find myself in an oh-so-familiar position. Strung up in my own bed with ropes around each wrist and to a bedstead. I would lie there naked and feel myself pool out onto the mattress like a puddle of flesh. I could sense him before I could see him. I could sense the pressure on the mattress as he prowled towards me. He would be on his knees and straddling me, one knee to either side with my lake of a stomach in between. And he would feed me and feed me and feed me until I couldn’t be fed any more. And then he’d feed me some more.

I remember the first time, it was piroshki. Dozens of flavours of piroshki. One of the few perks of living in an island that was now under Russian dominion was the piroshki, with their buttery pastries and warm and tasty fillings. Beef and onion, salmon and cream cheese, chicken and chorizo, creamy mushroom, triple cheese. Each one as decadent as the last. And as he saw me inflate with gluttony before him, as he heard me groan with fullness as I pushed myself harder and harder, his sexual urges got too much. First he got tactile, then he got physical and then he attempted to penetrate me. But this Kyle, this younger version was clearly not so well versed with a woman of my size. The way my stomach drooped over in the way, making him have to push it back just to get it in, the way my legs spilled sideways, narrowing the root to my clitoris. It all seemed such a challenge for the fatty-fucking novice. And that just empowered me so much more. And the sex then, and every time since, has been outlandishly good.

 

It wasn’t just me that was exploring this particular kink. But the difference with what I had with Kyle, and what Ramona had with Minnie was that Minnie was multi-tasking. Because she had two people to feed.

She called them food orgies, even though there were only two of them. But they still felt like Epicurean food parties of hedonistic indulgence. Never were people tending to two holes as much as these two tended to each other’s two holes. And Minnie got to truly let rip. She was unleashed. No pandering, no restraint, no hesitancy. There was no moral quandary or dilemma, no doubt or lack of assuredness. There wasn’t any self-loathing or self-sabotage. There were no obstacles or financial limitations. Ramona was getting the full Minnie experience. Hurricane Minnie. And there was no shelter.

Minnie depended heavily on the local fast food places of Longyearbyen, who were getting a cash injection into their local economy courtesy of my purse and our stomachs. There were a conveyor belt of deliveries to the place of all of the local fast food options. They were fairly limited given the size of the place and relative difficulty to get there, but they did benefit from a drive towards tourism in recent years. And this accounted for a Chinese restaurant, a pizza place, a kebab place, a KFC and a Burger King. And each would be consumed like Grendel might a planet.

The sex was no less wild either. It was unburdened by convention or judgement. It was all just driven by excess. Ramona revelled in submitting to Minnie, as she brought upon her experiences that she had never before even dreamt of. Nails, teeth, tongue, fingers. Every tool at Minnie’s disposal, all harnessed and honed to elicit maximum pleasure. She knew exactly where to press, where to dig deep. And Ramona just let herself get caught up in it like a kite in a tornado. Day after day, month after month of hedonistic burning.

 

There was very little cross-over between our two sets of pairs. Kyle and I kept pretty much to ourselves, our preoccupations being a fairly full-time job. And the same with Minnie and Ramona, all that blistering fucking really derailing any chance for casual socialising and chit-chat.

If paths ever crossed, it was invariably the two feeders. Minnie and Kyle would often bump into each other, and size each other up. Minnie would recognise his sinister smirk, and Kyle would recognise her crooked glint, and they would nod in acknowledgement. Two sexual maniacs cut from the same explosive cloth. Two rampaging forces laying waste to their sexual victims. They could have been like rutting stags, trying to assert dominance, but they instead just showed mutual respect for someone so similar to them. Maybe it made them feel a little less alone, and little less like a freak. Before they went into their respective rooms to get their freak on.

 

It was around the third month that I began to worry about my weight. I know, it sounds silly. That boat set sail a long time ago. But my insatiable appetite and Kyle’s ceaseless feeding was taking a further toll on my body. It was expendable, I was expendable. I’d come to terms with that. This was a one-way ticket. But there were potential problems here. Problems about the rate at which I was growing. Getting about was already becoming a chore. At what point would it get beyond that? I had to save the world, and that would be pretty difficult to do from a bed. I was still three months away from lift-off and how big would I be then? And how small would I have to stay? I needed to speak to an expert. I needed to speak to Minnie.

“Ay up love, how’s things?” Minnie said, with a big smile on her face. Her malevolence was tingling, I could spidey-sense it from here. I was hiding under the covers to conceal my naked fatty form from her, and Kyle was sitting on the side of the bed to keep me company. This younger version of Kyle was so much nicer, so much more empathetic. It makes you wonder what changed?

“Hey Minnie, I’m alright thanks. Been eating well. You?” I replied with a smile on my face. It was clear that she had. It was funny from where I was sitting. I had spent all that time researching photos of this woman, and each one looked like a glamour photo shoot. As well as those enchanting eyes and sharpened face, her body was always hypnotically chicaning and alluring. Not so much these days, the transformation was electric. The way her stomach hung down at the front and pushed out at the side, all soft and squishy. She had really done a number on herself.

“Yes, ta. Pretty good thanks. So what is this I hear you asking about mobility?” she said, unable to hide her glee. The words sent shivers down my spine. I wasn’t entirely sure if they were good shivers or bad shivers, but they were undoubtedly shivers.

“Yeah, I’m getting pretty big and I was wondering at what point would getting around be more than just an issue” I said, self-consciously. These are conversations that never don’t sound awkward.

“Haha, well, it depends. Are you getting plenty of exercise?”

“No”

“Oh, okay. To be fair, you don’t look like a girl that gets a lot of exercise” Minnie teased, revelling. “Okay, so what’s your weight?”

“672lbs” I mumbled.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that”

“I said, 672lbs” it was hard to say once, let alone twice. I was up 70lbs in just three months and there were another three months to go. It made sense that I was worried. No human being should have a BMI in three figures.

“Wow, good going Kyle. You’re doing the Lord’s work. Well… Rutherford didn’t really get out and about until 600lbs, but that was just because she was a lazy blighter. No, she wasn’t really approaching immobilty at 800lbs. And you have to remember, she was… what, 3 inches shorter than you aswell. So I think you can carry on at your rate and still be reet. Maybe slow down a bit if you get near 750lbs, that would be my advice. It was doable, unaided for her, but it got tricky at that point. Also, you have to factor in that she was bottom heavy. And top heavy. And middle heavy. She was just heavy, it was amazing. You should be proud to follow in her deep footsteps” Minnie said and then sauntered off with a big grin on her face. The sight of me just furthering her resolve to fatten herself and her lover even more.

And I was a sight, though I had concealed the worst of me under bedding. My necks and cheeks were just pouches of fat now. My arms were like michelin man arms. My breasts were heavy now. My stomach folded and creased, and left the rest of me looking out of proportion. My arse was like a pair of space-hoppers attached to my rear. My legs had so much excess on them that they made my feet look small. I was hideous, obese, devastated. But I was also immensely attractive to Kyle thanks to being immensely immense. And I was also the woman who was going to save the world, so there’s also that.

“How was she, hen?” Ramona cooed as Minnie returned to her lover.

“Fat. How have you managed without me?” Minnie asked as she pulled her clothes back off and walked over to her naked girlfriend eating from a bucket of KFC.

“Well, this is bucket number two. I’ve been a good girlfriend, done you proud” she said with an impish grin. And she had. As she always did. For a woman who didn’t, or at least hadn’t, subscribed to the fetish, she had embraced it rather fully. Maybe it was the exoticism, maybe it was just wanting to please Minnie, maybe it was Minnie’s seductive, corruptive, persuasive ways. But whatever it was, it showed on the little girl, squidging out like a mini-Gwen. Her legs were teetering on going beyond oaklike and stock into wobbly play-do territory. Her tummy was a gut, her face was growing wider, her arms, her arse, all of it blossoming and billowing through the passage of time and the feeding of Minnie.

“Maybe I’ll reward you for being such a good girlfriend...”

“Oooo, what you thinking Green Eyes” Ramona said with a hamster smile.

“Maybe bucket number three?” Ramona kicked Minnie when she said that. “Fine, and maybe some sex too. God woman, it’s always about sex with you.”

 

As time passed, and the deadline drew nearer, dread built up. Firstly, we were all dreading leaving all this behind. Just unabashed feeding frenzy, untempered and unfettered. It was the kind of experience most people never get to experience once, and I had managed to experience it twice. Both times with the same feeder, but in different continents and in different timelines. But, moreso, the others were dreading simply being extinguished. They were about to never have existed, mind-boggling as that is to conceive. That is a kind of death. Minnie kept reminding me to ensure that her and Ramona would meet up again. She didn’t want this to be goodbye.

And finally, I was feeling dread because, after six months of letting my hair down and my stomach down, things were about to go back to being serious. And everything was riding on this. All the build-up had done me know favours. Everything else that I had done had been impulsive, but this seemed over-wrought in its calculating. And the job just kept getting bigger in my mind.

Speaking of getting bigger… my weight gain hadn’t dimmed. I would lie to myself and pretend it was all just training, preparing myself for the biggest jump yet. But I’d be lying. It was gluttony. It was an excuse for gluttony. A shameful excuse for misbehaviour for a woman who had spent so much of her life doing everything she can do be as fit as she could. And here I was, gaining like billio. It was irresponsible, reckless and I couldn’t quit it.

I tried to mitigate the irresponsibility with exercise. I’d taken up exercise. Well, walking. Around the property. Not exactly the traditional definition of exercise. But daily walks proved that I was still going to be physically able to do the job at the other end, and excused me from reining in my out-of-hand eating habits. And boy were they getting out of hand.

The plan was going to be a 72 hour flight, which would involve multiple mid-air refuels. This was a regular occurrence from when I was from, but these days this was quite bold and ambitious. From my perspective, 72 hours of non-stop eating was going to be the really ambitious part. But I would have a team around me – well, Minnie, Ramona and Kyle – who would take shifts feeding me to new levels. Apparently Minnie remembers Betty failing to do 36 hours. Well, I was going to make 72 hours look like a cinch.

The day came and everybody’s mood darkened. Nobody said much, we all just went about our prepped plans ready to execute this most ludicrous of attempts. Very little eye contact was made as the finality of all this felt so much more pressing. This was going to be the end, one way or the other. We could do this though! I believed in us! I’d come too far, risked too much, for this all to be futile. I was going to go back in time, save the world and maybe see my dad. Or maybe not. Maybe I was too big. Maybe seeing him would be too much for him. But he’d be alive, and that would be the important thing, right? Wrong. No. I would see my dad. I wouldn’t bring him back from the dead just to avoid him. Excessively obese or not, I was going to see my dad again.

Minnie lightened the mood, the only way she knew how. She insisted we come full circle with one final weigh-in. See how much damage these six months had inflicted upon our fleshy selves. It was gratuitous and silly in the grand scheme of things, but it felt like the only real way to say goodbye and move on to whatever came next. It was weight gain that brought us her, weight gain the reason we were here, so we’d check our weight gain as we left.

Ramona stood on first and stood proud. The little girl really didn’t have a lot of places for her fat to go. It didn’t suit her, from where I stood, but Minnie’s eyes lit up when she looked at her. The stomach hanging over her legs, the arms like sausage meat being squeezed into its case. She may have been a small girl, but she sure was a big girl. 344lbs of flabby flubbery flob. She jumped up in celebration when she was told the weight. I’m pretty sure the ground shook when she landed.

Next up was Minnie, who may have worn her weight well, but she was testing that maxim to its fullest by being eaten to her fullest. She noted that she was softer this time around, her stomach didn’t defy gravity this time around as it drooped over a surely superfluous belt. Her breasts suffered a similar fate of downward pulling. Her face was still transcendentally beautiful in a way that could capture the heart of any passer-by. But now it stood atop a ballooned up body that took every opportunity to bulge outwards. The numbers supported this. 317lbs. Even at her height, that was comfortably morbidly obese. She was now getting towards her highest ever weight. Shame she would never fully make it.

Finally, it was me. I was last like I was the headline act. I was just a mass of flesh at this point. The observation was found in the details. Like ribbons of fat in places where she weren’t joints. My arm fat had creases not just at the elbow but along the bicep also. There was a bit of fat from my calf that hung near my ankle. That was just weird. Nobody’s body should do that. But my stomach was the piece de resistance. More than one person could hug. It hung down to my knees, putting real strain on my back. I girded my loins and stood on the scales, fearing the worst. And getting exactly what I feared. 747lbs. Sure, 747 seems fitting for a girl about to climb aboard a private jet, but it was also a ludicrous number. Ridiculous. Unfathomable. No person should weigh that. But I did. And, after 72 hours of non-stop bingeing, I was not going to time-travel any lighter, that’s for sure.

But we had 72 hours, we had some of the greatest feeders of all time, and all the food my many millions could buy. This plan was going to work. How could it possibly not. What could possibly go wrong?

[swahilimonkfish]

Okay, so the following post was originally just intended for my DA page. It wraps up this story, but it also wraps up lots of my other stories too. So some of that might fly over your head. But I've put it here to close out this story too. The main stories referenced are A Free Hit and Spaghettification though, and A Free Hit also got posted here.

It also alludes to stories also posted on here, but are non-essential to the plot:

Instagram Feed

I'm addicted to you

Lady Falstaff

Betty Bollingbrooke

And finally, it mentions only one story that hasn't been. One called The Stay-At-Home Spy. But it is only lightly mentioned in the plot tbh.

It is here if you want to read it, but it only works on laptop since it's in PDF form, not on mobile or tablet. But, again, non-essential to the plot

https://www.deviantart.com/swahilimonkfish/art/The-stay-at-home-spy-787234072

 

And thanks for your support again, especially since the quality declined during the latter parts of the story.

[swahilimonkfish]

There's No Such Thing As A Free Hit

A Direct Spaghettification Sequel

 

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Largest Euro-Lottery Rollover winner British

Date article published: June 23^rd 2014

 

The largest Euro Lottery win of all time has been won by a British lottery ticket. The colossal €260 million, the largest win since the lottery’s inception, has been claimed by just one individual who wishes to remain anonymous. The ticket was bought from a Morrisons in York.

 

Click HERE to see some of the amazing thing €260 can buy

 

 

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Skinny poured herself another run and coke. This was going to be a great party. All her friends were here, and all the hot blokes from the rugby team too. She had her eye on this guy called Terrence. Hollywood blond hair on a beaten and weathered face, and built like a gladiator. The perfect mix of rough and smooth. He had been eyeing her too. The pretty little girl with the enchanting eyes. And, from the looks of her staggered steps, pretty inebriated.

“Ay up Skinny” he said as he walked up to her. She was tall, nearly as tall as him when in her heels. And so wonderfully thin, her elbows were so pointy and sharp and her hips so needling. She had ditched the skinny jeans that was traditionally her uniform, for a little red dress that showed a lot of leg. Her pastel pencils slunk up to the lower hem, but hinted at so much more. Terrence wanted to fuck this girl, so bad.

“Ay up Tezza, it’s my birthday!” she said with a wonderfully childish grin. It was such an innocent smile, and it hooked him in further.

“I know, everyone knows!” he pointed out to the drunken vixen. “How about we go up to your room and celebrate 19?”

Skinny’s green eyes lit up. “Yeeesss, celebrate!” and she marched him upstairs to one of the vacant bedrooms.

She lay on the bed facing him with a big grin. She was about to lose her virginity to this slab of testosterone. He pulled off his shirt to reveal his rippling torso. Skinny wasn’t embarrassed to admit that she gasped as it was pulled off. He really was a hunk of a man.

“No johnnies on me, love. So we’ll be going bareback tonight. But don’t worry, I’ll pull out” he said as he jumped on the bed too.

“You’ll definitely pull out? Promise?” Skinny said, but her big smile betrayed her lack of concern.

“I promis...” Terrence groaned in frustration and hit the mattress with his fist. He could hear downstairs the police downstairs breaking up the party. “Oh come on!”

Terrence hurriedly pulled his shirt back on and hurried out the door, muttering something about his dad killing him if he got another rap on the knuckles from the police. Skinny just lay on her bed and sighed. She had been so close to the perfect night with the perfect specimen. And someone called the police on here. It was probably that fat bitch next door, always poking her nose in where it didn’t belong. Skinny staggered drunkenly down the stairs to see what the police wanted.

 

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Banish not him thy Harry’s company,
Banish not him thy Harry’s company.
Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.

 

Those were the final lines that she had read to me for her classical monologue. And now, the budding talent had been offered the part of Lord Falstaff in a theatre production. Or should that be Lady Falstaff. It was such an exciting offer the talented girl, Spenser Saffron hadn’t even been offered a non-stage role yet and here she was being offered the part of Lord Falstaff.

It was at a fairly fancy theatre as well. A new one, recently founded, in the centre of London. Grendel Theatre specialised in retellings of classical stories of Greek and Roman, and no small amount of Shakespeare. They were a dream ticket for any aspiring actress and a dream ticket for an aspiring agent no less. This could be the thing that turns Astraea around finally, a talented young girl finally getting the quality of role that she deserves. Essentially handed to her on a silver platter.

And a pretty girl too. I can’t believe how charmingly attractive she is. Her radiant beauty and classical looks, coupled with her composure, elegance and poise, meant that this girl was headed for the very top of the industry. She had a dainty little frame that disguised the amount of gravitas she could conjure once she got her lungs working. The girl was going to be a star.

It seems that this beauty was part of the appeal in offering her this role. The contract insists on her not gaining any weight for the role. They justify it as wanted to ‘do something different with the character’, but we all know what that means really. They want a pretty girl on the poster, and they don’t want some actorly delusions of grandeur cocking it all up by gaining weight for that Falstaffian aesthetic. You can’t blame them. You don’t want your lead actress getting fact.

I wiped the crumbs off my straining dress and sent the signed contract back to them. Sure, it meant she had to pull out of the audition for the David Tennant movie, but, let’s be honest, she was never going to get the part anyway. I took another bite of the muffin and sat proud at what a good agent I was for that girl. Getting her such a good part at such a young age. Maybe I deserved a second muffin as a reward. Sure, my clothes are getting a bit tight but it’s not every day your youngest recruit gets the lead role at a theatre as new and exciting as Grendel Theatre.

 

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Skinny groaned as she woke up. She’d been feeling listless of late. She was starting university in a couple of weeks and she just wanted to lie in bed and hide in the darkness of her room forever.

It wasn’t because she didn’t want to go. She did. She really did. Glasgow University was a prestigious university, and the English Language course sounded right up her street. She was going to get an education and get a job in the city and finally free herself from her parental shackles. No, the cause of her malaise wasn’t ennui, it was fear.

6 months ago, she’d got a message from this girl called Ramona. She lived on some Scottish island called Barra. Well, there had been some weird miscommunication. Ramona thought she had received a message from Skinny, and Skinny thought that she had received a message from Ramona. They had never met before, so who knows how that happened, but they had gotten to texting one another anyway. They enjoyed each others company immensely. Skinny liked how mature Ramona was for her age, and Ramona enjoyed speaking to someone so posh and fancy as Skinny.

That they were both coming to terms with their non-linear sexual orientation too, certainly helped. From the photos she had seen, Skinny was the most beautiful girl Ramona had ever seen. And Skinny always had a thing for girls with glasses. However, with one of the two girls trapped on some remote Scottish outpost, it looked like these online friends would never actually get to meet up in real life. And then Skinny got accepted onto the course at Glasgow University.

The plan was to meet up periodically. Neither had ever done anything like this before. It was rash and reckless, and that was part of the thrill. Skinny decided against Brighton University, which was better for her course, simply to be closer to this girl. And Ramona was going to make regular trips to the mainland on her own, to meet a girl she’d only ever met online. It all felt so rock and roll.

Skinny’s parents objected. Of course. It was irresponsible. It was nice that she had a ‘friend’ - because it wouldn’t do to admit that their daughter might be bisexual – but she shouldn’t throw such caution to the wind. For one girl. Whom she had before even met. Of all people to lend moral support, it was that fat woman who lived next door. In times of doubt, it was Gwen who gave her all the encouragement that she needed. It was Gwen who told her to risk it and meet up with her. It was Gwen who said that the pair sounded like the perfect match. She previously couldn’t stand this enormous woman – and my word she was enormous, it was a surprise she could walk – but her encouragement had been invaluable as Skinny made the most important decision of her life.

 

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Dear user Fellini812

It has been brought to our attention that this account has been responsible for multiple cases of botting against user lifangsu8. This has been investigated by our team and we have concluded that this meets our criteria for account deactivation. You will no longer be able to access this account as per the Terms and Conditions. If you wish to contest this, please click here and follow the instructions.

 

Your sincerely

Instagram Customer Communications Team.

 

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Betty hopped and skipped to her door to open it. Today was the happiest she had felt in years. Finally, finally, someone had put in an anonymous formal complaint against her odious head of department, Lionel Stewart. After somebody had finally committed and made it official, a flurry of further complaints were levelled against him. Even Leona did. She’d always looked up to Leona, even if the teacher was always rather aloof and distant when around little ol’ Betty, the pencil-thin teacher in a pencil skirt. And now Leona, along with a number of complainants, had finally brought the wheels into motion against Lionel. He was placed on ‘gardening leave’ while they investigated him internally, and they were also liaising with the police to determine whether any of his philandering warranted criminal proceedings being brought against him. Which was why this was the happiest Betty had felt in years.

She opened the door, and saw a Deliveroo courier standing at her front door? But she hadn’t ordered anything.

“Are you a Miss Betty Bollingbrooke?” the dashing courier said as he handed her a plastic container. “This is your Kebabland salad.”

“Wow, okay, umm… thanks I guess” Betty said, with a look of confusion.

“And also, thanks for the message you left with the person who took the call. That was really nice” he said, blushing.

“Message?”

“Yeah, apparently you rang and said ‘Please can you send that handsome courier, Remus, to deliver it’. Yeah, they passed the message on. And for what it’s worth, I think you’re really handsome too” he said with a friendly smile. He smiled at her, and admired the angelically featured girl with the endearingly slender frame. The heel of her right foot lifted off the ground as she rubbed her lower calves together with nervous tension. Her hand played with the dark brown strands of her hair.

“Well Remus, I suppose I might order a few more salads from Kebabland in the future” she said, and flashed him her trademark smile. It melted the courier’s heart.

 

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That was it! Shaun had simply had enough. All Pamela did was degrade him. He worked hard, and he deserved to be treated better. He had been at Steadman’s and Co since high school, and poured all of his energy into doing the best that he could do. But, no matter what he did, Pamela would put him down. With her stupid beehive haircut and Napoleon complex, humiliating him by bullying out in the open office. He saw how the rest of the team looked at him. In pity, in shame, in mocking. Regina, with her leathery face and sympathetic eyes. Gwen, the big girl with her judgemental glare. Tony, from accounts, snickering at the back. Shaun rushed off to the cubicles to cry away from prying eyes.

He sat in the toilet cubicle and blew his nose on the toilet paper. This wasn’t how he wanted to live his life. Alone and demoralised. Every day that he woke up, he had to confront an anchor of dread in his stomach at the prospect of another day at work. He felt himself losing posture the longer he worked here. He hadn’t always been like this, some kowtowing coward. He’d been the guy that everybody spoke to if they had a problem or issue, because he’d know the answer. It was only when Pamela was around that he felt like he no longer had answers. It was only when Pamela was around that he felt like the problem or issue.

So, he was going to change his hours. Evenings and weekends. Any hours that meant he didn’t have to work alongside that witch. Sure, Richard Steadman would probably try to talk him out of it. Sure, it would mean that his income would take a hit. But he needed to never be in the same room as that woman again. He was going to need an excuse. A reason for hiding from Pamela. One that avoided conflict. He was going to say he was going to University.

Shaun came out with a sliver of resolve. Brighton University was fairly local to where he lived, and they were still in clearing, so could take applications to the subjects that won’t fully booked. English Language was one of those subjects. It would take his career in a direction far from his current one. It would give him the chance to start over in a whole new environment. A fresh new beginning, in a world without Pamela.

He marched towards Richard’s office, only to see Pamela already in there. Also in there was Gwen, the new girl who specialised in computer network mapping. Gwen was a very large girl, and Shaun always felt sorry for someone of her size. She’d required special accommodation with regards to seating, since office chairs simply didn’t cut it.

Shaun suddenly leaned back as Pamela hurled the phone in Richard’s office at the wall in fury. She angrily pointed her sharpened finger at the large girl and stormed out of the office, announcing that she quit. Maybe Shaun didn’t need to request to only work out-of-hours after all. Whatever happened in there, it was enough to send Pamela into a tail-spinning fury that even Richard couldn’t overlook.

Gwen squeezed through the door and waddled out, winking at Shaun as she went.

“She shouldn’t bully us. It’s discriminatory” she said, with a sly smile, before walking out of the office herself, never to be seen again.

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

“Poppy? I mean, she’s such a nothing character. I wanted to play the main character… Lolita Spiteri was it? I mean, she even has a better name”.

Saffron was giving me aggro. Typical flouncing actress, I get her a part in a really exciting TV production, a comedic spy drama called The Stay-At-Home Spy, and she complains that the part isn’t good enough. This is the problem with working with actors, they’re all a bunch of self-important divas. But the simple fact was Saffron was too pretty to play a woman with faded glory and a post-partum figure. The role of Poppy, she sprightly young beauty that was there to contrast with Lolita, was a much more suitable part. The girl is just too pretty to demand otherwise. And besides…

“You do realise that Poppy is going to later be revealed as the sinister mastermind behind all of this. You’re the Keyser Soze of the story, so don’t be so ungrateful” I reply.

“I… I am? I had no idea. I thought she was just some nothing-y character.” she stammered with a grin.

“The guy who wrote The Stay-At-Home Spy, he might not be a great writer, but he doesn’t write nothing-y parts. He treasures every character that he pens, and cares about them all. And anyway, you know the saying. There are no small parts, only small actors” and to be fair, slender as a ballerina, she was a small actress. She walked off with a smile, and I admired her lithe figure as she walked out. It was in contrast to my own, which was slipping further and further away from where I’d like. I grabbed a swiss roll and ate it while I bemoaned my slow softening.

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

#Post 226

 

Li Fangsu is wearing tight lycra gym clothes that cling to her thin frame. They curve round her bird-like legs and wrap around her drainpipe waist. Her hair is down and sweaty, thin strands in fluid motion as she scowls. The cause of this motion and scowl is the punching bag that she is assaulting. Her right arm is pushing out forwards into the bag while the left one is held back ready for a follow up hit. The definition in her right arm is pronounced as it makes contact with the bag. The punch bag itself is red, and is marked with a white logo of the gym name: CHARON GYM.

 

Another great work out here at Charon Gym. This past year has seen me get #fitter and #stronger than ever before, all thanks to the support and training at this place. My one-year sponsorship is now running out, but I’m definitely going to re-new! #spon #charon #fightingfit #gymbod #fitspo

 

summergrrl97 OMG sooo perfect

pretlitliar I want ur life!!!

danniwaves perfect gym perfect body perfect life! So jell sista

 

8.5k views

 

June 28^th 2018

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

“No, it’s fantastic up here. It’s a well nice campus. And yeah, orienteering went fine. And yes, of course I’ll keep on top of me work. You know me mum, I’ve got maturity coursing through me veins. Yeah, I’ll keep in touch, I always do. I’m a right mummy’s girl haha! Yeah, I’ll speak to you soon, ta ra mum, see ya, bye.”

Skinny hung up the phone and exhaled. She loved her mum, she really did, but she could be quite oppressive. Fortunately, one of the perks of being all the way up here in Glasgow was that she was free from most of her pandering and worrying. It wasn’t the only benefit of being up here though, Minnie thought to herself as she turned over. Lying in her bed with her, she was now looking at the real reason she’d moved up here. Ramona smiled back at her beautiful girlfriend.

“Do ye always call ye maw when you have sex with someone?” Ramona said as she closed her eyes in comfort. Travelling by herself to Glasgow felt like such an adventure, but when they were together, they never felt more secure.

“Only when she’s super hot” Minnie said as she swam through the covers.

“So, every time we fuck, ye gonna give a call?” Ramona giggled and Minnie began fumbling beneath the sheets. Neither of them were experienced with other women, but they were getting the hang of it just fine.

“As long as you don’t get fat and ugly” Minnie teased back, before reaching up from below the duvet to scratch her groaning girlfriend. She’d never tried this before but, judging from the purring that Ramona was doing, it worked.

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

“Hey Betty-boo, hey Leona” A blonde girl said as she sat on the bike next to Betty. She had long blonde hair thanks to fake extensions, fake nail extensions, fake lips, fake breasts, fake arse. The only thing real was her waist, the result of gym graft. Everything else was so fake, Trump might consider it news.

“Hey Sab!” the other two girls acknowledged as they began their spin class.

And the instructor launched into a devastating fitness class.

Once the class finished, the three girls heaved themselves off their bikes wearily. They’d been pushed hard today. The new spin class instructor was really vindictive and seemed to pick on them. Zara Bollingbrooke was a really tough instructor.

“Oh, I wish I didn’t have to do this. I wish I could just get fat. It’s stupid, I’m supposed to be a proud feminist and here I am sweating my bollocks off trying to get into a shape deemed acceptable by the fucking patriarchy. I’m such a hypocrite. Y’know, the woman who interviewed me for the post as theatre director was absolutely massive. Biggest woman I’ve ever seen. But she owned a fucking theatre. That’s so bad-ass. She is the real feminist. Prioritising achievement over her figure” Leona ranted as she got her breath back. Leona, who was in tip-top condition and, even as sweaty as she was, was in tip-top condition.

The three of them showered, got changed and then chatted in a nearby Starbucks, where they met up with Zara. They all got coffees, and no pastries. The black coffee was enough of a treat for these four.

“So, how did that interview go then? The one with the… larger lady?” Betty asked with typical eagerness and exemplary tact.

“Well, she pretty much offered it to me on the spot. Was impressed with – and I quote - ‘my vast array of talents’. She seemed happy that understood classical texts, was comfortable in multiple languages and that I had done a bit of stand-up and so ‘could appreciate the challenges required of putting on shows’. It couldn’t have gone much better really” Leona gushed enthusiastically.

“Oh my god Lee-lee, that is, like, so unreal. I, literally, cannot” Sabrina said in her high-pitched squeal.

“Yeah, Leona, that’s so awesome. I’m so proud of you. You really are my hero” Betty said with similar enthusiasm, practically clapping with happiness.

“There was one weird bit. She said I had to make sure this student, Wiktoria something-or-other, joined the Brighton heptathlon team. If I did that, I’d get the role. I mean, doesn’t that seem a little bit like bribery?” Leona fretted, worrying about crossing lines.

“A man would not hesitate to do what she asked, don’t give yourself another unfair disadvantage” Betty reasoned, parroting Leona’s feminist spiel back at her. That was something she always did so well.

“Yeah, I’m with my sister on that. Fuck morals, take charge girl” Zara chimed.

“Yeah girl, you go get it babez” Sabrina supported. “Oh, and talking of fucking, how’s you and that dishy courier guy, Betty-boo?”

“Haha, yeah, really good thanks. Really nice. He’s adorable, he really is like a puppy” Betty said fondly.

“OMG, you’re a puppy Betty-boo. If you think he’s a puppy, then does that make you a litter?” Sabrina buzzed.

“Umm… I think for them to be a litter, they’d have to be siblings” Leona pointed out. “And talking of siblings, how about you Z? When you’re not killing us on a bike, how’s things with the fam?”

“Horrible, as per usual. But ever since dad got that letter about mum and Tim 3 fucking, things have been bedlam. Nobody talks to anybody now. Suits me just fine, to be honest. Means I can come up here with my sister and have no worries” Zara said with a smile. “But all the stress of it is making quitting smoking real hard”

“Oh but you promised Z!” Betty said, her shoulders slumped. Smoking was a disgusting habit and Betty desperately wanted her sister to give it up.

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

“Hey… um… long time no see” Shaun said to the older man with the thinning hair.

“Yeah, um, Shaun. It’s… yeah, it’s been a while” the older man said awkwardly. “And you say you’re going to want a table for 12?”

“Yeah, work’s do, you know how it is, dad”

“You still at Steadman’s?” Shaun’s dad said, cautiously.

“Yeah, still there. Got a promotion even. You remember that horrible crow?” Shaun explained to his dad.

“Yeah, the one who bullied you?” his dad tried to say it nonchalantly, but his concern was obvious.

“Yeah, I suppose. Ummm… anyway, she’s gone now. And I’ve got her job. Things are turning around for me. Anyway, what you been up to?” Shaun said, never one to feel comfortable talking about his feelings with his dad. It just wasn’t the family way of doing things.

“Yeah, same ol’, same ol’. Trying to keep out of trouble, you know how it is. And will your table be ordering any specific drinks?” his dad said amiably but elusively.

“No, they’ve all promised not to drink. For me, to make it… to make it easier for me. It’s really nice of them, I… guess” Shaun said, with similar lack of eye contact.

“Oh, oh um cool, cool. Yeah, that is good”

“Oh, um, I should say. Now I’ve got this promotion, the company has a corporate box at the Brighton ground. Sponsorship deal thing. Just wondering, since I get to use the box every now and then, do you… maybe, fancy, y’know, coming and watching a game?” Shaun said, scratching his nose as he said it.

“At the Amex? Yeah, the… the boxes are… I’ve never been in one of the corporate boxes before. That would… yeah, maybe. Depending on, y’know, you can never guarantee I’ll be free. I’m a… I’m a busy guy but… yeah, sure, maybe, yeah. Let… let me know. Do you have my number?” Shaun’s dad stumbled with his son.

“Yeah dad. Still got it. I’ll… I’ll give you a bell nearer the time eh? And thanks for… booking the table” Shaun said, as he walked out the restaurant. He couldn’t conceal his smile any longer.

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

While Rutherford waited for the always-early Betty Bollingbrooke to turn up to the tutorial that she taught, she looked around at the classroom with a hint of sadness. She’d come over to Britain with romanticised dreams of classic buildings and demure ladies. And what she had found was basically just America, but with an inability to spell ‘color’ and unintelligible accents. This wasn’t supposed to be how it went. She at least would have liked to have made some friends. But all the people in this class seemed anonymous to her.

Betty came in with her sprightly stride and greeted the class cheerily, before quickly introducing the groupings for the class assignment. Due to low turnout this year, they were going to be working in pairs. Rutherford waited to see who she was paired with, she hoped it would be someone nice. Or pretty, at least.

“And Rutherford, can you work with… oh, maybe work with the girl at the back… sorry, what’s your name again?”

“Wiktoria” the tall quiet girl with the pixie cut replied.

“Yeah, can you and Rutherford work as a pair?”

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

Ahmed looked proudly at the front of his shop. It had been a tough few years, but he was a smart businessman and he saw that kebabs just weren’t what the people and students of Brighton wanted any more. He’d spotted a rise in demand in his salads, and decided to rebrand accordingly.

SALADLAND

He smiled as he walked back in, to get his leafery prepared for teatime crowd. Hopefully, his main seller, a delicate and dainty pot of salad leaves with raspberry vinegar, would fly out the shop door like it had been doing. It was all thanks to his favourite customer, who had specially requested it. Something sharp, sweet and healthy, just like her. The Betty Meal was his proudest menu item.

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

“Wow, a wanker? You may be Polish Wicky, but you swear like a British person” Rutherford grinned as she got lost in the eyes of the model-esque Pole.

“Haha, thank you American friend. You look like a Hollywood movie star today, is this why you were late?” Wiktoria said, acknowledging the American’s 50’s inspired clothing choices. It would have looked try-hard on anyone else, but on Rutherford you just believed that she picked them out of a closet.

“Do you want to know a secret? I tried to be fashionably late so I would look cool. Did it work?” Rutherford said with an easy smile.

“Yes, you are very cool and very like a Hollywood movie star. Do you want coffee? I can buy? And maybe… I don’t know the word...” Wiktoria represented with her hand the ever decreasing circles that can only be a cinnamon roll.

“Thank you but thank you. I’m trying to watch my weight. I’ve put on a few pounds, I’m actually up to 130lbs. So, I’m trying to cut back. But thank you for the very kind of you to offer Wicky. And you look a little bit like a Hollywood movie star yourself with that Audrey Hepburn hairstyle. We’re like a couple of old Hollywood gals.” Rutherford and Wiktoria’s eyes met. They were going to be fast friends, they could tell.

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

Gwen sighed deeply. It was all done. All strings pulled, all chess pieces moved, all gluttony prevented. It had taken so much planning, so much manipulation, so much skulduggery but she had eventually solved it. All the horcruxes had been dispersed. The world was as future-proofed as it ever could be. She had done it. First, she met the team. Then, she met the president. Then, she saved the world. And that was the here and now. And now the world would continue oblivious, ignorantly referring to the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy as Sagittarius A*, and not Grendel. There would be no such thing as time loops or time hiccups, whole branches of astro-physical understanding that could now never be proven and only Gwen would know. Time-travel was real, and only Gwen would know. Gwen was the smartest person alive and the saviour of humankind, and only Gwen would know.

But, after a lifetime of pursuing plaudits, Gwen instead found herself at the fence edge around her father’s farm. He would be in there, grumbling about something or other, about how the farmhands needed to work harder or how much his back ached. And that man in there was the real reason he’d done all this.

So why was Gwen standing outside, and not walking in? Well, how would she explain everything? How could she? Was she even his Gwen any more? Or had she stolen her and replaced her with an elephantine replication? How could she look in the eyes of the father she loved, and know what he saw when he stared back? She was 792lbs now, making her BMI higher than her starting weight.

But it wasn’t just that. Because, over time, he’d forgive that, or learn to live with that, or whatever. The real reason was that she was worried that she wouldn’t recognise him. The last time they’d seen each other, they’d reconciled. And here they hadn’t. Last time she’d seen him, he had died from a heart attack. And here he hadn’t. Neither of them were the same person any more, they were from different timelines. They weren’t father and daughter any more. She didn’t want to be with him. Not after she’d seen him in a casket. He’d died. And seeing him again would be cheating. She couldn’t. She couldn’t. She didn’t deserve him.

Gwen stared at the farmer’s cottage with tears in her eyes, realising truly how she’d felt. She felt like she didn’t deserve him. She didn’t deserve anyone or anything. This was a one-way mission, it always was. She wasn’t entitled to a happy ending. She didn’t deserve anything or anyone.

Well maybe someone.

First stop, her solicitors. To write a will.

Second stop, Australia.

She had an addiction to feed.

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

Rutherford’s phone rang. It was Shay. She had been texting Rutherford incessantly, but Rutherford enjoyed the power of not replying. She didn’t block the calls, she liked to know her old friend was still trying. Trying and failing. She wasn’t her friend any more. Rutherford only had one woman in her life.

“I brought you a very tasty ice-cream, my beautiful girlfriend” Wicky said as she handed an ice-cream with a flake sticking out of it to her American girlfriend.

“Dziękuję, my beautiful girlfriend” Rutherford replied with a smile. She had been hitting the Duolingo hard, but Polish was an impossible language to pick up. Seriously Poland, what the fuck? But she had thank you and hello and a few other niceties. It was the effort that Wiktoria appreciated. That she was making an effort.

And it was effort that brought them to watch the Motorcross live. In Warsaw. Rutherford treated her girlfriend to the best present she could think of. Because all that mattered was Wiktoria.

“Wait, are you not having an ice cream Wicky?” Rutherford asked with a scowl.

“No, I cannot. I’m a heptathlon. I have to be an athlete. I already have put on weight. I am now 145lbs, which is big for athletes.” Wicky replied, patting her softened midriff. Rutherford looked at her newly softened girlfriend. She hadn’t really noticed it before, but she did look softer perhaps. And feelings stirred in the American that were knew to her.

“Ah fuck athletics. You look good with curves” she said, not really understanding how she felt.

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

“Oggy, oggy, oggy!”

“Oi, oi, oi!”

The students down their pitchers in celebration. They are now all proud owners of a Bachelor of Arts degree, and they are celebrating the same way Australians celebrate anything. By getting drunk off their tits, and then by drinking some more. There are throngs of young Australians cheering and singing and enjoying each other’s company. And, on the periphery, is you.

I recognised you. It’s made easier by your height, at 6ft4 you’re one of the tallest there. But it isn’t just your height. Your slicked back black hair, your stubble, it’s all instantly recognisable. You have kept the same look now for fifteen years. Here you are, only just older than a teenager and you still look the same. Your cheeks are smoother, your eyes sparkle a bit more. You look lanky and skinny here, not as hewn and tuned as before. But it’s scary that in a universe where everything is changing, you and I seem to be the only constants.

You brush by me, distracted by your mates. But you notice hotel keys have appeared in your pocket. Keys to my room. You immediately turn around to look for the culprit. Most everyone in the room would look elsewhere, but your eyes lock onto me. Even at your age, you have the desire. The craving. I don’t know how aware of it you are yet, and how enslaved you are by it yet. How addicted you are to me, and people like me. But all I know is you are. You’re addicted to me.

It takes you a while to pull away from the crowds. You say your goodbyes, your farewells and your so longs. But you’re distracted. People you’ve known and loved for three years, the closest friends you’ll ever had, and they suddenly mean nothing to you any more. Everything is me now.

Your heart is quickening, your collar chastening, your forehead trickling as you hurry to the room. Could I really be as big as I looked from behind? Surely not, nobody is. But maybe, just maybe…

You find the room, thread the key into hole and enter. You look puppyish. Your chilled menace not yet formed. There’s an innocence to you that I don’t recognise. A softness that seems unbecoming. You look sweet. Adorable. Where’s your menace Kyle? Where’s your menace?

“Wait, how do you know my name?” you ask, sweetly, confused. But I know all about you. I know more about you than you do. And I intend to exploit every inch of it. And this is why you’ve walked into a hotel room with a naked 800lb woman on the bed and room service on the way.

“Room service? Wait what?”

Oh you are so innocent Kyle. I want you to feed me and fuck me. You have 800lbs of woman in front of you with a food addiction, and you have a glutton addiction. Let’s do this.

And there it is… it is the same Kyle after all. You smirk, and my god I’ve missed that smirk.

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

It’s been three months since we met, and it has been the best three months of your life. For me, it’s just been another three months, on the back of so many three months. But for you, this has been Heaven.

And in those 3 months, we’ve done it. We’ve officially done it. I have now crossed over into immobility. I cannot walk unaccompanied any more. With you around and your strapping muscles, it’s not so bad. But I need you to do that, or I’m bedbound forever. Whatever forever means. The last time you weighed me, it said 838lbs. But forget about numbers, let’s talk size. Let’s talk about the way I fill a bed. Let’s talk about how hard sitting is with all this stomach in the way, so I choose to remain reclined. Let’s talk about rolls so big you could lose an arm in them. Let’s talk about the fact that when I do sit, I’m taller than you. You’re 6ft4, I’m 5ft9, but my arse brings so much cushion that I’m taller.

Come here. Come here and feel it. Feel all of it. Feel all this fleshy. Get lost in it. Come, Kyle. Come here.

You’re here now, but I don’t feel that darkness in you. I can’t sense your cold, your presence like I used to. You seem strangely kind, strangely empathetic, strangely loving. It’s weird. And it makes this harder.

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

Gwen thrust the bodkin that she had been keeping by her bedside, and jammed it through the chin and up the jaw, into the brain of Kyle. Killing him instantly. She had to. She knew she had to. He may have been sweet and innocent, but she knew what he became. She knew what he would do to people. He knew what he would do to her. And she had to stop it. Every other part of the Free Hit could be dismantled, but this was the only way to stop Kyle. It always was.

Gwen then grabbed the knife and pressed it against her wrists. She cut deep against the vericose veins of her blubbery arms and incised sharply along the artery, all the way along the arm. She then does the same on the other arm.

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

 

When I stood at Dad’s funeral, I wondered if he thought of me before he died. I prayed that I would think of him. Well, I’m thinking of you dad. I’m thinking of you. And hopefully, I was wrong. About God and fate, but also about whether I deserved you. I hope I see you in Heaven.

 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-


A young Australian scientist opened the parcel addressed to her name. The ambitious young girl opened the parcel to see some of the most complex mathematical theories she had ever seen in her fledgling career. Dr Chipo Oliseh scanned the documents briefly and saw hypotheses for the most fantastical things: space-time loops and space-time ripples, plus forecast dates of when they would next occur. And no indication over the mysterious benefactor was. Just the instruction to claim all the findings as her own, and be the greatest scientific mind that ever lived. And to hire some girl nicknamed 'Clefty' once she finished her studies...


*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The body couldn’t be transported over for a funeral, though they never explained to Owain Hughes why. The actual reason was that she specifically requested it as part of her final will and testament. And when you have millions to your name, these requests can get heard.

There was money left in the will. A couple of million remained. There were also some bits and pieces, a London-based theatre called Grendel Theatre, a Miami-based gym called Charon Gym. She had some shares in some start-up company called Starmap, and some in a laboratory-food company, as if those would ever take off, but that was all. He wouldn’t sell these, not for all the world. They were all he had left of his daughter. No matter how much they became worth.

And finally there was a note. A brief note:

Look after yourself. Look after your heart. Exercise more, eat less, get help on the farm.

And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for leaving. I never blamed you, I was just struggling with mum's death. But I always loved you. I'd have done anything for you. I'd break the space-time continuum for you. You were the best dad a girl could have ever hoped for and I'm so so sorry that I left you when I did. 

But I'm with mum now, up here in Heaven. And, when the time comes, we'll see you too. I'll have the kettle on for you, ready when you do we will. Hwyl fawr!

 

[dania201]

That was an amazing epic! Your writers mind is fantastic. Very clever how you explained the ‘unrealistic’ weight gain of the other story, and reserved the nature of the characters throughout. 

Sad it’s over, only because I enjoyed this story so much! 

[swahilimonkfish]

4 hours ago, dania201 said:

That was an amazing epic! Your writers mind is fantastic. Very clever how you explained the ‘unrealistic’ weight gain of the other story, and reserved the nature of the characters throughout. 

Sad it’s over, only because I enjoyed this story so much! 

Wow, I wasn't expected so strong a response! Thanks Dania, I thought I'd screwed the ending up with over-ambition so it means a lot that people liked it

[swahilimonkfish]

Wasn't sure whether this story was a continuation of A Free Hit or Spaghettification or I'm Addicted To You tbh, but put it here and I hope you liked it

There Is Such A Thing As A Free Hit

 

“And that was when Shaun said that they had A Free Hit” Ebba said, up in the corner of the sofa and hugging herself tightly, her long and gangly limbs straining to contain themselves as she wrapped them around her lithe torso.

“Alright, good, good. And what exactly is A Free Hit?” the young therapist said, looking over the rim of his reading glasses, or rather writing glasses as they were here. And he was a young therapist too, still in his twenties just as Ebba was across from him.

“It meant… that it didn’t matter what we did for those few years. It was a narrow window of relief before real life kicked in, and we should take advantage of it. So, don’t worry about, y’know, drinking or...” Ebba’s words trailed off, unable to even say the words ‘eating’ or ‘gaining weight’. Instead, she reshuffled in the corner of the sofa uncomfortably.

“And you were modelling at this point?” Dr Malcolm asked cautiously.

“Yeah, I mean, I guess. It was only part-time back then. Before, y’know, I started getting regular work” Ebba said, feeling embarrassed about her modelling profession. It didn’t sit right on her. It wasn’t the beauty or the staying thin that made her uncomfortable, it was the strutting. Models strut and Ebba’s fragility had made this difficult. Hence seeing her eighth psychiatrist in the past eight months.

“Do you think this could be why you were thinking about these things? Did you want A Free Hit? Did you wish you could let loose like all the other girls did?” Dr Malcolm was tentative at broaching this subject. It had been the source of Ebba finding the previous seven shrinks unsuitable, their unwillingness to indulge her fantasy.

“Why do you say it like that? Why do you all say it like it didn’t happen? I’m not imagining it. It actually happened!” Ebba protested and wriggled in anger as she did, writhing awkwardly in the corner of that sofa. She knew what she had to do when she got frustrated. Concentrate on something she could control, like her breathing. Count her breaths. The twisting and contorting continued but, gradually, the fury dissipated.

“Okay, okay. I’m not here to argue with you, I’m here to listen and to help. Okay? But at the same time, as a psychiatrist, I have a duty to you, and that duty means that I have to stress that this thing that you feel happened, that you saw and heard, that it is all just...” he stopped and paused, unsure of how to phrase this. “You said the boy was called Shaun?”

Ebba nodded tensely.

“It’s interesting that it’s a male. There weren’t any male students on your course at the time and yet your story has a male character at its heart. That says something. Now, I’m not sure what it says, but think of it as a clue. And what we’ve got to do is unpick this mystery. A mystery of the mind” the therapist said, trying to engage without antagonising or indulging her fantasies. It was a fine balancing act.

“It’s not in my mind”

“Okay, I think it’s in your mind. You think otherwise. That’s fine. Contrasting opinions is good, it’s healthy. But, either way, we need to get to the bottom of this, don’t we?” He said with a friendly smile. And they did need to get to the bottom of this. Her agent insisted. It had been affecting her work as it was, and that was with these delusions being kept under wraps. Once that cat was out of the bag, the threat of being sectioned arose and that would also affect her career. And the threat of being sectioned had been looming increasingly large. “Why don’t you tell me what happened next?”

“Well, I thought nothing of it. And we were all put into groups. For an assignment. And… I was in this one group and.. they… were in another” Ebba still felt defensive about opening up about this. No good ever came from confession, in her experience. Not after last time.

“And this they. The people we’re talking about are… the boy, Shaun? The American girl Rutherford. A Polish girl called Wiktoria and… the girl who raised the query… did you call her Scrawny?” Dr Malcolm said, flicking through his pad for the note where he wrote down her name.

“Skinny. We called her Skinny. Cos she was Skinny and because her name was Minnie”

“Okay, so think of this as clue number 2. Because the Polish girl… Wiktoria, and this Rutherford girl, they actually were students in your class. So this is good news, it means your...” Dr Malcolm stopped himself before he said the word delusion, for fear of setting her off again. “…view of things and what actually happened are similar. They, let’s say, overlap. But the other girl, Skinny. There’s no record of her either. And it’s interesting that her name is Skinny when, obviously, being thin is very relevant to your profession. So, another clue. Which is good, right?”

Ebba was suspicious. She knew her therapist didn’t believe her. They never did. But at least this one wasn’t so damning about the whole thing. He seemed very friendly, in fact, and it reassured her rather than, like with the others, set her on edge. He was tall and strident, with dark hair like and groomed stubble. There was musculature to him, and power in his build, but there was sensitivity in his expression and the reassuring feeling that there was nothing sinister lurking behind his expression.

“So, you go off to your groups… and then what?”

“Nothing. For a while. Focusing on studies and stuff. And then I notice Skinny… she...” Ebba scratched at her hair in frustration as she again felt unable to say the words that had been haunting her for the past 6 years.

“Gained weight?” Dr Malcolm asked sympathetically, his Australian intonation rising as he asked.

“Yeah. Not, like, a lot at first. But she always wore, like, high-waisted jeans? I mean, you’re a man so you probably don’t know. But yeah, and she started… but like, I didn’t really care. Just noticed cos of the whole A Free Hit speech.” Ebba was fidgeting restlessly again, constantly shuffling in her corner of her seat.

“Interesting detail, the type of jeans she wore. Usually, when people take from their imagination, they pull from their own experiences. That seems… a bit niche. Let’s call that clue number three” Dr Malcolm made further notes in his notepad, his dark eyebrows furrowed. This surprised Ebba. It almost sounded like she wouldn’t invent that detail. Maybe he might believe her? Or maybe he’s just being understanding. “Sorry, do continue”

“But it wasn’t just Skinny. I noticed the other girls in the group… following suit. Not Shaun, but the three girls. I mean, it was hard to tell with the Polish girl, she was tall and always wrapped up in jumpers, but she definitely seemed to be… you know, whatever. And Rutherford, I mean, she wasn’t that thin to begin with. Just kinda normal. But they also were...” Ebba paused and thought. “It was in the run up to Christmas, I think, maybe earlier, I dunno, and you could definitely tell on all of them.”

“And how did this make you feel?” Dr Malcolm pried curiously.

“Dunno. I mean, nothing I guess. Maybe… curious? Like, a morbid curiosity. Part of me was getting a bit… like, I dunno. It felt weird. Like it was wrong, that they shouldn’t do that, and that’s what made me curious. Like… oh god, this sounds stupid… like watching the wreckage from a car-crash, y’know” Ebba was slowly opening up, but her posture remained as defensive as ever.

“That… that’s interesting. Well done, that’s really impressive self-reflection” Dr Malcolm praised, hoping to support her opening up. Sometimes, all people want is a bit of praise. “So, how did they… look? Like, describe them for me?”

“Well, um… Skinny was… I mean, it was the most obvious on her. God, no… I can’t, sorry. I feel silly, saying these things. It just feels awkward” Ebba flinched, and hid in her cave of insecurity once more.

“Well, we’ll keep it simple. This Skinny, how much would you guess she weighed?” Dr Malcolm asked again, his eyes now fixed on Ebba’s.

“I dunno” Ebba pulled at the sleep of her jacket as she said it.

“So, you didn’t think about it? You didn’t guess?” Ebba’s eyes were unable to meet Dr Malcolm’s gaze as they bore into her.

“How… how did you know?” Ebba asked, but Dr Malcolm just stared as he waited for an answer. “Ummm… I’d guess 170lbs. Which was quite a bit, cos she was so thin to begin with. She was still pretty. Really pretty. She had these emerald green eyes, they were like cat eyes” Ebba said, sharing a bit more of herself.

“Green eyes” Dr Malcolm said, straightening his back and twitching as she said it.

“Yeah, really pretty. She’s… she’s real. Like, she was a student, but… like, apparently she went to Glasgow University and not mine. So, she’s real, but she should have gone to Brighton. I remember her at Brighton. Is that a clue too?” Ebba asked, her eyes looking for support.

“Clue?… Oh… um, yeah… yes… yeah, really good Ebba. You’re doing well. The… the fact that you know she’s a real person means… sorry, I dunno, green eyes you said?” Dr Malcolm looked briefly flustered, his normally restrained demeanour showing rare vulnerability, though Ebba had no idea of the cause.

“Umm… and then there was Rutherford, who it was pretty obvious on her now too. She was shorter, but she was quite, like her breasts were, I guess, I dunno, and… it kinda should have looked more obvious than it did. Cos she would have been up to… fuck, 190lbs at this point. I mean, she was really starting to change too. And it was weird cos, it was all of them, like they belonged to some weird cult. They called themselves the musketeers or something” Ebba pondered, dredging up memories that every other psychiatrist had encouraged her to bury. “And Wiktoria was the tallest, but she was probably the heaviest. Maybe even 200lbs. Apparently, I found out later, that both girls started off thin before they came to uni. Rutherford was really skinny back in America, and Wiktoria used to be an athlete. So, it was, like, just crazy. Like I didn’t know what was happening, but I really wanted to watch. Can you imagine gaining, like, 80lbs in just over half a year?”

“And was that when it started going from curiosity to something more sexual?” Dr Malcolm asked, as if it were the most natural question in the world. It disoriented Ebba for a bit though.

“I mean… it was… I mean, I guess. Maybe” her voice got quiet as she answered, unhappy with the truth of the feelings even if the events were fictional.

“Look, this here is a safe space. There will be no judgement. I won’t think anything of it. Everyone has a fetish, everyone. It’s perfectly normal. The guy who serves you coffee at the coffee shop… fetish. The woman who scans your shopping at the supermarket… fetish. It’s not weird, it’s perfectly normal and I want you to feel like you can talk about it without recrimination” Dr Malcolm pleaded sympathetically, trying to coax transparency from a girl who hid behind layers of opaque layers. His saturnine appearance only ever seemed to bear warmth and kindness.

“What’s yours then? If everyone has one?” Ebba said, meekly, but with an impudent smile.

“Haha, that isn’t how this works I’m afraid. As long as you’re the one who’s on the couch, you’re the one we’re talking about” Dr Malcolm laughed, his eyes soft and kind as he did so, before they darted downwards.

“I mean. It wasn’t like I was… I was just curious, y’know, about the Christmas break. Whether they’d come back… smaller or… not. Turns out, not. And that’s when I started getting a bit obsessed.” Ebba hoped the word obsessed would be taken lightly, self-deprecatingly. But, therapists are drawn to that word like moths to flames. Like Rutherfords to cakes.

“Obsessed?”

“Yeah. Started Facebook stalking them, that kinda thing. I knew one of Skinny’s old flatmates and they said she moved out and they all were sharing a house with our teacher… the one from the lesson with the Free Hit speech” Ebba admitted.

“Interesting. That’s quite circular, isn’t it? Self-contained. That it was that teacher. Seems...” Dr Malcolm allowed Ebba to finish the sentence.

“Convenient? Coincidental? Fictional? Yeah, I know how it sounds. But it did happen, honestly.” Ebba had heard the accusations to many times, she knew all of the insinuations that people would make.

“It wasn’t an insult, just a clue, remember? So… what happened after that?” Dr Malcolm asked.

“They just got bigger and bigger. It was crazy. The before and after pictures must have been insane. It was just… it wasn’t A Free Hit any more. It was something else. By the end of the year, they’d just… ballooned. Even the teacher, just massive” Ebba exclaimed, as if she didn’t believe it herself.

“And it turned you on?” Dr Malcolm asked nonchalantly, despite it being a sensitive subject.

“Yeah. I was addicted at that point”

“Addic… Addicted?” Dr Malcolm choked a little as he repeated it.

“Yeah, just fixated. It was amazing. The size… the transformation” Ebba’s eyes widened as she said it, as if she was reliving it.

“Were you jealous?”

“Umm… no? I don’t think so. It was more that I wanted them than I wanted to be them. I wanted to… I dunno...”

“Laud it over them?” Dr Malcolm asked incisively.

“Yeah? I guess. Maybe. A bit. I suppose. I just, it was the thought of what everyone else thought of them. Like, what did their parents think?” Ebba asked, with surprise.

“And what would yours have thought? If it was you?” Dr Malcolm gave no clue away as to his thinking as he asked the question, but he was ever so slightly leaning forward as he asked.

“Oh, they would have lost their shit! God, my dad would have… are you saying I’m projecting? Cos, I’ve had loads of therapists say that I thought you were better than that. I thought you listened. I thought you believed me!” Ebba’s voice rose in volume and pitch as she accused Dr Malcolm of betrayal.

“Clues Ebba! I’m talking about clues! Not accusations, not disbelief. Just solving this puzzle. Don’t you want this puzzle solved Ebba? Isn’t that something you want? After all that this has done to you, where it has brought you?” Dr Malcolm’s voice rose to, but with authoritative calm. Ebba nodded quietly, feeling scolded and embarrassed. She needed praise, not punishment. She’d been punishing herself plenty. “Look. Ebba. You’ve been doing great. You really have. You should be proud. Do you want to take a break? You’ve earned one”

“No, it’s… it’s fine. Just, had bad experiences with shrinks and I didn’t want another one. Especially after the last one. You’ve been… really nice, thanks” Ebba said guiltily.

“You don’t have to apologise, and the fact that you can recognise your own actions is really impressive. Honestly, not many people can do that. Please… tell me about this teacher then” Dr Malcolm asked, his crooked smile and his kind eyes all pointed at her.

“Well, we had her first year and, for the first semester, she was… I dunno… just normal and really pretty. Actually, she was really pretty. She was called Leona but… I’ve Googled her and she’s not actually a lecturer, but she works for a theatre company. But, here’s the weird thing, she used to work their, until the year I joined. That’s a bit of a coincidence right?” Ebba said as if she’d given that argument as proof of her sanity many times before.

“Another clue, certainly. We’ve had a few circular references, haven’t we? It can only be good though, right? So, what else about her?” Dr Malcolm was always understanding, but his posture was definitely different from the start of the session.

“She was pear-shaped. Majorly pear-shaped. But just big all over. It was like… she did in half a year what the others did in a year. They were all around the 300lb mark by the end of the year, I swear to God” Ebba said, sharing more comfortably now.

“300? 300lbs. Wow, that’s a...”

“And that was just first year. And that was before I met Minnie.”

“Minnie?” Dr Malcolm asked, flicking back through his notes. “Ohhh, that’s Skinny’s real name, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, Minnie Charnwood”

“Minnie Charn… you know, that name does sound familiar actually… but, umm, let’s keep on track. You met Skinn… sorry, Minnie” Dr Malcolm seemed flustered, which was a strange look on him. Ebba wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad news, so she just did as she was asked. His expression kept flickering.

“I didn’t just meet her, we had a relationship. I… I told her that I was a… a fan and we… I fed her as we had sex… and it happened, honestly” Ebba protested, seeing the scowl on Dr Malcolm’s face.

“Oh no, I believe you...”

“You… you believe me?” Ebba asked, startled by the admission from the therapist in the chair opposite her.

“I mean… I believe that… I believe… let’s just keep going. You’re doing well, let’s get to the end of this story, shall we?” Dr Malcolm was unmistakably rattled, tripping over words and straining to articulate himself. Ebba had no idea what could have caused it.

“Well, it didn’t last long because she was apparently in a relationship with Rutherford, the American girl. I never saw Rutherford, but apparently she was… something else… something really big. And Minnie was her feeder, which means she likes to...”

“I know what a feeder is” Dr Malcolm interrupted, his jaw clenched at the description of Rutherford.

“You do?”

“Yeah, therapist remember?” he offered an unconvincing smile to support his denial. “So, are you a feeder then, Ebba?”

“Ummm… well, I wasn’t… but then… then Betty Bollingbrooke happened.” Ebba blushed as she said it.

“You haven’t mentioned that name… wait… that’s the name of the teacher that taught you, the one you said was taught by… was it, Leona? Betty taught the class that A Free Hit happened on. Hmmm… more circularity” Dr Malcolm again flitted through his notes, trying to back himself up.

“No. Leona taught it. But, Betty was another teacher. And she was so pretty. All first year she was this island of pretty. And then, over the Summer, she changed. She’d been convinced by Leona to get… y’know… because one of the other teachers was being lecherous with her. Lionel. He also tried it with me.” Ebba continued.

“No, Lionel was fired before you got to Brighton University it says here on the records...”

“The records are wrong. God, I thought you were starting to believe me. What they say happened, isn’t what actually happened, and I seem to be the only one who remembers it!” Ebba exclaimed.

“Ebba, I’m going to tell you something I tell all the patients here. You have to help yourself. Saying things like ‘I’m the only one who remembers it’ isn’t going to help. You have to look at things from other people’s perspectives and hear how that sounds, okay? Can you do that for me?” Dr Malcolm’s voice was calm and deep again. There was something else though, something in his demeanour. It had changed, or was changing. There was something growing beneath the surface.

“Fine. Sorry, you’re right. The last therapist… when I said that, that was when I...” Ebba trailed off again. Dr Malcolm waited for her to finish that thought but she never got there, and instead continued with the story. “I met up with Betty. It was a bit stalkerish actually, I waited til she turned up at Kebabland...”

“Saladland, you mean”

“And pretending to bump into her on accident. And I preyed on her. And we fast fell in love” Ebba looked back, remembering the best days of a life that never happened. “And I got to be in the driving seat of her weight gain. “She had already started, but I made it supernova. I was incredible. It was incredible. She was incredible. I took a girl who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, and I turned her into a chain-smoking, binge-drinking, foul-mouthed, sexually liberated fatty”

Ebba’s legs were fidgeting as she reminisced, her breath deepening and her spine straightening.

“So not just weight gain then?”

“No, transformation. Evolution. I wanted the contrast, the… I dunno. It’s hard to put in words. But I loved every grey hair it induced, every sag and wrinkle it brought about. I loved...”

“Ruining her?” Dr Malcolm sat there calmly, his presence feeling not as welcoming as before.

“Yes. I guess. Ruining her. Like… pulling the legs off a spider. I dunno, that makes me sound like a fucking psycho” Ebba twitched in that corner of the sofa again.

“Hahaha, no. Don’t think like that. It’s… it’s about power and… agency. You feel like you lacked agency when you were a model...”

“I’m still a model” Ebba interrupted the mistake.

“Sorry… but you feel like you had no power, so you take it from others. Like projection. These things… that you feel. Have you ever… considered doing them to yourself?” Dr Malcolm wasn’t even leaning back at this point, he was leaning forward. His jaw was tightened and his eyes were razors.

“No. No. Um… no, I… I want to be in control. I want to be the beautiful one” Ebba looked ever more uncomfortable than earlier as she said it.

“But you liked the transformation, you said. The ruination. Now what a pretty specimen you would be to ruin?” Dr Malcolm posed, the muscles in his shoulders flexing.

“You think I’m pretty, Dr Malcolm?” Ebba said weakly, not having heard a compliment for a long-time. And there was something about Dr Malcolm’s presence that made each compliment feel like such an earnt gift.

“Please, call be Kyle. And yes, I do. Which is what I think all these clues point towards. That you really want to do this to yourself. That the rest were all what we call proxies for your truly subject. You want your own Free Hit, and to pretend that it’s temporary and reversible, and then… what were the words you used… transform yourself, ruin yourself, to the extent that it isn’t. That it becomes, and I quote, something else. Ebba, do you not want A Free Hit?” Dr Malcolm’s spirit felt almost imprisoning at this point, the growth of his darkness was now unmistakable. Ebba felt suffocated by it.

“Maybe? I’m not sure. Maybe you’re right. Maybe there really is something wrong with me, that’s why I’ve ended up here. You know, Minnie used to say that ‘mischief courses through her veins’ and maybe it courses through mine too. I feel like some sort of blue-eyed monster.” Ebba bemoaned.

“Mischief coursing through your veins… green-eyed monster...” Dr Malcolm suddenly wilted, his jaguar presence melting upon hearing those words. They seemed familiar to him.

“No, I said blue-eyed monster. My eyes are blue” Ebba corrected.

“But Minnie Charnwood’s are green. Emerald.” Dr Malcolm seemed in deep thought, when he suddenly sprung back into life. He stood up and strode towards her, each step padding on the cold floor of his office. He sat the end of the other end of Ebba’s sofa, and smiled. But this wasn’t the same warm smile that she had seen from him earlier. This was something else. Something crooked. Something twisted and sinister.

“I think… looking at all these clues… that this isn’t about freedom. In fact, I don’t think you want to be free at all. Explains your circumstances here. No, this is about you having a rock bottom fetish. A self-implosion fetish. You want to see what harm you can do to yourself, do you not see? This is a massive breakthrough. And I want to help you Ebba” Dr Malcolm’s voice deepened yet darker.

“Thanks?”

“You want to eat and eat and see what harm you can do to yourself and… I can help you with that. I can… feed you if you like. I can… help make you fat” Ebba flinched, in fear and in desire as he slid across the sofa towards her. “I can help you do such wonderful, terrible things to you. I can be terribly addictive, don’t you know?”

“So, do you believe me?” Ebba said, clinging on to the real reason she was here, despite Dr Malcolm turning the screw on her.

“Yes. I believe every word. But I’m the only one who does. None of the other therapists did, that’s why you ended up in here. But I do. And that’s why you need me. And I will fatten you up. I will fatten you up like Betty, like Wiktoria, like Leona, like Minnie and best of all… like Ruthers” Ebba could her Dr Malcolm’s breath now as he got closer and closer. She could feel the hairs on the back of her next stand as he drew his predatory way towards her.

“Like Ruthers?” she said, weakly. Lost. “I could be like that? Like her? You could do that to me?”

“Oh, and beyond. We could make Ruthers simply base camp. Nowhere near the peak. After all, you might as well get hung for lamb as mutton” his crooked smile was nearly upon her now. His diabolical presence stifling her breath. Suddenly Ebba pushed him away.

“What did you say? About lamb?” Ebba said, sharply, her pupils wide.

“It’s… it’s just a saying. You might as well be hanged for lamb as mutton” Dr Malcolm said defensively.

“Minnie used to say that. That was Minnie’s phrase. Her weird Northern phrase” Ebba said pointedly.

“I mean, it’s a phrase, many people use them” Dr Malcolm said on the back foot.

“No. You’re Australian. This is a Yorkshire phrase. You and her are the only people I’ve heard ever say it before. And that’s… coincidence? Another circular reference? And… you also called Rutherford as Ruthers. I never said that was her nickname, but it was. How did you know that? How do you know these things?” Ebba’s voice was increasing in volume, and getting more accusative.

“I...”

“You remember it too, don’t you? It’s not just me. I’m not crazy am I? You remember these things as well. You… you knew one of them. You… you started acting differently when I mentioned Minnie’s full name, when I mentioned her green eyes. You were there too, weren’t you?” Ebba’s face almost broke into a smile. A smile of relief.

“Now listen here you piece of shit! Don’t talk to me like this. Do you know who the fuck I am?” Kyle Malcolm charged at her ferociously, violently. His strong arms pinned her limbs against the sofa as he spat those words out into her face.

And then he stopped, and looked into her eyes. A thought ran across his face and suddenly his whole demeanour changed again. That terrifying grip that he had on her arms loosened once more.

“Actually, we can work together on this. Cos I do remember. I do remember now. I remember it all and I want it all. I… I need it all. The power. The lust. The control. I can’t… I need it. And you can help me get it. Just think what you did to Betty. And you have no idea what I’ve done to women. But between us. Oh god, we can do such wonderful things. Such delightful things” Dr Malcolm started almost licking his lips at the thought. Ebba just sat frozen and mute.

“I mean, where could we start? Oh, I remember it all now. I remember a woman saying she was addicted to me. I remember me taking this beautiful… she was a theatre girl or something… and I fed her to her coffin. It was… amazing” Dr Malcolm stared into the midground through Ebba as he said these things.

“You killed her?” Ebba said, panicked. This wasn’t what she signed up for.

“Yes. And others too. Oh, we could do it to all of your wonderful memories. I… I remember them all. Yes, I remember them now. Like in a past life…. Gwen. Trapped in a loop with this scientist. Feeding her and fucking her, in a loop. Forever. Like a bad dream only… better.

Yeah, Gwen was her name. She could… travel in time or something. And she went back because it caused some space damage or something. And she was so… I made her so big. I made her triple. God, yeah, it’s all coming back to me now. And then…

And then I met her again. Earlier. With Minnie this time. She’d jumped back in time and… Minnie was there, and some girl called Ramona was there, and she called me to feed her. She needed me to make her so fat… she was… she was basically immobile. Oh god, that’s what happened. Oh, we could start on those two first. Oh, we could take a girl each. We could make them so fat. Maybe we could do the other things. The smoking thing? The drinking thing? Like you did with Betty. Oh, they spoke about Betty. How she changed. We could do her too. I bet she’s thin and fragile, and we could break her. Together. How does that sound?

And others too. We could… there was a list. Minnie had a list of all the people who gained weight and caused A Free Hit to happen. There was Betty’s sister, Zara. There was an actress called Saffron. There was an Instagrammer called Fangsu. There was an American called Shay. We could do them all. Destroy them all. One by one. Just feeding them. Releasing all that bound up energy of ours onto them. And nobody could stop us. Cos the only person who could stop us would be Gwen. And she can’t. Cos she’s dead. She killed herself. Right after…

 

Right after she killed me?”

 

Dr Malcolm stopped in his tracks suddenly. His increasingly energised ranted melted away into something meek and feeble.

“I died. She killed me. She stabbed me with a knife here” Dr Malcolm felt the underside of his chin, where the knife had been plunged through, to find a scar. He ran his masculine fingers across the scar, stroking this thing that wasn’t there earlier. And suddenly the scar opened. It opened wide as his fingers ran across it and widened and suddenly blood was pouring from it, gushing from it. Blood spewing down his arms, across his chest, onto the sofa. So much blood, spewing everywhere, it was on Ebba now, and she flinched as it sprayed her with crimson. And then Kyle flopped to the floor and died.

 

 

 

 

And Ebba was all alone.

 

 

 

 

How? If he was dead all along, how had he been here?

 

But he hadn’t been here. Ebba remembered now. She wasn’t really in a therapist’s office, being treated by Dr Malcolm. Remember how he was Australian? Then why did he show no sign of Australian speech? No, he wasn’t ever there. He was a figment of her imagination. She was… after all, crazy. That’s why the previous therapist had sectioned her. That’s why she was stuck in the corner of her sofa. Because it wasn’t a sofa at all. It was her bed, and she was handcuffed there. She was a threat to society and had been locked up in a facility for people as crazy as her. She wasn’t in an office at all, she was in the room that she slept in. A prison for the mentally ill. And everything else was just her imagination. She had made it all up. The walls were white now, the sofa a bed. And Ebba was chained up and staring at the imaginary corpse of a therapist who had been murdered long before he had been treating her.

There was something in his hand. With her long, lithe legs, she reached down to see if she could get it. It glistened in the dullness of her room, the night-time making her white walls grey. She strained to reach it, but she couldn’t quite get it. She fiddled with the cuffs, see if she could engineer enough give to stretch out far enough to where the imaginary corpse had slunk. She stretched out her right leg and, with her toes, gripped a key that he had clasped in his hand. With her leg, she brought that key up towards her, and got it into her hand. Hurriedly, she tested to see if they unlocked her manacles, and they did! She undid them and planned her escape from the facility.

Dr Malcolm… sorry Kyle Malcolm had been right. She could do such wonderful things in the outside world. She could channel him, and do everything he intended to do. Everything they intended to do. Nobody could stop them. She carried it all, the worst of him and the worst of her. And she was ready to infect the world. Armed with knowledge that nobody else seemed to possess. Armed with his addictive personality. And, most fearfully of all, armed with A Free Hit.

She plotted her escape, and plotted which victim would be her first once she got out there.