story The Abyss

[swahilimonkfish]

The Abyss

 

Part 1 – In the middle, somewhere

 

 

 

I first noticed The Abyss at the bottom of a bowl of cornflakes.

 

It was not the first place you expect to find it, in all honesty, but times had been tough and the pandemic had really buggered up my feng shui. I was having a right old gander at the bottom of my cereal and I realised something. I realised I was staring into The Abyss. I really should have noticed it sooner.

 

But this story doesn’t start with me staring into The Abyss. This is my story and I want it to start earlier. This story starts where all good stories start. In the middle, somewhere.

 

 

*-*-*-*-*-*

 

 

“Pawn?”

 

“No, porn”

 

“Th… that’s what I said”

 

“Pawn and porn don’t sound the same”

 

“Yeah they do. P – AW – N. Porn”

 

“British people are so weird. Like, you think you’d be able to speak English given that you guys invented it”

 

And this was what a phone conversation between me and Maria sounded like.

 

Maria was my best friend. And also my worst nightmare. Think Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Think Pete Doherty and heroin. That kinda relationship. Love/Hate. Best of frenemies. A combination of fixation and jealousy. And we were chatting on the phone a couple of days after lockdown had been announced. Some blond buffoon, dishevelled like an old teddy bear, told us that we’d need to, and I quote, ‘flatten the sombrero’. That blond buffoon was our Prime Minister, and that ‘sombrero’ was the number of cases of coronavirus pervading through our vulnerable population.

 

Many of my future Abyss related issues stem from that scarecrow-looking arse-shepherd announcing lockdown.

 

“You are watching porn?”

 

“Oh, you can’t blame me, Nay-nay. It was either that or deal with the McLean account. And now you’re dealing with the McLean account and I’m watching porn. So, everything’s coming up Maria” she smiled, Basquely. She’s Basque, by the way. Did I mention that she’s Basque?

 

“So I’m doing all the hard work and you’re just masturbating to...”

 

“It’s called Big Titty Car Mechanic Cum Explosion and it’s really good. You’d appreciate the craftsmanship. The cinematography is excellent” she teased.

 

“How do you know a word like cinematography? English is supposed to be your second language”

 

“Third, actually. I’m Basque, remember?” See, I told you she was Basque. “And do you know what the word cinematography is in Spanish?”

 

“No?”

 

“Cinematografía”

 

“Oh. That’s not too hard to learn I guess” I admitted. I wish I could speak more than one language. I wish I was more like Maria. “Doesn’t excuse the fact that you’re watching porn while you’re supposed to be dealing with this McLean bullshit”.

 

“And the plot’s good”

 

“The plot’s good?”

 

“Of Big Titty Car Mechanic Cum Explosion. It’s got a good storyline”

 

“Big Titty Car Mechanic Cum Explosion has a good storyline? Did the car mechanic cum explode over some big titties? By any chance?”

 

“Oh. So you’ve seen this one?”

 

And on and on we go. It was only Tuesday of our second week of lockdown and we’d settled into a routine. We were colleagues for some B2B data server provider who had found ourselves working in an office surrounded by men with receding hairlines and crinkled shirts. Back in the office, work was boring so we’d lean on each other for sanity and conversation. Working form home, however, work was still boring so we’d still lean on each other for sanity and conversation. To aid the dreary drudgery of having to work from home, we’d chat about whatever conversation topic that sprung into our heads. And then take the piss out of it.

 

And we’d do so from the other side of Liverpool. She was an adotped woollyback who lived South of the Mersey. Born in Bilbao (which I thought was the name of a hobbit, but what do I know) but emigrated at some point. Not sure when. She spoke better English than I did, but would always insist it was her third language behind Spanish and Basque. The lauburu tattoo on the back of her neck was a small, inked shrine to her roots and her identity. And she held those roots in high regard. If you want to know how proud she is of being Basque, call her Spanish to her face and then see how long it is until she breaks your arm.

 

Me? Oh, I was a proper Scouser, born and bred. Right down to the phlegmy pronunciation and the idolisation of Steven Gerrard. My da even worked down the docks, until he hurt his back. He even had the Scouse curly hair and caterpillars for eyebrows. And I was just as stereotypically Liverpudlian. I’d do all the Liverpool things. I’d glass anyone who insulted the Beatles and I’d glass anyone who didn’t insult The Sun. The only thing that wasn’t Scouse about me was my name.

 

“So what are you wearing, Nay-nay?”

 

My name isn’t Nay-nay, though you’d be forgiven for thinking so. After all, it’s all that anybody calls me. Leading to a childhood that involved a lot of horse mimicry and bullying. But everyone calls me Nay-nay. Even Maria. Though Maria can call me anything she likes.

 

My name is Naomee. Yes, Naomee. You read that right. Two ‘e’s. Why? Fuck knows. Because my parents can’t spell? Probably. But yeah, my name is ‘Naomi’ but it’s spelt ‘Naomee’ like a supporting character from an American High School comedy who says the word ‘totally’ a lot. Which I totally don’t, by the way.

 

And she was asking about what I was wearing not because this was that kind of phone call where you ask what the other person is wearing. We were colleagues, not lovers. Not yet, anyway. No, she was asking because this Scouser here – points to self – had been wearing her work uniform even though she was working from home. I’d even do my hair and make-up for it.

 

It just felt right. You know? Proper. It was still work, right? You should dress appropriately. Of course, Maria rarely dressed ‘appropriately’ even when she was at work. But that’s by the by. But I just wanted the routine. I wanted the maintained standards. I wanted to keep a handle on things. I didn’t want my normality to be fully eroded. It was bad enough sitting with my feet up and an old and over-heating laptop on my knees. But I wanted to keep as much normality as possible.

 

Maria wasn’t so convinced.

 

“Are you wearing work clothes or have you finally started wearing Pjs?”

 

“Pjs”

 

“Finally. Welcome to the dark side. We have cookies”

 

“I do like cookies”

 

“I’m naked, by the way”

 

“That doesn’t count as joining the dark side. You’re always naked”

 

“I know. I was practically born naked”

 

“You were literally born naked, Maria”

 

“So we’re both wearing our Pjs”

 

“Because… let me guess… you sleep naked?”

 

“I’m always naked”

 

“You are always naked, I will admit that”

 

She was. Maria was… uninhibited, shall we say. Liked to fuck around with the idea of fucking around. Even when we were in the office, an office that was an ode to shades of eggshell and with an air-conditioner that sounded like someone giving birth to a fully-grown Dwayne Johnson, she wore the tightest, most flattering, most revealing clothes she could get away with for somewhere that didn’t feature poles or tassels. She was… well, she was Maria. You’ll see. All in good time but trust me, you’ll see.

 

“How does it feel, Nay-nay? To be lounging around in your Pjs? To give in? To begin your descent towards the deep, dark Abyss?”

 

“Comfy”

 

“Is it a full-length nightie or do you have like the frilly top and the shorts?”

 

“Frilly top and shorts. I thought I’d make an effort. I am at work, after all. What about you?”

 

“I’m naked. Do you have amnesia? We talked about this like 30 seconds ago.”

 

“But what do you do when… y’know… Big Rab gets you on a Zoom meeting? Do you just have clothes lying around nearby or…?”

 

Big Rab was our boss. We call him that cos he’s 5ft6. We have literally zero respect for Big Rab. Nobody does. I’m not sure even Big Rab has respect for Big Rab. He had a moustache that made him look like he coached the under 12s of a local football team. His hair was thinning as the rest of him was fattening, until he looked like a cross between a trade union leader and Danny DeVito. Big Rab. Fucking Big Rab.

 

“Fucking Big Rab?” she said, phlegming it up on the ‘kkkh’ on ‘fucking’ like a native. Like seriously, how does she sound so local saying some words and sound like Puss In Boots other times? “Who cares what Big Rab thinks? Anyway, my laptop stand props it high up so he can only see my shoulders. For all he knows, I could just be wearing a strapless dress”.

 

“I don’t know how you get away with doing the shit you do. One day, karma’s gonna turn on you”

 

“Never”

 

“You have all the luck. It’s gotta run out at some point”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because… odds? Probability?”

 

“Luck isn’t something that happens to you. It’s something you do”

 

“Fuck off, no it’s not. It’s literally not”

 

“It is”

 

“No it’s not. It happens to you. You aren’t in control of your life, Maria Exterberria. We’re all just driftwood being dragged down wild rapids”

 

“Correction… you aren’t in control of your life. I am in complete control in my life. I’m not driftwood being towards The Abyss. Because I’m hot”

 

“I’m hot too”

 

“No, you are cute. I am hot. I sizzle. Tssss” She did the sound of sizzling. You can see why I hated her, can’t you? You can see why I loved her, can’t you?

 

She had a point. She was hot. Filthy hot. Irritatingly hot. It was a lazy hot too. The worst kind. She seemed to wake up with immaculate hair. Clothes always fit just perfectly without her needing to try them on. She never exercised or watched what she ate and yet she always looked like rice paper would give her bloating. Somewhere, Mephistopheles is counting down the days, I swear. Her face looked like it had been airbrushed. In real time. The bitch. The very sexy bitch.

 

And I was hot too. No, really. I mean, look guys, I know I’m biased. What with me being me. I’m invested. But I was hot. Genuinely. I had all the hot things that other hot people had. Hot legs, hot arms, hot… other stuff. Whatever you like. The entire range. So why did she say I was cute? I was hot! I sizzled! I went ‘tsssss’ too. I did. Stop looking at me like that, I did.

 

“And being hot means you never have to worry about… anything?”

 

“Exactly. Take Big Rab, for example. I could murder his only son...”

 

“I hate that kid”

 

“Me too”

 

“I mean, if you did his son in, you’d be doing us all a favour”

 

“Right?”

 

“In this hypothetical situation, of course. I’m not explicitly advocating murder”

 

“I could murder that little shit and Big Rab wouldn’t even fire me. I’d just have to lean forwards to give him a view of my cleavage” and yeah, she had great cleavage despite being skinnier than a fasting toothpick. She won the genetic lottery. And it was a rollover too. “…and he’d probably give me a promotion too”

 

“Men are so shallow”

 

“Mortals are so shallow”

 

“You’re not a deity, Maria”

 

“I’m a goddess?”

 

“Not a literal goddess”

 

“Hmmm… yeah, no, I think I’m a literal goddess. So, I could get away with killing him. You? You are very attractive...”

 

“Cheers?”

 

“But you couldn’t get away with infanticide”

 

“Fuck you, I so could. And how do you know the word infanticide?”

 

“It’s infanticidio in Spanish”

 

“Is Spanish just English with a lisp and a vowel on the end?”

 

“So, this is why you feel like driftwood heading towards The Abyss and I feel like the mountain you’re tumbling down”

 

And, at this point, I suppose I should tell you what The Abyss is, shouldn’t I? Well, as it’s you, I will. Here you go.

 

Rhiannon stared into The Abyss. She worked in payroll, did Rhiannon. Lovely girl, but quiet though. Kept herself to herself. And Rhiannon gambled. We all knew she liked a flutter, but it turned out she actually really gambled. She was at that stage where she felt like she needed to gamble because winning was the only possible, conceivable way that she could ever get enough money to pay off her gambling debts. The gambling debts she’d accrued from gambling to win enough money to pay off her gambling debts. That particular vicious circle. Like a one-person pyramid scheme. An Ouroborous of debt. Well, as happenstance would deign it to be, she won. Big. Enough to pay off all her gambling debts. Even the little shitty ones. Despite it being deeply illogical, sometimes the universe is flawed like that. It rewards bad habits. Her win may have been a one-in-a-million occurrence, but there are 7 billion people in the world so maybe the odds were on her side. And so she did the inconceivable. She gambled her way out of debt.

 

And then she gambled her way back into debt. Because she figured her luck had turned and because it felt a waste to win all that money and only be back to zero. She wanted to win and be wealthy off of it, and felt cheated that she wasn’t. Last time I saw her, was lying down in an overgrown parka outside big Asda. I bought her a sandwich and coke meal deal. It was the least I could do. I always cared for the homeless. It wasn’t her fault she gambled her way back into the problem from which Fate had generously freed her. She’d stared into The Abyss. And The Abyss had stared back. That’s just how The Abyss works.

 

Well, that’s how we’d gossiped about it in the office, anyway. Setting ‘The Abyss’ as a catch-all for the inescapable pull of rock-bottom. And one of the people who’d engage in this deeply disrespectful gossip-mongering was Riyadh. Riyadh was a filthy gossip. Until The Abyss got to him too. In his case, he was caught cheating on his wife with some other woman that he also claimed to love. Both of them left him when they found out about each other and he went from having his cake and eating it to having no cake and starving. He took it badly. We found out how badly after he didn’t come in to work for a couple of days.

 

He’d committed suicide, and he didn’t even have the dignity to confine his wrist slicing to the bathtub. The people who lived in the flat beneath him, report damp on the ceiling. And then they reported that the damp was merlot red. Now, you might be thinking, what an over-reaction. Does a little itsy-bitsy heart-break warrant the shearing of his radial? But he’d seen The Abyss at this point. The Abyss had seen him back. And when he’d think of what his future held without either of those women in his life, he saw nothing. Just the vacuous space where one of them should have been, from here unto eternity. Or, that’s what we said, anyway. As we gossiped about it at work. It’s what he would have wanted.

 

“I am not heading towards The Abyss because I’m not wearing Pjs. Pjs that you bullied me into wearing by the way”

 

“I didn’t bully you, Nay-nay”

 

“Yes you did. By suggesting that I wear them in that sexy Spanish accent of yours. You know I can’t resist that.”

 

“If you call my accent Spanish one more time, I’ll rip your fucking throat out!”

 

“Oh, you object to me saying your accent is Spanish but you’re fine with me calling it sexy?” I laughed. There weren’t many people who could get away with calling her Spanish in any way. Neil from IT did it once and now he’s missing teeth. He didn’t report her though. Luck or sex appeal? You decide.

 

“I am sexy, Nay-nay. You’re just stating a fact”

 

“Is it a fact though?”

 

“Yes, and don’t test me on this. Especially cos I’m reaching a climax right now”

 

Yeah.

 

That caused me to take a beat.

 

She actually said that to me.

 

“You’re still masturbating? While we’re on this call?”

 

“Yeah” she said, as if it was normal. But, that’s not normal though guys? Right?

 

“And was it the porn that stimulated you, or all that talk of you finding yourself sexy that did it?”

 

“I am so fucking hot” she whimpered.

 

“Are you having phone sex? With… yourself? And I’m the third wheel in a two-way conversation somehow?”

 

“I am so fucking hot” she whimpered again, like that was a response. I just put the phone down and let herself finish herself off. It was kinda frustrating, kinda insulting, and all kinds of Maria. She just existed in her own space, doing her own thing, and the world would just have to work around her. This was a woman who could get breathy at just hearing herself give herself compliments. It’s alright for some.

 

I sat up and looked at my laptop screen and tried to put her breathy groans out of my head. But the alternative was dealing with the McLean account, and the thought of that made me queasy. Honestly, it was the comment about The Abyss had made me a little queasy. I wasn’t anywhere near any Abyss, which wasn’t real anyway. I’d worn pyjamas. Big whoop. They were cute Pjs anyway. I don’t know why I felt so defensive. It seemed to hit a nerve that I didn’t realise was showing.

 

I mean, I could take a leaf out of Maria’s book, I guess. What was it called? Big Titty Car Mechanic Cum Explosion? I mean, I could type that into Pornhub’s search filter? I could let my hand slip down my fancy working-from-home nightwear. I could, couldn’t I? Maybe be the mountain that the rapids poured down that carried the driftwood, for a change.

 

I got up to close the curtains, shaking off the crumbs that had been caught in my top as I rose. And doing that caused me to pause and reflect. Reflect at how maybe I had flirted with a little sneaky side-eye at The Abyss after all. Reflect on the real reason I was wearing nightwear as workwear, besides Maria’s gentle coaxing to her covetous dark side. I had been snacking far more than usual. And I was struggling to button my work trousers.

 

I’d gained 20lbs in the past 6 weeks.

 

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what I meant when I told you that I was starting this story in the middle, somewhere. Because the weight gain that you’re presumably all here for, was already a WIP. I’d gained 20lbs, and found them in my middle, somewhere.

[berserker1]

I already gave you the feedback on DA so I'm just gonna say here, in case anyone is hesitating about if they should start reading "The Abyss": Do yourself a favor and start reading it right now. It's amazing.

[swahilimonkfish]

50 minutes ago, berserker1 said:

I already gave you the feedback on DA so I'm just gonna say here, in case anyone is hesitating about if they should start reading "The Abyss": Do yourself a favor and start reading it right now. It's amazing.

As ever, that's really kind of you to say. Cheers mate

[swahilimonkfish]

Part 2 – Je ne regrette rien

My weight gain began in the usual way. After my yoga instructor broke up with me on Valentine’s Day.

Now, I recognise that sounds a little more Desperate Housewives than any real life scenario should, but it also hung, drew and quartered my heart. My bendy lover with the strong command over their breathing saw fit to cast me aside by fucking Email. Email! Who dumps someone by Email in the 21st Century? Well, Liverpool’s sixth most popular yoga instructor does, that’s who.

That was 24lbs ago.

And that was where my story really began.

As I was trying to explain to Maria on one of our phonecalls.

“Because that’s when I started gaining weight”

“So what?”

“So, I’m suffering from a few, minor sartorial issues”

“Like what?”

“Like, I’m having trouble finding clothes that fit, Maria”

And now we wait for the response from her. And I’ll give you the following odds on what happens next: Sympathy 20/1. Reassurance 15/1. Dismissal 5/1. Reference to The Abyss 3/1. Teasing 2/1. Out and out bullying – Evens.

In the meantime, shall we talk about what you’ve missed? Well, let’s see. There’s the fact that it’s now the third week of lockdown, and it’s taking its toll on my sanity. God, I feel trapped in here, clawing at the same four walls. I miss open spaces and not having a roof over my head and vitamin D and, oh, the sight of other living, breathing human beings. Remember other human beings? God, that takes me back.

But I can’t go out. Partly because lockdown forbids it so. It’s apparently ‘illegal’. And yes, I’m quotation marking the word ‘illegal’. But also because zips and I haven’t been seeing eye-to-eye lately. Hence the above and below conversation.

“Are… are you getting fat, Nay-nay?” and she could barely stifle her giggle as she said it.

“No I’m fucking not”

She replied with nothing but a wall of silence.

“Don’t talk to me like that, Maria Echeverria!”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You didn’t need to. I know exactly what you’re thinking”

This wasn’t strictly true. Nobody truly knew what Maria was ever thinking. She was a riddle, wrapped in tight leather, shrouded in expensive perfume. You never ever got the full picture with her. There were puppet strings being pulled in the background and mischief happening in the corner of your eye always.

But I knew roughly what Maria was thinking. She was thinking about the A word.

Abyss. She was thinking about me be pulled towards The Abyss.

Anyone have The Abyss at 3/1?

“I’m thinking that this is a reason why we should hang out, not a reason not to hang out. We could have so much fun clothes shopping. I have great fashion sense and an American Express card that just loves being used. Come on, let me spend some of my enviable riches”

“That’s real generous of you Maria. Though that’s tempered by the gloating, you showboat. But the shops aren’t open and, even if they were, I wouldn’t fancy gracing their good selves with the button on my jeans undone” I told her, before adding on the end “It’s a self-consciousness thing, you wouldn’t understand”

“Shop online. We can shop online”

“Yeah, but for clothes? Don’t you want to try them on?”

“Well, durrr… I want to. But it’s not the end of the world”

“It’s not the end of the world? Are you sure? Have you seen outside?”

“Okay, I’ll admit, it’s possibly the end of the world. But shopping online is fine. And you can always return things that don’t fit. I’ll come round and we’ll sort it out together”

“Fine. I guess. But you’re not allowed to judge me for my appearance”

“Too late. I did that when we first met”

“I remember” I say to the blank screen of a phone that has already been hung up. Without even saying bye, like she’d learn how to do phone conversations from American movies. And I sat there, in my Pjs, listing regrets in my head like I was the anti-Edith Piaf.

Oui, je regrette beaucoup.

So, while we wait for Hurricane Maria to wash up on these shores, how about I tell you what about this weight gain then. Let me tell you how this story actually began.

Seven weeks ago, when The Abyss was just a twinkle in the milkman’s eye. Seven weeks ago, when I thought Wuhan was followed by the word Clan to make a hip-hop band. Seven weeks ago, after my break-up with Liverpool’s seventh most popular yoga instructor – no longer the sixth since I’ve been spamming criticisms under different guises on her Facebook page ever since we split like the mature woman who was taking the break-up well that I was – I had a reservation for two at La Torre and I was looking for a plus-one.

So, of course, I told her this during one of our coffee breaks at work. And Maria had volunteered to be my plus-one.

“But it’s Valentine’s Day? And you’re… you. Don’t you have like a million dates as it is?” I had told her.

“I can probably fit it in” she had replied.

“Fit it in, my arse”

She had cocked her head to the side at this point, as I back-pedalled as fast as my heart-broken legs could back-pedal.

“No… not ‘fit it in my arse’. I said… meant… fit in in. Full stop. New sentence. My arse”

“What am I fitting in your arse?”

“Nothing. ‘My arse’ is just what you say when you don’t believe the preceding sentence. I was just calling bullshit, not providing an instruction manual for anal penetration. You… you know that, don’t you? You’re just winding me up, aren’t you, you cheeky fuck”

“It’s fun to see you squirm” she’d smiled to me. “I’ll see you at 7”.

It wasn’t a date. Not a date date. It was just Maria riding in to rescue me, the damsel in distress, as a favour. Between mates. And boy did I want to mate with her.

And then I just waited for Maria to knock on my door.

When Maria knocks on your door, you feel a sense of unease. It doesn’t matter if you’re Brad Pitt or a rocket scientist or you own a car (wtf, Shania?), you’re gonna feel deeply unimpressive in her company. But that goes doubly when you’ve just been dumped by the downward-dogger of your dreams just a few hours earlier. And that was the situation I was all those weeks ago.

She looked sublime. As frigging usual. She always looked sublime. I opened the door to see 5ft10 of feminine slink, a feline predator with a shimmering physique. Her hair had that Joan Jett roughness that takes hours of polish, and her eyes sparkled like the pole star. Her neck was long, but in a regal way. Or a praying mantis way. Yeah, in a praying mantis way. Her waist would whittle in fiendishly beneath her disturbingly sufficient chest. And she had an arse on her, but flatteringly so. Daily-routine-features-squats so. Oh, and she was wearing a black leather crop top and leg-gripping trousers like she was cosplaying as Xenia Onatopp.

“Sorry I’m looking rough, I slept in”

“Oh haha Maria, you… that is not what looking rough looks like… and how did you sleep in?”

“You know I like to sleep”

“Yeah… with people”

“I need my beauty sleep. And, as you can see from looking at me, it works”

It did.

“But I thought you had multiple dates”

“I did. Including one with a couple of Liverpool footballers. You’d probably know who they are”

“Men’s team or women’s team”

“Men’s team and women’s team”

“So what happened?”

“I cancelled them all. Because you needed me, Nay-nay”

She said that with those piercing eyes locked onto me like a tractor beam. I was entranced. I guess, my break-up wasn’t going so bad after all.

It was humbling and guilt-inducing to have Maria Echeverria, the one and only, make sacrifices for little old me. I mean, we were good friends and everything. But I always felt like a convenient friend more than a good friend. Like the human equivalent of fast food to her. The social options were limited in our office, unless you liked 50 year old virgins. At least I wasn’t a 50 year old virgin.

But there I was, 7 weeks ago, standing in front of the most attractive woman this side of the Pennines, who’d made time for me on her busiest day of the year.

And, also, how did she look so good if she’d only just gotten up?

And this is what I asked her as we sat down at the restaurant.

“Good genes I guess. Plus, the painting of me in my attic looks like shit”

Don’t mind Maria just dropping another classic literature reference. More brains and looks than anyone non-fictional. This woman is so perfect she makes Mary Poppins look like Scully or Hitchcock. Because my references aren’t quite so classic or literature.

“But… how do you look like that without make-up? You look like you’ve been Vogue-d, or at least Grazia-ed”

“Diana’s lip is not more smooth and rubious”

“Are you speaking about yourself in the third person?”

“It’s Shakespeare. I was quoting Shakespeare”

See what I mean about the literature?

“But I thought you were Spanish… Basque, sorry”

“Can’t you quote Miguel De Cervantes?”

“N… no. No I can’t. Is he the windmills guy?”

“Wow. ‘The windmills guy’. You called the writer who practically invented post-modernism 300 years before modernism… the Iberian answer to Shakespeare… ‘the windmills guy’”

And we laughed and drank our wine while the tasting menu was delivered to us.

It was an Italian place, La Torre. Real high-end. And on Valentine’s Day, high-end is expensive. I mean, on Valentine’s Day, even Maccy D’s is expensive. But La Torre? You’d need to remortgage your place just to go there, if it wasn’t for the fact that my generation were priced out of the property ladder to begin with. But some yoga instructors are worth it.

Or so I thought, before he pulled my heart out of my chest and shat on it.

Either way, the food’s very fancy. And you know the food’s fancy because the portions are tiny. It was a seven course taster menu, where they spend ages pouring wine that you can’t afford into a glass that’s always on your lips while they eventually get around to bringing around foams and morsels and dots of food. Usually on something that isn’t a plate. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was very tasty. And, in a romantic setting, with the yoga instructor of your dreams, I have no doubt it would be delightful.

But with your best mate who I swear moonlights as a siren, it was a bit weird.

“You know, I’m gonna end up getting fat. And lonely. Maybe I should get cats. Is that the next step in my evolution? Behold, Naomee Heaney, cat owner extraordinaire!”

“Oh, that’s just the wine talking, Nay-nay”

I mean, I was feeling pretty loose-tongued at this point. It probably was.

“No it’s not”

“Why will you get fat?”

“Cos I can’t do yoga any more, can I? I can’t do all that stretchy, breathey bollocks in the same room as that motherfucker”

“I would. I wouldn’t give a fuck about Jerome”

“Well, yeah. But you’re… you, Maria. The rules don’t apply to you”

“Fucking is right, they don’t. But you’re not gonna get fat eating portions this size anyway, you’ll be fine. Unless...”

“Unless what?”

“Unless we go to get something from Nandos after this”

“A cheeky Nandos?”

“It doesn’t have to be cheeky”

“It’s Nandos. It has to be cheeky”

I don’t make the rules. But every Nandos is a cheeky Nandos, and that’s just the way of things.

“Fine, a cheeky Nandos. Because this is just chicken feed. After this, we should actually feed on some chicken”

“Fine. But only because life is meaningless and god is dead”

“No I’m not”

“How many times Maria, you’re not a deity! You just look like one”

Okay guys, so Nando’s is a British institution. Or at least it was, before the pandemic. You see, Americans think British people drink tea and eat cucumber sandwiches. And the tea bit’s true, I’ll grant you. But, mainly, we eat peri-peri chicken after a night on the town getting fucking trollied on JD and coke, interspersed with shots of Sambuca and listening to Steps megamixes, while sticking our tongue down the throat of some bloke called Kev who fixes up cars for a living and fixes up cars for a hobby. That’s really what it is to be British.

She ordered us a platter. Which is a lot for a post-meal meal. There was enough chicken to give Colonel Sanders are stiffy. There were halloumi sticks and coleslaw and peri-salted chips. But there was mainly chicken. Chicken and regrets.

Like I said earlier… oui, je regrette beaucoup.

“How do you eat so much and stay so thin?” I asked, bloatedly watching her eat more than her fair share. I crammed a halloumi stick into my mouth as I spoke, my bloated stomach wincing as I did.

“Habit”

“Habit? That… that’s not what habit means” I grab a piece of spicy chicken and swallow it, washing it down with lemonade.

“I don’t put any effort in or anything. I just eat what I like, do what I like, and always end up looking like this” she said, gesturing at herself.

“And I sweat myself to my wick in front of a yoga instructor who thinks dumping people by email is socially acceptable, and still end up looking like this” I said, gesturing at myself.

I was hot. I know I told you this last time and you didn’t believe me, but really that’s more of a ‘you’ problem than anything. I was hot. I had good genes too. Back when I could fit in jeans. That was a… that was a genes/jeans pun and I’m not sorry about it.

I had come from a sporting family. My ma played netball for England and my da got buzzed and shouted at the telly everytime Steve McManaman ran down a blind alley. I’d played a bit of football myself, a bit of netball too. A bit of anything that involved competition and lauding my superior prowess over boys who thought they’d be able to beat me because I was a girl. There’s no high quite like schooling boys that are older than you when ‘you are just a girl’.

The competitive sports stuff died down as I grew up. I kept my eye in with all that witness-able fitness that Instagram likes so much, on cross-trainers and rowing machines, but it was mainly out of vanity rather than the thrill. You hit 30 and you suddenly realise that your priorities must have changed at some point over the past decade but you have no idea when. Just a gradual drift, as you allocate more emotional resources to paying council tax and dreading your MOT being due. Life happens, I guess.

But I was still hot. I had my mum’s blonde hair – thank God not my dad’s Graeme Souness tribute act of a mop-top – and her freckled face to go along with it. I had my dad’s square shoulders, unfortunately, but the rest of me was in good nick. Slim and sporty like a proto-Spice Girl. And I had what we call in the business a rack on me.

In short, I looked hot. And I knew that I looked hot as I reached for another piece of chicken to push into an inn of stomach that simply had no room.

“You look hot”

See, I told you I looked hot.

“Thanks” and I swigged some lemonade again.

“I mean it. Do you wanna have sex after this?”

“Sex is on the table?” and now some peri-salted chips.

“Sex on the table is on the table. Honestly, you should totally have sex with me. It would open your mind. It would open your eyes. It would open all your orifices”

“I’m… pretty sure my mind isn’t an orifice?” and back to the chicken.

“I’m just saying… you must be hot because I’m here if you want me, and I’m amazing. We can go back to your place?”

“I’m not fucking you, Maria”

She paused.

“Really?”

“Yeah, sorry but...”

“Again?”

“Yeah, I’m saying no to you again. It’s nothing personal, it’s just… I’ve just had my heart crushed. You probably don’t understand since people are just nibbles at a buffet for you. But Jerome broke my heart when he left me. Tonight’s been lovely, really nice even. But I just want to go home and cry into my pillow and maybe eat a box of chocolates”

I didn’t really want to eat a box of chocolates. The going home part was true. The crying into my pillow part was certainly true. But there was no way on God’s green Earth, this side of Hell freezing over, could I possibly even contemplate eating a box of chocolates after all I’d eaten today. I thought, as I pushed another halloumi stick in my mouth. God, that stuff was moreish.

“You can go to my home. Cry into my pillow. Maybe eat my box of chocolates”

“I’m not fucking you Maria”

“Nobody’s ever said no to me before. And you’ve said it twice now”

“You know how that makes me feel?”

“I’m sorry Maria”

“It makes me feel horny”

“What?”

And for the first in seemingly hours, my mouth stopped chewing.

“Come back to my place. I promise we won’t have sex. I have something I want to do with you”

“That’s not sex?”

“I didn’t say that”

“Yes… you literally did”

“Come on, you’ll see”

And I did. I saw. You won’t believe what I saw, but I saw… something. And I’ll tell you what that something was, another time. My story, my rules, remember?

Which takes us to the sound of Maria knocking on the door, 7 weeks later. And me feeling all the unease that comes with it. Because, as I believe I’ve mentioned, the sound of Maria knocking on your door is a cause of unease. And doubly so when you’re reeling from finding yourself 24lbs heavier than you were 7 weeks ago. It’s hard to look hot next to Maria at the best of times. And these were the worst of times.

See, I can do classical literature references too.

I was dressed in frilly night wear top and shorts. Pastel pink with white spots. It would look deeply unflattering on anyone South of Maria in the looks department in all honesty. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it. But it was merciless on me. Everything looked frumpy. It left the lower half of my abdomen visible, an abdomen that was sticking out a little more than the mannequins in clothes shops tell me it should. The short sleeves of it reveal thicker arms. The shorts hanging on my bum like a goat on the wall of a dam. I’d seen better days. I’d hardly seen worse days.

“Sorry I’m looking rough, I slept in” I told her as I opened the door.

“That is not what looking rough is” she told me, with a crooked smile, before inviting herself into my place.

She was wearing a thin chiffon night gown that she opened upon entry to reveal just negligee underneath. Her body ached with femininity and power. She would walk with a catwalk swagger, seductive hips swaying with each progressive step. The compare and contrast between us was a knife in the heart.

“You drove wearing just that? What if you were pulled over? I mean, we’re not even allowed to travel during lockdown? Let alone, escorting ourselves about while looking like an escort.”

“Then I’d take it off. I’m sure the officer wouldn’t mind. And escorts don’t dress like this, Nay-nay, you sheltered pony” she said as she sauntered through my main living space. “So, what are we drinking? I’m thinking, tequila?”

“I’m thinking tea?”

“Come on, live a little” she smiled coquettishly.

“That’s because you only want me to live a little”

“You’re still going on about that? That was seven weeks ago Naomee. Move on. How about gin and tonic? Sounds classy, yet potentially messy. Plus, we need something to drink while we talk about your weight”

“I thought we were just going clothes shopping?”

“No”

“No?”

“No”

“Well, we’re not having sex Maria”

“Still?”

“Still”

And I hoped that would see her put her clothes back on. I felt a bead of sweat dripping down my forehead. It wasn’t even that hot in here.

“This is an intervention, Nay-nay”

“An intervention?”

“Yes, but the bad kind of intervention. I’m intervening, but not to rescue you. I’m intervening, to push you a little further. This extra bit of squish you have going on, 20lbs or whatever. I think this might be the reason I introduce you to my old friend”

“What old friend?”

“The Abyss” she said, sitting on my sofa and staring at my body. “I think it’s your turn to stare at The Abyss. I think it’s time for The Abyss to stare at you.”

I gulped.

I had been tossing and turning at the thought of it, for the past seven weeks. That The Abyss isn’t something that you stare at first. It stares at you until it catches your eye. And I had felt its eye on me for the past seven weeks. Her eye on me for the past seven weeks. I’d learnt a lot about Maria over those seven weeks. About what she was capable of.

“Naomee, do you want The Abyss to stare at you?”

“No sex though?”

“I can’t promise that. I have feelings too, you know”

“Fine”

“Fine?”

“Yeah, I mean what’s the worst that can happen?”

“Naomee… the worst that can happen is what I’m asking you to commit to”

And that’s when I committed.

Best mistake of my life.

Oui, je regrette beaucoup.

[xandercroft]

Tish, that’s French!  

[swahilimonkfish]

13 hours ago, xandercroft said:

Tish, that’s French!  

 

[watashiismyaccount]

Logged in to make a rare comment, just needed to say this was a really good read and you're by a country mile the best active writer around, you're such a pleasure to read.

[swahilimonkfish]

6 hours ago, watashiismyaccount said:

Logged in to make a rare comment, just needed to say this was a really good read and you're by a country mile the best active writer around, you're such a pleasure to read.

Genuinely one of the nicest things to read, this. Thank you so much

[berserker1]

I'm so in love with this story that I couldn't help but drawing something for it.

** Mind that this is a FREE INTERPRETATION of the story. I talked to swahilimonkfish about making an illustration of the story and he told me to trust my guts and draw whatever I feel like. I don't know if the story will go in the direction of the illustration or not. As I say, this is a free interpretation based on the two first chapters of the story with the goal to spotlight and draw more attention to this excellent story **

Hope you like this vision of Maria and Nay-Nay!

 

[swahilimonkfish]

6 hours ago, berserker1 said:

I'm so in love with this story that I couldn't help but drawing something for it.

** Mind that this is a FREE INTERPRETATION of the story. I talked to swahilimonkfish about making an illustration of the story and he told me to trust my guts and draw whatever I feel like. I don't know if the story will go in the direction of the illustration or not. As I say, this is a free interpretation based on the two first chapters of the story with the goal to spotlight and draw more attention to this excellent story **

Hope you like this vision of Maria and Nay-Nay!

 

I love this vision of Nay-Nay and Maria, it totally captures the spirit of their relationship. Thank you so much, for the art and all the encouragement you've provided lately

[mal57]

17 hours ago, watashiismyaccount said:

Logged in to make a rare comment, just needed to say this was a really good read and you're by a country mile the best active writer around, you're such a pleasure to read.

Absolutely. I found him here and followed him back to DA, the first to prove to me that FA/WG fic can be as deep and well-written as "real" literature and inspired me to up my own writing game.

[Batman76]

Fucking A man, I'd been waiting to read this in one go because your stuff is always so good but here I find its only a couple excellent chapters.

[Maverick]

Nice work!  Love the third-wall asides and the interplay between the characters.  In lesser hands, I'd be screaming "get to the gain!" but your dialogue is so good I really don't care how long it takes. 

Maverick

[AdiposeAdorer]

Just gonna drop in to add another endorsement here. This is a piece in classic Swahilimonkfish style. By which I mean to say: it's damn good!

[swahilimonkfish]

19 hours ago, AdiposeAdorer said:

Just gonna drop in to add another endorsement here. This is a piece in classic Swahilimonkfish style. By which I mean to say: it's damn good!

 

Cheers mate. I do wish I didn't have a 'style' per se, but at least you think it's a good one!

 

22 hours ago, Maverick said:

Nice work!  Love the third-wall asides and the interplay between the characters.  In lesser hands, I'd be screaming "get to the gain!" but your dialogue is so good I really don't care how long it takes. 

Maverick

 

Oh my god, I know what you mean about how frustrating stories like mine are. I'd be shouting the same at this story if I was in your shoes. And it's very kind of you to say that you don't mind too much. Especially from a writer I admire as much as yourself

 

23 hours ago, Batman76 said:

Fucking A man, I'd been waiting to read this in one go because your stuff is always so good but here I find its only a couple excellent chapters.

 

Sorry about the lack of one-go-ness of it, but I appreciate the kind words. Especially because that is how I treat your writing lol!

 

On 8/18/2020 at 5:11 PM, mal57 said:

Absolutely. I found him here and followed him back to DA, the first to prove to me that FA/WG fic can be as deep and well-written as "real" literature and inspired me to up my own writing game.

 

Oh mate, you didn't need to up your game. You came out of the womb a bona fide wordsmith, and everything you've written has been good. But thanks for the nice words, it feels good to hear them.

[AdiposeAdorer]

33 minutes ago, swahilimonkfish said:

Cheers mate. I do wish I didn't have a 'style' per se, but at least you think it's a good one!

 

No worries. As far as having a style goes, it’s probably best not to think too much about it, really.

[berserker1]

I wasn't planning on making another drawing, I swear. But I think the abyss caught me.

[swahilimonkfish]

7 hours ago, berserker1 said:

I wasn't planning on making another drawing, I swear. But I think the abyss caught me.

Wow, I was not expecting this. What an utterly unanticipated delight. Honest to God mate, this is brill. Thank you so much. I feel like you understand Maria, the way you capture her is fantastic

[swahilimonkfish]

Chapter 3 – Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle

 

A chair facing the wrong way. A slender leg either side. Maria rested her arms on top of the chair’s back, and rested her head on her arms.

“Dance”

I put my hands in the air and closed my eyes. Listening to music that wasn’t there, I slowly, gently twisted into shapes. My shoulders flowing to a lazy rhythm. Slow, swaying, serpentine hips meandering to an unheard beat. A smile appeared on the bottom lip that I was biting.

“Come closer”

I waltzed towards her, step at a time. Drawing closer to her, step at a time. My bare soles seeping into thick carpet. My head spinning like a child’s mobile. Like a careening satellite that’s slipping out of orbit. Before crashing.

“Closer”

She wanted to feel my breath. Hear my lungs swell with heavy intakes of oxygen. See my pores glisten in the window-light.

“I want you”

I smiled again, my eyes opened and looking at hers.

“Well you can’t have me”

“I want to do such terrible, terrible things to you” she said, leaning forward as she said it.

“No. Golden rule – I’m not fucking you”

“That’s a shit golden rule. But, I can’t complain when the view’s this good” she laughed as she leant back again with her arms crossed as I slowly began to grind on the chair that she was sitting on. My blonde hair tumbling down my face. I’d swat it away but my thoughts were elsewhere.

As you can tell, clothes shopping was going swimmingly.

Look, I’d love to make excuses for this behaviour. Something about Mercury being in retrograde or you know how Pisces be when they get with an Ares. But the reasons were a little less celestial. A little more down to Earth. I was head over heels in love with the idea of being loved by somebody I hated and loving someone who hates me.

It was now week four of lockdown. And this was the fifth day in a row that she had come round my place under the pretence of clothes-shopping. And, each time, the pretence was getting flimsier. It felt almost like code now. Shallow justification. I don’t know who we were kidding; ourselves or each other. Either way, the excuse worked. But only because we wanted it to.

And, as an aside, I’m not entirely sure that the view was good. But I’m not entirely sure that wasn’t the point. As I slowly groaned and gyrated on my living room carpet in a nightie that no longer fit correctly, I’m not quite sure I understood what the point was at all. It was a quantum delight. An uncertainty principle of our own. It only existed when we didn’t think about it.

It wasn’t the most conventional relationship. And it certainly wasn’t the healthiest relationship. And speaking of healthy...

“Hungry?”

“Why do you ask?”

“To ascertain the answer” she said, her voice not rising or dropping in inflection as she said it. But holding steady, like a bullet.

“I’ll ass-ertain you”

“That’s not a real word”

“It means I’ll entertain you with my ass” I giggled, turning around and shimmying like some dollar-store Cyrus. 

“No… I got that. But it’s still not a real word”

“It is”

“No, it’s not”

“It’s a portmanteau”

“But not a real one”

“I’m English. Only I can decide if it’s an English word or not. It’s my language. And I vote that it is.  Now let me ass-ertain you” I said, twerking away with my rear to her face and strong thrusts from a mushy pelvis.

“Fuck you” was her only response. I took it as a compliment.

“The golden rule is that you can’t” was my response. She took it as an insult.

“Just fucking eat something, you insolent shitbag”

This weird tete-a-tete thing may have felt like a deleted scene from The Wicker Man – the good one, without Nic Cage or bees – but the jousting of it had become routine. Like two dogs meeting for the first time, we were working out whether we should bark or wag our tales. It was like that.

Only sexier.

I couldn’t put it into words if I tried. Which, I realise, is problematic since I am literally trying to put this into words. That’s how stories work. But I prefer not to think about it and then, and only then, it makes sense. It’s just the beats between the moments. I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s in the places between places. I was hypnotised. And she was too. By each other. Against each other.

It was partly for show. I guess. For the camera that Maria had put up. Stacked on a tripod and looking down at us like the eye of Sauron. We weren’t making porn. Or pawn for that matter. Well, maybe, but only for private usage. For usage when engaging with our privates. It was a sex tape only, as the golden rule would have it, lacking in the sex. Mainly she liked to record me gorging myself so she could watch it later and masturbate.

As you do.

“Do I have to eat?” I told her, with pouting lips.

“I’m sorry Nay-Nay, but you do”

“I don’t want to eat”

God, I sounded childish. Is this what White Russians do to me?

The drink that is. It was mainly a white Spaniard doing this to me.

“You don’t have a choice I’m afraid”

“Why do you want me to eat?”

“I don’t want you to eat. But you’ll do it anyway”

Of course, I didn’t have a choice. I mean, I did have a choice. But I didn’t. It was a mess of contradictions, this little uncertainty principle of ours. See, I told you not to think about it. And if you find that difficult, as I do, then drinking helps. Inhibitions are like haemorrhoids; they’re a pain in the arse.

Which means drinking is like Canesten Duo? No, that doesn’t work.

Let’s get back to the sexy stuff.

I was back now, bearing goods. Oven chips. Thick-skinned. Salted and vinegared. And in a bowl. Piled high. Steaming hot. And so was the food.

I sat down and felt myself sink into the cushions a little more than I ever used to. Or maybe it was just my mind playing tricks. I made sure my sitting position was level with Maria, my eyes at the same height as her own. Locked on one another. Her eyes drew silhouettes on the wall behind me. Tracing my outline with sexual curiosity. She was drinking me in. But always, the eyes would come back to mine, and I’d see the flashes of fireworks going off in their background. And with our eyes fixed on each others, I picked up the first chip and bit into it.

And then I spat it back out again because it was too fucking hot.

“Did you think the fries that had just come out of the oven were going to be anything other than hot?” she asked, sounded frustrated where I was just amused.

“Yeah, but these are really hot”

“I don’t understand how you got through college”

“I give great blow jobs?” I smiled. She was still stern-faced.

It took about another ten minutes before the chips were cool enough to eat. A really awkward ten minutes. Ten minutes of her sitting there in just her lingerie staring at me, feeling my nightied self before I added chips to this bonfire of bloating that was punishing me. I genuinely didn’t know what I was doing.

The weight gain was terrifying. I whimpered every time I stood on the scales. I was no longer the 121lb girl doing mountain poses in front of the yoga instructor I was allowing to do me up the bum if he was good. I was a 148lbs girl searching for dignity in the bottom of a plate of chips. I was a girl with a stomach that bunched up with a soft valley of flab running across landscape as I sat down. A girl who could feel resistance in her chin as she looked down at the toes that her stomach would one day obscure. A girl who had seen better days.

“These chips are good” I told her, through mouthfuls. “Very potatoey”.

“Just eat”

“Like, sometimes, when I’m eating McDonald’s chips, those skinny chips, I like them even though they’re not potatoey. Like, there’s hardly any potato, but they’re still so good. But these chips… these are good because you can really taste the potato. Like, how weird’s that? Like, is potatoey a good thing then, or is it...”

“Will you just stop talking for a second and eat”

I looked down at my plate sheepishly. I was frustrating her. It was kinda hot. But then I would acquiesce to her, and that would be hot too. I blame Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle again and the probabilistic nature of existence. That, and her good looks.

But I had to eat the chips. So that I could eat dessert. And I always enjoyed eating dessert with Maria. It was with dessert that Maria would start getting handsy. Start getting involved. Pad her paws towards me, lean into me and play. She even eats a bit as I layer it on. We eat off each other. It never goes any further, and she somehow never gains a pound from our playing, but everything else is on the table.

Sounds good, right? Sounds like the sort of thing you’d want to hear about, right? Maybe read about? With detailed descriptions of body parts? Well tough titties, cos this is the part where the story jumps back in time to tell you how we got here.

Record scratch, freeze frame and all that jazz.

It’s time to tell you the story that I promised you. The one about what happened when we got back from Nando’s 7 weeks ago. And I was formally introduced to The Abyss for the first time. And I fear I’ve been tumbling towards it ever since.

It went a little like this:

 

“Ahhh see, you’re doing it all wrong”

“Is this wrong?”

“Yeah, you need to do it with two fingers”

“Two fingers?”

“Trust me, you need to use two fingers”

“But I’ve only been using one finger all this time. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I am. Trust me. This is why you’ve been struggling”

“I’ve been struggling?”

“It’s just inefficient. Use two fingers, and then slip it in the gap and push it through”

“Okay, that’s actually working a lot better thanks”

“I can’t believe you’ve been tying off balloons using just one finger all this time” Maria laughed, as I did my best not to look embarrassed.

Because we were talking about how to tie off a balloon. Obviously.

To be fair, I was buzzed. And Maria was too. Or should have been. But this woman could hold her liquor. Her liver must be made out of rhinoceros or something. Or maybe she was buzzed, and her buzzed self and her sober self were just exactly the same as one another. I mean, you wouldn’t put it past her. But we were buzzed and giggling, And blowing up balloons. 

“Why are we blowing up balloons again?”

Good question, me 7 weeks ago. Gooood question.

“It’ll look fun on the camera”

“What camera?”

“How buzzed are you, Nay-Nay? We’ve been through this already”

To be fair, I was very buzzed. I’ve always been a bit of a lightweight. So to speak. But I was also buzzed on drama, buzzed on tears, buzzed on heartbreak. buzzed on attention. And buzzed on too much French wine. Put all that together and I was utterly shit-faced.

“On a scale of 1 to 10… I am very buzzed”

As if to prove that very point.

“Good”

What she had previously told me, only for my wandering goldfish attention span to have dismissed, was that we were gonna make a home movie.

Yeah.

We were going to record me eating myself into further stomach agony as a fuck you to Jerome the mulleted yoga instructor whose diet consisted solely of lentils and my dreams. The fucking shitbag. Maria had a cake on her person – weirdly – and she had fluffy pink handcuffs – also a little weirdly, but, let’s be real, kinda expected in her case – and she wanted me to eat the cake hands free. She was going to put it on the floor, surrounded by balloons, and have me eat it like I was a troughing pig. How quaint. 

It sounded weird and fucked up, even to my inebriated self, but it also sounded very silly and very much fun. And plus I just wanted to spend more time with Maria, even if I had no intentions of shagging her. She could have suggested we go puppy-drowning and I’d have gone along with it just to watch her eyes. As it was, it was kinda fun and kinda kinky and kinda rebellious too. I was keen to enjoy myself. And I was keen to not let Maria down.

It wasn’t porn. Regardless of spelling, it wasn’t porn. But, on the other hand, and let’s all be reasonable about this, it was totally porn. I didn’t/don’t understand Maria and the spider web of crossed wires that make up her brain. But she wanted to record me eating all this stuff and just watch. And record it so she can watch me again later. We all have our kinks I guess.

“How was your cake, Naomee?”

“Naomee? Why are you calling me that? What are you, my mother?”

“Maybe. After all, you have been a bad girl. And bad girls need to be disciplined by their mothers...”

“No sex, Maria. It’s the golden rule”

“It’s a golden rule now?”

“Yeah”

“Is that more than a regular rule then? Is there a rule hierarchy and this the top rule?”

“Yeah. Maybe. I dunno. But it is, okay? No shagging Naomee. She’s too full”

And I was way too full for anything other than passing out. It was something called chiffon cake. It tasted home-made and, frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me if Maria just so happened to be a remarkable baker too. Why not? She’s fucking flawless in every other way. It tasted so bad. Which is why it tasted so good. It tasted like looking back on this evening and thinking WTF. And there is no greater taste than regret.

I woke up, still dressed up in my going out clothes, the following morning. My face was planted into a pillow. Slobber dripping down my face. Any pretence of sexual allure was as gone as my dignity.

“You’re awake, at last”

“No I’m not. My head hurts. I think I’m still buzzed. Did we fuck? What time is it? I might go back to sleep”

“We have work in 20 minutes”

“I’m gonna call in sick. And then I might actually be sick. Maria, what happened last night? And why is there cake on my dress? And what the fuck are these handcuffs doing?”

I suddenly squirmed, like a seal on land, to find hands bound behind my back.

“We had fun last night”

She smirked when she said it.

“Did we… have sex?”

“Yes, of course. Don’t you remember?”

“You’re lying, you arsehole. I wouldn’t. Didn’t. You’re lying”

“Fine. No sex. Apparently it was your ‘golden rule’. But we had fun. I can show you the footage if you like. But I have to go to work soon”

“Foot… footage?”

“We recorded it. I’m gonna leave for work, but if you wanna watch it, you can. Stay here, make yourself less uncomfortable, and watch yourself eating cake like a dog from a dog bowl”

“That sounds like a lot of wine that I must have gotten through. Which explains the banging headache”

“Bad banging or good banging?”

“Bad banging. Very bad banging. Can you untie me then or...”

She untied me and she put her laptop on my knee. She sat there by my side, too curious to leave for work, as I dragged the cursor over a folder called der Abgrund.

“Which folder now?”

“Oh, you're the… eighth one down. See, it has your initials”

“So… all these other folders...”

“Oh, I have done a lot of stuff with a lot of people”

“Any that I’d know?”

She paused as she leaned over my shoulder. I swear I could hear her think what answer to give. It was deeply unnerving.

“Maybe”

“It was a yes or no question. A binary choice”

“I don’t believe in binary”

“You do coding, of course you believe in binary”

“Yeah, but in quantum computing, there’s always a third choice. There’s 0, there’s 1 and there’s 0 or 1. It all ties to quantum mechanics”

“The what… how do you know all this random science-y shit? I thought you were hot and good with languages. Pick a fucking lane Maria!”

“That’s my point. I don’t believe in picking a lane. It’s like all that quantum stuff. It all hinges on things being probabilistic until they are observed. So there’s not a binary. There’s a third, unobserved choice of either 0 or 1. It’s the same with human behaviour. Human behaviour ossifies when you decide to analyse it. But, the joy of being is behaving without analysing it. Just being. Don’t look at yourself and ask why, because the magic will go when you try to explain it. The best things in life are unknown and don’t make sense. Like Heisenberg with his uncertainty principle”

I could have been impressed I guess. But I was mainly just tired of her bullshit. Maybe it was the scorching headache, maybe it was the guilt about whatever we did the night before. Maybe I’ve just known Maria too long and her waffling about philosophy and quantum physics feels run of the mill. But I was tired of the bullshit.

“Do I know any of the other fucking people on this laptop? Yes or no? You’ve clearly made recordings of other people doing who knows what crazy, depraved shit. And I’m not stupid just because your hoity-fucking-toity lecture about reality or whatever doesn’t fascinate me in the same way that you having recordings of what we got up to, and what others got up to with you”

She didn’t say anything. I don’t think she enjoyed being called out. Maybe she thought my behaviour was ‘beneath her’ but fuck that. I was annoyed to wake up in handcuffs, covered in cake and discovered I was making sex-free sex tapes with my best friend from work. And I was annoyed that I was just one of many, by the looks of it.

Instead of speaking, she just drew her long index finger across the laptop touchpad, to guide the cursor over one of the folders. She double-clicked. And then she clicked on one of the files.

The footage was clear and HD, but the lighting made it difficult to make out. Maria’s tall, striking silhouette was clear, but the other girl was harder to make out. They were at a betting terminal. The other girl was there, and Maria was leaning over her shoulder. Whispering poison.

“Hang on...”

I began to recognise the girl. I looked at the filename. It showed the date of the recording, and the initials.

“...Is that Rhiannon?”

“Yes”

“Rhiannon from work?”

“Yes”

“The girl who now sleeps outside Big Asda? Who lost her home, her family, her job, everything?”

“Yes”

“Due to gambling?”

Maria paused.

“Yes”

She clicked ‘back’ and then opened up another file from another folder. This one was a sex tape. And I guessed the long legs wrapping around from underneath were Maria. But the powerful physique of the man on top was instantly recognisable. The angle meant I could see his face in profile.

“And that’s Riyadh”

“Yes it is”

“But he’s dead now?”

“Yes”

“He committed suicide”

“Y… yes”

“After being found out about having an affair”

She didn’t actually say anything this time.

“Maria, were you the person that Riyadh was shagging when he was cheating on his wife?”

“Yes”

“He committed suicide because of you!”

“I know”

“What the actual fuck Maria?”

She stood up behind me, and I felt lost in her shadow. She was always tall, but she felt taller as she looked down on me, sitting down at her laptop and watching an old colleague who has since died balls-deep in her very self.

“You know how we always said it was The Abyss that got them? It was”

“I know. I know it’s not your fault and everything. But don’t you feel shit about this?”

“No, it was my fault. The Abyss wasn’t the gambling or the affair. Just as it isn’t the drinking with some of the others on there, or the pyromania of another on there. That was never what The Abyss was”

“What are you saying, Maria?”

“I am The Abyss. I am The Abyss. And, after last night, I think it’s time I turned my gaze to you”
 

[dania201]

I love the intensity and the plausible darkness that pervades this story. 💯

[berserker1]

I don't remember the last time I was so hooked to a wg story.

Here it is one last *free interpretation* illustration of this story!

 

[Batman76]

Damn she's really leaning into the self destruction huh?

[swahilimonkfish]

11 hours ago, dania201 said:

I love the intensity and the plausible darkness that pervades this story. 💯

Plausible darkness is a great way of putting it, that's what I was hoping for so thank you! 

[swahilimonkfish]

10 hours ago, berserker1 said:

I don't remember the last time I was so hooked to a wg story.

Here it is one last *free interpretation* illustration of this story!

 

This one is my favourite picture yet.

And getting hooked on the abyss? Naomee can relate

[swahilimonkfish]

9 hours ago, Batman76 said:

Damn she's really leaning into the self destruction huh?

Awww yeah