swordfish

You've happily included two of the ones I thought too were the most intriguing in their potential: Sister Mary, and the talking underwear. The underwear one would certainly have to be lighthearted. I'd somehow imagined the underwear complaining to the wearer that things were getting awfully tight, and the wearer being very annoyed, especially when the underwear was talking when she was out in public. But what kind of voice would the underwear have? That I don't know. Re the convent, yes, that would be an unusual background, and it would be hard to think of convent refectory food alone being responsible for the weight gain. Perhaps Sister Mary gets sent secret food parcels. I might have to enter a convent to write it.

Mr Figgis, I appreciate your refined tastes. 'Bikini Ready' was actually the first title that I thought of. I then added 'Or Not?' at the very last minute.

When I write a weight gain story, I always worry over the title. Should I go with a title that occurs naturally in the writing process, or should I choose something attention-grabbing that might get more people to click and read? To help me in my ponderings, I’ve concocted a list of ten titles of imaginary stories and invite you to choose what is the most tempting title for you. I’ve tried to go for variety here, with some titles subtle, others explicit, some that I think are strong and some weak, some sensible, and some bonkers. However, whatever title’s the winner, there’s absolutely no guarantee that I will actually write any of them! 1. Secretly Fattening Sybil 2. Counting My Fat Rolls 3. Bikini Ready – Or Not? 4. Busty Brenda’s Ballooning Belly 5. Sister Mary’s Convent Weight Gain 6. What If My Underwear Could Speak? 7. Stella Gets Slightly Chubby 8. From Here to Obesity: The Jennifer Lopez Story 9. Lola Hits 360 10. Fat-Ass Shirley’s Uncomfortable Bus Ride

Many thanks for the kind comments, and for dania201's floral emoji! I got so involved in writing this story that I rather miss having the heroine around in my head. But her story's done, even if her weight gain probably isn't..

Over the next few weeks, both of us luxuriated in the simple joy of sharing our lives and our bed, waiting for each other to come home from work, doing all the simple partner things that I’d previously done on my own: the supermarket shop, cleaning the flat, putting the rubbish out. One day Filiz even managed to make something special out of hearing the refuse collectors banging bins when they woke her up on a Tuesday morning, a sound she wasn’t used to. “What’s that?” she asked, rubbing her eyes. I told her it was the bin men. “The bin men!” she cried with awe and delight, as if they were a newly discovered type of human or even intergalactic visitors. “The bin men!” she repeated, savouring each syllable. “Isn’t life wonderful?” That really cheered me, coming after months of anxiety and family upset. And though I would never have characterised her before as someone living on her nerves, she definitely seemed to have become more relaxed about everything. She slipped back into work without fuss, uncomplaining about what some would have thought a mundane job with no promotion prospects, tricky male colleagues, and hours standing on her feet. She was definitely more relaxed about eating. Don’t worry, eat well. The two dessert stunt wasn’t repeated when we ate out at restaurants, though in other respects she welcomed every indulgence, little or large. If she made dinner at home, I’d always find her licking spoons or nibbling on bread by the stove, while the amount she cooked always allowed for second helpings, typically destined for her plate. And afterwards - indeed at any spare moment - there was almost always some baklava to enjoy, or that sugary confection, Turkish Delight. I quickly renamed it Filiz’s Delight, a phrase that gave her almost as much pleasure as contemplating as the bin men. Living now at close quarters – very close quarters – I had a ringside seat as her figure, as I expected, quickly started softening again, though for some reason the distribution of the extra pounds turned out a little different the second time around. Her midriff podge, which had never entirely disappeared, quickly deepened, just as before, but was now accompanied by a new and increasing curve on her lower belly, heavier arms too. Before long it became abundantly clear that Filiz was not just getting back the pounds she had lost; she was zooming ahead into new territory, breaking new ground. Bobbing around the flat fully dressed, she was starting to look pleasantly chunky, with the added pounds clearly outlined under her clothes. Undressed, of course, there was no end to the beauty parade of bulges and creases as she took her shower, towelled herself, sat on the bed (that heavenly place), or strapped into place one of the new bras she’d recently acquired - part of a regenerated wardrobe bought to keep pace with her growing body. Some mornings I would catch her struggling into her jeans for the day, watching her tummy fat tumble over her panties as she bent over, only to be squeezed into new configurations of softness as she started pulling the jeans up one raised leg, then the other. Further delights awaited as she straightened up, breathed in a little and buttoned up, leaving her tummy to be further squeezed, the whole performance ending with a roll of fat looming all day over the top of her jeans like the crest of an unstoppable wave. By now we talked openly about her gaining weight and her extended appetite. She knew she was getting chubbier, she said, but she’d decided to let things ride for the moment. It was something she felt she needed to do. I knew it was all tied in with her mother and her family, but I also thought her mother’s death had kindled within her some primal need to re-connect with her heritage, to be more Turkish, to look more Turkish and less European, or at least less skinny European. Wasn’t Turkey one of the homes of the belly dance? And who could do the belly dance if they didn’t have a belly? By now I saw no harm in openly buying goodies for her, and sometimes popping one of those treats she loved into her waiting mouth: bad for her teeth, I realised, but so beneficial for her figure. At the same time, all the while I knew in my heart that if she did shrivel back to her former slim self I still would love and cherish her just as much. It was the inner person that truly mattered. Her open and friendly personality, her uncomplicated delight in everything in life, her warmth, her sense of fun: such things had a powerful beauty all their own. By the time autumn arrived she had become quite a plump little package, with notably thicker thighs, a pretty regular double chin, and a rounder ass on top of everything else – a useful asset that must have helped her body find a new equilibrium to balance all the extra pounds elsewhere. It was the kind of figure that traditionally used to bring appreciative wolf whistles from workers on building sites. One time she set out for work looking particularly juicy, wearing jeans stretched to the limit and a shirt that kept riding up to reveal her midriff bulge, so naked and soft, overflowing her waistband. When she came back, I asked her how the day went. “It went fine,” she said, with an airy grin. “Three people told me I was getting fat. One of them was even a customer.” But it was obvious that she didn’t mind. Before we knew it the anniversary of our first official social engagement was approaching - that exploratory coffee meeting after she’d finished work. It was a date I held in special esteem; luckily, she did too. We’d decided to go out for dinner on the day itself, but on the evening before I thought it would be fitting if we had Rasheda round for a meal, and a bit of a family reunion. I’d only seen her briefly and occasionally since she’d come back from Turkey. She arrived carrying a small bouquet of flowers: a surprising and pleasant gift from someone who in my experience at least hadn’t always showed a thoughtful disposition. Perhaps the Turkey trip and the family sorrow had mellowed her a bit. One other difference, I quickly realised, was that she was gaining some weight herself, and now had a little tummy of her own, curving gently out of her dress. It wasn’t a development that excited me particularly, but I certainly categorised it as interesting. Filiz had decided to skip Turkish cuisine for once and go for something simpler and Italian. Spaghetti! As she prepared it, we sat around the kitchen table talking of this and that. Rasheda mentioned she’d watched some of that annoying Swedish detective series on the internet. Filiz chipped in from near the stove. “We gave up on that, didn’t we? Couldn’t make head or tail of it.” “Yes, absolutely baffling,” I said, thinking all the while how heartening it was that she had said “we”. We were a “we”! A year on, and I was still amazed at what had happened, us getting together, building up a relationship, becoming a couple. It had seemed so unlikely, so improbable. But here was Filiz, bustling around in the kitchen, happily domestic, a beautiful, well-upholstered young woman. I felt so thankful for the Gods, the Fates, or whoever it was that sorted out peoples’ lives. While Filiz attended to being domestic, Rasheda for some reason decided to carry on our chat stretched out full-length on the sofa – rather a proprietorial gesture, I thought, as if she was planning on moving in and making our flat her home too. At least her horizontal position brought into focus the curve on her tummy, pressed tight against her dress. Possibly an eight pound gain? Minor, anyway, compared to the amount her sister had put on. Putting the cutlery and other items in place, Filiz raised a mocking eyebrow at her sister. “Do get comfortable, won’t you? Shall I bring you a pillow and a blanket?” “Tiring day at work,” she said, without sounding tired at all. “A-ha.” Rasheda finally raised herself upright just as the food arrived, and the meal began as normal. Turkish wine was poured. We clinked glasses. “Enjoy!” Filiz said, before digging in with her usual enthusiasm. Rasheda, I noticed, showed some spirit too, licking her lips before the first bite, savouring the meat sauce, and showering complements on the chef. “This is delicious!” “I know it is,” she said with a mischievous grin, “but it might have been even better if you’d offered to sprinkle a herb or something, instead of lying flat out on the sofa like Miss Lazy. And then the food arrives as if by magic, all in one swell foop!” Both of us looked bewildered. Then the penny dropped. She meant fell swoop. Filiz often mixed up her English idioms. “It’s fell swoop,” I said, starting to laugh, “not swell foop. What’s a foop?” Filiz improvised as her grin broadened. “It’s a Turkish fruit. You wouldn’t know it.” Rasheda then got in on the act. “But shouldn’t it be full sweep? What’s a fell swoop anyway?” I mulled the words over on my tongue: “Swoop, foop ...” At this point Filiz really got the giggles, the serious giggles, with her fuller cheeks looking extra full as she gurgled with laughter in her bell-like tones. I expected Rasheda to join in, but instead she looked at her sister carefully for a few seconds and then said, “You know, the more weight you put on, the more you look just like our mother!” Filiz’s giggling was stopped in its tracks. Her eyes quickly moistened. Out came sobs, uncontrollable sobs for what seemed a minute or two, building in strength as pure emotion took hold. In the heat of her tears, I initially thought that Rasheda’s remark was a criticism, and I shot her a dirty look. “No, no, Mickey,” she explained, ‘it’s a compliment, isn’t it Filiz?” Inbetween sobs and a little eye wiping she managed the word “Yes”. Sitting next to her at the table, I began stroking her nearest arm. ”It’s alright, let it out,” I said, gently, “feel whatever you feel”. Rasheda by now was emotional too, which made Filiz cry even more. I remember thinking again, almost with embarrassment, how delectable Filiz looked even in her agitated state. Such a sweet face. The major curve of her breasts, the heavy arms, the thick roll of fat circling below. Didn’t “Filiz” in Turkish mean something to do with sprouting, with blossoming? Well, Filiz had blossomed, finally blossomed. I had a strong urge to comfort her with big hugs, but I didn’t want to choke her and thought it best if she came out of her mood in her own time. Once the tears were clearly in retreat, I decided to lead her just a sidestep away from the topic, though it really wasn’t a sidestep at all. “We don’t want the spaghetti to go cold, do we?” I said, “Your mother wouldn’t want that.” Filiz immediately jumped in. “No, she wouldn’t,” she said, vaguely reaching for her fork, though she was not quite at the point when she could actually pick it up. She looked directly at her sister. “Would she?” “Definitely not,” Rasheda said, her own tears just about controlled. Within a few seconds, the meal was resumed, and I watched with quiet pleasure as the two sisters, one getting comfortably round, the other perhaps pointing that way, returned to their pasta – knowingly eating, I felt for sure, under their mother’s auspices, following the guidance from her sick bed. Don’t worry, eat well. After another hour, well topped up with coffee and Turkish Delight, Rasheda finally said her goodbyes, with kisses and hugs, and left us to ourselves. We sat on the sofa. Filiz looked exhausted, but contented too. She rubbed a hand over her full stomach. I told her she could always undo the top button of her jeans. She did so, a faint smile on her lips. “I’m getting so big! You sure you don’t mind? I was so slim before. Well, pretty slim.” I told her I absolutely didn’t mind. “Sorry for the dramatics,” she went on, “it just suddenly hit me.” “No worries,” I said. “Your mother was someone pretty special, wasn’t she?” “I loved her warm hugs. It was so comforting. She felt so soft.” “Now you can give soft hugs of your own. Are you happy being heavier?” It was a question, I realised, that didn’t really need asking, but I thought it might be therapeutic. “Not at the start, though I tried to be. Partly to please you. But now, definitely, yes. I’m a real woman. I’m happy I’m fatter. And you too?” This, again, didn’t need to be asked. I told her I loved her at all sizes, but yes, definitely. Now it was my turn to tell her to stop talking. I began to undo the top buttons of her blouse, before moving on to tugging at her jeans, trying to pull them over those well-padded hips. “You’ve got to really yank them,” she said, before I covered her mouth with one of my hands. “No more words,” I whispered, “just action. Come on, my jubube.” I took her hand and started to lead her toward the bedroom. “What’s a jujube?” she said, giggling. I told her it was a fruit-flavoured sweet; the Victorians used it as a coughdrop. “Living with you,” she went on in that awestruck tone I loved so much, “I learn something new every day.” She swiftly disrobed. Her naked body, lightly imprinted around the waist with the abrasions left by her tight clothes, had never looked so beautiful. By this time all words, silly or serious, had dropped away. But breathing grew louder. We were both on the bed, passion glowing, with me on top, she underneath, plump and welcoming. A radiant smile beamed out of her face, round as a full moon, soon to be flushed with exultation as I pushed inside this lovely body grown soft as a pillow and entered the warm flesh of my girl Filiz, my lovely jujube, the love of my life, the light of my life, my Turkish Delight, cake and icing beautifully rolled into one. THE END © Swordfish, 2021

We had a long train journey into the centre of London. At first she deflected conversation away from herself, wanting to know how I was, what had been happening. I didn’t have much to tell her. The usual activities at the bookshop: i.e., nothing. A new series of “Night Shifts” had begun on TV, with Gudrun under more psychological pressure than usual, this time trying to solve a particularly grisly murder while also undergoing gender transfer treatment. I could tell, however, that Filiz wasn’t really following what I was saying. “Come on,” I encouraged her, ”tell me how things went. How they really went.” She managed to tell me external details of the funeral, who was there, what was said, but was distracted by other passengers coming and going, and the general lack of privacy. Partly for that reason, once we’d left the train I decided to damn the expense and get a taxi to go the remaining few miles. “Now for home,” she said, sinking back happily into the taxi’s back seat. Without thinking, I started to give the taxi driver Filiz’s address, when she quickly jumped in and gave him mine. “Our flat now,” she half-whispered to me, “I’m moving in. If you don’t mind?” I could see the taxi driver grinning. I was grinning too, from ear to ear. “Of course I don’t mind,” I said, after giving her the biggest kiss. Why, oh why, had living together taken us so long? Once in the flat, she flopped exhausted onto the sofa. I got her some tea, all the while sizing up in my head the available space for couple living, a new adventure for me. I asked her delicately how much stuff she’d have to bring from Rasheda’s flat, and if she’d discussed the move with her. The short answers were “Not much” and “Yes”, which were pretty much the long answers too. She really did look tired. Now the real story of her trip emerged, of how terrible it was seeing her mother so sick and wasted. “I can’t get that out of my mind,” she kept saying. By now her head was on my shoulders, crying, and I was cradling her in my arms, loosening my tender hold only to track down a tissue, a clean handkerchief, or something so she could wipe away her tears. But then, the crying only redoubled as she remembered her last visit to the hospital, and the last words her mother said to her. Filiz kept breaking up as she repeated them, and I didn’t properly grasp them at first. Then I did. “Don’t worry, eat well’: those were the words. Don’t worry, eat well. I didn’t say anything for a moment, anything substantial anyway. I felt there were more emotions and memories,due to come out, but I didn’t want to force them. She quietened down a little. Even with her hair dishevelled and reddened eyes, Filiz still looked spectacularly beautiful. She gazed up at me as if desperate for understanding. “I felt so awful, I just felt I’d let her down. Do you know what I mean?” I thought I could make a reasonable guess. She’d gone to Turkey on a diet, concerned about the way she’d filled out, only to find her worries knocked into triviality by seeing her mother practically wasting away. “And my cousin,” she went on, “she didn’t help. There I was complaining about getting a bit chubby and she turned up, big as a balloon after a couple of years of marriage, telling me how happy she was and that it was just in the genes. Telling me really that I was being a fool. And when I looked at my mother, of course I was.” “But you did eat?” I asked quietly. “Properly? I mean, no diet things?” She narrowed her eyes, as if conjuring up in her mind’s eye the anxious meals fitted in between hospital visits. “I tried to. But I didn’t have much appetite.” “And now, right now? What about some lunch?” It was early in the afternoon. She couldn’t have had much for breakfast, I imagined, and air travel was always draining. She paused a little, sighed, composed herself, and let loose a little smile. ‘I’m ravenous.” To mark the occasion we went to the Turkish place where we’d had our very first meal together all those months before. I worried at first that she might not be up for London Turkish fare after her family’s home cooking, but she raised no objection, and spent so much time surveying the menu that it seemed like she was tasting each item in her mind. Given what she had gone through, I tried to keep the conversation away from delicate matters, so much so that I can’t now remember what we talked about. I can’t even recall what we ate, though I remember Filiz enjoying her bread. And I certainly remember the moment, the telling moment, when she said she wanted to eat two desserts. “One for me,” she said, “and one for my mother”. It was a way, she told me, of paying her respects. I looked at her with her tired beauty, slightly rounder cheeks, and sweet little tummy under her breasts, and thought to myself that it if she kept paying her respects like that Filiz was going to be gaining back all the weight she’d lost. I probably said something in reply like “That’s such a nice thought”. Which it was.

I found the separation hard to bear. Part of the trouble was the uncertainty of knowing when we could talk. I suspected she’d have little time to herself in Istanbul, quite apart from any technical glitches with computers, phones, all the rest of it. Apart from an email via her father’s computer saying they had safely arrived, I was left in the dark for most of a week with no other company for conversation except my bookshop colleagues, the occasional customer, and the man who collected books six inches high, who kept on calling me at work. I really didn’t want to know about the 1853 Persian, Arabic and English dictionary he’d found. I wanted to know about Filiz. Then she phoned one evening. She said things were awful. Her mother looked terrible, so sick, so thin. It was only a matter of time. I asked if she’d been able to talk to her. Yes, she said, on and off, but increasingly off. Everyone was glad she and Rasheda had come; and there were uncles and aunts and cousins visiting too. She was sorry she hadn’t been able to phone before. She missed me. She’d phone again, but didn’t know when. She had to go now. Kiss kiss. Goodnight. And that, for the moment, was it. It was only two days later when she phoned again. I could tell immediately by the tone of her voice what had happened. Before she had sounded under pressure, agitated, the words emerging faster than usual, the melodious rise and fall flattened. Now she seemed calmer in a way, but much, much sadder, speaking almost in a monotone. “She’s dead, Mickey, she died this morning.” I offered what comfort I could, saying at least her mother’s suffering was over. She’d had a good life, she was loved and would still be loved. “Yes, yes,” Filiz said, seeming on the verge of tears. I told her it was OK to cry. “I’m too tired to cry at the moment,” she said, though from her sniffs I could tell her eyes were moistening. I asked if she’d stay for the funeral. “If I can. I’ll let you know. But it’s late here, I’d better go...” I had never heard her sound so exhausted, so forlorn. And not to be able to cradle and hug her with my love: it was heartbreaking. I didn’t get much sleep that night. My little daily round continued, but it seemed so drab without Filiz. I kept on worrying about her, hoping for news that the funeral had been set, that it had happened, and that she was coming back. Five more days, and she phoned again: if all went to plan, she’d be back next Thursday. Thursdays, for some reason, had always been my least favourite day of the week. Not any more. Following instructions, I passed on the news to her boss at the fruit and veg store - equally drab without her. While there, I noticed the tattooed giant who had compared her to a crumpet shifting a crate of potatoes. I gave him a glare and a wide berth. You don’t make fun of my precious Filiz, I thought. You treat her with love and respect. That’s what I was going to do, I promised myself, more than ever before. After the funeral she phoned me briefly, very emotional, but collected enough to give me details of the flight and its arrival time at the aiport. Rasheda, she said, would be staying on a little longer. I’d be there, I said, and so I was, waiting along with other hopefuls as passengers of all colours and shapes and sizes, pulling luggage, emerged through the swing doors. It struck me then, as it strikes me now, as such a strange and miraculous procession: these hundreds and hundreds of anonymous bodies passing by, people who meant nothing to me, and among them, somewhere, I hoped sometime soon, the one special person in all the world who lit up my life. I just had to wait, and she would emerge. And there she suddenly was, in the distance, wheeling her suitcase, starting to scan the horizon looking for what I hoped was her special person too. I waved. She waved, came closer and closer, until we were in each others’ arms in a vigorous hug. Though I felt her breasts pressing upon me, the remains of her tummy too, I thrust them to the back of her mind: what mattered now was the whole Filiz, inside and out, back from an emotional ordeal. She looked a bit paler than usual and tired around the eyes, understandable considering what she’d been through. I was expecting to find her a bit thinner, but in that department she looked much the same, maybe even a tiny fraction bigger. Numerous family meals, perhaps. But I didn’t want to enquire. Not the time. Not the place.

The first rumblings of a thundercloud came when I was invited over for a dinner with her sister, whom I’d usually seen in their flat only in passing. A secretary for an estate agent, she was opinionated, a bit sharp-tongued, but pleasant enough, and as slim as Filiz used to be. While Filiz was busy in the kitchen, Rasheda sang my praises, saying that all her sister’s previous boyfriends had been worthless clowns and quickly dumped, but I had a bit of class. Educated, too. “Well, up to a point,” I said. She then went on to tell me that I was making Filiz very happy, but also chubbier. I felt myself blushing crimson, though she explained that she didn’t mean that I was doing it in purpose. It was just a case of relationship pounds. I admitted that she was putting on weight, while adding that I thought it suited her. “You wouldn’t say that,” Rasheda replied, “if you caught her swearing in the morning when she realises she can’t fit into another pair of jeans. Before long I bet you’ll be hearing the D word.” The D-word? I couldn’t think of any strong swear word beginning with D. Damn? Damnation? Then Rasheda, wearing a “men are so stupid” expression, told me the D word was diet. My face fell, and only partly because I’d been barking up the wrong tree. Rasheda continued, whispering now: “Then there’s the bra problem.” “What about them?” “They don’t fit her any more. She’s spilling out of them or doesn’t wear them at all. Her breasts really need a controlling hand.” “Yes, mine,” I thought, behind closed lips. Rasheda pressed on with her whispering: “Gaining weight for a woman, Mickey, is never easy.” “Obviously not,” I said. The next sound we heard, from the kitchen, was “Dinner’s ready!” Filiz then swept through the door, beautiful breasts bouncing, rounder face glowing, bearing a baking tray of her best moussaka. “What have you been talking about?” she said gaily. I tried to sound breezy. “Oh, nothing much.” Rasheda then chipped in. “Greyhound racing.” Looking only faintly perplexed, Filiz moved onto spooning portions onto our plates, and the evening went on its merry way. But it did leave me somewhat disturbed about some of my behaviour. By surreptitiously plying Filiz with extra calories, hadn’t I been thinking of my own pleasure than her own? Shouldn’t I have paid her proper respect by seriously considering her own feelings, and not just lazily assuming that she was more or less happy enough to go along for the ride? It worried me. The lightning I expected to strike struck several days later when she’d agreed to come by for lunch: not something we usually did, but it just fitted in with our schedules. I was eager to tell her about my visit the day before to an eccentric book collector who only collected books that were six inches high – Filiz enjoyed lunacies like that. But all that was knocked out of my head when she immediately announced, with apologies, that she actually didn’t want lunch after all. The D word had arrived. “Ever since we’ve been seeing each other I’ve been gaining weight. I know you kind of like it, but it’s getting to be too much for me. I’ve got to cut back. One of the guys at work yesterday poked me right in the middle and called me a crumpet.” Crumpet? I didn’t like the sound of that. “He’d just bought some crumpets at the supermarket and he said their description on the packet sounded just like me. ‘Scrumptiously soft and fluffy’ ”. It was indeed an accurate description, and I’m sure had been put on the packet as something positive, but I still didn’t appreciate him saying it, especially as he was clearly making fun of her. “I’ll go and beat him up!” I said, coming over all Sir Galahad. She managed a slight smile. “Oh, Mickey, don’t be silly. He works out, he’s bad-tempered, and got lots of tattoos. You wouldn’t come out of it very well.” “Well...” - I searched around for a softer alternative - “I’ll write a note to his mother.” “Mickey,” she said, laughing in spite of herself, “this is serious!” Oh, I knew it was serious, and that she was serious, and I also knew that I’d give her my full support her whatever she did. I’d fallen for her when she was thinner, and I felt our connection, that inner fire, wouldn’t go away if things changed. Her chubbing up had just been the icing on the cake. And when all was said and done it was the cake I loved the most. Sitting round the kitchen table, I told her that whatever she needed to do, I would be with her, though I argued that as she’d be standing at her till all afternoon she should still eat a little something. She suggested a little salad and a piece of fruit. “No dessert,” she added, “nothing sweet.” No icing, then. It was OK. I swung toward the kitchen, hoping to find enough cucumber, tomatoes, and a lettuce with a bit of a bounce, and asked if she had a diet goal. She pointed to her tummy. “This,” she said, ”I want to lose this”, though she added that she might keep just a bit of it to please me if I was good. I wasn’t sure exactly how she’d defined “good”, but I told her I’d be on my very best behaviour. Once I’d rustled something up, it was odd to see her facing such a meagre meal, though I knew I would have to get used to it. Trying to keep the mood light, for my own sake as much as hers, I dipped into my memory bank and told her that I’d once joked with my bookshop colleagues that I was thinking of having a tattoo myself, on the calf of my left leg. “A tattoo of what, for God’s sake?” Filiz said, looking incredulous, tomato poised on the end of her fork. I said I’d suggested a tattoo of T. S. Eliot, but emphasised that it was all a joke. I hadn’t been remotely serious. She looked more incredulous than ever. “T. S. who?” I helped her out: a big American-British poet, 20th century, worked in a bank, then in publishing. Wrote a famous poem called “The Waste Land”. “The waist land,” she mused in her melodious voice, rubbing a hand over the looming bulge at the top of her jeans, “that’s just what I want to lose!” I felt so fondly towards her at that second that I immediately leant over and kissed her. It wasn’t just what she said, it was how she said it: the voice so light, so expressive and animated, so innocent, running over the words with the sparkle of a clear mountain stream. How could I not adore her? I would never think of “The Waste Land” in the same way again. Under the new dispensation our intertwined lives carried on, though I felt with a little less enjoyment of life from both sides. Constantly watching your food intake, counting calories, saying no when deep down you meant yes: all that has to cut into a relationship’s rhythm and flow, especially when only one of the pair is dieting. I didn’t know what bathroom scales would have revealed - neither of us had any - but I certainly grew aware that her tummy was getting less prominent and her face a little tauter. The bed experience wasn’t ruined, though I couldn’t deny that I missed the luxury of the cushion of softness that had built up over her body during the winter months. In time she had lost enough pounds to be able to reclaim at least some of the clothes she’d had to put on one side, though I thought with some of her t-shirts she was rather jumping the gun. Filiz’s enjoyment of life took another and much more serious dip when worrying news arrived from Turkey: her mother wasn’t at all well, and was due for tests. Their mother, I know, was a powerful force in their family, really its heartbeat, the one that still kept it a family even when some of its members were geographically separated. Both sisters became anxious, wondering what the tests might show. Filiz’s appetite even for salads started to dwindle under the strain. Once news of the tests came through, the black cloud they were living under only grew blacker still. A galloping bone cancer had been diagnosed. She hadn’t long to live. Both of them knew that they had to go back to Istanbul and await whatever happened. Filiz didn’t know how long she could stay away from work, though her boss was understanding. Shifts could be juggled; a fill-in could be found. Rasheda, with a classier job and unused holiday days stacked up, had more elbow room. But however it was arranged, both of them knew they couldn’t delay. A couple of days later, I mournfully stroked Filiz’s sad face, kissed her goodbye and held her in a hug that I wished could last forever. I can’t remember what consoling or encouraging words I found to say, but I’m sure they were very inadequate.

At first we lay side by side, gazing into each others’ eyes. Needing to warm us up and get acquainted with her body at close quarters, I started gently massaging her breasts. She told me to take off my wristwatch. “Sorry about that,” I murmured, before returning to the nipples, fingering them oh so lightly, then following a downward path over her tummy, feeling the layer of fat quickly thicken as the belly button approached before starting to taper down towards the delicate forested area where her tummy and legs met. She obligingly moved her legs apart, raised them, and I sank into place on top, comfortable in the cushion of her curves. What followed probably doesn’t need description, though even in the heat of it I was struck by the sheer intensity of the groans, pantings and cries that we produced. It took me back to a time at university when my room was next to a couple who seemed to burn up the sheets every evening, and always at a decibel level that I’d never ever managed myself, either then or since. Until now. It was a wonderful night, and I didn’t need Filiz’s grin to tell me she felt the same. Waiting for sleep to overcome me, I worked out that all my previous bed partners – I could count them on the fingers of one hand - had been rather lanky beanpoles, with not much padding on the bones. Filiz’s soft coating of flesh was something else. I suddenly realised how dense I’d been, blind to something so obvious. I’d previously thought it was just the novelty of Filiz gaining that so attracted me. It was more than that. There was serious sexual stimulation involved. I felt I’d uncovered a secret equation: that extra pounds on Filiz’s body equalled extra sensuality and better sex. No wonder I had started to find pleasure simply in watching Filiz eat, absorbing the calories that might well end up pushing out her tummy a little more, filling some hollow, or thickening her thighs. As a discovery, my equation might not have been up there with Einstein’s theory of relativity, but it was very significant for me. Waking up together in bed was wonderful. I cupped her in my arms, gazed at her sweet, slightly fattened face, kissed her forehead, cheeks and lips, and repeatedly stroked her right shoulder. I so wanted to cherish and take care of her. “I have to get up,” she eventually said, her melodious voice heavy with regret. Her sister was returning today, she told me. We both agreed it was a pity, though she said Rasheda wouldn’t have any objections to anyone sleeping over. It was obvious to both of us that we would be doing this again, either at her flat or mine. She took a quick shower and washed her hair; my own shower was much quicker, enough to be able to catch her putting on her clothes, buttoning and zipping herself up for the outside world. Armed with my secret equation, I found this both teasing and thrilling. On went the panties and the camisole top, clearly outlining the growing tummy and the perky round breasts. On went an off-white blouse, obviously getting to be a bit of a squeeze, with extra care needed to fix the small buttons around the breasts. Then it was time for the jeans, the famous blue jeans, now requiring an extra yank to pull them over her belly and hips. There was no need for a belt, I spotted, to tighten the jeans and keep them hoisted; her midriff flesh now did that for her. With clothes in place, holding back that softened body, I found every simple move she made exquisitely provocative as she darted about the kitchen, preparing a simple breakfast of coffee, eggs, and Turkish bread. We quickly arranged a return visit to my own flat, the first of many overnight stays. I began to realise that, yes, it was true: against the odds I was actually in a relationship with Filiz! She stayed over at least once a week, often twice, happy to linger over the coffee, the wine, and a dinner where I’d watch her forking her way through portions that I tried to ensure were quietly larger than my own. This was a golden time for me; for her too, I felt, as we grew together in love and intimacy. Despite occasional comments like “I shouldn’t be eating this” or some more cautious fingering of her belly, Filiz continued to enjoy eating whatever came her way, with the expected results: more fat on her belly, bigger love handles, a fuller face. With things going so well, on every front, I began to think about the possible next step in our relationship: actually moving in together. Being a proper couple. Admitterdly, the four flights of stairs up to my flat, in a typical London terrace of big Victorian houses, weren’t ideal; but at least there was room for two when you got there. Bed sessions continued to be luxurious, though as warmer weather came with the spring I began to notice that perhaps my foreplay stroking her body wasn’t arousing her as much as before. Her appetite also seemed to have shrunk a little. Watching her set off for work, belly sometimes poking out of last summer’s tops, really too small now for the job, I thought she might be reining herself in a bit because she felt self-conscious. It wouldn’t be surprising: even I was occasionally taken by surprise by the changes that had taken place, changes that were beginning to make her just as chunky as she previously looked when puffed up in that quilted jacket.

Looking back on these early days, what surprises me more than ever is the speed at which things then developed, and indeed the fact that they developed at all. Amiable chit-chat and fond feelings are one thing, but we were still two people with different lives, me a rather lonely bachelor more familiar with books than with negotiating human relationships, she much more of a girl about town, unbookish though certainly intelligent, with a family background way outside my experience. Yet even within these few coffee meetings we’d somehow generated enough momentum to propel us towards what you might call friendship-plus. The first phase of the acceleration featured evenings in Turkish restaurants, soon curtailed on the grounds of economy - neither of us earned very much - but very enjoyable while they lasted, certainly on the food front. After I expressed surprised that menus in Turkish restaurants never seemed to have dishes featuring turkey (I was only joking), Filiz guided me through the different ways of cooking lamb, aubergine, rice, lentils, tomatoes, onions, garlic: the ingredients and tastes went on and on. Then there were the ancillaries: the mezes, or hors d’oeuvres, beforehand, fresh bread and olives during, and sweets afterwards, like Filiz’s beloved baklava, and everything washed down with a bottle of Turkish wine. Cooking in our own flats was nowhere near as lavish or authentic, but I bought a Turkish recipe book and did what I could to duplicate some of what we had in restaurants. My prize creation, assuming I had enough time and patience, was what Filiz called ‘Moussaka à la Mickey’ - she liked to call me Mickey - though it generated rather more food than it was probably wise to consume in one go. It was after a month or so of these dining encounters that I realised that Filiz had started to gain some weight: real weight, this time, and not because of a puffer jacket or the effect of a big yawn. It wasn’t surprising, I suppose, considering the calories flying around when we were together, though I didn’t seem so affected. I spotted the change first in her face, which was looking a bit fuller, with rounder cheeks, emphasised whenever she smiled. Sometimes there was even, if she lowered a head, the faintest suggestion of a double chin, soon gone once the head was raised: hardly a crime, I know, and quite common, but still, this was something new. The clinching evidence, though, came one night when we sat after our meal watching the first episode of a new “Scandi noir” about a Swedish detective with problems, called Gudrun, who seemed to spend most of her time not solving crimes but being analysed by her psychiatrist in a gloomy apartment with particularly low lighting. Half way through I turned to her on my sofa and asked her if she understood what was going on. “Absolutely not,” she replied, almost with enthusiasm. That’s one thing I liked about Filiz: she was truthful. “Well, that makes two of us, then!” We both laughed, and then as my eyes began pivoting back towards the screen I suddenly noticed the newly increased curve of her belly, looming out of a familiar pair of blue jeans, often worn when she was at work, but now looking a really tight fit. She’d definitely put on some pounds. I didn’t make any comment about the matter, and the evening went on its usual way, climaxing in a friendly hug about 11 o’clock and a promise to see each other soon. Putting my arms around her, moving towards our parting kiss, I felt her breasts and tummy pressing against me as never before. Descending the stairs, she turned to give me a last farewell smile, and a last flash of those fuller cheeks. The discovery that Filiz was gaining some weight left me with mixed emotions, some of which I didn’t understand. Since I’d always considered her a paragon of beauty, part of me felt that I should be upset that her body’s outlines were beginning to change and, officially speaking, not for the better. But another part of me - the bigger part - found the slight physical change fascinating. Now that I spotted her larger belly, I kept looking out for it, hoping the clothes she wore would give it prominence, feeling disappointed if they didn’t. I took equal pleasure in her very small and fugitive double chin, here one second, gone the next. An ornithologist might feel the same way about a rare bird visiting a garden: something deliciously novel, worth attention and respect. Over the next few weeks, aside from pleasuring in her fuller form, I began to notice something else new about her: a habit of fiddling with what she was wearing, flexing the top of her jeans, say, or pulling at the bottom of her blouse, as if making sure that everything still fitted. And one time, after a meal, she gave her new tummy a quick pat. Was this a sign that she was getting used to being a little bit bigger, or a sign that she wasn’t? I was unsure. I hoped she wasn’t embarrassed or distressed by her extra pounds: it hurt me that she might feel guilt or pain simply by doing something so ordinary and something she clearly enjoyed: eating food. Besides, I could see nothing but extra beauty, not less, in her gently growing curves. Three weeks later, the next stage of the journey arrived. It was a Wednesday night, and I’d been invited over to Filiz’s flat for the usual dinner, plus another TV episode of the Swedish thriller, “Night Shifts”, of which we were fading fans. Rasheda, her sister, was away for a few days, and Filiz was obviously making more of an effort than usual to entertain her guest. She’d made a moussaka of her own, far tastier than mine. She’d also slipped out of her work clothes and put on a becoming black dress, a tight clinger that made the most of her new curves. She looked particularly delightful, I thought, and a much bigger attraction than Gudrun’s latest adventures. Difficult enough to follow in episode one, the narrative was now getting more complicated than ever, chiefly because the detective’s twin sister had turned up and we couldn’t work out why. Filiz’s theory, not unreasonable, was that the twin sister would prove to be the murderer in the crime that Gudrun was trying to solve. My theory was that she was just a red herring, but Filiz said she couldn’t be red as everyone in the series always looked grey, at least in the murky photography. I smiled, looked at Filiz again, dressed in black, and placed an appreciative hand on her right thigh. We struggled through the rest of the episode, finished off the bottle of wine, and then it was time for me to go. But then she said with a seductive, beckoning kind of look, “Why not stay over, if you want to?” “You mean - ?“ “I mean.” Of course I said yes. Within ten minutes, we were in her bedroom, me cautiously loosening my clothes - it had been such an age since I’d been in this situation - while she wriggled free of the black dress, followed by her private niceties, leaving her at the end naked and unadorned, perched on the edge of the bed. “I’m not at my best right now,” she said sorrowfully, following my gaze, “I’ve been putting on weight”. Below her breasts, such lovely round breasts, sat her original little air pillow of fat, but now grown wider and deeper, stretched out in a roll across her midriff, resting on the top of her thighs. “It’s all your fault, too,” she went on, pinching the roll between two fingers. “You’re making me eat too much!” At the same time I noticed the love handles filling out each hip and the soft look of her upper arms. All in all, Filiz without her clothes was a little fleshier than I had imagined. Maybe she always had been. “But you look gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous!” I cried. She gave me a wry look. “Try saying that in a lie detector test.” I told her that wouldn’t be a problem. “I’d pass with flying colours. And so would you, flying colours.” She let loose her warmest grin. Sorrow had passed. “Stop talking,” she said, “and come to bed.”

TURKISH DELIGHT by Swordfish BBW, weight gain. A bookish male forms an unlikely friendship with a Turkish girl who works at the local fruit and veg store. Their relationship friendship blossoms; but so does her waistline... When I moved into my London flat in the area five years ago, the nearest place to get fresh fruit and veg – although fresh in this case isn’t quite the word - was a dingy little store several streets away that specialised in selling items that looked as if they had fallen off the back of a lorry or were scrounged from supermarket dustbins. Bruised carrots. Yellowing lettuces. Oranges about to turn into penicillin. The English couple that ran it didn’t inspire confidence either, being about as dishevelled as their stock. I can’t remember what the store’s official name was; I just thought of it as ‘The Place of Last Resort’. After about a year of trying to avoid their services, I was encouraged to find the premises one day under new management. It was now run by a Turkish guy, and he seemed to know what he was doing, actually getting vegetables and fruit that people might want to eat. Week after week, the stock of items seemed to grow larger, fresher, and better. The new owner worked really hard turning the place around, and it obviously paid off financially. When the premises next door became vacant, he rented that space as well, using it as his store room for what had become quite an exotic and imaginative array of food suitable for all kinds of cuisines. As the business grew, so did his number of employees, all of them Turkish, all male, bantering with each other in the usual masculine way. Eventually a young female Turkish face joined them at the till, to be replaced after a while by another one, then another one. None of them stayed very long. I figured that it couldn’t have been very easy working there, outnumbered by Turkish men busily behaving like, well, men. With the store’s regular supplies of potatoes of all shapes, interesting lettuce, and curious objects like passion fruit, I quickly became a regular customer. Around two years ago, I found another reason to frequent the place. She was the latest female employee, Turkish of course, significantly prettier than her predecessors, medium height, dark hair dangling down either side of a friendly face, further blessed with a pleasant smile, a cute freckle just under her right eye, and a delicate, melodious voice that immediately charmed me, even though the words I heard, at least at first, barely stretched beyond “Hi”, “Cash or card?” and “Would you like a receipt?”. I admired her general physique as well, which was fairly trim, though she had slighter bigger breasts than the rest of her might lead you to expect, and a very modest curve on her tummy, rather like one of those sweet little air pillows sometimes used in packaging to fill out a box. I thought of both features as engaging quirks that gave her an extra twist of femininity, interestingly emphasised one day when I caught her stretching her torso in a big yawn ­­– a movement that pushed both breasts and air pillow further out. For some reason, I found myself thinking it was a strange prefiguring of how she might look if she ever grew heavier. Each time I did my little food shop I hoped she would be on duty. Like me at the second-hand bookshop I worked at, she was employed in shifts. I tried to remember which days she was there, mornings, afternoons, early evenings. Sunday was generally reliable, also mid-week afternoons. With no particular goal in mind, other than being pleasant, I gradually began to engage her in light conversation. Awful weather isn’t it? Have a good night. See you again! Over the weeks, a light customer flow permitting, the exchanges slowly grew longer. She seemed to enjoy talking to me, even if it was often about fruit or veg. I got into the habit of deliberately picking out some exotic item, something I didn’t know how to cook, just to have a conversation point and to enjoy the warmth of her voice and smile. “You are adventurous, aren’t you?” she’d remark, pricing up some furry ball of fruit that looked just like that alien species in the creaky old original TV “Star Trek”. Tribbles, they were called. I was going to eat tribbles. Then, on my next visit, she’d ask me what I thought of them - the tribbles, kiwanos, or jujubes, or whatever they were. In time I felt confident enough to tell her my name - it was Michael, nothing fancy – hoping that would be the gateway to me learning hers. She wasn’t offering it at first, so I asked a bit nervously, “And yours?” She grinned and said, “It’s on your receipt!” I peered at the little strip of paper she’d just given me, full of details I’d never absorbed. “What? Where?” “Where it says ‘Operator’.” “Filiz? Filiz? That’s your name? It’s lovely!” Her grin broadened. “It means blossom, to flower, to sprout.” “You mean you’re named after a vegetable?” She tinkled with laughter, sweet as the sound of silver bells. “No, silly, to sprout, to blossom.” She waved her hands in the air, as if describing petals opening, or anyway something growing. Looking back on it, this was the magic moment when I felt we’d finally made some personal connection, something deeper than routine chatter between customer and employee. But having achieved that, what next? I could hardly hold up other customers for half an hour talking about how I disliked iceberg lettuce. Any advanced contact with the bewitching Filiz would have to be outside her work hours. A few weeks later I plucked up enough courage to suggest we could have a coffee or something at the end of one of her shifts. “Sure,” she said, almost without blinking, “that would be nice.” Would it? I began to wonder. It would be nice, certainly, if we discovered we had things, experiences, feelings in common beyond fruit and veg. After all, I knew nothing about her, nothing substantial anyway, beyond what I saw with my eyes. What if there were awkward silences, when we’d exhausted our repertoire of chat? What if she’d, say, never opened a book in her life, and spent all her spare time gaming or painting her nails in funny colours? How could we get on then? I finally decided that this was a risk I’d have to take. And I guess she did too. At the appointed time, she met me outside the store, by the crates of citrus fruit and larger vegetables usually displayed to lure passers-by. She wore a puffer jacket, suitable for autumn, which gave her a slightly chunky look, and a cute little hat. I suggested a place up the road, which looked good for the usual drinks and snacks. That was run by Turks as well, she told me. And once settled in at our table, to my great pleasure we were off and away, each telling the other our backgrounds, hers obviously more exotic than mine. She’d come to the UK when she was three, she said, when her parents had emigrated, following the path of other relatives, living and working with them too, before they branched out with a little foodstore of their own. Finally getting fed up with British weather, and finding the foodstore hard, they eventually moved back to Istanbul about five years ago. All this was certainly interesting, though as we drank our Turkish coffee and consumed one of those sweet Turkish pastries, of which she seemed rather fond, I was secretly more curious about what her living situation was, whether she had a boyfriend, or girlfriend for that matter. She lived with an older sister, she told me. She also revealed she was 23. I said I was somewhat older, but not enough to be frightening. She didn’t seem to mind. The whole experience, I thought, was successful enough for me to suggest at the end that we met up again “sometime”. “Let’s do that,” she said, the freckle under her right eye moving a little as she smiled. She really was lovely. When we met for our next coffee a couple of weeks later, she greeted me with a modest kiss, something I hadn’t so far dared to attempt. Much of the talk in these early meetings seemed to be about Turkish cuisine - she was proud of her Turkish heritage - and our abilities, or lack of them, in cooking. I’d tell her about some disaster I’d recently had, like absent-mindedly heating up a saucepan without putting any water or vegetables inside. Or I went back to the memory of some student flatshare when I accidentally prepared a depressing meal where everything on the plate was more or less white: the potatoes, the piece of fish, even the plate. She had her own tales of burnt saucepans, of dropping fancy desserts onto the floor. We found we shared another interest: watching the Swedish detective dramas, “Scandi noirs”, they called them, currently being shown on TV. One way and other, there was plenty to talk about.

Thank you! Describing the gains is perhaps the most enjoyable part of writing these stories, letting the fat build up gradually from quiet beginnings, then going on to the point where people start to comment - another especially pleasurable moment - and then usually going on some way further. But never, for me at least, to the point when the heroines become really big. And every gain with me has been a virgin gain. I'm right with BilledMeUp there: the virgin gains are by far the most exciting, exquisite and alluring kind, and also the ones that offer a wide range of possible dramas and conflicts for the characters. Love those virgin gains!.

Thank you! The genre is my guilty pleasure, too, of course. My Samira story was in my mind as well as I wrote it. I obviously have a thing about women of Indian extraction, partly because they're often so attractive, and partly because they have a great habit of gaining weight, especially round the midriff, which makes them even more attractive! And I've always been intrigued by the "fattening up for marriage' concept in some societies, in parts of Africa as well. Hopefully there won't be such a long gap before the next story gets written.

I don't have a Deviant Art page, which is why you can;'t find me there! It's Dimensions - www.dimensionsmagazine.com. This link should bring up the results of putting "Swordfish" into the search box on the Dimensions home page: https://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/search/6228735/?q=swordfish&o=relevance Failing that, just go to the site's home page, register to join in all the fun (very simple), then put "Swordfish" in the search box, and you should get the list of stories that way.. And cheers to you too!

Nice to hear! 'Liv Tyler" seems to have been an entry point for other people too. I did a couple of other celebrity gain stories about that time, but Liv's story came off the best.

Thank you! As for the 'awkward' line, it's always best to write about what you know, and I know about being English! If any Curvage readers don't know, all my previous stories (I think) are archived on the Dimensions website, some going back to 2000, including 'Vickey Weathers the Storm'.

Obviously Hornby's a closet FA and has been reading me. And thanks for clarifying what my tone is: "jovial middle-class British". I never thought of it like that, but you're right. And thanks especially for those two glasses of champagne. I've drunk them already - delicious!

Thank you! This was my first story in five years, and I much enjoyed writing it. I really hope it's not five more years until the next one. Never read Nick Hornby, by the way!

By the time they made it back to the apartment, clutching a few anniversary cards and gifts, Karina was happily tipsy. Once she’d kicked off her shoes she sat at the kitchen table and renewed acquaintance with the contents of a parcel that had been delivered the previous day, sent by her mother. It was a large, round chocolate cake. “The chocolate cake!” she cried. “I want to eat it now.” “No, later. Tomorrow.” “Now!” “Later!” “Now.” Anxious to move on, Tom indicated what he wanted to do by starting to take off Karina’s clothes. “Give me some help here,” he said. Woozily, she did so, helping to pull her dress up and over her arms, releasing the bra that cut into her flesh, vaguely trying to pull down her panties, until she stood there naked, quivering slightly. “And what now?” “You know what now.” “The chocolate cake?” “Later. First there’s something even better.” He led her into the bedroom and guided her onto the bed. “Later,” she echoed. “That was a good party, wasn’t it?” Tom by now was undressing himself. “Is it time for sex?” Tom nodded. “Oh goodie. Let’s have sex.” Tom removed her wristwatch. Then he removed his own. Then he looked down at her softened body spread out before her: the heavy breasts, the chunky arms, her rounded cheeks, the little double chin, the ample tummy, the meat on her thighs. Suddenly a thought struck him, as if a light bulb had been switched on. Finally, after all these years twiddling his thumbs at the agency, he knew he’d had an experience worth writing about. “I’ve had an idea,” he said, as she shifted herself into a comfortable position. “Do you mind if I wrote a story about you, about us, and the weight thing? I mean, it’s all kind of beautiful.” “That would be fine.” She smiled up at him. “I mean I’d change the names. I’d be discreet. I could call it” – he searched around briefly – ‘A Change for the Fatter’. It would have great punctuation.” The smile grew broader, the cheeks chubbier. “That would be fine too. Now for God’s sake stop talking.” “Yes, yes,” he said, sinking happily into her body, into her flesh. THE END Copyright 2019, Swordfish

Back in London, the high drama of the trip up north started to fade. There were further Fire Brigade concerts and talk of them making a commercial recording. The horizon looked rosy. It helped Karina to relax. It also made things easier that her colleagues seemed to have stopped mentioning her figure, even though the slim Karina pictured in the Brigade’s publicity photos now bore only a faint resemblance to the heavier version who came on stage, sat down, and started to play the violin. She took comfort, too, in a new and unexpected development: Jenny, having acquired a new girlfriend, was now starting to gain weight herself. Not every day went smoothly. When Karina noticed that when she washed dishes in the kitchen sink she now had to reach an inch or so further because of her tummy getting in the way she didn’t know for a split second whether to be amused or annoyed. She settled for being annoyed. She still disliked finding clothes that didn’t fit or clothes that put enough flesh on show for her to feel very awkward, at least for that day. On most days, though, as Tom liked to say, she “went with the flow”, and happily ate through the cakes he sometimes bought her – love cakes, he called them – knowing full well what would happen to the calories they contained. Apart from solidifying her tummy, many of them landed on her noticeably thicker upper arms, which gave her a new chunky look and pushed her former slimline frame further and deeper into the past. Though the comparison had never struck him before, Tom began to realise that in build and general appearance she was beginning to look more like her mother. Definitely a family resemblance. Over the next weeks and months resistance to the change in her figure grew less and less. Why fight the inevitable, she now thought, when accepting that she’d grown heavier made life so much easier. No more terrible moments in store changing rooms when she found she needed bras, slacks, blouses, everything except shoes, in larger sizes. No feeling guilty if she wanted to indulge in chocolate-covered flapjacks or other treats; since she’d already gained weight, how could a few extra pounds matter? As long as she was happy and healthy, even if heavier, what was there to worry about? “Look at me here,” she said one day, going through the wedding photos with Tom. “I look so bony. There’s nothing to me. And I thought I looked so good. Really sharp.” “Soft is much better than sharp, darling.” “Just as well, with my waistline. So what are we going to do for our anniversary? I think we should have a party.” Tom agreed. The Fire Brigade was doing well, life was kind, possibly except for his job at the literary agency, reading other people’s material. “But where should we have it?” he said, looking round at their cramped flat, the small kitchen, the piles of books and other paraphernalia on the floor. “Maybe not here. We could rent the same room at the Blind Curate. But there must be food.” “Catered?” “Catered. I have time to eat, Tom, but not to cook.” Twenty or so were invited, mostly veterans of the wedding, including the third Musketeer, Clive, who was pleased to say that he could just fit it in following a fieldtrip to Madagascar. “This is a case of déja vu,” said Tom’s friend Dirk, surveying the faces lining the room. Only, in one case, it wasn’t. “Karina’s piling on the pounds, old man,” he whispered in Tom’s ear. “She’s looking very wifely.” “Well, she is a wife, so that’s alright, isn’t it?” “If you say so. Yes, of course,” Dirk corrected himself, feeling he should support his best friend. Karina was wearing a sleeveless blue dress, bought a month back, already a little tighter than it was. It immediately showed off her heavier arms, and didn’t do much to hide her tummy. She moved round the room with an easy grace, welcoming friends with a kiss and a hug, and usually telling those not seen for a while that they’d obviously notice she looked different. “Don’t get married if you want to stay slim!” she’d say, passing round a plate of sausage rolls. After that, not many people ate them. The one who was flabbergasted the most was Clive. Karina saw him come in, looking, she thought, more pleased with himself than ever, eyes roving over the room, searching for the bride and groom. Suddenly Karina was at his side, pointing at a bulge in one of his trouser pockets. “Is that a Patagonian tree frog in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?” “Karina, you – took me by surprise! You’ve – changed!” He wasn’t used to being flustered. “You’ve gained a lot of weight.” They exchanged kisses. “I know, I’m sorry, I’m only human. You’ve not changed, I see, except for that tree frog.” Clive followed her eyes down towards his trouser pocket, crammed with a handkerchief and cell phone. “There’s no such thing as a Patagonian tree frog. Patagonia doesn’t have many trees.” He looked again at her prominent tummy, her meaty arms and rounder face. “You really have filled out. It makes you look much more Indian.” “Well I am Indian, half-Indian. And it’s still me inside, Clive, remember that. You remember Karina? She’s still here!” “You’re not thinking of dieting, then?” “Not planning to, no. At the moment I’m letting things ride. Actually. I quite like being rounder. More womanly, you know? Have you seen Tom yet?” He said he hadn’t. “Well, seek him out. Have a drink, mingle. We’ll catch up later. I want to know all about your foreign trips. The only place I’ve been to is Heatherwick.” “Yes,” he said, “I’ll talk to Tom”. He seemed rather relieved, and made a beeline for the other Musketeer, who was in a corner talking enthusiastically about semi-colons with his friend Dave, when to use them and when not. To Dave the semi-colon talk came as a revelation, but Clive barged straight in, niceties ignored. “Tom, Tom, what on earth’s been happening? Karina must have put on 30 lbs. She’s always been slim. Now she’s fat. What have you done to her?” “Clive, steady on. I haven’t done anything to her. It kind of happened. And she’s not fat. She’s just got a bit chubby.” “Chubby-plus, I’d say,” chipped in Dave. He conceded the point. “I didn’t like it at first, I admit. Nor did she. But now we’re both comfortable with it. And now I really think it’s a change for the better.” “A change for the fatter, more like,” snarled Clive. “Have I got to get used to this?” “If you want to stay friends, yes. You like large animals, don’t you? Out in the wilds?” “I like all animals, you know that. Except naked mole rats.” “Well there you go. You’re all set. Karina” – he said decisively – “is not a naked mole rat.” Clive started to make mollifying sounds. “No, of course not. It just took me by surprise, that’s all. Never expected it. Maybe it’s a gene thing, an Indian thing.” “Metabolism thing?” That was from Dave. “Food thing too, don’t forget that,” said Tom. “No, no, yes, food as well. I guess it’s just – life.” Clive the volcano was quieting down. Tom put a hand on his shoulder. “That’s exactly what it is, Clive. Life. Let me get you a drink. Red or white?” “Red,” he said, a bit lamely. As Tom left to tend bar, Clive looked down awkwardly at his hands. It would be good, he realised, to have them occupied, holding a glass. Everyone eventually settled down, enjoying each other’s company, recalling memories from the accumulating years. Jenny, sporting some modest tummy fat of her own, arrived later than most, not with her new girlfriend, but with a surprise guest, Carter Drysdale. The ensemble had been in touch with him over featuring ‘Tempore Pyramides’, the Heatherwick festival’s unexpected hit, in their debut recording. For a composer whose music was so aloof and impenetrable, he seemed remarkably open and friendly as a social creature – rather too friendly, Tom thought, as he saw him hug Karina again with a passion that suggested someone actively seeking acceptable ways to press the flesh. At the same time, he couldn’t blame him. “He’s not someone with his head in the clouds, is he?” Tom murmured into her ear after Drysdale had moved on to the delights of the bar. “The next thing you know, he’ll be wanting the recipe for those sausage rolls.” Karina threw him one of her looks. “You’re not getting bored, are you?” “Not exactly, but I‘m beginning to think I’d like to be somewhere else…`’ “You soon will be. We’ve only got the room until 10. Talk about exclamation points with someone. The time will soon go.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Alright,” he said, scanning the room for a victim. ***

They were late to breakfast the next day. Karina didn’t have the “full English”. In terms of career-building, it had been a successful festival. But everyone was glad to be going back to London, where shops didn’t close at 5.30pm and night life actually went on into the night. With both Karina’s parents at work during the day, they filled in time by walking along the local canal – bracing, bracing – and attending an afternoon concert. Finally they made their way to the train station, Heatherwick’s only impressive building. “It’s going to be fine, you’ll see,” Tom said in his most soothing voice as the train lurched out toward Leeds. “For my mother, or for me?” “For both. The trick is, I think, to mention gaining weight first, if you can. It puts you more in control.” “I guess,” she said. The talk drifted to other things. He talked about the punctuation book. She mentioned a curious thing that Jenny had told her the other day, that fingernails were apparently best trimmed when they were wet; but her heart wasn’t really in it. Silence soon reigned. The moment of meeting arrived soon after they went through the ticket barriers. There were hugs and kisses, actions somewhat complicated by the violin case on Karina’s back as well as her thick winter coat. Her mother, Priya, quickly spotted her rounder face. “You’re looking so well!” she beamed. “Married life obviously agrees with you!” Here, Tom nudged Karina in the back. This was the moment to jump in. But Karina let it pass. “You’re looking well yourself! Hi, dad! How have things been?” And off they trotted to the car park: parents and daughter, in-law and luggage, violin, hopes and fears. Once in the house, the divestments began: luggage taken up to the spare room, outer clothes removed, leaving Karina looking overly snug in blue denim jeans, spreading waist barely contained, larger breasts clearly outlined in an equally tight black sweater. They were sitting on the sofa. Karina started in, trying to sound nonchalant. ‘You can probably tell I’ve been putting on weight.” Priya jumped in with a smile. “You definitely have! I wonder how many pounds! Twenty? Less? More?” Karina blushed. “I don’t know. All I know is they’ve been creeping up.” “Right from the honeymoon, actually,” chipped in Tom. “But I think it suits her. Don’t you?” “I certainly do. Congratulations! You’re looking healthy and wealthy. My old family in India would be proud of you. Doesn’t she look good, Jim?” Jim, her husband, the foot doctor, nodded. “Well, that’s – nice,’ Karina said weakly. “I’m not really used to be being like this. Sometimes it’s OK, other times I can’t help feeling, well, fat.” “You’re not fat!” Priya cried. “You’re just getting a little bit chubby, that’s all, and that’s very good! I knew you’d get there in the end.” To ram home the point and lend support, she patted one of her daughter’s thighs. “I’d better start seeing to dinner. I’m sure you’re both hungry.” And before Karina, inwardly wincing, could say a word, her mother had bustled off to the kitchen, her sacred kingdom. “Oh God,” Karina muttered, under her breath. “You can say what you like about your mother,” Jim said, “but she’s definitely enthusiastic. By the way, Tom, how’s your writing? Doing anything creative yet?” Now it was Tom’s time to sigh. “Thank you for asking. No.” It was a sore point. *** The meal was quite something. An Anglo-Indian fusion dish, kedgeree, piled with boiled rice, cream, hard-boiled eggs, curry powder, and flaked fish. “I’ve made more than usual,” her mother admitted, “now that Karina’s got an appetite.” She received larger portions than anyone else. “Not so much! Not so much!” Karina kept saying. But she didn’t want to spoil the family reunion by making a fuss, and finally ate her way through to a clean plate. By the end her jeans felt so tight round her waist that she could barely breathe. “Loosen the clasp if you need to,” said her mother, watching her run a hand over a stomach that had never felt so full before. “After all, this is still your home!” It wasn’t long before Karina and Tom made their excuses, said goodnight, and retired to the spare room, the room where Karina had once been a thin teenager, where framed pictures of sporting triumphs at school still hung on the walls, relics of another age. “God that was so awful!” Karina cried. “Is it going to be like that all weekend? I’ve probably gained three pounds already.” “Come here,” Tom said, pulling her into his waiting arms. After wiping off a remnant of kedgeree from the edge of her mouth, he kissed and gently caressed her, feeling the bulk of her bloated stomach, knowing it would eventually lessen, but savouring the moment. Watching her eat that evening had been an almost sensuous experience, for he had by now made an important mental equation. Eating equalled calories, which equalled extra weight if not used up, which equalled extra softness for Karina, which equally better and better times in bed. That last night in Heatherwick had spelt it out for him once and for all. A cushioned ride. A body to sink into. He wondered if Karina would ever experience things in the same way. That was his hope; that was his dream. “Would it matter if you gained a little more? It wouldn’t matter to me. To me you’re ravishing. Really ravishing.” She pulled away from his embrace, looking quizzical. “You say that now, but you didn’t before. You really disapproved, told me I should diet. I don’t understand what’s changed. I’ve hardly got thinner.” Slowly, methodically, she was starting to take off her clothes, as if deliberately holding herself open for inspection, both by herself and Tom. Off came the black sweater, pulled up over her breasts by arms now looking a little heavier in their upper reaches. After what seemed an intake of breath, off came the bra, breasts tumbling out, glad to be free. Then it was time for the jeans, with her stomach obligingly bulging out further as she leaned forward to yank them down over her rounder thighs, towards the floor. Stepping out of the jeans with a torso twist that generated creases in the fat on her back, off came her panties. Finally her stomach was free from encumbrances, though it still carried one mark of imprisonment: a clear imprint of the jeans’ waistband, etched across her midriff. “You really think this is OK?” she said doubtfully, glancing down, checking herself at the same time in the full-length mirror fronting the wardrobe door. Tom had no doubts. He was looking at a genuine woman, warm, well-upholstered, ready for anything: sex, maternity, any career crisis; certainly ready for the next meal. “You look more than OK,” he said, as she moved to sit on the edge of the bed, tummy collapsed into two rolls of fat, far deeper than the ones he first saw some eight months ago, filling the space between breasts and thighs. “You look fabulous.” “But I look so different. I look at my face and I think, where are my cheekbones? Where’s my sharp profile? Almost gone. Then my tummy sticks out. There’s so many clothes that don’t fit me any more.” She was pleading with her eyes. “Look at those pictures on the wall. Look how slim I was.” “Karina, listen.” He sat down beside her, arm round her shoulder. “You were then, what, sixteen? Barely past puberty. Now you’re 26. You’re a grown women. People change as they get older. There’s no virtue in staying the same. You’re not one of the Three Musketeers any more. None of us are. My hairline’s already receding a bit. You carry your weight so well, believe me. I thought your mother was barmy before, wanting you to gain. Now I know her instincts were right. She knew that it would be good for you. You’re beautiful now in a whole new way. Karina by now had moistened up. Tom gave her a tissue. “Beautiful? You really mean it? Even if I’m getting chubby?” She blew her nose gently at that point, an action that brought out her double chin, now always tucked somewhere under her face ready for a cameo appearance. “Especially because you’re getting chubby. I don’t want you to diet. I want you to enjoy life, enjoy food. Go with the flow.” She managed a teary smile, and kissed him. “Thank you. That helps a bit. I can’t say I feel the same way. Not yet.” She paused, thinking things out in her mind. “But at least, if I’m going to be heavier for a while, I’ve got to buy some bigger clothes. These jeans have been a disaster.” He laughed; she laughed. Possibly, tentatively, with some fragility, they had passed through this crisis. Maybe they were on their way. ***

Karina wasn’t a stranger to Heatherwick. Its resources, or lack of them, were known. But a ten-day stay in bleak November brought home to her as never before how limited the dining facilities were. Chinese buffets: plenty of those. Fast-food chains: plenty of those. But restaurants with finesse? Hardly any. Added to which, there was the cooked buffet breakfast at the Fire Brigade’s budget hotel. On her plate she regularly assembled what British hotels call the “full English breakfast”: a calorie-bursting affair of fried sausages, fried tomatoes, fried eggs, baked beans, fried potatoes, and that northern specialty, black pudding. After three days of watching her wolfing this down, Jenny leaned over solicitously and said, “You do know your tummy is getting bigger?” “It’s all Carter Drysdale’s fault. I can’t play his music on an empty stomach.” ‘Karina, your stomach is never empty, not these days. I don’t like to see you gaining weight. Has Tom said anything?” Karina sighed with irritation. “I know he doesn’t like it, and neither do I. I just feel that right now I need some extra oomph. I’ll go on a diet when the festival’s over.” She didn’t sound as if she meant it, but it was one way to shut the door on a conversation she didn’t want. Tossing her hair back, a movement that generated the opening gambit of a future double chin, she went back to her “full English”. Away from the breakfast table, other ensemble members couldn’t help noticing and commenting behind her back. The flashpoint wasn’t a tight dress; she had given them up. It wasn’t her black slacks, with its stretchable waistband. The culprit now was the slacks’ matching black top: sleeveless, loose enough at the bottom to cope with her tummy, but with scant room to handle her growing breasts. “She needs to go shopping for a bigger size,” one of them said, eyeing her in a pre-performance rehearsal. “Yes,” said another, “and buy a diet book at the same time. She’s definitely chubbing up!” Tom arrived towards the end of the festival to grin and bear ‘Tempore Pyramides’and lend Karina his support. He liked music where he understood what was happening, where two and two made four. In Drysdale’s music it made 37 and a half. As soon as he arrived, he sensed that she had grown heavier just within the ten days she’d been away. Her tummy seemed a little more obvious, while for the first time he realised that she was now filling out in her face. The hollows under her cheekbones had gone. The general contours were smoother and softer. It hit him as a significant difference, marking the point at which her extra pounds weren’t just visible in localised places but were starting to change her entire look. Before this would have been horrifying; he’d fixed Karina in aspic, always slim, always taut, no give in the body at all. Now, with Karina in front of him, with her visible belly and fuller cheeks, he sensed a new world of beauty opening up, and a world neither of them should be afraid of. The concert passed without a hitch. Drysdale’s piece sparked more applause than expected. So did the composer himself, who rewarded Karina with a big onstage hug at the end. “Steady on, Drysdale,” Tom wanted to call out; “that’s my territory!” Afterwards, as the concert finished their residency, came the celebratory meal in an Italian chain restaurant. Karina ate little. Back at the hotel, she and Tom tried to relax by sitting up in bed in nightdress and pyjamas, watching a TV programme about hippopotamuses. “I never knew that,” Karina said. The chatty commentator had just revealed that though the curious creatures spent much of their days in the water, they were in fact unable to swim. It always had to be shallow water in a pond or river – water they could sit in, and trundle along walking on the bottom. “I believe,” Tom added, “they’re also not very good at punctuation.” Karina flashed him a despairing look. “You’ve finished that manuscript, have you?” “Aha. It was the best book I’ve ever read.” She shot him another look. “If you’re being serious, you’re even weirder than I thought.” But then she sighed. He turned the TV sound down on the remote, just as a hippopotamus started defecating. “Come on, what’s up? You seemed a bit out of sorts at dinner.” The sigh returned. “Oh, it’s this trip tomorrow. Seeing my parents. They’re going to notice I’ve been gaining weight.” “But your mother will be delighted. You just got the timing wrong. After the wedding, not before.” “That’s just it. It’ll all be so embarrassing. I don’t want congratulating because I’m getting fatter.” “It’s better than being chastised. What about your dad? He won’t make a fuss about it either way, will he?” She shrugged. “He’s a foot specialist. He’d probably only be interested if I gained weight in my feet. He’s not the problem. At home he stands in my mother’s shadow, you know that.” She cast a look down at her tummy podge, rising up out of her nightdress. “Oh, I don’t know what to think. I’ve been eating like a pig these past weeks. I seem to be redefining my relationship with food. Or maybe it’s just Heatherwick.” “Well, you’ve been stressed. Comfort eating.” He took another look at the fat round her middle, her fuller face, her rounder cheeks. He wished she could see that herself. He switched off the TV. “I think we need to, you know – ”. He left the pause open. “Lie down?” “You could say that.” And so they did. ***

The next day, after the Wigmore concert, at breakfast, Tom was talking about the interesting history of semi-colon – he was finding the punctuation book quite absorbing – when he noticed Karina’s empty plate. “Not eating today?” “Not as much, anyway. I’ve got to get back in condition. I really shouldn’t have worn that dress.” “You’ll get there. Maybe no more flapjacks?” She tautened her face, ready to say something important. “Not one. Not one will pass my lips.” She meant it, too. She also reduced her portions when spooning out vegetables, cut back on alcohol, stopped eyeing desserts. She felt virtuous, and a little thinner. She also felt hungry and frayed at the edges. Her eyes lost their sparkle. Life wasn’t as much fun, a feeling that only intensified when the workload of her ensemble increased. Looming on the horizon now was an artistic residency at the Heatherwick Contemporary Music Festival, a leading showcase for new music unfortunately set in a former mill town with bracing scenery and a university, but not many general amenities. The group had some testing scores to learn, especially a half-hour onslaught by Carter Drysdale, who wrote music prickly and complex, like the Amazon jungle and barbed wire combined, and had a fondness for giving his pieces Latin titles. This one was called ‘Tempore Pyramides’, Pyramids in Time. Rehearsals were hell and left Karina feeling drained, especially without flapjacks. So she bought some, and told herself it was the equivalent of medicine. It proved the thin edge of a wedge. By the time it came for the ten-day trip to Heatherwick, clothes were getting tighter again. Tom realised the diet had been abandoned, but he knew she was under a lot of pressure and buckled his lips. Not fond of contemporary music himself – he remembered hearing a string quartet which sounded like cats screeching – he’d be going up to Heatherwick himself for the last two days. Then they would do what was long overdue: visit her parents, who lived not far away, but didn’t like contemporary music either. “You’ll be fine in Heatherwick,” he said at the train station, seeing her off. “Everything will go well.” “Enjoy your punctuation book. What are you into now?” “The chapter on brackets.” With one of those insights that spring up to surprise us, seemingly out of nowhere, he suddenly realised that Karina’s curving tummy, now back in full force, was shaped like a punctuation bracket itself, curving outward from under the breast, reaching its peak at her waistline, then tapering down to ground zero just above the golden area where all the good things happened in bed. He equally realised that it was a curve that he liked. He was changing his mind about her extra pounds, how they looked on her, how they felt on her. Softness in the female form was good, not bad. This was another surprise. Karina’s violin, in its case, was strapped to her back, its customary travelling position, so giving a full hug as they said farewell wasn’t an option. But he stroked her cheeks, kissed her, ran his hands down her arms, coming to rest on the love handles she now carried on either hip. He squeezed them gently. He was going to miss her. “Take care, darling. Enjoy it. Go with the flow. Talk to you soon.” Tears were building up in Karina’s eyes. Caressed and squeezed, she felt herself fatter, but also comforted and loved. “Oh, Tom…” She didn’t finish the sentence. ***

Their choice of honeymoon destination? America. One week in New York City, then exploring the Hudson River. Big city vibes, plus picturesque little towns and vistas, and the great river rolling along. A luxury Manhattan hotel of course would have been nice, but they compromised with a budget place, with rooms containing a bed, wardrobe and not much else. Karina wasn’t keen on the shared bathroom facilities down the corridor, but they had to face economic facts, and coming from Britain the exchange rate wasn’t in their favour. There were no eating facilities in-house, but plenty of restaurants and coffee shops nearby. Each morning began with an imposing breakfast: waffles one day, eggs how they liked them the next. Karina, never in America before, was taken aback by the size of the portions; the size of the sandwiches too: “They’re like a whole meal!” This didn’t stop her from enjoying them. After a few days, in the early hours while she slept, a small collection of fat cells, leftovers from the day’s carbohydrate intake, started settling into their new home on Karina’s body, just below her belly-button. For all the bustle of NYC they had a relaxing time as they visited the obvious sights, took in an art exhibit or concert, or lingered in Central Park. Then a rented car, and out and about up the Hudson, where the pace was slower; quaint antique shops, homes of writers and artists, the birthplace of a President neither had heard of, romantic restaurants, and always the wide river. They had plenty of memories to keep them company as they settled into their seats on the plane back, though Tom’s contented look suddenly curdled when his eyes took in the unusual tight fit of Karina’s white jeans as she prepared to fasten her seatbelt. He started out being light-hearted. “I was thinking of carrying you over the threshold when we got back, but I might have to revise my plans. It looks like you’ve put on a little weight,” he said. “In the tummy area.” He shook his head. “That’s a no-no!” “It certainly is. I do feel a bit constricted. I guess we’ve been eating quite a lot.” She clasped and tightened the seatbelt around her waist. “I’ll soon work it off,” she said. He nodded vigorously. They understood each other. *** Back home, the normal routine of life returned, but with some variations. Tom was told that the mobile phone phobia project had been dropped, not before time, so the agency gave him a new assignment, reading the manuscript of a history of punctuation. “Start at the beginning,” his boss had said, “and read until you come to a full stop.” Tom had laughed grimly. Karina’s days had their usual variety, sometimes spent at home keeping in practice with her violin or learning new music, or venturing out for group rehearsals or pitching in on recording sessions – the usual scattered life of the freelancer. Her plane remark about “working it off” had been more a rhetorical gesture than anything reflecting serious thought. Breakfasts might have shrank back in size – no stack of waffles to work through – though a general loosening of her appetite, formerly so controlled, remained. At breakfast she started to have two slices of bread or toast, rather than one, the slices cut rather more thickly than before. At restaurants she expressed interest in the desserts, and found herself buying flapjacks, granola bars, little things she could snack on at home, or take along as an energy boost to outside engagements. They looked healthy, she reasoned, and tasted healthy: they couldn’t do her any harm. It took about a month for both of them, in different ways, to realise that this regime had consequences: that, slowly and quietly, she was gaining more weight. Tom first suspected that her dusky body might be changing in what her thought of as the wrong direction as they went about their business in bed. Foreplay alone told him she felt smoother to the touch, more cushioned around the tummy. After that he began looking more closely whenever he saw her naked – taking off clothing, putting it on, going to and fro in the bathroom. Then one morning he found her sitting on the bathroom stool after a shower, towelling down one of her cocked legs, two little rolls of tummy fat spread over the front of her waist, speared with a crease through her belly-button. This was the definite, disconcerting proof: far from shedding her American pounds, she’d been steadily acquiring new ones. He was displeased, and felt he should say something. At the same time, being English, he felt awkward about it. He didn’t want to wag his finger and hurt her feelings if it wasn’t necessary. The problem, he persuaded himself, would probably go away as she’d soon take rearguard action herself. It was just a blip, a post-honeymoon blip. Karina herself, aware of feeling increasingly snug in some clothes, equally tried to turn a blind eye. She avoided looking at herself closely in the mirror and also steered clear of the areas where she knew she had gained in New York. ‘Ignorance is bliss’ is the phrase, but ignorance couldn’t be bliss for long, and the bliss period ended when she foolishly thought of fishing out the jeans she’d worn on the flight back from the States. This time, they weren’t just a tight fit. She couldn’t clasp the zip at the front. Over the apron of her belly a curve of fat had now built up, fat she could smear a finger through, as if it was soft butter. This is what happens, she told herself, if you eat a little more, stack up on calories, every day. She felt mortified, even disgusted, as she prodded her tummy, tweaking the flesh between her fingers. This was Karina, the perpetually slim Karina? She decided that the safest short-term solution was keep quiet, not mention it to Tom, and cut back on snacks. The fat would just fade away. It wasn’t something permanent, only a blip. Another post-honeymoon blip. Cutting back was her resolution. Turning it into practice, though, was something else. Sometimes she achieved it, most times she didn’t. Over the next month her tummy’s curve gradually grew more prominent, enough to give her difficulties when she had to try on a clinging black dress needed for a high-profile concert at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall. “What do you think?” she said to Tom after pulling the dress down over her waist, gently, nervously. He looked at her carefully, noting the puckered material around the hips and the clear outline of a belly pooch looming out at the front. He could hold back no longer. “I really think you should go on diet. You’ve been steadily gaining weight ever since we got married.” She sighed, with frustration. “I know, I know. I thought I could get away with this dress,” she said, turning around in front of a mirror, seeing if the view was any better from the side. It wasn’t. “I just got into a kind of routine, eating a bit more. If we’d gone to Sudan instead of America it wouldn’t have happened.” “No-one goes on their honeymoon to Sudan unless they want to end up dead. But don’t worry, love.” He put an arm around her, newly aware of feeling the extra flesh lining her body. “It’s reversible. We can lose this. Cut your intake, exercise more, and hey presto, slimline Karina is back!” She attempted a faint smile. “You make it sound so easy…” “It is easy, you’ll see!” Meanwhile, Karina still had the day’s dress problem to solve. She decided to wear it. There wasn’t another black alternative, not for the Wigmore Hall. She wished there was, especially after her oboist colleague Jenny immediately spotted her looming tummy in the shared dressing room. “Do I hear the patter of baby feet?” she cooed, pointing in the bulge’s direction. “You’re not pregnant, are you?” How she cursed the dress. “No I’m not,” Karina had to say. “I’ve just gained a bit of weight.” “That’s really what I thought. I mean, if you were pregnant you’d have told us. It’s just a few pounds, probably.” Karina tried to look nonchalant, but she knew “a few pounds” was understating it. She hated all this. She hated people spotting her gain and telling her about it; she hated having to explain or comment. It didn’t matter so much when Tom noticed, though she disliked the fact that Tom disapproved, that by gaining weight she was disappointing him, just as she was disappointing herself. But outside eyes noticing: that was extra embarrassing. And the list of embarrassing feelings and experiences kept growing. Wriggling to get into jeans and dresses that she could previously slip on with ease. Sensing her tummy almost imprisoned under her clothes. The shaming sight of the clothes she’d already outgrown, that sat in the wardrobe, useless. Alongside all that, she hated the thought that after all that consternation when her mother suggested she put on weight, here she was doing it on her own. Was this gaining an Indian gene thing, the Indian part of her gene cocktail kicking in? She thought of her mother’s own ample midriff. Was this her future too? The thought made her shiver. ***

~BBW, ~~WG. When her Indian mother suggests she should gain extra pounds for her upcoming wedding, Karina is outraged, only to find herself gaining weight anyway as soon as the wedding is over. A Change for the Fatter by Swordfish “You’ll never guess what my mum just asked me,” Karina said as they left her parents at the station car park and headed for the train trip back to London. “I saw her whispering in your ear…” ‘Oh, it was ridiculous.” The dark eyes of the mixed-raced beauty seemed almost on fire, further tightening her slim features, lending extra lustre to her light brown skin. “She actually asked if I could gain some weight before we got married.” Tom stopped dead in his tracks. “WHAT?” Karina dragged him along. “We’ve got to keep moving. We’ll miss the train. It’s this Indian thing. A rural tradition. Family pride. If a bride looks chubby and well-fed it’s supposed to tell the in-laws that she’s wealthy and healthy.” “But – ”. “Tell me about it. I said it was ridiculous. For one thing my mum’s been in England for decades. She’s in hospital administration for God’s sake. And my father’s a doctor. And he’s bloody English. We’re thoroughly Westernised. Why is she bringing up this stupid old thing from her family’s past? Oh God, what’s our carriage?” They hustled aboard, conversation dropped in the hurry to claim their reserved seats. The train was crowded. Talk was only resumed after their weekend suitcase was stowed, with the train moving off, rain speckling the windows as it emerged from the station into the open. “But what exactly did she say? Was it like a command?” “A suggestion more than a command. And to be fair she did say it would probably sound silly. Didn’t stop her saying it, though.” She glared briefly out of the window at the rain and the landscape beyond. Warehouses, railway sidings, a canal. “Look at it. This is Leeds. The north of England. Not deepest India.” “How did you – I mean, what did you say?” “We were saying our goodbyes. I didn’t want to make a fuss. I think I said something vague, like ‘I’ll bear it in mind’. Well, I’ll bear it in mind by ignoring it completely. I mean, when did I last gain weight? Never!” “Absolutely. It’s just not something you do, is it?” “And I’m not going to start now. Mothers!” She raised her eyebrows in a gesture of despair. “It’s unbelievable.” Meanwhile, Tom’s memory bank retrieved images from seven years ago – their marriage had been a long time coming – when they’d met as university students. The ‘bridge’ photo immediately came to mind: a photo snapped in Cambridge when Karina, Tom, and Clive, collectively known as the Three Musketeers, always together, always intermingled, were larking about one of the river bridges, friendship and youth personified. The slim physique and chiselled features with a slight hollow under her cheekbones; her tousled shoulder-length black hair and dusky skin; her lustrous brown pupils, standing out brilliantly from the whites of her eyes; her winning, slightly wry smile: all these had barely changed. Since those years, the threesome had spun off in different directions, pursuing their goals (Karina, Clive) or twiddling their thumbs (Tom), before reforming as just two, Karina and Tom, first living apart, then living together, and finally deciding in their mid 20s to get respectable and tie the knot. Initially, at Cambridge, it was Clive who seemed in the running to win the magnetic Karina’s favours. He was the one who was pin-up handsome; Tom was more ordinary, and shorter. Clive was boisterous; Tom was quiet. But it was Tom who persisted, while Clive spun off, determined to chase his ambition in natural sciences and spend a life abroad wearing cargo pants, working on wild life programmes for TV. Meanwhile Tom, who wanted to be a writer but could never think of anything worth writing about, filled in time at a literary agency. Karina, for her part, furthered her music studies, played the violin, never put on weight, often skipped breakfast, went to the gym, and stood on the scales at a steady 118 lbs. “Did she go through this rubbish herself? Before she got married?” “I don’t know. She’s plumpish now. But that’s just life, I suppose. Well, her life. Not mine.” “Certainly not. It’s never going to be yours.” They clutched hands, and Tom moved in for a kiss. “You’re my slim angel.” “That’s right.” She looked out of the window again. A field with cows. Neat hedgerows. A gentle river. It still didn’t look like India. “And besides,” she marched on, “the thing only makes sense in India if it’s an arranged marriage, and the bride only turns up on the wedding day. But your parents have known me for years. Having me suddenly turn up at the altar all chubby isn’t going to impress them a bit, is it?” She continued fulminating, on and off, for the next twenty-six minutes. *** The months before the wedding found them busy and sometimes distracted. Karina’s career as a violinist was at a critical stage, as the new music ensemble she played in – indeed helped form – was just starting to get a reputation in a competitive market. There were eight core players, with add-ons where necessary, and to mark themselves out from rivals they had chosen a distinctive name, The Fire Brigade. Someone unhelpfully pointed out that fire brigades put out fires, while musicians, speaking metaphorically, should ignite them. But by then the name had already gained traction, so they felt they should stick with it. There were hours of practice, rehearsals, some concerts, and planning for a provincial tour. Tom didn’t see much of her in their small rented flat. Nor was he much there himself. The agency he worked for, Wisdom Associates, a name he thought inappropriate, had landed him the unappetising task of trying to winkle a book of memoirs out of the experiences of a woman who suffered from a neurological disorder that meant it was physical hurtful for her to be near anyone with a switched-on cell phone, or any other kind of active device. With his phone safely off, he’d sit in her house, and commit her talk to an ancient cassette recorder. Inbetween, the pair made their plans – registry office ceremony, a reception at the Blind Curate, a neighbourhood pub, a honeymoon break in America. On the day itself, Karina wore a clinging white dress, specially bought. After some weeks of rushing about and not eating much, she had lost a couple of pounds, and cut a particularly slim figure, hips barely showing, breasts petite, tummy flat. Clive, fitting in the wedding between important work assignments (he didn’t have any other kind) gave her a string of compliments at the reception. “Stunning as ever, Kari. You never change!” “I try not to,” she said. “Of course, you know you’ve married the wrong bloke. I’d be a much better match.” He was being jocular, but he also meant it. “Oh well, Clive, my loss. I have years of regret ahead of me.” And with a sweet smile she excused herself. She saw her parents and in-laws knotted together in conversation, and joined them. None of them looked visibly disappointed that she wasn’t carrying any surplus fat, though her mother was good at acting and told her daughter, with proprietary pride, that she was “the picture of happiness”. Some of Tom’s work colleagues were there too. One of them, Dave – there is always a Dave – jokingly said that he’d expected Tom’s cell phone woman to be there as well. “Impossible,” Tom told him. “With all the live gadgets in this room, she’d be puking away in a corner.” He was glad to be going on his honeymoon break, away from his absurd assignment. He was equally glad that the reception speeches by his best friend Dirk and, not least, his own, were done with. Nothing to do now but to chat, drink, feel happy, and finally have their own sliver of the wedding cake they had ceremoniously cut before. “Here,” he said, handing Karina an accidentally thick slice of powerful fruit cake and buttercream icing. She suddenly realised she had skipped lunch and most of breakfast and pounced on it like a long-lost friend. “M’m. This is delicious. Really good.” She said it again: “Really good.” ***