Betty Bollingbrooke

[swahilimonkfish]

I posted this story on my DA page and wasn't happy with it. I'm going to upload it here though piecemeal, but I'm tinkering as I go to try to fix some of the blunders that I made along the way. Hope you find it OK.

Chapter 1

She walked into Kebabland with steely resolve. This time would be different.

Ahmed didn’t need further instruction, he recognised the girl and knew what her request would be. And as she sat down on the chairs in her black pencil skirt with a black skirt underneath, with a grey cardigan over her top half that suited a schoolgirl more than a fully grown woman, Ahmed readied the Skinny Meal. First there was the base layer of oily chips, sweating in their own grease. Next up was the doughy wrap upon which the many meats lay. And it was five differing form of kebab meat, all spiced and chewy and undoubtedly unhealthy. Upon which lay the fierce rich chilli sauce that was smeared across the top of the meat like it was the materials of a Pollock painting. And finally, a dense layer of grated cheese covering the entire thing like a thick layer of snow on the ground. But this layer of snow melted and seeped into the meaty substances that lay beneath.

It was a meal fit for a king, albeit a king with high cholesterol and low acid reflux.

Once served, Betty took a deep breath and made her first incision, a tentative fork stab at the cheesy meat in the bottom left hand corner. She followed that up with a steadier pace, grinding through the layers of decadence. Spicy meat mouthful after spicy meat mouthful. It wasn’t long until she began to tire. She spent longer chewing the meat than earlier, and her expression, normally so effervescent, sunk in concentration. But she ploughed on with earnest resilience, until she hit her brick wall. She sighed and put the fork to one side, the Skinny Meal had defeated her again. In fact, once again, it was about the halfway mark that saw her stumble.

Ahmed offered her a conciliatory smile as Betty resignedly, and with the hunched posture of a girl who had overeaten, picked up the takeaway box and took it away. The 109lb girl walked woundedly away.

Once she had gotten home, she pulled her dejected self up the stairs and sat on her bed. Her happy-go-lucky exterior demeanour melted away and her face wilted. She felt like such a failure. Not just with the Skinny Meal but with life. She was no longer in contact with her family and her friend was away and she felt so alone. And every time she closed her eyes, she could see her boss maybe lewd comments about her petite build. The lecherous Head of Department, Lionel Stewart, haunted her every waking thought. His wandering eyes trespassing across her body without her permission, leaving her to feel violated. His wandering hand was worse though, it would pinch her bum or pat her a little too affectionately, and the memory of this gross abuse of power made her feel so small and helpless.

Betty began to cry and sniffle on her bed with the light off. She was alone and scared, and Lionel had traumatised her so deeply with his filthy lewd ways that her face ached with fear and discomfort. Her own skin felt like it didn’t belong to her, he had even taken that from her. His idea of an innocent remark or cheeky tactile contact brought Betty to the brink.

Still in the dark, she reached for her bedside cabinet. In it was a thin, sharp needle. She picked it up and played with it in her hands, letting it switch between her fingers. Idly, she then grabbed it properly and lightly traced it along the vein of her arm. She didn’t break the skin, she just wanted to feel the sharp edge scratching her arm above the vein. She pressed a little deeper with an exhale of breath. The skin didn’t quite split, though a white mark showed, but it was perilously close to doing so.

“When he himself might his Quietus make with a bare bodkin” she whispered to herself the line from Hamlet’s famous soliloquy. And in the quiet that followed, she put the needle back in her drawer.

 

It was breakfast time and the cycle had started again. Betty was confronted by the remaining half of the Skinny Meal, and sleep had given her body time to digest her previous meal and the hunger to confront the rest of the dish. The overnight had not been kind to the meal, as it often is with takeaway foods. The chips had stiffened now the grease had cooled, the meat seemed lifeless without the fresh warmth of the Kebabland spit, and the cheese was chewy and plasticky in its unfresh condition. But it was a fair penalty for another failed showing for the previous night. With a face fully not hiding the unappetising nature of the dish set before her, Betty made earnest inroads into the meal. She had gotten up early to tackle these remnants, and was sitting up in her bed, in her nightie, trying to force the residual nourishment down her throat. And despite the early start, it took time to finish, with an hour passing between beginning and end. It was a good job the University that employed her had just broken up for Summer otherwise this sort of delay would have put her behind on her academic duties.

 

The week passed in similar fashion. Betty had little company to call upon in the city of Brighton and Hove, since her best friend had departed for the sunny climes of the South of France with her latest student lover in tow. A flicker of jealousy would rise up from the steamy swamp of insecurity that Betty buried deep beneath her glossy and gleeful exterior. Leona was everything that Betty wanted to be, and those feelings of wanting to be her had gradually evolved into just wanting her. Leona had everything all worked out where Betty felt like a lost puppy in a snowstorm. If only she could be more like her best friend.

And one of the ways she had envisaged doing that was by eschewing her formerly pencil thin physique and adopted a stature more akin to the generously Rubenesque form of Leona. But try as she might, Betty couldn’t make progress. Her weak appetite and powerful metabolism had provided the perfect storm of adding some depth and dimension to her, leaving her stranded in her fashionably model-like shape. And in 110 days, Lionel Stewart, the Head of Department, would be leering over her just as he had done the previous year. She had 110 days to build up a defence shield of weight gain as a preventative measure.

Unfortunately, the past week hadn’t been a great start, and each time she ventured into Kebabland at 10pm for her late tea, she was defeated by the Skinny Meal set before her. She had 110 days to rise from 110lbs and she swore to herself next time it would be different and she would triumph.

 

Another week later and Betty was in Kebabland, but her steely resolve had wilted. The definition of insanity was doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result, and the past fortnight had not seen a different result. As Ahmed placed the steaming pile of food on the table, Betty took her traditional intake of breath before starting on the dish once more. While her initial involvement with Kebabland’s notorious meal had been simply in pursuit of calories and carbs, she had slowly succumbed to its fast food flavours. The sweetness of the chilli sauce had grown more appealing to the young lecturer, and the cheese seemed richer through over-familiarity. And this preference for the taste of the dish she was eating had culminated in a new velocity of consumption. She was shovelling food into her mouth at a less reticent pace now but rather embracing the soggy textures and appreciating the saltiness of the meat. And with this faster pace, more progress came as a consequence. The box of food emptied faster as chips wormed their way into Betty’s grid. And the brick wall of fullness only revealed itself nearly three quarters of the way in this time. Betty leant back in the chair and pushed air into her cheeks with bloated satisfaction. Only the remaining quarter would be her punishment for breakfast. She was finally getting somewhere at last.

With pride and hope, Betty stood on the scales to see if this grown appetite was a symptom of being a grown girl. The figure of 113lbs backed up this theory, showing she had finally begun to put on weight. She stood in front of her bedroom mirror and hoped to see visual consequences to support the numbers, but there was very little to note beyond the bloat of over-indulgence. She would get a better picture of things in the morning.

And once morningtime came around, before she embarked on the farewell leg of her Skinny Meal tour, she stood up in front of the bedroom mirror once more. Her stomach showed itself more when she turned sideways, exaggerating her curved back with a corresponding outward curve of her stomach. Maybe some of it was still undigested food from last night, but maybe some of it were the first pounds of progress.

 

And this bump in confidence saw her attack the week with renewed vigour. She attacked her evening meal with greater zeal than ever before trying to close the gap between the remaining quarter and an empty box. But two things shook her out of her vein of concentration. The first was a zit on the left cheek. It was sharply red and sore to touch. Betty had never had any issues with blemishes or acne even through puberty, and the furious red sight on her cheek gave her pause for thought as to her unhealthy eating habits. The second pause for thought came when she realised her size 0 pencil skirt and matching shirt were getting a bit tight. She could still wrap them around her, but now it was with discomfort. Sure, this was an inevitable part of the weight gain plan, but it made the whole journey take a turn from idle fantasy to very real reality. The financial aspect was not her main source of worry, since her recent promotion had seen her take a proportional salary rise, but the pinching waist reminded her that the difference between casually admiring her colleagues enlarged form and ruining the tiny build she’d possessed for quarter of a century were very different things.

Before the week was out, Betty conceded a trip to buy new clothing. With quiet sobriety, she decided that size 2’s would be a waste of money given her intentions and cast her eye to 4’s and 6’s. Size 6 sounded scary to the drainpipe girl, even if it sounds ideal to the majority of the female population, but she had a plan and she had resolved to stick to it.

And stick to it she did for another week, and soon the size 4’s fit well. Another step on the scales explained why. 117lbs were now on her frame, and she was no longer physically underweight. A strange tinge of guilt sullied Betty’s feelings upon that revelation. ‘Healthy’ sounded terribly unhealthy after a decade of being clinically underweight.

The physical consequences were generous in the dispersion, with no one feature bearing the brunt over the other. She still looked like a pencil, just now no longer one you could snap in half. Her dark bangs still framed a bony face, her shoulders still had that lack of width from being underweight, her stomach was still fairly flat from the side when empty and when from the front, the inswing between the ribcage and the stomach was merely diluted. Her bum was still just pincushions, and she still had ballerina legs. But she was 8lbs to the good and the wind was now in her sails.

She took the needle out from her bedside drawer and held it between her fingers again, but she felt no overwhelming urge to use it this time, and put it back in the drawer.

 

The summer holiday was going slowly without company. She had left her friends in London, her family in Cambridge and her best friend from work was in France. So she had nowhere to be and nothing to do. Of course, there was research she could do for her forthcoming paper, and there was reading she could do of other published papers, but this was not enough to fully engage the young teacher. She yearned for more.

And in the absence of the more that she yearned for, she just lay in bed slothfully. Having nobody to meet up with meant having nobody to get up for meant having nobody to get changed for. She just would spend her day lying in bed without much intention of doing anything, getting up just for her evening Skinny Meal routine. The rest of the day was just on her laptop either working or not working.

And with no company to keep, the normally pristinely presented teacher had taken her eye off the ball with regards to her appearance. Her make-up bag hadn’t been touched since she broke up for the summer holidays though she was still an angel to look at, despite the zit. Also untouched was her shaver, since maintaining her excellence in female grooming had drifted for the short time she had been off. The consequence wasn’t cataclysmic to her appearance but her naturally dark hair meant that it was quite noticeable. But this slide wasn’t a great worry to the pretty and slender girl since she had her natural beauty still and she would be able to rectify it before she went back to work. Being unattractive was never a problem for the poor girl, it was usually the opposite. Lionel had preyed upon her thanks to her cute looks and riddled her with anxiety.

But he was nothing compared to her ex. The third of three Tims that she had dated over the course of her lifetime, he was emotionally abusive and had a knack for stripping away her self-confidence and self-worth through passive aggression. Betty’s naturally sunny disposition masked a hollowed out husk where her heart should be.

So, the idea of gaining a bit of weight, letting herself go a touch and drifting from the standard of beauty that she had set and maintained for so long, was her attempt at wrestling control from vile and vindictive men who think that her beauty somehow makes her their property. She just wanted to be more like her friend Leona. And to do that, she would need to be able to eat an entire Skinny Meal.

 

Betty walked into Kebabland like a cowboy into a watering-hole in a foreign town. With confidence and a determined glint in her eye, she parked herself and waited for her assortment of calories. This time, she had her eyes on the prize. By eating more of the takeaway in the evenings, she had lessened her calorific load in the following mornings when she would have to eat the remainder. And this had meant she had been hungrier by the time the evening meal had come about. This confluence of factors had lead Betty to this point, where she felt she could slay the beast for once and for all. The Skinny Meal would be hers.

A fast start was important, because she wanted to eat the majority of it before her stomach and brain would realise it was full. So she set about it in a furious manner, scarfing the spicy stuff into her mouth and swallowing it as hastily as she could. Around the half way mark was when her pace began to taper off. But she kept pushing and didn’t lose focus of the task in hand. Eventually the meat dissipated like fog in the sunshine and more of the cardboard of the box began to shine through. As she closed in on the finishing line, the effort she was putting in became obvious. It was turning into a grind, as she mechanically mounted food onto her fork and then found room for it in her heavily chewing mouth. But she hung on in and piled her fork with the last few servings and chowed down on them. Eventually she reached her target. Victory. She had conquered the Skinny Meal.

“Well done Betty, you have reached your target. Does this mean we will never see you again?”

“No Ahmed, don’t worry. This is just Stage 1 of a 3 Stage plan. If all goes well, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me” she smiled back innocently. Ahmed smiled back, knowing just how true comments like that often were.

Riding on the success of her victory, Betty unearthed the scales once more to register her furtherment, and the answer was 122lbs. This number saw her have hips for the first time, smidging outwards seductively, and it saw her stomach show hints of softness for the first time. The softness was most noticeable when she sat, where her tautness veiled itself in virginal fat. Everything else was the same really, even her breasts were still under-formed, but these changes made the prospect of progress all the more palpable. The 12lbs she had gained may have been lost on her body, but they weren’t lost on the girl. Those 12lbs felt like hope.

[swahilimonkfish]

Chapter 2

 

Another week had passed and the new term was getting closer and she was consistently finishing her Skinny meal now. But it was presenting a new problem, and that was what to have for breakfast. She had become accustomed to leisurely gorging on the spoils of the previous day’s takeaway for her morning meal and now she had to eat something fresh. Because now she had proven to herself that she had truly conquered stage 1 of her head-to-head battle with the Skinny meal, it was time to take things to the next level. Stage 2 meant that she would have to try to eat two Skinny meals in one day, two whole, entire, complete and utter Skinny Meals in one day, At least this would also solve her breakfast dilemma.

Leona had once eaten the Skinny meal in triplicate, you see, and this was the standard to which Betty aspired. Breakfast, lunch and dinner had each been the 5500 calorie meal over the course of one day. Now Leona was a considerably bigger woman than Betty these days, but this hadn’t always been the case, and if Leona could surmount this insurmountable amount then Betty could. And then, perhaps, Betty could be free of the perverse leering of Lionel and closer to Leona.

And when we say Leona hadn’t always been a much bigger woman than Betty, this really was the case. Betty remembered seeing Leona on her first day and being intimidated by the radiant beauty and snooty aloofness of the English Language bombshell. Her features seemed sharp and yet softened in some sort of illogical superpositioning of beauty, her body was all sweeping delicate curves wrapped around a gently feminine frame. Her posture was tall and prim, making her seem taller than 5ft6, and her head held high as if she was better than everyone else. And she was. And she knew it.

Betty had made regular efforts to bond with Leona over those initial months, and each time she was rebuffed. Leona was cordial and polite, but there was a constant cloud of distance and disengagement from her as she resisted letting our pencil-shaped girl into her life. But Betty was nothing if not persistent, and would bounce back from each knockdown like a bobo doll on a spring. And eventually, Betty’s relentless optimism wore down some of Leona’s defences. Betty’s goofy and sincere grin was reciprocated with a warm but tempered smile of Leona’s own. They drifted into a colleague’s friendship that began and ended during work hours, but had plenty of casual talk and affection in that window in between. Betty had her first work friend, and it helped with all the workplace nerves and lecherous glances from her superior. They would joke lightly and gossip frothily with one another during lunch breaks, and Betty increasingly became an Apostle to Leona’s Jesus.

Leona had a scabrous sense of humour not befitting of someone as celestially beautiful as she. It was devilish and bitter, but witty and sharp. She also had strong values and an internal march towards self-empowerment that Betty found bewitching. Here was a girl who had it all figured out, here was a girl Betty wanted to be more like. Being in Leona’s presence was inspiring, and seeing her rise up to challenge the patriarchal oppression that Betty hadn’t really given much thought to previously was stirring.

But then something changed over the course of that first semester and Leona closed down again. The seductive siren of salacious swagger had lost her vim, verve, vitality, and with it her warmth. She never explicitly shut Betty out, but she allowed a buffer of awkwardness and silence to grow between the pair. Conversations with her became awkward and tense affairs, with monosyllabic answers to Betty’s bubbly bombardment of discourse. Her softened expression tightened up when anyone, not just Betty, was in her vicinity, and her softened features hardened in parallel as her curves became less pronounced and her weight plummeted. Leona was clearly going through a lot emotionally, though she kept Betty in the dark over the ins and outs of her relationship with Roman or her newly-formed and recently-strained relationship with her star American pupil, and Betty yearned for Leona to let her in to help.

But it seemed the kinder Betty was, the coarser Leona was in response. She was blatantly hurting on the inside but stubbornly refused to let anyone treat her pain. Finally, Betty had enough and launched into full support mode. She had done something similar when her dad broke up with each of his past three wives, forcibly consoling him for the consecutive dissolutions of his marriage, and she knew that the trick was to not take no for an answer.

“What’s going on Leona?”

“Nothing, stop asking” the now gaunt-looking teacher gruffly returned.

“No, you’re my friend and I should be here for you. And I am here for you, but you’re not letting me in” Betty’s eyes were wide with care and concern as she pleaded for the opportunity to support her friend.

“You’re not my friend, you’re my colleague!” Leona hissed foully.

Betty just stood there, open mouthed. Her heart had been punctured by that lashing out from Leona. Her eyes welled up as she stared at Leona’s curled up lip and searing glare.

“I’ve only ever been nice to you Leona, if this is how you treat people who support you unconditionally, how do you treat everyone else?” Betty said weakly through a quivering bottom lip. Leona just stood and stared in silence. You could see her attempting to digest the words, but that they were getting stuck in her throat. Her pain was blinding her from the support network being offered and she eventually flounced off. Betty heard Leona caustically tear her favourite student into shreds out in the corridor outside her classroom later that evening. Betty walked off quickly, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire and hoping that Leona was bottoming out.

Fortunately for Leona, Betty’s kindness was relentless and even after Leona’s unjustified inhospitality, Betty would provide the quiet companionship even though Leona didn’t realise that she needed it. And this was when the two girls who closest in weight, with Leona’s 125lbs only 17 more than the emotional support colleague opposite her. And that was only in late November. Seven months later and their weights weren’t so nearly aligned. Seven months later and Leona had absolutely exploded in weight. Seven months later and Leona 250% her former self. Seven months later and they had grown a further 170lbs apart. And if Leona could put on so much so fast, and eat so many Skinny meals so quickly, then Betty knew that she could make progress too.

 

Betty was nonetheless hesitant to barge blindly into Stage 2. Two Skinny meals in one day seemed like a monumental amount, boggling her tired mind and tight body. She gave herself a week interlude, mainly out of trepidation that any planning or cunning. She also gave herself a week to get her life in some sort of order since it felt like she was caught in the world’s slowest car crash.

She’d been fiddling with that bedside needle more and more, just stroking it along her vein with morbid curiosity and in the hope that it would stimulate something other than quiet apathy. You could ask anybody and they would tell you that Betty was the bubbliest girl that they had ever known. But she kept this locked away in a vault in her own mind away from the concern or judgement of others, a secret melancholy that she hadn’t shaken since Tim 3 and had been getting worse since Lionel had been disregarding her autonomy with his vile digits. Behind her girly smile and dainty figure was a heavy sadness.

She decided that she needed to leave her house to go somewhere other than to Kebabland for once. The past month had been mainly seen her lying in bed and only leaving it to grab more takeaway, and she had long forgotten what the summer sun looked like. Hell, she didn’t even pull her curtains open, leaving her room dark and vitamin D deprived. So Betty decided to venture outside and see the sea.

She wanted to move to Brighton University for this reason. To see the sea. It seemed daft since the beaches weren’t very nice – the ones that weren’t all stones and pebbles tended to be overcrowded, especially during the summer months – but she had always found the lapping sound of the waves and the quarking of the seagulls therapeutic. And she needed that seaside therapy, given her darkened state of mind. Without friends or company to distract her, she had nothing to divert her attention away from her flashbacks of Lionel’s lechery.

She wanted to allow the sun to hit her, so she accommodated with summer clothing that revealed enough flesh for the sun to find it. Just an unbranded green polo shirt and regular summer shorts that allowed her unshaven legs to get some fresh hair. She stood in front of the mirror and hoped she looked presentable, but, in all honesty, she wasn’t going to do much even if she wasn’t. Who was there for her to impress? She felt abandoned in Brighton a left alone.

The mirror showed her as a 125lb girl, with another slight 3lbs crawling onto her frame to minimal effect. The scales might have suggested that she had gained a bit more weight but the mirror couldn’t tell the difference. She’d tied her hair up in a messy bun, just to do something with it. She suspected that it was her unwashed greasy hair on her face that was responsible for the drip, drip, drip of spots that had steadily manifested themselves on her perfectly porcelain face to a quietly embarrassing degree. The rest of her looked splendid however; the polo shirt may have been bought when she was 16lbs lighter (had she really gained all that already?), but it flattered her figure still and only seemed short when she stuck her hands in the air. As long as she didn’t need to do a Mexican wave, it shouldn’t ride up. The shorts were also designed for her during her scrawnier days, and maybe pinched a little on a stomach that was still flat, but no longer hard. But they wrapped around her in a most presentable way and left her looking good. Yes, those unshaven legs stood out due to her naturally dark hair, in previous years she wouldn’t have been seen dead without sorting them out or covering them up, but that residual ennui that had been leadening Betty meant that she simply couldn’t be arsed to fix the situation. After all,, if vanity had been a concern, then she wouldn’t be wearing crocs.

She unlocked her door for the first time that day and stepped out into the sunshine and let its solar light and warmth drape itself over her, and for a wonderful couple of minutes Betty felt better. It was by the time she had gotten to the coast to walk alongside the beach on the pavement that ran alongside that those lovely summer rays died down as the great ball of fire in the sky found itself behind some clouds. Suddenly Betty felt very cold and underdressed out on the waterfront, she could have been somebody much more appropriately dressed had she just chosen jeans or a light jacket. She hugged herself as she sat on a bench, as the bracing wind rustled. This was not the lovely warm day that she had in mind.

To get out of the cold, she walked towards one of the open fish and chip shops that dominated the coastal roads. It was warm in these places, the heat from the kitchen and the counter at the front battled victoriously against the cool British summer air. She waited in the small queue and looked at the menu whilst rummaging through her handbag for her purse to pay.

“Can I have a large battered cod and large chips to eat in please? Oh, and a can of coke” she said as she got out her debit card to pay.

“Beans? Mushy peas? Curry sauce?” the bored looking man behind the counter asked, glancing at his phone as she spoke.

“Yes please, small of each.” she politely smiled but her glittering grin wasn’t enough to keep his focus from whatever whatsapp group or snapchat convo that was occupying him.

“Steve… a large cod, large chips, large beans, peas and curry sauce!” he bellowed without looking up from his phone, grabbing the coke from the chiller without looking what he was doing. Betty felt compelled to correct him, but it just wasn’t in her nature to cause a fuss so she just let it slide. She smiled, paid and sat down on the plastic chairs in the warmth while she waited for her meal.

She was quite peckish by the time it had arrived. It was only just lunchtime, but the worrying and fretting about leaving the house after being cooped up for so long had prompted her hunger to stir. The sight of a girl of her size eating a meal that was comfortably 1700 calories would have looked bizarre to the other people in the queue or sitting down and eating, after all women aren’t supposed to eat 1500 calories all day, but Betty had been eating Skinny meals exclusively these days and was finding them comfortable. And they were 5500 calories, a considerably bigger challenge. So Betty packed the food away with relative haste, just pushing it down like it wasn’t a big deal. The chips were particularly easy since they were far nicer than the ones from Kebabland, but the fish was easily polished also. She walked out of the fish and chip shop and back into the frustratingly cold British summer air.

She decided that she should probably should go home. The whole adventure had been a dud, a waste of time. In fact, a dark cloud hovered over Betty’s mood as she realised how unhappy she was. She was unhappy trapped inside her house, just lying in bed and atrophying, and she was unhappy leaving the house too. And, showcasing predictable pathetic fallacy, a literal black cloud also hovered over Betty, and this one suddenly started pissing it down. Betty stood stony still as the heavens opened and relieved itself all over her. She looked around to see everyone running for cover and decided to do the same until the sharp shower passed, trundling to the next nearest open building.

Once she got inside, she shivered with cold. Her hair, up in a messy bun, was bedraggled with water, and her polo shirt was soaked. Even though the building she was in was warm, Betty was perished and hugged herself furiously.

“Hey darlin’, warm yourself up with some grub eh? This lot’ll warm you right up” said the man behind the counter of the fish and chip shop. Of another fish and chip shop.

As mentioned before, Brighton’s coastal front is littered with one after another of these places, and it perhaps should come as no surprise that the first building that presented itself to Betty in her wet panic was another chippy. It was practically a 50/50 chance given that about half the places open were purveyors of such goods, and Betty tried to make herself warm in the second one.

“Thanks, that’s really kind! Might do that actually” she said, realising that she was the kind of girl who could eat an entire Skinny meal in one sitting. The measly portion sizes that a fish and chip shop could provide, wouldn’t even touch the side. She could comfortably eat a second one, it would only take her to 3500 calories, which was way under what Ahmed would serve her at Kebabland. And she was hoping to be doubling that number soon anyway, so needed to get into the habit of eating more.

“Can I have a large cod, large cheesy chips and a can of coke please, to eat in if that’s OK?” she repeated almost verbatim with a friendly smile on her face. She could still light up her face on demand with that smile, no matter how down she felt, and she did so often when in company.

“Wow, healthy appetite, I like it” said the friendly woman behind the counter. “Tell you what love, eat all that and a battered Mars bar too, and it’s on the house.”

“Cool, that sounds fun, you’re on!” she said with a grin as cheesy as her chips.

She braced herself as she sat down and the nice woman placed the mountain of food in front of her. Maybe Betty had become complacent about how much she could eat, this looked like a lot of food. It looked delicious as it steamed away on her plate but Betty was surprised at how intimidating it looked.

“Sorry to disturb you, but how many calories is this?” Betty asked, not so much out of curiosity but hoping the figure would alleviate some of the fears.

“Haha, oh love, you don’t want to know” she said, whilst grabbing her calculator to work out the number. “It is… wow, 3100 calories. Good luck love”

Betty wouldn’t need luck. She had training. She had a system, a pattern, a method, a modus operandi. She knew how to approach it and she knew how to work through it. 3100 calories plus the 1700 from the previous place still only took her to 4800, so she was still operating at below average. If her maths added up, this should be a walk in the park.

It wasn’t a walk in the park, for whatever reason. Maybe it was the black hole density of a battered Mars bar that had been placed on her plate like it was a side. Maybe it was the greasier chips of the size of the fish, but this was a challeneg. Fortunately, Betty was okay with challenges. She was okay at over-achieving when it came to portion sizes. She was in her element as she waged war on the dish, crushing it with military advances from all angles. Eventually, and with barely a pause to take breath, she put the last chip in her mouth.

“Oh darlin’, you’re a champ. I don’t know where you put all that, but fair play” said the jovial woman behind the counter.

“Oh, it helped that it was all so nice babe” Betty replied, before walking out the shop with a spring in her step. It became obvious in this moment that this battle against the odds and against the limits of the human stomach actually made her happy. She looked back and it was true with the Skinny meal, it was only when confronted with the enormity of food that Ahmed would present her that her other worries seemed to dissipate. It was just her and the carbs, and no rogue thoughts casting doubts or putting a dampener on proceedings. After the high left, sure it calmed down, but those brief minutes of over-indulgence were her respite from the fierce weather conditions of her mind.

Talking of which, Betty had to go outside again and face the elements once more. The rain had died down at last but the wind had not ceased and the sun was now permanently stationed behind low and unfriendly looking cloud formations. It was 4:00pm and she could call it a day. It hadn’t been a great day, but at least she tried. It was the thought that counted, right?

 

On her way home, she heard a shout from across the road calling her name. There weren’t a lot of Betties these days so she knew it would have to have been directed at her. She turned around and there was a girl crossing the road towards her. She looked familiar. Her name was Sabrina, and they used to go to the gym together and attend the same spin classes. Back when Betty did spin classes.

Sabrina looked like you’d imagine a girl called Sabrina to look. Her bleach blonde hair with extensions rode down her shoulders, her dark eyebrows that had been plucked into a shape more popular amongst the drag queen community, lips so red that traffic would stop at them, breasts so fake that Donald Trump would mistake them for news, and a disproportionately skinny waist that didn’t belong on her otherwise extravagantly curved body.

“Oh my god, oh my god, Bettyboo!” she said with a frog like grin.

“Oh, hey Sab, long time no see” Betty’s face lit up, though her enthusiasm was every bit as fake as Sabrina’s décolletage. “You look so good, love the tan”

“Aw, thanks babe, you’re a darling” she said, before being hugged by the overly-friendly teacher. “Wow, we’re hugging!”

“Sorry Sab, just nice to see you is all” Betty apologised, hoping she hadn’t overstepped her mark. She wanted the blonde to feel welcomed but not smothered.

“Oh, it’s alright babe, you’re such a lovely girl, I’ve missed you too” she said, twiddling with her hair. “When we seeing you back at the gym?”

“Oh I...”

“Oh no, don’t tell me, you’ve changed gyms! Can’t believe it, oh we all miss you, you’re such a lovely girl, you brighten up anyone’s day” Sabrina gushed in her hyperbolic way.

“And I’ve missed you too Sab. Been busy is all, got a promotion and rushed off my feet” Betty explained, embarrassed to find herself before this immaculately presented girl explaining why she had been bunking off exercise and putting on weight.

“Don’t worry, I can see you’ve been working out. Look at that arse babe. That’s the arse of a girl who does her squats. You’ve been bulking up haven’t you? Looking less like a twig, looking more like a lady. You look great babe, keep up with the gainz” Sabrina said, woefully wide of the mark. Betty hadn’t done a squat since… oh it must be nearly three months ago now.

“Thanks Sabrina, it so nice to see you again”

“Oh, tell you what, let’s go for drinkies. I was going to go see the mother-in-law but drinkies with Bettyboo sounds so much more fun!” Sabrina squealed, and Betty contagiously squealed too. It was 4pm, she was cold and over-indulged with her unshaven legs out to the world, and being roped into a mid-afternoon drinking session by a plastic bimbo who she was embarrassed to see. What could possibly go wrong.

 

They found themselves at a knock-off Wetherspoons called Ben’s Brewery, since these were always open and always cheap. They picked a nice quiet seat in the corner and started ordering drinks.

Betty only planned on ordering a small wine, since she wasn’t a big drinker and hadn’t, as it happens, touched the stuff since she accidentally copped off with her best mate and possibly had sex too, but Sabrina was a big drinker and ordered a bottle to share from the off.

By the time the second bottle arrived, Betty could feel the alcohol in her system. Betty was a naturally inhibited girl, she didn’t like the freedom and looseness that alcohol allowed for. She much preferred to be bubbly without ever showing her hand. She had too much going on beneath the surface with her struggles over work, depression and relationships. But Sabrina was free like a bird and coaxing Betty to drink far more than she would normally. It wasn’t even 6pm when Betty noticed that her coordination wasn’t as sharp as it normally was.

“Maybe we should eat something?” Betty asked, needing something to mop up the alcohol.

“Such. A. Good. Idea. Let’s do it” the skinny blonde said, before scouring the menu. “Remember though Bettyboo, you need protein and carbs if you need to maintain those gainz. You look so good”

“You really think I look good? I haven’t even shaved my legs” Betty said nervously.

“Totes babes, you look hot to trot. And don’t worry about the legs, sometimes I wish I could get away without doing that either.” Sabrina said, indirectly insulting Betty obliviously. “Ooo, I’ll have the salad. Got to save my calories for the wine, that’s what I say babe! You should have the steakburger, massive protein in that”

Betty didn’t need convincing. She had been given a cover for over-eating under the ruse of protein, even though Betty had no intention of stepping inside a gym until Lionel was no longer breathing his garlicky breath down her neck. She could order her burger and chips while the skinny little blonde girl opposite could eat salad. Plus the chips and burger bun might help mop up the alcohol that was playing with her judgement.

When the meals came, they were on their third bottle and Sabrina was getting a little bit loud and Betty was railing against her inebriation and trying to appear at least moderately sober.

“Oh Bettyboo, could you eat my chips too. I didn’t think they’d come with chips haha love you!” Sabrina gushed. Betty smiled that really loving smile and took the chips off her plate. “And could you take the chicken too. I didn’t realise Caesar salad wasn’t vegetarian. Least it’s good protein!” and Betty again politely obliged.

Despite the offloading of food, Betty still managed to finish before the now very drunk Sabrina. In fact, it was the fact that she was very drunk that might have allowed Betty to beat her. Betty, for her part, was also plastered, but much better at holding it together. She had never drunk this much before evening had even started and was losing in her fight to appear sober. But at least she wasn’t as loud as Sabrina.

“Oh, guess who I saw, a couple of months ago!” Sabrina said, grabbing Betty’s arm overkeenly. “You remember that Leona girl, the university teacher like you, the really pretty one. Yeah, you know how we hadn’t seen her at the gym for ages. Well I saw her at the hair dressers in the Spring and oh my god she’s huge! She’s so fucking enormous Bettyboo, you’d laugh your tits off if you saw her”

Sabrina howled to herself while Betty sat dead silent. Sabrina laid into the girl Betty fancied and she just sat there and listened one barb after another.

“Sorry, I’ve got to go to the lady’s” Betty excused herself promptly so as to stifle her rage. How fucking dare she! That trussed up fake boobed wench insulting Leona like that. She dreams of being half the girl Leona was.

In her raging fury, instead of going to the toilet, Betty decided to leave the premises and stagger back home. Sabrina was to drunk to notice and just ordered another bottle.

 

When Betty got home, she fell on her bed. Her head was spinning as the fresh air hitting her just made her realise how drunk she was. Walking home had been a nightmare for her, coordinating her feet seemed like operating a puppet rather than her own legs. Everything felt unresponsive to her intentions. Lying on her bed, Betty bawled and bawled at the thought of what Sabrina had said. First she was upset and emotionally hurt at the comments, and then came the flood of doubt since the insult that Sabrina had pointedly aimed was the exact thing that Betty was in fact aspiring to. Maybe Betty should call the summer of indulgence off, if she was going to get insulted like Leona was. And Leona was so pretty, even now. Betty wouldn’t be as pretty when she got to her weight. Hell, she believed in her heart of hearts that she wasn’t even as pretty now.

She looked in her side drawer for her needle to draw along her vein. This time she might even press down. This time she might even draw blood. This time she might a Quietus make with a bare bodkin. But she fell asleep before she could.

And when she woke up the following morning, she couldn’t even remember Sabrina’s comment.

[swahilimonkfish]

Chapter 3

Betty decided that the outdoors experiment failed. And endeavoured to hermit herself away for a bit. She couldn’t believe how drunk she had gotten or what a lightweight she was, and she dreaded to think what had happened while she was in that state. Last time she had gotten drunk, she’d ended up fucking her best friend. The last thing she could remember this time round was Sabrina ordering bottle of wine number three and the two girls ordering food. She couldn’t even remember eating the food she had ordered. No, it was best to stay inside just in case there was anybody else out there who might recognise her. She just wanted to keep a low profile, at least until Leona came back who would hopefully help restore some of her damaged confidence.

So she stayed in bed and dozed while hoping for her hideous hangover, a grotesque gargoyle of grogginess, abated. She was still in the same polo shirt that she had worn yesterday for her expedition along Brighton beach, though she had taken off the shorts and knickers as the slight pinching made lying in bed uncomfortable. Her bedroom wasn’t as tidy as she would have liked it, she hadn’t really kept on top of things in her unmotivated state. She hadn’t been clearing out the rubbish, meaning the empty boxes of Skinny meals were just piled in the corner. In the other corner, her dirty clothes had just been dumped, waiting for future Betty to get around to washing and ironing them. That was a problem for future Betty. In fact, the only thing in her room that was neatly put away was the medal that she had for completing the London Marathon just three months ago. She’d worked so hard to get to 26 miles, and managed to complete it in under 4 hours and raised nearly £1000 for the Refuge Against Domestic Violence charity, but it was the one bolt of pride from the past year. Her promotion didn’t feel like a bolt of pride, that had simply been a consequence of having a Head of Department crave you, but the marathon was all her own work and determination. When Betty set about doing a task, she usually ended up doing it. It’s just that her will wasn’t there at the moment.

She reached into her bedside cabinet for her needle. Maybe she should just end it all. Maybe enough was enough. It felt like she was trying to dig herself out of a hole and she just didn’t know what to do. She was alone. That was when she realised she couldn’t find it, the damned needle had gone. She must have knocked it out when she drunkenly stumbled into bed last night. And in a mad panic she looked around her room for her comfort blade. And that was when, by glorious happenstance, she noticed a paper reminder that she had a dentist appointment later that very day.

She showered for the first time in nearly a month and washed all the grease from her hair. She unearthed her make-up kit and lightly applied foundation, eye liner and a subtle lipstick shade ready for her six-monthly jaunt to the dentist. She put on her suit, shirt, pencil skirt and tights that were her traditional workplace apparel, and she looked in the mirror with relief. Despite the mess she had been in, despite the habits that she had been accumulating, she still looked really pretty. This was a public outing and she had to look her best. And she did, with hips taking shape and her legs showing form, and with softness addressing her previous hardness, she looked really pretty. Even if the skirt was tight and the suit jacket unable to button, she looked really good.

The dentist appointment didn’t go as well as it normally did, but there were no real alarm bells. The laid-back dentist reminded her the importance of flossing - “and not that dance craze that all the kids are doing haha” - and said that regular brushing was only effective if you crushed every part of your teeth every time. Betty normally got a clear bill of health and even having advisories was new to her, but she hadn’t been as thorough or regular as she normally was. The fatigue of existence sometimes meant that she opted to go straight to bed without finishing her oral hygiene maintenance routine. So, just having a gentle reminder of the importance of good habits was a relief, even if she normally got a glowing commendation instead. But the main thing was that it was over and Betty could return to bed.

A further week passed and July was contemplating becoming August, and Summer, Autumn. Betty was having to start making her early preparations for her Masters course that she had now been given permission to lead, and she had research to do to maintain her non-teaching quota. This meant lying in bed with her laptop on her knee and her notebook caked in scribble to her side while she plodded through the rigmarole of research. She had been barely getting out of beg these days, not even for her Skinny meal. Ahmed had informed her that you could order from Kebabland via Deliveroo or Ubereats these days, and the food would come to her door. It was a treat for the courier to be greeted by Betty when he dropped off his Deliveroo delivered delicacy. She would be typically answering the door in her nightwear, white silky and loose garments that gave her an ethereal air. She was thin and pretty and when her face lit up to acknowledge her delivery, it lit up the city of Brighton with it. How on Earth a girl of her size and beauty could get away with such blatantly unhealthy eating habits, none of the couriers could ever figure out. But none of them complained when the saw it was her that they had to deliver to.

And she had continued her unhealthy eating habits that come with a diet of solely and exclusively Skinny meals. It may have cost her a fortune, but it did mean that she didn’t have to order much shopping from the supermarkets. She once scrolled through the app to place her next shopping order and hovered over grapes. They were a fruit and she hadn’t eaten a fruit or vegetable in over 2 months now. A punnet of grapes would probably be an adrenal shot to the arm of vitamins after the dearth of them that she had been imposing upon herself. And, while she did order grapes in the end, the form that the grapes took was in fact a couple of bottles of wine. She didn’t remember much from her time with Sabrina, but she remembered the numbing effect that mild inebriation had before she accidentally took it too far. So, instead of fruit and vegetables to accompany her takeaway routine, she opted for booze. It might not have been the healthiest choice but, when you spend your evenings contemplating suicide, the longitudinal aspects of existence become low-priority.

And the wine did make the work easier. It made it bearable actually. Drinking wine didn’t feel unhealthy, it felt classy and controlled, and lying in bed drinking wine in the morning didn’t feel like a call for help, it felt like a woman who had her shit together. And it made the sheer volume of work that taking on the Masters course had brought upon her, all the more manageable.

But this busying hadn’t distracted Betty from her over-arching Summer agenda to gain sufficient weight that the drooling droog Lionel would ease his yearnful habits. She shuddered at the thought of this jaundiced pervert liking his chapped lips at her, and flinched at the thought of his dirty fingernails coming towards her. No, she had to keep on top of her Skinny meal ambitions because the invasive and repulsive alternative was too much for her to even consider.

Stage 2 of the Skinny Meal diet, as previously stated, involved a Skinny Meal for two of the three meals of the day. It was a magnitudinous step up for the thin-as-a-pencil teacher, doubling her intake in an instant and eating more than nine times the recommended daily allowance of calories for a woman. So, understandably, this step up was proving to be harder than the initial one. And the main reason was that she was actually eating Skinny Meals for each of her three meals.

Allow me to explain. Let’s start with the first day that she attempted the challenge, which was a Tuesday. The first Skinny Meal for lunch was already a Herculean affair. Even though she had taught her body to accommodate one of these a day, this time she hadn’t had an entire day to work up an appetite. This earlier time had put pressure on her to finish with plenty of time to recover for the second Skinny meal of the day and she didn’t quite make it in one sitting, fading near the final hurdle, with only an eighth left to go. This wasn’t too much of a cause for alarm as she used the rest of the afternoon to finish it, simply by picking over it whilst doing her research and preparing her presentations for the coming year ahead. But the inevitable consequence of grazing all afternoon was that when her 10pm evening meal came around, she was still full from the previous one, and the thought of a second one seemed near impossible.

But, as reliable as dawn following dusk, she made her trip to Kebabland and asked for a Skinny Meal. While it was being made, Betty tried to laser her focus on the objective, drawing upon her pool of tenacity that had seen her run marathons and lead Masters classes at only 27. But as soon as Ahmed placed the cardboard packaging afore her eyes, she knew she had made a terrible mistake, there was no amount of concentration and fortitude that could power her to finish the food in front of her. Not even close.

Bless her, she tried. She really did. She followed her training and used all her Turkish meat experience to dive into the steamy foodstuff that lay before her. Her systematic methodology, her pacing and her technique of eating were all on display, but it was all obviously futile. She was not even close and memories came back of Betty’s first ever attempt at eating a Skinny meal. She remembered Leona having to finish it offl, despite the girl leaving over two thirds, and despite Leona having already eaten her own. Betty flinched at the memory, and gained a second wind, attacking the dish with a surge of grit. But this second wind soon passed also since focus and psychology are trumped by the limitations of the body every time, and Betty had to wave her white flag with barely a third of the extraordinary spread eaten. On the upside, at least, her breakfast was now sorted for the following day.

But herein lay the problem. She had a monstrous breakfast ahead of her, two thirds of a Skinny meal before her day even started. A breakfast containing twice as many calories as a woman was supposed to eat in a day. And, to make it worse, she had to eat it all and digest it all ready to tackle another two portions later that day. She got through the breakfast valiantly, ploughing through it and getting to the light at the end of the tunnel by 11am, but she as soon as lunch approached she knew that the following meal would be unattainable. How could it not be, she had only just finished eating and now she was presented with a dish of that enormity. She answered the door to the Deliveroo courier in just a large plain white shirt that had chilli sauce smeared across it. The shirt was fortunately long enough to cover her dignity, but it left her hair legs for the courier to take in and they were no longer as slim as they once were. Her knees were no longer as knobbly and her calves no longer just a construct of sinew and bone. He still took an admiring glance at her but it was most considerably an unflattering look.

She took the steaming box of carbohydrates and she dug in. She tried her best, as oft she did, but food didn’t seem to be disappearing down her throat as quickly as she liked and she soon found that she was left with over half before she reached a level of excessive discomfort. This meant that she had the entire afternoon to turn this half into nought and her snacking had to be focused and constant. Lying in her bed, she didn’t really have time to focus to fervently on her preparation for the new year, because she needed to maintain motivation to consume the feast that she had outstanding. With metronomic discipline, she just about clawed the last few oily mouthfuls into her tired mouth by 7pm. And, the domino effect continued since this meant that she now had only three hours of recovery before her next exertion, and she had never been so full in her life.

By 10pm, she gingerly entered Kebabland for the final Skinny Meal of the day, but there was no way she could eat it. No way she could come close. She was still cradling her bloated stomach from her earlier endeavours, and the actual sight of it nearly invoked her gag reflex. The oh so familiar smell didn’t seem so appealing when she was struggling to keep an earlier edition down. The best she could hope for was to start it, and minimise the amount she would have to eat for the following morning.

And so the pattern repeated, with Betty finding an even larger breakfast left over from the previous night, than on the morning before. Sure, she ate as much as she could, leaving a fair bit left but still making decent inroads, before snacking furiously to complete the task ready for the afternoon edition. Of course, having only just finished breakfast and suffering from a longstanding fullness issue, meaning that all she could hope to do for lunch was make a significant as possible start to mitigate the amount of snacking that she would be required to do during the afternoon to finish it. Unfortunately, she only finished eating her first Skinny meal by 11pm thanks to the backlog from the previous day, so her march to Kebabland was even more forlorn than the day previous. And so it continued, with poor, valiant Betty leaving more of each meal each time as the cumulative amount of food and the increasing backlog that she was having to work through meant she had never finished the last meal before she started the next. And at some point in mid-August, Betty gave up.

It was understandable, given the increasingly Sisyphean nature of the challenge that she had set herself. It was inherently futile since she was always losing ground. How could she ever eat two Skinny meals in one day, when the amount from the previous day that she had to eat first kept going up? Maybe the wine wasn’t helping, since she was pairing each takeaway with a couple of glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon. The net result was that over the course of the day, she found herself getting through nearly an entire bottle just as something to drink with all this food intake. It was either that or bottles of coke, and they made her gassy.

Eventually, she had gotten to the stage where she hadn’t finished the lunch from the previous day before she had to buy the lunch for the next day, and there was an evening Skinny Meal just getting cold in the meantime. The task had become like painting the Forth bridge and she was finding it sapping and morale-draining, as she toiled against the tide of Turkish treats, drowning a little more each time.

Enough was enough, so she gave herself a couple of days off, to eat through the backlog and to ready herself to start the challenge again once cleansed. She set herself the challenge, she could change the rules if she wanted, so she opted to give herself a reprieve, and allow herself a day that was not dominated by Ahmed’s most famous dish.

She woke up, opened another bottle of wine in her bed and poured it into a glass and began drinking, whilst thinking to herself. She really needed to tidy her room, it was looking quite the shit tip. Maybe after she finally cleaned off Stage 2, would she clean up her room. The leaning tower of boxes that had previously housed kebabmeat certainly needed taking out, and her clothes needed washing since she was no down to just the large white t-shirt that she wore to cover both halves of her. She didn’t even have any clean underwear, and the walk to Kebabland in literally just a t-shirt was so humiliating that it was a good job she was usually slightly drunk by this point. Which reminded her, and she poured herself another glass of wine. Since all she was going to be doing was playing catch up on her previous takeaways, she could let loose and have a proper drinking session too. Sobriety, Skinny meals and sensible life choices could wait until tomorrow, cheers to today.

[swahilimonkfish]

Chapter 4

 

Betty woke up the following morning with the mother of all hangovers pounding on her brain. Actually, scratch that, let me try again. Betty woke up the following afternoon with the mother of all hangovers pounding on her brain. Yesterday had clearly been a productive day from the dreary-eyed perspective of alcohol consumption, judging from the sheer amount that she couldn’t remember from the day before. It was around midday that things started to get a bit fuzzy and difficult to recollect, when she was a goodly amount into bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon number two and railing against the limitations of her stomach as she tackled the many remnants of Skinny meals previous. The pile of cardboard boxes with the distinctive Kebabland logo served as testimony to the fact that she had successfully caught up on this after lagging so far behind over the past week or so. Still, she thought as she lifted her groggy head and looked around her, really needed to clean her room and clear away that unbecoming pile of trash to which yesterday’s exploits had added.

Her memory of yesterday became increasingly fragmented after the tipsy morning became a drunken afternoon, shattering into echoes and refractions of the afternoon before. She remembered getting out of her clothes, that was for sure, and rummaging through messy pile of clothes stacked in the other corner of her room, unwashed and unironed. But why, she couldn’t remember. Then Betty looked down at what she was wearing and the memories trickled down.

Betty had decided last night, for reasons that she couldn’t wrap her pounding head around, to try on the clothes that she would normally wear as part of her university lecturing uniform. The trusty white blouse, the sleek black suit, the black tights covered in a sharp black skirt, The prototypical Betty Bolligbrooke pencil-thin pencil-skirt look. She wasn’t wearing all of that now, however. The suit jacket had been ditched at some point, though looking around she could see neither hide nor hair of it, and the skirt had similarly been eschewed at some juncture, presumably for comfort and ease. This left the hungover girl in a white blouse that was flatteringly figure-hugging back when she was a 109lb size 0. She hadn’t weighed herself since she discovered that she was 125lbs but presumably, given the way in which she had been packing it away, she was north of that now too. As such, the poor blouse was only clinging onto Betty by three straining buttons, all around the minor convex bulges on her chest that more buxom girls would refer to as their breasts. As for her tights, they were a clothing choice from a similar vintage of Betty and were thus similarly straining. The gripped and grappled with her still lean legs, and whimpered as they were pulled over her slightly larger buttocks. The entire aesthetic didn’t leave a great deal to the imagination, with the tights spread so thin that the shadow of her unshaven vagina could be spotted through the fabric. She hoped she hadn’t ordered a takeaway or anything silly like that, given the condition and appearance with which she would have answered the door.

The only other thing that Betty could even remotely remember from that heady haze of red wine drinking, some of which was deeply stained on her white blouse, was texting Leona. Oh crap, Betty realised, she’d text Leona.

This could be problematic, she had no idea what she would have said in her incoherently pissed state, so she rolled out of bed and rummaged for her phone, preying to any god who’d listen that she hadn’t come onto her best friend. Fortunately, her phone was able to reassure her that, even if that had been her intention, that meaning would certainly not have been conveyed.

 

Io lvye fuf doi f mcucd9

rlsasy lru yr

iw d fk dfuu

ple\sd fuf e

 

It was gobbledegook, nonsense, baloney and bunkum. The fanciful incoherent jibberish in an alien tongue that comes from a girl whose motor skills had been savaged by inebriation and whose comprehension skills had been smothered in vino. And, just as fortunately, Leona responded with a deft light touch that didn’t make things worse.

 

I had to use Google translate, then the Rosetta stone, but I think I’ve cracked the code. “Hi Leona, hope you’re having a wonderful time in France, hope the weather is nice, looking forward to seeing you when you come back!”

Awww, that’s so nice of you to say Betz! I’m having a wonderful time out here, thanks for asking, and I too am looking forward to seeing you when I get back. Leona x

 

Phew, that was a close call. Betty breathed a sigh of relief when she realised she hadn’t irreparably screwed things up with her one good friend, and the girl she fancied. She could text back, now she was in charge of her decision-making and faculties, but she chose to pretend the incident never happened by ignoring it, and took the stance that maybe ignorance is bliss. After all, it would explain why Boris Johnson always looks so happy with himself.

With all that sorted, Betty looked again around the room. It really did need cleaning, you know. It wasn’t just the takeaway boxes precariously stacked in one corner, and the clothing detritus that were scattered around another corner. There were the three (!) wine bottles at the end of her bed that served as a heartache to anybody in the Health and Safety profession, there was chilli sauce on the walls and on the door, and there were knickers somehow hanging from the light fitting. She really needed to get the place fixed, but maybe after the hangover subsided.

Instead she decided that out of sight was out of mind, and wandered downstairs to lie on the sofa away from all the mess. She could nap on there until the headache faded, yes, that sounded like a reasonable un-self-destructive plan of action for the young woman to take. Except, downstairs was not as tidy as she had envisaged it. She realised this when she got down the stairs and put her foot in a mostly empty carton on ice cream that had been laying on the floor. She continued bravely and intrepidly traipsed into the main living area, wiped away all the university notes and paperwork that had piled on the sofa, and had a well-earned lie down. Next to the sofa was a second tub of ice cream – Ben and Jerry’s phish food no less. It had barely been started, but unfortunately being left out had let the icy dessert melt into mush. Betty picked up the cartoon with really giving it much thought, and poured the now warm ice cream into her mouth, though some dribbled down onto her now well and truly messy blouse. It would do as a late breakfast, Betty figured.

Groaning from the pain of her hangover, Betty decided to distract it. She grabbed her phone out again, and scrolled through her list of apps for inspiration. She settled on Facebook, and decided to peruse what Leona had been up to by looking at her recently uploaded photos from her time teaching abroad over the summer break. Boy did Leona look pretty in her summer dresses and her summer tan, cavorting along the French and Spanish coastal cities to teach English to students who intended to study in England or the US. She certainly had been eating well while she had been over there, and hadn’t reined in her weight gain from what Betty could see. Her flattering dresses and flattering camera angles could not distract from the zaftig coverage of the body that Leona now possessed. Betty didn’t mind Leona at this larger size, she found it suited her. It didn’t make her look fat, she was far too pretty for that, it just made her look plentiful. And what could be better than plenty of Leona.

It was at this point that Betty cottoned on to the fact that her cold bony hands were down her tights. She pulled them back as soon as it dawned on her, ashamed and angry at herself for searching for pleasure down there while staring at pictures of her best friend. Sure, she fancied her too, but that didn’t make masturbating over photos of her any better. Was this any different to what that lecherous creep Lionel was doing at the university? It was an abuse of trust, a betrayal of friendship, an invasion of privacy, a breach of boundaries and the most hypocritical thing that Betty could do given her circumstances.

But what did it matter, if nobody was going to know about it? If Leona was none the wiser, and it was only Betty that knew, nobody would be hurt, so it couldn’t be that bad really. Could it? Betty latched onto this scant justification and pushed her hand back down her tights and worked herself until she came. Then she fell asleep, hands still down there.

It was hunger that woke Betty in the late afternoon. Sure, today was meant to be a detox and a cleanse before she began her final push to eat two Skinny meals in one day, but she had been working her way up to consuming 11000 calories across each chapter of 24 little hours, and swigging a pint of warm ice cream was a marked step down from that high point. So she came to with her stomach making rumbling noises that it hadn’t made before. When she was eating as anaemically as she did, her stomach considered its meagre amounts the norm and so left her alone. And since Betty had been stepping up her consumption, her stomach hadn’t ever reached a point where it was hungry. Heck, it hadn’t reached a point where it wasn’t full to bursting. But now it was grumbling from the break in its epicurean routine, and Betty reluctantly concluded that she must feed it.

This was just until Lionel would get off her back, she thought to herself and she stepped over the takeaway containers and cake wrappers that were strewn on the floor between the living area and the kitchen. After she had stopped being so thin that he felt he could touch her inappropriately just for cheap thrills, she could return to normal, healthy-eating habits. She could eat vegetables and exercise and all the things that she used to do. But, for the time being, she had a job to do, to insulate herself from his putrid perversions with a layer of fat.

In the kitchen, she put the oven on and put a couple of pizzas in there. And, while she waited, she grabbed another pint of ice cream and had the Ben & Jerry dessert at the temperature they recommended this time. It made a delicious pudding, now onto the main course. The pizzas were no great shakes for Betty to consume. She could fold them up like calzones and just breeze through them. She had been in the habit of far more challenging and heavier food than a couple of deep pan stuffed crust meat feast pizzas and ate it still in the kitchen. Then she grabbed a final tub of ice cream and took it back to her sofa for a top-up dessert.

She lay on her sofa, with the tub of ice cream resting on her chest. With one hand she was shovelling ice cream into her mouth while the other found its way back down her tights. She closed her eyes as she ate and pictured Leona.

[butterboy]

Wow... this is really good. I'm blown away by how much you improved the story over your first version! 

[swahilimonkfish]

1 hour ago, butterboy said:

Wow... this is really good. I'm blown away by how much you improved the story over your first version! 

Thanks, that means a lot. The original was a bit crap, wasn't it. But it's worth the effort if you think it's improved

[swahilimonkfish]

So the past two chapters haven't been the best, because my laptop crashed before I saved them, and I couldn't retrieve them. This meant I've had to re-write them as best I can from memory, but the standard may have slipped a tad. Sorry.

Chapter 5

 

She came to the following morning to discover her tights were wet and sticky. While that may have been partly down to images of Leona, it was mainly due to the spilled ice cream tub that toppled as she drifted to sleep, and ran down her breasts, past her navel and into her tights. But Betty didn’t care, she didn’t have anyone she was trying to impress, so what did it matter?

She did need to get changed though. But clothing choices were tough, since she possessed very little that both fitted and was washed. Her shirt was now down to its final button, ferociously straining and clinging on like Tobey Maguire did to stop that train in Spiderman 2, so that had to be removed. She hurled it aimlessly onto the floor to deal with later and wondered around the downstairs of her house looking for something with which to cover her upper body. Her tights on her legs were also on their last legs, laddered and pinching and worse for wear. However, in her hungover state, she procrastinated dealing with removing them by just covering them up. And so she settled on a scratty and unwashed men’s vest over her upper half that didn’t conceal her hairier armpits but was at least able to cover her softer midriff. On her lower half, to avoid taking off her over-worn tights, she just concealed them by throwing some chavvy jogging bottoms over the top of her bottom half.

And, cognisant and clothed, and this time without the air of defeat that had been hanging over her of late, she could rally herself to do battle once more with two Skinny meals over the course of one day. No breakfast and early lunch was the plan to get this show on the road, and so she could begin her Skinny Meal at 11.30am with revitalised focus. To her immense pride and satisfaction, she finished it in one sitting, by 1pm. She had, just by not eating it for one day, begun to miss its overly salty flavours and acidically spicy chilli sauce, and ravaged it like a lover. And this early finishing time gave her the maximum window of recovery before she explored the second part of this Skinny Meal diptych. She just had to kill a few hours until early evening before she could rid herself of the Stage 2 albatross around her neck.

Lying back on her sofa contemplating her imminent victory, she looked around for a way to kill the time. Stimulation-deprived, she settled down to watch a film on Netflix and maybe a glass of wine or two. And what was Netflix without the corresponding chilling, and so to Betty’s phone where she could ogle photos of Leona while Arrested Development played in the background. She betrayed her friend once more and put her hand down her joggers and tights again, and, with just glasses of wine three and four, pictures of Leona bathed in Mediterranean sunshire, and the shrieking voice of Tobias Fünke for company, masturbated herself to pleasure and sleep once more.

She woke again at 6pm, giving herself a respectable window for Stage 2 this time. Far earlier than normal, she swaggered into the Kebabland saloon with a cool grace and fierce nerve. Ahmed saw the time, recognised the girl and prepared the dish, as she sat herself down and began her ritual of exhaling to get her breathing steady and under control.

Once he had put the massive platter of salted carbohydrates before her, she hurtled at the dish with intensity and commitment, barrelling towards the quarterly waymarkers that she had built up in her mind. She made light work of the first quarter, much to her relief, and then continued her ascent with precision and efficiency. The second quarter and the consequence of her gluttony were beginning to tell once more, but she knew that it would and she had faith that she had the resilience to not let it affect her pace. The third quarter took its toll with each mouthful being more difficult than the last and each forkful seeming to clear less space than the one previously, but she was in the right frame of mind not to be de-railed by the inevitable strain it would have on her appetite. The final quarter however, was another kettle of fish. It was now a straight-up battle of wills between her expansive dish, her flagging appetite and her ruthlessly determined mind. And as she grimaced with each mouthful, her mind mattered more. Each bite caused physical pain, and sweat was trickling down her forehead, but the dish would be her victim one way or the other. And eventually she prodded the last two chips and put them in her mouth. And with a tired aching jaw, she swallowed her 11,000^th Kebabland calorie of the day. Victory at last! She whooped in the kebab shop, to the bewilderment of the people queuing to be served and the amusement of the genial moustachioed proprietor of the place.

Having waddled home with a straining stomach, Betty rewarded herself with a victory lap in the form of a weigh-in and progress review. And the numbers added to the sense of achievement, 133lbs signalling the incredible progress the young professor had made in such short time. The weight that she debuted with this Summer was now 25lbs ago, and our pencil-like protagonist was dabbling in curves for the first time in her life. Her pencil skirt was no longer the clothing item of choice for Betty, no she had nobody to impress for the entire Summertime and downgraded her fashion aesthete accordingly. Instead the loose and elastic-waisted size 6 furry tracksuit bottoms over her tights that her newly expanded form was considering filling out, looked tacky. They did her very few favours, but they did make her bum look more plush and padded, and they hid the unshaven nature of her now less twiggy legs. I mean, she wasn’t aspiring to glamour, that was the reason for the diet, she didn’t have a partner to show her legs to, and leaving them untouched felt like a score for the matriarchy. Up higher, her stomach swung outward lightly over the elastic below. The tight white vest over her top was similarly unglamorous and hung uncompromisingly around her midriff to exacerbate every softness and deviation from the magazine-inspired hourglass expectation placed upon her gender. Higher up and the vest lost its tightness around her chest and unflattered the one insecurity she had about her appearance growing up, but the weight gain had at least turned the land around her areolae into something resembling a breast now, almost talking the form of half-apples where there once was nothing. The vest hung over her still bony shoulders, but at least the clavicle’s extrusion didn’t look as painful before. Down her arms saw the scary thinness of yore replaced by more regular width, looking better than they did on her previously underweight frame. The dark brown of her unshaven armpits were the only downside to having this feature of hers on show, but she was just trying to live her life and not trying to win any beauty awards. Her face still made that difficult however, her skeletal bone structure not as harsh as it was before, highlighting the natural friendliness of her resting facial expression. The break out of spots across her nose and forehead were perhaps to beauty’s detriment, the small mole on her right cheek was a slight site of unsightliness and the messy bun that her dark brown hair was tied in was function over form, but only the harshest critic would call her anything other than jaw-droppingly stunning. Truth be known, if she was dolled up in make-up and ensconced in more vogueish attire, you would say she had never looked better. But there was nobody here to woo so she didn’t feel the need to dress to impress.

If Leona had been here, it would have been a different story. Despite the seeming breakdown of their relationship before Christmas, they slowly began to repair it once more. Leona seemed reluctant this time, though Betty didn’t know this was down to Leona’s recent acquisition of weight. She now had curves in all the right places, but a cynic might say some of the wrong ones too. It certainly dampened Lionel’s affection for her, which Betty saw with envy. It was his loss of interest in Leona that saw him redirect more monomaniacally on poor Betty. And the girl with Leslie Knope positivity began to wilt under his undiminished leer. She sought shelter under the wider teacher, and hoped for advice, empathy and commiseration. And gradually, as the softening teacher softened emotionally, she let her back into her one woman circle of friends.

And then the kiss happened. Betty had been really suffering from the strain of Lionel Stewart when Leona made her unwanted move, and Betty spiralled as a consequence. All her earnest kindness felt battered by the betrayal of her closest workfriend. Leona knew that Betty was struggling with unsolicited advances, how could she then try one of her own? When Betty needed Leona the most, Leona mimicked Lionel in her sexually forward perversion. And it was perverse, right? Woman on woman? Yes, as Leona pleaded, men couldn’t be trusted and women were safer together, but if that was the case, then why did Leona show she couldn’t be trusted either? It was in this conversation that Betty alluded to Leona’s weight gain. It was accidental and void of malice, but she heard over the phone how deep that barb cut Leona. She never once considered that Leona would feel vulnerable about such a thing, it seemed against her entire ethos, but she heard Leona hide her pain behind a voice rising in anger, and Betty knew that she had hurt the growing teacher.

The following day, she saw Leona eating two Big Macs at her desk in despondent greed and she realised that she could never report Leona. Imagine condemning Leona, who had, bar that night, been her only ally against the creepiness from up the academic ladder, but not report Lionel despite him acting much worse, for much longer. No, Betty forgave Leona straight away and strove to find herself back into her affections. No, not affections, that was the wrong word. She didn’t like Leona like that. She admired her plenty, sure. She sought to emulate her, and wanted to be like her. But there is a big difference between idolisation and yearning, and Betty was straight. But Leona was a force of nature. With her new and growing size, and her proud strength of character, she was a force of nature and Betty couldn’t help but get swept up in it. There was something alluring about the way her growth made her seem like a juggernaut, as if the bigger she got, the more unstoppable a force she was. She took such little shit from patronising colleagues, and stuck up for so much good inside and outside of work, it was as if the weight was power. Or, at least, that was how Betty conflated the two. And that was how admiration turned into something more from the bijou teacher to her zaftig colleague. And that was what preceded the two girls getting drunk, making out and, though only hazily remembered, having sex.

It pained Betty that she had done this when she had been so angry at just being kissed so recently. And it pained Betty that she could barely remember it, losing her lesbian virginity was a memory that could only be found in the bottom of a long discarded bottle. And it pained Betty that she didn’t follow up, meaning that Leona instead paired up with the considerably bigger Wiktoria from one of her classes. It seemed incredibly inappropriate when she first heard, to date a first year student no less, but upon seeing her Betty was confronted with only admiration. These were two utterly monolithic females. If Leona was now fat, then Wiktoria was something else. Tall like an Amazon and wide like the Amazon, Wiktoria was just so much woman. And Betty felt so small and insignificant against the remarkable forms of these two lovers. So the pencil-sized, pencil-shaped and pencil-skirt-wearing girl endeavoured to transform into something more befitting.

And Leona was so encouraging, selling the positives of such surfeit of mass. She guided her and supported her, and introduced her to the Skinny Meal. But try as she might, Betty couldn’t make a breakthrough against this monstrosity of a serving. But, with Leona leaving for the Summer with her belle, to teach in Southern France and then Northern Spain, Betty saw an opening to make the progress she needed. To win over Leona and put off Lionel. And this was what Betty remembered as she saw dishevelled look in the mirror as she celebrated 133lbs and two Skinny Meals in one day.

 

[swahilimonkfish]

Chapter 6

 

Betty couldn't find her bare bodkin. The sharp needled blade that she ran along her vein contemplatively, wondering whether it was better to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or take arms against them and, in doing so, defeat them. Fortunately, the sense of victory and the sense of progress meant she hadn’t missed it. She had doubled down on doubling up the number of Skinny meals her skinny skin could take, and she was, to quote Nina Simone, feeling good.

It felt like nostalgia, like a trip down memory lane to a long forgotten time shrouded in overgrown bracken, but her happy face was no longer a façade. Happiness rested as comfortably on her as her tights rested uncomfortably over her. It was weird from a literal perspective, but the heavier she got, the lighter she felt. Her knotted shoulders eased and the tightness down her back slacked. She looked at herself in the mirror and she recognised herself, but she also recognised that she’d changed. She felt one step removed from her previous self and it felt liberating. She felt one step removed from feeling like a victim, and after yesterday she felt like a victor.

The next stage was all about maintenance. She had now reached a new level of hunger, but she couldn’t rush to the following stage like last time, she needed to work up to it. And to do that, she had to prove herself comfortable at her current diet. She had to sustain the levels of sustenance and convince herself that this was the Betty Bollingbrooke. Not the waifish-as-a-widow woman that had been subjected to an abusive ex and a philandering boss. She had to convince herself that she could love herself now. She giggled to herself. Now, she would just have to do it again. And again. And again. This was her new normal now.

Her reinvigoration in mode hadn’t paralleled a reinvigoration of her hygiene standards. Her priorities fell elsewhere. The ever-growing Jenga stack of cardboard that was leaning on one wall of her bedroom stood tall as a totem of recognition of her progress, not a harbinger of slipping living standards. The ramshackle pile of dirty clothes were redundant since they would presumably be too small. She had now exceeded them and they belonged in her rear view mirror now. If she should do anything with regards to her clothes, it would be to replace them with new ones. But that could wait too, she had plenty of time to herself before term time started still and she had no intention of interacting with the outdoor world for non-takeaway reasons until Leona came back from the home of Romance languages

So two more weeks of double Skinny Meals was the plan. Two more weeks of lounging about, humming to herself in good spirits, and eating with something more rigorous than abandon. The progress that she could make in two weeks, the distance she could travel away from her former malnourished outline and towards the empowerment that Leona espoused. Two more weeks and then surely Lionel lustful leering would fade. Two more weeks and maybe Tim 3 wouldn’t recognise her, her mum wouldn’t acknowledge her and Lionel would leave her the hell alone. Two more weeks and she could leave all her emotional baggage at an airport conveyor belt. Just two more weeks.

But nothing accelerates time like a good mood and a rigid routine, and Betty had bags of both. She had the timings from her success yesterday to carbon copy and paste over the next fourteen days of her calendar. Just eat, rinse, repeat.

After just a few days of putting the hog into Groundhog day, Betty started to notice it was getting easier to get through the repetitive daily cycle. It was still an almighty struggle, but the pain was beginning to subside between meals and her jaw began to ache less. Other things ached more, as she found this approach to eating meant she was more prone to napping. An afternoon hour or two had become four hours of shut-eye helped with the digestion process and kept Betty in a semi-comatose stupor. Her natural giddy energy was slowly being replaced with a more docile contentment. She found concentrating on her research and on finishing her slides for the coming year harder work than before, and she found working in bed whilst still in her nightie a better environment than anything as official as downstairs in the lounge.

Another couple of days were frittered away and Betty was beginning to feel the pull of those darker emotions again. She no longer felt the rush of achievement any more from her admittedly impressive daily haul of two Skinny meals, she had normalised it through repetition. And without that rush of betterment, Betty bittered. Her recent spike in cheer crested and then collapsed as if it was just a brief relapse before the daily trudge of sadness, loneliness and anxiety. Life felt like climbing up an escalator that was going down, and if you stopped pushing upwards then you only went downwards. And Betty was feeling that downward motion.

She was also finding it harder to find excuses to get her shit together. A warmer mode concealed to her the irresponsibility of how she had been tending to herself. Not just the state of where she lived, but how far behind she was with prepping for the coming term’s lectures, how she’d need some clothes soon, the bottle of wine that she was now treating as part of her daily routine, and how long it had been since she’d last showered. These worries, of how her healthy self-maintenance had fallen by the wayside and kicked the kerb on the way down, were easier to suppress when everything felt fine, but in the absence of that emotional buoyancy, these things that she had been putting-off were off-putting.

There was only one thing for it, given the dire straits that Betty found herself in. She would have to get her act together.

Or, she could postpone getting her act together and instead online purchase a deep fat fryer and many many Mars bars.

And, bizarrely, it did the trick of lifting Betty out of her developing funk. The novelty would probably wear off fast, but Leona would be back soon, uni life would start again soon and in the meantime she was deep-fat frying Mars bars for a post-Skinny meal snack. The sugar charged through the tastebuds on her tongue like a runaway train and the hedonistic indulgence of it thrilled her. It tasted like progress. It was a foolproof plan with no negative downside to it whatsoever.

Getting towards the end of the fortnight and Betty was getting comfortable with the routine. For the longest time, lying in bed had felt like a chore. The aches and pains of being wrapped up in a duvet all day eating, drinking and failing to be merry had plagued her even as the melancholy drove her to it. But now, the only time she left the bed or the sofa was to get between the two. Or for her bodily ablutions of course.

And she was in this comfort zone, dipping a battered Mars bar into the last of her Skinny meal at around midday whilst sprawled on the sofa in the same nightie she had worn all fortnight, half a bottle of wine to the good, when from the door came a rat-a-tat-tat and Betty’s heart fell through a trap door in panic and anxiety.

Why was anyone knocking on her door? She had cocooned herself from the world as a hungry caterpillar, ready to emerge as a butterfly come term time. That was the plan, and at no point during the plan was anybody outside of the Tesco delivery guy and the Deliveroo delivery guy and the occasional Amazon delivery guy supposed to knock on her door.

She panicked, well aware of her unkempt state, and unable to wrack her brain as to who it could be. She quickly wiped her hands and mouth with an old polo shirt on the floor, curled her hair behind her ears quickly in a forlorn attempt to add rule to the unruly hair upon her head, scratched away the obvious food stains on her nightie and breathed in as she answered the door.

“Hi, my name’s Maureen and I’m Betty’s neighbour next door. Is she in?” said a doddery old woman with a friendly face that Betty immediately recognised as her neighbour.

“Actually I’m...” Betty began to say.

“Ooo, are you one of her sisters? Ooo, you do look like her actually, come to think of it, in the face” she said, gesturing towards Betty’s surprised face. Maureen was an old lady, but she had never considered her unreliable before. She’d always been sharp as a tack for her age, but maybe time was catching up with her.

“Yes, Maureen, I’m one of Betty’s sisters” she said, not wanted to confuse or offend the poor old neighbour, who was such a kind old dear.

“Yeah, you’re the older sister aren’t you? She said she had an older sister...” Maureen continued innocently enough. And it was true, Betty had told Maureen about her sisters in one of their brief but friendly chats. Betty was a bit confused though, because if Maureen was sufficiently sharp to remember that fairly obscure detail from Betty’s life, how did she mistake Betty…

Wait, was this because Betty had put on weight?

The thought flashed in neon in Betty’s mind. It hadn’t dawned on the young teacher that she changed so much over the summer that she might be mistaken for somebody else. Somebody older whatsmore, which felt rather insulting.

“Yes, older sister staying overnight, but I can take a message if you like?” Betty said, protecting the old woman from confusion with typical compassion.

“Oooo, you’re as nice as she is.”

“Not as pretty though” Betty joked, enjoying the dramatic irony of the situation.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself darling, you’re still very pretty. But that Betty, I tell you what she’s a knockout…” she said, blithely implying that Betty was worse looking than she used to be. “Anyway, we had the grandkids round yesterday and they did loads of baking, but they’ve gone back now and I can’t eat it all. So, I was wondering if you and your sister wanted them? It’ll only go to waste, and if there’s two of you, you might as well.”

“Oh your too kind Maureen, of course we will. Especially, as you say, since there’s two of us”

“I’ll bring the stuff round”

Betty wasn’t expecting a lot. She certainly wasn’t expecting her neighbour to have to take multiple trips. But cookies, biscuits, gingerbread men, cupcakes all came round in large Tupperware containers that Betty promised she’d return once used. It was enough to feed a small army, or a growing lecturer for that matter. She plonked the boxes by her bed to graze on over the next couple of days before Leona’s return.

But before the grazing began, Betty had to look at the mirror to see if she could see what Maureen had seen. And she did. Betty’s worn locks, lacquered in oiliness, had the first shoots of grey. Nothing particularly noticeable without intense inspection but they were there in silver slender strips. The eyes also looked older, the overabundance of sleeping hadn’t lead to an underabundance of fatigue but rather just made her more tired, and her eyes had lost that youthful zing that they had just four months before. Again, you wouldn’t notice in isolation without scrutiny, but it contributed to a faded looks package that worried Betty. She wanted to gain a bit of weight to deter Lionel, but the advantage of gaining weight was that it was temporary and reversible. It wasn’t supposed to do permanent damage.

But, was a handful of grey hairs really irreversible? Couldn’t the solution be found in a solution of dye? Would the weariness around her eyes not fade once term time sparked life back into them, and wasn’t there make-up options available if it didn’t? Betty’s sudden bout of insecurity passed, and instead she giggled and her slight belly jiggled as it did. Betty wasn’t going to worry about Maureen’s confusion, she was just going to enjoy Maureen’s wares. She got back in her bed and started chewing and chowing until her evening Skinny meal.

Two days later, Betty’s older sister brought the empty Tupperware boxes and thanked Maureen for her kindness.

“You know, you really do look like her in the face” she said, again delightfully innocently.

“But not in the body?” Betty joked, baring her friendly smile.

“Oh dear, don’t worry about that. Don’t fret about not being as thin as Betty, nobody is! I’m sure, given time, she’ll put on some weight too” Maureen replied, believing that she was actually supporting the girl who’d brought over the boxes.

“Ha, maybe one day she’ll even be as big as me!” Betty laughed, and hugged Maureen goodbye before leaving.

“Oh, I doubt it, not Betty” Maureen said after Betty had gone.

 

Betty was in bed the next day, reading up on some more research in preparation for a paper she had been writing since the end of last year, when she saw the date. It was September 3^rd. This meant that the university machine would start whirring up soon with the first departmental get together was next week. More importantly, this meant that Leona would be home tomorrow. That put a smile on Betty’s food-stained face, she was excited to see what progress Leona had inadvertently made on her jolly jaunt across Europe, and show what progress she had made back here in Brighton. And she felt that she had made more progress, and now had something worth showing Leona. Her systemised takeaway eating pattern coupled with flourishes of something sweet and lifted her upwards from her previous 133lbs from a fortnight ago by a satisfying further 6lbs, pushing her up to almost 139lbs. And while this was almost dead-centre healthy according to the BMI calculator app she had, it was marginally past the centre and that meant she was closer to being overweight than underweight. This felt like a significant landmark. Betty’s pencil days were over, and hopefully her Lionel days with them. And if her next-door neighbour considered her unrecognisable than Leona must at least think the changes are unnoticeable. Betty, who’s appearance had stood still almost cryogenically frozen, looked and felt like a new woman.

 

Leona landed that night at Stanstead airport, but she obviously wouldn’t be seeing Betty the following day. She had her own stuff to deal with understandably, she had to unpack her three-month travel bag, get her clothes in the washing machine and catch up on her interrupted sleep. She had to catch up with her housemates before she could catch up with Betty too. She and her Polish student lover had so much to hear from Rutherford and Minnie and that new girl about how they had been spending their summer reprieve, although food and fucking were undoubtedly at the heart of it.

But from the phonecall to say she’d landed, Leona could hear in Betty’s voice that she had something to show off finally, so Leona was keen to see her soon. There was that high-pitched giggly affectation, the motor-mouthed enthusiasm with which she gabbled, and the fact that she took the phone call between slurps of Ben & Jerry’s (cookie dough this time). And the thing that Betty had to show off was the notable landmark of 140lbs. The 108lbs that Leona had last seen her with were a slovenly summer away and 32lbs ago.

Leona knocked on her door, waking Betty up. She shouldn’t have been waking Betty up, it was midday and the weather had made glorious summer, but Betty hadn’t been rising much before then since that her meal marathon began. She got up lazily, idly scratching her tummy, in a white vest and tracksuit bottoms combo that she had fallen asleep in the night before after the gorging on kebab meat took its typical toll. She groggily walked down the stairs, still yawning and rubbing the sand out of her eyes and opened the door. When the two girls looked at each other, they couldn’t believe what they saw.

[swahilimonkfish]

Chapter 7

 

“Wow” they both said in unison as the were confronted with the image of the other. But while Leona reeled back to take a better and more complete look at the traditionally immaculate Betty Bollingbrooke, Betty pounced on her colleague with typically ebullient affection and did her damnedest to wrap her arms around the almighty Leona. And while there was however too much Leona to truly encompass her with her arms, Betty hugged her with warmth and purity regardless, resting her head on the bigger girl’s bosom like a child might its mother’s.

“Wow, missed me much Betz?” Leona chuckled as Betty flooded her with affectionate contact.

“Oh my god, I’ve missed you soooo much!” Betty said, finally relinquishing her grip on her colleague and allowing to take a further step back to get a proper look at the changes that Betty had inflicted upon her self over the Summer holidays. And this gave Betty a chance to ogle back what she had previously only been able to ogle on the screen of her phone.

Leona looked at Betty and tried to reconcile the image put in front of her with the one her memory stored of the straight-backed, pencil-thin and flawlessly presented younger teacher. Her bed hair was a work of art, like an Emin installation or a Lynchian nightmare, showing very little acknowledgement of order, shape or indeed gravity. Below the Unmade Bed of hair, was Betty’s unmade face. Leona had never seen Betty without precise eye pencil marks and light foundation, and the contrast with that perfectly attended Before image and the zitty and blotchy After image was startling. Her tatty and tattered old white vest was also unlike anything Leona had ever seen Betty adorn on her dainty body. The two girls mainly hung out at work where Betty dressed sharply in straight lines and sombre colours that gave her tiny body shape and purpose. Contrastingly, the loose at the top and tight round the midriff white vest looked like something Phil Mitchell might wear, and had last night’s Skinny Meal victim staining it. And yes, it was tight around the midriff. The size 6 vest was designed for people without a splodge of pudge below the ribbed rib ridge, whereas this cuddled her contained wobble like Betty had cuddled Leona earlier. It was only a tummy that Betty now sported, absolutely nothing more, but it was also still a tummy and size 6 tops are no friend of a tummy, despite how tightly it hugs them. Further down, the tracksuit bottoms were marked deviation from the angry angles of the pencil skirts that Leona had only ever seen her in. Without their tight wraparound grip, her bottom half looked softer and less shaped, taking her lower-half look from starving starling to chunky chicken. All in all, Leona was losing a battle to hide her mixed feelings in the deterioration of Betty Bollingbrooke’s body.

Though she had plenty of places to hide her feelings, as Betty was able to see herself. Because despite being draped in a really trendy summer dress, and wearing a stylish matching summer hat, the main takeaway from seeing Leona was that she had still loved takeaways, and had thus continued to grow. Her chins could not be hidden, even if she was looking up in her fabled aloof expression you could see the crease folds in her neck that would turn into additional chinage when looking down. It wasn’t just facially that the evolution of Leona’s size could be witnessed, the width of her arms were now like Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson’s but with squish instead of muscle. Her breasts were magnificent beasts that strode out from her chest and pulled down on the dress she was wearing. Beneath that, her stomach was a goliath of globular growth, straining against every direction. But it was her bottom half that took the biscuit – something Leona was prone to doing also. The width of her hips were of mind-boggling jiggling that swept wide like a vista and her jellied arse behind them were a feat of wobbling wonder. Her thighs, clearly seen under the too short dress, had ripples of fat in them now, and even her cow-like calves bulged with an atrocity of adiposity. All in all, Leona looked the almighty 378lbs that she was, though she was wholly oblivious to the number since she hadn’t weighed herself for the past 130lbs.

“Sorry, you can come in” Betty said nervously, gauging the response from Leona and fearing the worst.

“You seem awfully confident about that” Leona laughed, squeezing her magnificent width through the tight and narrow doorframe, with the wood panels from the old terraced house brushing gently on her side.

“You look amazing Leona. Really. Oh, take the sofa, I’ll grab a chair to sit” she unsubtly ogled Leona’s magnificent form, whilst signalling for Leona to sit on the one sofa in the house.

“Thanks” Leona replied, grunting as she lowered herself down on it, making a sterling effort at filling the two-seater with all of her plenty.

“So, how was the continent?” Betty asked politely despite wanting to shift the conversation onto… ahem… weightier matters.

“Oh, beautiful. We had a great time. Wonderful weather, great food, great students. Me and Wicky considered it paradise, I’m sad to be back.” Leona extolled with her eyes shut in fond remembrance, before laughing as she realised how that comment could be taken. “No offense!”

“Sounds delightful.” Betty politely replied, not so impolite as to probe about the great food comment. Betty was a courteous conversational collaborator and would always defer her own interests to appease the people she was talking to. Some would call it sycophantic, others submissive, but her intention was always only to just be a nice person.

“Talking of great food, I see you’ve been busy” Leona was unsure what to make of Betty’s weight gain and general loss of beauty. Betty had dragged a chair in over the messy floor of the living room and sat down, and the deathly tight vest, that was purposed to cover her form, revealed a little pooch as she sat down. It was a foreign intrusion on Betty’s body, like an additional appendage alien to Leona’s perception of her good friend, and she didn’t know what to make of it.

Her first instinct was one of schadenfreude glee. Back before Betty began this journey towards jiggledom, Leona had only encouraged her down this path out of envy for that sticklike figure and cutesy beauty, and this ramshackle ruination was everything her envy desired. She was irritated by Betty’s positivity and perfection, and jealousy had lead her to the selfish suggestion of maybe filling out a bit. Her confidence, which was her pride and joy, had been dented by her own growth and the unenviable comparison between the two women silently upset her. She had gotten to the point where she was so overencumbered with the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meet it feeds on, that she whispered about the Free Hit philosophy Iago-like into Betty’s ears. Leona had caused this, to feel better about herself.

So then the guilt hit her next, like the secondary wave of an earthquake. This was her friend onto whom she had unfurled all of her jealousy and look what Betty had done to herself over the course of just one Summer holiday? It was devastating to see the downward spiral that Betty had managed to latch onto in such a short space of time. She had downsized dramatically in beauty by upsizing so sharply in size, going from practically perfect in every way to looking rougher than a ruffian. From a piece of hot ass to a hot mess. Her advice had been like poison to Betty and now Leona was confronted with consequence of her deeds. Betty had plummeted on her advice, and it devastatingly destructive and painful to see.

Or was it? The third thought that popped into her head was one of “fuck convention” and “fuck beauty standards” and “fuck women being reduced to their appearance”. No, Betty had it right. Why should she shave her armpits for a man, they don’t do it for women? Why shouldn’t she dress down, not every woman every day should dress up? No, Betty was doing great for her gender and Leona should be proud. Not every road’s a catwalk and not every man gets to be a judge. Betty’s body was her own, it belonged to no other knuckle-drugging beer-gutted bloke and why should she shy away from her own appearance to fit engendered gender expectations? Beauty came from within and that’s where Betty was beautiful. It didn’t matter if her exterior was somewhat sullied.

But a fourth thought came forth, and drip-fed itself into Leona’s consciousness from the back of her brain. Was Betty really less pretty? Looking past the lack of effort that Betty was making with herself and was she really physically downgraded? She had the same sharp facial features, the same endearingly bouncy energy that made her like a seductive Tigger, and the same unsheathed radiant smile and unintentionally flirty eyes. Put her in the fitted formal attire that was her workplace norm and put on the make-up she normally wear, and sort out that mop of hair on her head and… she would still look really pretty. If anything, prettier. Because Betty’s beauty had always been girlish and candy-cane sweet. There was the endearing innocence and loveliness that you would associate with a puppy. But, nobody would ever turn around and say that puppies were sexy, would they? But now she looked like a woman, her pre-pubescent prettiness substituted for the teacher’s tantalisingly tasty truss. Yes, her curves would, if anything, make her look hotter than before. Come start of term and Betty would probably be looking at her all time sexiest, and then the poor girl would feel the feeling wrath of Lionel worse than ever before. And it was this final point that Leona shared with Betty.

“You really think he’ll find me even hotter?” The colour would have drained from pallid Betty’s face, had she not been so pale already. The plan could not have back-fired more. Leona’s poor poker face told Betty that she now found her less attractive and Betty wanted her to want her more. Her first objective of wooing the woman owning the coach in front of her had backfired. But worse was the hideous thought that the dinosaur, Lionel Stewart, would prefer her more, when Betty’s intention was to put him off. His blatant comments and tactile touching had pulverised Betty’s emotional state over the past year and it was only going to get worse? She had committed her entire summertime to sacrifice her enviable appearance to appeal to Leona and oppose to Lionel, and the antipodean opposite had instead occurred.

Betty’s bottom lip starting quivering uncontrollably and she tried to stifle whimpering noises, but the ball started rolling downhill and soon Betty was fully crying. Every time Betty looked forward to something, it went wrong. Every time Betty had hoped, it got dashed. Every positive decision that Betty made rotted into something negative, and now she felt like she had thrown away all that she had left.

“Come here you soft pot” Leona gestured with wide open arms for the sniffling teaching to come over to her on the sofa and give her a hug. Betty just nodded since words were too difficult between the involuntary noises that crying brings upon, and walked over to her best friend, favourite colleague and the girl she wanted more than anything in the world. She nestled into Leona’s squidgy embrace and rested her head back on Leona’s fun-sized funbags until the crying stopped. Leona stroked her like a child as Betty closed her eyes. Everything felt better in Leona’s warmth.

 

But she couldn’t hide in Leona’s cushion forever, she would have to face the music. She would have to face a conundrum. Option one was to lose the weight that she had worked so hard to pile on, and return to being built like a pylon. Slim down, tone up and get back on the fit and healthy bandwagon. The downside to this was obvious – Lionel would still like her. He would still be drawn to her figure like iron filings to a magnet. It would be a return to a status quo that Betty knew was unsustainable. She didn’t want to go there again. No way, Jose. The upside, however, was that at least Leona would find her attractive again. The vision of quiet disgust on Leona’s face that she was unable to quell, was engrained in Betty’s memory banks. She didn’t want to revisit Lionel, but she didn’t want to leave Leona behind. She felt the insatiable urge to win her over, and Leona got past first base and all the way to a home run when Betty was at her physical prime and pomp. If Betty could get back there, then there would be the hope of some Leona loving.

Or Betty could carry on gaining. This was option two, more of the same as before. To stick at it and plough on ploughing through chow. The downside here was that Leona would like her less and less, physically anyway. While Betty was unopposed to checking out Leona’s lovely lovely lady lumps, it seemed the feeling wasn’t mutual. Leona clearly preferred a bit of Betty to a lot of Betty. This seemed unfair given that Leona’s lover was Wiktoria, a student who had absolutely ballooned over the course of her first year at university. She had begun as a tall and scrawny heptathlete straight from Poland, but that was certainly not the case any more. She had evidently exorcised exercise from her day-to-day life and replaced that void with over-consumption. She had finished her first year 250lbs heavier than she had started it, even heavier than Leona and by a decent chunk too. And while she had uploaded photos onto Facebook a lot more infrequently than Leona, it was blatant that her gain hadn’t reversed, but rather persevered.

Maybe Leona was always a mirage. This idea of being with her colleague seemed like wishful thinking when in her company. She was as happy as she had ever seen her, Wiktoria clearly brought out the best in Leona just as she clear brought out the hungriest in Leona. Betty didn’t want to be a home-wrecker, she didn’t want to break up a perfectly good relationship just to placate her own unwholesome yearnings. That was something she’d associate with Tim 2, who was not abusive as Time 3 but still evil in his own way, through his adultery and his disregard for monogamy and his ignorance of honesty. Betty didn’t want to be that person, it wasn’t fair on Leona.

There was also an upside to option two, finally getting Lionel off her back. Leona was living proof that piling on pounds put off the perverted professor, he had stopped leering quite early onto Leona’s gain despite her being so incredibly staggeringly jaw-droppingly beautiful. Even when she had found herself at 200lbs, she was magnificence personified. Any person would look at her and think to themselves “ahhh, that’s why Shakespeare wrote sonnets, is it?”, because she was comparable to a summer’s day, so lovely and temperate was she. Even now, 178lbs further down the line, Leona turned heads. And not just because people wondered what was causing the tremours of her footsteps.

“Do you think I should stop, and lose the weight?” Betty said vulnerably to her idol. She needed to know what to do. Well, she knew what she had to do, but she needed to hear Leona say it. She knew she should ditch the dream of getting with Leona and continue to climb in corpulence, but she didn’t want to let go of the dream of being with her. She needed Leona to tell her to move on. She needed Leona to say it.

Leona paused before giving her answer, mulling over the thought in her mind before phrasing it exactly how she wanted to. She drew the words in her minds and rearranged them into the correct order to maximally convey her intended meaning. She finally, after a long pause of contemplation, decide exactly how she wanted to phrase it.

“Absolutely fucking not” was exactly how she wanted to phrase it. “Fuck no Betz. Fuck. No. You’ve got to keep going. You’ve got to keep on keeping on. You were never going to get to big girl status from where you were over the course of just one summer. No, you’ve had to go the long way round. You’ve got to break on through to the other side. You’ve done an amazing job so far, I can’t believe how well you’ve done. I’m so proud of you Betz, I really am. I look at you, and how far you’ve come, and where you’ve come from and I’m so proud of you. You’ve just got to hold your nerve and keep your foot on the gas. That’s all. Just do that and you’ll be in the clear. Keep at it, Betty Bollingbrooke. Keep on keeping on.”

Betty cried again, but this time her tears were happier. The words were exactly the words that Betty needed to hear. “You really think I’ve done well?” she meekly mewed, fishing for praise but also wrestling with her insecurity.

“Fuck yes, girl. I’m… well I can’t believe how well you’ve done. I never thought you’d get to where you are, let alone in one summer. The amount of emotional reprogramming it must have taken you, the habits you must have overcome. Hell, you’ve somehow managed to gain more weight over the summer than me!”

Betty’s mind boggled at that last comment. Sure, Betty had managed to gain 30lbs over the Summer break, a fairly eye-watering number by more regular standards, but Leona had clearly piled on nearer 100lbs. She had gained as much weight over the summer as Betty weighed at the start of it, but hadn’t seemed to realise. Was she really that oblivious to her own gain? Betty wanted to pry to see how deep the denial ran, how far from reality Leona’s self-perception was. But Betty was, as consistent as ever, more courteous than that and avoided prying to protect Leona’s feelings. Instead, she quickly recalibrated her brain to be more focused on all the nice comments beforehand. Her best friend was here, and there was no need to make things awkward.

“Well, in that case, shall we order a Skinny Meal each?” Betty asked sweetly.

“Ooo, best make mine a double” Leona said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. An 11000 calorie lunch explained the 100lb weight gain then.

While they waited for their Kebabland feast to arrive, Betty wandered into the kitchen.

“Red or white?” she called out to Leona in her sing-song voice.

“Wine?” Leona asked, sitting on her sofa and looking around at the messy living area that the sofa was in, in disbelief.

“Well, durrr...” Betty said, popping back into the living room with a big goofy grin on her face. “I wasn’t asking what your favourite colour was on a barbershop pole” she joked, before bursting suddenly into an involuntary and hearty laugh at her own joke.

“It’s midday, that’s way too early to be drinking. And anyways, I didn’t think you drank Betz, apart from special occasions?” Leona asked, surprised at the invitation to tipple.

Betty’s smiley face slipped sourwards. This comment had caught her off-guard. She had been so entrenched and focused on her more obvious bad habit – eating a week’s worth of calories each day – that she had overlooked her slide into daytime drinking. On her own and without anyone around her to impose social norms, she had simply forgotten that it wasn’t especially normal to drink during daytime hours. Leona rightly remembered Betty as a girl of impressive sobriety, and Betty now felt like she’d been caught red-handed.

“But it is a special occasion… you’re back” she said, trying to conceal her shame at how much she had been drinking recently. From tomorrow, she was really going to have to rein that in, as well as clean her house and fix her hair and buy some clothes and catch up on the mountain of pre-term work that she had fallen behind on… no, Betty didn’t want to think about that while Leona was here. Push those grim thoughts from her superego to one side and focus on having a lovely time with her houseguest.

“Oh, I guess you’re right. It’s just funny to think of you as a girl who drinks haha, I’ve only ever seen you drink once or twice...” Leona paused, realising that she had accidentally brought up the evening that they kissed and the evening the fucked. Awkward af. “Yeah… sooo… make mine a white will you?”

Betty’s face flushed at the gaffe, and walked back into the kitchen to hide her reddening cheeks under the convenient pretence of pouring those drinks. She came back into the living area with the wine glasses, and the red and white bottle respectively for if they ever fancied a top-up and they waited for their delivery now with alcoholic lubrication.

“So, you think you can eat a whole Skinny meal now, huh? I remember when you could barely eat a third haha!” Leona chuckled. A lesser girl might have bristled at the implied criticism but breezy Betty smiled and laughed it off.

“Oh, you’ve not seen nothing yet Leona. Stay until evening time and you can watch me eat a second one” Betty cheekily gloated. It never felt like bragging when Betty did it, more like humorous cheekiness, but Betty was rightly proud of how much food she could consume these days. “I’m a two Skinny meals a day girl now”

“Wow, it might just be worth me hanging about to see that.” Leona said, impressed. She liked it when Betty drifted away from her chronic humility and showed a bit of self-confidence. “I’m sure Wiktoria won’t mind. She’s got her classmates to catch up with and besides, I bet she’s sick of the sight of me after four moths uninterrupted”

And that conversational cue lead them to discuss the four months on foreign soil that Leona and Wiktoria spent together, and all the mischief that they got up to over there. Betty listened keenly, revelling in every detail of the story. She was a good listener, was Betty. In fact, the only thing that interrupted her concentration was the doorbell.

“I’ll get it if you like Betz, if you’re dressed like that” Leona said, considering heaving herself off the sofa that she had so comfortably sunk into.

“Don’t be silly Leona, you’re the guest. And they see me looking like this all the time anyway. If you tip them, they don’t seem to mind” she said with a juvenile giggle. She skipped to the door and politely received the three monstrously sized boxes.

“Don’t worry, they’re not all for me” she said with that same cheeky grin. She even winked as she handed over the tip to the cyclist. The courier wouldn’t have been surprised if they were, he had made so many deliveries to this residence over the past four months and had seen such a transformation over that period of time. When he first delivered there, he was confronted with Betty on one of her more presentable days, stylishly dressed and with a cute hair do. She looked absolutely heaven-sent to the adolescent courier with her elfin features and flirtatious smile. It was only the smile that remained as she swelled up 32lbs and dressed like she was auditioning for the part of a street urchin. He’d still bang her, he thought as he looked at her builder’s bum as she turned away with the door still closing. But she’d gone from being a 10/10 dream girl to being someone he’d fuck and then ghost afterwards. It was such a terrible shame, a terrible terrible waste, and a terrible terrible terrible worry how far she’d continue free-falling.

But Betty was no wiser to the courier’s thoughts and sang to herself as she brought the steaming food in to her and her guest.

 

Once Betty finished her meal, she leaned back with a contented sigh and put her hands behind her head in satisfaction at a job well done. As she did so, her top rode up and her food baby poked out. The two girls giggled at the sight of it as Betty sheepishly hurried to rectify it by pulling it down over her wan flesh. Betty wasn’t sure whether she actually liked the taste of the Skinny meal or just the high of knowing that she completed it.

“I can’t believe I actually beat you Leona” she said, proud of herself at eating all that within the hour.

“Well, in my defence, to be fair, I have got twice as much” Leona defended herself, halfway through her second portion and not presenting any outward evidence of wilting.

“Yeah, but there’s twice as much of you” Betty said, jokingly. Betty briefly panicked upon uttering that gentle jibe that she’d overstepped the mark by disparagingly commenting on Leona’s weight, but Leona didn’t mind, she giggled at this occasionally snarky streak of Betty’s. And, if anything, this joke flattered the elder teacher since she was 100lbs heavier than being twice as big as Betty. The two girls giggled as they ate, drank and acted generally quite merry. They were so comfortable in each other’s company that it seemed effortless to spend time with one another. It was buoyed by the massive amount of respect that they had for each other, Betty idolised Leona and everything she stood for in terms of independence, strength and confidence, while Leona admired Betty’s chirpy spirit, ceaseless kindness and the occasional flash of impudence.

Post-meal and fully glutted, they just lounged about and chatted like the good friends that they were, genially discussing anything and everything under the sun. Betty told as much as she could remember about her incident with Sabrina the mid-age bitch, though Sabrina’s bitchy comment about Leona had been long forgotten thanks to the amnesiac that is wine. Leona, in turn, regaled Betty with gossip from her house, with this newcomer called Shay, also from America, who formed a love triangular threesome tryst type thing with Rutherford and Minnie, all kinky and fucked up. Rutherford that is, who was apparently bigger than everyone else in the house still, despite being the shortest.

“I bet she’s over 350lbs!” said Leona as if that was some great revelation, again revealing how grossly she had been underestimating her own weight gain by sounding shocked at 300lbs when she herself was actually 378lbs. So if Rutherford weighed more than Wiktoria, who weighed more than Leona at 378lbs, what did that make Rutherford actually weigh? Betty dreaded to think.

“I’ll go grab us another bottle each” Betty said, wandering back into the kitchen for grape-based reinforcements.

“Jeez, I dunno, we should probably slow down, it’s only 2pm.” Leona said, looking at the time on her phone. But Betty didn’t hear, she was back to humming to herself some merry ditty, before barking back into the living room. “By the way, I’ve got a deep fat fryer now Leona. So, how about battered Mars bars and some Ben & Jerry’s to dip it into for dessert?”

She brought in the new bottles with the deep-fat fryer warming up.

“Wow Betz, are you sure you’ll be able to eat the second Skinny meal if you eat all that?” Leona said, surprised but impressed.

“Yeah, no worries, they go together so well, you’ll love it, trust me”

Oh how easily the hours whiled away in such good company. Several hours, many conversation topics, plenty of wine and thousands of calories later, Betty and Leona were still going strong. Their conversations showed no signs of letting up, they just gabbled and gobbled and giggled and glugged. They talked about the coming term and all the dread of dealing with their balding Head of Department Lionel Stewart. They talked about British weather and US politics and bad TV and worse music. It just flowed with effortless ease between the two girls. They talked and talked and talked until 6pm came around and it was time to stroll down to Kebabland.

“Do we have to walk there? Can’t we just order in again?” Leona whinged at the thought of the quarter mile she would have to cover. Her treadmill days were well and truly behind her. Her walking down a simple road days were looking increasingly short-lived.

“Yes. We can’t order in again in case we get the same courier. Oh my god, can you imagine how embarrassing that would be! And, anyway, don’t you want to see Ahmed? I bet France doesn’t have any Kebablands” Betty said as she grabbed a jacket to cover her messy white vest. Leona rolled her eyes and braced herself for the most exercise she’d done for a year. However, it wasn’t her heft or her abandonment of exercise that prevented Leona from making the small walk into town, it was her balance. It was only when she had successfully plied herself off the sofa and onto her two wide feet standing two feet wide that she realised that she had successfully plied herself with two much alcohol. More than two bottles of wine can do that to a person, even a person at Leona’s considerable size.

“OK, how’s this for an idea, you just wait here and chill on the sofa and I’ll bring them back” said Betty, fairly drunk herself but fast developing a better tolerance for it. “I’ll have them back faster than you can say… I dunno, something that takes about fifteen minutes to say.”

When she returned however in a less than sprightly half an hour, Leona was not waiting attentively as they had planned. No the sleepy effects of all that drinking had convinced Leona to shuffle around on the sofa and drift into a deep slumber, with her feet sticking off the arm of the chair that was also far too shallow for a lady of her size. Betty put down the food and stared in wonder at the whale that was currently beached on her sofa. It was a sight to behold for the lovesick teacher.

Leona’s legs hanging over the sofa arm meant that her dress had fully rolled up and Betty could see Leona’s overstrained underwear surrounded by the packets of fleshy bundles that littered her legs leading up to them. All that warm pliable skin reaching up towards her knickers, and then beyond, where her tight dress contained her tight belly that rose and fell steeply with every inhale and exhale of somnolent breath. Then her face, propped up by a cushion and sinking into her chins with her luscious locks slipping down either side of her face. She was a sleeping angel.

So that was why Betty put her hand down her trousers while she was looking at her best friend asleep on the couch. A more sober Betty would have castigated and chastised this more inebriated version for stepping well beyond her remit and out of bounds. It was unacceptable for her to do this, and downright creepy too, leering and fiddling like Lionel might have at her. But drunk Betty just saw the woman of her dreams asleep and dreamily perfect, and felt the need to masturbate gently whilst staring at her unconscious guest. Gradually, with a eyes widely focused on her love on the lounger, her pace quickened and her thighs tensed and her breath staggered as she continued to work herself to pleasureville, all whilst standing and staring at Leona’s snoring self. Twenty minutes later and Betty was done.

 

Leona woke up to see her friend pouring herself more wine and eating her Skinny meal by herself.

“Sorry, I must have dozed off Betz. Oooo, you’ve brought the food” Leona cooed excitedly at the sight of two more Skinny meals. “I thought you were only going to bring me one, I’m not sure I can eat four in one day Betz.”
Betty felt too sheepish to reply after what she had done, jacking off whilst hovering over her best friend, so she just smiled politely and then downed her glass of wine. She didn’t want to remember her actions next morning and wine can help with that. She didn’t want to remember how far she’d trespassed into the forbidden forest of Lionel-esque lust and leering, she poured herself another and drank some more. Of course, the more she drank, the more difficult her meal became as even the coordination required to sit on a chair and eat food was becoming harder and harder. Leona didn’t think much of it, preoccupied with her mountain of food but Betty was quaffing at an alarming rate, hoping to hide behind a blackout. Even drinking was getting harder as she started swaying, like she was on the deck of a ship with rolling waves, and the red wine flowed down her just as much as it had been flowing in general. And eventually, when Leona had heroically finished her fourth meal of the day, swollen up to gigantic proportions and too full to talk, she looked up to see her friend unconscious on the floor with half of her meal upside down and on top of her. More pissed than an Irish fart on St Patrick’s day, eventually the younger of the two had just passed on the debris covered floor before she had finished the meal that she wanted to prove to Leona. That was when Leona decided to call a taxi to go home. Today had been messy, too messy. And messy in so many ways.

[swahilimonkfish]

I don't know if this is a good chapter per se, but it does at least feature my favourite ever character!

Chapter 8

 

Betty woke up with a mountainous headache and to the sight of a Skinny meal staring back at her. This was rarely a good sign.

She took a while to truly come to, and when she did, it took her a while to gather her bearings. For that can be the consequence of waking up somewhere unusual, and on the floor in your living room, underneath a takeaway, constituted as unusual in Betty’s mind. She tried to pull herself up but the movement made the hangover worse, and just made her feel sick, so she just lay there some more, just picking at the Skinny meal that she had thrown over herself like it was a blanket while she tried to summon up the will to live.

She may have dozed off again, though she wasn’t sure, but eventually she pulled herself together enough to pull herself up. She used her chair and the table as leverage for one final heave-ho before ascending to her bipedal station. The brightness of the room thanks to the light oozing in from out yonder ached her dilated pupils a little, but eventually she was righted and ready to rock’n’roll. She looked at her phone to gather then time and had seen messages from Leona.

Ah, that’s right, Leona wasn’t here. Betty knew something was missing, and that something was a 380lb goddess. The messages had been sent at midday, which was a couple of hours ago, and they were broadly positive though perhaps not glowing tributes to a meet-up that descended into a piss-up.

 

Great time yesterday, perhaps too good lol. Got a killer hangover. I told you we shouldn’t have started that second bottle. Or the third lol. Leona x

 

Hope you are okay, you were a little worse for wear when I left, just let me know when you come to so I can stop worrying. Leona x

 

Oh, and I managed my four Skinny meals btw. You’d be proud. But I really need to start cutting back. After today though, I need hangover food lol. Leona x

 

PS Never drinking again lol. Leona x

 

Betty smiled at them and hoped that the x at the end of her texts meant more than she knew they did. She hoped that the four texts were the kind of over-attentive neediness that you get when you fancy someone, but she knew it was just the kind concern of a kind colleague and friend. She had to come to terms that Leona was never going to leave Wiktoria for her, she had to move on and redirect her energies elsewhere. She knew that, but she pretended that she didn’t. She just wanted that sliver of hope, no matter how remote.

 

All good here, but very worse for wear haha. And never drinking again either haha. Betty x

 

She sent that message as she poured herself another glass of wine for that hair of the dog experience. With a headache as pounding as hers, she needed it. She wasn’t lying when she said she wouldn’t drink again, she was just joking, she convinced herself. She had a much needed swig and contemplated what this week would entail. The university year kicked into gear next week and from that point onwards it would be all hands to the deck. It was Monday today, so she had exactly one more week of respite, so she might as well make the most of it by doing nothing.

Except, she had so many things to do. Ease up on the drinking for a start, she thought as she took another gulp, though that would naturally come to an end simply by necessity when term tie started. She would have to tidy her place, it was an absolute shit-tip and she was embarrassed to have invited Leona to it. Though, that wasn’t urgent, not like the other things. She urgently needed to get formal clothing that actually fit her, ready for the academic year, and there was no two ways about that. And she urgently needed to fix herself up to. Her bedraggled bedridden state was not so bad when she was just wasting time until the new school year started, but she couldn’t go to class smelling as bad as she did, it just wasn’t appropriate. These would be the things that she would address ASAP.

Right away.

Immediately.

No excuses.

Tomorrow. She was too hungover to do any of that today.

Today, she would eat Skinny meals and drink wine.

 

Betty woke up with a mountainous headache and to the sight of a Skinny meal staring back at her. This was rarely a good sign.

This was the epiphany that she woke up to on days Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. And each day, she would remember that today would be the day that she would get her shit together. Get the clothes she needed. Take the self-care that she needed.

ASAP

Right away.

Immediately.

No excuses.

Tomorrow. She was too hungover to do any of that today.

Today, she would eat Skinny meals and drink wine.

She didn’t understand herself at times. Her rampant procrastination didn’t feel like a Betty trait, she didn’t understand why she kept putting it off. Was she in denial? Surely the fact that she was asking herself that question meant that she wasn’t. Was she depressed? It was so hard to tell, she didn’t have her sharp blade by her bedside any more, and she couldn’t say she’d missed it, but this behaviour seemed atypically apathetic from her. Was she happy? Maybe this was what happiness felt like, not being so enslaved to worries, anxieties and inhibitions, maybe she was just feeling liberated from the bone-crushing adherence to responsibility. Or was she just a lazy person now?

Surely it took more than one season for her entire personality to change, but she had to admit she was so markedly less active these days. Beds and sofas and nothing in between for the young teacher, with horizontal just feeling so much more comfortable than vertical. So maybe this was her issue, maybe she had eaten her self into a pattern of sedentary living. Maybe it wasn’t a mood thing – when she used to be happy, she was always so energetic and buzzing, and when she was sad, she was always so disciplined and driven by work ethic. So this was a new thing, maybe this was a fat thing. But either way, she knew all the things that she had to do urgently and continued not doing them.

She had taken to wearing just a dressing gown these final days before she had to go to work, throwing it over her otherwise naked carcass to cover her faded vanity. Her clothes were all dirty and all no longer fit, and she had doggedly failed to replace them, This did make the trips to Kebabland a little undignified, in just a dressing gown and crocs. The wind would whip up and she would have to fight to maintain her ever-diminishing dignity to stop herself having a Marilyn Monroe moment, only without any knickers on to conceal her clit. It also hung over her loosely so you could not tell how much she weighed while she wore it. She could be her old 30lbs lighter self or she could be 30lbs heavier and the way it hung off her made it impossible to tell.

In just a dressing gown, Betty was feeling more free and unencumbered. And this was evident in her lifestyle habits of just sleeping, eating and drinking. They say that sloth is a deadly sin, and Betty was behaving exactly as a sloth does. She continued to push the internal narrative that it was all just a final hurrah before duty and term time compelled her to get her life in order, but deep down she knew she was just scrambling for excuses at this point. She knew that she was drinking like a fish, eating like a whale and sleeping like a sloth.

But it was Sunday now, and those excuses couldn’t be made. There wasn’t a tomorrow to which she could put things off. This was it, no room for excuse-making now. She had to get up and go clothes-shopping, there was absolutely to alternative. She had to check that her shower worked and throw herself underneath it. She had to root around in the scrapyard that was her bedroom for her make-up bag and spruce herself up. She had to do these things, there were no two ways about it. She had forced herself into a position where there was no back-up, no plan b, she simply had to do it right away.

ASAP.

Immediately.

No excuses.

Later. She was too hungover to do any of it right now.

For now, she would eat Skinny meals, drink wine and maybe have a nap.

 

Betty came to from her boozy midday slumber and glanced at her phone to check the time. Hopefully it was before 4pm, because the shops would close by then since it was a Sunday. She just hoped she hadn’t overslept and given herself too little time to pick something nice and flattering for tomorrow’s work meeting. She obviously didn’t want to provoke the salacious advances of her superior, but she had a professional reputation to maintain and she couldn’t let her standards slip. Not like they had all summer. So, hopefully her phone would tell her it was before 4pm.

9pm.

Betty, still rubbing sand from her eyes and being forced into a squint by her yawn, tried to refocus on the screen to make sure that she had read that right. No, despite the blurry vision, it was definitely saying 9pm. The shops had closed for the day. They had done so 5 hours ago.

No, no, no, no, no, no! This wasn’t right! This couldn’t be happening. There was always tomorrow, there had always been a tomorrow. She’d had 120 days of having a tomorrow. And all of a sudden she didn’t have a tomorrow onto which she could defer her responsibilities. She had to face the music today, she had no option, and yet she didn’t face it at all. She was screwed. She was royally screwed. She had royally screwed up.

This couldn’t be happening. She must be wrong somehow. It must be Saturday still, or maybe she got the wrong week. Or, or, or… or nothing. There were no excuses, no alternatives, no back-up, no plan b. She had told herself this very thing this very morning. It was ruined, everything was ruined, and she had nobody to blame but herself.

Betty convulsed I distress, letting out a high-pitched shriek of defeatism. Her hands were shaking in panic and frustration. Why hadn’t she gone when she could? She bashed the table with the balls of her hands. Why did she just not do it when she had the chance? She shrieked again, more weakly again. Before curling back up on the sofa to sob.

Since she was screwed, she might as well go down in a blaze of glory. She rang Kebabland and ordered another Skinny meal, and then she challenged herself to see how much she could drink before it got there. She was already fairly tipsy but she was also mentally functioning, and she was in such a state of despair that she didn’t want to be. She didn’t want to function.

3 glasses was the answer. Another 3 glasses were drunk in the half hour before her piping hot meal was delivered. It was the same courier, just her luck, as the one who delivered to her in the early afternoon, but the drunken, sniffling mess in just a loosely wrapped dressing gown meant that the fact that this was a repeat visit was the least memorable aspect of his delivery. When she opened the door, the dressing gown came undone and the poor unsuspecting courier was confronted with a full view of the transformation that Betty had undergone over the past four months. She didn’t even care enough to cover her dignity as he saw the tubby teacher reach over to grab the box. Once as skinny as a skeleton, now only as pale as one, he could see the softness of her stomach and the way it slightly pooched even standing up as she was. He saw her breasts, or the minor swells that Betty had for breasts anyway. He saw her vagina, forested with uncare. He saw her legs, malleable and wholesomely grown. Oh how he had spent so long yearning to see that woman naked and when he finally did, this is what she looked like. What the fuck had happened to the gorgeous girl who used to live at this address? She didn’t even leave him a tip.

In between the drinking and feasting that Betty had elected as a resolution to her problems, Betty was trying muster a plan of action. Because while neither of her forms of bingeing were fixing her situation, they were buying her time to think of how to get out of this hole that she had dug herself into. The repetitive cycle of wine, chips, chilli, meat ran on a loop in the background while desperate calculations ran in the foreground. Could she pull a sickie? Could she get clothes tomorrow morning before she was in? Could she wash the biggest clothes she owned and make do with that? All these thoughts being run to the background hum of wine, chips, chilli, meat. Wine, chips, chilli, meat.

But, by the time she had gotten to the end of her Hail Mary feast, she was still not a clue wiser as to what to do next. She was seriously sloshed, fantastically full and utterly out of ideas. It was near midnight as she only had one throw of the dice left. Maybe Leona Clefton-Brown would have a solution?

 

Leona was happily drifting off in the wonderful spooned embrace of her Polish lover when her phone lit up and vibrated to tell her of an incoming call. Wiktoria was snugly tied to her but deep asleep, so Leona quietly peeled herself off and picked up her phone and tip-toed as quietly and delicately out of her room as a woman of her size can. She glanced back at the Pole who sleepily repositioned herself in the bed without coming to, as she closed the door to take the call.

“Betty, what the fuck are you doing calling me at this hour?” She hissed under her breath down the phone to Betty.

“I need your help Leona, I’ve really messed up” bawled Betty back at her, her emotions completely unchecked and unmoderated.

“Are you… are you calling me drunk at midnight on the day before we start at work for the new academic year?” Leona said, startled and a little worried. This wasn’t like Betty. This wasn’t like her at all. Betty was a bastion of virtue, never knowingly reckless or ruinous. Sure, the pair had gotten drunk when the met up last week, but that was a one-off special occasion. So to be drunk-dialled by Betty suggested something worrying was up with the girl.

“Yes. I’m drunk and fat and naked and I don’t know what I’m doing” she said, mangling her verbal dexterity and tripping on her words, but managing to get them out of her mouth.

“For fuck’s sake Betty, I’m… we’ve got to get up early tomorrow, just get some sleep, I’m sure you’ll be fine in the morning.” Leona reasoned, trying to get her off the phone so she could get some sleep. It felt like cheating on Wiktoria, have this covert conversation with a girl she had before fucked, and she wanted to end the call and get back in bed with Wicky and canoodle and sleep until the morning. But Betty had other ideas.

“I can’t. I’ve got no clothes for tomorrow. I’m too fat.” Betty carried on croaking out her words in a voice hoarse from bawling.

“But what about the clothes you were going to buy this week?” Leona asked, before realising the obvious truth. “You did go and buy the clothes that you needed for the new term to start, didn’t you Betz? You’re not ringing me in the middle of the night, crying, because you couldn’t be arsed to go shopping. Tell me that’s not the case here Betz. Tell me I’m way off the mark.”

“I’m sorry Leona. I’m so sorry” Betty sobbed apologetically. Her life felt a ball of string, and somebody was pulling on one strand of it and now the whole thing was falling apart. “I know I should have done it earlier, I know that. And I don’t know why I haven’t. I’m starting to worry myself Leona. I don’t know why I’m acting like this. I don’t feel like I’m me any more. I’m so scared.”

Leona calmed down for a second. She was angry, yes. Blindingly pissed off, in fact. She liked her sleep and she had a busy week on the horizon and here she was acting as a surrogate agony aunt. But she heard the hurt in Betty’s voice. The way it flaked when she said she was scared. This wasn’t just the wine talking, Betty really was in a low spot. The girl who always seemed so bubbly seemed to have burst.

“Hey, hey, don’t get worked up Betz. It’s nothing, I’m sure it’s nothing” Leona said, trying to calm her down.

“When you put on weight Leona, did you… change? Like, change how you were. As a person. Because I never used to be like this. I used to be… I don’t know, not like this. I would never be like this and now I am like this” Betty didn’t calm down but in fact carried on in the exact same emotionally raw vein.

Leona sighed. It was a fair question. Betty had, upon herself, undergone a great deal of personal upheaval, and it was all off the back of Leona’s sketchy advice. And Leona had gone through the weight gain crisis herself. She remembered crying on the toilet with her knickers round her ankles for climbing to half the weight she was now. She’d gone through this herself, and owed Betty some empathy.

“It was tough at times, Betz. Like, you have this idea of yourself, and it shakes you when the idea stays the same but you change. But it gets better. It does. You have to own it. But it wasn’t the weight that made me change. It was the people. It was Minnie, for better or for worse, and it was Wicky, who has turned my life around and made me happier than I thought possible. And it was you Betty. I couldn’t have done it without you. You made me feel like a good person, and so I tried to be a better person because of that. Kebab meat won’t change who you are, but your friends might. So I’m here for you Betty, whatever you need.”

Betty sobbed the most sincere thank you she had ever sobbed. From the deepest darkest recesses of the furthest corner on the most distant ventricle of her heart, she thanked Leona for those words. The balm that trickled out Leona’s mouth, down the phone and into Betty’s ear, a catholicon for the ailing girl.

“Whatever I need?” Betty whispered sweetly.

“Whatever you need Betz. Whatever you need.”

“I need clothes.”

 

Betty wrapped the dressing gown round her as tightly as she could as she called the cab to get from hers to Leona’s. She shuffled her crocs onto her feet and waited outside in her front garden for her taxi to arrive.

She wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol hammering her coordination and balance, or more prosaic car-sickness, but the car journey was excruciating for a girl in her tender state. The car carelessly careened and careered to the house of The Musketeers, but at least the abandonment of his driving meant that she got there quickly enough. And she clumsily stumbled out of the vehicle, thanked and paid the driver, and doddered to the door. Before she could knock, Leona opened it and gestured for Betty to keep the volume down.

She was guided into the house by Leona and sat disoriented and despondent on one of the four two-seater sofas that their living area now had. Leona felt awfully guilty that she was being deceitful by sneaking a girl who was drunk and dressed in just a gown, that she’d had sex with, while her girlfriend was lying asleep and oblivious upstairs. But she had to be a good friend to Betty, the poor girl deserved that.

“So, I’ve brought you some of my old clothes here. I’ve never thrown them out, it would feel to much like admitting I’m going to be fat forever. I’ve got no idea what size you are, but there are some 8’s, some 10’s, some 12’s and some 14’s. Like I say, I had no idea so I thought I’d bring you a range of options. And Betsy mouthed a weak thank you to Leona as a pile of clothing was dumped in front of her. It was all fashionable stuff, the trendy Greta Garbo garbs with power suits and matching trousers or more flowing drapery depending on if her mood was feminine or feminist.

Betty looked at the pile with an open face, still soggy with tears, at the array of clothing options that she had been generously afforded by her best friend. She picked up a size 10 skirt and blouse combination that loosely mirrored her pencil skirt look. But before she needed knickers, since she didn’t have any of these. So Leona turned around so Betty could put some on. She didn’t want the awkwardness of seeing Betty’s muff in the buff.

Unfortunately, Minnie came down the stairs just as Betty pulled off her dressing gown to reveal herself in just a bra and no panties. Walking down the stairs, she was met with a vision of Betty in all of her inglory, and regardless of the inappropriate dress code, she rushed down the stairs and pushed her lardy body against Betty’s in a hug. The hug lasted awkwardly long as Minnie’s hands dug sharply into Betty’s moonlight skin and her leg slid up and down the inside of Betty’s to create the warm frisson of friction. Betty silently gasped and tried to pull away, and Minnie licked the side of her face as she did so.

This hullabaloo turned Leona around, who had been trying not to stare, and now she was confronted with the nearly fully naked form of the best friend she had once fucked.

“Sorry Minnie, did we wake you?” Betty asked, quickly yanking the knickers up to conceal a portion of her dignity, whilst wobbling with poor balance.

“No Betz, I messaged her to come down. Remember when I told you about that time I cried about my weight while I was on the loo. Well, it was Minnie who came to my rescue, and I thought maybe she’d do the same for you”

Betty’s tears welled up at the kind gesture. Minnie just smiled with menacing glee, before turning to Leona.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got her now. You can go back up with your lover-girl, and I’ll take care of her” Minnie said, before darting in for a snog with her ex. Leona pulled away sharply, with the lip that Minnie was biting pulling away slowly thanks to her dental grip.

“Not cool Minnie!” Leona lambasted with rare fury, before regaining composure and going off to bed. “But thanks for taking care of her Minnie”

 

All alone, Minnie redirected her eyes on the young teacher, who had taken her dressing gown off again and was sorting through the pile of clothes to see what she could wear as a jacket with the skirt and blouse that she had already chosen. Bending over to peruse, Minnie took a keen look at the small slab of roll that tended forwards under the pull of gravity.

“Hey Betz, you look good.”

Betty recoiled, as if knocked out of a daze. Her processes weren’t fully functioning and she had become so absorbed in her clothes hunt that she had forgotten about Minnie already.

“I don’t though, I look fat and ugly” she sulked.

Minnie strolled behind her and pressed herself back against Betty. She reached around in a hug to grab the minor mound of mass that coated her stomach, her cold sharp hands caressing it.

“This isn’t ugly, this...” Minnie gripped her tummy more fiercely, her nails digging into Betty’s flesh. “I like this a lot.”

She felt Betty twitch at this as she breathed heavily on her shoulder, before sinking her teeth into her lower neck.

“Minnie, I… I need to get changed. I have work in...” Betty gasped, her focus wandering towards the synaptic sensations that Minnie was inflicting on the teacher.

“I know, I know, 8 hours” Minnie said breathily. “So, maybe grab a size 8 and see how it fits?”

“I don’t think I’m a size 8 anymore Minnie, I was going to try the 10.” Betty lightly protested.

“Weren’t you a size 0 or 2 a couple of months ago, love? I’m sure it’ll be reet. Put it on and we’ll have us a looksie, what’s the worse that can happen?” Minnie said, her voice as sweet as nectar but her intentions as dark as squid ink.

Betty didn’t realise the sinister intentions of the Machiavellian Minnie and obliged. She grabbed a size 8 pair of pin-stripe work trousers and a blouse to go with them. She shoved her right arm in the matching blouse sleeve and immediately sensed danger at the tightness it imposed on her softened bicep. Putting her other arm in required a grunt of effort, but despite the shirt’s back being unpleased with the demands placed upon it, she got it through. The buttons were going to be the tough bit, and Betty decided enough was enough and to try the larger size without doing them up. Minnie intervened there with a quiet assertiveness, and by running her nail down the bloated stomach of the gasping teacher.

“Don’t worry, love. I’ll do this for you. Just breathe in and I’ll do the rest” and she stretched the material to draw the buttons closer to their respective holes while Betty sucked her stomach inwards, before doing each one up with a bit of difficulty. “There you go love. See? Fits just dandy”

It didn’t fit just dandy at all, it was suffocating on Betty, The buttons being torn against by the finite nature of the blouse’s material, leaving holes of pale skin visible in the curled up bits between the buttons.

“Now the trousers, love. Come on, let’s help you put them on.”

They climbed up her lower leg easily enough, but each thigh felt resistance as the trousers were pulled up to the waist, before Minnie helped Betty squeeze them over her squashable bum. Then, they had to tie the trousers up, and this would prove to be the boss level in terms of difficulty. The button was inches apart and looked cut adrift from the hole in which it is supposed to be tethered. But Minnie fixed on it and was undeterred, even if Betty was finding the whole incident humiliating. She venomously yanked the button and hole together while Betty squealed an intake of breath, sucking in as far as she could while Betty fought against the material’s resistance. Toiling furiously, she hooked the button through the hole just as Betty was about to give up and breath out. When she did breathe out, her stomach’s skin flooded over the waistband like fresh bread, a sandwiched muffintop between the blouse and the trousers.

Minnie took a step back to admire her handiwork, and bit her lip at the sight presented before her. Betty looked like a woman in child’s clothing, oversized and chubby. And as Minnie stepped back, Betty took a good look at the siren before her. She was a big girl alright, her tummy jutting out like the bus at the end of the Italian Job in her slinky nightwear, her arms thick and meaty, her whale thighs blubbery and broad in the men’s boxers that spared the blushes of her lower half. But she was still gorgeous, those mesmeric emerald eyes that hawked into the back of your skull and that black hair surging down her back in a long straightened waterfall of glistening tar. And, despite her impressive size, was the young girl looking slimmer than the massively bloated student she remembered from the end of term last year?

“Hey Minnie, have you lost weight?” Betty said, dizzy from the alcohol and the minor oxygen starvation from the cripplingly tight clothing.

“I think so, but it’s so hard to tell when there’s so much of me, y’know. But I’ve been trying to get my life right on track over the summer. Every time I get that self-destructive itch, Rutherford eats self-destructively for me and I just feed and live vicariously through that. It’s how she’s managed to get so big so quickly.”

Betty dreaded to think how big Minnie meant.

“That said, I’m the only one who can use the scales these days so I guess I must have lost weight. They max out, y’see, at 250lbs and I’m down to 240lbs. I’m the only one here who has a clue how much they weigh” she aggressively giggled. “I know, let’s see if I’ve lost any more, the scales are down here I think”

She pulled the scales out from under one of the settees, and stood on it. The needle wiggled its way to the number 232.

“232lbs Betty! I’ve lost even more! You impressed?” Minnie said, her eyes lighting up as she did a flirtatious swizzle. “What about you, let’s see your progress?”

Betty reluctantly stepped on the machine to see the damage. And the needle told her 145lbs. Betty came again from behind and rested her chin on Betty’s shoulder to have a look.

“Hey girl, well done. Oh my how you’ve grown” Minnie said, her devilish grin not dissipating for one second.

“Am I too big?” Betty asked insecurely.

“Fuck off love, you’re not big enough. Nowhere fucking close. You’ve got so much potential though, you just need to… fill it. I just need to… get my teeth into you”

But Betty blanked this blatant come-on and flusteredly flapping at her fall from grace. She felt a wave of humiliation as she stood there with her midriff bubbling out to the side in the pale white gap between her blouse and trousers. Her stifled breath, her painful chest, all from wearing clothes that were embarrassingly small. She needed to get out of them, she should have just ignored Minnie and stuck to the plan. Just put on the size 10’s.

“Why are you taking it off?” Minnie said quite sharply, as Betty did her best to detach herself from her clothing constraints.

“I’m sorry Minnie, I’m just too fat for it. I need to wear the size 10’s, I can’t wear this, I look ridiculous. I’m so sorry” she said, upset, panicked but still polite.

“Ugh, fine...” Minnie sighed passive-aggressively. “But on one condition”

“Uh, yeah sure, what?” Betty said innocently.

“If you want to wear a larger size, you have to prove to me that you’re a larger girl with a larger appetite. So, before you go…” Minnie said harshly, before softening. “Do you fancy a bite to eat?”

“I’m sorry Minnie, I’d love to. But it’s 1am and Leona’s right, I need to get back, shower, and sort myself out for tomorrow”

“Oh come on...” she said, leaning into her ear and running her sharp finger nails down her neck. “One bite won’t hurt...”

[swahilimonkfish]

So we have the full Minnie experience, the new kinder Leona experience and that the grotty Lionel experience, all exerting themselves on our poor heroine in different ways

Chapter 9

 

This time last year, Betty was long in bed. She’d baled nice and early to get a good night’s kip before the big start. Her skin hugged her skeleton brutally, but her hair had its dark sheen and her eyebrows were plucked and her tiny hips were so dainty and cute. She looked like an angel as she slept. Then, the following morning, she got up at 6am bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a sprightly 10k to get that adrenal rush that comes from the rapid breathing of cold air in aerobic conditions. She loved to push herself beyond her limits with a seemingly unsustainable pace, and then trapped herself into maintaining it by not allowing herself the opportunity to slow down. If you remove the possibility from your mind that it’s even an option, then you give yourself no choice but to succeed. By clocking in below the 7 minute mile, 42 minute total threshold, she’d visually pictured her goal and thus she attained it. This hurtling pace also gave her time to have a shower to get that glistening body clean, and then dry her slender shell down before exalting her spectacular facial features with a smattering of make-up. She ran her hair through her hair-straighteners and she got her crease-free uniform of blouse, suit jacket, tights and a pencil skirt. She brushed her teeth, smiled at herself in the mirror and that strolled to work with a spring in her step, nice and early and ready to attack the day.

But Betty was still awake this time this year, drunk, just in her bra and knickers, and having a food party with Minnie at 1am. She’d been buoyed by the vodka shots that Minnie had sportingly provided for her, which muffled any nagging concerns about right and wrong. She was greedily wolfing down a 6 pack of British-style jammy doughnuts, covering her fingers with sugar and her mouth with jam. And then Minnie reached into the cupboard and pulled out a salted caramel chocolate cake, like a magician might a rabbit out of a hat. There was always one of these lying around in the household of the Musketeers, they were considered a staple food and a firm favourite of the gastronomic juggernaut from the US that was sleeping upstairs.

Putting the last doughnut in her mouth and then wiping her sugar-coated hands on her bare stomach, Betty spotted Minnie as she brought over the Bunyanesque baked showstopper and protested with her finger since her mouth was already full.

“Hey, hey, don’t argue. You promised me” Minnie said, talking down to the teacher with a patronising infliction usually reserved for people in their first or second childhood. “You want to disobey me and wear size 10, you’ve got to fill it. It’s workwear, not curtains so they need to fit properly, so in order to fill your clothes, you need to fill your face”

She sat facing forward on the young teacher’s knee and fed her the first slice, barely giving her time to breathe as she pushed more morsels before Betty had bested the last. She eventually gasped for air as the second one was pushed at her mouth for her to eat, and she relented and fed her this one too. Betty pulled her head away in objection after the second and begged for Minnie to stop.

“Hey, we’re not stopping. You can just take that thought out of your mind. Stopping is not on the table, love. We’re going to continue eating until there is nowt left of this cake and pretending that you have the opportunity to stop will just make it harder for yourself. Okay?” Minnie asked rhetorically, before grabbing slice number three.

Slice number four took her to only a third of the way through and Betty was struggling. Minnie was relentless though, the bit was between her teeth to ensure that cake was between Betty’s teeth, and she pushed this calorie bomb at her with vindictive abandon. Chocolate and caramel and cream were smeared across her face and dripping down down her measly chest and across to her engorged stomach.

“Don’t slow down now love. You’re doing reet well. Just keep it up” Minnie encouraged and Betty, drunk on both food and drink now, just nodded.

Slice five was hard work for Betty though, she kept chewing the cake but she just couldn’t seem to swallow it. It just stayed stuck in her mouth, spinning round like clothes in a washing machine. For some reason she couldn’t get in down past her uvula to swallow. And while she got there eventually, Minnie realised that Betty was reaching the limits of her capacity. But Minnie was an an expert feeder these days and thought of limits as something to be overcome. She was like a personal trainer always insisting on one further set of reps beyond your uppermost limit. Betty was going to need some of her feeder experience and motivation.

“When I feed you this next slice, slice number 6 by the way so that will take us halfway, when I feed you this slice of cake, I want you to think of Lionel. Yeah love, I know about Lionel. Leona told me all about that bastard. I want you to think of him, right? What he’d think of you if he saw this…” Minnie said, dragging her sharp and shockingly cold nail down Betty’s swollen abdomen. “I want you to picture his disgust, his revulsion at how far you’ve let yourself go, how much you’ve grown beyond him. Picture that and this slice will go down a lot easier than the last”

And it did go easier than the last. Betty had the idea fixed in her sloshy mind of growing beyond him and dug deeper as she dug in. Her methodology became more mechanical as she adopted the Skinny meal technique of steady but relentless pacing. Chew, chew, chew and swallow. Over and over again, the metronomic regularity propelling her forward like wind in her sails. Six went down quickly, and seven followed suit at the same pace. Her eyes became fixed, staring but not seeing as she diverted all of her resources to consuming the cake before her.

Next went slice eight, the sticky and messy treat falling like the Marie Rose as she ploughed with fading force. Her head started tilting now as her surpassed limits were taking their toll. Minnie wasn’t sure if Betty was going to make it or not as she gently turned the ninth slice towards her tiring mouth. After this, she would only have a quarter left, but her pace was tailing off now and Minnie needed to do something. One more pep talk, one more burst of motivation. Minnie had one more card to play.

“You feed yourself now, my love, I’ve got some feeding of my own to do. You’ve earned this” and Betty took herself off Betty’s knee and used those cold hands of hers to reach towards Betty’s knickers, she dragged them down to her knees and took her face down to where the knickers were. And then, despite the dense foliage that surrounded it, she face-first nosedived towards Betty’s vagina to lick her out.

Her tongue stroked her with the same rigorous pace that Betty was now eating at, only stopping occasionally to throw her head back in pleasure. Slice nine was done and now Betty was squirming. Picking up the slices herself meant her hands were now getting as caked in cake as her over-bloated stomach, but she gritted and grunted as slice ten was dealt with.

With her head still between Betty’s legs, she reached out with her right hand started scratching down the side of Betty’s aching stomach, her nails cutting into her ghostly skin. Slice eleven was eaten and Betty was practically rocking in her seat as she approached her climax. She was racing to that point to quickly and she was never going to finish upstairs before she finished downstairs so she grabbed the final hefty slice and just crammed the entire thing in her mouth, with crumbly scree and dollops of chocolate and cream tumbling as she crammed crumbs of cake into her cakehole, barely able to chew with her mouth so full but grunting and gasping as she finally erupted in pleasure.

Minnie walked out the room to leave the stuffed manatee of a teacher sighing whilst craning her neck back in relief and swallowing the last remnants of that 4000 calorie dessert while her knickers were still round her knees, knowing that was a job well done. It was 5am, and Betty pretty much fell straight asleep there and then, in that same undignified pose.

 

And Leona walked in on the sleeping Betty in that same undignified pose just one hour later. She didn’t know where to avert her eyes, with Betty spread-eagled and naked and doused in decadent deliciousness. She kept her eyes away from Betty’s prize as best she could and just threw the size 10 clothes that were on a pile on the floor over her friend. Betty was completely out cold and didn’t even stir as they hit her, so Leona decided to let her catch up on a little more sleep. Minnie can have that effect on people.

She wouldn’t be able to have long though, they would have to be at work in several hours, and Betty had four months of self-neglect to remedy, to restore the girl to her pulchritudinous best. But she would, like Leona herself, also need breakfast. So, breakfast was what Leona would have knocked up for the duo while Betty continued with her forty wink catching.

Breakfast was typically a hearty affair in the Musketeer’s household, since it was practically a hotel for the morbidly obese these days, and Leona had no intention of bucking this trend for her first day back at the university. And she thought some breakfast up should be rustled up for her friend and colleague, who was clearly in a bad place. And what a breakfast it would be.

See, she had an ongoing joke with Wiktoria about whether a cooked breakfast fry-up was “a Full English” or a “Continental breakfast” since these things seemed so diametrically opposed. So the conclusion that they came to while on their holibobs during their time in the South of France, was that it should only be called a continental breakfast if it was a Full English and also if it was served alongisde croissants and pains au chocolat. That way it was English and Continental. And that was exactly what breakfast was going to be.

Except, and here’s the thing, Leona can’t cook. Not really, never could. Sure, she could microwave and she could order takeout. Hell, pasta dishes were usually fine and heating curry sauces with rice was usually fine, but anything that ran the risk of being burnt or underdone, and Leona left it to the experts. And they don’t come more expert than her paramour, Wiktoria.

And this isn’t simply because she is ex-pert, though her ass has made the journey from pert and tight and downright Lilliputian through relentless exercise and healthy living, to the Brobdingnagian bulges they were now. She was also a spectacular cook who was at her second happiest in the kitchen (she was at her happiest in her bed, with her lover and her dinner), and Leona had summoned her to help prepare the pre-work breakfast. Leona really needed the excuse to not be left alone with Betty. No matter how slobby she seemed, she kept quietly clawing at Leona’s conflicted heart. So she asked Wiktoria if she could come down and make breakfast for the two of them, to safeguard herself from untoward behaviour by keeping her actual girlfriend nearby.

Wiktoria was down five minutes later, huffing and puffing as she navigated the stairs. She, like Leona, had not slimmed down over the long summer holiday but rather she ended up throwing caution to the wind and portions down her stomach to continue barrelling beyond barrel shaped. She walked into the kitchen where Leona met her with a generous kiss.

“That was very nice, this is why I like making breakfast for you” Wiktoria she said with a smile, before noticing the lightly snoring teacher on the couch. It would have shocked the average person to recognise their delicately dainty teacher all mushed out and with her only clothing wrapped around her knees. But Wiktoria was familiar with what rapid weight gain looked like, first and second-hand, and she was familiar with what Minnie was capable of doing to a person, though thankfully only second-hand. She also had no idea that her and Leona had ever shagged one another and it didn’t cross her mind to be jealous or suspicious about Leona’s feelings.

“Thanks babe for this, I’ll have to make this up to you” Leona said with a friendly smirk.

“Sex?”

“Speedway, it’s on Eurosport tonight”

“Wow, really!” Wiktoria said with a big smile. At an earlier weight, she would have jumped up and down giddily at the offer, but these days a simple girly clap of excitement would do. “And then sex?”

“You have yourself a deal, Ms. Radwanska” and she sealed the deal with another kiss.

Leona stood in front of a mirror fixing her hair while Wiktoria got to work, getting food sizzling and the oven warming up as she multi-tasked magnificently in the warmth of the kitchen. She wasn’t as quick to get about the kitchen these days, her stupendous size causing her to find even slow movement a labour. But with the incentive of cooking up a storm, she didn’t mind the physical exertion of getting about.

By the time Wiktoria had done her three breakfasts, one for each of the downstairs girls, Leona had fully readied herself for the day ahead. Her make-up was applied to bring shapes, colours and contrasts to her already beautiful face and her hair had rarely looked more lustrous. She couldn’t do much about her size however, she was an absolute unit and there were very few fashion choices that could draw attention from that, but her trousers and florid blouse combination was at least colour coordinated and smart.

Wiktoria hadn’t put that same amount of effort into her appearance yet, but she was still a pretty girl. The elfin cut that she started last year with was now hair that poured gently beyond her shoulders and down her back. Her face wasn’t made up but it had a natural radiance to it, even if it was sweating a bit due to the 30 minutes in the kitchen meaning 30 minutes of standing and walking, far more than she would ever do these days. And her nightie, while obviously informal and comfortable, was pretty with its pink and white frilly design. It needed to be a large nightie, however, as Wiktoria was an immense lady these days. Every part of her body was an outward swell, mottled and stretched taut. She didn’t notice herself getting bigger these days, the only evidence that she ever spotted of her ever-expansion was the appearance of new creases and folds on her body where there weren’t previously. A waddle of fat between her bra and her armpit or the slight overhang of fat sheltering her knee. At a glance, she looked over 450lbs, and it was a glance at her immensity that Betty woke up to, upon smelling salty food.

“Oh god, what time is it? Wait, where are my...” and Betty realised her knickers were around her ankles, though she couldn’t remember why. She tried to surreptitiously sneak them up, but both Leona and Wiktoria were looking at her as she woke up.

“From the looks of it, you had a good time with Minnie last night. But playtime’s over Bollingbrooke, we’ve got to get you ready for work” Leona said with typical confidence.

“But… I’m not sure… I’m so ugly and...” Betty whimpered as all the insecurity that had been swilling around her head yesterday came crawling back up.

“Hey, my very sexy beautiful friend. You have face like an angel. We will make you clean and pretty and you will look like the Hollywood movie star, very sexy” Wiktoria said reassuringly, before going in for Wiktoria-special hug. It felt awkward for Betty to hug Wicky whilst just in her underwear, especially with her girlfriend sitting nearby too, but Wicky was a hugger and so Betty good a-hugged, wrapping her branch-like arms around the slightly stumpy Betty. “But first we have very brilliant breakfast for you”

It was a very brilliant breakfast for them and all. Wiktoria didn’t serve up on a simple plate, that was insufficient to satiate a Musketeer. No, it was served on a platter bowl for each, and the platter bowl was loaded enough that it couldn’t be seen through all the food piled atop it. It was a mish-mash of breakfast goodies, from the fry-up foods of eggs, bacon, sausages, hash browns, blood pudding, beans, omelettes, mushrooms, fried tomato (though not for Betty, she famously couldn’t stand tomatoes), spam, blocks of cheese, ham, fried potatos and chips. Then there was slices of toast, heavily buttered and then further topped with peanut butter for that cholesterol finish. Then came the French inspired triumvirate of two pains au chocolat, two pains au raisin and two croissants, along with three slices of brioche to mop some of the fried stuff up. And finally, in the corner of the platter bowl, two muffins, two cream cakes and two US style donuts for a sweet finish. It was essentially the Skinny meal of breakfasts.

It took them over an hour to eat, and Betty over an hour and a half given that she still could feel the cake from yesterday in her stomach. After the other two girls finished their respective colossal servings, they chipped in with Betty’s to help her out. She didn’t have the appetite of these two and they needed to chivvy her along since it was going to take more than twenty minutes for her to shower herself clean, sort her hair and make-up and then make sure her clothes suited her. They rifled through the remains of her dinner while she took her bloated self up to use their shower and see if should rescue her appearance.

The hot water hit her like a tidal wave of warm relief. The plumbing was better in this property and the boiler didn’t take as long to warm up the water, a feature of her own that had contributed to her avoiding hygiene so severely. She spent an age on her hair, trying to shower and condition all the bedded in grease that she had allowed to fester. Washing the rest of herself was difficult also, but for a very different reason. It meant confronting her weight gain. She had to wash bits of her body that she didn’t previously have. Actual breasts, an actual tummy, actual thighs, an actual arse. Her stomach packed like a tin of sardines and hurt to touch, but her arse wasn’t nearly so packed. It seemed to be bigger than it needed to be, over-accommodating the density of it, giving it a soft and slightly saggy feel.

Once washed, it was her face that she had to deal with. Her eyebrows had merged into a caterpillar across the top of her eyes, with monobrows not uncommon on dark haired girls. The slight dark hair on her top lip also needed ridding, and then she could start with the make-up.

She was never normally a heavy applier of the stuff. She felt more comfortable without it but didn’t have the confidence to follow that comfort through. However, she needed a fair bit of it today. Firstly, a wodge of it was required just to downplay the raging storm of spots that had become a fixture on her milky face. Then, contouring to underplay the new softness of her cheeks and allude to the angular cheekbones that had previously defined her look. Also, a stronger shade of red for lip stick and a lot of work done around the eyes to misdirect from the tiredness that encompassed them. And finally that was done. She looked in the mirror again and felt her heart bounce a little. She looked pretty again and a little more like her old self.

She walked back downstairs with a towel around her to grab her clothes as Wiktoria and Leona continued ploughing through Betty’s serving of breakfast. My word were they troopers when it came to eating. Betty just hoped that this breakfast was exceptional and not some sort of morning norm. They were seriously large girls now and surely their habits were not sustainable. Betty of course didn’t pry, out of courtesy and respect, but a shard of worry plunged sharply into her heart as she saw the girls continue to rip through the food like it was the end of Ramadan.

“Betz, just a thought, maybe wear the Spanx too” Leona said with a mouth full of beans and brioche.

“But I want to look big, don’t I? To put off Lionel?” Betty asked unsurely.

“Yes, but try it with the Spanx first. If he makes a pass at you, next time, try it without. You might have already reached his cut-off point” Leona said, scarfing sausage and egg now.

Betty wasn’t sure about this. She might be big enough already, even with the Spanx? Had she managed to over-shoot? In all honesty, nobody knew, so it stood to reason to try the slimline look first in case that is still too much for him, and then upsize if it fails. But, while logical, it did seem slightly insulting to Betty, suggesting that she might already be too fat. Surely she was only curvy now? Or had she missed curvy earlier, and gone sailing past it without taking the time to truly appreciate it? Or was her build, and her flat-chestedness, preventing her from ever being curvy and it was inevitable that not being thin would mean she was fat? Either way, Spanx and the size 10 clothing that she looked at yesterday. She grabbed the clothes and went into an empty room to put it on. The Spanx was a new experience, and a deeply unpleasant one. With her stomach over-capacity already, it seemed brutishly painful where she was most tender. But when she put on the rest of her clothes, she saw its benefits.

First benefit was that her blouse buttoned without much difficulty. Which shouldn’t have been a benefit except it seemed that there would have been difficulty otherwise. Maybe it was just the bloating, but it shocked Betty to discover that the size 10 blouse was far from loose even with the shapewear underneath. The other benefit became apparent once the tights and skirt went on, because she looked drop-dead gorgeous all made up, dressed up and trussed up. The squashing of her waist made it look like her hips flared out, giving her the shape she craved. And the total look was one of a bombshell. She walked back into the living room to show the two girls, who were still at breakfast. Beaming and bright, her face was a lighthouse as she twizzled to demonstrate her form to the other two, who just stared agog. Their mouths were agape and, for the time being, not because they were eating.

“Fuck me, Betz, you look stunning!” Leona exclaimed in wonder. Wicky gave Leona a little side-eye at the sheer volume of admiration and appreciation for Betty’s appearance from her lover.

“Yes, I told you Betty, you look very stunning. You look like a painting of a very pretty lady” Wiktoria said, before aiming the next compliment to rile her girlfriend after her lustful stares at Betty. “You are much prettier than Leona”

And all the girls laughed in shock and amusement as Betty blushed at the compliments that were being hurled their way. And in such good spirits, Betty sat down next to her friends and went back at her breakfast, taking the muffins, the cream cakes and the donuts off of them in assistance.

They took a taxi to the university, and discussed the day ahead while it took them there. And after extolling the virtues of that virtuoso breakfast that Wiktoria created out of thin air, Betty made a really good point about the Skinny meal diet she was on.

“How can I have two Skinny meals a day while I’m working? I can’t have one during my lunch hour, they take more than an hour to eat!”

“Easy, have one for breakfast and one in the evening. Maybe just have a McDonald’s for lunch to tide you over. Order two in the evenings and just have one of them in the morning instead. No problem Betz, stop making excuses” Leona teased.

Two Skinny meals and a McDonald’s in one day though. That sounded like Stage 2.5, a halfway house between where she was and where she wanted to be. Honestly, given the amount of snacking she’d been doing between the two Skinny meals already, she was probably at this Stage 2.5 anyway. But if she was ever to manage three of them in one day, this seemed like a sensible basecamp upon which to mount an assault. So she could start the new term with a plan of action going forward and Betty had never felt so positive about the future.

 

“Looking good, Bollingbrooke” Lionel smirked in his oily way as she walked into the office for the meeting, immediately neutralising all that positivity and whiplashing Betty’s confidence back down. Leona could see her shoulders shrink back as the fetid, foul fumes of lust poured from each pore of the unkempt pervert leading the meeting.

His eye had been drawn to her as soon as she stepped into the room. She had been his favourite piece of totty for a while now, to lick his lips lasciviously over, ever since the previously divine looking Leona had swollen into a goddamn blob. He hated her for that, the stinking whore, for taking away all of her beauty so spitefully because she couldn’t help keep herself away from second servings, the lardy cow.

It was this contrast that was the catalyst of lust for him. When Leona waddled into the room, you could see the disgust on Lionel’s face, every wrinkle of his leathery expression souring with arrogant disappointment. And the comparison between better-than-ever Betty and larger-than-ever Leona made him drool after the younger teacher all the more. Her hips swayed like they were from the 1950’s and her eyes sparkled with a newfound confidence. She was almost a caricature of beauty, and Lionel couldn’t help himself and mention this fact. It deflated her immediately.

Not in terms of size though, Lionel couldn’t help but notice. She had been eating well over the holidays too, her thighs looked more substantial and her hips had more to hang onto. It suited her, he thought, she was always pretty but she was so thin before that it did her no harm. As long as this was the end of it, and not the start of a trend like last time with Leona. Fucking bitch, getting fat, the lazy fucker.

Betty was dazed after that comment from him. That was all it took to knock her off-kilter for the rest of the meeting. Every glance from him in her direction triggered her, the PTSD of abusive or harassing men in her life meant it didn’t take much to put her back in those dark places, vividly remembering those dark traumas. She tried to hide it the usual way, behind glowy charm and happy-go-lucky friendliness, but another crack had ruptured across her soul when he said that simple turn of phrase.

“Ms. Bollingbrooke? Have you uploaded your slides onto the University intranet yet?” Lionel sleazed. Betty hadn’t even done most of the slides, she’d been putting it off all summer and never gotten around to it. She was months behind in the work that she was supposed to be doing to get her classes ready for the coming year. She’d clean forgot, after all that had been going on in her life, in her stomach and in her emotional state, that she should have been panicking about this. It had been put on the back-burner, what with her clothing crisis, and she had walked to the meeting forgetting to be terrified of recriminations for essentially not doing her job. But, because she had forgotten about this until he mentioned it, and because her mind wasn’t in a good place all of a sudden, she didn’t care about the answer she threw back at him.

“Yeah, all done” she lied, with a poker face so straight that it can only come from apathy. She didn’t care if he’d find out and check, she just wanted to leave the room right now and couldn’t think about anything else. As it happened, he had no intention of checking, he was terrible at that sort of administrative aspect of his job. He thought that a job was only worth doing if it couldn’t be blagged and figured that simply by asking the question, he had fulfilled his role. And that was fine with Betty too, who asked to excuse herself from the room for a minute, before walking out to catch her breath. She sat down on the sofa in the corridor and tried to regain her composure, but her head kept spinning.

Screw it, she thought eventually, I’m not going back in there. So she decided to take Leona’s advice and she took a trip to McDonald’s while the rest of the teachers plotted and cross-referenced for the forthcoming terms. They were discussing plans and going over budgets, and Betty was looking at the menu to work out what to buy. They were wondering where Betty had gotten to and she was ordering two large Big Macs, a large fries, a large chocolate milkshake and a large McFlurry. Leona was defending her by suggesting maybe ‘lady troubles’ and Betty was gorging on fast food and accidentally spilling ketchup on her dress. She wiped it off with her finger and hoped nobody would notice.

By the time she’d finished and returned to the university, they were all filing out the room. Lionel was eagle-eyed and searching around for her as she came round the corner looking and feeling better. Before Lionel could ask where she was, Leona intervened.

“Don’t worry Betz, I told them you were having ‘lady troubles’” Leona hollered at her friend.

“Thanks Leona!” she shouted and smiled back, glad that Leona had her back. Leona then waddled to her and grabbed her by the arm and took her away from the rest of the department.

“What the fuck happened Betz? Are you okay?” Leona said, her eyes angled with concern. Betty just nodded, her throat suddenly dry as she came to explain the rush of emotions that his throwaway line had prompted in her.

“Wait, can I smell ketchup… did you ditch the meeting to have McDonald’s?” Leona asked with a smile, loving the normally whiter-than-white Betty’s derring-do to just walk off and eat while she should have been working. “Oh, I love it, Betz! You badass!”

Betty smiled and pushed her hair behind her ear, cat-like. Words still weren’t coming forth but at least the dread was easing.

“Don’t think where not going back to Maccy D’s though. You might have had your lunch, but I’ve not had mine yet. And the two girls turned back and wandered across the road to the McDonald’s there. And as Leona ordered a typically extravagant meal for her insatiable and unending appetite, Betty decided to order another McFlurry, and actually a large Big Mac and large fries. This was all prep for three Skinny meals for one day, and besides, she could stand to gain a few pounds if Lionel was still leering like he was. And the pattern was formally established, two Skinny meals a day – one for breakfast, one in the evening – and a large McDonald’s meal for lunch. Yes, this sounded like a plan. She would grow past Lionel’s desires in no time at this rate.

It helped that it broke up the mundanity having been eating only the same meal for the past three months, but the thin fries stood in pleasantly moreish contrast to their chunkier Kebabland counterpart and the sugar fix of the McFlurry scratched a sucrose itch that Betty didn’t know she had. It culminated in a relentless day of consumption that left her winded and dizzyingly bloated, but Betty resolved to establish this as her new routine, stuffing herself to and beyond the gills. And soon a new 13000-calorie a day pattern emerged, where three meals were being eaten and two of them were Skinny Meals, just in time for the kids to attend class.

 

[swahilimonkfish]

On the original version of this story, this was where my second chapter started pretty much. I worry I've gone overboard in expanding the story to cover the cracks of it. Hope you don't mind.

Chapter 10

 

Betty kept a low profile for the rest of the week, afraid of the prowling prat that was Lionel. Walking around the corridor halls with him about felt like being trapped in a labyrinth with a minotaur roaming. She felt sheepish about lying to him – about why she walked out on Monday, about whether she had done any work over the Summer – but she mainly felt intimidated by a man who thought women were buffet items. She had buffered herself, she’d hoped, by eschewing the shapewear that tucked her in where she had begun to pooch out so if he didn’t crawl up to her, he might not be so keen. But thankfully it hadn’t yet come to that.

And hiding from Lionel wasn’t the only healthy choice that Betty had been making, mainly thanks to the close monitoring and support of her deeply concerned friend Leona. Betty had been on the precipice of a complete meltdown for a while and it culminated on that Sunday night when she cried over the phone to her colleague about having no clothes. After this point, Leona made an effort to cajole her into being the better version of herself. She didn’t want another drunken phone call about Betty having no clothes.

So clothes were the first thing on the agenda, and the two girls went clothes shopping. This was much to the chagrin of Minnie who wanted this role, having enjoyed playing with Betty like a cat would a mouse earlier, but Leona figured Betty needed a friend, not a fiend. So they decided to hit up the Churchill Square shopping centre to sack it of its most stylish formal clothing choices.

Betty wasn’t really a subscriber to the philosophy of retail therapy like Leona was, though Leona’s enthusiasm for it had dimmed as clothes became less and less likely to fit her magnificent magnitude, so it wasn’t so much a joy as a chore. She hoped to be in and out quickly, and come aware with uninteresting work skirt and shirt combinations so as not to provoke comment from her keen-eyed colleagues. Anyone who says ‘is that new?’ about the clothing that Betty had purchased might be prompted to take in her figure and draw negative conclusion. She wanted to dim the desires of the dastardly department head, but she didn’t want to be a laughing stock amongst faculty members for ballooning bigly.

As such, she opted straight for the safe option of Debenhams and worked her way through the clothing racks, picking things out that might be suitable.

“What size should I get?” Betty asked, unsure of herself and her size.

“Well, not 10s, that’s for sure. You’re current ones are already overworked” Leona replied, as Betty sheepishly put back the size 10s that she had picked out for herself. “Definitely some 12s, probably some 14s too, just to be safe. I mean, you can help yourself to my old clothes whenever you fancy Betz, but I’d grab some 14s just in case.”

Betty paused at that comment. It came from a kind and thoughtful place, but Leona’s comment about buying size 14 seemed to ram home how much Betty had butterballed. It was an inevitability of her tactic to divert Lionel’s attention elsewhere, but that seemed a world away from where she saw herself. Was she really going to be the kind of woman that wore a size 14? And it begged a further question, one that Betty had given surprisingly little thought thus far. How far was she going to go with this?

The obvious answer was until she completed Stage 3 of the Skinny meal challenge. She was rarely one to back away from a challenge and it was the success of every forward step made towards this goal that put a smile on her face more than anything else. It also wasn’t a million miles away, she felt like now she was up to 2 Skinny meals and a McDonalds every day without to much difficulty, the next step up to having a Skinny meal was no longer such a great stride. Surely Lionel’s libido would subside soon, she could experience the rush of task completion, and then she could finally return to normal, whatever that meant. For a woman so emotionally scarred and tortured, the allure of normality was fainter than for most.

“Do you think I’ll get up to 14?” Betty said, trying to normalise that number that currently felt like an anchor had tied itself to her stomach and been dropped.

“Well get it just to be safe, you’re on good money these days so why not? But, to answer your question, yeah I do. At least.” Leona replied with typical frank honesty.

“At least? But I’m practically at the finishing line. I’ll be able to draw a line under all this soon, and get back to being healthy again.” Betty said sweetly, trying to stifle the minor irritation from Leona’s insinuation. But Leona laughed heartily and sighed deeply.

“Oh Betz, I love you but you do say the funniest things. You’re eating about 15000 calories a day, which is ten times your RDA by the way, you haven’t touched a vegetable in a third of a year and you’d lie in bed all day if it wasn’t for work, when you used to exercise like a Duracell bunny. You won’t be able to just flick a switch and be healthy my dear. You can slam on the brakes, but travelling at your speed and it will still take a while to slow down.” Leona rested her arm on Betty’s shoulder as she delivered the cold hard truth. Betty had been kidding herself in thinking that she could just drop 13500 calories from her diet just like that, and she needed the wake-up call.

“Oh god Leona, I think you’re right” she said, her eyes wide with worry and her bottom lip quivering again as the waterworks seeped from her tear ducts again. Between sniffles she asked “Do you think I should maybe get some size 16s too, just in case?”

“Probably better had, Betz.” she said as kindly as she could to the upset teacher. “Probably better had”

Betty put the clothes back for a second and decided to sit down for a second to collect her thoughts. Her mood these days felt precarious, like it could topple in an instant. She would be going about her day genuinely believing that she’s quite happy, and the slightest touch could crush her spirit. She felt constantly deflated, and every time she tried to pump herself back up, a slow puncture would whittle her back down again. She was getting sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, she just wanted these self-doubts to go away and leave her alone. But this quiet contemplation was rudely interrupted by a familiar voice.

“Ay up, if it isn’t my two favourite women?” Minnie bounced into the shop with tiggerish verve.

“Firstly, how can we be your two favourite women Minnie, when you’re in a relationship with two other women? And secondly, what the actual fuck are you doing her?” Leona bristled.

“Well, it’s a funny story actually, but you see, the thing is, I wanted to.” Minnie said and then smiled. “You said I shouldn’t come, and I disagreed. I thought I should come. The thought of you two made me come.”

“Please rephrase that” Leona said, unamused.

“Sorry, I’ll rephrase that. I should have said, I came whilst thinking about you two.” Minnie let out a feminine cackle that broke Betty’s sullen mood a little. “So we trying these clothes on or what? Come on you two, we’ll go in together”

Leona didn’t want to be trapped in a changing booth with two women she had previously had sex with, but Minnie was insistent and Betty’s mood was slowly perking up. So the three walked into an empty booth and closed the door behind them.

It was, perhaps predictably, a tight fit for the troika, all crammed into one booth. Leona took up most of it with her width, though her respectable gut pushed forward and took up valuable depth. The other two girls were mushed together in the other half, though Minnie was not as mini as her name suggested and the two girls struggled for their part too. Even Betty these days was taking up some room.

“So, what sizes you got love?” Minnie asked mischievously.

“Some 12s, 14s and some 16s. I hope I never have to wear those though.” Betty sighed, self-doubt whirring up in the background of her mind once more.

“Oooo, you’re planning on going up to size 16, they’re the plus sizes. Oh, you’ll look good at them sizes Miss. Can’t wait to see you grow” Minnie purred fiendishly. “But, in the meantime, let’s get you naked so we can try on the underwear, shall we?”

Leona twitched as Minnie said that, trapped in the back of the booth and squashed in by her two former lovers, one of whom was stripping. It was fairly uncomfortable for Betty also, who desperately fancied Leona and didn’t want to show her the chubbiness that had made itself known on her body. But Minnie was comfortable. She was in her element. Two fat women and all the power.

Once Betty had taken off her clothes and down to her underwear, she just stood there awkwardly. She could feel the two other girls on her skin in the cramped conditions and she was loath to pull down her knickers with such a tactile audience to present her untended garden for their judgement.

“If you’re feeling awkward, love, I can help with that” Minnie said. She then pulled the nice black dress she was wearing over her head to reveal her own naked body. Only she wasn’t wearing any underwear underneath to begin with. Poor Leona didn’t know where to look. “See, isn’t that better? Not all eyes are on you now”

Betty tentatively took off her knickers, and tried on a pair that she had brought in with her. They weren’t silky or frilly knickers, they were plain Jane granny pants designed to cover skin and not reveal skin. Fortunately, they fit like a dream and seemed to compact her softness flatteringly.

“She looks good, doesn’t she Leona?” Minnie asked, turning the screw merrily. Leona just gulped and nodded, having only briefly glanced in Betty’s direction. Betty then reached down to take them off, having confirmed that they fit, only for Minnie to stop her.

“Hey, you know what would be fun, love? If you leave them on. We’ll not pay for them, and instead just walk out with them on. Nobody will look, will they? I’ll just put your old knickers down here” Betty thrust her poorly circulated cold hand down Betty’s knickers to deposit the old ones there, and ran her nail along Betty’s skin on the way up.

“But… that’s shoplifting!” Betty whispered sharply.

“I know, love. You’re first ever crime. Oh, they grow up so fast don’t they?” Minnie snickered.

“Seriously Minnie, cut it out” Leona chimed in, but neither of the other two girls felt like they had much autonomy in Minnie’s presence, and Minnie knew it. She leant in and kissed Betty seductively to stop any further protestations, while grabbing her hair tightly. Leona winced as she felt Minnie’s chubby legs run along Betty’s. “Come on then, let’s try that size 12 blouse and skirt shall we?”

Betty was hoping for bags of bagginess when she put the size 12s on, but they fit alarming well. Her tummy rested delicately on the upper rim of the skirt, and the white blouse wasn’t so loose as to flow over her love handles in concealment. She pulled up the size 12 tights for underneath the skirt, finding it difficult without much room to lean or pivot, but she got them up to find that they fit her bum disappointingly well. Size 12 wasn’t Betty’s future, it was her present.

“Now the size 16s” Minnie cooed, fully enjoying the moment.

“But we know they won’t fit...” Betty weakly protested.

“I wasn’t asking. Now put on the size 16s” and Minnie leaned over again and put her tongue in her ear, while Leona continued to squirm.

Betty dutifully obliged and saw the funny side of it once they were on. The arms of the blouse were so loose and there was so much room around her waist also. The skirt only stayed up by Betty grabbing a huge chunk of the fabric and continuously yanking it. Betty looked ridiculous, Leona looked perplexed and Minnie looked at her prey.

“At some point, you’re going to have put on so much weight that you’re going to fill these clothes. You stomach is going to press against the fabric at the front, your arse is gonna expand enough to keep the skirt up. You’re gonna get so fucking fat, and it’s gonna be so fucking hot” Minnie rolled the words out of her mouth filthily.

A weird shiver went down Betty’s spine as she said it, a strange convulsion that Minnie could feel as she pressed her hands against Betty’s thighs. The skirt slipped down and Minnie pulled the blouse back off, and she began to press further and further into Betty, pushing her blooming belly against her, and then she slipped her hand up Betty’s thigh and worked her. Poor Leona just stood, squashed at the back. And it got worse as Minnie pushed Betty onto Leona’s front and attacked her there, sandwiching Betty between the two girls. If it hadn’t been for the knock on the door from a staff member of the place, Betty wouldn’t have been able to resist long.

They quickly got clothed and grabbed their stuff and walked out the shop, paying for all they had bought. Well, nearly all. And a charge ran along Betty’s spine as she felt her old knickers snug in her new knickers as she walked out the shop without paying for this particular item.

 

Betty resolved to keep Minnie away from her if possible after her second encounter with the minx. And Leona felt awkward about being near her two, even though she was only indirectly involved with the changing room escapade, she’d seen to much and felt to much to face Betty in a social situation again. She just wouldn’t know what to say or where to look with her if she did. It wasn’t so bad at work where they could keep focused on the day-to-day stuff, but hanging out with her just felt so awkward.

And this left Betty alone again at the weekend. She’d been so productive over the course of the week, almost back to her self-caring self. She had cleaned her house a little, clearing out the rubbish and recycling her old and stained clothes. She left the underwear on the light fitting as a reminder but at least the floor was clear now. She even hoovered the carpet. She found, during this tidy up, her missing sharp needle, and put it back in her bedside drawer. You never know when you might next need it.

Also, productively, she had curbed her drinking across the week. It was a challenge after the Monday incident with Lionel, but she had managed to keep her wine consumption to a moderate level. Not being able to drink during the day helped, but even still, she felt proud that this wasn’t a problem that was spiralling out of control now.

Of course that was before she felt abandoned thanks to Minnie’s sexual provocation. The weekend before the first lectures of the academic year and her bosom buddies had baled for one reason or another. Minnie was barred from ever seeing her again, and neither Betty nor Leona could face one another after the mid-week shopping incident. Now, without the stability of Leona to prop Betty up, the rush of wanton temptation sparked again. Of bingeing and boozing and generally letting loose while her clothes got tight. She was also wrestling with that strange sexual bolt of energy that Minnie prompted after she told Betty that she was going to be so fat. Something about that suggested slippery slope that punctured Betty’s inhibitions. So Betty made a vow to herself. During the week, she would be a bastion of responsibility, training her appetite but otherwise behaving maturely and demurely. And then at the weekends she would raise hell. Starting from this weekend. Booze, biscuits and any other vice she could think of. She would live a double life, between the working week and the workless weekend, and she would start living it now.

This was why she didn’t wake up until 1pm. This time last year, she would have gotten up six or seven hours earlier, but she was not that girl any more. She was on her way to being size sixteen, after all. This did mean she had a narrowed window to consume all the calories she expected of herself, but she didn’t care. Oh no. She was going to eat them anyway, and any more she could while she was at it.

But before she could start all of that good fun, she had to make a decision about what to wear. Too small and embarrass herself that way, or too big and mirror the Minnie humiliation from earlier. Either way, she was making a mockery of herself and that was what the weekend was all about. Well, for the sake of variety she opted for the too small option. She found some of her unbinned but unwashed size 6 polo shirts, and picked out a light blue one to wear.

Finding something for her bottom half was harder. She was hoping for some old jeans maybe that she could pull up but not button, and walk around with the indignity of her flies splayed. But she couldn’t even find clothes that did that, none of her size 6s got over her thickened thighs, she could pull and pull and pull, but they didn’t even approach the second obstacle that was her bum. After size 6, she only had size 12s and up, with one size 10 work skirt that she didn’t fancy anyway. So maybe just underwear then? She didn’t actually possess any thongs, she was too much of a former Christian goody-two-shoes, but she had some nice frilly underwear that she presumably had outgrown. Pulling them up her leg was a funny experience, the weird sensation of pushing her thigh through like mince through a sausage maker, but it was getting them over her bum was the real hurdle to be overcome. They cut into her sides so much she thought she might bleed, and she couldn’t get it high enough over her bum to cover her crack. And after a very little time, the knickers fell down this cavernous crevice, wedgying herself. So, maybe she did have a thong after all.

She looked at herself in the mirror and laughed at what she saw. But before she could fully investigate up close what she looked like, she wanted to look at an old picture for comparison. An in-progress report of deterioration. She found an official photo from that marathon she ran, of her celebrating her time after the finishing line with a flirty hands-on-hip posture and that gregarious grin of hers. The thin lines of her legs, marked by harsh sinews going up to her running shorts. Her hips, no wider than the skeleton beneath them, pushed to one side in victory. The convex stomach, like stretched skin over a vacuum beneath her ribs. Her arms, spindly like a spider’s legs. Her face, illuminated with joy and pride, with glistening eyes, a wide and welcoming mouth, and cheekbones that cut out from the side of her face. It was a BBC cameraman who took this photo as part of their “get up and run” campaign and coverage of the London Marathon, and they had probably chosen her as lightening bolt of electric beauty.

Now, she got close to the mirror to compensate for her untreated close-sightedness and compared. No electric beauty but dulled charm. Her eyes didn’t glisten but haunt with rings of melancholy around them and a listlessness in the pupil. Her mouth, so easily grinning but knitted close in solemn fashion. Her cheekbones that were once jagged cliffs on the side of her face, now struggling to keep up against the rising water levels of her softened cheeks. Her concave stomach, heaving out 3 inches with heavy heft and resting above her her hips. It could be seen underneath the red polo shirt that didn’t cover further than the belly-button that was pointed at by raw crimson stretchmarks. Her arms sticking out the arm hole of her shirt with difficulty, limiting the movement with their rounding shape. The hips themselves, lost under undercoats of fat and a gloss of blanched skin that were pulled at so harshly by the thin frills at the sides of her knickers that they nearly swelled around the material. The chunky legs, frosty pale and thicker than a bowl of oatmeal. Now flirty hands-on-hip pose, just her arms flat by her side as she gawped at this worn-out and grown-out version of her formerly model-like beauty. A hushed smile twitched at the corners of her mouth.

She leant down to grab the scales, that caused her stomach to squish into baby rolls, and placed it in front of her. With calmness and composure, she set it to zero before putting both feet where advised. The digital display twitched and flickered before settling on 149lbs. She now weighed more than the maximum break in snooker. She grabbed her phone and looked at her BMI app to see where that left her. She was 5ft6, though people often mistook her for shorter with her dainty and curled up manner, Her weight in stone and pounds? Well, there was 14lbs in a stone, so 140lbs was 10 stone so she weight 10st 9lbs. Her age was 27 now, but those flourishes of grey that she’d noticed had been popping up suggested that her days of looking younger than her age were behind her. She used to get mistaken for a student outside of work, she essentially passed for 18, but that wouldn’t happen now. Her sex? Kinky but infrequent wasn’t an option, so the selected female. Her ethnic group (optional), she’ll ignore that one. Activity levels, well that was comfortably “Inactive – Less than 30 minutes a week”. And Enter.

Betty had a BMI of 23.9, which put her at a healthy weight still, which felt perhaps a little disappointing. The green colour that represented healthy turned ominously orange at 25, so she was closing in on no longer being healthy apparently. She remembered being told off for being underweight and red on the graph, and the rush of pride she felt for such malnourishment under the pretence of peer-pressured beauty standards. The website left comments about not to use if you are suffering from an eating disorder, rather insinuatingly back then. It didn’t make such a comment now. Now she had two more days to do as much damage as she could to this already damaged carcass, before sprucing herself up ready for Monday. Best call Ahmed then.

While she awaited her delivery, Betty poured herself a rum and coke and got the party started. She had spent five days trying to minimise her thirst but for two days she could let rip, and let rip she did. The Skinny meal was ceremonially and unceremoniously devoured as she maintained her gluttonous breakfast routine, with rum and cokes, and wine, and ciders all flowing to hurry her along to that mid-afternoon fuzzy buzz.

Once she had gotten through one meal, her concentration shifted to the next one. It was 2pm and she had only just had what you could loosely describe as breakfast. She needed to up her game and she decided a great start would be to get the deep-fat fryer up to temperate. It was probably for the best that she chose to operate this now, while she was still sober enough to use it safely, and she merrily deep-fat fried her customary Mars bars to dip into 1 pint carton of ice cream as was the post-Skinny meal tradition. She shoved as many as she could muster into her mouth, and ate not for pleasure but for purpose. But it wasn’t enough. She needed to do worse to herself, she needed more.

McDelivery was next for lunch. 3pm was a strange time for lunch but Betty was behaving like a strange girl. She ordered her usual (two large big macs, two large fries, chocolate milkshake and a McFlurry) and sat down to eat this too. She surprised herself by struggling with it, eating so soon after her previous gorging session, but she was attacking herself with vindictive pleasure through her calorific outburst, in a bid to burst out of her clothes. The chips were lean and went down quick and the big macs seemed lightweight compared to the heavyweight gorging that Kebabland provided. The milkshake was a sweet relief betwixt all that oleaginous goodness, though its sharp chill prompted sharp brainfreeze. And the McFlurry was a fitting finale with all the heaviness of the former and the sugariness of the latter. By 4pm, Betty was back on schedule food-wise and could redirect power to thrusting drinks down her neck.

She teetered and tottered as she picked herself off the coach and walked back to the fridge to pull out another cider. She had been diligent and systemised in her drinking as she had been in her eating, rotating religiously between rum and coke, wine and then cider in a Fordist fashion. And the net result had been a ravaging on her coordination and cohesion as she sat back down on her settee with all the caution of a person who couldn’t guarantee she wasn’t going to miss. Another swig and then she lay down to scratch another hedonistic itch that had been forming downstairs. So, she picked her phone off the floor and logged onto Facebook, to collect images for her own mental wank bank.

She scrolled through her friends on the app first. Leona was normally the point person for Betty in this sort of mood, but it felt awkward given the whole having-sex-with-Minnie-while-Leona-was-trapped-in-the-same-cubicle thing. Maybe Minnie, with those emerald eyes that burrowed and that obsidian black hair, would be just the ticket. After all, she enjoyed what Minnie did to her and the way that she did it, and Betty craved that rush of sensation again. But it wasn’t the same just looking at a photo of her, she needed to feel the sharpness of her nails and the dominance in her voice to get the kick that she craved. So, Betty just scrolled through various students that she taught, before settling on a Swedish girl called Ebba who she found on Facebook as a common friend of Minnie’s. She was clearly a vain student with stereotypically blonde hair and a Cali girl smile. She had legs longer than Wiktoria’s and as thin as Betty’s had ever been. It made sense, going through her photos, that she had done some part-time modelling. But still Betty couldn’t get off from it, a high resolution pixelated image serving as no substitute for a breathing human being.

Lastly, in a final throw of the dice, she tried to masturbate whilst looking at herself in the mirror. She put her hand in her knickers as she watched the way her tummy pooched over them. She ran her other hand down her side, feeling how the texture of her skin had changed from glacially smooth to feeling more like over-worked dough. She ran her hand down the inside of her thigh and felt how lunar they’d become from cellulite, and how close they were to converging on one another. She squeezed her plump rump to feel how it was so much more than a handful now, and how much give it had. It was all so sensual… but not sexual. She couldn’t marvel at her demise yet, she just felt too pretty to taste her own distaste.

Without her orgasmic fix, she switched her energies to a fattier direction and decided to order another Skinny meal. Now, this was mixing things up from her normal routine. She had always been a fast believer in only asking for a Skinny meal delivery once a day, and walking there the other time. She figured the exercise would be useful given her deteriorating physical condition and, more importantly, what if it was the same courier? She couldn’t ever take that chance and always picked up the food manually. But not today, not given Betty’s hunger for self-destruction.

And much to her perverse pleasure, it was the same hunky courier that gave her the meal earlier in the day. Last time, she hid her lower half behind the door and just bent her body around to collect the meal. This time he got the full Betty visual experience, as she swung the door open to show herself in a blue polo shirt with ice cream on it and some overly tight knickers. The rest of her was pudgy alabaster skin and he could see it all. Every inch of her decline as his all-time favourite drop-off and one-time favourite crush mushed her plush tush and padded out in every direction. Her face, once of angelic purity, now a holiday resort for zits and spots and rashes, and that sweet cute figure of hers thickened like porridge.

She jumped on him, irrespective of his disappointment in her appearance, with a vicious hug, wrapping her arms around him before forcibly locking lips.

“You’re my favourite delivery man” she said to the dumbstruck Deliveroo deliverer. “I’m having a one-woman party, do you want to join me?”

“Do you have a lot of one-woman parties” he wryly commented, trying to deflect from the invitation. He knew, of course from his deliveries, that she did. And he knew, from her size, that she did.

“Yes! Yes I do!” she beamed with that famous smile of hers. She hugged firmly and conspicuously grinded against his cycling shorts. “Now, do you want to have sex with me?”

“Um, I can’t… I’ve got deliveries ma’am” he said, shocked at how forward the typically sweet and innocent girl was being. He tried to stop the rush of blood heading downwards.

“Ma’am, how old do you think I am?”

“Dunno, late twenties I guess?” he said, hoping he’d dodged the tricky question by underestimating. 5 months ago and he’d have guessed she was a student, now he’d be tempted to guess she was a student’s mum.

“Close enough. Anyway, is the reason you don’t want me because I’m fat?” she teased, wrapping his hand round to her bigger bum.

“Umm”

“You remember what I used to look like, and now look at me. Do you think I’m too fat?” Her face and eyes glistered as she ran her hand through his tousled hair.

“No, um, no? I mean, you’re y’know still quite pretty” he tried to protect her feelings while letting her down gently, but she was missing the hint. It was hard for him to come to terms with this, he had fancied her for so long. But he couldn’t fancy her now, not looking like this. Even if it was the same woman.

“I’m really drunk by the way”

“I can tell”

“And I’ve put on a few”

“I can also tell”

“You don’t seem to think I’m too far gone yet” she said, with her hands down his trousers. He tried to recoil but old habits died as hard as he was, and he still wanted her, even now. “Now, are you gonna come in or are we gonna screw in my front garden?”

And the bewildered courier came inside. So to speak.

Betty was never much of a screamer typically, she was far too demure and ladylike for such vocal histrionics, but she bucked the trend as the courier bucked the teacher. Something about having tried to get herself there literally single-handedly, and how that had already taken her to the precipice, meant that every thrust ran so much deeper and sweeter. He pushed her against the wall and grabbed her bum to lift her while she wrapped her legs around his waist, and then he plundered. Her gasps became groans became grunts, and before long she was shrieking in over-the-top fashion. She sunk her teeth into his shoulder and neck, and scratched the side of his face deeply while he rode his lucky customer. And despite not being a fan of her appearance, he revelled in her feisty manner and took very little time to get what he came for.

He eased her down and pulled up his trousers and boxers hurriedly, wanting to make his exit. She tried to pin him against the wall for a second serving, but he gently guided her away and then walked out without saying a word. But Betty didn’t mind, she got what she wanted. Fucked and food.

The food coma came not long after.

 

Sunday afternoon had a familiar feel to it. Waking up to a pounding headache in the early afternoon was not an unusual experience these days. And treated the hangover with drink was not an unusual experience either. She saw that she had finished the coke and just swigged the half-empty rum that was on the living room floor. She sighed and tried to work out what to do for today.

She felt like she exhausted all of her debauched options with that wild Saturday, and didn’t know how to quell the desire to one-up yesterday’s craziness. While she pondered her choices, she figured she better order. And as she looked down her contact’s list, she saw Minnie’s name and worked out how she was going to spend her Sunday. But, first she had to get her Skinny meal in.

The courier that delivered it was a familiar one, since he’d been inside her just the day previous. And the girl that answered the door was a familiar one, since she’d not changed since yesterday, and had gotten up in the same get-up. He smiled awkwardly as her passed the meal over to her..

“About yesterday...” he said, struggling to make eye-contact.

“Did we screw?” Betty said, only vaguely recollecting bits and pieces at that point of her frenzied feasting.

“Ha, yes, um, yes we did” he looked around, this was worse than he thought it would be. “Look, it was… oh god, how do I say this?”

“A one-off? Because you don’t find me attractive? No, don’t worry, that’s fine. You’re a really good-looking boy and you deserve better than this” she looked down at her dishevelled appearance. “I’m sorry for doing that to you”

“No, don’t apologise, it was actually really fun. I’m just not looking for a girlfriend was what I was trying to say” he still couldn’t meet her gaze but at least her was looking at the floor a little less after he got this off his chiselled chest.

“It was fun?” Betty smiled, typically endearingly. “I’ll take that. But, seriously, find yourself a pretty young girl, one who’ll look after herself better than I am, you deserve it.”

“Thanks but you miss my point. I liked the sex. A lot. You’re not my usual… type, but I can spare thirty minutes if you like?” he said, hopefully glancing up her at last. She ran her hand through his hair again, this time with care.

“Aww, that’s so sweet and really flattering. But I shouldn’t have done that to you.” she saw his facial expression droop. “Oh, I dunno, maybe some other time, when I’ve got a bit more liquid courage down my neck okay? Not today, I’ve got plans, but some other night maybe.”

“Really? That’ll be cool. No strings still?” his face lit up.

“No strings, you can still play the field with your pretty young girls. But every now and then we could, I guess, have sex.” She said, with a big smile. This could be fun, she thought. But she was sober, so she also wanted to make sure she didn’t play with his heart.

“Sure, that’s… that’s great. Just, please don’t wait too long. Please. I think you’re really cute but… I don’t mean to be mean but…” he couldn’t find the words that filled the heart of his Venn diagram of protecting Betty’s feelings and admitting how he felt.

“I know, I’m getting progressively less cute. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt my feelings, I am well aware of the change. I was only thinking like, maybe in a week or two though. I won’t be much worse than now”

“I dunno, I’ve seen what you can do in two weeks...” he cheekily joked, feeling a little more confident given that he didn’t have to treat Betty’s feelings with an archaeologist’s caution.

“Hey!” she laughed, and pushed against his chest lightly. “What’s your name by the way?”

“Remus” he answered.

“What? What kind of name’s that?” she guffawed.

“An embarrassing one. What about yours?”

“Technically it’s Belinda, but everyone knows me as Betty” she said, telling him something about herself that not a lot of people knew. “Betty Bollingbrooke”

“Okay, Betty Bollingbrooke. If I deliver one of these to you, and you’re drunk and have no company, then I might just have sex with you again. Just try not to gain too much in the coming weeks?” He asked, only half-joking.

“I can’t guarantee that Remus. Think of me as a Skinny meal. You best eat me while I’m still hot.”

“Well, I’ll come back two months ago then” he smiled and Betty laughed again. This must be what loving life felt like. Free sex and fast food and funny jokes. She was loving life indeed.

Talking of loving life, when he left, she grabbed her phone and messaged Minnie to come over. This, she hoped, would be fun.

[swahilimonkfish]

Ostensibly told from the perspective of Minnie (nee Skinny)

Chapter 11

 

“Where are you going?” Rutherford asked politely, shaking the crumbs off the vast expanse of her belly. “I was thinking about maybe, like I don’t know, eating and fucking right up until it’s dinner and sex time.”

“Oh love, oh love, you know how much I love feeding you and fucking you right up until dinner and sex time” Minnie smiled back, with a narrow shiver crawling along the hairs on the back of her neck.

“Well then… what are you waiting for? Feed me and fuck me!” Rutherford amusingly roared, lying back on the bed invitationally, spread-eagled and naked and head-spinningly large.

“No, sorry, I’ve got to meet a friend.” Minnie smiled back, admiring the view.

“A sexy friend? Can you bring her here, so we can have a real party?” Rutherford laughed, reaching over to the desk to the side of her to pick up another bowl of rhubarb crumble and custard from the queue of them ready served. “I just love British dessert by the way, we should like totally get more of it”

“Not that kind of friend love, and how about I grab some jam roly-poly on my way back, you’ll love it.” Minnie purred, rolling her sharp nail down the flaccid creases of fat that made up Rutherford’s drawn out stomach. Rutherford’s famous smile erupted as she tilted her head back in enjoyment.

“I like the sound of roly-poly, it reminds me of me haha!” she chortled while twisting her neck as the sensual reverberations lingered. Suddenly her face, previously tensed with enjoyment, drifted downwards. “Hey, you’re not cheating on me are you?”

Rutherford looked with a tenderly concerned expression, her engorged face chewing another slice of rhubarb crumble, as she allowed herself to think paranoid thoughts. Paranoid thoughts about being abandoned. Abandoned at her size. It might seem surprising that she prized monogamy so highly given that she had two girlfriends herself, an old friend from the US called Shay was cohabiting and co-shagging, but Minnie had been acting funny all week and Rutherford was worried she was losing her reason for being. “I’ve not got too fat for you have I?” she asked, woundedly.

Minnie’s face sat in stone for a brief second before erupting back into life.

“Fuck off, love. If I ever cheat on you, it’ll be because you’re too thin, you skinny-arse bitch. Now, I best get going love, but Shay will be back with edible reinforcements soon, and you can have this fucking and feeding session that you so desire with her” Minnie flashed a smile at her as she picked up her handbag. Rutherford deflated slightly in relief. She didn’t deflate too much however, she was much too inflated for that.

“Thanks Minnie. And don’t forget that roly-poly stuff on your way back!” she yelled, before leaning back on her bed and grabbing another bowl of pudding. Minnie walked out of the room and winced as she did so, that familiar sinking feeling of self-loathing rising up again as she lied to the love of her life about having sex with other women. Just another fucked up moment in a fucked up day in the fucked up life of the fucked up Minnie Charnwood. She needed to get a handle on this.

 

Minnie tip-toed into the living area to find Leona studying with her laptop atop her lap. Wiktoria was out with Shay grabbing some shopping, leaving Leona lonesomely lounging in the lounge. With this in mind, Minnie poked her head around the corner to have an overdue chat.

“Hey Leona love, can I have a word?”

Leona said nothing and just angled herself slightly further away from Minnie. Her silence could have filled tomes.

“Look, I’m sorry about that, I am. I didn’t mean to make things uncomfortable between you and me, or you and Betty, or whatever. You know how I am though, you know how I can be when I get that itch. I’m trying to get better, I really really am, but you know better than most that mischief courses through me veins...” Minnie pleaded apologetically, walking back up into the eyeline of the scowling Leona blinkeredly glaring at her screen.

“It’s not just Betty is it though? I can deal with Betty, we’ll pick up the pieces that you’ve torn apart, slowly but surely we will. But, you’ve not told Ruthers either, have you? You’re fucking another girl behind her back and you’re hiding it from her.” Leona said, trying to keep her voice down so Rutherford didn’t hear, but not doing a very good job.

Minnie’s eyes glinted with tears as she looked at her teacher, ex-girlfriend and friend. Going cold turkey at not being self-destructive was such a horrific addiction to pack in, and it seemed she just kept falling off the wagon. She was now sabotaging the one good relationship she had with Ruthers to fuck another teacher. It’s just that virginal gains were so hot and Betty seemed like she needed Minnie’s mischievous guidance. But she couldn’t keep going like this. She couldn’t keep finding herself back in this moment where she realises she’s irreconcilably fucked everything up.

“This will be the last time. I promise. Just let me have one more day with her and then I’ll finish it. You’re right Leona, I can’t keep lying to Rutherford. I love her too fucking much to ruin it over something as petty as this.” Minnie confessed, almost begging with her hands together in despair and hope. Leona rolled her eyes in acknowledgement of Minnie’s well-meaning.

“How’s she doing up there anyway, she hasn’t come down much since I’ve been back?” Leona asked, still fond of the American from her time teaching her last year, before they moved in together and everything got a bit weird and very heavy.

“Fat. She’s doing fat.” Minnie smiled lightly. It was a joke, but it wasn’t a very funny one, given her current size, rate of growth and the fact that it was now deterring her from getting out and about any more. “And I’ll not derail Betty this time, I’ll look out for her, I’ll have her back. I just want one last go at her front before I move on is all.”

Leona didn’t acknowledge or comment, she just went back to looking at her laptop dismissively, passive-aggression seeping from her. Minnie walked out the door feeling guilty, and Minnie didn’t handle the emotion of guilt in the most productive of ways.

 

Betty picked herself up to answer the door, presuming it to be Minnie. She was a little bit nervous about this whole reunion with Minnie thing, she suddenly felt quite out of her depth when confronted with the prospect of Hurricane Minnie. She was an amateur in the field of wanton behaviour, dabbling and dipping her toe in to test the waters, while Minnie had the air of an expert veteran who had seen and done it all, and it left Betty feeling a little at sea. Tomorrow she would go back to being the Betty everyone remembers from last year. Doe-eyed and lovely, with a friendly face and an easy smile, albeit larger than before. But this weekend she wanted something darker and more depraved. And nobody knew their way around devilish depravity quite like Minnie Charnwood.

Betty was excited though as well. She’d just had a whale of a time with Remus as Remus had his time with the whale that was her, and was feeling surprisingly confident about herself as a person. She might not have been as attractive as she had once been, but she could still do alright for herself if the sexy courier courting was anything to go by. That sugar-and-spice smile of hers swooshed across her face as she pulled the door to meet Minnie with real optimism and excitement. She was met with a black as thunder scowl.

“You bitch! You fucking bitch!”

Betty took a nervous step back, her smile scurrying away like prey near a predator.

“You fat bitch! You think you can just call me and ask me over, like clicking your fingers and summoning me!” Minnie raged at her, with emerald eyes clouding over with carnal fury.

Betty just shook her head nervously.

“At your fucking beck and call. Look at you, dressed up like this is amateur hour. Well, I guess I’ll have to show you how the professionals do it” Minnie tilted her head aggressively, before walking purposefully towards her, causing the terrified Betty to back off in fear. Then she saw Minnie grab some handcuffs out of her handbag and really did fear the worst. “Now get up to your bed, I have a few things I apparently need to teach you.”

It wasn’t just her hands that were handcuffed to the bedposts, her feet were as well. She lay on her back on her bed stretched apart like she was on the rack, her limbs spread in opposing directions like she was the Vitruvian man. The rest of her was naked and pale now, every inch of her on ebony display. She just lay there, with her head craning up waiting for Minnie to enter back into the room.

It wasn’t just the suspense that was killing her, it was being suspended. The handcuffs were tight around her arms and gripped each appendage with a vice-like tenacity. Still, the suspense was a bit of a struggle to though, the anticipation of what Minnie had in store for her. Betty had never done anything like this and did feel out of her depth with the swirling dervish from the North, tied up and wholly exposed, like Prometheus while he got his liver pecked out.

“Urmm.. Minnie, what you up to? You coming?” Betty asked nervously. She couldn't here Minnie and feared what that silence could mean. She glanced at the alarm clock in her room that told her it was 3pm, and she had only had breakfast so far. She was going to have to really unleash every ounce of her feasting capacity if she was going to indulge like she had planned to. But, for that, she needed Minnie.

“Hey, Minnie, what are you up to?” she called out, a bit more worried. It was now 2.20pm and she had still not heard anything from her. Not a creak in the house or the clatter of pans. Nothing. What could be taking her so long? Betty’s imagination didn’t know where to head next at the prospect of all the glorious ways that Minnie could take this. Betty was currently tethered, Minnie was notoriously untethered. This should be an experience.

“Hey, come on, what’s going on? I’m a bit nervous here Minnie, I’m… feeling a bit nervous” Betty cried out. It was now 3pm and Betty’s mind was racing. What was this sadistic game that Minnie was playing, and could she hurry along and get it started please. She kept looking around, hoping to catch the flicker of a shadow as her voluptuous vixen started fixin’ on mixin’ with Betty to get her licks in.

“Seriously Minnie, I’m getting worried. This isn’t a game any more. I need to pee.” Betty writhed in her constraints pulling futilely to see if anything would give, hoping to feel some looseness or give as she yanked and grunted. Of course it wouldn’t, these were handcuffs and this wasn’t the movies. She wasn’t getting out of these restraints without Minnie’s key. It was now 3.40pm and Betty wasn’t lying about needed to go to the toilet. She’d cross her legs except she couldn’t.

“Please, please, this isn’t funny. If you’re there, please let me out. I’m sorry, I’ll do whatever.” Betty was crying now, panicked. She was running through scenarios in her head as to how this could reasonably work if Minnie didn’t come back at all. Because surely she wasn’t coming back now. Would Betty be able to get to work somehow by tomorrow? Would a neighbour call the police, and if so what would they think when they saw her? What if nobody came to rescue her? She’d cacooned herself away from the world for four months and now what if she had nobody to check in on her? What if she died like this, fat, hairy and tied to her bed? What would her parents say, sanctimoniously tutting and saying that they always knew their precious Belinda wasn’t worth the Bollingbrooke name, if this was how her body was found? And what would kill her? Would she starve? Wouldn’t that be ironic, don’t ya think?

“I’m begging, I’ll do anything, please just let me go!” Minnie screamed, half hoping her neighbour would here her. Come on Maureen, don’t you usually leave for Bingo before tea? It was 4.45pm know and Betty truly was busting for the toilet, her bladder stung as it swelled and she wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer.

“I’m sorry God. I deserve this, don’t I? This is my rightful punishment isn’t it?” Betty wailed at the ceiling, her bladder now emptied on her bedsheets. It was 5.15pm and Betty was begging for divine intervention, that’s how bad things had gotten. Crawling back to God after years of abandonment, only praying to him when she needed something, like her mother always said. She whimpered pathetically, with snot coming out of her nose, as she pleaded to a God she no longer believed in to give up the habit of a lifetime and divinely intervene for once. She was a 27 year old girl who was admittedly possibly a little more screwed up than she realised, but still a 27 year old girl with a successful career and so much more to give. If only God would give her one more chance.

By the time 6pm came around, Betty wasn’t even calling for help any more. She had gone through the gruelling grinding gamut of ghastly emotions and come out the otherend, resigned to her humiliating demise. Maybe Leona would discover her body, since she’d notice she wasn’t at work, realise she wasn’t answering her calls and then maybe try the door. As her worry would grow after repeated days of absence, she might call the police out of worry. Yes, that’s how Betty’s body would be found. Like this.

The most embarrassing thing though, the thing that far exceeded the position she found herself in, was her hunger. She was lying in her bed with her limbs apart in a star jump position and she was in excruciating pain from a lack of consumption. It felt like it was eating her stomach from the inside, causing it to collapse in on itself. And this immense pain was simply from not eating an immense for four hours to her immense embarrassment. She’d already eaten 6000 calories today, mainly thanks to the Skinny meal for breakfast that she could no longer remember the taste of, and she was writhing in the agony of hunger. She’d eaten four times more calories than a woman is supposed to, to maintain a healthy weight, and she was crying because her hunger was so bad. This was terrifying news, it was like what Leona had said to her earlier in the week. That getting back to her healthy eating ways wouldn’t be like flicking a switch. She was already struggling to only eat quadruple what she should. She was never going to get thin, even if she got out of this. She was fat forever, and falling fast. Betty’s future was either starvation or obesity, she reckoned, and both futures horrified her.

That was when Minnie walked through the door.

“Where have you been? I’ve been so scared?” Betty wailed with tears in her eyes.

“Mainly just outside your bedroom, hearing your screams” Minnie shrugged nonchalantly. “But I did do some shopping while I was here too, you seemed short of supplies for what I have planned.”

“You just left me here! I thought I was going to die! I wet myself and everything!” Betty squeaked in shock.

“Yeah, I heard. My bad.” Minnie said, as if that was no big deal. “So, who’s hungry? I have jam roly-poly”

 

Minnie had spent most of the time sitting down in silence just outside the door with her ear to the wall, listening to Betty’s cries. She sat there as Betty begged and pleaded and promised everything with a quiet enjoyment, hearing the helpless heroine howl in hysterics thanks to her situation. She heard when she shouted for the neighbour with idle curiosity and she heard when she begged to be let out to go to the loo. She heard when she pissed herself as well, an explosion of urine presumably covering the bottom half of the bed and sinking deep into the mattress, and she heard when the born-again Atheist rediscovered God as a final Hail Mary. She felt like God.

Minnie then brought the food in two by two. The cakes and desserts and then the McDonald’s and a pizza, then lastly the Skinny meal and the milkshakes. She put them in a line, like an unmoving conveyor belt of nourishment, by the sodden bed that Betty was trapped on. She then took off her jeans and t-shirt, and pants and bra so she was every bit as naked as the girl trapped in cufflinks and tied to the bed. She grabbed the first thing, the McDonald’s and took it with her as she climbed onto the bed and mounted Betty, resting her fatty arse on Betty’s chubby legs and with her brutish stomach slapping down over Betty’s vagina. Then, one food item at a time, she fed Betty. The Big Macs disappointed pronto, Betty’s hunger made light work of them as Minnie smilingly shoved huge portions of each one down Betty’s facial abyss. The fries were the same, vanishing like they were in a magic act. The McFlurry and the milkshake also made themselves scarce in record time, tumbling down Betty’s throat to fill the expanse that seemed to have made itself violently known to Betty.

The cream cakes came next, each one pushed into Betty’s mouth by Minnie all the way in. Betty looked up to the heavens again, but this time in satisfaction, determined to prove her worth to her dominant captor by not wilting, while Minnie licked the spilt cream off Betty’s tummy. Then came cinnamon whirls, with their awkward size and shape making the eating experience messy for the girl being handlessly fed. Minnie had to wipe her hands down Betty’s midriff to get the gooeyness off them, smearing yet more detritus down her. Then it was another milkshake for Betty, replenishing her depleted bladder and also providing shocking brainfreeze that invoked zero sympathy from Minnie who wasn’t saying a word because her mouth was biting into Betty’s shoulder. After that, in this march of the foodstuffs, came something a bit different. She’d been knocking the food down like they were dominoes so, fittingly, it was Dominos that Minnie had lined up for Betty. Betty just shook her head at this, her mouth still full from the cinnamon whirls, this wasn’t part of the Betty plan or rota. Her eating was systemised and it was three meals, two of which were Skinny meals and one that was a McDonald’s. She’d had one Skinny meal, and the one McDonald’s, and she saw that Minnie had another Skinny meal lined up, so this meal was unregistered and not part of the plan.

But Minnie wasn’t the take-no-for-an-answer type of girl. She scratched Betty’s exposed stomach with her sharp nails and whispered into her ear “remember your training love. One piece at a time and think of Lionel.” That sharp nail of hers slowly clawed down towards Betty’s vagina, where she began circling round the tangled web of hair seductively. And with the other hand, she began feeding. After slice 3 was when Betty noticed that the feeling of hunger that had wrought such pain earlier had now completely gone, and by slice 9 she was feeling quite full again. By the time she finished the 14inch deep pan pepperoni pizza and the accompanying McDonald’s milkshake, she was drawing towards maximum capacity. The six pack of British style doughnuts took her to that point. It was now 11pm and Betty should really have been thinking about calling it a night and getting a good night’s sleep ready for the start of term tomorrow. As it happens, that was the thing furthest from her mind. Especially now Minnie was going down on her.

She convulsed against the restraints as Minnie hit every note like a first-chair violinist. She writhed and grimaced and arched her knees and back as Minnie’s tongue conjured shards of explosive sexual energy across her body. After all that gluttony, after all that panic, after all that shame, Betty was a powder keg of sexually charged explosivity and it wasn’t long until she erupted. She then gasped deeply to catch her breath and orientate herself.

“That was your breather, now we’re back at it, bucko” Minnie laughed as she leant over and grabbed the Skinny meal. It seemed that Minnie was happy to give cunnilingus to Betty, but never asked for anything sexual in return. From Minnie’s perspective, this was intentional. This was her trying to remain a form of faithful in her distorted mind. If she didn’t get off, she didn’t cheat. That was the lie that she could tell herself to keep the dark thoughts at bay.

Betty was struggling with this meal. She had never eaten so much, and never with such little respite either. She felt like John Hurt in Alien, bloated, in agony and ready to burst. And now she was confronted with the big one, the Skinny meal, the 5500 calorie behemoth that once, in isolation, seemed so far beyond her capacity. And now it was just the final mile in this marathon of food. She just had to treat it like it was the final mile in a marathon and push until she had nothing left to give.

She closed her eyes as she ate. She closed her eyes and thought of Lionel and what he’d think of her now if he could see her.

She closed her eyes and thought of Minnie, and how important it felt not to let her down. To prove herself worthy as a submissive partner.

She closed her eyes and thought of Leona, of her magnificent size that dwarfed Betty, and how envious Betty had been of it.

She closed her eyes and she ate every last crumb of the damn thing.

“We’re done Minnie. I can’t believe we made it!” Betty sighed in joy. “What time is it?”

“2.30am and no we’re not done. Did you not listen, I said we had jam roly-poly.”

And she wasn’t kidding. She’d put slices of jam roly poly in individual bowls and smothered each one in custard. They each had there own bespoke spoon and Minnie had every intention of feeding Betty these one by one until all eight bowls were gone. Minnie admired her handiwork as Betty ate herself into tears, the sweet delicious dessert taking up room in her stomach that simply didn’t exist. Minnie looked at the mess that she had helped create. The wincing expression on Betty’s pained face as tackles one mouthful after another, the state of her body, almost marinaded in the food that she had eaten. Her stomach, dotted with food she’d failed to get in her mouth and straining at the leash to expand against her taut skin. The bed, littered with litter and caked with cake, and a pungent dampness across the bedsheets. This was her doing, all her doing. She had caused this calamity by her own fair hand. At this point, Minnie was feeding Betty the last few bowls faster and faster, with Betty having to hamster cheek some of it because she couldn’t get through it fast enough. But Betty rammed it down her as hastily as she could, her intentions twisting. Betty was just swallowing the last bit, gasping fraughtly for oxygen, while Minnie stood up on the bed, causing it to creak and strain. Standing over Betty, she lowered herself down through the squat position over Betty’s head.

“Eat. Me. Out” Minnie said, not even looking at Betty but leaning back and looking up with her mouth agape. Betty took a deep breath, to prepare herself for her first time licking out another girl when a wave of impetuousness burst from Minnie. “NOW BITCH!”

And Betty didn’t have to work very hard, Minnie was practically there already. She then curled up next to the battered and beaten and fully over-eaten girl and cuddled her, with the pair drifting quickly to sleep.

 

“Miss, you wanna get up love. You’ve got to shower and go to work?” Minnie whispered whilst stroking her hair.

“Why are you being responsible Minnie, you’re so good at being not.” Betty smiled as she saw what she had woken next to, with Minnie’s straight black hair falling onto her face. She felt another surge of kinky lust with the student lying next to her. Last night had been an experience like no other. The fear, panic and hunger that preceded it just made her enjoy it all the more.

“I know but I’m trying to change, and I know how blurred the lines between on top of the world and rock bottom can be.” Minnie tried to empathise.

“Oh, don’t worry, we can be naughty for one more day, it’s only first day of term.” Betty interrupted, still feeling the urge for something more kinky. She was, after all, still tied up, though her arms and her feet were currently numb.

“No love, you’ve got to get up. It’s important and besides, I shouldn’t be doing this Miss, I’m not good for you. And you deserve someone good for you.” Minnie’s frosted face melted a little and a little sadness poured out. She couldn’t even lie to herself and pretend that she hadn’t ‘cheated’, because of that overwhelming urge that lead her to practically sit on Betty’s face.

“No, I want someone bad for me. You know who, according to my parents, was ‘good for me’? My abusive ex, that’s who. No, I want this. I’m not scared of not being who I was, I want to not be who I was. I hated that girl.” Betty was getting slightly wound up with the mish-mash of emotions that were clogging up her brain. Emotions of lust and yearning and self-destruction and rebellion and responsibility and kindness and fear and anger.

“If you’re sure love, then I believe you. But then know it can’t be me Miss. You need someone else, but I love Rutherford. I actually do. I know it seems silly, because I fuck other people. But it’s her I love. It’s not even because of her size. It’s fun and sexy but its not why I love her. I love her because I love her. It’s true, - I love her because I love her. I’m sure you’ll find someone else Miss, but I’m afraid it can’t be me. Now shower, put on your spanx, your best clothes, and smarten yourself up. And maybe there’s another student out there for you. But, either way, be at your best today. You’ve had a weekend of being at your worst, now be at your best.” she leant over and kissed her. Not sexually but sensually. It felt like a parting kiss. Betty just lay there, upset, as Minnie untied the teacher from her handcuffs.

“Are we over then?” Betty said, trying not to cry over something that she had told herself was just a bit of fun and exploration.

“Oh love, we were never together” Minnie said, trying to convince herself as much as anyone else.

Betty pulled herself up and flapped about a bit to try to get feeling into her limbs before getting off the bed.

“How many calories do you think we did? Sorry, I did?” Betty asked tenderly holding her still pained stomach. The spanx was going to hurt when she put it on. She shuffled first over to the shower and switched it on.

“Fuck knows, but a lot. You know, you could probably do stage 3 now, if you wanted to, love. You’ve got the appetite for it now, I think you’re there. You could get off now if you wanted to”

“Is it bad that I don’t want to? Not yet. Because when I do it, I have to stop and I’m not ready to stop yet. I don’t want to get healthy again, I want to live like this just a little bit more, a little bit longer. Is that bad?” Betty admitted, standing outside the en suite naked while the shower ran

“Of course it’s bad, love. Of course it is. It sounds like you’re off the deep-end and making excuses. But maybe bad is where you’re at these days. Maybe Betty Bollingbrooke is a bad girl.”

Maybe she was.

Betty stepped into the shower to get herself clean, Minnie decided to pack up her stuff and go back to Rutherford. She didn’t feel clean either.

 

Minnie got back at 8am, and walked up the stairs heavily. She’d had a lot to digest, and, for once, it wasn’t food. She was going to have to walk into Rutherford’s room and look her in the eyes and pretend that nothing happened. Like it was just another day in the office. Yesterday would have to exist in a zip file in the back of her mind out of the way. She just had to pretend that nothing had happened. She was a good girl now, a loyal girlfriend to a wonderful woman that wasn’t so much ballooning as Zeppelining under her watchful eye and Ratched-esque nursing. She had everything she wanted right here, the only thing wrong was herself. In some ways, she had a larger appetite than Rutherford. But it wasn’t so much an appetite for food these days, but an appetite for the pitch black aspects of her personality that she tried to keep under lock and key.

“Hey love, how are you holding up?” she smiled at her huge manatee with humanity.

“Alright, good. Had a nice day with Shay involving lots of whipped cream and butterscotch, y’know, nothing fancy. What about you?” Rutherford was grunting as she stretched in her bed.

“Yeah, nothing fancy either” Minnie lied, trying not to flinch as she did so.

“Wait, where’s my roly-poly thing?” Rutherford asked quizzically.

“Shit, fuck, I… I forgot. I’m so sorry. Do you want me to go get some for you? I can go right now if you like...” Minnie panicked, guilty hammering away at her MacBethian guilt.

“Hey, at ease soldier. Shay’s out getting salted caramel flapjack for me. Like, a shit-ton. I’ve got a craving, what can I say?” Rutherford smiled loosely as she scratched an itch on her belly. “When she gets back, do you wanna feed me or eat me out? Though Shay should really get first dibs given she didn’t forget the roly-poly thing. But, since she’s not here, pick one. You can’t have both.”

“No, I can’t have both.” Minnie agreed, but the words meant something else. “I’ll eat you out love, that way I can get started now”

“Y’know Minnie, you’re always there for me… oh boy. Oh, you’re keen, oh… yeah”

Minnie’s tongue attacked Rutherford with the vigour of a girl who wanted to be with the American for the rest of her life, and nothing was going to stop her.

[butterboy]

I really like where the story is going. It keeps getting better. Thanks for updating so frequently!

[swahilimonkfish]

2 hours ago, butterboy said:

I really like where the story is going. It keeps getting better. Thanks for updating so frequently!

Thanks for enjoying it! It's easier to write quickly when I know there are people out there who like it!

[swahilimonkfish]

Here we have Betty trying to grow as a person (geddit?) and be the woman she wants to be

Chapter 12

 

Betty wiped the steamed-up glass of her bathroom mirror to be confronted with a tired looking girl with hair that had lost its sheen and eyes that had lost their sparkle. She saw smoother cheeks and a softer chin and red splotches on her forehead that just wouldn’t go away. She couldn't even hide the spots under her fringe any more, it had outgrown fringe length and now needed to be swept to one side in a semi-stylish kinda side-parting thing. It also meant that she couldn’t hide a new feature under there, the creases in her forehead that came from over-animated eyebrows. Her skin had always been immaculate, unblemished and smooth. Now it was maculate, blemished and increasingly creased. This would never do, Betty wanted to entice her students after what Minnie had said. She just hoped the five pounds she’d gained over the past week would keep Lionel at bay. It was a balancing act.

She applied soft foundation with a hint of colour to take the edge of her pale whitishness that her indoor lifestyle had cultivated. She then plucked her eyebrows to make their unruly disposition ruly again, supplementing it with delicate use of an eyebrow pencil to keep them shaped. Mascara, eye liner and eye shadow were all applied to her eyes to make them pop since they now needed help doing so. They gave them a deep grace and strong definition that her every glance. Further down her face, to deflate her slightly fuller face, she used a cosmetic highlighter for contouring, to try and reestablish the dominance that her cheekbones previously had on her facial landscape. Finally lipstick was drawn across her lips, careful not to get any on her white teeth, as red as the Queen of Hearts.

The difference was stark as she looked at the voraciously attractive woman in the mirror. She looked, well, it was hard to find the word for it. Betty found it easier to describe herself how she didn’t look. She didn’t look ‘cute’ or ‘sweet’ or ‘dainty’ or ‘innocent’. Words like ‘luscious’ and ‘luminous’ and ‘sexy’ and ‘irresistibly’ felt more appropriate. She felt… fierce. Not a waif or a victim or a dorky goofy best friend, but an independent woman with a Helen of Troy face. She could launch a thousand ejaculations.

It was new to her, all this. This whole new look, and she felt maybe this was her new skin now. This was her destination. She wasn’t losing her looks, she was just gaining new ones. She was worried she would look like a whore with such a stronger look and so much more make-up so unsubtly applied, but she felt less trampish and more vampish. And vampish felt good.

Now to the rest of her body, to get it up to the same standard. She wondered what to put around her neck, a neck now without the deformity of jutting out sinews. She wondered because she had a St Christopher necklace that she hadn’t worn since she left home under a stormcloud, but she felt guilty not wearing it after praying to God. She wrapped it around her neck, figuring it was the least that she could do after her Prodigal daughter act. She covered it up anyway with a light shawl to protect herself from the Autumnal bluster that October brought with it.

Further down still and she was met with the reflection of her torso. Nevermind her face, this was where the real battle would be. She had to contend with a series of concerns: that her tummy was wider than her ribs, taking away her shapeliness; that her tummy stuck outwards not inwards any more, even a little when standing; that, despite everything else opening their doors and welcoming in calorific refugees, her breasts steadfastedly insisted there was no room at the inn and hadn’t grown since her dangerously underweight marathon days; and that the tufts of hair under armpits were so darkly noticeable.

The issue with her cleavage, or lack thereof, could be solved with a thicker padded wireless bra to help create the illusion of some distinguishable outward curve on her ribcage. Then came the spanx that tucked in fiercely at the waist, to Betty’s immense and tender discomfort, but suggested shape at the top to further take her apple-based tendency and keep it hourglass. With the shapewear in place, she could now fit into her size 12 blouse without wrecking the buttons. It was still tight, but now it was tight in a seductive, tantalising way and not in a holy-mother-of-god-this-doesn’t-fit way. Over that was a grey power suit with angular shoulders that juxtaposed with her recent softening, that tapered in at the waist through its natural shape to create a further optical illusion of hourglass.

For the bottom half of her body, she wanted to wear her sexiest, laciest, frilliest knickers to boost her confidence but the vegetable patch of dark hair that she had been growing since April dented this bravado, so she pulled them back down, allowing her tummy to curl up into rolls as she did, to take them back off. Instead, begrudgingly, it was an item of clothes called ‘shaper briefs’ and they were a cross between spanx and granny pants. They tightly sucked her in and tucked her up, helping to slim her tummy yet further and also compact her arse from floppy and flabby to fierce and firm. It worked really well and encouraged Betty to try out the size 10 mini skirt. It was perhaps over-ambition she realised as she grunted in a most unladylike manner to get them to do up, but eventually she managed it. This meant she also needed black tights to hide her hairy legs, while a delicate silver bracelet around each wrist to hopefully hide the restraint marks from the previous night. Lastly, she had some dark relatively high-heels on that made her look taller, her legs thinner and made her feel imperious. She looked in the mirror one last time and did a twirl for good measure. Oh, the poor students weren’t going to know what hit them, she had never looked so beautiful in her life.

The students were going to like her, they might not recognise her but they sure were going to like her.

 

She leant against the lecture lectern as the students chattily seeped into the lecture hall and filled the seats before her, ready for a year of education and erudition. She tapped her foot as she waiting for the steady trickle of lackadaisical students to take their seats in the hall, whilst reading last year’s notes for the last year’s slides that she was repeating because she hadn’t actually updated them as she was supposed to.

She looked every inch the temptress with her filled our form flowing downwards. Her carefully chosen clothes enjoyed her snaking size shaping them. Her hips sassed out sexily, her butt bubbled to the brim of her pencil skirt’s cloth constraints, her tremulous tummy was cloaked by her clothes. Her untreated hair had outgrown the quandom bob she had billed the barber for, and with it swooshed to the side in a trendily half-assed side-parting she looked more knowingly attractive. And the second year students took in Betty’s improved form with appreciation. She had evolved beyond dainty and cute and into the realm of royally seductive. They had strong memories of this delectable desirous diva with hunched shoulders and nervous energy, and here she looked like a Siren and strode across the stage as if she owned the goddamn building. She knew what the males were all going to do once they got back to their dorm rooms.

She met up with Leona at lunch in the less salubrious environment that was McDonald’s, perched uncomfortably on their plastic chairs. Betty struggled because the grip of her pencil skirt was so tight that she found it difficult to fan her legs enough to get on. Leona’s issue was more that the seating wasn’t designed for people with her size of derriere. But, despite the inconvenience, they were settling down to eat their respective meals, Betty with the usual, and Leona with the same only more. Leona struggled to take her eyes off her friend. After the changing room cubicle incident with her, Betty and Minnie, things had become a little stilted between the two. And now Betty came swaggering in looking like she did, Leona felt even more conflicted. Betty, for her part, was either oblivious or flirting.

“So, what do you think? I’m prettier than I look, aren’t I?” Betty smiled gleefully.

“How can you be prettier than you look, because how you look is how pretty you are… oh, it’s too early for riddles Betz. Yes, you look gorgeous.” Leona tried and failed to avoid the question.

“Oh, and guess what? I’m giving Kyle from third year some ‘assistance’ over a cup of coffee at 2pm at Starbucks today” Betty said, struggling to contain herself just as much as her clothes were struggling to contain her. “And then, at 2.30pm it’s Ebba, the Swedish girl who models part-time, for the same. And 3pm is Jordan who is built like a brick shithouse. I’m happing to add 3.30pm and 4pm before the day is out.”

“You plan on fucking all those students? Wow, you’ll get a rep!” Leona laughed, not hiding the fact that she was impressed but successfully hiding the fact that she was jealous. Of the students that is.

“No, coffee and a bit of flirting maybe, but that’s all” Betty said, before letting her confidence wilt and weaken. “It’s nice to feel wanted, but I don’t want them… I don’t want them to see me naked.”

Leona almost choked on the chicken nugget she was eating when Betty said that. Betty was always one to confide never normally so forward. Maybe it was how she was dressing that made her so much more provocative.

“Don’t be silly Betz, you look great naked. I’d know!” Leona said, aiming to keep it light but immediately regretting the words as they fell from her mouth. There could have been tumbleweed floating across for the awkwardness of the silence that followed Leona’s throwaway comment as the elephant in the room was finally addressed.

“You think I look good naked? I thought you were put off now I’m fat?” Betty asked, suddenly less sure of herself.

“Well, that would be hypocritical of me, wouldn’t it? You know, given my… ahem, size.” Leona said while gesturing to her body in case Betty hadn’t inferred to what size she was referring. “But, of course you’re pretty naked. It’s just, I don’t want to find you pretty because of Wicky. It’s Wicky that I want to fancy.”

“Oh no, sorry Leona. I didn’t mean to...” Betty blundered, trying to retract the clumsiness of her statement. “I know you love Wiktoria, I was just feeling a bit insecure, that was all.”

“Hey, don’t. The courier wants a rematch doesn’t he, you have a small queue of students who just want to spend time with you, and I had to tear Minnie away from you just to protect Rutherford.” Leona said, putting a chubby hand on Betty’s shoulder.

“Oh, I’m sorry about that. Things got a little out of hand very quickly.” Betty apologised again.

“Hey don’t apologise! You do that too much!” Leona pointed her chubby finger now at Betty. “And anyway, things are fine with Wiktoria. But...”

“Oh no, is something wrong?” Betty’s eyes widened in worry.

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but our weight hasn’t plateaued quite yet. I’m sure its imminent but, in the meantime, we’ve gotten a bit bigger. And poor Wicky is finding cooking less enjoyable because she’s having to lug around an extra 150lbs or whatever it is, we don’t have scales that go past 250lbs. She loves cooking and I’m worried that her size is stop her from doing what she loves.” Leona admitted.

“But you love her still, don’t you? And that’s going to mean the world. If her weight is an issue for her, then she’s the only one who can do anything about it, and it’s not for you to impose. As long as you love her unconditionally, then I don’t see a problem” Betty said, returning the favour by offering a hand on the opposing shoulder.

“But what if I don’t?” Leona said with sad eyes.

“What if you don’t?”

“What if I don’t find her attractive any more?”

 

Betty and Leona sat in silence for a couple of minutes, trying to work out the best words to follow those last ones. Betty, for her part, felt underqualified as a relationship counsellor given how bad her track record was, but was passionately worried about Leona and wanted to do anything she could to do something about it. And Leona realised she was drifting past the point of no return and now certain words couldn’t be unsaid, and certain admissions were out in the public domain.

“I’m not sure I fancy her any more.” Leona finally broke the silence. “I love her as a human being, I love her to bits. But, I don’t get turned on by her any more and I don’t want her to blame herself for it. It’s my fault. I’m fat and she still finds me sexy, why can’t I return the favour?”

“Why can’t you?”

“I don’t know...” Leona’s face was now wrinkled as she cried. “She’s just… I know the girl I fancy is under there, but there is so much over it that I can’t see it any more. It’s so fucking superficial I know. How can a girl who fills a two-seater have the double-standard of being sizeist.”

“Hey, Leona. You’re not sizeist. You’re just diagnosing what your body is saying, that’s all.”

“I just look at you Betz, you’re so beautiful. So really pretty and I want that and I feel so shit for feeling this way” Leona continued to cry.

“You want… me?” Betty stammered in shock. The girl she had fancied for the past half a year before giving up on having any chance, just opened up and confessed that she wanted her.

“Yes, I really do” Leona nodded. Betty just sat in silence for a second, trying to gather her bearings. She only came here for the Big Macs, now she was winning over the woman of her dreams.

“No, sorry Leona, it doesn’t work like that” Betty said, before she realised what she was saying and could stop it. “You don’t get to do that to Wiktoria, I’m sorry”

Leona just cried and nodded. “It’s because I’m too fat as well isn’t it? You’re out of my league now Betz, that’s it, isn’t it?”

“Leona Clefton-Brown, grow up!” Betty shouted, before realising how loud she’d raised her voice and quietening down so as not to make a scene. “I’ve fancied you ever since… we had… y’know… that one time. I’ve wanted you and wanted you, but you didn’t want me. You wanted Wiktoria. Now you don’t get to turn around 8 months later and change your mind. You’re so gorgeous Leona, that will never be your problem. Your problem is you chose her and you don’t get to break her heart and change your mind again. I’ve been on the receiving end of that and it destroys you, and you cannot do that to her. You don’t get to cash in for a new model because she’s put on a few, I’m sorry but you don’t, it’s not fair on her.”

Leona again just nodded her head whilst crying. She knew every word of what Betty said, she just didn’t want to believe it. She wanted Betty to say she was wrong, not to confirm that she was right. Leona was fishing for confirmation for something she didn’t believe, and hoped Betty would make her believe. But she agreed instead.

“Can we still be friends Betz? I know everything is really awkward but...” Leona sniffled.

“Of course Leona, I always want to be your friend. Forever. We’ve had so much awkward between the two of us, that this is just the latest in a long list.” Betty smiled soothingly to the scarred teacher. “And if you want Wiktoria to maybe lose a few pounds, and she wants to lose a few pounds too so she can cook more easily. Maybe she ease off on the Skinny meals for a bit?”

Betty had a point.

 

Betty had one more workshop class before she had her back-to-back coffee dates. Of course, they were ‘tutorial hours in a social setting’ because dating students is not just frowned upon but against the university’s guidelines. Sure, it hadn’t ever been enforced, otherwise they’d have been knocking on Leona’s door ages ago, but it was important for Betty to keep the illusion of professionalism.

Once she was done, she hurried as fast as her heeled feet could take her to the local Starbucks and grabbed herself a hot chocolate and a cinnamon whirl while she waited for student #1 – Kyle.

Kyle had ran late, which worried Betty who obviously had a backlog of students she wanted to unofficially speed-date under the guise of tutorship. But he got there by five past, apologising for the delay with innocent sincerity. Kyle wasn’t Betty’s favourite student, aesthetically at least, but he was conventionally handsome and he had a surprisingly deep voice for such a young man which Betty liked.

“Can I get you another coffee perhaps?” he asked, not believing his luck. Betty had been the one teacher that he’d fancied since she started last year. All the other students were signed up members of the Leona fan club, with her ethereal beauty and bodacity. But he preferred Betty’s delicate beauty, and while all the students despaired as Leona’s weight catapulted stratospherically, ruining everything they liked about her and turning their lust into bitching behind her back, he held his moral high ground. Betty would never be like that, her perfection was of the sweet variety and she would never fall foul of such disregard for herself. The other students suddenly jumped ship and came aboard the SS Fancying Betty, but Kyle was a founding member. Kyle was there before she became popular. He deserved this for loyalty alone.

“Hot chocolate please, and a cinnamon swirl if you can? I’ll pay you when you get back” Betty called back, wondering if she should admit in front of her students that this was the sort of thing she’d happily eat. But, in isolation, a hot chocolate and cinnamon swirl isn’t going to raise any eyebrows. And he wasn’t to know that it wouldn’t be in isolation. They sat and they chatted about the course and his dissertation choice and where he was planning on going after university, and Betty was giving every vibe she had in her playbook while he answered. She toyed with her hair, she laughed at his jokes, despite them being unfunny, she maintained sharp eye contact, she said she liked his hair and she even ran her finger past his hand on the way back from reaching for her drink. And then, as she saw Ebba crossing the road towards the Starbucks, she asked him politely to leave because she had work to do.

Ebba walked in the door as Kyle was leaving, but didn’t recognise him since she was only in second year. She was Swedish born but she had lived in the country since she was four and had long since forsaken her Swedish accent for a generic Southern one. It had to be said that Ebba was a fine specimen of a woman, with magnificently tall and thin legs that her denim shorts displayed to maximum effect. On her tall top half was a trendy mauve leather jacket with one of those fashionably shredded t-shirts underneath that her peerlessly perfect skin could protrude from on her model thin frame. Her face was no less awe-inducing, with wide eyes and a wide mouth, with layered blonde hair on top hidden under a furry hat.

“Can I get you a coffee, teach? And maybe a nice snack?” she asked, not believing her luck. But for very different reasons to Kyle. While Kyle had been a member of the Betty fandom from the off, Ebba’s interests in her had only recently been piqued. She was curious to find out how this would go.

“Hot chocolate please, and a cinnamon swirl if you can? I’ll pay when you get back” enjoying parroting her previous comment as it reiterated the wrongness of her indulgence to her quietly fetishistic mind.

“I got you what you asked for, teach. And I also got you some millionnaire’s shortbread on me, as a thank you” she said, and let the natural glide of her smile wrap around her face.

“Wow, thanks” Betty said, not sure how to eat this without seeming greedy, but knowing she had to eat it to not seem rude.

The conversation between the two of them was less studious and more personal as Ebba explained the bits about the modelling career that you might not already know while Betty listened attentively, hanging on every word from this Amazonian Aphrodite. When the conversation redirected to Betty, she felt she had to be careful what to reveal and decided to bring up her London marathon run that she was so proud of.

“It’s not just 4 hours of jogging, you have to be running the entire time, trying to make time up all the way. Your body isn’t designed for such distances, not really, so its really about timing and judging when to be in peak condition” she said, gushing about the topic she rarely got to talk about. Leona was never interested in such gluttony for punishment, not since she’d pursued a more traditional gluttony.

“So you’re not in peak condition now then?” Ebba asked, her face seeming sincere like the question wasn’t as loaded as Betty felt it to be.

“Ha, yes, I guess you could say that. I’ve actually put on a bit of weight since then” Betty confessed. “Don’t tell anyone, I don’t want to draw attention to it but I have put on a few since last year.”

“Oh, that’s okay teach. You carry it well!” she said, her eyes still wide and peering over her coffee cup and into Betty’s soul.

“Thanks, but you’re supposed to say ‘no you haven’t’ or something like that. Deny it.” Betty laughed. Ebba laughed too.

And the conversation continued in a jovial and personal manner until the brick shithouse crossed the street, at which point Betty bade farewell with the Swedish dreamgirl.

The brick shithouse was looking forward to this. This new teacher, on his first day at university no less, practically propositioned him. She looked fit as fuck too. He wanted to hit that hard. He wanted to cum on her tits and get really physical with her. Yeah, he bet she was the type, she looks the type. He sat down at her table.

“Ah cheers for this Miss. Would you get us a coffee or summat, I’m right parched.” he said whilst checking her out blatantly. Betty liked that. She didn’t like the fact that he didn’t offer to get her a drink though.

She came back to the table with a hot chocolate for herself, a cinnamon whirl for herself, some millionaire’s shortbread for herself, and a coffee for the brick shithouse. He arrogantly presumed that the shortbread was for him, and was about to reach out and grab a piece.

“Sorry, I forgot to ask if you want some” she said coquettishly whilst grabbing the piece he was about to lunge for and putting it in her hand. She ran her hand though her hair as she said it and let it drift nearer her chest, distracting the brick shithouse easily. He really didn’t seem to have the IQ to be at university.

The rest of the meeting was just her toying with him with gestures that he seemed to think he was subtly observing but was in fact practically salivating with his tongue hanging out. And when the thirty minutes drew to an end, Betty planned her rebuffing of him when an idea took her fancy.

“I don’t want to have sex with you, that would be unprofessional. But, if you promise to keep this to yourself, I’ll give you a blowjob in the mensroon if you like” she said whilst rolling her nail down his arm in a way similar to how Minnie would. “But you cannot tell a soul”

The brick shithouse’s face lit up as he nodded and, after all those cinnamon whirls, she put something else in her mouth while in a Starbucks.

 

She spent the rest of the week looking fabulous and feeling fabulous. She revelled in her newfound feminine wiles as she flirted harmlessly with any attractive male or female student who had previously tried to inconspicuously ogle her. She would wink at some, or let her hand glance the hand of others, she would lean over the very closely as she looked at their work and she would ruffle their hair when they did well. She was very popular with her students and felt very popular too. Unfortunately she was also very popular with a certain Head of Department.

“You should stop dressing like that Bollingbrooke, it’s practically an open invitation.”

“Looking like that Bollingbrooke, I find it very hard to concentrate.”

“That dress suits you Bollingbrooke”

“Do you want a hand with those books Bollingbrooke?”

“Bollingbrooke, if I behave irresponsibly around you, it’s only because you’re so easy on the eyes.”

“That fine arse of yours deserves some company Bollingbrooke”

And each comment took a hearty chunk of her freshly found confidence away from her. It seemed so frustrating that no matter how much she grew as a person, he could bring her back to square one with a throwaway line. Growing as a person in both senses of the word. He still wasn’t put off by her size, even if he seemed to notice it.

She would come back after a hard day’s work and a large Skinny meal dinner, lie in her bed and cry. Cry because the world wouldn’t let her get away from him. Cry because everywhere she ran, there was always another man who thought he had sovereignty over her body. Cry because every time she thought she was over the worst of her emotional downpours, he’d conjure another one for no other reason that idle titillation. She would glance at her bodkin, now back where it belonged by her bedside, and think dark thoughts all over again.

By the time Friday came around, she was deep in a quandary as to whether she should let rip like the weekend before or enjoy these newly stabilised version of herself. But, Lionel had pulled away her stability with her creepy comments, asinine asides and worrisome words. The rug had been pulled from neath her person and she figured she was going to let rip worse than ever before.

[swahilimonkfish]

This chapter contains both lightness and darkness. There is genuine gaslighting and psychological abuse in this chapter, and not in a kinky way. Betty has been through a lot over the years.

Chapter 13

 

Every day of the past week, Betty had come back home from work with the emotional shit kicked out of her by her seedy senior, Lionel Stewart, and each week she allowed brief relief to flood her system as she lay on her bed at took off her tightly applied clothes and generously applied make-up, kicked off her shoes and distanced her home self from her work self. This would be the weekend routine too, but first Betty had a plan. She wanted to surprise someone this Friday and it meant that she would have to show restraint against removing of restrictive clothes. It was Friday night and she looked every bit as good as she had done in the morning, she was as dolled up and dressed up as she had been every weekday, and she needed to order a Skinny meal.

“And, if possible, could Remus deliver it?” she said with not a little hope.

She might not have spent her post-work hours this Friday taking off the physical baggage of clothes that came with the emotional baggage, but she did spend it drinking. She liked Remus, and she wanted to impress him and show him that she could still look good, but she couldn’t do it without some liquid courage, so the vodka and cokes were being liberally consumed to get over her conservative reticence.

By the time he knocked on the door, she was still coherent, cognisant and coordinated, but she was definitely merried up and ready to charm. She took a quick glance in front of the mirror to check nothing had slipped or fallen out of place, and then she opened the door with a heady mix of a heart-warming smile and bedroom eyes.

“Betty, I have one Skinny meal for you...” he said, handing over the portion while trying to act casually. The act foundered at the first act, he caught a glimpse of her and that whet his appetite for seeing more of her. And the more he looked at her, the more he wanted to look. To drink the image in like Daniel Plainview might do with milkshake or oil. The woman he recognised was unrecognisable, and the girl that he wanted to see, he could see, wanted to be seen. She was majestic and enchanting with voluptuous vim and velvety skin. Normally, her protruding stomach was borne bare but here it was improved in shape and size with the flattering and flattening clothing choices and spanx choices that she had made. Those chubby legs of hers, normally in full display bar the obscuring from the dark hairs on there that were well overdue coppicing, but here her hairy limbs were veiled by tights and thinned by a tight skirt. Her heels added over an inch to her frame, giving her more height to lose all that weight on, and her face was not spotty and stained but smooth like silk. He couldn't believe what he was seeing, but he knew he wanted to see more.

“I reckon I should have this while it’s still hot. What’s your view on the matter of having things while they’re still hot Remus? Are you a fan of having things while they’re still hot?” she cocked her head on her side with that ray-gun of a smile’s voltage dialled up to eleven.

“Um.. yeah. While they’re still hot” he didn’t know what to say.

“Come on in, and bring the meal with you, and I’ll decide in which order to have you two. I’m thinking… you first then the food after maybe?” she said, gesturing with her finger to invite him into her abode. “What say you?”

“Yeah, sounds good” he said, nervously stepping into her house, struggling to take his eyes off of her.

“Well, in that case, shall we show decorum and take this up to the boudoir?” she grinned, whilst signalling upstairs to her bedroom. He didn’t need asking twice.

She took control once they got upstairs, pushing him onto the bed and guiding him to do what she wanted. She didn’t take her clothes off the entire time, save for lowering her underwear and tights, and lifting her skirt, so she kept the illusion going while he kept the protrusion going. He kept trying to keep his eyes fixed on hers, they were deep and swirling and he wanted to spend a lifetime in them, but as the sexual pleasure ratcheted up, they kept flicking up to the back of his head. Everything he had wanted for six months was riding him and doing all the hard work while he just lay back and tried to enjoy the view. All those worries about her appearance faded, he wanted her, he wanted this, and he would never not want either of these things. And there he went, exploding in awe of the marvellous woman on top, large and in charge.

She flopped next to him as he lay on the bed catching his breath and his thoughts.

“Same time tomorrow?” she asked, turning over onto her side to look at him.

“Yes please” he nodded helplessly.

“Good, but don’t go expecting me in this form tomorrow, it’s the weekend and I plan on letting my hair down” she said, warning him but also teasing him. He turned onto his side and looked at her.

“You’re amazing, you look amazing and you were amazing just then. I don’t understand… am I lovesick or do you look really hot today?” He said it flirtatiously but he really wanted to know. There was doubt in his voice too, no doubt.

“That’s what I’m trying to say. This is what weekday me looks like. Dressed to the nines and all made up. Weekend me is when I let loose. If you want to screw this girl, you have to be willing to screw the other. If you don’t like me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best, sorta thing. So tomorrow will be a more familiar sight and I expect you to pounce on me regardless. OK?” she said sternly but affectionately.

“But why?”

“Because I’m a hot mess. I spend half my time looking hot and half my time looking a mess” she replied, like her comment made any sense whatsoever. “So, do we have a deal?”

Again, all Remus could do was nod. She had him wrapped around her no longer bony but still ebony finger. He got off the bed that he got off on, and got himself downstairs to get gone. Betty just lay in her bed, enjoying all the still-sparking synapses in her brain and fizzing across her central nervous system. She finally got around to taking her clothes off, kicking them off and scraping them off and yanking them off, and lay in her bed naked and catching her breath. She, annoyingly had left the Skinny meal downstairs and there was no alcohol up there either so a trip downstairs was inevitable, but she just wanted to take a second to enjoy the moment. The conquest.

Walking downstairs without clothes on felt significantly more different to the earlier trip upstairs with her work clothes on. For a start it was draughtier without her uniform to protect her from her poorly insulated house and the throughdraft that the old windows allowed. But being without such support also made a difference in terms of her bounce. Her body now had more bounce to it, her tummy and her arse all felt an inch removed from the rest of her and each step she descended provoked a bounce and wobble in them. Not much of one, but it was a recent addition to the experiences that her weight gain had allowed her to have. But she was still a work in progress and she fully intended to progress further over the next couple of days, starting with this evening. Starting with lying naked on her couch, eating her Skinny meal and drinking wine, since she was no longer in the spirit for spirits and wanted something less logistically fussy to pour. Also, you should never mix your grape with your grain, so of course Betty wanted to do just that very thing.

 

Betty woke up the following early afternoon with ice cream melted all over her naked body lying on her settee, with an empty Skinny meal takeaway box and the hangover from hell. All in all, the sign of a Friday evening well spent. And the plan was for the next two days to be more of the same, boozing and bingeing and being boned by boys who deliver Skinny meals. Starting with wine, as she grabbed the remaining unempty bottle and drank it straight, without decanting into a glass first. She just picked it up and chugged it back like it was champagne and she was celebrating something. She finished the remaining half a bottle and admired the opening gambit that she had made. Today was going to get messy if she could help it.

Still naked, she got up and grabbed another bottle of wine. It felt weirdly kinky for such a previously shy and inhibited girl to walk around on the cold lino floor of her kitchen in daylight with no clothes on. She prized the cork off and started drinking that from the bottle too, arching her neck back and glugging like it was thirst-quenching and not just sobriety-wrecking. Anybody walking by her house would have seen quite the sight through the kitchen window, the formerly petite princess chugging like a fratboy whilst shorn of sheep’s clothing.

She ordered breakfast and contemplated clothes. Remus wouldn’t be working until later that day, so would only be delivering in the evening. So she shouldn’t scare off whichever courier it would be by being in the buff. First she grabbed an old bra, since any bras would do on her flat chest. Still it cut into her healthy sides since her breasts may not have grown but the rest of her chest had, layered and lacquered with a lardy coat. Then, she had an idea for what else to wear. The top of Tim 3.

Tim 3 and Betty had a horrendous break-up. Not one of those we’re-still-good-friends breakups, but one of those nasty hurling-recriminations and deleting-phone-numbers type breakups. The kind that damaged the friendships of third parties, and the kind that lead Betty to cut contact with her mother. He had taken so much from her, and he had done it by taking her confidence away first. Just aggressively chipping away at it like a sculptor on enamel, until there was no enamel left. He had taken everything from her, so in a vain attempt at vanity, she took a basketball t-shirt from him. He was a tall and lanky fucker – one that was slim and powerful but most of all tall. Silly tall. Duck when you go through doorways tall. He was 6ft6 and she was 5ft6 and this alone made her feel quite small, without his degrading comments piling on to add to it.

So the t-shirt was long like a gown on the little girl, excusing her from going to effort of wearing knickers. It fell down to her knees, though it did bulge out at the centre since the previous tenant was so thin but the current occupant had a tummy bulge. And with just those two items on, she answered the door and grabbed the good goods that the deliverer delivered for breakfast.

It wasn’t degrading enough, the jersey wasn’t. It covered up too much, her unsightly legs were unsighted and her blubbery middle was lost in loose clothing. So she went up to her bedroom and looked through her drawer. Aha, the sewing knife that she kept there for more depressive reasons, She grabbed it and sliced down one side all the way to the base, and another jagged cut diagonally across the centre from the other end, so flesh could be spied in abundance from any number of angles through the gaping gaps she’d sheared. That was better, Betty, she looked like more of a tramp now.

Next up was eating with a vengeance. She had to blister through her Skinny meal breakfast so that she could get started on her McDonald’s lunch. And then, once that was out of the way, it was snacking on battered Mars bars in ice-cream until late. By this stage, half her RDA of calories had been spilt down her top and only the other 850% finding their way down her neck. Her balance was being bullied badly by the booze and she kept pulling up the jersey she was wearing to get to this awkward itch near her ribs. Now, she was ready to summon Remus again, and show him what he had signed up for.

He knocked on her door with a big smile on his face. Maybe he’d under-estimated how much worse she looked earlier, because yesterday she was a knock-out. She couldn’t be that much worse just one day later.

“Ta-da!” she said, opening the door and giving it the universal gesture for jazz hands. Remus could only smile. It was clearly yesterday that was the aberration, not the other times, because the girl in front of him was a fat, messy, spotty girl with more hair on her body than on her head.

“Wow, you’ve… um…”

“Yeah, I did warn you yesterday” she said, leaning on the door frame for support.

“I know, it’s just...”

“Come on, a deal’s a deal, so come get some” and she opened her arms warned to gesture that she was the ‘some’ that she wanted him to get. Remus sighed and decided to get it over and done with. But this was a one-off, dressed up Betty wouldn’t trick him next time into believing that dressed down Betty was a viable fuck buddy. He could do so much better than weekend Betty.

But still… it was exhilarating fun. She was fun and wild, with untamed manner to go with her untamed pubes. She groaned farcically loudly, as if making a show to an audience that wasn’t there. She gyrated and jiggled and responded exaggeratedly to his every thrust. She bucked and yeehawed, she bit and she clawed. She even knew how to use her size and force to really put pressure where he never realised he wanted it, and using the moments of her weight to enhance the experience while he treated himself to gripping a handful of her muffin-topped side for fun and pleasure. She was masterpiece in sexual expression and when he rode her on the kitchen side, something that he’d never done with anyone before and thoroughly enjoyed, he kept finding himself returning transfixed on her eyes again. He couldn’t escape them. Every grunt, every thrust, and all he could see were her eyes. Fuck! This wasn’t going to be a one-off at all. He was starting to really like her, even at this size. Hell, maybe partly because of this size. Fuck it, she was throwing his sexual preferences all off-kilter. She had that effect. He didn’t have a chubby fetish, or a skinny fetish or whatever. But he was worried that he might be developing a Betty Bollingbrooke fetish.

“You got the hang of that eventually Remus.” she said, mocking his name.

“Yeah, that was really good, I gotta say” he ran his hand through his hair while panting in recovery.

“See, the problem is Remus, that I’m not sure which is the real me. Yesterday’s or today’s iteration. I love the power of yesterday, and the control, but then… I realise it’s all a mask and I’m not in control at all. And then I love the derring-do and liberated freedom of today, but it’s not freedom because it feels like compulsion.” Betty mused, sufficiently drunk to go off on a tangent and mull existential questions over post-coitally, but not so drunk that she couldn’t communicate them.

“Good job it doesn’t matter to me” Remus said, locking his eyes onto hers. What was wrong with him? Except, of course, he knew the answer to that question. “You’ve got me hooked. You could do anything and I’d still come back for me. Any shape, any size, any condition and I would still come back for more. I’m an addict. I’m a Betty addict. Any time, any place, I could be at a funeral or my own wedding and if you text, I’d still come back for more. Goddammit I wish I could help myself, but I’m an addict and I can’t. I’ll always come back for more, as long as you want some.”

“Wow, sexy boy likes this” Betty gestures down to her unkempt state. “Well, I’m not looking for anything serious, this isn’t a relationship. But, I would love to continue as an enabler to your habit, every so often.”

“Yeah, that would be nice”

“Yeah, it would be, wouldn’t it?”

Remus then went off, back to his courier career, with a spring in his step. And Betty watched, with a chip in her mouth. Everything was coming up Betty. Let’s drink to that.

 

Everything stopped coming up Betty at 8am the following day. Sunday morning at 8am is no time to be receiving guests, that was time for sleeping, hell, even God rested on Sunday so who was depriving Betty of the same liberty. Because, on this Sunday morning at 8am, somebody was knocking on Betty’s door.

She gingerly walked down the stairs to the sound of further knocking, stretching and yawning.

“Hey, I know you’re an early riser so I know you’re awake Bel! Don’t hide from me Bel, I’m just going to keep knocking until your neighbours get annoyed” came the voice from the other side of the door. And Betty knew that voice, and it stopped her in her tracks.

She felt suddenly so very sick. Sick to the stomach. Panic rushed around her eyes and she could feel the blood pumping in her skull and neck. It was Zara. The voice of the girl shouting from behind the door was Zara. The voice of the girl shouting from behind the door was Zara Bollingbrooke.

“Hey Z, umm… give me a sec, let me get some clothes on” she asked nervously and quietly. She had every reason to do so as well. Because she had woken up to find herself wearing her old red polo shirt. The one that stopped fitting about 30lbs ago. The one that didn’t get down further than her belly button, and the one that suffocated her too-wide arms. She was also wearing the same pink pants that rode up her bum so that her soft cheeks were on clear display, whilst carving into her sides, leaving vicious engravings in her plush skin. How come, every time she got absolutely shit-faced, and boy did she continue getting bladdered until the early morning yesterday, she woke up to find out that drunk her had put on old clothes that she had grown out of? But she had little time to ponder, she had a sister at the door to answer to. A sister she hadn’t seen for three years.

“Fuck off Bel, just open the fucking door. I’m your sister, I’ve seen you naked before, remember” Zara yelled, a little loudly for the hour and the quietness of the street that Betty lived on.

“Fine, but you can’t say anything about my appearance when you see me, deal?” Betty said, rolling her eyes.

“Ugh, fine then. Just open up!”

 

Zara shook from the October morning crisp coldness, her stylish jacket and leather trousers may have looked good on her but they didn’t shield her from the late Autumn morning chill. And she did look good on her, hugging her soft curves that years of gym work had shapened and sharpened. The leather trousers clung to an arse that screamed I-do-squats, with its firm and rounded cushions. The light brown jacket masked her similarly gym-supported upper half, broadening her shoulders and giving her large breasts strength and support, whilst keeping weight off a midriff that could be narrower but had no softness to it. She was looking thicc in the best way possible. The rest of her was on fleek also, her hair was dyed pink and wrapped up in a ponytail, but her dark eyebrows were drawn thicker and more angular than ever. Her eyes and mouth were where the familial resemblance lay, joyous eyes and a reflexive smile that sparkled. She was 5ft3, 130lbs and looking fierce.

She also looked surprised, as the door opened and a stranger stood before her.

“Hey Z”

“Hey Bel”

“Do you wanna come in?”

 

“And I can’t say anything about your appearance?” Zara asked, looking and relooking at the run-down, messy and chubby girl that responded to her sisters name.

“No, and you know the rules. A deal’s a deal.” Betty said as she invited her sister to sit. “So what you doing here sis?”

Zara didn’t want to answer the question. She wanted to ask questions of her own. Questions starting with, but not exclusively, what the actual fuck have you done to yourself. But, Betty was right, a deal was a deal in the Bollingbrooke family and she had to cede. So she sat down and explained why her sister, one that she hadn’t seen in over a year since Betty severed ties with the family, turned up unannounced at Betty’s doorstep.

“It’s mum...” Zara said, looking at Betty to gauge her reaction as she said it.

“She’s not...” Betty started to worry and her eyebrows tilted like windmills.

“No, she’s not ill, don’t worry. But you’re not going to like this. Really not going to like this Bel, I’m sorry” Zara said, fearful of treading on the eggshells of the Bollingbrooke dysfunction.

“Hey, you can say Z. Whatever it is, just say” Betty bit her tongue and maintained her manners.

“She’s having an affair. She’s cheating on dad.” Zara said with deathly stillness as she tried to keep her composure and not cry in front of her sister. “He doesn’t know, and I’ve not told him, but I walked in on her.”

“Oh my god!” Betty said, her Bambi eyes popping out of her head in surprise. “I can’t believe that. Poor dad!”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you blaspheme these days Bel, because you’re gonna need that when I tell you who with” Zara warned. “Tim Alcock. I walked in on her fucking Tim Alcock.”

“Tim 3?” Betty whimpered, her bottom lip wavering.

“Yeah, sorry Bel. After all that happened, I’m in shock too. Oh, I’m so sorry Bel” and Zara wrapped her solid arm around her squidgy sister, who was now crying fully. She may look different, but it was still the same girl underneath. Betty was a cryer, an emotional soul and a delicate soul in a world that was harsh and cruel. Most people have this part of them beaten out of them by the bitterness of life, but Betty just retreated further and further into that gossamer cage the more she got hurt.

“So, now do you understand?” Betty asked her sister, looking up for her approval as she rested her tear-strewn face on Zara’s firm shoulder. “Do you understand that I was a victim, not a perpetrator?”

Zara’s firm shoulders shrunk at the mention of it. She had a lot of guilt around the incident.

 

++++++++++++

 

Three years ago, Betty served dinner of steamed vegetables with tofu at the family table. Her parents, and her older sister Zara had come round to see Betty Alcock and her newly-wedded husband Tim. She had her head down as she put the plates out, and the forks rattled on the plate as she carried them with her nervously shaking hand.

“But what about the gravy lovebun? You’ve forgotten it, and you can’t eat a Sunday roast without gravy.” Tim politely said, his voice and face deadpan and calm.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I’ll bring it in and pour it on” Betty’s tremulous voice eked out in apology.

“No, no, this is our first meal since the marriage with the family, a family I’m so glad to be part of by the way...” he said, aiming the comment at the parents cordially. “We can’t do it in situ, that would be, and if you pardon my French, half-assed. Let’s do it properly Bel, take them back to the kitchen and do the gravy in there”

“No, no, don’t worry about it, it’s fine!” said the hoarse croaky voice of Betty’s dad, a silver haired, portly man in a tweed jacket.

“No, I insist. You deserve respect, I want to show you respect. As does Belinda, isn’t that right Belinda?” Tim turned his head around from his father and to his wife.

“Yes, it’s no problem father, I’ll do it right away” Betty smiled her smile, but it didn’t flex quite like it normally did. She hastily gathered the plates and took them back into the kitchen so she could serve them with the intended gravy. She rushed them back into the dining room, and laid the plates out again. Only, grabbing the last plate in the kitchen, she accidentally dropped it. She shrieked as she did so, as it splattered on the floor and the plate smashed into smithereens.

“Oh god Bel, are you okay?” asked the dad with paternal concern for his daughter.

“Yes, she’s fine. Don’t worry about it, I’ll go in and sort it. Have Bel’s dinner, she insists, and we’ll sort the mess in the kitchen” Tim said with clipped enunciation.

“You’re a good lad Tim. I’m proud to have you looking after my daughter!” the dad said, pointing his finger proudly at his son-in-law as he strode to the kitchen with intention.

“Oh, he’s so nice isn’t he?” Betty’s mum cooed. “And so handsome to boot. Our Belinda’s lucky to find someone so well put together.”

 

Tim walked into the kitchen to see his wife sobbing on the floor as she used a dustpan and brush to collect the sharp splinters of crockery that came from the smashed plate.

“What the fuck, Bel? Are you trying to make me look bad in front of your parents? Don’t you get this is important for me? The first get together since the wedding? It should be important to you too” he chastised.

“It is important to me Tim, I’m so sorry” she blubbed.

“If you were sorry, you wouldn’t have done it in the first place!” he hissed. “Now shift your fat arse and clean it up, and I’ll go back in there and try to rescue the situation.”

“What shall I do with the food, am I okay just to bin it?” she asked, remembering last time when she spilt some food, he condemned her for just chucking it in the bin, saying it was a waste. She didn’t want to make this mistake again.

“Of course, unless you want to eat it off the fucking floor? You probably do, you fat fuck!” he snarled. And calling her a fat fuck might be a surprise given that there wasn’t an ounce of fat on the girl. She was currently 106lbs and the lack of weight, along with the stress of dreading failure around every corner, was making her clumsy. “Go on, lick it off the floor, like you need the calories”

She forlornly scraped the food up and put it straight in the bin, shaking as she did so, while Tim walked back into the room. When she was done, she just sat there, dazed and bewildered and not knowing where to turn next. She weakly pulled herself up and walked in.

 

“Ah, there’s the klutz!” her dad said with a jovial grin on his face.

“Yeah, you okay Bel?” A chubbier Zara asked.

“Yeah I’m fine thanks Z. Just annoyed with myself is all” Betty whispered wheezily.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it darling. Everyone makes mistakes. I believe it was Charles Dickens who said ‘to err is human, to forgive is fine’, and we forgive you. Everybody screws up and ruins stuff every now and then, it’s just a shame you’ve done it when it matters so much to me. But I forgive you.” Tim said, rubbing her shoulder.

“See, isn’t Tim nice” Betty’s mum sighed, gazing at the tall and lean husband with a short back and sides and not a beard trimmed to a permanent 5-o’clock shadow. He was handsome, charming and well spoken – a worthy inductee to the Bollingbrooke family. They were clearly right to badger the belligerent Betty Bollingbrooke to marry this man. Even if the ungrateful wench with her oh-so-meek routine seemed fixated on ruining the relationship with her eternal ineptitude. She was the same back at Catholic school, more intent on cowering than living up to her dynastic reputation.

Before they could eat, they had to put their hands together and say grace in gratitude for all that they have before them. Zara felt Betty’s famously cold hands shaking as they gripped one another. Her head would occasionally jerk reflexively in distress. After grace, the family tucked into their vegan roast dinner while Betty sat at the table quietly, not really excelling at the small talk aspect of the family reunion since she was still shaken from earlier.

“I must say, you cook really well Tim. I’m not sure I could be vegetarian but if I was, I would want you to cook for me” Betty’s dad bellowed heartily.

“You could never be vegetarian, you care more for your own stomach than you do for nature. I think it’s a really virtuous lifestyle choice Tim” Betty’s mum added.

“Thank you both, I just love to cook. Which is handy since Belinda here’s not really the cooking type, are you Bel?” Tim’s ice-cool gaze fixed on the frozen fearful female who just nodded. “She’s probably live on takeout all day if she could. Oh, talking of cooking lovebun, what have you done us for dessert?”

Betty froze. She hadn’t done dessert. He most specifically asked not to, because she didn’t need the calories and he needed to keep her healthy. She had managed to be completely healthy before she met him, but for some reason he insisted that she was on the precipice of a freefall always. So, he said, no dessert, he’ll do the dinner and she can be spared the ignominy of burning dessert.

“I haven’t done any. You said...” she whispered, petrified. Her eyes screamed with fear as her mouth said no more.

“I told you to make sure you do dessert! This is your family, why would I say otherwise? You need to pay more attention Bel. I can’t believe you’ve done this after I slaved over dinner” he said, his placid calm mask nearly slipping.

“I’m sorry but you said...”

“I said you should do dessert, you know I did. If you it was just too much of a hassle, you should have said lovebun and I’d have done that too. Don’t worry though, you’ve not let anyone down, but it would have been nice though, that’s all” he said, running his hand down her cheek. She rushed off into the kitchen again to cry on the kitchen floor once more.

“I best go see her and make sure she’s okay” Tim said, politely excusing himself from the table.

“Oh, I don’t know what’s up with that girl” Bettty’s mum tutted in disdain at her outburst.

 

“Hey, why are you on the floor Bel? We’re trying to have a nice family meal and you’re making a scene” he said, standing over her.

“You said….” she sniffled incoherently.

“I told you to make dessert. Don’t lie and say otherwise. You need to stop lying Betty, in front of me, in front of your parents and in front of God. You know I can’t stand liars” he lowered himself onto his haunches to get closer to her and his voice dropping deeper.

“But you did, I remember...”

“You are determined to ruin this dinner aren’t you, you ungrateful little shit. I don’t know why I married you. If it wasn’t for your surname you wouldn’t be worth my time. All I do is give and all you do is take. You can’t even do one little task. I don’t deserve you and your family don’t either” he said, his voice now a fearsome growl. A growl that she knew too well.

“It was in the hall and you said...”

“Stop with the fucking lying Bel, you’re just digging yourself in a hole. Maybe just lock yourself in your room for a bit, like you always do when you’re upset. Run away from your problems like you always do. Don’t face up to your failures, just hide or run away.”

“Okay” she sniffled.

“What? Bel, you’re not supposed to agree you stupid fat whore” he snarled in surprise.

“I want a divorce Tim. You don’t love me and I don’t love you” she eked out.

“But you made a commitment in front of God. You’re with me now until death do us part. Now let’s go back in the dining room and play happy families. Are you up to that or will you just cry in the corner like usual?” he again pierced her self-worth.

“I’m divorcing you Tim. I don’t care what my family think, I don’t care what God thinks. I’m not a liar and I’m not fat...” she tried to summon the courage to look him in the eye.

Betty pulled herself up and walked into the dining room with the last scant reserves of energy and strength that she had, and looked at her family before her.

“Me and Tim are divorcing. I’m leaving him. He can keep the house. But I can’t live like this, I just want to be with my family” she whimpered looking at her parents.

“He is your family you stupid girl, now stop playing games, you’ve only just gotten married for heck’s sake” her mother bitterly snaked, instead of offering the maternal support that Betty needed.

“Yes darling, you’ve obviously had a bad day, but don’t make any rash decisions based on one day. He’s a charming man and you two will be so happy together” her dad added.

Betty’s eyes then shifted to her sister for her opinion, but Zara ducked eye contact and kept her views to herself. Betty then walked out of the room and the house, in the rain and the wind without shoes or a jacket, and just walked and walked and walked.

 

 

++++

 

“I regret that more than anything Bel. I was wrong. I should have stood up for you. I should have shown strength when you did. But when you rose up, I cowered and I know it doesn’t mean anything and I know it doesn’t help in anyway but I’m so very fucking sorry” Zara pleaded, her face drained of colour at the memory of how they last saw each other.

“It’s not that Z, you don’t have to take a bullet for me. I just didn’t want to feel like I’d let you down too” Betty said, hugging her sister tightly. She felt the warmth of her sister for the first time in three years and she missed it.

“Never Bel, you’ll never let me down. Remember – sisters forever, whatever. Oh I’m glad to see you again” and the embrace between the two tightened.

“Please, call me Betty”

 

Soon, the two sisters started to feel comfortable and familiar in each others company as they chatted about all that the two had experienced in the intervening years. Betty’s story was one of trauma and success. Trauma thanks to Lionel, success thanks to herself. Successful promotion, successful marathon run. Zara smiled happy to know that she managed to run a marathon at her weight, that she may have put on a bit but she was still living a healthy lifestyle. Zara smiled oblivious to know that all the weight had in fact been piled on since, and she was unhealthy even for her weight. In fact, the only thing Betty didn’t discuss was her weight, and Zara had promised not to discuss it in order to come through the front door.

Zara’s story detailed her deciding to get fit not long after Betty departed, and how gymwork became her escape from the oppressive environment that was suffocating her at home. She spoke of how fraught her relationship with her parents had been getting since Betty had left, like they had all this daughterly anger for Betty and had nobody to aim it at but Zara. Zara resided in an outhouse on the family’s land just outside Cambridge where her dad was a professor. And living in what was essentially their vast back garden meant that she was never escaping their judgementalism, hypocrisy and piety. Zara was always the rebellious one of the two, and was now the brunt of their consternation more than ever in the absence of Betty.

“You were always the golden child though. You’d get caught smoking week and dad would give you a hug. I’d get caught not brushing my teeth and would end up getting the ruler.” Betty commented after Zara confessed how bad things were.

“Yeah, it’s like they have all this latent cuntishness and they need somewhere to direct it. You’ve gone so I get it” she shrugged, but she seemed sad. Zara pumped up body deflated a little as the topic of conversation hung around.

“Don’t put up with it Z. Walk out and leave them to sneer at the moon or whatever. You don’t deserve it. Sisters forever, whatever remember?” Betty cuddled her sister again. It was so good just to have her back, Betty felt like she’d lost her forever and Zara was the one part of her former life she looked back on with fondness.

“I can’t. I earn fuck all, working at Tescos. I can’t afford to move out.” Zara said, referring to her job as an online order picker for the large supermarket retailer. Zara had leaving home as a recurring pipe-dream, but the grim reality of financial practicality always got in the way.

“You can always live with me Z. Always. Don’t go back, stay here.” Betty offered her sister a way out. She knew, first hand, what kind of crushing existence Zara was going through, never being good enough and always being a sleight against the Bollingbrooke name. Betty sometimes wondered if it was because she was female, and the surname would be lost upon marriage as it had done when she adopted the Alcock surname from Tim 3.

“I can’t, I can’t” Zara protested, so used to being the victim now that she didn’t recognise the light at the end of the tunnel as anything other than a train.

“Yes you can. Stop making excuses. Stay here as long as you need until you can get yourself sorted. You’ll love Brighton, we’re fifteen minute walk from the beach.” Betty wasn’t about to lose her sister again. Zara’s face creased up into a ball of tears and she hugged and nodded her long-lost sister.

 

The family reunion was going along fine, and Zara was over the moon at the prospect of crashing at her sisters until she could leave her parents for good. Two daughters, living together with no forwarding address for their parents to use. But she did have one question, that even the joy of the moment and the tenderness of her affection for her sister couldn’t placate.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta ask about the clothes Bel, sorry Betty”

“You promised you wouldn’t. Bellingbrooke promise.” Betty nervously twitched, afraid to confront her ultimate embarrassment. She wasn’t so worried about her friends finding out, but it was different with her sister, because her sister was family and family can be cruel. It brought back memories of all the ties her mum shook her head in disapproval. Zara might be the same.

“I know, but fuck the Bellingbrooke promise. I hate that surname.”

Betty paused, a quietly answered.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I got drunk last night and woke up like this”

“You, Betty Bollingbrooke, drink alcohol?” Zara’s face lit up. Betty, who had been driven to such fear that she didn’t dare use the word heck in her parents company. Betty who didn’t lose her virginity until her honeymoon. That Betty drank alcohol?

There were two responses for that kind of strict and unkind Christian upbringing. Rebellion or obedience, and each sister took a different route from the other. Zara, the golden child and the first child, was the rebel. And every time she was harshly punished for pushing the boundaries too far, she was further antagonised into behaving rebelliously. She did drugs, she smoked, she had a tattoo, she attended rock concerts and had even been arrested once before for indecent exposure. The look on Daddy Bollingbrooke when he had to collect his daughter from a police station could have haunted Lovecraft. Betty, juxtaposingly, took every punishment to heart, and became increasingly stilted and uncomfortable in fear of mishaps. She kept trying to be better, and it was never enough, so she kept trying to be even better still. But of course it wasn’t enough. Neither of them ever could be.

“Yeah, I have, in the prevailing years, dabbled in drinking. It’s been three years Z, I’ve grown since my alcohol abstinent days.”

“Yeah, you growing was kinda my next question. How have I ended up thinner than you? You were always a stick Betty, even when fucking Tim 3 said otherwise. I was always so jealous of you and your cute bony elbows”

“It was my elbows that you found cute? Well, it was probably all that hard-work that you’ve clearly put in at the gym – that’s how you’ve done it. You should be proud Z, you look mint”

“Awww, thanks sis. I forgot how nice a human being you are. You’re too nice for the rest of us at times. But I was referencing the fact that you’re bigger. I never thought you’d get bigger, not you Betty. I know three years is a long time, but you’ve… what’s a nice way of saying you’ve packed it on? Like, no offence because I love you like a sister, but you’re the chubby one now”

“You think I’m chubby?” Betty smiled. Somehow that comment made her feel better about herself and not worse.

“A bit yeah, I guess. Not like, I’m not saying you’re fat or anything. Just not the girl I remember. Which isn’t a bad thing necessarily either. It’s… oh fuck it, I gotta know, how much do you way?”
“155lbs as of yesterday” Betty said, proud of her journey suddenly and of her achievements “So, I might not be fat according to you, but in 2lbs time I’ll be officially overweight.”

“Fuck, that must be a 30lb gain in just a couple of years. Wow, I mean, I guess you’re rocking independence. Good for you, I mean, like nothing wrong with a few curves”

“47lb gain in 6 months actually” Betty corrected, leaning back and enjoying the reaction shots from her sister.

“WTF sister?”

“Haha, Okay, I’ll explain. Right... so, remember Lionel. With the creepy comments and touchy hands. This is my defence mechanism against him. This is my coat of armour, and I’ve built it up all by myself. You should see how much food I can put away now. Talking of which, it’s breakfast time and I think you deserve a show...”

[butterboy]

Do you make changes to the story before posting them on deviantart?

[swahilimonkfish]

58 minutes ago, butterboy said:

Do you make changes to the story before posting them on deviantart?

With most stories I do, but not this one. I'm writing it so quickly, because I have so much to write for this story, that I just put them straight up there.

But I can go back and edit them on DA if I spot a mistake which I often do

[swahilimonkfish]

This is a long chapter, sorry. But it was nice to see Betty's changing habits from an external perspective and it was nice to build an entire sisterly relationship up from scratch. Plus there is apparently a cocktail that features heavy cream! Why has no other WG story mentioned this before?

Chapter 14

 

“Wait? That. Is. Breakfast?”

Zara pointed to the almighty platter that was the Kebabland special – the Skinny meal. An almighty smorgasbord of cholesterol, calories and carbs, an expanse of unhealthiness that covered the table that it was placed on.

“Well, in my defence, it is the most important meal of the day. Best to start it off right” Betty replied with a big ol’ grin smacked across her face as the prepared for the exhibition of her newly attained talent. Copious eating.

“Start off right? It’s a takeaway and it’s the size of a small village?” Zara exclaimed, trying and failing to fathom what was actually going on. Well, at least it explained Betty’s dramatic weight gain.

Betty didn’t feel the need to argue any further. She wanted her eating to do the talking and she showcased her steadfast and well-paced methodical consumption of the magnificent feast of fatty food. The methodology hadn’t changed since the early days, the waymarkers and percentiles to keep her ticking over, the importance of not leaving one ingredient left over in abundance, and the urgency that was required to get the food down her neck before it hit her stomach. The only thing that changed was how easy it had become, and 45 minutes later she was sitting down with her hands resting on her bloated stomach and with a smile spread across her face with the satisfaction of a job well done.

“Wow, I don’t know whether to be scared or impressed Betty!” Zara remarked.

“Impressed. You should be impressed” Betty replied, her grin not fading.

“And this is how you live now? Like this?” Zara said, trying not to frown at the bamboozling image that she had been confronted with.

“Yes, until Lionel leaves me alone, every day is an as-much-as-you-can-possibly-eat buffet. Think of it like training for a marathon, increasing your distance piecemeal before you reach your end-goal.” Betty said without flinching.

“And what is the end goal?”

“I’ll stop as soon as I can eat three of these in one day” Betty then lay out the basic idea of the Skinny meal challenge.

“Three in one… are you sure that’s healthy?” Zara seemed a soupçon concerned and the admittedly Herculean labour that it seemed be.

“Oh Z… it’s definitely not healthy. Like, really unhealthy in fact. I haven’t eaten a fruit or vegetable in nearly 6 months and walking to the work gives me sweat patches. But I’m happy, and I’m getting happier, and I think that’s the most important thing.” Betty reasoned, self-consciously scratching her armpits since the topic was brought up.

“Well, if you’re happy, then I can’t blame you. I dream of being happy Betty, so if you’ve found a way of being happy, more power to you. But, if you’ve finished, I’m going to have a smoke outside if that’s alright and then maybe go to the gym. You can come with me if you like?” Zara offered. “You can be a bigger girl and still work out. Turn a fat arse into a phat arse. Get some shape to go with your size”

“Haha, I’ll pass, but thanks for the offer. I recommend RJ’s Gym down the road, and you can use my old gym card if you like. You look more like the picture of me on the card than I do anyway.” Betty said, handing over her ID. And Zara did, she wasn’t quite as angular or as serenely beautiful than the celestial face and heavenly body on Betty’s gym pass, but she looked a reasonable approximation. Betty, on the other hand, did not look a reasonable approximation to the picture of Betty. Not these days.

When Zara left, Betty breathed a sigh of relief. She loved her sister, but some of her comments felt needling. This was the first time Betty had truly been called out on her weight, and while it wasn’t with malice, it did sting a little. Sisters were tricky things and Zara was a particularly tricky specimen. But now Zara was gone and the coast was clear, she felt free to really push her levels of gluttony to familiar extremes. Now Zara was gone, Betty could think about lunch. And while lunch was traditionally McDonald’s, Betty rationalised that it might be best to get the second Skinny meal in now while Zara was away with her shock and judgement and subtle condemnation. Or maybe she should get the deep-fat fryer going and snack first?

“Hey Betty, I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to the gym. I’ve got nothing to prove while I’m down here so I’m going to kick back and live like my sister. If you’ve found the secret to happiness, then pass me some of that because I could seriously do with some happiness in my life right now” Zara said, walking back in on Betty scratching her tummy in contemplation. Betty smiled. Maybe there wouldn’t be the threat of subtle condemnation coming from her sister after all.

“Well, in that case, how does McDonald’s sound?”

 

Zara lay on the sofa in a gastronomically comatose state, knocked out by the onslaught of food that had come her way, the tsunami of alcohol that had come her way, and the wave of good vibes that had come her way. Betty was a different girl to Belinda, the girl that Zara remembered, but she liked this different girl just as much. Maybe even more, because she was fun as well as typically kind and warm-hearted.

Betty lay in bed comfortably full, with the wine and the food leaving her in a satisfied and satiated state that did neither obliterate her nor starve her. She enjoyed outshining her sister so considerably, the poor girl who had spent the past 3 years dieting was unaccustomed to gluttony while Betty felt right at home surpassing it, veteran to her novice. I bet this is how Leona felt for so long about her. Zara ate a smidgen of the food that Betty did and it was enough to knock her out cold, but Betty was in a Goldilocks state of just about right. But, if living with her sister was going to be like that, she was going to have fun. She’d not enjoyed herself like that for years.

Betty managed to surprise Zara the following day when she marched downstairs in full workplace regalia, ready for the second week of term in the world of academia. She appeared to be living a double life, one where she was spiralling out of control and another where she was fierce and in control. But neither were the meek mousey girl that she knew during her childhood and young adulthood.

“What do you think?” Betty wiggled her hips with pride. She enjoyed this double life that she was living.

“Wow, you look amazing sis. But you might want to get those greys sorted, just a heads up” Zara pointed at the threads of ghostly grey that stood out amongst her dark hair. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll go shopping and hook a sister up with hairdye while you earn money to put some bread on the table”

And a pattern was established between the two sisters, where Zara essentially did the personal assistant stuff while Betty was at work, and then she would come home and they would kick back. Betty enjoyed the company as it gave her a chance to show-off, her appetite that she feared might be embarrassing, she was wielding with pride. Zara didn’t commit with the same abandon, but she didn’t exactly stifle her stuffing tendencies either. They each just did what they fancied for the entire week. It was magnificent fun, a constant delight as the to girls bathed in their own internal ids and ignored the high-pitched whines of their superegos. They were only interested in their own contentment and the week was just a haze of happiness between two girls that weren’t excessively familiar with the concept.

The Monday that Betty spent at university, Zara did do some serious shopping in her absence, picking up hair colouring to conceal those thin streaks of grey in Betty’s hair that stood out against the swamp of dark hues. While she was there she also decided to vary Betty’s drinking habits beyond wine and the occasional rum and coke. Zara had spent many an evening working in a bar to top up her oft depleted coffers, and knew a thing or two about how to make cocktails. She was going to give Betty the downlow on downing loads of mojitos and many many more. She also decided to vary Betty’s regimented snacking habits, who didn’t have any savoury snacks lying around her house. This was rectified with the purchase of sausage rolls and mini pizzas and hot bake slices and Cornish pasties so that her growing sister wasn’t just forced to indulge her sweet tooth between meals, ready for her sister’s return.

Monday was a good day for Betty too. It helped to see the enraptured students all admiring her curves, oblivious to the fact that there were even more of them than the week previous, as evidenced by the fact that Betty was wearing her size 14s now and not cramming herself crudely into size 12s. Then her lunch with Leona was pleasantly unpleasant, with no untoward drama or announcements of longing between the two. Instead she raved about how much she loved her sister and Leona confessed that her and Wicky were going on a diet. Starting next week, because they needed to clear some of the junk food in the house first. Which is presumably why Leona then ordered so much from McDonald’s. After that was Betty’s Starbucks-based tutorials. This time there would be no brick shithouse to blow, which was a shame, but it did give Betty more time with the other two. Kyle was so clearly into her that the 45 minutes they spent talking evaporated in seconds, just as seconds would evaporate when near Betty. He still saw the same teacher as the one he’d yearned for since the start of last year, no wiser to the fact that she was more than 3 stone heavier. Every time Betty giggled or touched his arm, his pulse would shoot up, and when she asked if he could get her another hot chocolate and cinnamon roll, he just saw the opportunity to be gentlemanly and didn’t cotton on to her eating habits. Ebba had the following 45 minutes and she seemed no less fixated than the boy previous. They’d both started at the university the same year, but while Ebba started as a student and only got pretty, better groomed and thinner, Betty seemed bound to no such maxim. Ebba didn’t seem to mind and was only too keen to get ruinous reinforcements from the sugary selection of nibbles that Starbucks sold for her dearly beloved teacher.

Betty got home with that smug feeling of feeling wanted that buoyed her spirits, and that full feeling of feeling full that weighed her stomach down, thanks to her impressive snacking. No more snacks for Betty, she rationalised as she opened the door to the smell of sausage rolls.

“I thought you might be hungry after work?” Zara said innocently, drawing up to her sister with a plate of sausage rolls and chicken and mushroom bakes in one hand, and a Bellini cocktail in the other. And Betty wasn’t about to get in the habit of turning down food. And by the time Monday was over, the girls staggered to their sofa or bed respectively having overindulged all of their Epicurean whims.

Tuesday continued in much the same fashion for a feisty female fun-seekers. Work for Betty was boring, but alleviated by teaching some ogling students with their raging teenage hormones what a real woman looked like whilst actually teaching them about Relevance Theory. Zara had suggested that Betty also take some biscuits in with her to work, so she can snack during the day, and this habit helped speed the day along nicely.

Back at Betty’s place in the meantime, and Zara was finally cleaning Betty’s place up for good. While she had done a reasonable job before the term started, it really was only cleaned at a superficial level, and she had also accrued an impressively wide range of junk in the meantime thanks to her habit of only ordering in ever. While hauling out the trash, Zara was also introduced to a lovely old woman who lived next door called Maureen. She was really nice but apparently a little confused because she thought they had met before. Zara played along with it not wanting to upset the clearly senile old dear.

“You’ve lost some weight since I last saw you, I’m very impressed” Maureen complimented, which is a strange thing to say to someone you’ve never met before. “You’ll be getting as thin as Betty at this rate!”

So yeah, clearly confused since Betty was 25lbs heavier and a lot of Zara’s weight was muscle and tone.

 

“So what did you say to her?” Betty asked with a big smile on her face, as she ate the Cornish pasty and drank the negroni that Zara had waiting for her as she came in.

“What could I say apart from thanks? I’ve never seen the woman before and she thinks we have a whole backstory” Zara chuckled.

“Ah, that might be my fault, come to think of it. Last time she saw me, I was… um… a bit bigger than the time before. So she thought I must have been my older sister, and I didn’t want to tell her otherwise. So, the time she met you before, it was actually me” Betty confessed, not proud of this.

“Well she congratulated me on being so much thinner than before, haha! She said I will be as thin as you one day” The two girls laugh at their misdirection and the harmless consequences of it. And they chatted and joked and drank and ate until the early hours of the morning. Every moment in one another’s company was one of the best moment’s of their lives. Not only were they together at last, but they could just be themselves away from the oppressive rule of their wealthy but pious parents.

Wednesday’s most remarkable moment came later on in the day when the Skinny meal was delivered for Betty and the donner and chips for Zara. The reason for this was that the courier was a guy with an unusual first name. You don’t get many people called Remus.

“Zara, you know I love you, but could you go into another room for, say twenty minutes should probably do it.” Betty said, before looking back at the besotted hunk with the hot food.

“Wait, who’s the hot friend?” Remus asked cheekily.

“Hey, my name’s Zara, but my friends call me Z. You can call me Zara” she said sassily, whilst eyeing him up. “Hey Bel, can I have a turn after you with Mr Hunky over here?”

Zara asked this question without expecting the answer to be yes. The answer, however, was yes.

First, Remus toppled Betty on the sofa while Zara left the room to give them space. He loved Betty hen she was still dressed in her work gear, all made up and stylish. He’d run his hand down her side and be in awe of her beauty. Then he’d pound her aggressively while she scratch his face with her claws. He’d stare fixedly on her fair face as she’d wrap her legs around his and groan. Each time with her was always Betty than the last, like she was getting better as she was getting bigger. He gasped as he climaxed, his breathing turning irregular and his muscles contracting, before rolling onto the floor in satisfaction.

“Hey Zara, give him ten minutes, for recovery. He’s pretty well spent. And then he’s all yours” she said, enjoying the power of having a sister in the house.

“Wait, you were being serious? Me? With your sister too?” Remus looked confused, panicked and a little hopeful.

“Yeah, why not? I love my sister and I want her to be happy, and you’re good at that. Really good at that. And besides, it’s not like we’re monogamous are we?” Betty said charmingly, and Remus nodded. Except, Remus hadn’t even looked at another woman since those nights with Betty. She filled his thoughts every time that they weren’t preoccupied elsewhere. It was like she was his screensaver, and every time he wasn’t doing something, her image would pop up in his brain. But he couldn’t tell her that, she insisted that they could see other people and he didn’t want to make it weird by not. So Betty’s sister it was.

It helped that she looked a lot like Betty. She had the same wide eyes, though they perhaps weren’t as soft and kind. She had the same big smile, though again it wasn’t as goofily charming. She had the same dark hair, only this time it was stylishly cropped. Zara also had other things going for her, things that Betty couldn’t even claim. Like actual breasts, real weighty breasts that would swing when she turned around. And, though he didn’t like to admit this, he liked the fact that she was thinner. His fixation on Betty was in spite of her size, but Zara was curvy in the best way possible with a cute bouncy little bum and a firm and not too thick waist. And she was also a wild ride, feral and bucking as he tried to tame her undomesticated streak. She was a great time and a delightful lay and he couldn’t have had sex with a better substitute for Betty if he had looked for one. Unfortunately he couldn’t stay for long, he was still working and he couldn’t afford to write off an entire evening boning the Bollingbrooke family tree.

“Well, he was nice, I see the appeal. You’ve done well sis!” Zara said, pouring another Negroni for the pair of them as they began their dinner.

“Yeah, he’s cute isn’t he?” Betty agreed.

“And thanks for sharing. We really are good sisters aren’t we?” Zara said with her mouth full of chips and kebab meat.

“Yup, we really are” Betty agreed, her mouth full of the same stuff.

 

Betty went into work on Thursday humming, despite the niggling hangover from the cocktail party that the two girls had indulged in at their house. She had never felt happier, more content, and more at home than now her sister was here too. This… this was the good life. And it only got better when Lionel walked past and didn’t make a yearning comment about her arse. Maybe he was distracted, maybe he was ogling students instead. But maybe Betty was starting to reach Lionel’s weight upper threshold and soon the sexual harassment would abate. Betty could see clearly now the clouds were gone, and Lionel was the only obstacle in her way. It wouldn’t be too much longer before she was free of that filthy man’s Sauron gaze. Which reminded her, she should probably get a snack for the next lesson. Lionel turned back to check out Betty for a second time as she bent down to reach the two Yorkie bars and the Snickers bar from the vending machine, and his heart sunk at her thickened waist and broadened backside. She was still gorgeous but she was going the way of Leona, and going there fast. Betty spotted the faded lust on his face from the corner of his eye and had to restrain herself not to skip down the corridor in glee. Instead she ate chocolate bar number 1.

Another spark to Betty’s mood was knowing that Leona would be coming around later that day, to meet her sister for the first time. Things had been gradually restoring back to their natural rhythms with one another, Leona now felt sufficiently comfortable back in Betty’s presence that she could be her normal snarky self, and Betty felt sufficiently comfortable that she could laugh at the aforesaid snark.

The teachers decided to go home together, although that did mean that they would have to catch the bus as opposed to walking since Leona wasn’t really a walker any more. Turns out, she wasn’t great at getting on buses either. The gangway was too narrow for her to squeeze through, no matter how she contorted her body to get by, so the kind gentleman on the first row of seats sacrificed his spot for a seat further back, so Leona could sit down. She filled the chair generously, her awe-inspiring arse rippled outwards across the whole seat and close to the gangway. She could feel the repulsion and condescending looks lasering into the back of her head as she shuffled to get herself comfortable. Betty sat on the seat behind her since there was nowhere for her to sit next to her.

As the got off the bus and walked down the garden path, Betty let Leona waddle first so she could have a good look at her best friend’s size from behind. Her shoulders seemed wide with fat and you could see the indent on them from the pull of the bra. From behind she could also see the width of her back that squeezed against the frame of the flowing dark dress decorated with white spots. Her chest and waist were at the same width, not tapering in at any point, but the surface wasn’t smooth but undulating with rolls and creases and fatty desposits. Leading down to her famed arse and Betty could see why Leona had issues on the bus. There comes a point where width doesn’t feel like the right word to describe it. You wouldn’t describe the Sahara as wide, or the horizon as wide. Her arse was like a David Lean landscape, spread out that you felt required to pan to the side to capture it all. Even in her flowing dress, she could see each cheek jump up and down with every step, with the down yanking against the tired skin that stretched to encompass it. Below that were her legs, only half on display thanks to her choosing a dress that fit and was long enough, but you could see how her calves didn’t carry shape any more. The idea that there was bone strong enough to carry the rest of there, somehow buried underneath the inverted Christmas tree shape of her calves seemed improbable.

Zara got a look at Leona from the front when she opened the door, and the jaw dropping to the floor cartoonishly made for a poor poker face.

“Oh, so I take it Betty didn’t forewarn you about my size then. Yes, yes, take a look, I’m a somewhat hefty girl, though I like to think I carry it well.”

Zara nodded without saying a word, inviting Leona in as she squeezed past the door frame. Betty followed her with a big cheesy grin on her face.

“Amazing isn’t she?” Betty whispered to her girlfriend. “One day I’ll have to show you her girlfriend, she’s even bigger. And don’t even get me started on Rutherford”

Leona may have dominated the two-seater sofa, but she didn’t dominate the conversation. She seemed happy to let Zara, who was a chatterbox when she got going, to do the heavy lifting in the conversation and just nodded and listened to her tales of woe.

“And it’s great living with Betty because I get to loosen up my diet” Zara said, glancing affectionately at her sister. “I’ve gained 4lbs just this week. That will take months for me to lose haha”

“Don’t talk to me about dieting! Me and Wicky have vowed to start next week, and we’ve been having to work through all the junk food lying about the place ready for it, and oh, my, god, has it been filling. I’ve never eaten so much in my life in my bid to diet. It’s just been non-stop, I’ve been eating like Rutherford I swear!” Leona exasperatedly sighed.

“But it’s wonderful that you’re going ahead with the diet” Betty said, warmly. “How much you trying to lose?”

“Yeah, well we need to weigh ourselves first. I’m not looking forward to that, I can tell you. Especially after this week, but it’s a final hurrah before we get out shit together I suppose” Leona considered.

“You mean, like, a free hit?” Betty teased.

“Fuck off, I never want to hear those words again. Those words are what got us into this mess. Anyway, talking of weight, how are you doing? Still gaining?” Leona redirected the conversation, her cheeks were getting red with embarrassment… as were the cheeks on her mouth.

“Well, here’s the exciting news. Lionel seems to be losing interest a bit. So I’m on the home stretch I reckon, one final kick and I’m there at the finishing line. So it’s definitely working, I’ll keep going for a bit more and then ease off. I’m not too worried about stopping too fast because he’s the only one who seems to have lost interest. I may be drinking too much milkshake, but the boys are still coming to the yard!” Betty howled at her own joke and Leona and Zara chuckled lightly too. It was just a delight to see Betty in such high spirits from Zara’s perspective, and it was great to see Betty so confident from Leona’s perspective.

“Anyway, when are we eating peeps?” Leona asked, patting her thighs as she did.

“I can order now if you like, I just hope it isn’t Remus who delivers. I’m not sure he could cope with three of us” Betty squawked a hearty laugh once more.

“Yeah, I’m really curious to see what Leona orders. Is she capable of eating two?” Zara asked, feeling at home with Leona’s size now, after the initial shock.

“Oh girlfriend, you have no idea. I was thinking of ordering three and then your skinny ass can help me with one and I’ll do the other two myself.” Leona gloated about her glutting.

It wasn’t Remus who delivered thankfully, but it was one of the old-school couriers who had seen the Betty transformation. However, he was taken aback by the size of the order and taken aback to see two girls answer the door instead of one. Zara and Betty stood in front of him with matching cheesy smiles to receive the large delivery of four Skinny meals. They looked like a before and after shot, Zara an old photo of how hot Betty used to look, compared to her current incarnation. That said, Betty looked better than he’d seen in a while too, in her trusty blouse, jacket, pencil skirt and tights combo and with rubious red lips. The courier had to tear himself away from the door to get back on his rounds.

Betty was the first to finish her meal, stretching her arms in customary satisfaction of job completion. She then looked to see what was crackalackin’ with the other two. Well Leona was living up to her size by getting close to finishing her second, while Zara was living up to her size by barely making an inroad into hers. She just seemed outmatched and outgunned by its enormity and each bite she took didn’t seem to result in any progress. It was like Thor’s drinking goblet, refilling itself when she wasn’t looking. So Betty thought she’d help out her sister too until Leona was ready to join in. And when all three did join in, the food vanished into the famished girls like it was the receding of the tide.

“Wow, I’m disappointed by your showing Zara, but fuck me Betz that was impressive on your part. You ate nearly one and a half in one sitting. That’s a big girl appetite you seem to be in possession of these days. Good for you!” Leona congratulated.

Betty bowed while the other too jokingly clapped at the show she put on.

“Well, since I was the champion and you let the team down Z, could you be the one to get the ice creams out?” Betty asked, mocking her sister but somehow doing so politely.

“Wait, we’re having dessert after all that?!?!”

 

Friday was frustratingly the worst day of the week, workwise. Back-to-back classes through her lunch break and an increased chance of seeing Lionel since he taught in nearby rooms to hers. Fortunately, Lionel wasn’t quite his demonically deviant self in her company this time. And, weirdly given that this was the consequence of her being heavier, Betty felt lighter. He was still there with his shifty eyes glancing at her and evaluating, but it was quieter and easier to ignore now. Her size 14 figure was finally deterring him. If that didn’t deserve a celebratory Double Decker chocolate bar, then she didn’t know what did.

None of her students had seemed to cotton on to her cotton candy consumption, at least not to her face. There was a brief conversation between two female students after the lesson joking about her padded protrusions, but she still looked drop-dead stunning in her slimwear and size 14s. She could still turn the male students legs from concrete into jelly and their dicks from jelly into concrete with just a lingering glance. Her previous self was a shadow to who she was now, and her confidence bridged any gap that may have come from those pesky piled-on pounds.

Once she got back home, with a spring in her step for the weekend and for ridding herself of Lionel and most of all for getting to spend the weekend with her sister, she could hear the deep fat fryer bubbling. This was a good sound into which to walk back into the house.

“You’re here! Great! Guess what I’ve got rustling up for you?” Zara cheered at the sound of her sister’s arrival. “Ta-da!”

Battered Mars bars, oh what a surprise. Betty feigned unexpected delight at the offering.

“This, sister, is a famously unhealthy meal. You’ll love it!” Zara said, oblivious to the frequency that Betty had eaten such food.

“Oh wow, what a great idea Z!” Betty said with typical sincerity, before pretending to be surprised by the taste and texture of the calorific substance put before her. “Wow, this is much nicer than I would have thought.”

“You’ve had these before haven’t you?” Zara said, arms crossed. Betty shrugged innocently back at her. Zara rolled her eyes in anger and walked off into the lounge, slamming the door on the way.

“Hey Z, what’s up?” Betty asked, unnerved by Zara’s sudden shift in mood, whilst opening the door and following her in.

“I’m going home tomorrow!” She shouted aggressively.

Betty’s face dropped as soon as Zara said the words. The colour drained from her cheeks and all the happiness and joy that she had been bathing in over the past week disappeared up the extractor fan. She had never been as happy as the past week and, all of a sudden it was being torn away from her again. Every time things started looking up, they fell back down again. Every time God opened a window, Betty found out it’s because he closed a door.

“Why?” Betty stammered out in shock.

“Because my parents are looking for me” Zara said, refusing to make eye-contact with her sister.

“Well, screw them. Stay here with me!”

“They’re looking for me, and if they find me, they’ll find you. You’re the sister that got away Bel, and I can’t face the thought of you having to see them again. I’ll be fine, I don’t give a fuck, but you always gave a fuck Bel. That’s what you did, that was your shtick. You give a fuck Bel, it’s your best trait, but it means that they’ll crush you if they see you and I can’t have that on my conscience. I love you too much!” Zara started crying as she diverted her averted eyes onto her similarly tearsome sister.

“They won’t find us...” Betty whispered back, her voice fleeing the scene and leaving her hoarse.

“Of course they will, where else could I have gone. And I found you so will they. I can take it Bel, I can take their nastiness and their bitterness. But you can’t. You’re a snowflake, and I don’t mean that in a bad way, because snowflakes are beautiful. And I need to protect my beautiful snowflake sister” Zara got up and gave her sister a hug as tight as the first one when the met last week.

“But I don’t want to lose you again” Betty and Zara’s eyes stared into one another’s with heavy-hearts.

“Oh Betty, you went ever lose me. We’re sisters forever, whatever. Remember that” Zara said, trying to rally her sister but struggling to rally herself.

The girls then just sat in silence, allowing their thoughts to percolate. Betty had to digest the out-of-the-blue revelation that her sister was not only leaving her, but returning to the emotional war-zone that was living on her parent’s land. It was one thing to lose her sister so soon after finding her again, but to do so knowing that Zara would instead be suffering the cruel bludgeoning of blunt comments. Parents who thought the 11^th Commandment was “be a dick to thy children”.

“When are you going back?” Betty sniffled, her heart heavy with guilt.

“Tomorrow, I’ve already text them so they let the search and rescue party go home. I just wanted our last evening to be special, and I thought this would make such a great surprise if you had battered Mars bars, and now I discover it’s all old hat to you” Zara admitted, her head hanging in shame. “I just wanted one final push to see how much fatter I could get you in one day”

“Go on then, Z. Do your worst. Let’s go out with a bang. I’m just going to get changed into something more comfortable. Like last week’s polo shirt and some jeggings So you can see the damage in real time?” Betty said, clambering for some optimism to hold onto on such a sad day and drawing on energy that had been zapped from her by the bad news. “Those battered Mars bars were nice?”

 

Betty was dressed down in her slobbiest clothes and sitting on the sofa while her sister threw food in her direction. Sausage rolls and pasties and mini quiches were piled onto a plate and taken through to Betty who committedly consumed the lot. Then came the Negronis and the wine, a dangerous concoction of drinks that Betty had every intention of submitting to. Zara looked at her sister with a rueful smile as she finished another glass of wine and then popped a steak slice into her mouth.

“I was thinking Z, since this is your last day, do you want to share a Skinny meal together? Like yesterday, only without Leona” Betty asked cordially.

“But you can eat a whole one by yourself?” Zara asked, desperate to go out swinging.

“Exactly, I’ll have a whole one and then we’ll share a second. And maybe ask Remus to deliver it for one final hurrah. How does that grab you?” Betty asked, eating a mini quiche and drinking another cocktail.

“Why the fuck not?” Zara replied, trying to summon up happy thoughts so as not to ruin their last evening together, and not think about tomorrow and the consequences that would entail.

Remus sauntered up to the door of the Bollingbrooke residence and knocked, without any clue as to what to expect. He hoped for two sisters, but in all honesty anything other than a snub would leave him a happy man. He got two sisters, and so so much for.

After that, the sisters ate their meals. Or rather Betty ate her meal and Zara started hers. Betty could remember back to when she first started eating these, and she could only eat a quarter, so Leona would have to eat the rest after eating all of hers. Betty was now the Leona of this situation, and Zara was Betty, picking at her food without any direction or methodology. When Betty finished hers, she showed the elder sister how it was done.

Betty was leaning back on the sofa, stuffed to the gills when Zara came in with more food – US style donuts.

“I can’t eat another thing, I’m sorry Zara but I think I’ve finally done it, I’ve finally stuffed myself beyond capacity” Betty groaned, gripping her taut stomach tightly.

“It’s okay Bel, I’ll feed you these for you if you like?” Zara said politely.

“Oh hell no Z. Oh god, you have no idea… being fed is a… umm… like, it’s a fetish thing. Like, it’s sexy or whatnot. I really don’t want to have that kind of sexiness shared with my sister, sorry!” Betty apologised, before groaning from being so full.

“Wait, what!??” Zara exclaimed.

“Oh yeah, there’s this girl. Minnie Charnwood, and she does it and… my god is it sexy. She strips and she feeds you and she drags her nail across your skin and… well, it’s not really a sisterly experience is all” Betty explained.

Zara laughed. She loved her sister, and all her goofy weirdness, but this was the weirdest yet. She was going to miss laughing at her sister’s weird goofiness. She was going to miss laughing, full stop.

“Fine, but you better eat them yourself then sis. I want these gone. And I’ll go grab the scales and see if you’ve gained the two pounds that make you officially overweight. I hope you have, it will be a fine parting gift. To know you’re out here living your best life, Belinda Bollingbrooke being blinking overweight and utterly carefree. Deal?” Zara asked, to see Betty eating the second donut and nodding.

By the time the scales had been brought down, Betty was on the seventh donut and chewing as fast as she could. Zara decided to give her sister more time by weighing herself and seeing what damage had made its way onto her body over the past week. It wasn’t the same with her as it was with Betty, she hadn’t been pursuing overindulgence and she also knew that she would have to burn it off again when she went back. It was hypocritical given the size of her father, but maybe that’s why mum was cheating on him with Tim 3, who was an absolute wankstain of a human being but truthfully a rather dapper fella.

134lbs

She’s gained 4lbs over the course of one swirling hedonistic binge of indulgence of a week, and that didn’t sound to bad given the company she was keeping. She could see the slight softness in her tight gym clothes that she was never out of, her waist thickening out and her thighs softening a smidge. It was something she could fix in two or three weeks of hard work, but she wasn’t looking forward to the snipey comments in the meantime.

Betty was now on the tenth donut and chewing exaggeratedly to get the food in her mouth soft enough to swallow. She was two away from her endgame and she could do it, she just needed to keep chewing. Think of Lionel. Think of the upturn of his lip when he saw you bending over at the vending machine. How his licking lips turned into a snarl of disapproval. Now imagine him watching you now, eating donuts literally by the dozen. The tenth donut was down and Betty saw her sister waiting, so she squished eleven into her mouth and focused her mind. Focused on Lionel shaking his head at how she’d let herself go. Oh she used to be so pretty, now she’s growing like Leona did. Focus on her parents and the looks on their faces. Eleventh donut now down, time for one final push. Focus on Tim 3, with her mother, seeing Betty eat like this, dressed like this, weighing this much. The girl who was never thin enough was now looking like this. Yeah? Yeah Tim? Disappoint you much? And the twelfth donut disappeared too.

“Bravo sis, you’ve done me proud. Now let’s see if we got you up to 157lbs and officially overweight”

Betty exhaled her breath and tried to decide what she was hoping for. I mean, was she really hoping to be overweight? Actually overweight? It made the weight gain, the way that she’d been living, the way that she’d been eating oh so very real. But, she did, didn’t she? She wanted this. This was what she wanted. A screw you to Lionel, to Tim 3, to mum and dad, to gender expectations, to Leona who thought she couldn’t do it, to Maureen who thought Betty would always stay thin, to Remus for liking her this size despite himself, to Minnie for liking her growing but insisting on staying with Rutherford, to Wiktoria who considered herself a fashionista but was probably thrice her size, to her doubters, to the leering students, and most of all to herself for allowing herself to be defined as something that she didn’t like. A screw you to everyone. No, Betty wanted this. This was most definitely what Betty wanted. Betty Bollingbrooke, a 27 year old professor at Brighton Univeristy, wanted to be overweight. So she stepped on.

161lbs.

It looked like Betty Bollingbrooke got her wish. Betty Bollingbrooke, a 27 year old professor at Brighton University was overweight. So she stepped off.

Zara could see why the BMI chart labelled her thus. The evidence was spread thickly all over Betty’s bloated body. Zara could remember freshly how angular Betty’s face once was, and how sharply her cheekbones made themselves known to anybody who saw her. Betty’s face as softer now, her cheeks were more rounded and her chin more gently gradiated to her neck in contrast to the stark stack of stony bony ebony that it once was. Her torso was theoretically concealed beneath a green polo shirt, but there was as much uncovered as there was otherwise. Her chest, still a-cups, now matter how much Betty ate, were covered. Her stomach, however, was not so covered. It was packed to the rafters with grub and pushing outwards from her abdomen with abandon. It didn’t stoop downwards, it didn’t stick out enough although 4 inches might be considered enough in some people’s eyes, but it did wobble when touched though it strained tight when untouched. If she kept her spine completely straight, her sides seemed soft and contoured, but if she tilted sideways in either direction just a little, then little rolls would curl up on the condensing side. The underside of her stomach had soft red jagged teeth reaching upwards, denoting stretch-marks from her rapid ascent in weight and size. They forked form her widened hips, soft and pillowy as she brushed past things whilst unaccustomed to her newfound plenty. Her arse behind her also had newfound plenty, of which plenty could be seen encased in the tight jeggings that wrapped over her squishy buttocks like purple cling-film. Still going down, her thighs were now as inseparable to one another as the sisters wished they were, lightly grazing each other at the top part of her thighs. The rest of her legs were still substantial things made of a congregation of fatty lipids straggling her legs to add avoirdupois. All of which left her looking thicker than a snicker.

“Wow, Bel, you’ve really done it. I’m so motherfucking proud of you girl!” Zara threw herself at her sister and strangled her with a sisterly hug.

“Do I look good?”

“You look like a fucking survivor Bel. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. You look like a warrior!” she said, holding in the tears this time.

“You know, it’s only 9.30pm. We still have time to get truly smashed before you go” Betty offered as a consolation prize to Zara, who was hugging her sister like this was goodbye.

“You’re right Bel, let’s get fucking shitfaced” Zara said, heading to the kitchen. “You know a gin fizz is a cocktail that contains actual heavy cream. It’s basically a boozy milkshake”

“Ooo, that sounds good” Betty said, the thought of a boozy milkshake sounded like it killed two birds with one calorific stone.

“Well, come watch how I make it and then you can make yourself them when I’ve gone.” Zara offered kindly, employing some longitudinal thinking.

“Only if I can drink wine while you do it. Like I say, I wanna get really really drunk if this is my last night with you for a while” Betty said, already grabbing the bottle and pouring herself some more, before knocking it back like it was water.

“Good idea, and I will still come up to visit you Bel. Just not for a week at a time, that’s all. And hey, don’t drink all the wine in the house, I wanna get shit-faced too you know!” Zara exclaimed as she saw Betty knock back a second glass of wine and then pour herself a third.

 

A couple of hours later, and Betty was outside in her back garden with a gin fizz in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, while her sister had a smoke.

“You know, your garden needs tending” Zara said, pointing at the overgrown nature of Betty’s backyard.

“Hahahaha, guess what? It’s not the only garden of mine that needs tending!” Betty said, a little loudly for the time of night, in a built up area while outside. Betty had managed to get herself impressively drunk in a very short period of time. Zara wondered if it was just her failure to deal with her departure, but she’d also seen how much Betty could drink from her evenings with her so maybe it was just in Betty’s nature these days.

“Hey Z, can I have a smoke?” Betty said, clumsily putting down her wine glass on the floor.

“No Bel, it’s an awful habit, I wish I didn’t have it” Zara protected her sister.

“Go on, I wanna be more like you. Like a bad girl. It’ll bring us closer together while we’re apart.” Betty whinged, stamping her feet uncoordiantedly. Zara rolled her eyes and let her have a drag of the cigarette she’d started. She then burst into laughter as Betty burst into a coughing fit.

“Oh Betty, this shit takes practice. Everybody does that on their first go. Here, start one from scratch.” she offered Betty a fresh cigarette and a lighter so Betty could have another go. Betty tried to stifle another cough and to conceal the look of disgust on her face.

“This is disgusting Z, why do you do it?” Betty said, trying to look cool with it and failing.

“Because I’m addicted to it. A bit like you are with food.” Zara retorted.

“I’m not addicted to food. And if I was, I’d just eat cold turkey hahaha” Betty bellowed heartily accidentally allowing the cigarette to fall from her mouth. She quickly bent down to pick it up when her jeggings tore around the arse. Betty put the cigarette in her mouth none the wiser, without a scooby doo why Zara was in creases and looking at Betty’s bare bum.

“Hey Bel, just to let you know, I’ll be gone before you get up tomorrow. But I’ve loved every moment of this, and if I ever get down, I’ll think of you bending down drunkenly to pick up a cigarette off the floor, and your jeggings ripping around your arse.” Zara said, sorta sincerely.

“My jeggings ripped?” Betty said, trying to crane her own neck around to see her own arse and failing, but nearly losing balance and tumbling in the process.

“Now drink up sis, and I’ll warm up some sausage rolls for you to nibble on while you drink” Zara said. And this was the last thing that Betty remembered from that night before the alcohol took its toll.

[swahilimonkfish]

A bit darker this chapter as Betty deals with a post-Zara world

Chapter 15

 

Betty didn’t want to get up on the Saturday morning, and it wasn’t just because of the monumental hangover forming like stormclouds over her. No, it’s because she was back to being alone again after a brief respite that she had spent with her sister. A sister who was probably currently being scolded for ‘being irresponsible, and bringing the Bollingbrooke name into disrepute’, since that was the stock criticism for those snobby so-and-so’s. Betty’s faced ached in contortions of despondence as she recognised that poor Zara was going through all of that to protect her. To give her the chance to be happy. So why was Betty so sad?

She looked around for her bedside bodkin, to consider running it softly along her forearm vein and press as harshly as she could without doing anything irreparable. But this was made difficult by the fact that she was in her garden outside. And judging from the amount of debris strewn across the miniature jungle out back, she had spent a lot of the evening out here, enjoying herself somewhat. This would also explain why she was so goddamn cold.

She gingerly arose and staggered towards the back door with her arms fervently circumnavigating herself to keep her warm from the bracing October conditions. She walked past the ghosts of last night’s two-woman party, with wine glasses and cocktail glasses hidden in the long vines of grass of her back garden. Once she heaved herself indoors, the mess didn’t relent. And everything reminded her of Zara. The cocktail shaker on the side, the sausage roll packet on the floor, the ashtray on the arm of the sofa. All mementos of Zara’s vitality in this temporary shrine to her. Betty missed her already.

Betty began her ritual of ordering her traditional breakfast takeaway, but it brought her no joy. She ate it quickly enough, but her eyes were glazed over as her mind ran through yesterday again and again, trying to justify Zara staying. But it was too late for that now, so Betty just continued eating, soullessly.

And drinking. After the meal was gone, Betty decided to drink herself silly to take her mind off her feeling of emptiness despite her full stomach. She found a half-drunk bottle of wine and picked it up by the neck of the bottle and drank from it direct. It tasted like yesterday, and Betty missed yesterday. It was fairly early by Betty’s standards, she had been woken up by the bright light and cold autumn weather that you experience firsthand when you sleep outside, and at 9.30am her body has still recovering from the day before. And this recovery and bodily digestion of alcohol was being interrupted by the further consumption of alcohol, meaning that, after Betty finished the wine and started drinking the cointreau neat she was already pretty drunk. The 40% proof liqueur was going down nicely, and dimming the dark dangers of her deteriorating emotional state.

Betty then sat down listlessly in the kitchen on a wet patch that she hoped was spilt booze, and began eating a tray of sausage rolls that were beside her. Sausage rolls that Zara would have made her. Zara that was no longer here. Zara that will be in the torrid throes of family reunion. Zara that sacrificed this abuse for Betty. Betty that didn’t deserve such sacrifice. She took another swig of cointreau and chowed down on more sausage rolls, uncaring as to the sleet of crumbs falling from them and onto her stomach as she ploughed through them vacantly. This flake-covered stomach was resting on the lip of her jeggings, jeggings with a gaping rip along the arse that Betty had plonked onto a puddle of spilt drink, and surging out on top of it in a fullness that Betty was doubling down on.

After a while, Betty summoned up from her depleted reservoir the energy to get up. She staggered to her feet, gravity disorienting her by roaming about her person, and not remaining static in the way that it does for sober people, and decided to clear up the mess of her flat and purge the place of Zara memorabilia. First stop – the garden, where she apparently left half a brewery’s worth of drinking vessels sprawled amongst the waist-high grass. She clumsily tried to wade through, picking up a cocktail glass here and a wine glass there. There were cigarette stubs out there too and she picked them up as well and put them in one of the glasses to take them back. The smell of nicotine reminded her of Zara, standing out here regardless of the weather for a hasty smoke while Betty would be finishing her Skinny meal. It brought a wry smile to Betty’s sullen face.

She walked back, careful not to tumble amongst the tall blades of grass, until suddenly a searing pain ran up her spine from her foot.

Jesus Christ!

She hopped to the back door to get herself inside and find out what was the cause of this excruciating pain pulsing from her left foot. She hopped into the kitchen and sat herself back down to see what was going on. She pulled her foot towards herself, calling on her former flexibility to look at her sole while her stomach bunched up as she looked. The sole of her foot was in tatters, ravaged by sharp blades of glass from, presumably a wine glass that she had missed out there and then proceeded to stand on, on her way back. Blood throbbed from the cut up skin on the base of her foot and ran down all over the kitchen’s lino floor, pooling in front of her. Betty looked at the beeline that she had made to get to the kitchen and there was a trail of crimson detailing the path she had taken. She didn’t know what to do to get the bleeding to stop, it seemed to be draining from her quite quickly. In sheer panic at what to do next, she grabbed her mobile and dialled 111.

Down the phone, she explained her predicament. Bleeding badly, unable to walk, glass still lodged in the wound. The person on the other end listened and advised that they would be sending an ambulance to her, but it might take a while as she was non-emergency. Maybe an hour or two. Betty put the phone down and sighed. She sighed in guilt, she sighed in worry, she sighed in embarrassment, she sighed in relief. She just had to sit there and wait, and whatever she does, don’t try to walk on it. Which was fine to Betty, she had no intention of walking anywhere anyway.

To kill the time until the ambulance came to pick her up to look at her scarred foot, she looked around for something to occupy her. And she only knew of two activities that can kill time whilst sitting on the kitchen floor: the past-times of eating and drinking. She reached up to the kitchen counter and pulled the bottle of cointreau towards her and began drinking that, hoping that the alcohol would numb the pain. She considered pouring some of it on her wound to disinfect it, but it would be a waste of an expensive bottle of liqueur and she’d be much better off drinking it instead, she reasoned. As for food, well the chocolate cupboard must be in one of the cupboards down here. Aha, Betty thought to herself as she opened one to find a cupboard stuffed to the brim with cacao infused bars of deliciousness. Zara must have gone shopping yesterday for it to be so full. Oh, how Zara would laugh at Betty’s plight currently. But instead she will be dying against the raging light of her parents’ hairdryer treatment, coming fully face-to-face with their blowhard bullying. Betty started on a Yorkie bar and started to cry to herself on the kitchen floor.

It was around lunchtime when the paramedics arrived to take her to the hospital. They came through the unlocked front door, and walked through the hallway, past the living room and into the kitchen, where they were presented with a striking image. It looked like whaling season, smeared blood across the linoleum floor leading to engorged beast at the centre. Surrounding Betty was a spilt bottle of cointreau on its side, and a landfill mound of chocolate wrappers strewn to either side of the sodden centrepiece. Betty was asleep in the centre with her arm resting on her heaving stomach, knocked out from the booze, exhaustion and the blood loss.

The paramedics lifted her onto their stretcher and carried her to the back of the ambulance, where they investigated the condition of her foot. It didn’t look septic, but their was a lot of glass still in the wound, obscured by the blood that had begun to blister of the runny wound. This would need to be treated at the hospital. Betty only fully gained consciousness when she was offloaded onto a wheelchair and taken to the A+E, and they were taking her down to the waiting area to be treated. The wheelchair was so that it propped up the bloody foot to limit the steady haemorrhaging of haemoglobin. Upon regaining consciousness from her inebriated stupor, Betty felt a rush of self-consciousness at her physical state. Inflated like a balloon with her full stomach fully bare and only the minor bumps that constituted breasts stopping the polo shirt from riding up to her armpits. The rip in her jeggings had extended and was now reaching the upperside of her thigh, presented her swollen hairy legs to the masses at Brighton hospital. The jeggings were also damp with blood and liqueur and hugging every malformation of her chubbied up legs. Betty didn’t know what her face looked like, but she figured she wasn’t looked at her Mona Lisa best. She could feel the chocolate stains around her mouth and nauseously tried to like them off, and her hair was wet where she had fallen asleep next to the upturned bottle of cointreau, causing her to reek of alcohol. Slowly coming to, she attempted to roll down her polo top to cover a slither of her dignity.

“Hey, there she is. Looks like you had yourself a good night last night” came the words of a jovial nurse with a friendly face but a condescending tone.

“Or a really bad night” Betty sulked, whilst trying to maintain manners; which was harder to do with the sloshiness of her head topsy-turvying her thoughts.

“Oh, I see. We’ve all had nights like that, let me tell you. Well, I’m sure you’ll be seen to quickly, looks like you’ve hurt yourself good and proper my dear” she said, covering the drunk but not disorderly professor, before walking to the next patient.

“Sorry, nurse!” Betty cried out, paining herself to improve her posture as she did so.

“Yes my dear” the friendly face turned back to see the fidgeting woman. “What’s the matter?”

“Can you tell that I used to be pretty?” Betty said, before crying. “I used to be real pretty, you know?”

The friendly face looked kindly on Betty but didn’t offer a word of consolation. She couldn’t think of a word of consolation. After all, what was there to say?

 

Betty had clearly drifted off again, because when she came to, she was sitting in her wheelchair waiting in the outpatients section of the hospital, and her foot was in a bandage. She looked around for somebody to update her but there was nobody around. Eventually, a different friendly nurse face wandered up to her, holding up a series of papers. She didn’t seem startled by the unglamorous image of Betty so had presumably been to visit her earlier only to find her unconscious.

“So, you’ll be pleased to know there were no repercussions with the operation. The major laceration had to be sewn together, but the minor lacerations will just have to heal over time. All the glass has been removed from your foot, but pay close attention for any signs of infection and alert your GP immediately if you do. You won’t be able to walk on it for a bit, I have here a sicknote for one week, and then you’ll have to ask your GP about any further extension depending on your occupation. In a bit, the physio team will be around to give you a brief overview of how to operate your crutches, and there should be no reason for you not to get about. However, the first day can be difficult so we recommend that you have a friend or family member stay with you for the first night, and to pick you up from here. Do you have anybody who can do that for you?”

Betty started crying again, thinking of her sister once more. Her sister would have picked her up happily. Her sister would have looked after her. But now she was gone and it was all Betty’s fault. Here was the crux of Betty’s emotional state. Zara was suffering at the hands of her emotionally abusive parents and it was all Betty’s fault.

“Leona. I have a friend called Leona. She’ll pick me up and look after me” Betty squeezed out between sniffles.

“Well, if you give me her number, I’ll call her for you and her to pick you up. Oh, and here’s Team Physio!” the jolly nurse said, before conspiratorially whispering to Betty. “They think they’re real doctors but they aren’t!”

The lead physio was a real doctor and also a real douchebag. He had very little sympathy for the enwalrussed physical condition of Betty and was harshly cajoling her into exertion with the crutches. It seemed tricky at first, it seemed more intuitive to move the sticks with the leg swing than opposed to it, and it was also made tricky by the residual alcohol floating around in Betty’s bloodstream. But still the physio pressured her into doing it again and again until he had faith that Betty had sufficient mobility to get around. Getting her to climb stairs was a bit of a sticky point, her spinning head made heights feel like vertigo, but he kept pushing her and pushing her until she got to the standard required. Betty, for her part, while inebriated and in poor physical condition, was a deceptively hardy soul and never backed down or flaked in the same way that a weaker-willed woman might. She still had the drive of a marathon runner, it’s just that she had the body of a Marathon snacker.

 

Leona’s taxi pulled up at the hospital, and the large lady huffed as she pulled herself off the back seat and out of the cab. She waddled towards the hospital speedily shocked at the news she had heard over the phone. Betty had hurt herself, and needed stitches. She was on crutches, and she was still drunk. Leona was doing this not out of some weirdly misdirected lust for her colleague, but out of loyalty to her friend. Real friends are there for one another during the highs and the lows. Betty always made herself available over the course of last year, and all of the tumult that tormented the teacher. Betty seemed to be having a similarly tumultuous time of it and Leona was being given the chance to return the favour. So she was here for her friend, to take her home and to look after her as best she could.

When she saw Betty leaning on her crutches with one foot off the floor, her foot bandaged and stained with sanguineous hues of red, her heart drifted downwards a little. Betty looked in bad shape, and it wasn’t just as a result of the accident. Betty looked, in herself, in bad shape.

“Oh my god Betz, are you okay?” Leona said, waddling over to tightly hug the girl whose priority was to simply maintain her balance.

“Well, I’ve been worse” Betty said sanguinely, before opening up her heart a little. “But Z’s gone Leona. She’s gone home and it’s all my fault”

And, just like that, the waterworks opened, the dam burst and Betty cried oceans on Leona’s padded shoulder. Leona just hugged again and hugged tightly, before gesturing that it was time to walk back. And Betty slowly and cautiously used her crutches to make her way to the taxi waiting for them, with Leona waddling by her side, while Betty explained everything that had happened about Zara leaving to go back home to face the music and pay the piper. She explained where her head was at, with all the dark thoughts circling and clouding her positivity. She explained the state she had been, the drinking and the eating and the bleeding, she explained how lonely she was and how it was all her fault.

“But Betz, it isn’t your fault?” Leona said, confused at how the former willow-framed teacher had somehow mixed up her thought processes enough to level the blame at her own doorstep. “She came to you because you were the only safe haven for her. And you were the only safe haven for her because you escaped your parents. And then she went back, so you could remain a safe haven for her. You weren’t the reason she went back to her parents, you were the reason she left them. You haven’t subjugated her to three years of misery, you offered her one week of peace. Stop blaming yourself Betz, seriously. It’s unfeminist and I thought I taught you better.”

The words were a cool balm on the exposed wound on Betty’s heart. Leona always knew the things to say, she could see things beyond the prism of partiality and would never mince her words when expressing this less-clouded view. They each slowly navigated their way back to the taxi. Fortunately it was a multi-seater taxicab, so Leona could take two seats to cater to her width, and Betty could take two seats, so her mangled leg could rest on the other. And the taxi took them back to Betty’s place.

“Come on Betz, let’s get you out of this thing and back into your house. And, how about I clean up your place and you lie on the sofa. Maybe we’ll order a couple of Skinny meals, how about that? Yeah? See the thought of kebabmeat always did put a smile on your face” Leona said, encouraging the other teacher into the house as she worked out the logistics of getting herself out of the taxi with her crutches by her side.

“Thanks Leona. I appreciate it. All of it. I mean it, I really do” Betty said meekly, her confidence in tatters and her heart still reminiscing over the week with her sister. She hobbled into her apartment and cringed as she saw the state of it. Whatever happened after she got so blackout drunk, Lord alone knows, but she clearly left a trail of destruction behind her when she did.

Leona went and got straight on the blower and ordered two of Ahmed’s finest Skinny meals, and then set about rounding up all the flotsam and jetsam littered around the place and getting it into a black bin liner while Betty lowered herself carefully onto the sofa and positioned herself with her bad foot on the arm of the sofa in order to keep it above head height. Leona cleaning was quite a sight, she was hustling and bustling and busting her not inconsiderably sized gut to get the place spick and span, while Betty lay on the sofa trying to organise her jumbled thoughts.

“There you go, that’ll do for now. So, what I’ll do is I’ll stay the night tonight...”

“No Leona you don’t have to...” Betty forlornly tried to interrupt Leona.

“I’ll stay the night tonight, I’ll probably take the bed and leave you down here. And then I’ll go to work tomorrow once you’re all set up, and I’ll take the sick-note into Lionel. Okay?” Leona continued.

“Really? You’ll do that for me?” Betty asked, her eyes widening to almost animé proportions.

“Of course Betz. You’re my best friend. I’ll take today’s shift, and then what we’ll do is get the other musketeers to come over each afternoon and check you’re okay” Leona said with steely conviction. She wasn’t going to let Betty down, she was going to be there when her best friend needed her the most.

“You’re my best friend too Leona” Betty said with a weak smile.

It was at that point that the door knocker beat against the door to signal that food was here. Leona walked over to the door to grab it. Remus was surprised to see it wasn’t Betty or her sister who opened it, and was even more surprised about the size of the lady who did. He simply didn’t know where to look, there was just so much of her that wherever he turned his head, there seemed to be some of her there too.

“Is… are you another sister of Betty’s?” he stuttered, flummoxed by the flab before him.

“Haha, no, just a good friend. She’s not feeling too good at the minute...” Leona said, before the epiphany hit her. “Wait, are you Remus? The sexy courier who Betty occasionally shags?”

“Betty says I’m sexy? And yeah, I am. Is she okay? You said she’s not too good?” Remus said, concerned about his fuck buddy in a more sincere way than anybody should be about someone who is only their fuck buddy.

“Yeah, just stood on some glass, the daft tart. She’ll be up on her feet in no time, but she’s not really in a condition for a quickie at the mo Rasputin” Leona said sternly, like a mother.

“Actually it’s Remus...”

“Oh for fuck sake! Yes, I know it’s Remus. I called you Rasputin because.. as in the song, as in the Russian mystic, oh whatever. She clearly doesn’t fuck you for your mind” Leona said dismissively before closing the door in the bewildered courier’s face.

She put the two boxes of food down, one on the lap of the now upright Betty, and one on the table for herself.

“You were a bit mean to Remus there Leona. I know he’s not Einstein but he means well and he’s very thrusty” Betty said, with the closest she had come to a smile for a while.

“Thrusty or not, the man’s a dimwit” Leona said, enjoying the opportunity to put down a stranger.

“Anyway, how come you’re eating one of these? I thought you were on a diet starting today?” Betty asked, watching Leona tuck into her food like a starved animal.

“I am on a diet, why do you think I’ve only ordered one of these for me. I’m halving my intake, and I’m only one day in and it’s already bloody murder. My stomach makes all these weird sounds, as if it’s saying ‘yoohoo, you seem to have forgotten about me’. I tell you what, I can’t wait for it to be over already.” Leona said, without slowing down from her many mouthfuls.

“I suppose, I’ve just never really thought of one of these as diet food, that’s all” Betty said, fairly at ease with Leona’s justification. “By the way, does that mean you’ve weighed yourself. How much were you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it” Leona gruffly replied.

“Oh please, I need the distraction. Please tell me” Betty pleaded, curious and in need of mental diversion. It is a funny thing, but six months ago Betty wouldn’t have asked Leona, for fear of triggering offence. Betty would have just had her curiosity starved as part of her niceness. Neither of them noticed it, but Betty didn’t seem to do that any more. That’s not to say she wasn’t a nice human being, but rather she wasn’t always treading on eggshells to protect other people’s feelings.

“Fine, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you it all, but you cannot judge me or gasp when I say the numbers” Leona compromised. “So, I was thinking I would be about 300lbs, with Wicky maybe 20lbs or so more on account of her height. I thought, if those were our numbers, I could maybe drop 50lbs, maybe 60, just enough so I could weigh myself on the old scales. It would make getting out and about easier and bus rides less embarrassing. And maybe Wicky about the same, lose 50 or 60lbs and be able to get about in the kitchen with a bit more ease. But it didn’t work out like that”

 

10 hours earlier

 

Wiktoria took out her earrings, and all of her other jewellery. She took her shoes off too, dispensing with any surplus weight to minimise the damage when it was her turn. But first up was Leona and she was terrified. Surely it wouldn’t say more than 270lbs, would it? If it said 300lbs, which it surely wouldn’t do, then she would have to go on a diet regardless of self-empowerment and body positivity. No, 300lbs was the absolute limit and a threshold she couldn’t pass. She had already removed from her person any unnecessary weight so the damage wasn’t so severe. She stood in fron of it for what felt like an age, before finally taking the requisite step forward. She stood on the scales and breathed out in anticipation while the machine clunked mechanically as it calibrated. After a few seconds, a number was read out:

407lbs

Leona felt sick, like somebody had punched her in her glut-loving gut. This wasn’t right, something had to be wrong. She wasn’t that heavy. 300lbs was heavy yes, but 400lbs was incomprehensible. You don’t see people weighing that much. It’s a circus freak weight, not the weight of a successful and independent professional. The machine was broken because it had to be because Leona Clefton-Brown could not weigh 400+lbs. That was simply impossible. It was impossible. It was just impossible.

Leona sat back down on the floor, dazed. Sat down, it was obvious that Leona’s weight had continued to propel itself upwards. There was just so much of her, particularly in terms of width. Her legs were like redwoods only with creases and folds, clear even through her tights. Her arse, curtained over just about by the tartan dress that she was wearing, stretched out like the horizon, an endless train of billowing flab travelling from East to West. Her monumental stomach was now somehow lost amongst the rest of her, just part of her ambidirectional coverage with her folds having sub-folds. Her breasts were like submarines that had sunk and now were embracing the gravitational forces of the Earth. And her face, her oh so precious face, losing itself in hamster cheeks and a neck that also served as several chins. Leona was lost in a sea of her own fat, and she felt like she was drowning. The only thing that could possibly buoy her, was being thinner than her girlfriend. Because, at least that way, it wouldn’t be so bad.

Wiktoria had so much more dread having seen Leona literally floored by the scales that had weighed her. Wiktoria was taller, so she was presumably heavier, and she had always known that she was bigger than Leona. But being taller and bigger than Leona didn’t seem like a problem when she thought Leona was less than 300lb. It did, however, seem like a problem now.

But she was still beautiful. She looked in the mirror, and still believed herself to be beautiful. And her girlfriend believed she was beautiful too. And Leona was beautiful, even if she was 407lbs, so what did it all matter? It was just a number. She was not an athlete any more, she was a linguist, so why would she care about the numbers on a scale? So she stepped on, with newfound confidence, and listened for the scale to make its conclusion. It seemed to stew forever as it calibrated to confirm the number, mulling it over like it was the blinking Sorting Hat, but then it coldly announced Wicky’s weight in pounds.

488lbs.

Wiktoria, the former athlete, had eaten herself to nearly quarter of a US ton in less than a year and a half. But her self-confidence held firm and she just walked up to her girlfriend, gave her one of her famous hugs, and whispered in Leona’s ear that they were both still beautiful.

“And besides...” Leona added, her confidence coming back to her “we’ll always be thin next to Rutherford.”

 

Back to now

 

“Wow” Betty said, her mouth hanging open in awe at the figures that Leona had just put in her lap.

“I know” Leona simply said in reply.

“But it’s okay, I mean you’re still beautiful Leona. Really you are. And you were never about the numbers, you were only doing this for functional reasons. So don’t worry about the numbers, 407 is just the number you tumble down from” Betty consoled her flabby flabbergasted female friend who remained unconvinced.

“I know, I know. It’s just that… 407lbs sounds like such a big number. I mean, how did it get to this?” Leona put her hands in the air as if to indicate she didn’t have a clue. The answer was pretty obvious, but Betty didn’t have the heart to be the bearer of bad news and point out how much the girl could eat. No, Betty rationalise, leave Leona the shelter of sanctimony.

“So are you still going down to 250lbs?” Betty asked politely, trying to turn the conversation away from something that clearly upset by shuffling the topic along.

“Fuck no, dropping 150lbs? No way. That’s like an entire Betty Bollingbrooke.” Leona exclaimed to Betty’s amusement. “No, I’m aiming for 350lbs and Wicky 400lbs. I think these numbers are doable if we keep eating healthily”

They both continued to eat while the conversation petered out, the two girls focusing on the meals in front of them and trying not to talk about the numbers that Leona was bandying about.

“What about you Betz? What are your plans no Lionel seems to be moving on?” Leona asked.

“Oh, I don’t know Leona. I enjoy bingeing when I have company, but I can’t do it when I’m alone because it stops being pleasant and starts being self-destructive. I don’t know what to do, but whatever I do, I’ll do it once I’m out of this bloody bandage”

“Fair enough, I’ll support you either way Betz. It’s important to me that you know this” Leona said with kind eyes. Leona’s personality had softened every bit as much as the rest of her, and she was a much warmer person than the frosty façade facing Betty when they first met.

They continued talking between one another, each appreciating the opportunity to unburden themselves of the load that each of them felt they were carrying around with them. The words meshed together like jigsaw pieces that fit and their ideas bounced off one another like they themselves were sisters. It put Betty at considerable ease to know that she wasn’t alone in this world, not while Leona was there to look out for her.

“Leona, would you mind getting me a drink?” Betty asked, practically fluttering her eyelashes as she asked.

“When you say a drink, you mean alcohol don’t you? Are you sure that’s such a good idea after last night? And this morning for that matter?” Leona said with maternal concern.

“It’s 8pm so it’s not like I can do much damage, and besides I’m not at work tomorrow. So why not?” Betty asked, eyeing the liqueur shelf that Zara had populated over the past week for her cocktail concoctions.

“Fair enough, but I do have work tomorrow, so let’s keep it light” Leona said, suspicious of Betty’s drinking habits of late.

“How about we drink a glass or two of Bailey’s, like the classy ladies that we are?” Betty proposed.

“Fucking good shout Betz. Wow, I haven’t had that since my mum let me have some of hers as a kid. Okay Betz, you’ve won me over. Let’s crack open the Bailey’s.”

Leona poured the vaguely coffee coloured thick cream-based liqueur into a whiskey glass for each of them and brought the rest of the bottle to the table to top up the tipple if required. It was only 17% and it was a hard drink to drink fast, so it seemed a safe choice after what Betty had managed to achieve with her hedonistic heroics last night. And they both sat in the living room drinking their drinks in contentment, at peace with themselves and the world for just a brief period of time.

“Right Betty, that’s me done for the day. I’m going to sleep in your bed as planned, and I’ll see you tomorrow morning. I’ve got you a blanket for down here and do you want me to get your nightie down?” Leona asked, whilst finishing her third glass.

“No, I’m fine. I don’t fancy getting changed with this bandage on anyway, I’ll just sleep as is. But Leona… thanks. For everything. You mean the world to me” Betty said, with kind eyes while polishing off her fourth glass. “Oh and leave the bottle down here, I might have one more glass before I go”

[swahilimonkfish]

Chapter 16

 

When Leona came downstairs, she smelled of strawberries. Betty’s shower was well-stocked with pleasantly aromatic shampoos and soaps to enfragrance a lady, and Leona was nothing if not a lady. She hummed to herself as she came down at 7am, feeling fresh and alert after a wonderful night sleep. She’d gotten a lot off her chest the previous night with Betty about her concerns with regards to her weight, and it felt nice that these worries were now out in the open and not internalised and burrowing into her souls. She felt like the idea of a diet didn’t seem quite so intimidating now she’d discussed it. Not too bad an idea at all, she thought to herself as she ordered a breakfast Skinny meal with which to start the day. This diet might well prove to be easy.

She had to smile to herself when she saw the state of Betty when she walked into the living room. She really wasn’t dealing with her issues with the same breezy success as Leona, as the half-empty bottle of Bailey’s suggested. She said she might have one more as a nightcap, but it seemed like she was rounding down considerably with her generous use of the number one. Leona wasn’t going to judge her for it though, she was clearly working through some issues and Betty had always seemed like such a delicate little thing that it felt like she was always vulnerable to an emotional slump.

She at least looked peaceful asleep under her blanket on the sofa, snoring deeply in a somnolent slumber. Leona didn’t want to awaken her right away if she could help it, and walked around her as gently as her heavy footsteps would allow as she grabbed a mug so she could make herself a coffee. You can’t expect somebody who works in academia to begin their day without coffee. Leona sighed as she made it, normally coffee would be accompanied by a biscuit tray of biscuits to dunk and then devour. But not any more, her barrel-load of biscuits days were behind her. She would just grab a light salad from the supermarket on her way in to university for breakfast and hope to high Heaven that it would tide her over until lunch.

“Hey Leona, you’re up?” Betty groggily groaned.

“Yup, because some of us aren’t skiving off work for the week, you layabout. Talking of which, I’ve noticed that Bailey’s bottle looks lighter than I remember it” Leona pried.

“Yeah, I was struggling to sleep last night, my leg was uncomfy, so I drowned my sorrows a little. Please don’t judge me for it” Betty replied, pouring herself another glass.

“No, you have a whole week free from my judgement. Next week, I’m going to ask you to rein it in, but for the time being, you’ve got my go ahead to do whatever the fuck you choose, as long as you’re physically up to it. I don’t want you hurting yourself Betz.” Leona said.

“I know Leona”

“No, seriously. I never want to take another phonecall from a hospital saying my best friend has had to be taken in, right?” Leona said, a little more strongly than she intended. But she cared about her so much and she couldn’t bare to take another phonecall like that again.

“On one condition” Betty said, her mood appearing to be perkier than yesterday. “You make sure I’m fed and watered before you go.”

“Well, here’s a 1 litre bottle of water I’ve just filled up for you and I’ve ordered you a Skinny meal, while I cope with just a salad from Tesco. And, to top it all off, I’ll pop back here on my lunch hour and bring you a McDonald’s. Now don’t say I don’t look after you Betz” Leona had planned this all out, her friend was not going to want for having. “And Wicky is looking after you when she finishes uni today, and she’ll stop overnight as I’ve done”

“Wow, all for me?” Betty seemed shocked at the gesture. Nobody had ever cared as much about Betty as Leona was caring about Betty currently. She wasn’t used to it.

“And here’s some snacks for you because I know how peckish you get” Leona throw all the chocolate that Betty possessed at the girl lying on the surface, causing her to laugh as she tried to protect herself with her hands from the downpour of Cadbury’s goodness. “And, like I say, I’m not going to judge you this week, so here’s a bottle of wine to keep you occupied with while you’re on your own.”

“Will you marry me Leona?” Betty said, in awe of the care Leona was taking of her.

“Hey knock it off Betz, you know that’s a sore subject for me. Oooo, you’re Skinny meal’s here so I guess I’ll take it in for you and then I can go. Will you be okay Betz on your own? You have my number if you need me, and I’ll be back at 1pm to get you dinner” Leona asked.

“It’s too much Leona, thank you so much. I really can’t believe it” Betty said, pouring herself a second Bailey’s.

 

Betty was soon on her own again with old vices for company. The first vice was the drinking, which until two months ago would have been of in the world of Betty Bollingbrooke. But the reasons she fell in its lap time and time again were multitudinous – it dulled the physical pain; it dulled the emotional pain; it livened up her boredom; it felt like an un-Betty thing to do. There was something strangely stimulating about the unfamiliarity of her circumstance, like she was watching her own life on television. The disconnect with her self-image and her self fascinated her, as a woman striving for self-love but burdened with self-loathing might.

This latter aspect fed into her second vice, her tendency to eat her feelings. Again, it was a perversely piqued curiosity as she could not only behave in a manner she didn’t associate with herself – one of an epicurean glutton – but also that she could see the physical manifestations of this bifurcation in the road of her life. Her muscle memory still had her pegged as a twig and every time her thighs caressed one another as she walked; every time she felt the pull of gravity on her bloated stomach; every time she looked down and felt the resistance of a softened chin, she felt like a new woman. Which can only be better than being the woman of old. The victim. The weak. The scared. The scarred. She was stepping out from her own scrawny shadow and it felt empowering. It was also, lest we not forget, pragmatic to gain weight, to escape the wandering eyes and hands of her most senior colleague. It gave her a target, an aim and a purpose and Betty had hidden gears of resilient perseverance when it came to achieving. She saw weight gain as a marathon, a long-haul pursuit of a distant goal that you closed in on through strong-will and pigheaded ignorance. She ate not for pleasure but for purpose. Although that purpose was fading as Betty was beginning to realise that she had possibly already crossed the finishing line, despite the fact that she was still running.

And that might have been because she discovered something new about herself en route to this goal, something weird about what she liked sexually. She still hadn’t pinpointed it exactly but all this debauchery tied with it nicely. She enjoyed it when she was with Minnie, who could push the envelope further than anyone, seeing what she could inflict on herself and how much Minnie could look down on her. But she enjoyed being worshipped by Remus, but not as much as when he would make love to her in spite of himself because of his faded looks. She also enjoyed seeing what Leona had inflicted on herself and was in awe of her gigantism and how it didn’t weigh her down but was used to build her up. This mess of mixed up sexual urges drove her third vice, and Betty put her jeggings and into her knickers driven by the above. Most particularly Leona’s gigantism. Her inability to fill just one seat in a taxi and the way she waddled as she huffed and puffed whilst cleaning, or the way she thought you could eat a 5500 calorie Skinny meal as part of a calorie controlled diet. All of it. Betty thought about all of it as she killed time with her fingers in her knickers. And as her back arched and her knees buckled and her neck twisted and her face flinched, she reached her lonely climax. And as she gasped upon that anticipated moment, she breathily exhaled one thing:

407lbs

 

The television was on in the background but Betty wasn’t watching it. She was pleasuring herself again. She’d been drinking wine and Bailey’s in copious amounts and her head was developing that protective mist of drunkenness. She’d also been working her way through the chocolates, eating them rather dismissively and not even acknowledging their taste. Each one was a respectable 250 calories but to her it was just chewing gum to keep her jaw from getting bored. A constant source of pressing her teeth together and apart again while she ignored the television. And now she was back to masturbating and picturing her best friend whilst doing so. 407lbs. What a spectacular number. Just imagine going from 130lbs to 407lbs in less than a year. Just imagine the rampant effect it had on her poor unprepared body as she poured calories into it like bathwater down a plughole. Just imagine the time she stared in the mirror and noticed protruding body parts that formerly weren’t. Just like Betty when she noticed her hips swung out. Just like Betty when she noticed her stomach poked out. When her arse poked out. Like it was doing now through the whole of her jeggings. She looked down at her stomach now, as she lay on the sofa with one hand obscured from view by her panties, and how gravity couldn’t stop it from forming a mound but it could pull enough of it down for it to swell outwards. This is Betty’s body we’re talking about. Where were her ribs, she ran her finger along where they once were and could barely feel them. There was even fat being stored on top of her ribs. It was bizarre and it was beautiful and it was Betty. And then Betty took a sharp intake of breath as the chemicals exploded in her brain and her downstairs filled with pleasure. And just she let out a quiet high-pitched cry of pleasure and relief and indulgence, Leona walked in.

“Woah! I did not need to see that Betz.” Leona said, confronted with an image that her lustful self would rather have avoided. She was fighting hard to suppress her feelings towards her best friend at the best of times and seeing that only made the waters more muddy.

“Oh my god Leona, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise the time. Oh my god, I am really… I can’t apologise enough… oh god I’m sorry” Betty’s face shapeshifted into The Scream as she realised the situation. She pulled her hand out as fast as she could, scratching herself on the way out, and did her best to look like she hadn’t been caught masturbating.

“Okay, well it looks like you’re doing okay by yourself. I’m just going to leave this here and… um… leave you to it I guess. Errr… I got you extra because I thought you might be bored but… seems like you’ve found a way to… well… occupy yourself.” Leona put the McDonald’s on the table for Betty and started backing out the door awkwardly.

“Oh please don’t go Leona! I’m so sorry but I could do with some company” Betty said, before turning beetroot red and realising what it sounded like. “Oh god, no, not… not like ‘company’ company. I meant like a friend, not like, I didn’t mean. Oh god, I’m sorry Leona”

“Look, I’ve got to go anyway but I’m not going to lie, even if I didn’t, I’d probably lie and say that I did.” Leona said. “You’re my best friend Betz, but I just want this particular conversation to end. I’ll see you tomorrow at lunch, please don’t let me walk in on anything okay?”

And, like that, Leona was gone and Betty was alone once more. But at least she had fresh food.

 

When Wiktoria came in later that afternoon, she didn’t have the same misfortune as her girlfriend. Betty was not masturbating. In fact she wasn’t doing anything at all, she had fallen asleep. Clues as to why this might be the case were not hard to find. The alcohol might have played a part in it, there was an empty Bailey’s bottle and an empty wine bottle on her table to suggest that she’d been keeping herself lubricated. More evidence came to the fore in the form of food wrappers. The pile of McDonald’s wrappers under the sofa, with the 3 large Big Mac wrappers, the 2 large fries wrappers, the chicken nuggets wrapper, the thickshake container and the two McFlurry containers. The chocolate wrappers that had been discarded so crudely that some of them lay on the sleeping Betty were perhaps the final clue why Betty was sleeping so deeply that saliva dripped from her mouth.

“Hello my poor chicken friend” said Wiktoria tenderly as came over to stroke the hair of Betty.

“Hey, sorry for drifting off there Wicky. And thanks for coming over, that’s really nice of you” Betty said with a big caring smile on her face.

“You look like you need new clothes” Wiktoria said, looking around for options. Betty knew this was the case, this polo shirt had been on four days and four nights now, and the jeggings the same. The polo didn’t even come close to fitting and the jeggings displayed more bum than they covered thanks to the rip in them. But Betty had a stubborn streak about them and declined.

“No, it’s okay Wicky. If I want to, I’ll change. But honestly, I just feel like slobbing out until I’m mended” Betty said, guiltily admitting to Wiktoria her newly developed bad habits.

“Okay, sure thing Rutherford” she said with acerbic wit.

“Haha, okay, I deserved that” and Betty pulled off a genuine smile for her guest.

“Anyway, how are you my good friend?” Wicky sat on the floor, which wasn’t too much of a problem when your arse was as cushioned as hers.

“Drunk. Sad. Lonely. You?” Betty said.

“I am not drunk, but I am on a diet. Which is very bad” Wiktoria said.

“Oh yeah, Leona said. I guess a real friend would eat all the nearby chocolate to help you avoid temptation” Betty said, looking around for some uneaten chocolate bars amongst the sea of wrappers. She found a Twix and started eating it while scratching her itchy armpits with the other.

“You are a very good friend!” Wiktoria laughed at the crappy joke. “Now I am here to help you, what can I do to make you happy?”

“I’m a bit thirsty, there’s some fun liqueurs on the kitchen counter, pick your favourite and bring it over and we can share a drink” Betty suggested.

“I don’t think I should Betty” Wiktoria seemed suspicious. “And I don’t think you should Betty too”

“It’s drink, not food Wicky, you’re allowed to drink. And Leona says I can be as irresponsible as I like with my eating and drinking while I am injured, as long as I fix it afterwards. And anyway, I’ve never seen you drink before, it should be fun” Betty persuaded, twisting the young Pole’s arm.

“Okay, but I don’t drink very much so I don’t know what to choose”

“Well, drinking is fairly new to me too, so I’m no expert either. Saying that, the Disaronno bottle looks pretty”

Wiktoria brought the bottle back and put it on the table, while Betty ate found a white chocolate Toblerone and was working hard to destroy the evidence of it. For Wiktoria. Obviously. Not because she was a glutton or anything.

A couple of glasses later, plus a couple of glasses of wine, and Wiktoria had loosened up some. She seemed to find every comment funny, and a belly-laugh bellowed at every comedic instance. She was such fun when her hair was let down a little. The pair of them giggled furiously as Wiktoria guided the steaming drunk and also crutch-bound Betty to the downstairs toilet.

“Don’t drink too much without me Wicky!” Betty said as she closed the toilet door.

Cue another belly-laugh. “I will not Betty. I promise” she called out before heading to the kitchen to grab and open a second bottle of wine.”

Betty sat on the loo humming to herself merrily when she saw something on the window sill that caught her eye. Zara had left behind her a pack of cigarettes and her lighter. With it was a note: SMOKE AND THINK OF ME. Betty suddenly sighed. She had, in all her drunken fun with Wiktoria, forgotten about her sister. She was back at home and under the thumb of her diabolical parents while she was getting drunk on anything with alcohol and eating anything with calories, with friends that waited on her hand and foot. It didn’t seem fair. Betty picked up the pack of ciggies and took one from it. This seemed like a bad idea, but Betty wanted to think of her sister. She wanted to be closer to her sister, and maybe this would help. She put it in her mouth and tried to get the lighter to work. It sparked and suddenly she was smoking again. And immediately she started coughing, and the cigarette fell between her legs and into the toilet basin. She tried again, and this time endeavoured not to cough. It reminded her of that Friday night, where she tried one for the first time in her own back garden with Zara. She puffed and thought of her sister’s laughter at Betty’s facial convulsions in response to the foul taste. The taste was still foul but at least the memory was nice. She dragged on it again and thought of each time her sister would have to brave the conditions to light up in the back yard. She dragged again and more memories came tumbling back. The first time she saw a Skinny meal. The incident with Maureen. Her time they took turns to shag Remus. And soon the cigarette was down to the filter, and she dropped it in the basin also, and flushed. She had managed to accumulate some wonderful memories of her sister in such a short time and it was nice to be reminded of them. The note worked, she did smoke and think of her. Betty added cigarettes to her shopping delivery tomorrow. She enjoyed thinking of her sister.

When Betty managed to get herself out of the tight space that was the downstairs toilet, she saw Wiktoria filling the sofa with her encompassing arse and drinking Disaronno speedily. Betty very tentatively hopped over to her, careful not to fall over.

“Room for one more?”

“I don’t think there is room for one Betty, but you can try” Wiktoria said, squidging up as far as she could go, and leaving just about enough space for Betty to squeeze in. Betty’s breathe tensed as she felt her thighs rub against the monolithic mountains of fleshy fat that Wiktoria called legs.

“Sorry I am so fat Betty” Wiktoria said with a touch of regret. She may have had a point. She was wearing jeans with enough denim to tailor Texas and a hoodie that stretched across her superlative size. Her face was different to the one Betty first encountered as a first-year student. It was wide, rounded and wattled. Her shoulders, once broad from exercise, now just broad with fat. Her arms, hidden in the hoodies long sleeves were blotchy and fat. Her breasts were never-ending, thick and deep and v-shaped on her chest. This made way for her belly, the piece de resistance on the body of the Pole, a globular blob that swooped down to be level with her knees, which were pulled wide to make a gap for her stomach. Her akimbo legs were so wide they’d be difficult to hug singly, to call them tree trunks would be an insult to most trees. Everything about her was fat, so spectacularly fat.

“Don’t be silly Wicky, I think you’re beautiful” Betty said, and put her hand on Wiktoria’s thigh.

“You’re right, I am beautiful” Wiktoria said, with more melancholy than a comment like that usually warrants.

“Then don’t be sad, be happy Wicky” Betty offered hopefully, squeezing said thigh.

“But Leona thinks I am too fat. She doesn’t say but I know. I am Rutherford and she is Wicky, and she thinks I am too fat. But I don’t want to be on diet. I think I am beautiful. When I am with Leona I eat like a mouse, but when she is gone I eat like a hungry lion. I think she will be angry when we have weigh.” Wiktoria said, emotionally chafing at the thought as much as she was physically chafing in the seat.

“Leona is gone now, you can eat like a hungry lion if you like?” Betty asked with a sincere face.

“I will. I will eat like a hungry lion. I will order three Skinny meals to eat. And I will order one Skinny meal for you. And we will eat like lions.” Wiktoria picked up her phone to order a total of four Skinny meals. Then she poured herself another glass of wine. And all this time, Betty still gripped Wiktoria’s thigh.

Remus delivered the food with a cheeky grin on his face. What he was hoping was anyone’s guess. A threesome? A foursome? A fivesome? But what he got was a massive and massively drunk Polish girl come to the door.

“Is Betty there?” he asked, hastily realising that Wiktoria was not a small talk kind of woman.

“Yes, but you can’t come in and have sex with me Remus!” Betty shouted from the sofa.

He’d come in at this point to avoid the embarrassing shouting.

“I’m sorry Betty, I just miss you. I keep trying to see other women but… they’re not you so I don’t bother. I’m sorry because I promised but I… no matter how I know I should feel about you, I just want you all the more. Please Betty, can we do… anything?” Remus pleaded, which took Betty aback as well as flattering her confidence.

“You can have sex with me on one condition” Betty’s confidence was buoyed by booze. “You kiss Wiktoria. She is a beautiful woman and you can only have sex with me if you kiss Wiktoria. Properly. Like you love her. Like this.” And Betty clambered up onto her crutches, hobbled over to Wiktoria, wrapped her arm around the Polish girl and shoved her tongue down her throat. The two girls remained lip-locked for nearly a minute before coming up for air.

“Like that”

Remus would do anything at this point. He’d been deterred yesterday by one super-sized lady, he wasn’t going to be deterred by another. He walked up to the massive Polish girl, but his hand on her shoulders and brought his lips in for a kiss. He lingered with tender care, keen to demonstrate he cared enough to have a go with Betty. Betty watched in awe a the magnificent sight of the gentleman and the Amazon making out. She admired the difficulty with which he ahd simply to reach her lips, her stomach and chest pushing so far out that he had to press into them, since her height meant that he couldn’t lean over.

She got a fizzy kick out of seeing her courier so keen to get into her pants that he would happily make out with the Pole, despite his overt preference for ladies smaller than even herself. And she was a third of the size of Wiktoria. But she could command him to do it and he obeyed and she felt powerful and regal as she watched her suitor and her friend interlock lips. She admired her suitor, his lean physique emboldened by lithe musculature and dark McDreamy hair, and she admired Wiktoria, standing up at full size drowning her skeleton in a vat of fat. Betty was so entranced that she barely noticed that she had put her hand down her jeggings as they smooched. Remus spotted this is what she was doing and, to impress her like the obedient puppy that he was, kissed Wiktoria more passionately, running one hand through her hair and another on one of those historically sized breasts. Wiktoria, feeling angry with having to diet, lonely about Leona’s lessening interest in her, insecure about her ballooning weight, and utterly bladdered from drinking wine and liqueur like it was water when she normally abstained entirely, thrust herself into the moment with paralleled vigour. She ran her hand down his chest as she revelled the affection he was imposing on her, and that hand of hers drifted down along his abbed stomach and towards his crotch. And Betty’s hand was also heavily engaged around her own nether regions, using her slender fingers to elicit self-induced gasps as she watched the show. At the point Wiktoria’s hand found an erection, she took it as the go ahead to proceed. Her insecurity vanished at the evidence that Remus was clearly enjoying himself, and began to lower his boxer-briefs and cycling shorts. Remus, for his part, was lost in the moment and at the mercy of his young male hormones. He had practically forgotten about Betty now, though part of him was stimulated at the thought of performing for her, and just keen to ravage the colossus before him. He grappled at the button Wiktoria’s super-sized jeans, getting his hand underneath Wiktoria’s overhang and reach the clasp. As soon as it was undone, the belly dropped where his hand was and her jeans were tugged down. He eased her onto her back on the floor, cautious of her bulk, withdrew her knickers and inserted his tumescent dick into her, finding the resistance of her swollen belly from leaning in to deep all the more stimulating.

Betty was making silent whinnies of her own as she PornHubbed the two of them on the floor and gyrating. Each press in that Remus made seemed to require so much strength given that Wiktoria’s own magnitude was an obstacle to him, and this opposing force coursed deep into his cerebellum. Wiktoria was also enraptured by the resistance that she was imposing on him, reinforcing her might and empowering her as it stimulated her. And it stimulated her alright, like bolts of energy causing her to gape like a carp while Remus increasingly thundered away at her. They were oblivious to their surroundings, their audience or even each other and just responding to the crackles of energy that lit up their spine. Betty felt imperious knowing she had engineered this and climaxed first, but Remus and Wiktoria were in rapid pursuit, breathing heavily before Remus collapsed on her afterwards in satisfaction and exhaustion. Wicky lay there too, her hand now just resting on her stomach us breathed in and out deeply, grateful that she was too drunk to feel guilty about cheating on Rutherford. And the petit-mort settled like snow on the two floor-based revellers.

Remus shot up, suddenly aware of his situation, rushed to get changed and hurried out of the door, fleeing on his bike. He had never been so embarrassed in his life, to be watched by his girlfriend – no, crap, she wasn’t his girlfriend, just a regular hook-up – but to be watched by his booty call while he has sex was utterly humiliating. But to be watched while he did it with a woman so fucking huge. She was utterly voluminous, made up of blotchy pillows of fat and ghastly rolls. It was disgusting. He hated it. He did. No, really he did. He cycled off, telling himself that over and over again.

 

Wiktoria felt conflicted too, but her fuzzy brain meant that her conflict only extended as far as whether or not to get up off the floor. Her deep breaths were still going and her mind a firework display. She was gay, she loved Leona, she’d just had sex with a man, she loved it, she was fat, Betty watched, Betty instigated. Oh god, it all made no sense to the Pole, disoriented previously just from the Disaronno and wine. Betty picked up her crutches, and brought herself over to the Polish girl gasping on the floor. She then, using the nearby table for leverage, lowered herself to the floor to sit next to her friend.

“You hungry?” Betty said, her hand replacing Wicky’s rested on her bare stomach. “I’ve got three Skinny meals for you to eat.”

“I cheated on Leona?” Wiktoria asked, not entirely convinced of her own senses.

“Hey, don’t think about that. Think about how you are throwing a two finger salute at anyone who insists you diet. Leona tried to make you diet, but you’ll show her” Betty said, massaging the Polish belly before her. Betty spaced out for a disturbing second, not hearing her own voice when she talked. Those weren’t her words, were they? They didn’t sound like something that she’d say, something so clearly to her friend’s detriment. They sounded like something… Minnie would say.

Wiktoria grunted again, but this time as she pulled herself up to a sitting position. Betty marvelled as Wiktoria’s stomach made a mad lunge for her knees, pushing well across the halfway point of her thighs. Betty admired Wiktoria’s subconscious tendency to drift her legs wide to let her stomach sit between them. It rested on the furry carpet floor, giving Wiktoria no opportunity to overlook her own size. Betty passed over Skinny meal number one for Wiktoria, while she put her own meal on her knee. There was the prospect of spectacular gluttony as Wiktoria braced herself to eat in one sitting what Betty was aspiring to eat over the course of one day.

Wiktoria was adamant that she was going to scupper her own diet, and had finished meal one by about the time Betty was halfway with hers. And Betty was a serious eater at this point. She gestured for a second, her addled brain struggling with its second language and communicating by the universal language of pointing. Betty’s meal and Wicky’s second meal concluded at about the same time. But Wiktoria was showing signs of losing steam. Fortunately Betty knew just the right words. They weren’t her words. They belonged to Minnie.

“Picture Leona while you eat. Picture her tutting at your size. Picture her insisting you diet. Imposing her diet onto you. Trying to enforce her doubt onto you. Picture Leona’s hypocritically criticising your weight and eat. Eat to prove her wrong. Eat to spite her. Eat and think of Leona”

And it worked, Wiktoria’s previously flitting concentration lasered in on the objective and gathered pace again, while her breathing levelled. She wasn’t as organised an eater as Betty, but she was a ceaseless one, insatiably stuffing herself with all the greased up goodness in the box to her side. It disappeared gradually but steadily, with Wiktoria chugging away with the image of Leona’s belligerent badgering buoying her.

“You are so close, Wicky. You are an amazing woman. You can do this, come on!” Betty cheered, like this was a spectator sport. Wiktoria, for her part, could barely hear her over the sound of her own chewing as she kept throwing herself back at the food until eventually it disappeared. And she thrust her weighty hands in the air as she did it with achievement. And Betty kissed Wicky’s bloated stomach like it was the World Cup. She quickly grabbed the bottle of Disaronno from now under the table, and poured it down the neck of the stuffed girl, like water from a trainer to a punch-drunk boxer. Betty gulped as much of it as she could, but also let it spill off her face and down her rolled-up hoodie and onto her exposed gut. Betty then took the bottle for herself and finished it off while Wiktoria fell asleep in the food coma to end all food comas. Betty lay next to her and enjoyed the warmth of her exposed skin. She tried to reach around and spoon with her but her arms were not long enough. She could, however, squeeze her leg between Wiktoria’s two, splicing her elephantine trunks with her comparatively gymnastic leg. And Betty fell asleep too.

[swahilimonkfish]

Wow, this chapter took some writing. It's basically the length of a dissertation alone at 10000 words. There's just so much to say, Betty is having a BUSY week.

Chapter 17

 

Betty was awoken abruptly when her pillow moved. Her pillow had overslept and was now waddling around in a frenzy. Her pillow should have been at university for an early start at 9am for a day-long workshop on employability and it was now 10am.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. Betty’s pillow had the hangover from hell roaring in her delicate Polish head, her clothes were covered in Skinny meal debris that she would have to change, she had apparently sabotaged her own diet though she couldn’t remember it, and the button on her jeans wouldn’t do up despite all of her formerly athletic strength straining to pry them together.

Betty looked up at her pillow in a haze and drunk in the sight of Wiktoria in her unglamorous and panicked physical condition. She had seen Wiktoria naked and knew what, and indeed how much, lay beneath that straining hoodie covered in chilli sauce and Disaronno. She’d seen the size of her ass to sympathise with her buttons for not reaching. It was a glorious sight to behold and it made Betty warm downstairs to see it.

“Well, if you’ve missed it Wicky, there’s nothing to be gained from panicking. Just attend the afternoon half and be blasé about it. There’ll be tonnes of these things before you finish your degree, don’t worry about it” Betty said whilst looking through the empty bottles to see if any of them contained contents. They didn’t. But she did find a pair of Double Decker chocolate bars among the carnage and decided to have some pre-breakfast.

“Oh but I am not happy Betty. I have never drunk that much in my life” she flustered and floundered.

“That’s because you’re a goody-two-shoes” Betty said with a heartfelt smile.

“I thought you were supposed to be a goody-two-shoes. But you were a baddy-two-shoes!” Wiktoria said, sounding quite cross with Betty for her encouragement last night.

“Yeah, me too. I guess I’ve changed.” Betty said, and sighed.

It was true, she wasn’t the same girl any more. It wasn’t just from the physical changes that Betty didn’t recognise herself in the mirror, it was the changes in her. It was her behaviour. There was a lot Betty had always wanted to change about herself, a lifetime of being told she was worthless can do that to somebody, but the one thing she wanted to keep was the fact that she was a nice person. A good person. Could she really say that about herself these days? After what she did last night, essentially pimping out her lover to her friend which might wreck their relationship with her best friend, all for her own personal sexual gratification? Betty shuddered at the behaviour and pretended she couldn’t remember doing it. It was the only way her ethical framework could hold strong. But she did need booze if she was going to get through the morning.

“Hey, it was nice, yesterday. I really needed it. I liked your company Wicky and I appreciate it.” Betty said, trying to cheer up her good friend.

“I don’t remember lots of it. Did I eat a Skinny meal? Leona will murder me if I eat a Skinny meal” Wiktoria whinged as her flies lounged about unopened.

“Oh Wicky… you ate three of them”

“I ate three of them? Oh no” Wiktoria’s mind raced as she assessed the damage.

“You said you didn’t want to diet, that you were beautiful already” Betty said, slowly getting, via her crutches, to her feet and swinging over to Wicky.

“This is true Betty. I do not want to diet and I am very beautiful” Wiktoria conceded weakly.

“Exactly, you are very beautiful” Betty put her hand on Wiktoria’s shoulder for balance and affection. “So, while Leona isn’t here, why not treat yourself? When Leona’s not here, you have a free hit”

“Thank you Betty, you are very kind” Wiktoria said, before finding her self-confidence. “And you are very right! I am a very beautiful woman, you are very beautiful woman and I will make a very beautiful breakfast. And then I will go into university for the afternoon!”

“Attagirl! Ooo, will the breakfast be like the breakfast you made for me last week? It was bigger than a Skinny meal” Betty perked up whilst leaning over to pour Coca-cola into the vodka bottle to make it a ratio of about 50/50. Betty needed to drown out her guilt, and drown out the nagging angel on her shoulder condemning her behaviour. Betty’s mind was in the gutter and she was happy to leave it there. She then chugged a glass of it like it was just coke, before pouring another one.

“Here I’ve made a vodka and coke, it’s weak so it’ll be okay and it might help with your hangover?” Betty lied malevolently. Wiktoria trusted her friend and took the glass and began drinking it thirstily. Betty saw with guilt the way she was drinking it and poured herself a second and knocked it back. And then a third, just to get the ball rolling.

Wiktoria was no in slightly better spirits, her rebellious attitude spiking again as she began her epic breakfast feast with enough food to feed the BFG. Just a reminder, there was:

 

“… a mish-mash of breakfast goodies, from the fry-up foods of eggs, bacon, sausages, hash browns, blood pudding, beans, omelettes, mushrooms, fried tomato (though not for Betty, she famously couldn’t stand tomatoes), spam, blocks of cheese, ham, fried potatos and chips. Then there was slices of toast, heavily buttered and then further topped with peanut butter for that cholesterol finish. Then came the French inspired triumvirate of two pains au chocolat, two pains au raisin and two croissants, along with three slices of brioche to mop some of the fried stuff up. And finally, two muffins, two cream cakes and two US style donuts for a sweet finish. It was essentially the Skinny meal of breakfasts.”

 

It would take Wiktoria a bit to rustle all of that up and Betty needed the loo, so she hobbled in its direction giving Wiktoria a chance to see the flapping fabric of the rip on the arse of her jeggings, giving her a clear look at her dimpled bum. Betty was, no doubt about it, a growing girl.

Betty sat on the toilet and sighed as she pissed, with a night-time of swigging and swilling parting from her. Whilst on her throne, she glanced out of the corner of her eye the pack of cigarettes and the lighter than Zara had left. Betty eyed it curiously. Smoking felt different to drinking and eating. She had done both of these activities before and now she was only doing the same but moreso. It felt like a continuation of her behaviour. But this was different. It was irreversibly damaging to her health, and it just didn’t feel like a Betty thing to do. It felt like a threshold that she shouldn’t be crossing. This wasn’t Betty behaviour.

But that was the point. It wasn’t Betty behaviour, it was Zara behaviour. And Betty longed to be closer to her sister. Maybe, through these cancerous sticks of death, she could climb a little closer to the sister that had left her. Maybe Zara was smoking right now? In her gîte on their parent’s land, just lighting up and staring at the sky, wondering about her sister. Betty lit up too, and thought about her sister, feeling a connection to her. She imagined her just outside her kitchen inhaling in parallel to Betty, and Betty felt the closest she had since Zara left. Betty leant forward, with her softer elbows leaning on her softer knee and her softer tummy pushing against her softer thighs, and thought of Zara. This smoking thing would have to become a regular occurrence. She hid the lighter and pack in the case in the room and vowed to light one for her sister every time nature called. It was a little slice of Zara that her parents couldn’t take away.

Betty walked back into the living room tried to hold back a tell-tale cough, and was hit by wafts of wondrous bacony smells. A plate was already in front of the sofa, though it was still clearly a work-in-progress. Next to it was also another tall glass of vodka and coke that looked good to Betty right now.

“I will give you more food when I have cooked it” Wiktoria shouted from the kitchen, eating from her plate as she cooked and drinking her second glass of vodka and coke. The alcohol was restoring her feelings of rebellion towards the diet that Leona had imposed on her, and while she was slightly squiffy, she intended to counter her previous gastronomic restraint with an equal and opposite reaction, as she stuffed a rasher of bacon in her mouth.

Wiktoria could hurrying as fast as her bulk could carry her between the kitchen and the table by the sofa that Betty was at, ladling her plate up with food far faster than Betty could eat it, though bless her she tried to keep up.

By midday, Wiktoria sat herself down on the floor in a tired heap. She wiped her sweaty brow with the bottom of her hoodie, showing her enormous and swollen pale white stomach to Betty.

“You might want to get going Wicky, if you want to catch your second half of the workshop?” Betty suggested kindly.

“I think I will miss it. I am feeling a little bit drunk.” Wiktoria said, still wiping yet more sweat from her forehead with the piece of clothing that should be prevented her gut from being exposed.

“Well, Leona will be over in a bit, so if you want to hide your diet damage, you might want to clean up” again Betty suggested, with Wiktoria’s best interests at heart. She would have volunteered but, y’know, she wasn’t physically able so she would just have to drink vodka and coke while her friend got a wiggle on, going about cleaning Betty’s flat for her.

While Wiktoria was taking away the takeaway boxes and binning them so Leona wouldn’t know quite what had been cracking off, she mentioned to Betty a dream that she had.

“It was a very strange dream. I had sex with a man. It was very strange but very nice dream.” Wiktoria said, vaguely and obliviously recounting her experience with Remus.

“How strange” Betty said, fully clued up as to what she was referring and essentially lying by omission. “But as long as you enjoyed the dream, that’s the important thing.”

“Yes Betty, it was a very nice dream. But it is very strange because I do not find men sexy” Wiktoria kept pulling at this thread.

“Don’t worry about it, dreams can be strange when you are as drunk as you were” Betty said, trying to dismiss the conversation. But the danger of the conversation prompted Betty to down her glass and pour herself another one. She was pretty out of it at the stage already, and, in all honesty, she found great comfort in that fact. And her attempt to change the conversation topic succeeded, though not really through her own intervention. It was because a car pulled outside Betty’s house.

Wiktoria saw clearly who the oversized passenger of this Uber was. She’s recognise those 400lbs anywhere. Leona was pulling up and she was carrying McDonald’s. Wiktoria didn’t want to be seen, she didn’t want to admit that she got drunk, threw her diet to the kerb, had a sex dream about a man and then bunked off her employment workshop. She opted to hide, and opened up the door to the cavity under the staircase and hid herself there before Leona could leisurely labour to the front door.

“Hey Betz, I’m here and I come bearing noms. Ooo goody, it’s nice to walk in and not see you masturbating for a change. I thought I would treat you to my dinner and yours, since I’m on a diet and you’re on a… well, a diet of sorts too. I’m going to be good and not eat anything for lunch.” Leona said, walking in and putting the food on the table, oblivious to the fact that her girlfriend was hiding just around the corner from her. “This diet is actually pretty good, I forgot how good I was at dieting. I’m the fucking bomb when it comes to shedding pounds Betz, I can feel them dropping off as I walk.”

“Cool Leona, that sounds really impressive” Betty said, trying to muster enough enthusiasm to placate Leona but not too much to upset the undoubtedly overhearing Wiktoria.

“Oh, and I’ve had a crap morning, Lionel was all like, move out the way in the corridor when he knew full well that I couldn’t. Fucking arsehole. Anyway, I can’t linger, best get back, so Lionel has one less reason to snipe.” Leona said, passing Betty a bottle of wine to drink, unaware that the coke was 50% vodka. Betty could hear Wiktoria flinch upon hearing Leona suggesting she was about to leave and prayed that the Pole wouldn’t blow it at the last minute. “But I might use your facilities”

Betty sat on the sofa, deathly still, caught between a rock and a fat place. Wiktoria was to one side of her, crammed in a crevice under the stairway, and Leona has cluelessly emptying her bladder in the room to the other side. She just sat quietly on her seat, slowly drinking sipping the vodka and coke to amuse herself and distract herself from the awkwardness.

Leona came out and Betty was trying to look innocent, slurping away at her boozy beverage. If she could whistle, she would have. Leona smiled and bade farewell, but Betty’s ears were too busy scanning for any noise under the stairs to really pay attention to her. She just politely said goodbye on auto-pilot, without really registering Leona’s words. She could have said the house was on fire and Betty would have replied ‘You too, bye!”.

As soon as Leona was gone, Betty pulled herself up onto one foot, grabbed her crutches and hurried as fast as her one-legged, drunken-ass self could muster without eating carpet to where her friend was hiding.

“Coast is clear, you can come out now” Betty said, out of breath for that brief exertion.

“No I can’t” came the voice from inside. Betty opened the door to see what all the fuss was.

“Yes you can, it’s safe now” she said, poking her head inside to see her Amazonian friend cramped in a confined space.

“No I can’t, I’m stuck”

 

Wiktoria was wedged in, her back arched and her fat trapped. She wasn’t just a fat girl, though Lord knows she was a truly corpulent lady, she was a tall one as well. And she couldn’t stoop down sufficiently to remove herself from the tight space because there was too much of her flabby self in the way. She would try to bend down more and the fat over her stomach would get in her way. Wiktoria didn’t know what to do, she was stuck and her breathing was accelerated as panic began to set in. Betty couldn’t help, she was on crutches. Minnie wasn’t going to arrive for another three hours either, so they couldn’t wait for her. No, the only way out was by herself.

“How did you get in if it’s so tight?” Betty asked, craning her neck down into the cranny in bewilderment.

“I don’t know” Wiktoria said, wriggling frantically and without a plan. Her eyes were getting teary as she worried that she would be stuck for hours. She just wanted to get out but even now she had got her head down, her body couldn’t get through the doorframe. She was stuck and she needed to get out. She just did.

“Umm… take off your clothes?” Betty suggested, more in hope than expectation.

“No” Wiktoria said protectively, not wanting to be naked in front of Betty. She clearly couldn’t remember last night or she wouldn’t feel quite so inhibited.

“You might fit easier”

She certainly couldn’t be doing any worse. There was no room to manoeuvre in there, and seemingly little air to breathe. And the doorframe was so tight and Wiktoria was big whichever way you turned her. She was like a square Tetris shape needed to squeeze down a gap one block wide.

“If you sit down, can you get your legs out?” Betty asked.

Wiktoria tried, she went into a squat position and then onto her bottom with her legs out in front of her, jamming them through the door. Then, sliding along carefully and by twisting a little, she got her massive arse half through when her stomach jammed. Wiktoria grunted as she tried to push herself through but to no avail.

“Take off your hoodie” Betty instructed again, a bit more firmly this time. Wiktoria was in no position to argue and obeyed this time. She yanked it off and threw it into the hallway in frustration, ready to start again. Betty knew that Wiktoria wasn’t wearing a t-shirt underneath when she saw her yesterday being bucked by her favourite stalllion, but it still put a smile on her face to see Wiktoria’s top half bare bar the bra big enough to carry cannonballs. Betty then got on her hands and knees, ignoring doctor’s orders and began kneading Wicky’s flesh to get her through the gap, feeding it through bit by bit until the bulk of her bulk had escaped. Then Wiktoria pulled herself out fully, scraping her breasts against the frame on the way.

Wiktoria just sat there, with her fat arms against her fat side, looking down at the fatness of the fat stomach, that rested on her fat lap.

“Betty, I think I’m fat!” Wiktoria said through tears, with the world’s most obvious epiphany. “Leona’s right, I need to go on a diet!”
“No, you’re beautiful remember” Betty pleaded at her upset friend as she got herself re-dressed.

“You’re a liar Betty!” Wiktoria hissed. “I’m fat. I’m not beautiful”

And then Wiktoria stormed off out of the house in tears, leaving Betty on the floor. Betty just sat there, frozen from the outburst. It wasn’t so much the fact that it was an outburst, of course Wiktoria was upset and Betty had no problem taking the brunt of her frustration for a friend. It was the use of the ‘l’ word. Liar. Betty was thrown by that because it was true. Betty was a liar. She had lied and deceived Wiktoria for her own distorted pleasure, even if this wasn’t the lie that Wiktoria was referring to. Betty still felt called out and guilty. Wiktoria was scared witless in there and Betty had facilitated it with her own bad encouragements. This was Betty’s fault. This was all Betty’s fault. Betty’s head was getting dark again. It was a good job the bodkin was upstairs or she would have been tempted. As it was, she could climb up there without going up on her bum, and that would have been too undignified for her to maintain bleak thoughts. So Betty took up plan B. More alcohol. She was very drunk, but she wasn’t blackout drunk. Not yet. That’s where she needed to be to hide the darker thoughts. Hiding from the darkness via blackout.

But, while she was blackout drinking, she had to eat her McDonald’s and Leona’s McDonald’s. The challenge, along with the spinning room, distracted her from the guilt. Her own portion was not a problem, but she had to eat Leona’s too. And Leona tended to order the same as Betty but double. So instead of her normal two large Big Macs, there were six of the things. There were three McFlurries, three milkshakes, three large fries. And it would take Betty some time to work through them. She just hoped she wouldn’t pass out before she finished.

 

Minnie walked into Betty’s house to see Betty passed out. She had, by the looks of things, passed out not too long after finishing her McDonald’s. And what a meal it looked too, there were more wrappers on the floor here than there were in Compton. And Betty showed every inch of the overindulgence on her over-exposed and over-sized body. The polo shirt, worn day and night like the rest of her clothes for nearly a week now, only covered the speedbumps that were Betty’s A-cup breasts while her stomach pushed out in all its inglory. Her jeggings were so tight that the essentially just provided a coloured outline to her bulky legs. Everything about Betty was unflattering. Her hair was back to its greasy unwashed self, rampant and aimless like a witch’s. Her quondam youthful face looked tired and dreary, which, when coupled with the sprouting grey in her hair, added eight years to a woman who last year looked eight years her junior. Her monobrow was so defined that she looked like one of The Twits. The spotty outbreaks on her face made her look like a pizza topping. And Minnie strained herself not to be turned on by it.

She stroked her knotty hair to wake her up out of her comatose state, but she was down and deeply gone. She began clearing up and reminded herself that she was a responsible friend and she would behave responsibly with her. If she wanted a whale of a time, she had a whale of her own.

“I know love, I wish I could. But I can’t” Minnie said to the out-cold hot mess on the sofa.

“No, I know you feel that way love, but I have to be the better woman. I love Rutherford” she said again to the comatose girl. “No, no, don’t tempt me you temptress. I’m a good girlfriend, and I’ve got this under control.”

She kept saying such things to the girl who was knocked out, trying to convince coma-girl that she was a reformed character. Of course, Betty didn’t believe her because she couldn’t hear her. More worryingly was that Minnie didn’t believe herself. She felt her poor excuse for willpower wilting.

“Okay, but… this doesnae count as cheating. Right?” Minnie said while Betty started snoring. She then picked up the half-used ketchup satchet and started smearing it on Betty’s bare belly before her. She massaged it all across the stomach, staining it sticky red. It wasn’t sexual, it was just unhygienic she told herself.

She used that all up very quickly, so got up to grab the squeezy bottle of ketchup and began pouring that on her, squeezing and then rubbing it on her skin like it was sun-cream. All over her clothes, she wouldn’t change out of them anyway. She rolled up her shirt and started pouring it over her breasts and then massaging them. It was a good job this wasn’t sexual she told herself and she kneaded her breasts like they were dough. Then it was in her hair, why not, she never washed it. When the ketchup ran out, she microwaved some ice-cream and just poured it over her like gravy on a hot dinner, while Betty flirted with the idea of waking up. Next it was a bottle of wine, poured over her like she was coq au vin. She began to wake now, though was no more compos mentis than when asleep. Her clothes were drenched now and stinking of booze and the wine was sinking into the sofa. There was jam next, and she ran it through Betty’s hair vindictively over her. She ran it down Betty’s jeggings and over her mottled thighs.

Still not sexual, still just unhygienic, she then smeared it over and on her vagina, rubbing it into the hair down there while a smile appeared on Betty’s out of it face. She rubbed and massaged while Betty’s drunken face twisted in glee. But still not sexual. She then pulled the jeggings down enough to get her face in. She licked the jam with her tongue. But not sexually. And then deeper. But not sexually. Betty groaned in pleasure. But not sexually. Minnie’s claws came out and she scratched down Betty’s side, causing her to writhe in delirium. But not sexually. She licked and scratched and indulged and eventually Betty gasped and orgasmed, making her sodden jeggings wetter. But, and Minnie was insistent on this, not sexually. Because that would be betraying Rutherford.

She then sat down on Betty’s stomach and began fingering herself. Betty, half-consciously tried to shake her off but Minnie rode her like Buckeroo and enjoyed it all the more. She towered over the horizontal girl and admired her ruined condition and fidgeted faster. She saw what she had become and gasped a little louder. She twitched and flinched as she spotted the rip in the jeggings on the leg against the sofa’s back. She tilted her head and scrunched up her face when she saw the mess she was, and then she shuddered with excitement as she gave Betty the first shower she’d had all week.

By 6pm, Minnie was bored. Betty was sort of half-responsive but not really with it sufficiently to have more fun. And now fun was all Minnie had on the brain. So she ordered food. Skinny meals. Two of them. To see what damage she could do to the dazed and drunk girl on the sofa, too glazed over to notice that she was now bedecked in ketchup, wine and ice-cream. And Minnie’s orgasmic juices. And to kill the time before it arrived, she ate Betty out again.

Remus arrived with the Skinny meals. He had clearly wangled it with Ahmed to be the one to deliver to this particular address, for it was him nearly every time now. He opened the door and saw a surprise.

“Skinny?” he said, in confusion, recognising the emerald eyed angel looking straight at him.

“Skinny… now there’s a name I’ve not heard for a long time” Minnie said, paraphrasing Obi-Wan for her own amusement. “Wait, how do you know me?”

“Everyone knows you Skinny. You’re a legend of the party scene. The actual life and soul of every party in this city. Or you were. Where’ve you been?” Remus said, like he was catching up with an old friend.

“I’ve sobered up love, my drinking days are behind me… wait, did we fuck?” she vaguely recognised him.

“Yeah, a couple of times. But you were a lot thinner back then.” Remus said, remembering fondly memories of peak-Skinny. Skinny in her heyday, before the weight piled on.

“Yeah, I get that a lot” she said, unaffected by the comment. Minnie was actually looking quite good, she was down to 203lbs and the weight that she did have suited her. Maybe high-waisted jeans and a tight black top weren’t the most flattering choices on a girl her size, but they felt the closest to the old Minnie. To Skinny. She was looking more and more like her old self. Which was, incidentally, gorgeous.

“Is Betty in?” he asked sincerely.

“Oh, are you Remus? I’ve heard a bit about you. Yes, she’s in, but she’s not with it particularly. She’s a thirsty girl and she’s not really up to talking. Or fucking. Or whatever it is you to do.” Remus stepped back, surprised about how matter-of-fact Minnie said those things. He’d forgotten what she was like. “I tell you what, her eyes are open even if nobody’s home, so how about we give her a show Romulus? You fuck me, for old times sake, and she gets to watch, for old times sake? Dealio Romulus?”

“It’s Remus actually and… umm, yes please, I mean… yes, umm… deal” he said, nervously stammering. His sex-life was a lot more regular before he had sex with Betty Bollingbrooke. It was certainly a lot more eventful now.

 

Betty idly watched as the two broncos bucked and whinnied. They made for a ferocious showing as Betty slowly realised she knew where she was. Minnie was a wild and feral lover to Remus, who felt wholly at the big girl’s mercy. He tried to picture her as before, thinner faced and slinky-shaped, but it was hard to do when he was holding onto her love-handles like they were…. love-handles. But, it was the same with Betty, the nostalgia, the lust, the motion all wiped his predilection for the petite out and he just enjoyed the moment. Betty, the girl he fancied more than anything else, despite looking less like a snacc and more like a dessert, was watching him with a growing smile as he wrestled Minnie’s larger form. Like with Wiktoria, it took more effort than with a thinner girl, and he liked that. He liked the challenge, the resistance, the additional contact of skin. It felt more substantial, it felt weightier. All of which Minnie was. And he came fairly promptly.

“You know, I actually came to talk to Betty” he said, literally a moment after he finished inside a Minnie with an elevated heart-rate. “I… did something similar to this actually and… I’m not into fat girls and I’m sorry I did it, but I really like her and I think I’ll do anything if she asks me.”

“Well I’ll pass the message on Romulus. Now beat it. And I don’t mean it literally” Minnie shooed the poor bewildered courier out the door.

“Mmmm” Betty mustered from beneath every condiment but mustard.

“Hey, you’re up to sounds now. Good girl. Did you like that love?” Minnie asked with a crooked smile.

“Mmmmm” Betty tried to nod.

“Good, well, don’t worry, I’ll let you sober up enough to eat before we tackle two Skinny meals. Have you ever done two in one sitting? The funny thing is you are so drunk you won’t remember eating them, and if we wait until after midnight, you’ll almost undoubtedly finish the Skinny meal challenge stage 3, and not even know. Eh love? Sounds great huh?” Minnie teased.

Betty smiled without her eyes fixing on anything in particular.

“Fiiiine, I’ll eat you out again, just to kill the time. But I want you to know, I’m not cheating on Rutherford. This doesn’t count. Eating a person out doesn’t count and men don’t count. You hear?” she argued, ostensibly to Betty but truthfully to herself. The chaos in her veins was well and truly pumping. Today was a cheat day.

It wasn’t until midnight that Betty had sobered sufficiently to make words, and they were rarely insightful ones. There were no discussions on Marcel Proust, that’s for sure. She was conscious and communicative but not coherent. Minnie just sat by the sofa stroking Betty’s hair who was thankfully impervious to alcohol’s capacity to provoke vomiting. Instead she just giggled and kept putting her hands down her jeggings without really do much whilst down there. By 2am, and Minnie was able to test the waters with regards to feeding her, but it was initially slow and arduous work. By 3am rolled around though, she was happy to eat and able to eat by herself. Which was a relief for Betty because there was a lot of food for her.

“Yours?” Betty asked, gesturing vaguely and the second unopened box.

“No yours Betty, we’re going to be a bit naughty tonight. Are you okay with that?” Minnie’s libido took a snooze while Betty was drunkenly delirious, but as Betty’s faculties booted up one by one, so did Minnie’s libido.

“Naughty” Betty nodded keenly as she tried to pick up the pace, pushing food in the general direction of her mouth with increased frequency. Minnie gently massaged her stomach as she pushed along, with her ego providing an engine to the challenge laid before her.

Betty was presumably quite hungry at this interval, though she was hardly in a state to clarify that point. But she hadn’t eaten for twelve hours, and even a lazy sleeper like Betty now was never went that long without food. So food was scurrying down her gob like it was fleeing from something, she piled the food down there were merciless abandon like a whale eating krill. Even though her mental stations were running on back-up generators with emergency functions only, Betty still had a stabbing desire to prove her gluttony to Minnie. Minnie carried judgement around on her person and Betty was a people-impresser. She just wanted to showcase the enormity of her capacity in a bid for praise from the queen of self-destruction.

“Come on, attagirl, keep going love. Remember think of Lionel” Minnie said, absent-mindedly nibbling Betty’s neck. Betty responded with a frown of concentration and resurged towards the end of Skinny meal one. Without hesitation or a glance for confirmation, Betty then opened the second one and dug in with the same vigour as an archaeologist at an ancient burial site. Slowing down before halfway, Betty started snarling at the meal in contempt. The alcohol had stripped her of the diligent maintenance of her appealing countenance and gurning was a frequent stand-in.

“Do it Betty, prove to me you’re a real woman” Betty coaxed, knowing she could keep it simple and the motivational boost from her words would still provide fresh impetus. She girded her loins and stuck to her task, even though she was clearly struggling. And by the time Betty only had one third left, she’d given up. No words from Minnie resolved the situation, no encouragement or motivation or oral sex could reignite her hunger. Each time that Minnie pressed the issue, Betty stubbornly shook her head like a rebellious toddler. But Minnie couldn’t stop so near the finish line, so she picked up the fork herself and began putting the food in her mouth. At first Betty resisted, but when she realised that Minnie would shovel the fork into her mouth whether it was open or not, she began to open it. It was all a little ‘here comes the aeroplane’ but slowly the Betty engine started whirring once more for one final push. She had hit the wall but she came through it, thanks to Minnie’s perseverance. And eventually it was gone. But before Betty could celebrate, she fell back asleep. Minnie took a step back to observe the bloated woman drowned in food and filled with food also with lustful pride at the wreckage.

 

Minnie woke Betty just three hours later at 8am since she had classes to attend.

“Hey Betty, how are you now?” Minnie said with a cheeky grin.

“What happened yesterday, I don’t even remember you getting here?” Minnie said, looking at her phone to see that it was now Thursday morning. “And what am I covered in?”

“What aren’t you covered in would be a better question. You were hammered when I arrived, essentially braindead, you’ve taken some resuscitating but now you’re back.” Minnie said with no little pride.

“That explains why I feel undead. I think I’m still drunk. Last thing I remember was Wicky hiding from Leona at luchtime, I’ve lost nearly 24 hours” Betty scratched were stained self while she tried to pull together discarded memories. “Thanks for looking after me, I’m sorry you saw me like that”

“Hey, it was like looking at a young me” Minnie joked. “By the way, your Skinny meal’s on its way. You ate well yesterday so the two Skinny meals in one day might be a struggle.”

“I will never be defeated” Betty said with faux-valiance, throwing her hand to her forehead in theatrical style. Minnie smiled, she hoped that would be her response. She knew the signs, she recognised the red flags. Betty was well down a road she would struggle to turn around on. The coming year was going to be quite exceptional.

Minnie left not long after, leaving Betty to wait for the Skinny meal herself. Fortunately it was Remus who delivered it again, apparently he never slept and was at work all day every day, because whenever they ordered, regardless of the time, it was always him now that turned up at Betty’s doorstep. Though, to be fair, it was often worth his time. Betty’s door was never locked so he just brought it in for her while she continued to lie on the sofa.

“Oh my god, what the fuck happened to you?” he asked at her caked appearance. It looked like she took a bath in a pasta dish, her skin was hardening with the fatty layer of ketchup, wine and whatever else it was that Minnie poured on her in her deep slumber.

“God knows Remus. I think, appearance-wise, I’ve hit rock bottom” she smiled a friendly smile though and Remus’ heart melted when she did. He was indoctrinated to worship at her altar and there seemed nothing Betty could do to put him off. Fortunately, she didn’t mind.

“You’re still cute though” he said as he walked towards her, removing his shorts and boxers and adding protection.

“You’re being a bit presumptuous” Betty bit her lip as she said this, and began dragging her jeggings and knickers down to her knees. She then slid onto the floor since there really wasn’t much room for manoeuvrability on the narrow sofa. She wrapped her arms around him as he inserted his cock. She smiled as he grunted, his eyes locked on hers as they always were. They were soft and hazel and they flickered as she glanced around his face. He got lost in her eyes and he got stuck in elsewhere. He pushed and pumped and powered, but was struggling to get a rhythm going.

“What’s up? Is it the fact that I’m covered in sauce?” she asked, worried that she had finally become in a state beyond his desirability.

“No, it’s nothing...” he said, before geeing himself up and starting again. Again the momentum faltered after a short while.

“It’s not nothing. What is it? What can I do?” Betty was concerned now, this had never happened to her before.

“It’s embarrassing, I don’t want to say” he evaded eye-contact for once.

“Come on, this is embarrassing for me so you can’t say that, it isn’t fair” Betty chided. He rolled his eyes to say he’d relinquish his pride.

“I’m finding it a bit easy” he said nervously.

“You saying I’m easy?” Betty said, mouth agape with shock.

“No, God no, I didn’t mean that” Remus protested, desperately shaking his head in wide-eyed disagreement. “No, I mean, there isn’t enough physical resistance. There’s… not enough of you in the way making it difficult for me.”

“Remus! Are you saying I’m too thin!?” Betty yelled in shock and delight. “Haha, I’ve turned you into a chubby-chaser?”

“No, no… well, I dunno. After that big Polish girl and Minnie...”

“Woah, you had sex with Minnie! Why am I not surprised?” Betty laughed but was slightly offended at this point. She couldn’t remember any of this.

“Well, you were too drunk, so she suggested you watch us instead” Remus cursed himself after realising how bad an excuse that was. It wasn’t too dissimilar to the night before, but he really couldn’t go around shagging all of Betty’s best friends.

“Okay, in the short-term, grab that pillow on the sofa and you can use that for ‘resistance’” Betty put that word in air-quotes gently mocking him. “And in the long term, I’ll continue getting fatter for you. But just for you, otherwise I’d stop in a heartbeat.”

“Yeah, I believe that” and Remus grabbed the pillow and wrapped her stomach in it, and the had another go. This time he got the purchase he required and soon he was in the zone. Fifteen minutes later her was done and Betty had to make do. She wasn’t too concerned, she had her fingers and the whole morning to herself, and she felt good about herself.

Once he’d departed, Betty had to attack her Skinny meal. Minnie was right with her warning though, she was a lot more full than normal from the night previous. But she would have her two Skinny meals and one McDonald’s a day, even if it killed her, and she threw herself at the meal.

Once that was dealt with, Betty yelped in pain as her stomach really couldn't take any more. To take her mind off it, she poured herself a vodka and coke. The hangover hadn’t kicked in yet, which meant she was still steaming. If she could just kickstart the alcohol consumption now, she could hopefully avoid it all together. That was what ‘hair of the dog’ was all about.

Betty had never been as drunk as yesterday, as full as today or as messy as now. She smiled at the thought of the state she was in. She had a free pass from Leona for this week, she could behave as destructively as she liked, but she did have to come to terms that some of these habits were going to have to kick the kerb. It was probably for the best, it was clearly not sustainable in even the short-to-medium term. But, talking of bad habits…

Betty took herself to the toilet to have another stab at a relatively new one. She sat down on the seat and reached up for a cigarette and lighter and had a crafty fag. This time, it wasn’t to reconnect with her sister, it was just celebrating another nail in her own coffin.

Post-cigarette and food, there was only alcohol and masturbation left on her limited list of hobbies. So she threw herself at those two next. She finished off the vodka and coke, and now she was feeling woozy again, and she threw her hands down her pants again. This time she wasn’t thinking about Wiktoria though, she wasn’t thinking about Leona, or Remus or Minnie. She was literally just thinking of herself. She saw the bulge of her extended stomach as the worked on herself, she felt the vague resistance of a second chin as she looked down and she started sparking. She ran her other hand through her own hair and felt greasy, knotty resistance and she felt the warmth downstairs. She smelt the boozy smell that masked her body odour and she began losing breaths. And she thought of what her parents would say and then she finally gasped.

At 1pm, Leona called again with the traditional food fare from McDonald’s. She didn’t really talk much though, and she didn’t linger long either. If she had, she might have spotted the state Betty was in. But she rushed off with barely a goodbye. Something was clearly bothering her but the timeframe prevented further discussion. She left behind the fast food though and that’s what mattered really, wasn’t it?

Except Betty was surprisingly trepidatious about it. She was still so very stuffed from breakfast, which was bizarre really since she had barely snacked all morning. Normally this would be a light day but she felt so very heavy. She had eaten just the one Snickers bar that she had found down the back of the sofa to nibble on and that was it. And most of that ended up around her mouth as it had melted. To make things more challenging, Leona had, like the day before, left her portion of the McDonald’s in there as well as Betty’s. And Leona’s portion was simply Bettyx2. Betty ate it all, of course she did, she was a trooper, but she really felt the consequences afterwards. Fortunately a glass of wine suppressed them. Which reminded her, she could have another cigarette before Wiktoria arrived in the afternoon for her second shift with Betty. She flinched as some the ashes landed on her bare legs but it was no great disaster. Then she went back to the sofa and gave into one final vice… and fell asleep.

 

Betty rose up when Wiktoria arrived in a huff of energy in a white buttoned blouse that a sliver of pink skin poked out the bottom of, and black trousers that hung tight enough to exalt Wiktoria’s grand form. But before Betty could get an apology out of her mouth for getting her so drunk last time, Wiktoria was rummaging through the thinning assortment of liqueurs that Betty had in the kitchen and bringing in a bottle of Tequila.

“Leona is a bitch!” Wiktoria raged, clanking the bottle on the table and sitting on the floor next to it. “I need to get drunk Betty”

“Why, what’s up?” Betty said, still waking up but alarmed at Wiktoria’s seething temperament,

“I put on weight and now she is angry with me. But I don’t want a stupid diet anyway!” Wiktoria poured herself a small glass of it and began drinking it faster than she should. The tequila was strong and the alcohol scorched the back of her throat as it went down.

“Well, you’ve come to the right place Wicky. You can eat and drink to your heart’s content round here, whenever you like. My door’s always open” Betty said, righting herself on the sofa and pouring herself some Tequila into a brandy glass and sipping it.

“Thank you Betty, you are very good friend” Wiktoria thanked, grateful for the lack of judgement. “Do you have any chocolate?”

“Sorry Wicky, all out, but I have an online delivery coming in an hour. If you just hang on in until then, and then help me put it away, I’m sure there’s some chocolate for you” Betty smiled. “And there some Mr Kipling’s apple pies in a cupboard for the meantime. I don’t like apple so I haven’t had them myself”

Wiktoria required no second invitation. Betty had barely gotten the words out of her mouth by the time Wiktoria had placed them on the table and started going through them piecemeal. She poured herself a second glass of Tequila, grateful that Betty’s place served as a sanctuary from judgement.

“It was only 5lbs!” Wiktoria chuntered, still frustrated.

“Oh, 5lbs is nothing” Betty supported before allowing her curiosity to get the better of her, something she never normally would have down. “In how many days?”

“Exactly! And in 5 days. Leona said that is 1lb for every one day. And that I have 700 days left at university” Wiktoria grumbled, leaving Betty to digest that comment. A pound a day and she has 700 days left? Even on woman of her height, there wasn’t enough room for all that. And this was while she was supposedly dieting? And she was just putting her fourth apple pie in her mouth, so it didn’t look like it was changing.

“Wiktoria, the best advice I have for you is be happy. I can’t tell you how to be happy, and neither can anyone else, but please, be happy” Betty said sincerely, caringly. Trying to suppress any ulterior motive that kept burning in the back of her mind.

“This is good advice Betty. And food makes me happy” and down went apple pie number five. “What makes you happy Betty?”

Betty didn’t know how to respond. She just sat there and let the thoughts rattle in her brain. Well, she knew what didn’t. Lionel. Her mum. Tim 3. Her dad. Exercise.

Wait, exercise? Did exercise make her unhappy? Or had she just forgotten the thrill of pushing herself to her limits? Was exercise really as hellish as her memory was telling her or had she just overlooked the pride of reaching a finishing line, the rigorous pursuit of PBs. Her body straining from chasing targets and trying to one-up herself every time?

Then she realised. She was getting these highs. She was getting them from over-eating. It was the same thing. The thrill of pushing herself to her limits. The pride of reaching a finish line. Her rigorous pursuit of PBs. Her body straining from chasing targets and trying to one-up herself every time.

So, was she like Wiktoria, was it food that she liked? Well, not really. She was rarely that fussed about the taste. She enjoyed mixing up sweet and savoury, but, that aside, she didn’t care. She went three months eating the same meal, this was not a trait of a foodee. Even when she was thin, food was all about function. She ate to refuel. Now, food was still about function. She ate to get fat. To let herself go. To look in the mirror and be disappointed. Disappointment in her face, her body, her drinking, her smoking.

Maybe disappointment then was what made her happy? But giving it or receiving it. She loved the disapproving looks from strangers as she calorifically cataclysmed. But she also loved to be loved. Oh Betty didn’t understand. How could she want to be reviled and to be loved. Why would she want to disappoint people and then have them love her anyway? That sounded too Freudian for comfort. So what did make her happy?

“I… don’t want to be lonely” Betty stammered, trying to reach the end of her thread of thought. She didn’t want to be lonely. But she did want to deserve to be lonely. Or something. Oh, her thoughts were a tricky mess.

“You will never be lonely Betty. You have very good friends. I will always be your friend” Wiktoria consoled as she finished her second glass of tequila and her sixth and final apple pie. Fortunately, a Tesco van pulled up outside to deliver food.

 

Throngs of shopping bags were dumped in the house. Including replenishing all the booze and biscuits, it came to £300-worth of shopping. Even on her high-flying lecturer wages, Betty was feeling the pinch a bit with these new habits of hers. £300 a week on shopping, and that didn’t include any meals, since every one was takeaway. Her lifestyle was as financially unsustainable as it was physically. But that bothered her not a jot.

Poor Wiktoria had to put all the stuff away, and there was masses of it. And, given that such a large proportion of it was liquid that came in glass containers, it was heavy work. And all Betty could do was sit and watch and drink. Which was fine by her. Wiktoria had been drinking more keenly than Betty since she’d come in, and she was, despite her gargantua, something of a lightweight. Betty was making up for lost time while Wiktoria sweated with the shopping, drinking fiercely from brandy glass after brandy glass of tequila until she was struggling to hold it to her mouth without spilling it down her. She couldn’t remember what being sober felt like. She’d been drunk non-stop since Friday night and her liver was probably wailing in despair, while the rest of her body was whaling.

Wiktoria took a loud sigh of relief as she plonked herself back on the floor in exhaustion. It was all done and she was sweating buckets and was manically wiping her brow while her blouse armpits darkened with a sweat patch. Betty could relate to this, she had a matching pair. Once done, and once her breath was gathered, Wiktoria directed her eyes at Betty and shifting her eyebrows down into a scowl.

“Why have you bought cigarettes Betty?” she said disapprovingly.

“Umm… oh jeez, I guess I should come clean. I’ve started smoking” Betty admitted, her words slurring.

“Betty!” Wiktoria sharply unfurled consternation at the professing professor.

“It’s… I’ve only just started and it’s only one or two a day. It’s… I feel closer to my sister when I do it. I miss her and they remind me of her” Betty looked away as she said it, the thought of her sister still stinging.

“Oh Betty” Wiktoria’s ice thawed and she tilted her head in compassion.

“I know, I know. Actually, if you pass me one, and the lighter that should have been in there, and the ashtray. I could light one up for hew now” Betty said.

She was handed these things and Betty took it, lit it and took a drag.

“It looks strange seeing you smoke Betty. You are normally an angel, but now you smoke like the devil” Wiktoria said, amused by the dichotomy of Betty’s current form and yesteryear form. Was there really anything of the old Betty left?

“Talking of the devil, when you order the Skinny meal, you think you can push for three of them again?” Betty asked between drags, occasionally coughing as she tried to get to grips with this new habit of hers. And, of course, the answer was yes.

The Skinny meals were, to their surprise and disappointment, not delivered by Remus. He apparently wasn’t on call 24/7 to deliver exclusively to one household and did occasionally sleep. Wiktoria took the meals from the other courier and brought them in, swaying a little as she did so. Never was such a heavyweight such a lightweight. She put Betty’s down first, before starting her own, and punishing her diet with an unexpected 16500 calories that could sate a dieting girl of a more regular size for two weeks. But Wiktoria was not a dieting girl and was absolutely not a more regular size. She was ginormous and only getting ginormouser.

Betty, for her part, was finding hers surprisingly tough going. She had know idea she had eaten two in one sitting merely 15 hours ago, and thought her appetite was just flagging. She felt like such a weakling when held in comparison to such a remarkable consumer of foods. Once she was done, she poured herself another unnecessary brandy glass of tequila and watched the show, enthralled.

Wiktoria had zoned out upon meal two, and started meal three in a hypnotic trance. The tequila was helping, she was using it as liquid strength to sturdy her resolve and was now paralytic. She wasn’t aware of anything other than the shovelling of food into her grill. And this was why she didn’t notice Betty fingering herself whilst watching until Betty started making hushed squeaks of pleasure. Then Wiktoria noticed. And that seemed to incentivise her even more. She revelled in her audience and strove harder, dove deeper and drove tougher at it until there was nothing left but guilty memories.

She wasn’t fit to walk due to her consumption of liquids and solids, so she crawled over to Betty who was still going. She lifted her torse up until she could kiss Betty, and then leaned in and did so, with her monolithic mountain of a stomach pressing its enormity against the girl, accelerating her push. Wiktoria grabbed her greasy hair and began gnawing at her neck while Betty ratcheted up the octaves, and then eventually Betty exploded.

“Your turn Wicky, stand up” Betty said to the giggling Pole, who held onto Betty for balance as she did so. Betty seductively undid the button and flies of Wiktoria’s trousers, allowing flab to flop out where it had previously been imprisoned. Then she pulled them down and the knickers beneath them. “You’re going to need to open your legs for this part.”

Betty wasn’t lying, if she was going to lick out Wiktoria, her fatty legs would need to part. It was bad enough with her folding down stomach, but the legs removed all access points. Wiktoria, a former heptathlete and hurdler, was still very limber and could get halfway to doing the splits, though balance was an issue. And the Betty craned her neck under Wiktoria’s stomach and returned the favour.

[butterboy]

Another great chapter, definitely worth the wait. I love how Betty unknowingly finished the challenge plus way extra.

Also, I think there's a formatting error - the middle part of the chapter is italicized.

[swahilimonkfish]

46 minutes ago, butterboy said:

Another great chapter, definitely worth the wait. I love how Betty unknowingly finished the challenge plus way extra.

Also, I think there's a formatting error - the middle part of the chapter is italicized.

Thanks for the kind comment, Betty really has no idea how far gone she is.

And thanks for spotting the italicised formatting error, no idea how I did that. Unfortunately doesn't let me edit it, which is really annoying because it hurts my eyes