story The Abyss

[skinnytochubby]

This is spectacularly well-written, even by your own high standards.  

[swahilimonkfish]

3 hours ago, skinnytochubby said:

This is spectacularly well-written, even by your own high standards.  

What a genuinely nice thing to say - thank you! 

[swahilimonkfish]

Chapter 4 – The Abyss

After you spend too long in the dark, your eyes acclimatise to it.

And I’d spent way to long in this Abyss.

She’d stopped coming over, mind. Was she giving me space? Was that the idea? It sure didn’t feel like it. She was seeping into more thoughts. More and more often. Like a tightening vice. Like the constricting grip of a python around the neck. She was. She. The Abyss.

And I was slipping. Slipping, slipping, slipping. Slipping a little faster every day. I was giving in to her even when she wasn’t there. In the quiet of those mornings, when the only sound was my own breathing. I was still giving in. Still getting sucked a little further under.

“Sorry?”

“Oh, nothing Rab. Just thinking out loud. What were you saying?”

Ah yes, the conference call. The real world didn’t stop existing just because of all the other things I had been getting up to. Work still existed. And Big Rab in all his Napoleon complex glory was a deeply unwelcome reminder of that fact.

“The McLean contract? Why has it not been sorted yet?”

“I mean, I passed it over to Bazza. Or was it Chazza? Someone whose name ends in -Azza anyway. They said they’d do it for me”

This was true. I’d actually offloaded a fair few of the ongoing work elsewhere. Middle-aged, balding men were only too keen to help a cute little thing like I used to be out. What wasn’t true was that I’d given it to Bazza. Or Chazza. It was Wayne. Or Wazza, as he was known. It was an easy mistake. Men and their stupid nicknames, faces and genitals. Men. Just… men.

They were no Maria. That was for sure.

“Hmmm… fine. But don’t think that, just because you’re working from home now that you don’t have to do any work, Naomee. And fix the bloody camera on your bloody laptop. It feels unprofessional to talk to see your name on a black screen instead of a face” he harrumphed. Trying to assert some dignity into his puny, petty life. And failing. You see, Big Rab was so the kind of bloke who referred to his wife as the ‘old ball and chain’ but was secretly the dutiful house-husband. He was definitely the kind of guy who enjoyed wearing his marigolds when washing the pots a little too much. And he was probably the kind of guy who jacks off to badger porn or something. But that last one is pretty much just conjecture at my part. But, what I’m trying to say is, we’ve met a Big Rab at some point or other in our lives.

“No problem” I lied through clenched teeth and switched off the zoom call, and then removed the plaster over the laptop camera. That I had deliberately placed there. For reasons pertaining to my appearance.

You see, time had been its usual bastard self. Speeding up and slowing down to exact maximum discomfort and minimum pleasure. And I had found myself many months into lockdown and many months of journeying towards the leering chasm of darkness that so had me hypnotised. And so, I guess I’ll have to update you on what’s been happening since you last heard from me in the previous chapter. And I shall communicate this via the medium of montage.

Cue the Rocky soundtrack:

Well, week 6 was when things started to get hairy. But less about my approach to self-grooming. No, week 6 was another stumble towards the bleakness. Haphazardly, like a ** in a snowstorm, towards the light. Only it wasn’t the light I was drawn too. Yes, week 6 was when I started experimenting with drinking weight gain powder drinks.

Weight gain shakes, they call them. For when you want to get ripped. And my clothing sure wanted to get ripped. See, I’m not actually sure what all that protein does when it isn’t used to build muscle, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t slim you down. I found this recipe that involved weight gain shakes and ice cream and double cream from a corner of the website so depraved it should be called 64Chan. It tasted like licking the arsehole of Beelzebub himself but, as a woman who used to give spectacular oral to a yoga instructor whose diet consists solely of flax seed, lentils and lemon juice smoothies, I’ve had less disgusting things go in my mouth. I think the theory behind them is that they replace meals. With me, they replaced the drinks I had with the meals.

That was week 6. I spent the whole of week 6 without her.

Week 8 was when I introduced these devilish binges into my daily routine even though she was not here. She. The Abyss. Those early mornings when Big Rab was yabbering on to me down a face-cam I’d concealed with scotch tape, I would be necking pints of thickjuice and eating pounds of flapjack. There was no free time. There was no me time. The only thing that existed was time to stumble into the sulphuric pit of shame. I was, even in her absence, irrepressibly possessed by her.

I don’t actually remember the marker penned line where I stopped only bingeing in the company of the dark-souled maven and started dabbling with it solo. There wasn’t a distinct Eureka! Moment when I thought that I could do this anytime. It was more that I would eat normally when she wasn’t here, but less and less normally. But week 8 was when I noticed it.

That was week 8. And still no Maria.

Week 10 was when I decided that there were four meals in a day. At the risk of sounding like that hobbit from the Lord of the Rings who was all like ‘But what about second breakfast?’ and then listing all the myriad meals a hairy-toed fuckwit would eat during the day, but that gap from midday to sleep is a long time to go with only one meal to bisect it.

So I became a two-dinners kinda girl. If there is such a kinda girl. I sorta hope there isn’t. For that hypothetical girl’s sake. I’d have one dinner at 4pm and one later in the evening. Just a gluttonous food orgy of ill-disciplined...

“Nay-nay!”

Sorry, what was I saying? Just a gluttonous food orgy of ill-disciplined…

“Nay-nay? Earth to Nay-nay?” Big Rab blurted into his laptop microphone.

I looked up, a little bewildered. A little bemused. Ah yes, another office Zoom call. I remember now.

“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that neither Chazza nor Bazza know anything about the McLean contract. And Jefferson’s are losing their bloody minds about the data access problems. You need to get on top of things Naomee. You’re not here just to pretty up the office, y’know. You need to stay on top of things”

I need to stay on top of Maria…

Wait, did I say that out loud?

“Wait, did you say something Nay-nay?” he asked, squinting his little wrinkly tortoise face towards the camera.

I’ll take that as a… maybe?

Rab again. Talking at me again. Toe-looking dirt-brain that he was. You know that boss is an acronym right? It stands for Bent Over Sheep Shagger. B.O.S.S. Or ‘boss with the dots’ as we say over in our neck of the woods. 

“I said that your comment about the pretty face is pretty inappropriate, Rab” I said, with a smirk across my face. That was not as pretty as it once was, to be fair. Not that they could see it. The scotch guard tape meant that they had no idea.

Honestly, I don’t know what came over me. Maybe Maria came over me. That sounds nice. But no, I just said it. I felt my spine straighten as I said it.

“Is… I mean, sorry. I was just… it was just joking. Humour. I was just… y’know, office bantz” he stammered, suddenly self-conscious. Presumably pining for his marigolds.

“Office bantz? Office Bantz! You know, that was exactly what Harvey Weinstein used to say when he did… you know what. ‘Office bantz’. Honestly, google it. It was like his catchphrase. I can’t believe you said that Rab. Honestly, and I thought you were an ally” I lied, trying hard not to laugh. I mean, was that inappropriate to bring up Harvey Weinstein? Yes. Was it true about him saying ‘office bantz’ while he ruined countless women’s lives? Probably not. Am I deeply unfeminist for weaponising the suffering of so many women just to skive off work to focus on self-flagellation by cake? Undoubtedly. But it’s not like he’s gonna sue me for defaming his character. He doesn’t have any character left to defame. He’s just another man with a face like a fucking tortoise.

“I’m so sorry Nay-nay. I didn’t mean...” his eyes welled up with tears as he pleaded at the camera pathetically. But I wasn’t looking at that sad sack of short-arsed shit. I was looking at the blank Zoom profile in the top-right corner of the call. It had Maria’s name on it. Black screen but her name. Watching silently. Invisibly. Judging. I wonder what she was thinking, as she watched this. She would have loved it. To see him writhe and squirm, like a fish on land. Flip-flap-flipping. 

And she didn’t look like a tortoise.

So, where were we?

Oh yeah, I’m on meal four and that was week 10. And still no Maria. Still no fucking Maria. Where the fuck is Maria?

Week 12… or was it 13? I honestly gave up keeping track at this point. Anywho… week 12 added another new frisson to events. Enter dark, twisted thoughts: stage left.

I decided I was going to start measuring myself.

Yeah, I wasn’t sure what that meant either. Shoe size? Height? Why? These were just three of the many questions that flashed epileptically in front of my eyes when the thought crossed my mind. It was just an idle girl’s idle curiosity and I ran with it. But not literally ran with it, because I’m an idle girl. Look, the important thing was that I was up for anything at this point, and just went along for the ride with my own depraved whims. Just living my truth. Following impulses down any darkened cul-de-sac they chose to steer me.

I elected to measure me as if for a clothes fitting. Or more like a clothes-not-fitting, am I right? Come on guys, don’t leave me hanging. Anyway, I would get out my little grey journal and jot things down like I was the ref taking down Boring James Milner’s name for being excessively rambunctious with his tackling. And, here’s the thing. she’d never know what I was writing down. She. Her. You-know-who. The Abyss. Maria. And then I’d measure me some more. Charting my terrain like I was a cartographer and my body was undiscovered lands. Here be saddlebags, and all that. And in it would go, in that fucking grey journal of mine. Numbers, figures, data. All unknown to her. I hoped she’d want to read it.

Because I wouldn’t share it. She never shared anything with anyone ever, so why would I? She wouldn’t even share her presence. She was leaving me alone. But I would wrap me in tape, around all the growing bits and I would take dutiful note. That was week 12. And that was another week without Maria.

“What was week 12?”

Oh fuck, I’ve done it again.

“Nothing Rab. Nothing”

“Have you… is the camera on your new laptop also not working?” he sounded sheepish. He looked tortoisish, pushing his bald head towards the camera once more.

“Yeah, what are the odds?”

I mean, highly unlikely. The camera on this new laptop, bought and paid for out of the company’s willowed out funds, worked just as well as the last one, when blue-tac wasn’t smudged to obscure.

“That’s a shame. But… for no real reason. Not saying it… y’know, just… it’s a shame that the bloody laptop is faulty is what I’m tryna say, I guess. I got you a real expensive one. Lots of RAM too” he stammered like his words were stepping on Lego.

“Yeah, sure”

“Wait, are you eating?”

“No”

I was.

“Sorry, maybe it’s the muffling from your microphone”

It’s not.

“Must be”

It wasn’t.

“If you like, I’ll get another one for you. Another laptop. Hopefully one that works this time” 

Sucker.

“Thanks. I sure hope so” I say, between mouthfuls of anything in my proximity.

The company was on its last legs. Contracts were being broken. Jobs not getting done. Customers leaving. Sure, we blamed it on Covid. It was Covid’s fault. But, when lying in my bed, alone, without Maria, I smile a little smile to myself and pretend that it’s my fault. That I’m to blame. And then I lean by my bed and eat one of the chocolate muffins that I leave there. Y’know, for snacksies.

Then came week 16. This was promptly followed by week 22. Week 27 came after this. I’m pretty sure that’s how time worked. Work 14 followed, but that was a temporary aberration that was soon rectified by week 29. Yes, week 29.

25 weeks without Maria. Nearly half a year without Maria. Without those eyes, with twisted maelstroms of darkness raging in them. Without those lips, as rubious as Diana’s. Without her touch, soft like silk linen, designed to be draped over me. Without me words. Worst of all, without her words. Where was Maria? Where the fuck was Maria?

Please, just tell me.

You see, there is a weird hypnosis when you’re all alone behind closed doors. Alone. It feels like you get to set the parameters of your own universe. Alone. You decide your own definition of normal and know that there is nobody else around to object. All alone and with nobody to steer you. And, I don’t know about you fuckers, but when I’m all alone and with nobody to steer me, I just travel in the same direction I was already pointed in. Where she pointed me in. Her. The Abyss. Maria. That direction.

“Sorry? What was that about a direction?”

Rab queried with a scrunched up face. The kind of scrunched up face you get when you see cousins make out. It was just his normal, day-to-day expression, but still. Resting-tortoise-face.

“Nothing Rab...”

And then I paused. I’m not going through this again. This same tired rigmarole. This palaver, this tired old dance. And then I reached a conclusion that is usually the preserve of being pickled, and decided…

Fuck it.

Chuck it in the ‘fuck it’ bucket.

I put the laptop screen down and shoved my laptop back under the sofa. I didn’t want to talk to Big Rab. I didn’t want to see his Blastoise looking face, as he trod on the eggshells of my feigned feelings. So I didn’t. There. Done.

Instead, I pulled myself up and walked to the kitchen to make myself breakfast. I mean, I’d already had breakfast, but Merry or Pippin or whichever squat-arsed weasel it was had a point about having a second one.

Week 29 and it was all taking its toll, I guess. Everything. It was all taking its toll on me. I mean, how could it not? I had been running in the same direction relentlessly now for half a year. How could I expect to not be somewhere different? But I was different, no two ways about it.

I reached up for a bowl out of the top cupboard and, right on cue, the facts presented themselves. Look at me. Just look at me. I mean, I know you guys can’t, this is a literary medium. But imagine me then, I guess. Imagine my once-flowing nightie riding up as I set myself up on tip-toes to grab the bowl. Imagine my stomach swelling outwards like a bin-liner filled with yoghurt. Imagine a formerly yoga-obsessed girl now opening the fridge to pull out a 4 pint of the blue milk. Full fat milk that I previously hadn’t ** since I was a toddler. Imagine a sofa creaking as I plant myself down on it, with fluffy arms resting on fluffy hips as I do. And then pouring the last of the milk down my neck.

And imagine looking up from the empty bowl of cereal and staring directly into the ghostly eyes of Maria.

Wait, what?

Maria? Here? How?

And here I was, guys. Finding The Abyss at the bottom of a bowl of cereal. 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.

So welcome to somewhere in the middle of the story. Not sure where in the middle of the story. I don’t know how this story ends yet, after all. But it doesn’t look like the beginning and it doesn’t feel like the end, so I think it’s safe to all this the middle. Staring at The Abyss at the bottom of a bowl of cereal.

Crunchy Nut Cornflakes to be precise.

And then imagine asking the only question you can ask yourself at a time like this. To a person like that.  What would you ask? Would you ask:

“When did you get a key to my place Maria?”

or

“Why are you smiling like that?”

or

“Where the absolute fuckity-fuck have you been? It’s been 25 weeks Maria! Why did you leave, Maria? Why? Why did you go? And why are you back? Why are you back now? Why? Why?”

Well, those would have all been valid questions, to be fair. Especially that last one. But that wasn’t the question that I asked. Oh no. No, the question I asked was:

“What the fuck am I doing to myself?”

And I had a point. What the fuck was I doing to myself? Besides staring at The Abyss at the bottom of a bowl of cereal in the middle of a story.

[Batman76]

As I said on da, I absolutely love this chapter, I'm on pins and needles for the next one. How big is Naomi? Did maria gain? Is the no sex rule off now? What if lockdown ends and she's gotta go back to work too big for her chair?

[swahilimonkfish]

On 9/11/2020 at 8:35 PM, Batman76 said:

As I said on da, I absolutely love this chapter, I'm on pins and needles for the next one. How big is Naomi? Did maria gain? Is the no sex rule off now? What if lockdown ends and she's gotta go back to work too big for her chair?

As ever, you're too kind mate! I can confirm that some of those questions will be answered in the next instalment of The Abyss

[xandercroft]

Stay tuned Bat fan!  Same bat time, same bat channel...on the Abyss!  

[swahilimonkfish]

3 hours ago, xandercroft said:

Stay tuned Bat fan!  Same bat time, same bat channel...on the Abyss!  

Literally the vibe I was going for lol

[swahilimonkfish]

Chapter 5 – The Lahar

 

Eyes.

Black, so black. Black like a little slice of Hell. Eyes staring back at me.

“What the fuck am I doing?”

She didn’t flinch at the words. She just looked at me. Those eyes, those black eyes, just looking at me and concluding things that I couldn’t see.

“You’ve said that already, Nay-nay”

“I have?”

Did I? I’ve already said ‘what the fuck am I doing’? I mean, I thought the time I said it at the end of the last chapter, and the time I said it at the beginning of this one, were the same thing. The same time. Is time collapsing around me. I sometimes feel like I’m not the narrator to my own story.

You live and you learn, I guess.

“Oh”

We just stayed there. Looking at each other. Her black eyes dancing over my body, light-footedly. Her judgement was silent but it cut through my skin piercingly. And we let the air breathe through the house like lungs.

There was a draught. Was the door open? What if the cat escaped? I didn’t have a cat, of course. But I wished that I had, so I had an excuse to worry about the door being open. Maybe a cat might get in. I should take a look, to check that there are no cats trying to get into my house.

What the fuck am I talking about? What the fuck is wrong with me?

“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to say something?” I said, frustrated.

“Maybe. Haven’t decided yet”

Which unnerved me.

“I’ve maybe put on a bit of weight” I said, underplaying it deliberately to lighten the mood.

I hadn’t put on a bit of weight. Last Christmas, I put on a bit of weight. The festive season and having a sweet tooth are a dangerous combination. But I had not put on a bit of weight the past 20 weeks or so since she last lay those black, cold eyes on me. I’d ballooned.

But she didn’t say anything. She just kept looking. Like I was some artefact for her perusal.

“I’m too fat, aren’t I? I’m so sorry Maria. I don’t know what’s gotten into me” I began to cry. Thick, heavy sobs slobbering down my chins. Where were the tears coming from? I hadn’t expected tears. And yet, in many ways, they’d been building there for months. Out of sight. Behind a Hoover dam. The dam began to creak.

She volleyed back silence though. Again.

“I’m too fat for you, aren’t I?” I continued to blubber. No, blubber as in cry, you dolts. Those tears. Deluvian tears. Wiping away everything. A flood of tears wiping away everything but us, two-by-two. My heart was rupturing. And not in a good way.

And finally she opened her lips and told me.

“Yes”

My eyes widened.

“Sorry?”

“Yes, you’re too fat for me”

She said it without a flinch of her facial expression. Not a twitch in the eyes. Just a casual dismissal of me and my existence. Flicking me away like the stub of a cigarette.

She began walking away. All legs as ever. One foot in front of the other like the world was her catwalk. She hadn’t changed. Sleek and slinking as ever. A lynx. A jaguar. Making a feline beeline to my door. A door that might be opened or closed and I couldn’t be bothered to get up and find out.

She was going. Everything, all of it, collapsing around me. A lahar racing down the mountain.

You know what a lahar is? I’ll have to tell you one day.

“Please don’t go” I bleat. I sounded pathetic.

I must have sounded like Riyadh as his life collapsed in on him. Both his wife and girlfriend leaving him on the same day. The day he took a knife to his radial vein. I must have sounded like Rhiannon. Drowning in debts she knew she could never repay. The day her house got repossessed. Here I was. Victim #3. And she was walking out the door.

“Maria, don’t go!”

Did she get off on it? Is this her high? Her fix? Her fetish? Is she taping all this in her head, to replay later? Hand slipping down to her clit, and the overhead projector in her mind playing that time I cried pathetically about being called fat? The thought of me being destroyed by this wrecking ball of a woman? My demise?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, fuck that.

“I’ll fuck you”

I have cards still to play.

“I’ll fuck you Maria”

I tensed as she stopped, her back to me. I couldn’t see her face. She was so tall, so effortlessly shapely. Lithe, panther like. Her hips would shimmy to the side as she stood. All I could see, all I could look at, was the lauburu tattoo on the back of her neck.

“I’ll have sex with you, Maria”

She turned around sharply, her jaw tensed as she strode towards me. She walked up so close, only stopping when I could feel her breath on me.

“And why the fuck, Nay-nay, would I want to fuck you?”

Oh.

That didn’t go as planned.

Fuck.

“What? But you kept wanting to...”

“You don’t understand, do you? What you’ve done to yourself? Just… look at yourself” she said venomously, grabbing my shoulders and turning me towards a mirror. Her hands on my shoulders pinching. God, I wanted them to stay there.

The reflection wasn’t flattering. I guess. If I’m being honest. Time – which I think we’ve established is a wanker – had not been kind to me.

“I mean, I guess I’ve put on a few...”

I felt her talons cutting into my shoulder as I said it.

Fiiiine. I guess I better describe the girl in the mirror then. Get the tissues out lads, or whatever it is you use. My yoga ex? He told me he used socks. Like, what the fuck was wrong with him? I mean, putting your dick in a sock? How much must your parents not love you to leave you that screwed up? And how did me breaking up with such a fucking, sock-shagging, poor man’s Harry Styles neanderthal end up breaking my heart so badly. I’d much rather have my heart broken by Maria.

I think we all want our heart broken by Maria.

I looked tired. That was my first take away as I stared at a reflection that I had been refusing to acknowledge for half a year. That was what the weight did to me. It made me look tired. Lumbered me with ennui. My face looked puffy with the weight. It was weird to think that, after reaching a certain point, your body decides ‘I guess we better store some of the fat in the overflow carpark that is your face’. But my cheeks bulged, my neck padded to blur the point my chin began and ended. I guess I’m not one of those girls whose face remains impervious to weight gain. Probably because, unlike most of your fictional girls, I’m a real human being, so fuck you.

So yeah, that’s all I’m going to tell you about my appearance for now. It’s a little thing I like to call suspense, deal with it.

“You used to be pretty. That’s why I liked you. But look at you, Nay-Nay. You’ve capitulated. You’ve hit rock bottom” she said, and turned away from me again.

No. Fuck you Maria. I’m not letting you do that.

“No I haven’t” I said, obstinately. I dug my chubby heels in.

“Stop it, you’re embarrassing yourself” she said, back still turned to me.

“No, this is nothing. Barely any weight” I countered.

Okay guys, trust me, I know what it sounds like. Denial. Insanity. Delusion. And it undoubtedly is. But I know what I’m doing here. Just… trust me.

“Isn’t it?” she turned again, a smirk on her face. “Look at you Nay-Nay! Just… look at you”

And fiiine, I’ll look at me in the mirror again. That suspense didn’t last for very long, did it?

It was the width that felt most jarring in my reflection. Like, I knew that my midriff was now a maxriff. It stuck out over the waistband of my pj shorts like a pint whose head spilt over the side of a glass. Or the top of a muffin over its case. Oh my god, I’ve just realised why it’s called a muffintop. That’s quite clever actually! By the way, did you know that the Flemish for muffintop is ‘fuck reins’? Now, I understand the etymology of that. It’s like hard core love handles and, honestly, I’m here for it. I want Maria’s hands all over my fuck reins.

But the width was new to self-perception. Fat grew sideways? Who knew? I looked broader shouldered than before. Thicker armed. My chest was wider, my hips more generous and pronounced. There was so much to my reflection that was alien to me. Was my posture different? Were my legs further apart? I didn’t look like me any more; something had changed.

Width. I’m telling you. It’s the width that fucks up the way you see yourself.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s a couple of pounds maybe. But it’s easy to lose. The keto diet is super effective, I hear. Chazza from work dropped loads by following it, didn’t he? Besides, gyms are open now”

I sensed her tense with frustration.

“And wear what, Nay-Nay? You have gym clothing that fits?”

“Oh Maria… you can buy clothes online now, don’t you know? It’s not the end of the world”

I smiled as I said it. Her cheeks reddened. Her black eyes narrowed. It was glorious. Using her own words against her.

“Fuck you”

She took it well.

“I’ll be thin in no time”

“Fuck you Nay-nay”

Stiiiill taking it well.

“But I might try and keep the arse. Men like a proper arse don’t they?”

“Fuck you”

And still.

“I’m just so far from rock bottom, you wouldn’t believe”

And Maria paused. And released a grimaced smile.

“Oh, I see what you’re doing”

Cue: me pulling that cutesy expression that Puss in Boats does that became a meme a while back.

“Doing what, Maria?”

“This… is a game? Isn’t it?”

I smile.

“I can’t wait to pull myself out of The Abyss and just back to my normal, healthy, well-adjusted lifestyle” I tell her.

She smiles.

“You want The Abyss? You want rock bottom? You want me to drag you there, don’t you?”

I stood up and looked right into her eyes.

“Do your best and ruin me, Maria”

Look, hold up is what you’re thinking. Hold the fuck up and explain to me what’s going on. What game, is what you’re thinking. What on earth are you on about?

The last question you’re thinking is… do you actually want to get fat?

And… I don’t know the answer to that question. Or, I do know the answer to that question, but the answer is both yes and no. Remember that little Heisenberg principle we spoke about some while back? I want to be a straight-laced girl making the best of my education, in a man’s world. Breaking glass ceilings and earning top dollar. And maybe I wanted kids. It’s that question that gets thrust on us women far more than men, especially ones that hit thirty. And I never wanted kids until I held my sister’s in my hands. And then my heart melted and I just wanted to have kids with my smoothie-drinking, hummus-eating, downward-dogging yoga instructor of a boyfriend. Fucking Jerome.

And he just wanted for us to be kids forever. No responsibility.

I think that was the real beginning of the end for us, looking back.

And here I am, also wanting no responsibility. To set fire to responsibility. The opposite of what I want. And yet I crave it. Maybe Maria’s the reason I crave it. Maybe it’s the reason I crave Maria. But, as much as I want to pull myself together, I really want to tear myself apart. One calorie at a time. With idle curiosity.

“Oh, I will devastate you like a Category 5” she said. And she said it with a smile. An actual smile. Not just a contortion of the lips but a human smile that started with the eyes, ran down the creases in her cheek and into the upward crescent of her red, red lips.

I’d never seen her genuinely smile before.

“Have you ever used a funnel?” I asked her.

“For sex? Where does it get shoved?”

“For feeding”

“I thought we were doing sex?”

“I thought you were ruining me?”

“Uhhh… yeah”

I pulled back and smiled.

“Food first, then sex?” I suggested.

“Sex first, then food” she countered. “In case you fall into a food coma”.

“What if I fall into a sex coma?”

My limber ex would often do this, post-coitus. For all his stamina in holding lotus-like poses, he really was a short-term fix in the sack.

“You look too hungry to sleep without food”

Fair.

She put her hands on my love handles and guided me towards the bedroom.

“I’ve never been with a fat girl before” she said with palpable curiosity. I’d never been a fat girl before, so at least we had that.

“I’ve never been with any girl”

“Oh, I know” she pouted patronisingly as I pulled my pj top over my head gracelessly, yanking my head through the headhole. Which sounds like a euphemism.

“We’re… actually gonna have sex?”

I sounded desperate. But, in my defence, I was desperate. It had been half a year since I last had someone do the dirty with me, and even then, it was with a man who thought it was socially acceptable to wear a headband. To wear my headband. Fucking Jerome.

“Did you know what they call these in Flemish… these love handles? ‘Fuck reins’. They call them ‘fuck reins’” she said, with her hands on them and her lips close to mine. She smelt like arsenic.

And yeah, so that was how I found out my cool fact about love handles. Feel free to use the term with the loved one in your life.

“I… didn’t?” I say. Her hands were cold. Like she wasn’t warm-blooded.

I try to pull my pj shorts off, but they’re so fucking tight and I look like Bambi on ice and after one too many as I try to step out of them without falling over. I must have looked so sexy.

And she reached into her handbag and pulled out a dildo.

From her handbag.

I… have questions.

“Do you want another fact?”

Instead, what I got was another fact from Maria. I nodded, with sweaty gulps as she began to climb towards me. Hands going towards my fuck reins. I could feel my breath quicken.

“Did you know that Mt St Helens wasn’t really a volcanic explosion?”

I shook my head as I felt her on me.

“See, it wasn’t the lava that made it so dangerous”

Her skin was so smooth. So unblemished. I wanted to feel her touch forever.

“It was the lahars” she continued.

Yeah, so I said earlier I owed you the definition of a lahar. Well… here’s your definition of a lahar.

“So when a volcano heats up, and gets so hot”

And now we discover the world’s weirdest sex talk.

“Soooo hot”

It was working for me, what can I say?

“All the mud and snow on the side of the mountain turned to hot sludge”

Why was this working for me?

“The pyroclastic flow, that’s the smoke from a volcano, is all just hot, sulphuric debris...”

But by god, when coinciding with her touch, her movements, her knowledge of my body, better than I knew it myself…

“It all mixes on the mountain to form a deadly, poisonous, molten hot, dirty, sludgy avalanche...”

...it was everything I ever wanted. Every moment I ever wanted. Just this moment, again and again, for the rest of my days.

“And then it falls...”

Oh god.

“Unstoppably...”

Yes.

“Devastatingly...”

Dear god.

“Down...”

Oh.

“and down...”

Yes.

“and down...”

Oh, that motion again, please. That touch again, please.

“...and down it falls”

Please.

“Until there’s nothing left to save”

God.

“And that is what a lahar is”

And that, dear reader, was when I experienced a lahar of my own.

[xandercroft]

Your writing is pyroclastic flow.  (As Joker from the movie Jack Nicholson was in, staring up at the sky...) 

“Where does he get these wonderful...words”.  

[swahilimonkfish]

4 hours ago, xandercroft said:

Your writing is pyroclastic flow.  (As Joker from the movie Jack Nicholson was in, staring up at the sky...) 

“Where does he get these wonderful...words”.  

Jack Nicholson's joker was the best joker imo. Plus, Naomee is definitely 'dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight' 

[Batman76]

Really just love the self destructive impulse on this. even knowing it she only goes deeper and deeper.

[swahilimonkfish]

2 hours ago, Batman76 said:

Really just love the self destructive impulse on this. even knowing it she only goes deeper and deeper.

Yeah, she's like a moth to the flame. She knows it's bad but is drawn to it anyway

[dania201]

It’s called “The Abyss” after all. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised the character is heading into freefall. 
 

Thanks for another great chapter, @swahilimonkfish!

[swahilimonkfish]

10 hours ago, dania201 said:

It’s called “The Abyss” after all. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised the character is heading into freefall. 
 

Thanks for another great chapter, @swahilimonkfish!

You really are the kindest soul around, thank you

[swahilimonkfish]

Chapter 6 - 1000 Hours/I'm in Charge Now

Before we go any further, I have something I need to get off my chest:

Maria knows what she’s doing in the bedroom department.

So there’s this guy. Malcolm Gladwell. Weird looking fella, like the kinda guy who steals your panties to sniff them later. Anyway, he came up with this batshit theory that it takes 1000 hours of practicing anything to become the master of said anything. No innate talent required, no genetic predisposition, no Rainman-type proficiency. Everything about mastery of any skill can be reduced to one simple maxim. You practice something for 1000 hours and then you will be its master.

Now, this theory, preposterous though it may sound, is actually… yeah, it’s crap. Utter bollocks. Just another reason why the world should stop trusting white men when they profess expertise in something. It’s been debunked so many times that the person debunking it has probably mastered debunking it; or he would have had the 1000 hour rule held up. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that Malcolm Gladwell should probably stick to smelling undies and there is no evidence that 1000 hours of practicing anything means you master it.

Until Maria came along.

That woman is amazing in the bedroom. And I am in no doubt that she’s reached the 1000 hour threshold. Maybe pervy Gladwell had a point.

Honest to god, she can do more with the breath on my skin than Jerome could do with a spare 45 minutes after working up a sexual appetite. She plays you like an instrument. I was her harp. She was at one with me, knowing every press and release. She’d dial it up, slow it down, like Beethoven riding the waves of his unwritten tenth symphony. With every touch, an angel weeped. I will never take breaths so nectar-infused as those again.

But I must stress, just because she was playing me like a harp, doesn’t mean she wasn’t savage. That she wasn’t also feral. Like Macavity. She was everything I wanted her to be. Even things I didn’t know that I wanted her to be until she was being it. 11/10 would definitely recommend. There’s just no-one like Macavity.

The aftercare, however, left a bit to be desired.

“You’re leaving?”

I strained my eyes through the late-night dark.

“Yes. Of course. You didn’t think that I would stay the night, did you?”

I mean, of course I did. I wasn’t some fucking booty call. If she thinks she can just walk out on me and I’ll take it lying down, she’s got another thing coming.

“No, of course not. You go ahead, Maria. I’ll see you tomorrow”

Okay, I chickened out. But, in my defence, my brain was still hazy from the outrageously good sex. Did I mention how good the sex was? I feel like I may have missed it. It was good. It was so fucking good.

“No you won’t”

“Why? You planning on using the blindfold again?” and, fucking hell, I could feel the outer edges of my lips curl up into a smile.

And yeah, we used a blindfold last night. Bet you… didn’t see that coming. Ba-dum tsshhh.

“No, because I am bored of you now. We’ve had sex, there’s nothing here for me now” she said with her sultry Spanish accent clearer than ever.

“Thanks?”

And then she walked out the door. I shit you not, she just walked out the bedroom door. Leaving me ever-so-slightly out of breath still and watching my obsession walk away from me forever.

So that was that. My time with Maria over. It was fun while it lasted, I guess, but that’s all it was. Just a bit of fun. Probably best for me to get back into the swing of healthier life choices now. I’d had my fill of her too, truthfully. I mean, she wasn’t even that good in bed and…

Oh, who am I fucking kidding?

“Wait!” I shouted, chasing after her while preserving my dignity with the duvet held up to my chest and trailing behind me like the train on a wedding dress.

“Why are you preserving your dignity? I have seen everything. You have no dignity left”

Harsh.

But fair.

“Dunno. I don’t like the cold on my tits. It feels… I dunno, vulnerable, I guess.”

“Whatever, I didn’t ask for your life story”

Hey, I’ll have you know that my life story is a little more complex than the fact that the cold getting on my tits gets on my tits. As you guys reading this know.

“Sorry”

I am such a coward.

“I’m going because my work here is done. You lied to me, earlier. I don’t like being lied to. You said you weren’t on a crash course with rock bottom. But I’ve seen you. I’ve seen how you are with me. You didn’t need my intervention. You are still on the downward spiral. You’re fixated with me”

“No I’m not”

Okay, that was a minor mistruth.

“It’s okay. It’s normal. I get it all the time. Usually from the men. They’re needier. Seedier. But girls sometimes get it too. I am irresistible”

“Yeah, if you had some self-confidence about you, you’d be unstoppable”

“But I thought there was a chance… just a flicker of a chance that you had more about you. A bit of something. You held out so long, not having sex with me. That was impressive. And this… whole weight gain thing” she gestured at me as she said it. “I’m not gonna lie, it’s new and it’s fun. I’ve never had someone do that before. Eating yourself to death. How very Se7en”.

“You’re gonna make me blush” I deadpanned. The deadpanning was undercut by the fact that I was probably blushing anyway. But it was so unfair! I mean she ate more than me, anyway. Probably. Well, she ate an inhuman amount. It just didn’t stick to her. Because she’s barely human. She should have been Bustopher Jones, and instead the feline minx looked as beautifully svelte as ever, with the cascading slopes of a model’s figure.

“But there’s nothing impressive about you. Just another fish on the line. No brakes on the car. And now I can go home and, each day, masturbate at the thought of you getting shamefully fatter, knowing that you’ll just keep driving until you hit cliff-edge. You’re a lost cause. You have no secrets to unlock. Just a boring straight line to rock bottom. Maybe I’ll check in after six months and see the state of you. But, otherwise, we’re done”

“Oh”

I watched the lauburu on the back of her neck as she walked away. And then, like Macavity, she was gone.

+-+-+-+-+-+-

It had been a short lived experience with her, after not seeing her for so long. But there was much to enjoy. Much to savour. Much to cling onto as the distance between us grew. But the simple fact of the matter was that I did not expect to ever see her again. Just a memory on loop in my mind as I moved on. Knowing that she was doomed to get fatter, even in my absence.

Oh, by the way, it’s me. Maria. I’m in charge now.

You look good by the way. Have you done something with your hair? I’m just messing with you, you look like shit.

Anyway, I left. Good riddance to her. Honestly, I swear these days they are getting needier. I’m not arsed, it’s true, they are. She’d blown up, I’d give her that much. Elephanted herself up. It was kinda fun, I guess. I was being honest about never having done the ‘getting fat’ thing before. I’ll add it to the list.

I first met Naomee (I fucking hate the nickname Nay-Nay, but I also hate most things, doesn’t mean I don’t use them) when I got the job. I didn’t have any IT experience, but I once babysat Rab’s only son. That was enough to get the gig. Men looking like he does rarely say no to women looking like I do.

I didn’t need the money or anything. But I did want the pool of targets. This Serengheti of old, useless men to cast my eye over. Someone to ruin, someone to destroy, someone to use, someone to leave blue. Pickings were like Naomee is now… not exactly slim.

Yes, Naomee. I didn’t like her. Still don’t. She liked me, as the only woman close to her age in an office cubicle. But, even then, I felt the way she actively tried to befriend me was suffocating. It was just so needy. I don’t want friends. I’m a lone wolf. I want prey. Sheep in the mouth. But she was good looking. Very good looking. Well put together. Petite and supple-looking. Everything in place. Head over heels in love with her yoga instructor. Head over heels literally. Because of the yoga.

She had everything. All the trimmings. She had a house of her own. A well-to-do family. She was broadly well-adjusted, by British standards. Everything so healthy. Everything in order. Such a deliciously high place from which to fall. I added her to the list, to return to her later, should circumstances arise.

In the meantime, there were other toys to play with. At the creche. Riyadh was a cheap thrill. She’s already told you about Riyadh hasn’t she? Well, he was so grateful to be on my radar that he proposed on the second date. Even though he was already married. I turned him down and made it hurt, but made sure he never gave up hope that we would get back together. Pathetic dog of a man. I got him to break up with his wife on the same day that she was going to tell him that she was pregnant. She told him first. He said he was going to leave her anyway, the stupid shit. I bet it was glorious. He, instead, raced over to me with marriage proposal number 2. I then told him I was breaking up with him too. And then, after that, she wouldn’t have him back and he’d never see his son again. It started a cheap thrill but it ended so juicy. He slashed his wrists that evening. I remember the orgasm I felt on the night I found out.

Then there was Rhiannon. What is there to say about Rhiannon. Her dad was a vicar. Until I gave him a blowjob… but that’s another story and I can’t be arsed to tell it right now. Her mum was a school councillor. She was just doing some office tidying to pay for nursing school. She was so pure, like uwu made flesh. I suggested a casino for our first date, and she loved it. Mainly because she loved me, but it was how I started the ball rolling. So to speak. She ended up so in debt that her parents lost their house. She sleeps outside Big Asda now and there’s no light behind her eyes any more. Yeah, Rhiannon was one of my favourites.

But you’re here for Naomee. I guess it’s nearly as much her story as mine, nearly, so I’ll tell you.

I was enjoying being thwarted by her. I loved the way she said no to me. First day I met her, I explained that, one day, I’d be in her bed eliciting moans usually found only on bad porn. You should hear the moans on Big Titty Car Mechanic Cum Explosion. They’re farcical. Those were the kind of moans that I was talking about. Anyway, I guess this was the evening I finally made good on that promise. And yet she rejected me back then.

When she broke up with her boyfriend, the vegan guy, I didn’t exactly drop everything. I wasn’t really dating the Liverpool football team or whatever lie I told. But sometimes, if you tell a lie often enough, it becomes part of your mythology. Remember that, that’s good advice. It’s a motto to live by. Instead, I was shagging this vegan lover of hers to get him to break up with her. As one does, doesn’t one?

Naomee, irritatingly, thought of me as a friend. I made a pass at her and she mentioned her ‘no shagging’ rule. It annoyed me. I liked it. I figured my way to wreck her would be through alcohol. I’d used alcohol a few times. Leaving Las Vegas was always my favourite Nic Cage performance. I would get them to soak their liver until it would take no more. Sometimes it’s just fun to watch things burn. But the food thing came as a shock to me. Over-eating was not something I’d even thought about as anything other than weakness. But maybe she had a latent inclination that I just set alight. So I improvised and next thing I know, I had her exactly where I wanted her.

Except, that’s half the problem. I hate having people exactly where I wanted them. I need the resistance. I mean, I also like the ruination aspect too, I guess. And she had that down. That was fun. I remember all those Zoom calls where her camera ‘didn’t work’. I saw right through it. Not literally. I’m not actually supernatural. Although, as I say, if you tell a lie often enough, it becomes part of your mythology, so maybe I am. But I knew I would be in for a treat tonight.

Let’s compare and contrast shall we. The ‘before’ picture is nearly as important as the ‘after’ picture, after all. She had layered it on. Just piled it on. Her nightwear didn’t even fit, and nightwear always fits. I presume. I don’t know for sure because I sleep as naked as the day I was born. She looked at the lower end of average. Not particularly inspiring. Not that chest-beating thrill I have had in the past. But if you held that ‘before’ picture in her head, and suddenly she was electric. Such a devastating trajectory. What would Rab say? What would Jerome say? What would her family say? Familial humiliation is the best. It’s mouth-watering just to think about it.

And when she keeps going, and she will keep going, she'll be glorious. Just a wasteland where a young ingenue once stood. I can't wait to push her head under the water of self-loathing, and watch her struggle for breath. I can't wait as it slows her down, scars her gait, drags her spirit, limits her movement, wheezes her breath. Yes, I need that. Fuck, I needed to get home. I had a climax to reach.

But, don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll talk again. I’ll get my claws in you eventually.
 

[dania201]

The darkness circles. I love it. 😉

[swahilimonkfish]

10 hours ago, dania201 said:

The darkness circles. I love it. 😉

Thank you most kindly 😊

[swahilimonkfish]

Chapter 7 - Whoosh

Oh my god, I’m so sorry.

I’m just so sorry. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Being trapped with Maria is terrifying, isn’t it, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Even if I wish it on myself. I hope you’re okay and she didn’t get to you. It’s awful isn’t it, trapped in the hollow echo of her thoughts in that empty cavity where a soul should be. Here, have a sandwich. I find it helps. And then have a second one, I find it helps more than the first.

It was that kind of thinking that led me to eating sandwich number 6, while reeling from the aftermath of her leaving. The packaging of it - paying £2 for sandwiches is a schmuck’s game but, then again, I am a schmuck - said it was chicken and stuffing, and I remember thinking to myself ‘you call that stuffing? You should see what I’m doing to myself. Now that’s stuffing’. And there was no sociopath nearby to roll her eyes at the bad joke and then feed me. And it was that sinking realisation that led me to sandwich number 7.

I had promised Maria Echeverria, mother of dragons, that I would get back on the straight and narrow now. Fix myself up, drop the weight, find my joie de vivre. And I wanted to do it. To spite her. To prove her wrong. I hated her. To force her to come back to me. To break me all over again. I loved her. But I just can’t find my joie de vivre. And I can’t remember where I last had it. You guys seen it lately? I’ve checked everywhere. I checked down the back of the sofa and found nothing but crumbs and 2 for 1 vouchers on pizza delivery, and next thing I’m doing is choosing my topping for that second pizza while rummaging through my cupboards for something to eat in the meantime. Joie de vivre? Joue de mourir, more like.

And then I write the depressing facts down in that grey journal of mine. 201lbs. Gain of 78lbs. BMI of 30.8. Classification: officially obese. But, on the bright side, the pizzas have arrived.

I just couldn’t seem to shake her. She was everywhere I looked. In the fridge. In the food cupboard. In the other food cupboard. Yeah, it was mainly fridges and food cupboards wherein I would do the majority of my looking. But it’s hard to put into words how omnipresent she was in my thoughts. Like an itch that only itched more after you scratched it.

There would be periods of calm. Moments where I would just forget about her and go about my day from a few brief instances like I was Naomee again. Before Maria. I would be brushing my teeth and humming a tune and my mind would only be on those two things. The constant Maria static would die down. And then, as I bend over to spit the toothpaste out, my stomach would brush the sink and I would spot the way it bunched up, and it would all come flooding back again.

Next thing you know, it’s a week later and I was eating whipped cream with my Cheerios. It’s hard to argue that she didn’t have a point. What she said about looking into The Abyss and all that.  I’d never felt so tethered to gravity as I do now,hurtling downwards in a Hitchcockian spiral, as the four grains of the Cheerio work so wonderfully well with the sweet, light, frothy whipped cream. She was right to say that she didn’t need to push me down the well, that I was already falling, I admit to myself as I lick the spoon so nothing gets wasted. I can do bad all by myself, it seems, I confess as I heave myself back up again to go back for another serving.

And sometimes I would hear her voice. Husky and smoky, with Iberian inflexions. But I mainly just heard the sound of regrets. I felt like the Bustopher Jones to her Macavity. And, look, I only watched the Cats movie once, but I don’t recall Idris Elba and James Corden falling in love and spending the rest of their days together. Though, to be fair, the movie would have benefited from that ending though. There’s probably a fanfic of it out there on the internet somewhere.

And then I write the depressing facts down in that grey journal of mine. 5 meals a day. 9000 calories a day. And I’ve run out of Cheerios to have with my whipped cream.

Another week, and I can hear all the clocks in my house ticking. It sounds like being abandoned. And I can hear the doorbell ringing to inform me that my takeout order is here. I wonder which one has arrived first. Which takeaway that is, for I arrived a goodly while ago. It’s not just my appetite that has been insatiable of late. No way, Jose.

Sorry, I was distracted. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, the doorbell rang. Okay, so do you guys want the good news or the bad news? Doesn’t really matter because this isn’t some multiple-choice story, bitches. You have as little agency as I do in all this. You want the bad news? Okay, I can do that. So, the bad news is I have to pull myself off the settee to answer the door. The good news is that, by doing this, at least I’m getting my steps in. My Fitbit’s gonna be so proud of me.

The pizzas arrived first. Some asshole on a bike dropped them off and didn’t even check me out as I answered the door. Probably because of Covid. Yeah, that’ll be it. Not the fact that I had taken to just wearing a bra and sarong to answer the door, meaning the top roll of my stomach, in all of its domelike glory, was answering the door half a second before I was. Yeah, I wear sarongs now bitches. The gyros that I ordered was delivered ten minutes later, and the scrawny teenager who, at that age, should really be lusting after anything with a pulse, in fact was as emotionally distant as they were socially distant. Must’ve been the sarong. Note to self, I don’t wear sarongs now any more.

Well, least that’s this evening sorted. I mean, it won’t be. That’s the real horror story of all this. Two pizzas and a healthy - well… unhealthy, if we’re being pedantic - serving of gyros should see me to my inevitable food coma. But then the voice, the husky, Spanish voice, reappears at the back of my mind and tells myself “well, since I’m already this far gone, might as well commit”. It asks me “just how much further are you willing to - no, not willing to, because willingness has never been a factor here - but how much further am I able to go?”. Which is why, ladies and gentlemen, it always pays to have ice cream in the fridge. You can have that nugget of wisdom from me to you for free.

But, before I get to do all that. I have to write down the deets in that grey journal of mine. My waist is now 42 inches. And I’ve done 238 steps today.

And so I ate sandwiches. But that didn’t fill me up. And so I ate ice cream. But that didn’t fill me up (did give me brain freeze though - don’t eat ice cream quickly when quarantine means that it’s been over 6 months since your last dental check-up). And so I ate pizza. But that didn’t fill me up. And my fucking lord, this must have been what it felt like to be the eponymous character in The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

My stomach hurt and I wasn’t full. It was the first time that this particular concoction of moods had struck me before. I thought fullness and stomach capacity were… I dunno… the same fucking thing! And yet, I couldn’t eat another morsel, not even if delivered by Matt Damon wearing nothing but fig leaves (don’t ask! (Okay do ask (Fine I’ll tell you anyway (look, we all have our fetishes, you’re fat woman one is pretty weird too remember. And Matt Damon is, when all said and done, an attractively put together man)))). The truth was, and I couldn’t wrap my head around it, was that…

I was bored.

I know, I know, being trapped in your own building with nobody to socialise with, share drinks with, gossip about your family with, takes it out of you. We’re all the same on that front. Everything feeling placeholder, everything on hold. Like running the wrong way on an escalator and finding yourself going nowhere. Every physically exerting step taking you to the exact same spot. Time passing but nothing changing. A year of your life written off like it’s bad debt. I know, I know. But what I was going through was something else.

I was bored of gaining weight. There, I said it. I was bored of gaining weight. Which was stupid, because I didn’t want to gain weight. I was doing it to spite myself and I was now spiting myself to spite myself. I don’t know how to explain it - and maybe it was something as simple as Maria not being there - but there was no thrill to it any more. No whoosh.

There was a whoosh at the beginning. That nebulous point at the start of our boldly-fattening proceedings when the waters feel unchartered and I get to boldly go where I’ve never gone before. Or, for the pedants out there, to go boldly where before I have never gone. But that novelty, that adventure had gone. It had almost normalised. I had never been fat before. But now I have. I’m fat every day. This is no longer pioneering, a freedom from a lifetime of being trapped in a rut. This is now just another rut.

When I started, the changes seemed foreign. I seemed foreign. I don’t any more. When I started, I transformed before our very eyes. But that doesn’t happen any more. Sometimes, I’ll spot something, a stretchmark I didn’t know that I had or a roll in my back that I didn’t know that fat people got. But, now, when I spot them, I just think ‘how long has that been there for?’. And it could have been days, weeks or even months. Who knows? Frankly, my dear, who gives a damn?

Maria. Maria gives a damn. And I write that in my little grey journal. Yeah, that was better. That’s what I needed to do. I needed to see Maria. She would fix this. She would help me find my whoosh.

And so, for the first time in months, I left my house.

And then I raced back again, because I was freezing and I was woefully under-dressed. I found the warmest clothing from my recent online purchase and hoped I didn’t look like a pudding on legs.

And then, for the second time in months, I left my house.

Nope, nope. It wasn’t working. But it wasn’t because I was cold that my hands were shaking. It was something else. I raced back inside and worked hard to get my breathing under control. But not because I was unfit. Well… not just because I was unfit. I was… suffering from genuine anxiety. I was… scared. But it didn’t matter. The status quo couldn’t hold. I needed to see Maria. The frayed nerves of a ‘fraid girl will have to wait. I need to see Maria. Need.

And then, for the third time in months, I left my house. And this time, I stayed out.

So, I’ll be the first to admit, I didn’t look great in my turtleneck jumper. Honestly, it looked great online but… okay, I probably looked great by your standards. By your weird perverted fapping-to-cartoons standards, I probably looked shagadelic, baby. But, by more regular and better-adjusted standards, I looked like a blancmange. The worst kind of blancmange. An inedible one.

And it didn’t help that I was getting a damp on. I’d maybe over-estimated how cool it was outside, or how warming it was to actually engage in concerted movement, but I was sweating like a pig getting caught red-handed in a sauna. My knees felt weak, my palms were sweaty, something, something, mom’s spaghetti. Actually, spaghetti would have helped with the nerves, come to think of it. But, standing in front of Maria’s door, all that anxiety that I was trying to repress - about my appearance, about leaving my house, about Maria rejecting me, about Maria not rejecting me - that I couldn’t go through with it. Nerves, sweat, anxiety, blancmange. It was all too much.

I turned around to go home, and decided to retreat back to the safety of the four walls of my own place that had kept me company as I had undergone my own personal expansion. It would be safe there. I could order in. Thai sounds good right about now. Or maybe that new Indonesian place. Ha! Who am I kidding by saying ‘or’? And maybe that new Indonesian place.

But it was through this process of turning around that I caught it. Out of the corner of my eye. Through the slats of her blinds, I saw her. Maria. Maria Echeverria. The Abyss. I gazed upon her, and I waited for her to gaze back. As Abysses are wont to do. But she was oblivious, just happily go about her regular day. Running on her treadmill. Running. On her treadmill.

Maria Echeverria was exercising.

Maria Echeverria never exercised. She ate all that she could, moved as little as she wanted, and always ended up looking like one of those mannequins you get at clothes stores. Only, y’know, with a face. Yet, here she was, Maria Echeverria, hitting the treadmill. Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t leave just yet.
 

[Batman76]

Ohhhh, this is tantalizing. I'm going we get a maria downfall....

[dania201]

Thai and Indonesian will have to wait. (Raises eyebrow)

[swahilimonkfish]

5 hours ago, Batman76 said:

Ohhhh, this is tantalizing. I'm going we get a maria downfall....

Some of my favourite stories are where the feeder becomes the feedee. I rarely write them though. Maybe this will prove to be the exception... (suspense noises)

[swahilimonkfish]

2 hours ago, dania201 said:

Thai and Indonesian will have to wait. (Raises eyebrow)

Yeah, took the liberty of making my character like the same food that I do. Thai and Indonesian sound so so good.

[dania201]

4 minutes ago, swahilimonkfish said:

Yeah, took the liberty of making my character like the same food that I do. Thai and Indonesian sound so so good.

Maybe that’s why the food writing in this chapter was particularly good! 😉😄

[Batman76]

7 minutes ago, swahilimonkfish said:

Some of my favourite stories are where the feeder becomes the feedee. I rarely write them though. Maybe this will prove to be the exception... (suspense noises)

Lets hope so, I want maria taken down a peg or twenty...

[swahilimonkfish]

1 minute ago, Batman76 said:

Lets hope so, I want maria taken down a peg or twenty...

 

(suspense noises intensify...)