swahilimonkfish

November 2020***
Part 1

“I’m proud of you, Blue. Really. It’s so great to see you looking after yourself”
“This counts as self-care? Niiice” Bluebell smiled, biting into her egg mcmuffin.
“Yes, it’s the McDonald’s I’m talking about. Not about getting the support you need” Bosh said, as she flicked the indicator switch on.
“Don’t… don’t call it that”
“What?”
“Support. Getting the support I need.  It makes me sound… pathetic” Bluebell explained as she finished off her mcmuffin and dusted the crumbs off her stomach and into the footwell of the car.
“What term would your sensitive snowflake ears prefer?” Bosh smiled. She’d been a lot cheerier with Blue since the regular doctor’s appointments.
“Self-care…”
“I literally said self-care, you bitch! And you were all like ‘What, eating McDonalds is self-care?’” Bosh mocked.
“That… that isn’t how the conversation went. But thanks, anyway. I appreciate the compliment” Bluebell said, before slurping on her coke.
“Does… does he mind about the fact that you eat a McDonalds literally before going to see the doctor? Or are they chill, like me”
“Like you?”
“Yeah, I’m fucking chill, me”
“And anyway, I’ve told you. Doctor-patient confidentiality. What happens when I’m with Doc is private” 
“Yeah, but I’m your girlfriend. Nothing should be private from me”
“Oh, reeeaal chill, you are. Possessive motherfucker" Bluebell laughed, before biting into one of the cookies from the five-pack of them that she had bought at Tescos.
“Fuck. I feel like that was a trap. Oooo, cookies?”
“I thought you were on a diet?” Bluebell rose her eyebrow at her girlfriend, who was taking her eye off the road on Bluebell’s snack.
“One cookie is fine. I’m allowed one cookie”
“Oh, so you only want one cookie then? Cool, the other four for me then”
“Wait, how many cookies would you have let me have?” Bosh said, licking her lips and driving distracted from the road ahead of her.
“I was going to go halvesies. But, if you only want one…” Bluebell teased. “It’s not like white chocolate and raspberry are your favourite or anything…”
“Oh, you are such an arsehole, Bluebell!” Bosh gently hit Bluebell’s well-cushioned arms.
“Unless… of course… I’d bought a second pack with me… just for my lovely girlfriend” Bluebell smirked, pulling a second bag of cookies out for her girlfriend.
“I take back the thing about you being an arsehole” Bosh smiled.
“Ohhh… easily swayed, I see”
“But seriously, you actually bought me something? Oh my god, that’s so sweet!”
“I always buy you things?”
“No, you always buy things. But not for me. That’s okay. I’m not complaining. You’re between jobs and everything and… I like our dynamic. I buy you treats because I love you and you buy… yourself more treats because you’re peckish”
“Now you’re the arsehole!” Bluebell laughed. “And I do buy you stuff”.
“It’s okay Blue, it’s not a complaint. Seriously. This is just… I dunno… you’ve been different since you’ve been seeing the doctor. Happier. Warmer. Putting more effort into your appearance. I mean… we were struggling I think, at one point. But… I think we’ve turned the corner. And it’s you that’s done it Blue. You that turned the corner” Bosh said with genuine feeling. Bluebell fidgeted at the words. “That said… I’m not eating all them cookies, Blue”.
“And now you know why I don’t buy you stuff. When I buy me stuff, I’m always grateful” Bluebell said, trying to make it clear she was joking by exaggerating every content word with syrup-thick facetiousness.
“I am grateful. But five cookies? How does that square with my diet, Blue?”
“You still doing that?”
“Yes I’m still fucking doing that!”
“And how’s it going?”
“Shit. It's going shit. I blame that all-nighter when all we did was order pizza after pizza while we drank and watched the news”
“That was really nice of you, doing that with me, by the way. And it was exciting, wasn’t it? I can’t believe Biden lost Florida! Fucking Miami, of all places!”
“No Blue, it was the most boring night of my life. It’s two days later and we still don’t know who’s won. I ate all that pizza for nothing” Bosh grumbled.
“Sorry”
“Look, it’s not just that one pizza-based aberration. It’s been me. My motivation’s been shit. It’s just.... the weather’s been shit so I’ve not been going out. And work’s been just so exhausting and…”
“Honestly Bosh, you don’t have to explain yourself to me, of all people” Bluebell replied supportively between slow chews.
“Anyway, I’ve gained back the 4lbs that I lost the month before. But I’m back on it for this November…”
“You think the weather in November is going to be less shit?”
“No but…”
“Come on, make up your mind Bosh. I only have one cookie left and then I’m gonna start eating yours” Bluebell said, finishing off the penultimate cookie.
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Try me!”
“Okay, how many calories? It’s… look, it says right there on the front” Bosh said, briefly leaning over to show the calorie count. Or pie chart of doom, as it had become in Bosh’s calorie counting world.
“199 calories. See, that’s not so bad”
“200 calories? Per cookie?!”
“199 calories, not 200. But yeah, per cookie”
“Fuck Blue, I’m only allowed 1200 calories a day on this diet. A pack of them and that’s only leaving me with 200 spare. I’d have to spend the rest of the day on just 200 calories. What can you eat for 200 calories?”
“A sixth cookie?” Bluebell suggested, through a smirk.
“You are irrepressible”
“Fuck, why are you using words like that when it’s still morning? And anyway, I think the moral of the story is to just not look how many calories things are. Then you can eat as many as you like” Bluebell finished her last cookie.
“No Blue. Just no. That’s not how it works Blue”
“Actually, if you can’t see it, it isn’t there. That’s a scientific fact”
“Never teach science, Blue” Bosh smiled. “Oh fuck it, give me the pack then”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to alleviate you of a couple? Y’know, to ease the burden on your guilty conscience?” Bluebell suggested, eyeing them carefully.
“You could actually eat more? After the McDonalds and 5 cookies?”
“And the bacon butty you made me this morning”
“Oh yeah, and the bacon and sausage butty I made you this morning”
“Which was very nice, by the way”
“Awww, glad you liked it, Blue”
“And yeah, I could easily eat a couple more cookies. In fact, I’m kinda tempted anyway. Y'know, just to protect your figure” Bluebell smiled mischievously, while Bosh pulled the car over, reversing into a parking bay next door to the medical unit.
“I honestly don’t know where you put it” Bosh smiled back.
“I mean, I’m not small”
“How much do you weigh these days, by the way?”
“You know I’m not telling you. It’s between me and the Doc” Bluebell spat her tongue out as she said it.
“Well, in that case…” Bosh leaned over. “I’m having all these for myself, you impudent fuck!”
“Anyway, thanks for driving me here babe” Bluebell took advantage of Bosh leaning over and planted a kiss on her lips.
“Anything for you Blue. Anything for you. Speaking of which, d’ya need a hand getting out?”
“No, I’m not so fat that I can’t get out of a car Bosh” Blue rolled her eyes, before slowly heaving herself out of the vehicle.
She waved to her girlfriend as she closed the door, and watched Bosh race away in her car, driving in typically care-free fashion. Once the car had made its way around the corner and officially out of sight, Bluebell opened her handbag again and pulled out another packet of cookies, and put one in her mouth with a rebellious grin.
 

Part 6
 
“Break-in in progress at the bakery on Chapel Street. Any available units, please respond?”
The crackled message came over, and the two officers looked at each other.
“It is only five minutes away” PC Winston John said, looking at his partner.
“Yeah, but it’s gonna be another one of those vandalism things by ‘The Reprobates’ or whatever they call themselves” WPC Jasmine Jennings replied, with a mouthful of cream cake.
“The Renegades. They’re called ‘The Renegades’. You get that wrong in front of Sergeant and he’ll lost his shit. You know how he is” he laughed, and she joined in.
“Right? He’s such a whiny bitch” WPC Jasmine Jennings replied, howling with laughter and nearly spitting out her cream cake.
“Yeah, you know it’s cos his mum died” he said, his face straightened up.
“Fuck off” she said with a stifled giggle.
“Yeah, hit and run off Dalston Street. Never been the same since” PC Winston John said sternly.
“Oh, I… I didn’t realise” WPC Jasmine Jennings looked suddenly worried.
“I’m just fucking with you. He’s always been a whiny bitch. Bet he lives with his mum!” Winston continued laughing heartily. “You know, nobody has answered that call about the break-in…”
“Yeah, fucking hell. I guess we better. You answer it, I’ll finish this cake off”
“You eat those things like you’re ‘affected’” PC Winston John joked, looking at his chubby colleague.
“Fuck off, we’re the fucking sweeney, eating cakes is our thing”
“You’re thinking of The Simpsons. The cops on The Simpsons eat donuts. Here, in the UK, we just eat like regular people. You know, Sergeant was a lot nicer to you when you were thinner, Jaz”
“I know. But it’s a price I’m willing to pay” WPC Jasmine Jennings smiled as she pushed the last of it into her mouth.
 
+
 
“Shit, they really trashed everything, didn’t they?” PC Winston John said as they walked through the bakery.
“Apparently, they are trying to get ‘the affected’ to go cold turkey. Trash all the junk food and force them to eat salad or something. According to that interview in the papers with that kid” WPC Jasmine Jennings explained, looking through the upturned shelves and smashed goods on the floor.
“But then he insists he isn’t behind it. If he isn’t the one doing this, then how does he know why it’s being done? That’s what I want to know” he replied, sifting through further debris.
“We should pick him up and ask him” she agreed.
“This is the furthest outta town that these punks have hit. We’re… what, 15 miles from Coventry?”
“The disease is spreading, makes sense that the attacks do too”
“Don’t call it a ‘disease’, Jaz. Serge will pull you up on that. It’s an ‘affectation’”
“That’s just PC bullshit”
“We are literally PCs. If anyone needs to do political correctness, it’s a police constable… wait, have you found something?” PC Winston John said, spotting his colleague wander into a corner of the kitchens that he hadn’t paid much attention to.
“Yup” she said. “I’ve found something alright”.
“What is it?”
“The fucking motherlode” she grinned, pointing her torch at an untrashed tray of doughnuts.
“Fucking hell, forget Chief Wiggum, you’re like Homer Simpson” he laughed, before straightening her face. “Hang on, you’re not actually…”
“It’s what The Reprobates would have wanted” she said, picking a doughnut up and eating it.
“THAT IS… you are literally eating the evidence! How am I gonna explain this to Sarge? That the vandals stopped for a snack mid-break-in? They were hoping to literally leave us a trail of breadcrumbs” PC Winston John looked exasperated at his colleague and her cheeky grin.
“They don’t care. What’s one tray of doughnuts…”
“You’re planning on eating the whole tray? A whole tray? Of doughnuts?”
“Well, unless you wanna help?”
“You are so gonna fail the bleep test next Spring. They’ll kick you out if you fail it” he said, gesturing for her to pass him one.
“Hypocrite” she smiled, passing him one and starting on her second. “And anyway, I passed easily last time, got over 9. That’s enough to get into Armed Response”.
“Yeah, how many pounds ago was that? What’s that? I can’t hear you Jaz, can you speak up a bit?”
“Thirty… five… but I can lose it by Spring, easy”
“Yeah, those’ll help. A crisp twenty says you reach 50 by Spring and fail the physical”
“Twenty says I reach 50 but pass the physical”
“Okay, you’re on. Homer” he laughed, and she giggled. “But, you’re looking more like you wanna go undercover as an ‘affected’.”
“Wait, is that a thing?”
“Jaz… no. Just, going undercover sounds about the worst thing you can do with those… food zombies” he said, to his smirking colleague.
 
+
 
Robson was beginning to regret going undercover. If he had heard PC Winston John’s assertion that it was about the worst thing you can do, he wouldn’t have taken much persuading to believe it. It had only been two weeks and he was really feeling the strain. As were his clothes.
“Fuck me, how does this shirt not even fit any more?” he said, looking at himself at the mirror, as his navy polo shirt wrestling with his pudding-infused frame, suffocating his middle and tightening around his chest, arms and shoulders.
“That is so hot” the two girls agreed, watching him struggle. They were lying down on the bed, exhilarated just at the sight of his flabby physique. So, maybe it wasn’t the worst thing you can do. He smiled and walked over.
“Go on then, which character do I look like?” he asked, subtly prizing more and more information out of them about these stories without actually having to read them.
“What about… him out of The Wedding Cake Story?” Hattie suggested.
“What’s his name? I can’t remember? Robson, you know?” Faizah added.
Robson gulped.
“Wedding Cake Story… no, I don’t remember that one” he dared, hoping that wouldn’t accidentally reveal himself as the fraud that he knew he was.
“Yeah, it wasn’t one of Fish’s most popular ones. But, if you like BHM, it’s actually pretty good” Hattie explained. “Hot, but also cute. Bit like you, Robson”.
He couldn’t help but repress a smile.
“Anyway, you two. I was thinking… weigh in, stuffing, and then threesome?” Faizah suggested, rather generously.
Yeah, maybe undercover work wasn’t so bad after all.
 
+
 
“A fucking terrorist? He called me a fucking terrorist?”
“I did warn you. All journalists are scum. Even the good ones. Especially the good ones”
Wolf raised his eyebrows knowingly at Imran. If the man knew how to smile, this is when he would have done it. Imran was just grateful that he was too much of a miserable bastard to rub it in too much.
They were sitting at a children’s park, only there weren’t any children on it. The swings, the slides, the see-saw. All unattended. Unaffected parents had taken to keeping their kids indoors, just in case. And affected parents just weren’t fans of walking all the way there. And this left the place to just these two. Imran pulled himself up onto the empty swing as he reflected guiltily.
“I know you did, bro. I know you did. And I shoulda listened. But still, why did he have to do me dirty like that?”
“There are two types of people in this world, Imran. People like us, and people like them. And that’s all there is to it. It’s really as simple as that” Wolf told him, standing in front of Imran with his hands in his pockets, as if refusing obstinately to go on the swings in case he gets bullied.
“And the guy on the phone? He’s a ‘them’?” Imran asked, pushing himself back and forth on the swing with his feet.
“Yeah, don’t trust him. My guess, he just wants the stories. For the power. They like to have power over people, Imran. It’s who they are. The state, business, the press, all of them. Don’t let them. Don’t be pushed around”
“Like I am now, on the swing?”
“Heh, yeah, kinda” he said, cracking into a half-smile. Imran looked on smugly, finally having opened him up.
“So, what do we do if we find the stories? Publishing them is the worst thing we can do. No press, no politics. How do we stop this thing?”
Wolf paused, hands still in his pocket, and looked up at the sky.
“They called us terrorists. They should be careful what they ask for…”
“Oh, I dunno, man. I don’t wanna hurt people” Imran protested, worry etched on his face, deep layers of concern running like rivers beneath the surface of his skin.
“Of course you don’t. That’s fine. I’ll… see to that side of things. You? You’re the face of the group. You’re… a fucking celebrity. What you have to do is… just shake hands and kiss b**s.
I’ll do the dirty work. I don’t mind my hands getting dirty”
“But, how many people are you planning on hurting?”
Wolf turned around sharply to Imran, now no longer swinging on the swing, just sitting there apprehensively.
“I dunno. How many people are hurting already? Hundreds? Thousands? Someone’s got to do something. Kum-bi-yah won’t fix this shit. What about your parents? You think they like what’s happening to them? Your brother? Your sister? Trapped in a madness? Every time it ‘affects’ someone, what it means is there is somebody whose soul is locked away, unable to be accessed. Their soul, their spirit, their fucking identity. When was the last time you saw your sister? You don’t know, do you? How big she is? How lost she is? Your mum? When was the last time you saw her?”
“I dunno… a week ago”
“And?”
“I mean, she was never skinny”
“And…”
“She’s so big, bro. It’s like she ate my mum or something. I… it’s her face and everything, but it’s not her. Not in her eyes, not in her body. Like they abducted her and replaced her with an alien. It’s… horrible”.
“And that, Imran, is why we have to be willing to hurt people. Because hurting people is how we save people”
“What about you? If I’m doing it for my mama and my brother and my sister… who are you doing it for? Who have you got?”
“I have people I care about. Had. I… I don’t wanna talk about it but… I’m fighting for people too”
 
+
 
“Obviously we don’t condone violence or criminality of any kind. Labour is the party of law and order and that is why inaction is as detrimental as negative action. Because, if the Prime Minister doesn’t get a grip on this, more and more people are going to feel unsafe. Unsafe in their own homes, unsafe at their schools, unsafe at their places of work. That’s unacceptable. And that’s why we in the Labour Party are asking for the Prime Minister to get on top of this crisis…”
Nadia Fletcher, MP for Coventry North, spoke with conviction, as she sat on the sofa in front of the ITV cameras.
“Yes, that’s all well and good saying ‘get on top of it’. We can all do that. What should he do? Because, if I’m being honest, you’re not offering any suggestions, you’re just sniping from the sidelines”
Sniping from the sidelines. That caused Nadia to wince inside. That was the line that the Prime Minister had been using. Telling anyone who would listen that criticising is easy, leading is difficult.
“Well, I don’t think that’s fair…”
“Well, what would you do?”
Nadia steeled herself. It didn’t help that her fitted power suit didn’t seem to fit very well at all. And here she was, on live national television, being grilled by Britain’s favourite homely bigot and TV anchor, and she was supposed to be going on about the obesity crisis while finding every suit she owned no longer fit her frame.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She did everything right. She went to the gym. She walked into the gym. She walked up to the machines at the gym. Tentatively touched the machines at the gym, before scurrying off back to the changing rooms so she could leave and feel less self-conscious by eating Malteasers in her leggings and her ex’s sleeveless shirt while watching Murder She Wrote and reading up on the latest findings from the UK Housing association’s investigation into the causes of homelessness. Everything right.
“Well, for a start, I’d attend the COBR meetings. Not sack them off and spend them with another blonde intern at some Gloucestershire getaway…”
The interviewer laughed a little at that. It wasn’t confirmed, but it was approaching general knowledge that the Prime Minister had been sacking the meetings off for a rendez-vous or two with whichever intern had the hair colour most similar to his and the bottom most like a pin cushion.
“Yes, yes. But apart from the philandering…”
“The airports. We need to close down our airports and seaports, and make sure this thing doesn’t escape and become an international pandemic”
“Wait, are you suggesting that we quarantine the whole of the UK?”
“If we don’t treat this seriously, then our allies internationally will. I’d rather us be the ones that draw up the drawbridge than have our international partners do it for us. Because this problem isn’t going away, no matter how much our Prime Minister considers it an inconvenience to his weekend proclivities”
“You think that might happen?”
“Oh, it will happen. Unless the Prime Minister gets a grip”
And Nadia Fletcher sat up straight. Proud. With genuine conviction. She’d nailed it, she was confident that she’d nailed it. Unfortunately, sitting up straight caused the button on her work trousers to pop across the screen.
“Ha, don’t worry love, we’d already cut” the bigoted anchor reassured, bending down and picking the button up for her. “Although, some might suggest it’s a little hypocritical to be going on about this obesity thing when you’re not looking as slender as you did when I first interviewed you”.
Nadia hated it. She couldn’t pinpoint what was worst. The lascivious undertones, the blatant sexist double-standards, or the fact that what he said was probably true.
“Oh, I know! I tell you what, if chocolate was slimming and fruit was bad for you, I’d be a size six!” she laughed a fake laugh, but sold it with her trademark nose crinkle.
“You know, I feel exactly the same about these things! You know, we always enjoy having you on the show, Nadia. And, if you ever find some slimming chocolate, let me know…”
Nadia crinkled her nose again and walked back off stage, where they could hopefully sew a button back on.
 
+
 
“Oh, I’m gonna miss you kid” her Dad kissed her warmly on the head.
“It’s France dad, it’s not the moon. It’ll be fine, dad, stop worrying. I’ve got my ticket, got my phone - charged - my purse. Everything is fine” his daughter reassured.
“And you have something to do on the plane?”
“It’s a one hour flight…”
“Some music, a film…”
“I did download this story my friend wanted me to read. I guess I could read that on the plane” she shrugged, before waving her parents off and heading towards the airport entrance, to catch her flight to France. Her dad was right about having something to do. She just hoped that her friend’s recommendation - a story called A Free Hit - would keep her sufficiently occupied for the flight.
 

((This one was a bit of a spur of the moment, but when I heard J. Geils come on the radio, I got to thinking about the lyrics and how easily that could apply to a weight gain story.  I hope you enjoy this little one and done, as it was a lot of fun to write, particularly the first half.  Do let me know what you think and if you'd like to see more one-shots like this in the future!))
CENTERFOLDS
I dreamt I was back in high school the other night.  There I was, wandering the halls of St. Anne’s in my cheap khakis and cheaper polo, frantically tucking in my shirt before our dick of a principal sees me.  My ratty hair was dangling close to my eyes once more—a length it has never been able to achieve since.  I passed by some freshmen playing cards under the main stairwell, Chucky Rizzo and Arianna Thompson making out without a care who noticed, and Brian Reed tossing a football with one of the other goons on the football team.  It was like I had never left, even though it’s been almost twenty years since I graduated.
My feet carried me to my locker as they had done hundreds of times, and just as it did in real life, it refused to open when I put in my combination.  I tried time and time again, even kicking the damned thing, but the lock was stubborn as I was.  In the midst of my frantic attempts, someone came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder.
“Having a little trouble, Chase?” asked a girl with a voice as smooth as warm caramel.
I didn’t need to turn around to know who it is, but I would never deny myself a chance to check out Molly Buchanan.  Just like everyone else in my dream, she hadn’t aged a day: the same curly brown hair that bounced when she walked; the same mocha skin that was clean of any blemishes; the same uniform that was just a little too tight for her.  This time, she was wearing a navy skirt that was just long enough to stay within regulation but gives a good view of her thick thighs—thighs that used to propel her around the volleyball court until she tore her tendon—and a white sweatshirt that couldn’t hide how developed her chest had become.  That was always one of my favorite ensembles of hers.
When I tried to reply to her, the words wouldn’t come out; my mouth was just flapping like a puppet.  I must have said something funny, because she giggled, “Well, you’re not going to get in like that.  Let me see if I can help.”
I stepped aside and allowed her access to the locker.  As she slowly and gently turned the dial, I caught a whiff of peaches—that shampoo of hers, I think.  Somehow, Molly managed to do the impossible and opened my locker without any problem, and she turned to me with a warm smile.
“It just needs a little TLC, that’s all,” she assured me.  “How was your weekend?”
Once again, I wordlessly responded and she nodded her head in acknowledgement.  A little double chin formed when she nodded—yet another sign that she was plumping up.  While she was never super-fit or skinny, Molly used to be more athletic in appearance; if she was thick, it was only from a light padding around her muscles.  The injury in her junior year changed that, and come our senior year, that muscle had turned into pudding and she went from ‘thick’ to ‘chubby’.  By graduation, she would be teetering on the border of out and out fat, and her gown barely hid that.
“Sounds like fun!” Molly replied, though I’m pretty sure my weekend then was spent doing dick-all.  “It was so nice this weekend that I decided to get some exercise and go for a hike!”
That was a little white lie and she knew it.  I might not have been close with Molly, but I sat in front of a couple of her friends in Chemistry, and they often whispered how she spent the weekends in her pajamas.  Whether it was her old injury still hurting her or she lost the will to really exercise, who could say?  All I knew was that every time she decided to ditch working out for lazing around, she guaranteed another couple pounds on her already soft frame.
Of course, it was not entirely her fault that she was so pudgy these days—just mostly.  As I walked with her to our shared English class, she was stopped by one of the girls in the cheer squad who had a plate of cookies in her hand.  She held them up to Molly and asked, “Molly, hey!  We’re setting up a bake sale for the squad later, and I wanted to get your thoughts on some of the products.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t, Erica,” the bashful, blushing beauty replied as she nibbled her lip.  “I’ve put on a couple pounds lately, and I don’t know if cookies are the best thing for my diet.”
“Please?  I really want to make the most sales, and I need the best cookies for that,” Erica told Molly with a pout and puppy dog eyes.  “Besides, how’re a couple cookies going to hurt?”
Molly continued to meekly protest, but I knew that her resistance would crumple like a house of cards before long.  Even before the accident, she could not turn down sweets; it was why her baby fat never quite went away.  Sure enough, when presented with a plate full of chocolate chip cookies, she took two—with a third at Erica’s insistence.  She tried to appear abashed at breaking her ‘diet’, but there was no hiding the little hum she made when she took her first bite.  All three were gone by the time we reached our class, which was impressive considering that Mr. Berkley’s room was only a few paces from my locker.
When we walked through the door though, we were not in Mr. Berkley’s classroom, where the walls were lined with posters of authors and their famous quotes.  We somehow found ourselves in the old cafeteria with its architecture that had not changed since the 60s.  This being a dream though, it made perfect sense to us—of course the door to 304 leads right into the cafeteria, duh.  I followed her until she took her usual spot with her friends and I chose mine at the next table over.
While my pals chatted in dream gibberish, I glanced over at Molly, who laughed and talked with her friends about this and that.  Per usual, she had the largest lunch among them: leftover chicken parm, garlic bread, and assorted veggies; it was practically a dinner-sized portion.  Still, she tackled it with aplomb, eating it down to the last crumb.  It helped that she talked so much that she lost attention of what was on her plate—so much so that when she stabbed her fork down for one last bite of the parm, she came up empty.
Just because she finished her lunch didn’t mean that she was done though, as a once daily ritual played out in front of my eyes.  One of Molly’s friends pulled out a cup of pasta salad and passed it to her, claiming that she didn’t really care for it.  Molly accepted it graciously, as she always did, but the offerings did not stop there, for more goodies were placed in front of her.  The amount varied from day to day, as I recalled: sometimes, it was as a couple bites from a plate; other times, it was enough to constitute an entire meal.  Regardless, she always took them with a smile, happy to dispose of the unwanted portions—even though she would later whine about how her clothes weren’t fitting right.
This was one of those days where she ate a huge portion, or perhaps it was just my dream showing me what I wanted to see.  In addition to the pasta salad, she wolfed down a muffin, a third of a sandwich, a cup of yogurt, and half a slice of cake—quite the feat for the former athlete.  By the time she finished, Molly leaned back in her chair and patted her stomach, and even through her sweatshirt, I could tell that her stomach was looking bloated.  She came down with a case of the hiccups but carried on as though she had not just eaten two meals worth of food, laughing and joking with her friends.
When the bell rang and signaled another class, I was greeted by the lovely sight of Molly standing up and stretching her arms over her head.  This caused her shirt to come untucked from her skirt—assuming it had been tucked in at all to begin with—and gave me a good look at the belly that had blossomed at her waist.  It was just beginning to pooch out, a permanent bloat that would never disappear, no matter how much she tried to suck it in.  I wanted so badly to hold it in my hands and give it a squeeze, but even in my dream, I was too cowardly to admit anything like that to her.
Still, my staring caught her eye, and we both looked away with pink in our cheeks.  As I got up to throw my trash out, Molly fiddled with her shirt and did her best to tuck it in, but with how the waistband of her skirt bit into her soft stomach, there was no chance that would happen.  She opted instead to roll it up so it hid under her sweatshirt—the best the burgeoning fat girl could achieve.
She quickly scurried out of the cafeteria in her embarrassment, but this just gave me a perfect view of the curve of her ass in her skirt.  Maybe that skirt was flowing at one point, but not anymore; its wearer was just too thick for that.  I followed her every bouncing step right out the cafeteria door, mesmerized by the wobble that ran through her lower body, until I accidentally bumped into her when she came to a sudden halt.
Instead of being irritated, she just looked at me with a shy grin and told me, “Careful there!”
I mouthed a silent apology before I realized we were not in school anymore—somehow, we had gone right next door to the then-new Starbucks.  My friends and I would gather in the far side of their parking lot to smoke and people-watch, and it was there that I discovered Molly went to the coffee shop almost daily for an afterschool snack.  Sometimes, it was a slice of lemon pound cake; other times, it was a triple chocolate chunk cookie.  Regardless of what she was having, she washed it down with a venti Frappuccino, as if she had not had enough calories throughout the day.
True to form, she stepped up to the counter and asked the barista, “Could I get a tall…no, a grande java Frappuccino, please?”
“Want to upgrade to a venti?  It’s just a few cents extra,” the clerk suggested.
Molly nibbled at her lip as she waged a battle inside over whether or not she should have the larger drink; I could practically see the angel and devil arguing on her shoulders.  Eventually, she relented and fibbed, “Why not?  I’ve been good today.”
As the barista scribbled down her name on a cup, she asked, “Will that be all?”
Before Molly could respond, I finally found my voice and asked aloud, “How about a brownie?”
The barista paid me no mind, but Molly turned to face me with wide eyes and tomato-red cheeks.  She sputtered some sort of reply while I wracked my brain for an explanation, finally deciding on, “Well, they just looked so good—it’d be a shame to pass up.”
I want to tell her that it’s because I know that brownie will go straight to her thighs, and that the look on her face when she eats something so rich and chocolaty is downright sinful, but I bite my tongue.  She hesitated for a moment before turning back and pointing to one of the brownies in the case, nodding bashfully when they pulled one out for her.  After she paid for her treats, she shuffled off to the side and waited for them to be prepared.  I can’t recall if I ordered anything: knowing my tastes back then, I might have just gotten a small black coffee, but who cares about my order?
As I walked out of the store, I passed by Molly nibbling away at her brownie and sipping from her frothy drink.  She had a drip of melted chocolate on her cheek, which she quickly licked away before anyone else could see, and gave me a small wave and a smile.
“Good choice on the brownie, Chase,” she remarked before taking another big bite.  “I haven’t had one of these in so long; they’re murder for my diet, you see.”
I wanted so badly to take control of this dream—to be the driver rather than the passenger—all to live out my years-old desires.  How I longed to walk up to her and poke her in the stomach to remind her of just how useless her myriad ‘diets’ had been.  How I wished I could pinch those flabby thighs of hers and ask if she even remembered what it was like to play volleyball.  How it killed me to know I could not take everything from the bakery case and feed it to her until she was too big for her uniform.  Sadly, it was not meant to be, and I could only stand by while my mind played a ‘greatest hits’ of Molly Buchanan’s slow slide into fatness.
***
The dream comes and goes from time to time.  Sometimes, I’ll have it three days in a row; one time, I didn’t have it for a full year.  I wonder if I’ll ever stop having it or if I’m forced to go back to St. Anne’s for the rest of my days, all to watch my old crush make fat talk and eat herself into new sizes.  A psychologist might say that I have some unresolved issues that need to be addressed, but what do they know?  Maybe if I’m old and gray and still having these nocturnal visits, I’ll see about fixing it.
For now, I’m content with where things are.  I’m thirty-five now, even though I feel like I should be a lot older.  My hair started thinning back in college, so I let it go out with some dignity and shaved my head; I tell myself that I look like Bruce Willis, but that’s just stroking my ego.  I’ve gotten a little paunchy in the middle due to my eating habits not changing in the past twenty years and opting to buy out more than cook anything actually healthy.  I make a tidy living as an electrician, even if it does require me to work some odd hours and the occasional holiday, and I’ve got myself a nice apartment.  It’s not the high life, but I’m a simple man; I don’t need much to be happy.
At the end of my shifts, I like to stop by this old convenience store a few blocks from my flat and treat myself.  The owner, Manu, is this older guy that’s pretty chill and laidback, and he greets every customer like they’re old friends.  He makes the best milkshakes in town and has some pretty exotic snacks on his shelves, but there’s one reason I go to his shop above all else.  There’s a particular magazine he keeps in stock that I can’t find anywhere else, and he always pulls a copy for me when it comes in.  The magazine?  Curves—a magazine for those who appreciate a full-figured woman.
Call me a dinosaur, but I am a connoisseur of lady mags and have been since I first found someone’s hidden stash of Playboys back in middle school.  Could I find the exact same material online for free?  Yes, and I partake in it on a daily basis, but that’s not why I get the hard copy.  There’s just something special about opening up a magazine and perusing it, especially when you get to the centerfold.  In an age where racy pictures are a dime a dozen online, unfolding those three page spreads to see a lovely lady waiting inside makes it so much more unique.
My love of centerfolds was put to the test one day, when I swung by Manu’s on my lunch break to grab a sandwich and some chips.  As I walked in the door, the old man waved to me from behind the counter and beckoned me over with a grin.  He gave me a high-five and exclaimed, “Chaser, my man!  You doing all right today?”
“Not too bad so far, Manu,” I replied.  “Been working on a faulty transformer for most of the morning, then I’m off to check out a lamppost out by the mall.”
“Nice, nice, nice,” Manu hummed before ducking under the counter.  “Well, the magazines came in a little early ‘cause of the holiday, and I pulled your usual aside for you.”
“You, sir, have made my day,” I told him in all sincerity.  After busting my ass for the last few hours trying to get a transformer back up and running, I needed a pick-me-up something fierce, and the cure for what ailed me was a big, big woman.
Manu handed me my monthly Curves and I looked over the cover while I walked around the store to gather the components of my lunch.  The girl on the cover was just what the doctor ordered: a Latina done up like a hot teacher, complete with a plunging blouse that showed off her acres of cleavage and stretched so tight around her stomach that I could see her belly through the button gaps, and topped off with a pencil skirt that looked ready to snap around hips that could overflow a hula hoop.  She was taking a bite out of a slice of apple pie, and a drop of filling had landed on one of her caramel breasts; I would have given my left hand to feed her that and the rest of the pie it came from.
As nice as the cover was, I could not wait to see who the Curvy Cutie was that month.  They always managed to find some amazing butterballs to fill the centerfold, like when they had a girl whose ass was big enough to fill a couch or the MILF whose gut drooped almost to her knees.  They had these little factoids to accompany the pictures, but I didn’t care much for those; they normally read like bad erotica, and if I wanted that, I would just go online.
I was reaching for a soda when I flipped the centerfold open, and it was a good thing I had not picked one yet because it would have hit the floor.  There, in a three page spread, was Molly Buchanan in all her glory and about two hundred pounds heavier than when I last saw her.  Sure, her hair was dyed a rosy red, her nose was pierced, and she looked like someone had blown her up with helium, but there was no denying it was her.  I took a quick look at the name on the back of the spread, and sure enough, her name was listed as ‘‘Massive’ Molly B.’
I don’t know how long I was standing there staring at the picture, but I was etching every single inch of it into my memory.  There was nothing modest about her body anymore; anything gentle or subtle had gone out of the window ages ago.  Her cheeks, which had once been soft but retained some definition, were now swaddled with fat that led down to a thick double chin that, if I had to guess, would fold into a triple if she looked down.  While her arms were never ripped, they at least looked like they were toned; now, her biceps were as wide as her thighs used to be and drooped over her elbows.
Of course, I did not linger on those for long.  My attention was drawn to the zeppelins that rested on her belly, how plush and pillowy they looked.  One of her hands—themselves, fat little mitts with sausage fingers—hefted up a tit, and I gawked at just how much her fingers sank into that blubber.  If I had to guess, those udders of hers were so big that she could probably suck on them herself; the only challenge would be lifting them up, considering how she clearly did little weight training these days.
Her breasts might have been huge, but they paled in comparison to her stomach.  I used to think I was lucky to see a glimpse of her starter belly back in school; if only I could go back in time and show myself what lay in store.  Molly had been blessed with a gut that was so huge, it had three clear divisions: a round upper part that jutted out and formed a shelf for her tits to rest on; a solid slab in the middle that formed a wall of fat that acted like a barrier before her; a flabby lower part that formed a ring around her waist and produced love handles thick enough to hold like a handle bar.  That beast of a belly dipped down so low that her crotch was completely covered and was on a fast track to overtake her knees, assuming it had not already by the time this issue had been published.
The way Molly was posed, it was hard to get a feel for just how wide she had become, but I could tell that she was nothing short of ‘broad’; I would have bet dollars to donuts that normal doorways were a struggle for her.  Likewise, I couldn’t get an idea of how big her butt was, except for the fact that it was enormous and pooled behind her as she lay back on some purple sheets.  Thankfully, I could see that those thunder thighs I had longed for years ago had only gotten wider, to the point that they touched clear past her knees, which were nearly buried under all her lard.
It was everything I ever wanted to see: Molly Buchanan was so big that she would break her desk and would need help getting in and out of classrooms; fantasies of her this size had helped me through some rough years.  The longer I gazed at that centerfold though, the more conflicted I felt about it.  Sure, it was Molly Buchanan in excess of what had to be 400 pounds, but it was not the Molly Buchanan I remembered.  The model spread out on those sheets, nibbling on the end of one of her curls, was sultry and seductive as a fattened femme fatale.  What made Molly so special in my eyes was how bashful she could be, especially after she started piling on the pounds.
I could have stood there forever as I pondered the duality of man, but thankfully, Manu’s voice shook me from my stupor.  He called out to me, “My friend, this isn’t a library.  You want to read it, you’ll need to buy it.”
When I realized I had been standing by the freezer with a girly mag wide open, I turned red as a pepper and shuffled up to the register as quick as I could.  I offered a meek apology as I gave what I had to Manu, but the old man just laughed and said, “Not a problem—we all have our pleasures.  Just maybe enjoy yours on your own time, yeah?”
I nodded, abashed, and hurried out once I had everything bagged and paid for.  Once I was back in the privacy of my van though, I pulled the magazine out and opened it to the centerfold again.  I just couldn’t help myself; I was like a man possessed.  After taking a lingering look at the spread once more, I flipped it over to the little interview and information blurb on the back.  I have no idea what I thought I would find there and how much was true, but I had just to know more.
The first piece I went to was the size chart, which gave all the stats like height, three sizes, and most importantly, weight.  Height didn’t mean anything to me since I never knew it back in school; even if I did, her sizes and weight would have made me forget it right away.  Molly had been eating well since high school: her bust came in at 58 inches around; her waist was a beastly 69 inches; her hips were surprisingly close to her chest at 61 inches.  It was mindboggling that she was five feet around in one area, nearly there in another, and almost six in the middle, but then, I shouldn’t have expected anything less from this 436 pound goddess.
After the sizes, Curves would run a short story written by a freelancer that was meant to be enticing but usually came off as trash.  The one for Molly came from someone named Cyril Figguns or something, but I couldn’t have cared less; I knew the real story of how she got fat, and I didn’t need some hack punching it up.  I skipped ahead to an interview with her, as this would give me the best look at just who she was now.
Turned out that after graduating from St. Anne’s, she got a degree in education and was in it for a good few years before she got canned for a little side project.  I guess they didn’t like the idea of kindergarteners being taught by a cam-girl—bunch of prudes, if you ask me.  She never did stop gaining weight: if anyone ever asked, she would say she was always trying a new diet or building up to one; reading that made me wonder if that was her tactic all along.  After she became an online model full-time, she floated from gig to gig, mostly staying self-employed before she found herself in a proper plus-sized modeling agency.
What really caught my eye was a comment she made about how she got started gaining.  She told the interviewer, “Back in high school, it seemed like everyone was out to make me fat: my friends shared their lunches with me, my mom insisted that I eat more to keep up my strength, and random people would offer me snacks.  That never really changed in college, so I came to the conclusion that if the world wanted me to be fat, then that’s what I would do.  If being fat is my destiny, then I’m going to live the fattest life I can!”
When I finished that part, I sat back and stared into space for God knows how long.  All the memories I have of her eating and slowly filling out…was I a part of her origin story?  I had no idea that all those innocent little incidences were adding up to create an elephant of a woman, but it all made sense in hindsight.  Molly could have always turned down anything offered to her, but she never did—she ate it all with the meekest of protests.  If Fate wanted her to be fat, it was never going to be a challenge; Molly Buchanan was ready for the fat life well before her modeling career.
I went on with the rest of my day, thinking about her centerfold and balancing the two Mollys in my head—the sweet, chubby girl next door from my youth and the beautiful, bombastic blimp that posed in the bare.  It’s not like I’m some sort of prude that frowned upon nudity; it’s just that, of all the people I ever expected, it wouldn’t have been the girl who turned bright red whenever her shirt raised up enough to show a sliver to stomach.
After I finished checking out the streetlight, I went back to my van and filled out the paperwork before I got a call from dispatch.  I switched my phone to speaker and said, “Chase here.  I was just finishing up at the mall job and going to circle back to camp.  Got something for me?”
“Got a woman out at 11943 Sycamore Place saying that her breaker is sparking.  Mind taking a look at that on your way back?” asked the dispatcher.
Sycamore Place was right around the corner from the mall; I could have walked there if need be.  I told the dispatcher, “Yeah, I’ll see what’s going on.  Fingers crossed that it’s just a small fix, but I’ll let you all know if I need to come back.  Got a name and a number for me?”
The kid on the other end shuffled through some paperwork before answering, “It’s a Molly Buchanan, 202...”
As soon as I heard her name, I froze up and missed the phone number.  I swallowed a lump in my throat and asked, “Could…could you repeat that?”
When the kid gave me the same information again, I knew I was not hearing things but I still couldn’t wrap my head around it.  What were the chances?  I had a better chance of getting the Powerball lottery three weeks in a row; a snowball had a better chance in hell than I did of getting Molly Buchanan as a customer the same day I saw her centerfold spread.
“You okay, Chase?  Want me to send anyone else?” asked dispatch.
I shook the cobwebs from my head and replied, “No, no, I’m good.  I’m going to call her right now to let her know I’m on the way.”
That’s what I told the kid, but I had no idea what I would say to her.  I haven’t had the best luck with women to begin with, but seeing my old crush after everything?  I didn’t know the first thing to say.  And when I get there, what would I talk about?  Would she even remember me after all these years?  I had dozens of questions buzzing through my head and not a single answer to be found.  When I looked at my watch and saw that ten minutes had passed though, I realized I had to at least make a call.
Mustering all my courage and professionalism, I dialed the number given to me and took a deep breath.  I was not the same awkward kid I was in high school, just like she was not the same shy girl.  If she could change, then so could I.
After a few rings, I heard that old, familiar voice greet me, “Hello?”
“Hi, this is Chase with Holt Electric,” I said with a smile.  “Having a little trouble, Ms. Buchanan?”
THE END

Well well well...

Part 5
 
“Babe, I’m here, ready for you, if you want to ravage me”
Honey lay back on the bed and twisted to get comfortable. She was wearing a particularly skimpy gold bikini and sarong combination as she lay provocatively on the bed.
“Babe, I’m waiting”
It was the Princess Leia bikini from that Star Wars movie, the one with the giant worm in it. Her girlfriend, Ginger, was a massive nerd for those sorts of things, it must have been some sort of sexual awakening for her or something. Honey didn’t get it, but at least the Ewoks were cute. She just spent her time watching the movie, waiting for the Ewoks.
“Babe?”
The bikini was a gift that Honey had bought herself as a present to Ginger. And, on special anniversaries - such as this one, the anniversary of their first dance - she would put the darned thing on.
“For fuck sake, Ginger. What can be more important than… this?” she muttered, mainly to herself, as she pulled herself up from the bed and began to trudge downstairs.
Ginger worked as the floor manager on Newyddion, a general news show in the Welsh language, as part of BBC Cymru Wales. And it was one of those jobs where it was hard to find the off switch. Apparently. Honey, who worked as part of the technical team on the show - but, coincidentally, wasn’t how they met: it’s actually a funny story and there are very few people here in Cardiff that they haven’t regaled with it - but found no such difficulties leaving work at work.
She got to the bottom of the stairs and couldn’t hear anything. Just the sound of her own breathing. The slow inhale and exhale were the only sounds in the house.
“Ginger?”
Nervously, she walked around the corner. Soft footsteps on padded carpet. And not even the background sound of the telly. Gently, she put her hand against the door and pushed it open, craning her head around the corner to see what was happening.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me?”
Ginger was there, but she was just dressed in her work clothes still, slouched lazily with her laptop on her knee and her reading glasses on. With the hand not on the keyboard, she was eating chicken goujons.
“Earth to Ginger? It’s me, the light of your life. Could I borrow your attention for just a second? Wait, are those onion rings the other side of you?”
Ginger nodded, and a smile appeared on her lips.
“Niiiice. You know, I haven’t had onion rings since the funeral of Uncle Rhys. I think. Or was it his wedding? I get them mixed up; one of them anyway” Honey said, as she, to maximum inconvenience of her partner, plopped herself down on the sofa next to her and reached over to grab an onion ring or three.
“Help yourself” came the almost disembodied voice of Ginger.
“I am doing, don’t you worry about that. I’ve earnt it. Not great for this bikini thing though, it was pretty tight as it was. I couldn’t believe it fitted, if I’m honest with you. I should probably not eat too many of these” she smiled, putting them in her mouth.
“I think you look great!” Ginger turned and smiled menacingly.
“Awww, thanks babe! Well, it is our first dance anniversary so I thought…”
“Chinese food?”
“No, I… sex? I was… are you hungry or something? Did you skip lunch? You shouldn’t do that Ginger, I’ve told you about that before”
“I’ll never skip lunch again, babe. Trust me”
Ginger’s smile was wide and her eyes were aflame.
“Good. Now, what’s this you’re reading? I don’t…”
“It’s really good. Do you want to read it too..?”
“No, if that’s alright. I think I’ll give it a pass”
“I think you’ll like it” Ginger licked her lips as she looked at her girlfriend, pointing the laptop at her girlfriend.
“I’m pretty sure I won’t” Honey said, pushing the laptop back towards her girlfriend, before reaching over for some more onion rings. “Oh my god, these taste so good… okay, someone’s feeling handsy”
Honey giggled as Ginger’s right hand slid down Honey’s body towards the crotch. Until it stopped, on her stomach.
“Look, Ginge, if this is about the fact that I promised I’d go on that diet with you… I will… I’m just, not tonight, eh?”
“No, it’s fine. No more diets”
“I mean, I probably should. 11 stone this morning, although some of that was just from my hair, I really need it cutting. Can you believe Maggie is booked up until the end of the month? It’s outrageous if you ask me…”
“Have a Free Hit”
“A what?”
“We’re young. We have three years…”
“What’s happening in three years?”
“Let’s cut loose. We deserve it. Enjoy ourselves. Come on, I think you’ll really like this story…”
And that was the first case of somebody affected outside of England. Maybe the history books will remember the tale of Honey and Ginger, the lovers from Cardiff. Maybe they won’t. A lot of things got lost in the aftermath, after all. But that was how it started to spread beyond England. Honey and Ginger’s Free Hit.
 
+
 
“Absolute poppycock and blithering baderdash! Let the nervous nellies and the… the… insecure incidentals, yes I think that works, and the… pussilanimous paranoiacs. Let them cower and kowtow. But not I. I shall not be so green-bellied and lily-livered. Audenta fortuna iuvat! You know what that means? Fortune favours the brave. Well, I have the good fortune of being a brave Prime Minister, and I will not find myself bending over backwards for those who want to fuck me up the arse”
“So… you’re not attending the meeting?”
“No, no. Absolutely not. Matt can deal with it. He has to serve some purpose around here, wot?”
The Prime Minister said, shuffling down the corridor and in the opposite direction of the COBR meeting that had been called, in response to the growing concern about ‘The Coventry Issue’. His face was a puddle of flesh, his eyes listless. His aide, a middle-aged woman with stern features and her hair tied back, matched him stride for stride.
“So you’re not going down there, then? There are winnable seats down there, and it would fit in well with our Healthy Upbringing Strategy” the aide said, walking slowly beside the disshevelled national leader.
“Ahh yes, the HUS. Good policy, that. I came up with it, didn’t I…?”
“Well, it was Matt originally…”
“But no. This gentleman is not for turning. I will not go to Coventry, else they ask me to ride through the town…”
“City”
“...Naked on a horse! That’s a Lady Godiva reference. Although, I do like her low-tax views. Plus, a woman naked on a horse sounds rather splendid, even if that woman is in the wasteland that is the Midlands. Ghastly part of the country. The Midlands exist simply to be driven through on your journey to elsewhere and serves no further purpose. No, I shall not be coaxed and cajoled. I shall make my wending way to the place in Gloucestershire for a long weekend”.
“With the wife?”
“Oh dear Lord no”
“The mistress?”
“Probably not”
“Then who?”
“I quite like that intern. The one with the nice bum. I quite fancy making my face the chair upon which she rests it”
The aide rolled her eyes at her superior, and got on the phone to make arrangements. Ignoring the ‘Coventry Incident’ wasn’t necessarily bad politics. The opposition had been pressing hard on the issue and they didn’t want to - how did he put it - cower and kowtow. They couldn’t just let the Opposition set the narrative. No, the decision was fine as long as the issue evaporated. Then they would look like the level-headed ones when all of those around were losing theirs.
All the aide had to do now was work out which intern the Prime Minister meant, given that his hiring of interns was almost exclusively driven by ‘the loveliness of their bums’. Maybe it didn’t matter which one, since he had little plan to be face-to-face with whoever it was for long.
 
+
“Robson?”
“Hey Gurinder”
“Looks like you were right to get down to Coventry when you did, this stuff is gathering traction. When do you think you can get us an article?”
Robson was eating a beefburger and sitting in his car opposite Hattie’s house, with his phone on the seat next to him and on speakerphone so he could eat his lunch.
“Well, I could do something… human. About what it’s like to lose someone to this… ‘affectation’. I am in occasional contact with the leader of the Renegades and his whole family…”
“You know who leads the Renegades? The ones behind the McDonalds attack?”
“No, I think the McDonald’s attack was just normal fascists. The Renegades are more… like a self-help group for those who have lost someone to… it. A Fight for Justice type deal. But a humanising piece, portraying the leader as a boy who just loves his family…”
“They’re terrorists, Rob. You know better than that. We can’t go around being terrorist sympathisers. But a report into the man behind the atrocities would be good. And you could tell them it will be about what you said ‘a man who just loves his family’”
Gurinder was a great boss to work for. He’d been in the business for around the same amount of time as his father, and he knew the industry like the back of his hand. Better than the back of his right hand, truthfully, since he lost it in a bombing in Basra back in his Middle East reporting days. But Gurinder’s best trait was that he was loyal to those that worked for him, and was probably the only reason Robson wasn’t sacked and trying to make ends meet writing guest pieces for The Morning Star or Tribune. So, this is why he was so ruthless with his junior. It was really to protect him.
“I… I guess. I mean, he is just a kid and… I don’t like to betray him. I genuinely think he’s a good kid in a bad situation but…”
“But you know how much you need a story right now”
“Yeah” he said, biting back into his burger.
“You… you eating right now? Wait, you’re not ‘affected’ are you?”
Robson laughed.
“No, not special fat, just regular fat”
Robson had found himself become rather husky around the middle in the years since he started in the trade. Even in his casual clothes, a black t-shirt and navy jeans, his gelatinous form was increasing clearly seen. It hadn’t always been this way, he’d been a pretty good fly-half in his rugby playing youth. But these days, XL was getting a little clingy to his spongey form.
“I mean, I’ll take your word for it. But how would I know?”
“Oh, you’d know. Apparently, their conversation skills turn to mush. Much like their figures. Heh, I might keep that one and use it for later” he smiled to himself.
“Well, it sounds like you’re doing really well down there Robson. I’m impressed. But, I can’t lie, I’m looking forward to you coming back. I don’t like you up there, with all that’s going on. It’s dangerous”
“Dangerous like a ride-along across Basra?”
“I just don’t want you making the mistake I made. Be safe Robson. You’re a good journalist, but the best journalists are the ones who get to come home at the end of the day”
Robson understood. But, at the same time, he kept looking back at his laptop and that livestream. Could he let it lie?
“I want to do one more story out here Gurinder, before I come back. I… I think I might be getting close to Patient Zero”
He winced as he said it. But the cat was out the bag now. He had to see this through. He had to see what happened to Morley Baker.
“Really? Shit! That… yeah, you can take a risk or two for a scoop like that. How close are you?”
“Well, I’m currently sitting outside of the house of a university student called Hattie. She is best friends with the sister of the leader of the Renegades - a girl named Faizah. She was one of the first, but… she plays a lot of online computer games along and…”
“No, don’t say it…”
“She used to play with Morley Baker”
“Robson! We’ve… done this before. She’s… it’s a dead end. Just leave it. You’re just looking for links that aren’t there”
“It’s a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think? That a girl goes missing under mysterious circumstances and then, around the same time, two of her friends contract a mysterious eating… thing. She’s involved in this, I know she is”
Robson paused for breath, and silence came down the phone. Robson paused his chewing and looked down at his phone in suspense.
“Fine, do what you need to do. I trust you on this, so don’t let me down”
“Cheers, guv”
“And Robson? If you’re gonna do it, then do it. I think it’s time for you to take your version of a ride-along across Basra”.
 
+
 
“So, I just wanna check, it was none of us right? The McDonalds attack? That wasn’t any of us guys, right?”
Imran stood up on the steps, looking down at the rest of the Renegades. They all just shook their heads sheepishly.
“Wolf? Nothing to do with you?” he continued.
Wolf shook his head, his eyes sharp.
They were in Coventry city centre. No more were they having to hide themselves in darkened corners of darkened rooms in darkened municipal buildings. Coventry was a ghost town - which was rather fitting given that The Specials were their most famous export. And this meant that the wide open was probably the safest place for them. Although the slow trickle in of journalists to the area might mean that this wouldn’t be the case for long.
“Good. Good. Look, I know this is hard. I know. We’ve all lost people. But we need answers, not violence. We deserve answers. For our families. For our loved ones. Bro, I shouldn’t need to tell you this but, if this thing spreads? That pain, that rage, a whole lot more people are gonna be feeling it. We do this for them. For the people we don’t know. The people we’ve never met. We do it so they never know that they should thank us. Because, nobody, and I mean nobody, deserves to go through what we’ve been through. Ain’t that right?”
The group cheered.
“Cos we are the Renegades, right?”
“Yeah”
“And I wanna hear the Renegades shout, you hear?”
“YEAH!”
“Good, I like it” Imran said, pacing along his elevated step, his shoulders wide, his chest out. “Now, we gotta lotta new faces here, and I see you. I see all of you. But we’re also missing some faces. And we know what that means. Anyone know who’s no longer with us?”
The crowd looked awkwardly amongst themselves, and began muttering. One voice shouted out.
“I think the Grays are ‘affected’ now. I saw them order in a load and… they weren’t very talkative when I tried to reach out”
“The Grays? From Claymore Street, right? Yeah, bro, that is fucking tragic. I’m sorry. But this is why we need the truth to come out. Anyone else?”
Another voice cried out.
“Mr Lewenburg”
Imran stopped.
He looked across the crowd and couldn’t see his saddened face. Imran’s shoulders slunk at the realisation.
“Yeah, that one hurts. That one hurts, no lie. He was a good man, Mr Lewenburg. One of the good ones. And, I think we should all just take a moment to remember those we lost along the way. And their pain, as well as our own”
 
+
 
“Feed me”
Mr Lewenburg grabbed the tubs of ice cream and walked over to her, lying in her bed in the tightest lingerie she could still squeeze into.
“Sure thing my love. But only if you feed me too”
She smiled as he said it, the thoughts on their lips of what they would do to each other.
“I’m gonna make you so fat, my love”
“Not if I make you fat first!”
And the two of them giggled as the bedroom lights got switched off.
 
+
 
“One more thing” Imran said, still marching to and forth on his elevated step. “I’m doing the interview!”
The crowd cheered. All of them, but Wolf, who folded his arms in suspicion.
“Now, now, I know there are people out there who think I shouldn’t. That it’s not safe. That they can’t be trusted. And, believe me, I get it. Bro, I get it, big time. But this journalist? He’s one of the good ones. One you can trust. He… helped look for a very good friend of my sister’s, before all this started”
The crowd nodded with solemnity.
“And anyway, apparently the paper are gonna do a two-page spread on me, my family and this movement. And they're gonna make it about the hurt. They’re gonna make it about the suffering. They’re gonna make it about the people. This isn’t about some weird food disease. This is about people. It’s about the people who get affected, and the people who get left behind. Right?”
The crowd cheered.
“And they get it. So, next week, look out for ya boy in The Guardian bro! You know what I’m saying, yeah? Man, I have a good feeling about this. I think they’ll look back on this day and say this day was the day that it started to get back under control!”
The crowd roared in support.
“No, The Renegades… I’m done. Okay? But you all know the drill out there. We can do this. Right? I said, WE CAN DO THIS? Right?”
And the crowd roared and as Imran stepped down from the step and mingled with the rest of his Renegade family. Wolf lurked in the background, watching.
 
+
 
Robson looked at himself in the reflection of the front door’s letterbox, making sure he didn’t have any stains on his top. He then stood up straight and knocked on Hattie’s door. And exhaled with nerves.
“It’s just… just a ride-along in Basra. If I lose a hand, I lose a… fuck! I don’t wanna lose a hand. This is a bad idea” he muttered to himself pacing on the spot like he needed the toilet.
He couldn’t hear any movement inside, so he knocked again. Louder this time.
“Fuck it… ride-along in Basra, it is”
He got back down on his knees and opened the letterbox. And this time, he shouted through it.
“HATTIE! Are you there?!?!”
He paused, waiting to see if there was an answer.
There wasn’t.
And, if you would ask Robson Cowley of The Guardian when it all started for him, he would have said that missing person’s case three months ago. But, ask anyone else, and they would say that this is when it started for him. Right here. Right now.
“I’m… I’m hungry?...” he winced as the words came out. “And… fuck… I’m also a friend of Morley Baker’s…”
Just two seconds later, the bedroom window on the front of the house opened. Robson pulled back from the front door and looked up at the window. And there were two young women. And, though they didn’t look like the pictures that Imran had provided any more, they were undoubtedly Hattie and Faizah. Faizah was there too. Robson knew that he was close. Close to Morley Baker and the origins of this wretched disease.
“Hey! What’s your name?” Faizah asked.
“Robson. I’m… you’re Faizah, aren’t you?”
The girls didn’t answer, they just continued on with their own line of questions. And, in that time, Robson did his best to look at them and see how much they had changed. Hattie was clearly, quite clearly, the bigger girl of the two. But the difference was most noticeable in Faizah, since her starting point was so bony and lean. That diamond-cutting jawline that she used to have had now mushroomed out into softness, to the point where she was barely recognisable.
“How did you know Morley?”
“Twitch. I was… one of her mods” he lied, scrunching up his face as he did so. He wasn’t even sure he got the terminology right.
“No way! That’s cool. So, Robson, mod of Morley, what are you?”
Robson twitched nervously, feeling the detective’s light being pointed at his face.
“What do you mean?”
“Feedee or feeder? Durr”
“Oh, right… of course” he stammered, looking up at them still. He didn’t even know these words. I mean, he could guess what they meant, they sounded fairly self-explanatory, but they were still foreign to him. Were they from these stories then? He could only assume. He decided to play it safe.
“What do you think?” he asked, his hands out by his sides as he continued looking up at the window.
“Feeder!” they both agreed in unison, which kinda hurt Robson. Had he really let himself go that much? “Okay, what’s your favourite book?”
Robson paused again. It hadn’t really dawned on him up until now, but he was essentially going under cover here. That’s what he was doing. And he was being grilled as part of his initiation test. Now, let’s see how much he’d listened to Imran.
“A Free Hit… obv” he said, trying to downplay it. Hattie smiled victoriously at her friend. “But Burgermania is probably second”. This caused Faizah to grin smugly back at her friend.
“And favourite character?”
“It’s gotta be Rutherford, hasn’t it?” he said. He only remembered the name because of his confusion over the character’s gender when Imran mentioned it.
“Damn straight!” Hattie said, her already considerable chest jutting out further with pride. “Guess who’s the Rutherford of this household?” she added, her flabby arms wide as if soaking in the applause from some hypothetical audience.
“So, you gonna let me in then?”
“Okay, Robson, mod of Morley. Come on in. It’s about time we had some BHM action. FIsh’s stuff was always too female-centric. Hey, we’re about to order in. What do you fancy: Indian or Turkish?”
“Turkish, I guess?”
“Yeah, you’re right. We should probably order the Turkish first”
And Robson gulped. This was gonna be his ride-along in Basra. This was gonna be his missing right hand.
 
+
 
Imran pulled back from the gathered crowd and gestured Wolf to follow him, away from where anybody else could here.
“You’re doing the interview? Really?” Wolf snapped.
“Relax, bro. I got this” Imran smiled proudly.
“I hope you know what you’re doing”
“The more people that know about this, the better. That’s how we stop it” Imran explained. “We need people to take this shit seriously. And… speaking of taking things seriously… McDonalds?”
“Yeah, it went fine. No witnesses, nothing to pin it on us” Wolf reassured.
“Good. Good. I like that. Good news. I like good news. Cos, we’re the Renegades, and sometimes Renegades gotta do that Renegade shit”
“Well, shall we work out what Renegade shit we’re gonna pull next” Wolf suggested sinisterly, and Imran just grinned.

Part 4
 
It started for Nadia back in 2019. Nadia Fletcher, Member of Parliament for Coventry North, was one of the 2019 intake, the most recent inductees to the House of Commons. And, at 27 years old, she was the youngest sitting MP currently - aka the “Baby of the House”. The condescending monicker, one that had been around since Victorian times and not changed thanks to politics’ preference for tradition over… well, anything really, wasn’t the reason that she spent her days in Westminster with a bee in her bonnet and a real point to prove, though. No, it was because she came from the very ‘working-class’ communities that Labour claimed to represent. And now she finally had the chance to do something for her community.
Plus, she was hoping for a cabinet post by 2024.
She wore her hair in a bob, hair straightened every morning. She spent ages choosing which personally-tailored suit to wear, every morning. She picked her favourite bracelet, necklace and earrings every morning. And then she grabbed some breakfast and headed to Parliament at 6am.
Breakfast had come to become McDonalds. Maybe it was those working class roots that Nick was going on about. Her growing up in an environment where easy food and cheap food always took precedence over healthy food. Maybe it was because, despite being a grown woman of 27, she was the “Baby of the House” still. And she still hadn’t evolved past her own university habits.
It was only since starting in 2019 though that it began to have an effect on her physique. She’d always had curves, curves that she was proud of but not so proud as to appear superficial. It was always a line female politicians had to tread. They always had to care about their appearance. Just, y’know, not too much. You need to try hard, without being a tryhard. Or something.
But the past year or two had seen those suits of hers need re-tailoring, time and time again. She had begun at 130lbs, a bit lower than her normal after all those days on her feet, campaigning and door-knocking. Now, after a sedentary job, long hours, a lot of stress and the return of her McDonalds breakfasts, she’d seen her scale scale new heights. Last time she’d looked, she was 175lbs. But that was 2 months and a re-tailoring ago and she just didn’t want to look any more.
Still, she was the ambitious type, and the Chief Whip had pretty much told her that, if she could shed a few of her recently accrued pounds, she could be the one leading the charge on this growing national issue. So, for the first time since her own university days, she decided to go on a diet. She opened her drawer and pack of Kinder Duplos, and put the whole packet in the bin. No, that wasn’t right. That was a bad example and you never know if the press, with their long lenses and shameless opportunism, would see her throwing away unopened food. So she pulled it out of the bin surreptitiously, careful to make sure her staff didn’t spot her, and then worked her way through the 18-pack instead. Y’know, so she could go on a diet.
 
+
 
Robson had also seen that Coventry’s food epidemic was mentioned on PMQs. This should have given him a huge sigh of relief. It meant that this story he was working on, tied in with something already in the public domain. It meant that his editor had a pitch that he would like. It meant that, if other journalists started their own investigation based on what that young MP said, they would be playing catch up on his head start. Robson, by all accounts, should have been happy.
But the name Morley Baker had made any hopes of feel-goodery impossible. Morley Baker. The woman who left her own child. Morley’s parents - grandparents to the abandoned child - simply don’t know what happened to her. Maybe she ran away. Maybe it was suicide. Maybe it was kidnap, though how would she have known to give the baby to her neighbour. But, if it was running away, why not give it to her parents. And, if it was suicide… where was the body? Indeed, in any of the scenarios listed, that same question remained.
Where was Morley Baker?
Well, one place she definitely was, was on her Twitch channel’s previous broadcasts. She may have been a professional gamer, but she was hardly an internet celebrity. She played indie games mainly, often with her own subscribers, and built up a small but loyal fanbase. They helped pay her through labour and child-raising, with donations and subscriptions and something called Bit donations. It was how she made ends meet, while staying at home to be with her baby - a boy rather cutely called Marley.
Robson was going through Morley’s old streams, hoping to hear her play with someone called Faizah. Or, at least, this Hattie or Shania. Something to tie these two cases together. But, so far, nothing.
 
+
 
The house was empty. Mum had gone out, drawn by the allure of an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet that seemed to hold some sort of personal significance to them that Imran didn’t understand. His elder brother was rarely in, just driving from drive-in to drive-in. And Faziah was never in these days. He didn’t know exactly where she was, but he suspected it was Hattie’s. He didn’t know what those two were up to together and he didn’t care. The house was empty. That was the important thing.
He gradually opened his sister’s door, and pulled his face back in disgust at the smell and mess. It was looking closer to landfill than the usual pristine room that Faziah kept. There was nowhere for him to put his feet, every inch of the floor booby-trapped with wrappers and containers and cartons. All depleted of their original contents. And none of those original contents were healthy.
Fortunately, he could see her laptop. Unfortunately, it was on her bed. If the floor was bad because of wrappers, then the bed was bad because of food. Crumbs, stains, smears. CSI would love a place like this. But Imran didn’t.
He got to the laptop and lifted the screen, only for it to require facial recognition or a fingerprint to get in. A fingerprint? That was doable, right? Something to do with sellotape? He’d seen it in a movie, and was sure he could pull it off.
He couldn’t pull it off.
So, he tried Plan B, guessing her password.
He knew all her favourite bands, all of her favourite songs. He could hear each and every one of them through the walls as she karaoked to herself fairly loudly. Only, she hadn’t been doing that lately, had she? Imran had an idea.
Password - AFreeHit
Password denied.
Maybe it was too much to expect. That, in this feeding frenzy, she would take the time out to change her password to her new favourite piece of mind-controlling literature. Except, of course, AFreeHit wasn’t her favourite piece of mind-controlling literature. That wasn’t what she said.
Password - Burgermania
And suddenly, the laptop lit up. And he opened up a browser and went through her search history. He screenshotted the list, and decided it was time to send these to his conspiracy friend.
 
+
 
“Yeah, we can run all sorts of search algorithms that run alongside the Google search engine, piggy-backing on it but applying our own calculations, we can…”
“Just tell me, how long?”
“Not long at all. Hours, not days”
Jake stopped, and put his hands in his pockets, and leant against the wall, his tongue clacking, mimicking the sound of a metronome and helping him think.
“And can you run this search… thingy, in such a way that it takes days rather than hours?” he asked, running his brow with his forefinger and thumb, under his grey hair.
“I don’t understand…”
“I’m…” he sighed, his patience thinning, his headache returning. “I’m not asking you to understand, I’m asking if you can do it”.
“I mean, I guess I could just find it, but not tell you right away?”
Jake stopped again, and started clacking his tongue against the inside of his mouth.
“Yeah, that should be fine. Inform me in… 5 days. And I’ll sort things over with Mr Collins” Jake said, nodding his head as if to cajole himself into following his own plan.
“Yes sir” the junior tech assistant said, and Jake smiled for the first time in years.
“Oh, and… whatever you do, do not read it. Just sit on the information and tell me in five days”
 
+
 
It started on a Thursday night. Mr Lewenburg and his staff were creaky under the onslaught of demand. Central Office had sent extra temps their way, as well as raising the prices, and none of it could help make a dent in the surging volume of customers. The only relief, the only reprieve, was that trading hours meant that they had to close at 10pm. And all the staff were grateful for that. Except Mr Lewenburg.
He didn’t enjoy working at the ice cream parlour these days. He always enjoyed the human interaction side of his job. But he was mainly serving zombies these days, people inured to any stimulus but of that which calories could provide. Instead, it was like working in a fast-food **. All speed, just cranking out service, without any of the human stuff that made it all worthwhile.
But the one thing he enjoyed less than being at work, was being at home. If he missed human interaction in the workplace, then he yearned for it at home. He pined for its passing. Mrs Lewenburg was a stranger to him, these days. All non-essential motor-functions shut off besides the same Epicurean ones that was 'affecting' everyone else in this city. At the end of the day, he just missed his wife.
“Let me guess, the four-scoop salted-caramel fudge bonanza”
Mr Lewenburg knew the order off by heart now. Days upon days of people asking for the same thing. The most indulgent, most sugary, most unhealthy thing on the parlour’s menu. Mr Collins’ idea, and, to be fair to the man, it was a good one. Certainly a popular one. And, just as importantly to him, an expensive one.
“No”
Mr Lewenburg looked up, confusion riven across his face. Was the person in line not one of the ‘affected’. His eyes then winced to realise that this was not the case. It was Juan and Cerys who, in his mind at least, were where it started.
They didn’t look the same as when it started. Juan was always a short guy, with dark hair and heavy eyebrows that he got from his mother. Now, the boy’s appearance could also be premodified as chunky. His chest too soft to be barrelled, the lower part of his dark-haired stomach picking in the gap between his too-tight polo shirt and his redundant belt buckle. No wonder his mum was so upset.
And next to him was Cerys. Golden haired, golden smiled Cerys. She had exploded in the seven weeks since they first came in. She was a fashion student who was always deeply conscientious about her appearance, and her build always reflected that. Slim, in the fashionable yet impractical way that her hobby espoused. Now, fashion had given away to convenience. A flowy summer frock that did little in the way of flowing. Instead, it suffocated itself around every mound of her build like it was a body-wrap, and the long length made so short that she was left barely decent, with beachball buttcheeks just a few inches of material away from revealing themselves. They did leave her legs, her most pronounced body part, rugged with cellulite and with thighs that were touching half way down to the knee.
“So, what can I do you kids for?” Mr Lewenburg asked, suspiciously.
“We…” Juan started.
“Well, I…”
“Yeah, she wants to custom make an order. Create one for herself”
“Yeah, like Minnie does at Kebabland…”
“When she custom-makes the Skinny Meal and then everyone calls it the Skinny Meal”
“Well, I wanna custom-make the Cerys Meal. Or Cerys Ice Cream, I guess. That would be pretty hot. And cold” and they both laughed at the appalling joke.
It was an unusual request, no doubt. But not that unusual. Indeed, it was a concept that was once planned on being rolled out across the various branches nationwide. And this meant that it was at least something that Mr Lewenburg was able to do.
“I guess… but it might be pricey” Mr Lewenburg said. “Can… why would a… sorry for asking this by the way but, why would a custom ice cream be…”
“Hot? Dude, it’s so hot. Food sex is the best, isn’t it C?”
“Yeah, it’s soooo good. Because I’m just laying back and Juan is just fucking me, and I’m just eating cake, sometimes he’s feeding me and sometimes I’m doing it myself, and I’m orgasming and… he’s eating cake while he’s thrusting and I’m just taking it. Just laying back, eating, and opening my legs wider than I used to, because they get in the way more than they used to, which is waaaay hot”
“And sometimes, I lean over her, and our bellies touch and it’s so hot. Like, I’m feeling it, right now. We’re gonna go wild when we get our ice-cream, I can tell” Juan added, unhelpfully.
Mr Lewenburg didn’t say anything. Even now, when he would have told you that nothing else was able to shock him, he had never been so shocked in his life.
 
+
 
“I wouldn’t tell him," Wolf said, looking typically stern. “I don’t trust him”.
Imran twitched nervously as somebody walked by behind them. They were walking down the street together, huddled as clearly in cahoots. Every passing person set off jitters and paranoia. They were clearly on edge to any idle passer-by. However, one feature of Coventry being recently stricken with this food frenzy virus was that there were simply fewer people walking about the streets. Walking wasted calories, you see.
“You think? That’s mad, bro. I mean, we only know each other because of him”
“Yeah, that’s what got me suspicious. How did he know about both of us?”
“Cos he some crazy, old, paranoid, white dude? Like you” Imran added helpfully on the end.
“I’ve been off the grid for years. And, anyway, like you say, I know crazy and paranoid, and he just seems to be playing it up a little too much. I don’t buy it. Plus, why did he try to get you not to involve the press?” Wolf added.
“I mean, that’s a good point. But who else am I gonna tell? He says don’t trust the journalist. You say don’t trust him. Who does that leave? I’m scared, bro. This is way not cool” Imran said, nervously.
“Just keep it together, laddie. It ain’t easy on anyone, I can’t even think about what it’s like to be you right now”
 
+
 
He’d caught glimpses of her. Robson had parked on the edge of the street, across the way from the house, hooked up on some un-passworded local area network. This way, he could do two jobs at once. Watch the house in case Hattie came out, and search old Twitch broadcasts to see if Morley Baker ever played co-op with a girl called Faziah.
The glimpses of her, proved she was in there. But they were only glimpses. He had no idea if she was gaining quite like this Faziah girl apparently was. There was no lasting image of her for his eye to drink in or digest. But, there was other evidence that she may be among the ‘affected’. Namely, that those glimpses were of her taking in a number of takeout orders from a number of takeaway establishments. Robson hadn’t seen anything like it before. Wave after wave of them, each unloading their respective wares to the half-opened door across the street.
But his interest was being directed elsewhere. To the sound coming his earbuds.
“Yeah, so we’re gonna be playing Plague Inc. with MadHatter and Shaymonster…”
Robson looked down at the screen sharply.
“And of course FeeFaiFoFum. Hey Faizah girl… long time”
It was a Twitch broadcast from 14 weeks back, two weeks before the disappearance. And Morley was talking to Faizah, and, by the sounds of it, Hattie and Shay too. There was the link. There was the connection that he had been looking for. Proof that the two investigations were somehow linked. But how? Robson’s heart galloped in his chest at the revelation. Maybe this, maybe Morley Baker, was how all of this, how it started.
 
+
 
Mr Lewenburg got in his house and sighed deeply. The lights were off in all rooms but the master bedroom. Or his wife’s bedroom as it had recently become. Slowly, with aching pains and weary shoulders, he hung his coat up and took his shoes off, and began to trundle up the stairs.
The house was dark at this time of night. Normally Mrs Lewenburg would leave the landing light on, just so he wasn’t left in the nighttime gloom. But she hadn’t done this for weeks now. He got to the top of the stairs and stopped, looking one way for the spare room and another for the master bedroom. Where his wife slept. Where he used to sleep. A fork in the road.
And maybe, if he had the chance to go back in time and revisit this moment, he would ask his previous self to change course. To go a different way. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe, if he had the chance, he would put his hand on his own shoulder and tell him that he knew what needed to be done. It was the right thing. And that he had no regrets. But there was no such hindsight-laden intervention, just a lonely married man at the top of the stairs, with a lot on his mind. And, for Mr Lewenburg, this was how it started.
He knocked on her door. Their door. The main bedroom door.
No answer didn’t mean she wasn’t there. More likely, it meant that she was eating, and the sight of her husband after a gruelling shift was not enough to engage her as much as consuming whatever gastronomy she had mustered for herself. And, with that, Mr Lewenburg walked in and saw his wife.
“Hi”
He said it with a deep, sorrowful voice, his head bowed out of shame and sadness. His wife was eating BBQ wings, and she was eating them with very little care for manners and good courtesy. It was as it was the night before and the night before that. And, without a response from her again, he continued.
“I just… I know you’re busy. I just wanted to check that you are okay, before I go… before I go… before I go and sleep in the spare room. My room. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know much of anything any more, to be honest, Esther. I feel… I feel all at a loss. Like the world is spinning and I can barely hang on. And it makes me feel tired. Like the world’s had enough of me. That it’s moved on. Or something. I dunno, I’m just tired maybe, long day. Anyway, just wanted to make sure that you’re okay” he said, slowly, quietly, each word climbing out of his mouth painfully.
“I’m fine”
That was the response. That was all it was. No acknowledgement of the pain. No recognition of the hurt. No care. Just a phone screen and BBQ wings. That was all she needed at that moment in time.
And if the initial decision to walk into the room was where it started, this moment marked the point where it continued. As he watched his extra-padded wife of decades barely recognise his voice; as he faced the prospect of another cold night in the spare room where the radiator doesn’t work and needs bleeding; as the realisation that this was how it was now. As he did all that, he remembered his conversation with Juan and Cerys, and made the decision.
“Hey, look, I know… it’s probably stupid of me to ask but… can I read one of those stories? I think I’d like to read one of those stories” he said. He wasn’t nervous when he said it, he simply didn’t have the energy. He just saw a fork in the road, and chose the one with his wife at the end of it.
“Really?” she replied, her face lighting up in a way that he hadn’t seen for days. He already felt better than he did five minutes ago.
“Yeah, I… is there one about a custom-made meal for one of the characters?” he asked, as she shuffled along in her bed to make room for him to sit next to her. “Called a Skinny meal or something?”.
 

Part 4
 
It started for Nadia back in 2019. Nadia Fletcher, Member of Parliament for Coventry North, was one of the 2019 intake, the most recent inductees to the House of Commons. And, at 27 years old, she was the youngest sitting MP currently - aka the “Baby of the House”. The condescending monicker, one that had been around since Victorian times and not changed thanks to politics’ preference for tradition over… well, anything really, wasn’t the reason that she spent her days in Westminster with a bee in her bonnet and a real point to prove, though. No, it was because she came from the very ‘working-class’ communities that Labour claimed to represent. And now she finally had the chance to do something for her community.
Plus, she was hoping for a cabinet post by 2024.
She wore her hair in a bob, hair straightened every morning. She spent ages choosing which personally-tailored suit to wear, every morning. She picked her favourite bracelet, necklace and earrings every morning. And then she grabbed some breakfast and headed to Parliament at 6am.
Breakfast had come to become McDonalds. Maybe it was those working class roots that Nick was going on about. Her growing up in an environment where easy food and cheap food always took precedence over healthy food. Maybe it was because, despite being a grown woman of 27, she was the “Baby of the House” still. And she still hadn’t evolved past her own university habits.
It was only since starting in 2019 though that it began to have an effect on her physique. She’d always had curves, curves that she was proud of but not so proud as to appear superficial. It was always a line female politicians had to tread. They always had to care about their appearance. Just, y’know, not too much. You need to try hard, without being a tryhard. Or something.
But the past year or two had seen those suits of hers need re-tailoring, time and time again. She had begun at 130lbs, a bit lower than her normal after all those days on her feet, campaigning and door-knocking. Now, after a sedentary job, long hours, a lot of stress and the return of her McDonalds breakfasts, she’d seen her scale scale new heights. Last time she’d looked, she was 175lbs. But that was 2 months and a re-tailoring ago and she just didn’t want to look any more.
Still, she was the ambitious type, and the Chief Whip had pretty much told her that, if she could shed a few of her recently accrued pounds, she could be the one leading the charge on this growing national issue. So, for the first time since her own university days, she decided to go on a diet. She opened her drawer and pack of Kinder Duplos, and put the whole packet in the bin. No, that wasn’t right. That was a bad example and you never know if the press, with their long lenses and shameless opportunism, would see her throwing away unopened food. So she pulled it out of the bin surreptitiously, careful to make sure her staff didn’t spot her, and then worked her way through the 18-pack instead. Y’know, so she could go on a diet.
 
+
 
Robson had also seen that Coventry’s food epidemic was mentioned on PMQs. This should have given him a huge sigh of relief. It meant that this story he was working on, tied in with something already in the public domain. It meant that his editor had a pitch that he would like. It meant that, if other journalists started their own investigation based on what that young MP said, they would be playing catch up on his head start. Robson, by all accounts, should have been happy.
But the name Morley Baker had made any hopes of feel-goodery impossible. Morley Baker. The woman who left her own child. Morley’s parents - grandparents to the abandoned child - simply don’t know what happened to her. Maybe she ran away. Maybe it was suicide. Maybe it was kidnap, though how would she have known to give the baby to her neighbour. But, if it was running away, why not give it to her parents. And, if it was suicide… where was the body? Indeed, in any of the scenarios listed, that same question remained.
Where was Morley Baker?
Well, one place she definitely was, was on her Twitch channel’s previous broadcasts. She may have been a professional gamer, but she was hardly an internet celebrity. She played indie games mainly, often with her own subscribers, and built up a small but loyal fanbase. They helped pay her through labour and child-raising, with donations and subscriptions and something called Bit donations. It was how she made ends meet, while staying at home to be with her baby - a boy rather cutely called Marley.
Robson was going through Morley’s old streams, hoping to hear her play with someone called Faizah. Or, at least, this Hattie or Shania. Something to tie these two cases together. But, so far, nothing.
 
+
 
The house was empty. Mum had gone out, drawn by the allure of an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet that seemed to hold some sort of personal significance to them that Imran didn’t understand. His elder brother was rarely in, just driving from drive-in to drive-in. And Faziah was never in these days. He didn’t know exactly where she was, but he suspected it was Hattie’s. He didn’t know what those two were up to together and he didn’t care. The house was empty. That was the important thing.
He gradually opened his sister’s door, and pulled his face back in disgust at the smell and mess. It was looking closer to landfill than the usual pristine room that Faziah kept. There was nowhere for him to put his feet, every inch of the floor booby-trapped with wrappers and containers and cartons. All depleted of their original contents. And none of those original contents were healthy.
Fortunately, he could see her laptop. Unfortunately, it was on her bed. If the floor was bad because of wrappers, then the bed was bad because of food. Crumbs, stains, smears. CSI would love a place like this. But Imran didn’t.
He got to the laptop and lifted the screen, only for it to require facial recognition or a fingerprint to get in. A fingerprint? That was doable, right? Something to do with sellotape? He’d seen it in a movie, and was sure he could pull it off.
He couldn’t pull it off.
So, he tried Plan B, guessing her password.
He knew all her favourite bands, all of her favourite songs. He could hear each and every one of them through the walls as she karaoked to herself fairly loudly. Only, she hadn’t been doing that lately, had she? Imran had an idea.
Password - AFreeHit
Password denied.
Maybe it was too much to expect. That, in this feeding frenzy, she would take the time out to change her password to her new favourite piece of mind-controlling literature. Except, of course, AFreeHit wasn’t her favourite piece of mind-controlling literature. That wasn’t what she said.
Password - Burgermania
And suddenly, the laptop lit up. And he opened up a browser and went through her search history. He screenshotted the list, and decided it was time to send these to his conspiracy friend.
 
+
 
“Yeah, we can run all sorts of search algorithms that run alongside the Google search engine, piggy-backing on it but applying our own calculations, we can…”
“Just tell me, how long?”
“Not long at all. Hours, not days”
Jake stopped, and put his hands in his pockets, and leant against the wall, his tongue clacking, mimicking the sound of a metronome and helping him think.
“And can you run this search… thingy, in such a way that it takes days rather than hours?” he asked, running his brow with his forefinger and thumb, under his grey hair.
“I don’t understand…”
“I’m…” he sighed, his patience thinning, his headache returning. “I’m not asking you to understand, I’m asking if you can do it”.
“I mean, I guess I could just find it, but not tell you right away?”
Jake stopped again, and started clacking his tongue against the inside of his mouth.
“Yeah, that should be fine. Inform me in… 5 days. And I’ll sort things over with Mr Collins” Jake said, nodding his head as if to cajole himself into following his own plan.
“Yes sir” the junior tech assistant said, and Jake smiled for the first time in years.
“Oh, and… whatever you do, do not read it. Just sit on the information and tell me in five days”
 
+
 
It started on a Thursday night. Mr Lewenburg and his staff were creaky under the onslaught of demand. Central Office had sent extra temps their way, as well as raising the prices, and none of it could help make a dent in the surging volume of customers. The only relief, the only reprieve, was that trading hours meant that they had to close at 10pm. And all the staff were grateful for that. Except Mr Lewenburg.
He didn’t enjoy working at the ice cream parlour these days. He always enjoyed the human interaction side of his job. But he was mainly serving zombies these days, people inured to any stimulus but of that which calories could provide. Instead, it was like working in a fast-food **. All speed, just cranking out service, without any of the human stuff that made it all worthwhile.
But the one thing he enjoyed less than being at work, was being at home. If he missed human interaction in the workplace, then he yearned for it at home. He pined for its passing. Mrs Lewenburg was a stranger to him, these days. All non-essential motor-functions shut off besides the same Epicurean ones that was 'affecting' everyone else in this city. At the end of the day, he just missed his wife.
“Let me guess, the four-scoop salted-caramel fudge bonanza”
Mr Lewenburg knew the order off by heart now. Days upon days of people asking for the same thing. The most indulgent, most sugary, most unhealthy thing on the parlour’s menu. Mr Collins’ idea, and, to be fair to the man, it was a good one. Certainly a popular one. And, just as importantly to him, an expensive one.
“No”
Mr Lewenburg looked up, confusion riven across his face. Was the person in line not one of the ‘affected’. His eyes then winced to realise that this was not the case. It was Juan and Cerys who, in his mind at least, were where it started.
They didn’t look the same as when it started. Juan was always a short guy, with dark hair and heavy eyebrows that he got from his mother. Now, the boy’s appearance could also be premodified as chunky. His chest too soft to be barrelled, the lower part of his dark-haired stomach picking in the gap between his too-tight polo shirt and his redundant belt buckle. No wonder his mum was so upset.
And next to him was Cerys. Golden haired, golden smiled Cerys. She had exploded in the seven weeks since they first came in. She was a fashion student who was always deeply conscientious about her appearance, and her build always reflected that. Slim, in the fashionable yet impractical way that her hobby espoused. Now, fashion had given away to convenience. A flowy summer frock that did little in the way of flowing. Instead, it suffocated itself around every mound of her build like it was a body-wrap, and the long length made so short that she was left barely decent, with beachball buttcheeks just a few inches of material away from revealing themselves. They did leave her legs, her most pronounced body part, rugged with cellulite and with thighs that were touching half way down to the knee.
“So, what can I do you kids for?” Mr Lewenburg asked, suspiciously.
“We…” Juan started.
“Well, I…”
“Yeah, she wants to custom make an order. Create one for herself”
“Yeah, like Minnie does at Kebabland…”
“When she custom-makes the Skinny Meal and then everyone calls it the Skinny Meal”
“Well, I wanna custom-make the Cerys Meal. Or Cerys Ice Cream, I guess. That would be pretty hot. And cold” and they both laughed at the appalling joke.
It was an unusual request, no doubt. But not that unusual. Indeed, it was a concept that was once planned on being rolled out across the various branches nationwide. And this meant that it was at least something that Mr Lewenburg was able to do.
“I guess… but it might be pricey” Mr Lewenburg said. “Can… why would a… sorry for asking this by the way but, why would a custom ice cream be…”
“Hot? Dude, it’s so hot. Food sex is the best, isn’t it C?”
“Yeah, it’s soooo good. Because I’m just laying back and Juan is just fucking me, and I’m just eating cake, sometimes he’s feeding me and sometimes I’m doing it myself, and I’m orgasming and… he’s eating cake while he’s thrusting and I’m just taking it. Just laying back, eating, and opening my legs wider than I used to, because they get in the way more than they used to, which is waaaay hot”
“And sometimes, I lean over her, and our bellies touch and it’s so hot. Like, I’m feeling it, right now. We’re gonna go wild when we get our ice-cream, I can tell” Juan added, unhelpfully.
Mr Lewenburg didn’t say anything. Even now, when he would have told you that nothing else was able to shock him, he had never been so shocked in his life.
 
+
 
“I wouldn’t tell him," Wolf said, looking typically stern. “I don’t trust him”.
Imran twitched nervously as somebody walked by behind them. They were walking down the street together, huddled as clearly in cahoots. Every passing person set off jitters and paranoia. They were clearly on edge to any idle passer-by. However, one feature of Coventry being recently stricken with this food frenzy virus was that there were simply fewer people walking about the streets. Walking wasted calories, you see.
“You think? That’s mad, bro. I mean, we only know each other because of him”
“Yeah, that’s what got me suspicious. How did he know about both of us?”
“Cos he some crazy, old, paranoid, white dude? Like you” Imran added helpfully on the end.
“I’ve been off the grid for years. And, anyway, like you say, I know crazy and paranoid, and he just seems to be playing it up a little too much. I don’t buy it. Plus, why did he try to get you not to involve the press?” Wolf added.
“I mean, that’s a good point. But who else am I gonna tell? He says don’t trust the journalist. You say don’t trust him. Who does that leave? I’m scared, bro. This is way not cool” Imran said, nervously.
“Just keep it together, laddie. It ain’t easy on anyone, I can’t even think about what it’s like to be you right now”
 
+
 
He’d caught glimpses of her. Robson had parked on the edge of the street, across the way from the house, hooked up on some un-passworded local area network. This way, he could do two jobs at once. Watch the house in case Hattie came out, and search old Twitch broadcasts to see if Morley Baker ever played co-op with a girl called Faziah.
The glimpses of her, proved she was in there. But they were only glimpses. He had no idea if she was gaining quite like this Faziah girl apparently was. There was no lasting image of her for his eye to drink in or digest. But, there was other evidence that she may be among the ‘affected’. Namely, that those glimpses were of her taking in a number of takeout orders from a number of takeaway establishments. Robson hadn’t seen anything like it before. Wave after wave of them, each unloading their respective wares to the half-opened door across the street.
But his interest was being directed elsewhere. To the sound coming his earbuds.
“Yeah, so we’re gonna be playing Plague Inc. with MadHatter and Shaymonster…”
Robson looked down at the screen sharply.
“And of course FeeFaiFoFum. Hey Faizah girl… long time”
It was a Twitch broadcast from 14 weeks back, two weeks before the disappearance. And Morley was talking to Faizah, and, by the sounds of it, Hattie and Shay too. There was the link. There was the connection that he had been looking for. Proof that the two investigations were somehow linked. But how? Robson’s heart galloped in his chest at the revelation. Maybe this, maybe Morley Baker, was how all of this, how it started.
 
+
 
Mr Lewenburg got in his house and sighed deeply. The lights were off in all rooms but the master bedroom. Or his wife’s bedroom as it had recently become. Slowly, with aching pains and weary shoulders, he hung his coat up and took his shoes off, and began to trundle up the stairs.
The house was dark at this time of night. Normally Mrs Lewenburg would leave the landing light on, just so he wasn’t left in the nighttime gloom. But she hadn’t done this for weeks now. He got to the top of the stairs and stopped, looking one way for the spare room and another for the master bedroom. Where his wife slept. Where he used to sleep. A fork in the road.
And maybe, if he had the chance to go back in time and revisit this moment, he would ask his previous self to change course. To go a different way. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe, if he had the chance, he would put his hand on his own shoulder and tell him that he knew what needed to be done. It was the right thing. And that he had no regrets. But there was no such hindsight-laden intervention, just a lonely married man at the top of the stairs, with a lot on his mind. And, for Mr Lewenburg, this was how it started.
He knocked on her door. Their door. The main bedroom door.
No answer didn’t mean she wasn’t there. More likely, it meant that she was eating, and the sight of her husband after a gruelling shift was not enough to engage her as much as consuming whatever gastronomy she had mustered for herself. And, with that, Mr Lewenburg walked in and saw his wife.
“Hi”
He said it with a deep, sorrowful voice, his head bowed out of shame and sadness. His wife was eating BBQ wings, and she was eating them with very little care for manners and good courtesy. It was as it was the night before and the night before that. And, without a response from her again, he continued.
“I just… I know you’re busy. I just wanted to check that you are okay, before I go… before I go… before I go and sleep in the spare room. My room. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know much of anything any more, to be honest, Esther. I feel… I feel all at a loss. Like the world is spinning and I can barely hang on. And it makes me feel tired. Like the world’s had enough of me. That it’s moved on. Or something. I dunno, I’m just tired maybe, long day. Anyway, just wanted to make sure that you’re okay” he said, slowly, quietly, each word climbing out of his mouth painfully.
“I’m fine”
That was the response. That was all it was. No acknowledgement of the pain. No recognition of the hurt. No care. Just a phone screen and BBQ wings. That was all she needed at that moment in time.
And if the initial decision to walk into the room was where it started, this moment marked the point where it continued. As he watched his extra-padded wife of decades barely recognise his voice; as he faced the prospect of another cold night in the spare room where the radiator doesn’t work and needs bleeding; as the realisation that this was how it was now. As he did all that, he remembered his conversation with Juan and Cerys, and made the decision.
“Hey, look, I know… it’s probably stupid of me to ask but… can I read one of those stories? I think I’d like to read one of those stories” he said. He wasn’t nervous when he said it, he simply didn’t have the energy. He just saw a fork in the road, and chose the one with his wife at the end of it.
“Really?” she replied, her face lighting up in a way that he hadn’t seen for days. He already felt better than he did five minutes ago.
“Yeah, I… is there one about a custom-made meal for one of the characters?” he asked, as she shuffled along in her bed to make room for him to sit next to her. “Called a Skinny meal or something?”.
 

Part 3
Flesh. Wet with sweat. Puddles of it. Waves of it. All of it to be climbed on.
“I am The Abyss, and I think it’s time I turned my gaze on you”
They kissed, and the darker skinned girl began to slide down her girlfriend’s body, kissing her all the way. She kissed her shoulders, pliable and soft. Then her upper chest, padded deep over her ribcage. Down to her breasts, swollen to the point where gravity was taking hold. Then down again, between the two breasts, slowly spilling to the side, splitting like the red sea that Moses divided. And to the stomach. Outward-pushing even on her back, and with the curved crenellations that ran down her side and towards her wide and plush hips.
“Well, you sure turned me gay for you” Faizah replied, between kisses. “I’m gay for this. And this. And this”
Hattie smiled as Faizah slipped lower, and lower. She reached for the millionaire’s shortbread on her bedstand, but could barely get the first piece in her mouth before Faizah had caused her to start gasping.
+
An email popped up in the corner of Robson’s screen. It was from his editor. He just threw it straight in the trash. He knew what it said, without even opening it. He hadn’t posted a story in three months, and he wasn’t paid to not post stories. Blah, blah, blah. Robson puffed his cheeks out. But his investigation into the disappearance of Morley Baker hadn’t gone anywhere. Leaving him with nothing to report. Which was bad news for a reporter.
A second email popped up. And this time, he didn’t delete it right away.
“You a reporter? I need to talk, bro. Something’s happening here. Something crazy, bro”
+
“So you call yourself The Resistance? Isn’t that… a bit predictable?” Robson asked, with his phone on the table recording the conversation. He was a softly figured gentleman. Gentle stubble, shallow hairline and washed away jawline. And he was staring sharply at his interviewee.
“Is it? I dunno, man. I am out of my depth here, bro. I don’t even know I can trust you. This guy, he’s a conspiracy nut, but with everything happening, now I’m getting paranoid”.
Imran twisted nervously in his seat, looking behind him every 30 seconds or so. The poor kid looked tired, even as he remained on edge. Like his battery was depleting. It was in his posture, the arch of his back. Something was clearly taking its toll.
“Look, it’s fine. The Guardian isn’t one of those newspapers owned by the Murdochs or the Barclays. We’re independent. And we’re good at this stuff” Robson said, reassuring the poor kid. He was only 18 and twitching like he was on something. Probably was. But Robson wasn’t exactly in a place to be picky right now.
“Cool. Cool. I needed to hear that, bro. Cos, you know, this stuff, man…”
“Just… take it from the top. What is it that you wanted to talk to me about?”
+
“Mrs Lewenburg? Great to finally speak. Your husband speaks about you all the time”
“Mmmhmmm” came the reply, flat and disinterested.
“Okaaaay. Umm.. is he in? Your husband? It’s Mr Collins. His boss? I… can you just pass the phone over or…”
“He’s gone out” came the reply again, this time it was clear that there was something in her mouth.
“You eating? Sounds delicious, whatever it is” Mr Collins said, more clunkily than he had intended. He winced as he said it, but it didn’t seem to get picked up on by Mrs Lewenburg.
“Oh god yeah” Mrs Lewenburg suddenly burst into life. “I’m eating these Paprika flavoured Pringles. You don’t really get them over here, but they’re huge in Europe. I mean, I guess technically we’re in Europe too. But they are sooo good. I’m on my second tube already. But I have a free hit, so why not?”
“A free hit? Okay. Umm… well, you know what? I bet I know what would go really well with those Pringles. Paprika, you said, right? Ice cream. Your husband’s parlour, my parlour. I mean, we’d love your custom and I bet that those Pringles would go really well with our new four-scoop salted caramel bonanza. It’s got fudge sauce, chocolate sauce, sprinkled, and two flakes” he smooth-talked down the line, constantly looking to upsell.
“Those flavours do sound good together. Good idea Mr…”
“Collins. But you can call me Colin. We’re all friends here” he smiled, and then the call was ended.
“You shouldn’t have done that, boss”
“I know. I just… it’s one of the ways I can’t help myself. Never miss a sale, Jake. That’s what I always say. Everyone’s a customer, sometimes they just don’t know it yet until you tell them. Don’t you agree, Jake?”
“Yes, boss”
+
“But, you say your sister is definitely… ‘patient zero’?” Robson frowned as he listened, not quite sure what to make of this. It was clearly some sort of nonsense. But what form of nonsense, he hadn’t decided yet.
“Well, I dunno, I think so. I don’t know anyone else who got it first but… like, she probably got it from work or university and I don’t go to either of those things! Like, when you are the youngest of five siblings, you don’t really keep up with all of them equally” Imran explained.
“And any of your brothers? Have they been… what did you call it… ‘affected’?”
“Yeah, like, my oldest brother is long gone, so he’s safe. He’s in the army. Second oldest married. He’s even having a child. Well, his wife is having a child, but you know what I mean. But my other brother, Muhammad, he hasn’t said anything about being ‘affected’, but you can just tell, bro. It’s in the eyes. And in the constant eating”
Robson pressed the end of his pen down and up and down and up again, while he leant back in his chair and thought. He wasn’t thinking about the case. Not directly. I mean, it was clearly just bullshit stacked upon bullshit. The kid was probably on drugs or pranking him or just exaggerating the truth. No, he was thinking about how it didn’t matter. He had to deliver a story.
The journalism game had all changed. His dad was a journo at The Telegraph. Opposite ends of the political spectrum, but it wasn’t quite as fascist back then as it was now. Or maybe nobody noticed back then like the screaming twitterati do now. It was never an easy career. The stereotypes about surviving on coffee, cigarettes and yesterday’s unironed shirts were a little closer to the truth than most stereotypes tended to be. But Robson was finding the profession different to the one his dad entered.
He got his first job as a temporary intern, five years ago, but rose fairly sharply. The surname helped and hindered, in that respect. But the shift in emphasis was already there. Journalism - as in good old-fashioned contacts-and-follow-ups investigative journalism - had basically bit the dust. Replaced with the clickbaiting, sensationalist op-ed writing. Opinion pieces were what drove the ad revenue, the subscription fees. People might like the journalism, but they clicked or they stayed for Owen Jones grumbling about how anti-semitism is important but not as important as socialism. Robson, in short, had joined a dying profession.
But his personal career wasn’t going to die just yet.
“Okay, I’ll look into this. I’ll find something. Something” Robson said, convincing himself as much as anything.
“Try A Free Hit. That’s the main story I’ve heard mentioned. But also there’s Burgermania, Playing Your Cards Right, and some girl called Rutherford apparently…”
“Rutherford is a girl’s name?”
“I didn’t even know it was a name” Imran shrugged.
“Fine. I’ll start there. I can do this. I will - I promise you - come away with something. I will not leave this story without a story” Robson said with razor-sharp sincerity, before grabbing his satchel and phone, and getting up to leave.
“See ya then, reporter-guy”
“See ya” Robson smiled back, before pausing. Something had been bugging him, this entire time. Gnawing on the inside of his brain like a parasite. It was the reason he was suspicious but also the reason he wanted to investigate this further. And he just couldn’t let it lie without asking. “Actually one last question.”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“Why me, Imran? Why some crappy, down-on-his-luck journo, instead of someone… y’know, good.”
“Cos you’re the only journalist whose name I know”
“And how do you know my name?”
“Because of that girl. The one you looked into”
“Morley Baker?”
Robson’s eyes ballooned at the mention of her. The girl that he had spent the past three months looking into. The girl who disappeared from her one bedroom flat in Surrey, leaving her 6-month old daughter behind with a neighbour. Nobody knew where she went, why she went, or even if she was taken. Just that a 22 year old girl vanished one night, without word to anyone, beyond the request for her neighbour to care for her child for a bit, and never seen again.
“Yeah, that’s the one. What’s this got to do with Morley Baker?”
“My sister said she used to play videogames with her. Online. And then she disappeared”
Morley Baker was a single-mother and a full-time video game player. Something called a livestreamer. Robson got given the case on account of his age. His boss reckoned that, if anyone in the team was going to know about Twitch livestreaming culture, it was the youngling of the group.
“And, who else did she play videogames with?”
“I dunno. Mainly randos I think. Subscribers or some shit. I don’t… I’m more of a FIFA guy. But sometimes Hattie and Shania played too, I think”
“And do you have Hattie and Shania’s surname?”
+
Three loud bangs on the door, and no answer.
Robson pulled back and looked up, to see the bedroom light upstairs on, but couldn’t here a thing. She was there. This Hattie girl. Her bedroom was the one on the front left where the light was pouring out. She was a student at Coventry University, along with this Shania girl. English and Media students. And it all felt strange that the two cases were connected. And, if Hattie actually came downstairs and answered the door, maybe answered some questions and cleared up some queries, this could all be resolved. But she didn’t. Unfortunately, Robson was just a journalist, and, at this point, there was nothing he could do. Except wait. And check out what Imran said about these livestreams.
+
When are u streamin nxt? - Codkiller42
Another DM that went unanswered. Hattie had absolutely no intention of even switching on her gaming PC. Just as she had no intention of answering the bangs on the front door earlier. And, fortunately for her, her parents didn’t either. Their priorities were as skewed as her own, these days. She was living in a Free Hit household these days.
So, instead, she was with the love of her life. Her very own Skinny. The Skinny to her Rutherford. Because that was the dynamic that her and Faizah were aspiring towards. And they were aspiring towards it at this very moment.
Hattie groaned loudly, between mouthfuls of chocolate cake, with frosting dripping down on her bed covers as she chewed. As Hattie pulled her head away, her mouth full with plenty to swallow now, Faizah took her turn to take a bite. More crumbs fell, but this time on the gently rising current of Hattie’s chest with each exaggerated and indulged breath.
“Feed me. Feed me more” she groaned, and Faizah reached over towards the cake at the side, and grabbed another slice.
“You’re addicted to me” Faizah smiled, as she pushed the slice towards Hattie’s mouth. She nodded, as her teeth clawed at the soft sponge.
“Guess what?” Hattie said, between groans and chews.
“What, love?”
“I’m 196”
“Oh my god, that’s hot. In two months, you’ve gained 55lbs. That’s so fucking hot, love”
“That’s what size Rutherford was at the buffet”
“Fuck, the Christmas buffet. Shit…” Faizah gasped at the memory of the scene.
“I can’t wait to be Betty Bollingbrooke-era Rutherford sized” Hattie grinned, and Faizah grunted.
“And you can be Sweeney from Burgermania…” Hattie continued, and Faizah gasped.
“But, from the epilogue…” and Faizah whimpered with joy.
“Where she’s all hallucinating and completely lost the plot…” Faizah groaned again.
“And she’s 700lbs…”
“704” Faizah corrected between jolts of delight.
“Yeah, both of us, eating ourselves beyond a horizon we’ll never reach”
“That sounds so fucking hot” Faizah wailed.
And the wailing continued for some time.
+
“He went to the fucking press?” Mr Collins raged.
“Yes sir”
“Who? Are they… would people notice if something befell them?” Mr Collins paced, chewing his own gums in frustration.
“Robson Cowley. Son of AA Cowley, the Telegraph guy. That alone probably puts him out of bounds. Sir”
“Fuck! Well, I guess it’s only a matter of time before the cat’s out the bag then…”
“It probably already is, sir”
“Why?” Mr Collins looked up.
“The House of Commons sir. PMQs. The MP for Coventry North mentioned the obesity epidemic in their constituency. People are starting to notice…”
“Well, we better speed these things along then. Pump every financial reserve into The Free Hit fund. I want to buy every independent fast-food store, every sweet store, every burger van, everything we can get our hands on before this thing goes viral. And, we need the original story. In case it gets suppressed, for whatever reasons. We need a copy, so we need to find out what this story is” Mr Collins said, walking up and down the length of his office.
“I really think we should hire a tech, sir”
“Fine. Do it. I guess plausible deniability isn’t gonna work much longer anyway. Oh, and reach out to that Imran kid can get it. Make it sound urgent. Make him… make him doubt the trustability of this journalist. I want The Resistance to think we’re on their side, so we can crush them” Mr Collins.
“Sir, it’s… they’re calling themselves The Renegades now”
“What was wrong with The Resistance?”
“Cliché, apparently”
“Either way, there won’t be much resistance once I’ve finished with them, isn’t that right Jake?”
“Yes sir”
+
“Nick’s here, shall I send him through”
“Yeah, sure” Nadia said, her head running through her hands. She knew this was coming. She, at least, hoped it would be remote. Via email or phone. But seeing the Chief Whip in person sounded like bad news.
“Hi, Nadia! How are you?”
“Nick, what a lovely treat” she smiled, crinkling her nose as she did so. It was an insincere crinkle, but she’d never met anyone who hadn’t fallen for it.
“It was about your question at PMQs…”
“About the obesity crisis in my constituency?” she asked, facing the politician with her sweetest smile. She knew this was coming, but she still clung to the hope that it wasn’t.
“Yes. Now, the leadership is completely okay with you raising the obesity issue. They’re in complete agreement on this…”
“Good”
Nadia braced herself for the ‘but’ that was about to follow.
It was always the same with Westminster politics. Cordial and polite on the surface, everyone always remembering their pleases and thank yous, but everyone was steely and ruthless under the surface. And the party leadership exemplified that. And the Chief Whip - the person in the party whose job it was to ensure that every MP marched to the beat of the leadership - exemplified that exemplification.
“But… there is a class angle here to consider. A lot of those seats in the North and the Midlands… the voters there… how do I put this? We, in the party, feel as though we’re attacking our own voter base here”
“Look, a constituent spoke to me on Friday, and I said I would…”
“Nadia! The working class are disproportionately affected by weight gain. It’s a class issue. Healthy food, gym passes, just not having to hold down two jobs while raising kids and thus have the energy to make healthier life choices… these make it easier for the elites to be healthy. But the working class, and we’re a working class party Nadia, they aren’t given the same opportunities to make those healthy choices”
“I wasn’t saying it was their fault. But, this is something I care about, Nick. Look, a man came to see me, a Jewish guy - and you know how we need to win back the Jewish community - and he’s… happily married to his wife for 22 years. He loves her more than anything. More than Keir loves that comb he keeps in his top pocket. He loves her. And, suddenly, she’s changed. She’s having an affair… with food. And his friends, and his friends kids… something is going on in my constituency and I have to be their voice. And… yeah, I get what you’re saying about victim-blaming. We shouldn’t do that. But, if something is going on here, we need to be the party that gets ahead of this”
Nick frowned. But it was a kind frown. He had an old, hangdog face, deeply malleable, and nobody could frown kindly quite like the Opposition’s Chief Whip.
“What do you mean, something is going on?”
“I dunno. Something. You remember how SARS was something. And the AIDS pandemic was something. Well, this is something too. And you know the anti-vaxxers and libertarians are gonna jump all over this bandwagon. We need to get on the side of popular opinion, and force Boris to choose between his libertarian backbenchers and what the people want. We need to get ahead of this. The Labour Party needs to be the anti-weight gain party”
“Hmmm… I’ll… report that back. We’ll do internal polling, see what the mood of the country is. So, you think this ‘weight gain epidemic’ might be… an actual epidemic?”
“Mr Lewenburg’s wife has gained 35lbs in just over a month. And he says the young people in the area are gaining even faster”
“We’ll have to make it sympathetic. Empowering people to make healthier choices. That kinda thing. I’ll run it by comms. Okay, I’ll… see what I can do”
“Thanks Nick” she said, with a crinkle of the nose. She meant it this time.
“But…” he added, and she winced. She forgot about the inevitable ‘but’ this time. “If you want to be the face of this, you might want to shave a few pounds of your own. You’re looking a bit… full-figured these days, to be lecturing on this issue”.
Nick smiled a kind smile, ripples of facial flesh on his old, hangdog face meaning that all of it was being used when he smiled. Nadia just looked down sheepishly, not even a crinkle of the nose could help here.
 

Part 2
It started just like any other day. With two scoops of ice cream.
“Are you sure you should be eating that?”
“Well, I’m not gonna drink it, am I? Silly-head!”
Cerys rolled her eyes at her boyfriend, Juan, before licking the bit that was about to drip on the table. Strawberry with bits. And a chocolate flake. Plus sprinkles.
“Ha, you’re so funny, C” he replied, with lacquered on sarcasm. He scrunched his face up in a sarcastic smile as an accompaniment, to make sure the meaning wasn’t lost.
“I know I am”
The meaning was lost.
The two sat at the table quietly after that, with Cerys preoccupied with her phone and her ice-cream, and her boyfriend checking out the latest Instagram story of his ex.
“Fuck me, hey Cerys, look at this” Juan said, sliding his mobile over to his girlfriend.
“I’m a bit busy at the minute”
“Yeah, whatever, you need to check this out, this is so mad, man. So, you remember my ex, Hattie? Yeah, well guess who got fat?”
“I think she looks cute” Cerys said, taking a quick glance off her own screen and onto his. Hattie was there, wearing skinny jeans that didn’t flatter her. With the tight black belt halfway up her midriff, it clearly cut her stomach into two, with bulges both over and underneath. Her arms looked chunky and her breasts looked full in her white top.
“Fuck that. She’s a right elephant now. You’re just saying that so I don’t nag you if you gain weight” he replied, with a cheeky grin.
“She’s just having fun. You’re only at university once. You might as well. It’s a free hit. Enjoy life. You’ve got just three years before…”
“What are you even going on about, C? She’s gained like 40lbs in 3 weeks. She’ll be huge come graduation. Absolutely...’”
“Rutherford size? Yeah, I know. Hot right? So I was reading this story. Marcie recommended it, I think Shay told her and…”
+
The media got wind of it not too many weeks after. Firstly, it was only local news. Reporters treating the piece as some sort of hokey ‘And finally…’ news item before the anchor could cut to the weather. The Coventry Telegraph reporting it as a cheap jokey piece about how young girls at the local university were deciding to cut loose a little. I mean, why not? After all, they were only at university three years and…
The reporter had to remind the interviewed student that they were actually on a four-year course, but the students didn’t seem to care.
The media interest was what alerted the conspiracists of Facebook. Leaving vaccinations, 5-G and George Soros alone for just one second, they diverted their gaze to this innocent little piece simmering in the local media. Obviously it was the water that caused it. Too much fluoride in the water altering their body’s metabolism. After all, User432HMax said on 8Chan that he was a doctor and this was all possible.
One post on Reddit was from a boy called Imran who claimed to be the brother of patient zero. It got downvoted to hell. Nobody is that gullible. His claim that his sister and mum now had it, that they were gaining weight at a staggering rate, and that they were enjoying it, seemed a little too far-fetched even for the tinfoil hat brigade.
Except, it seemed, one.
+
His legs curled up tight, his shoulders slunk. His face illuminated solely by the dull greenish light of his phone. His voice was a whisper. And he listened to the man on the other side of the phone.
“Do you know what the story is called?”
“No, I… should I even be talking to you about this? Man, this is like some spy shit, bro!”
Imran was sat in the family’s Toyota Carolla, rammed in the gloomy darkness of the external garage, away from his family. He was sunk deep into the backseat, desperately paranoid of being observed. Whatever had started over in this university town had got him anxious.
“Relax, you’re using a burner and the NSA don’t track calls from Nokias anyway, everyone knows that” the gruff voice from the other line said. “Now, what’s the story called?”
“I dunno, bro. Like… how do I even find out?”
+
“Hey, sis… can I…” Imran said quietly, walking into his sister’s room. It hadn’t improved since that time his mum had ventured in there. In fact, it had deteriorated no end now that the person responsible for the shopping was a willing ally.
“Yeah, whatever” she said, not looking up. Her eyes locked in a dancer’s embrace with the Swahilimonkfish Deviant Art page.
She looked different from when he last saw her. Which was just three days ago. Which was different from the three days before that. Young Faizah had yet to go clothes shopping since the day it started for her, when she tried to entice her best friend Hettie to go, simply to coax her out of an eating frenzy. That simple, innocent and good-hearted decision, now six weeks ago, had thrust her along the same path. A path where shopping for clothes only sounded good if they could stop off at the indoor food market before. And after.
So, six weeks of unabated gluttony later, and Faizah was just wearing her blue cotton nightgown. And just about wearing it too. The formerly slinky minx was now awash with supple-skinned softness and pillowy billowing. Her breasts strained against the quondam loose covering, her stomach outlining itself against the blue material that, when sitting down, as she was here and invariably, the small **-hole of her navel could be spotted through it.
None of this caused her to interrupt her ice cream sundae.
“Just wandering, y’know that story you’re reading?..”
“Mmmhmm”
“Could you tell me the name? My… mates would love to read it too”
Suddenly her eyes, glazed over like the donuts she had eaten just an hour earlier, suddenly burst to life.
“Well… which story? Cos, I’m more of a Burgermania girl cos Sweeney is ma girl, but I am totally loving Rosie Richards at the minute. Shay is all about Betty Bollingbrooke because - I wonder why, let me think. Then there’s Cerys’ favourite, Playing Your Cards Right, cos she’s a soft girl at heart. Oh, and Hattie is all about The Free Hit, still. I mean, you gotta love the classics, right? Like the way Rutherford loves classic films, only how it's actually only a façade to build her persona to hide her insecurities and then it gets thrown out of the window when the fun kicks in”
Imran stood still for a second.
“And mum?”
“Something called Mandy Lee’s Chance Meeting in Camelot. Not my jam, but she is so into it. No, I recommend A Free Hit as a starter or Playing Your Cards Right as a mild intro. Don’t go straight for the heavy stuff. You aren’t ready for I’m Addicted To You yet. Oh, and could you pass me that second ice cream sundae bro? Even though it’s Thursday, right? Not Sunday? Ahh man, that joke kills in Burgermania. Such a good story”
+
“Burgermania, she said?” the voice on the other end of the line asked.
“Yeah, I mean, she had her mouth full but…”
“I’m searching for it - in a public cafe, I’m not a noob - and all I’m finding is fast-food chains by that name. One in Denmark, one in the Netherlands… is it one word or two?”
“I mean, how do I know, bro? She didn’t exactly write it down for me. She’s gone, bro. Like, gone. That girl there, she wasn’t my sister. I didn’t even recognise her”
Imran said, burying himself deep into the back seat footwells of the Toyota.
“It’ll be the electro-magnetic waves, it’s fine. They won’t stick unless you live near a mast. Anyway, anything else? Cos I can’t find anything. Unless the CCP have already deleted it. They liaise with the NSA and…”
“Something about A Free Hit…”
“No, I’m just seeing a book about women’s cricket…”
+
Mr Lewenburg was looking forward to today. It wasn’t every day that the CEO came to visit, after all. Mr Lewenburg was just the person responsible for running an ice cream parlour just on the edge of Coventry, and this time two months ago, was high on the list for closure. Then, Cerys and her boyfriend bought their first ice cream from there. That was when it started.
He sat down, and then stood up again, before straightening his suit one more time with his hand. He needed to do something with his hands, otherwise he would just spend the entire meeting twisting his wedding band anxiously. God, his wife was so proud. At least, until she became distracted…
“Hey, Mr Collins, welcome to… well, your parlour. One of your parlours. I dunno… I”
Mr Lewenburg spluttered out as two men with grey hair and greyer suits walked in.
“Not just one of my parlours. My number one parlour. Your figures are off the roof. Listen, I don’t know how you did it, but I said to Jake, I said ‘Mr Lewenburg, he knows his customers’. Didn’t I say that, Jake? Didn’t I? Didn’t I say he’d turn it around?”
“Sure did, boss” the second grey-haired man in a grey suit said.
“I sure do know my customers”
“But… in all serious… I gotta ask… how you do it? Like, the numbers are crazy. Great, but crazy. Like, what’s your secret? It’s not money laundering, is it? Cos, I… we have enough trouble as it is with HMRC as it is and…”
“Honestly, I dunno…”
“Ahh, that’s disappointing. I was hoping you’d know. Wasn’t I hoping he’d know, Jake?”
“Sure were, boss”
“Mr Collins…”
“Please… Colin. We’re all friends here. It’s a family company. Call me Colin”
Mr Lewenburg caught himself fiddling with his wedding band again. He was just so nervous and, well, it would have been nice if he had an explanation for the sudden surge in trade.
“Sure. Sure. So, Colin… I honestly… it’s the locals. They’ve… gone mad. They’ve…”
“That’s what I like to hear, Mr Lewenburg, isn’t it Jake? Which one?”
“What?”
“No, let me guess, mint choc chip? No, that’s too traditional. Ahh, salted caramel? Is it salted caramel? It’s always salted caramel, isn’t it Jake? It’s the zeitgeist, you see. You gotta… always be moving forward. Like a shark. Or a pig on an escalator. Isn’t that right, Jake?”
“Sure is, boss”
“Actually, it’s… all of them. I mean, don’t get me wrong, salted caramel is doing well. Like, I mean, really well. But all of them are. Choc chip, raspberry ripple, vanilla…”
“Vanilla is doing well?”
“Yeah, it’s…”
“But, nobody likes vanilla. Vanilla is the beige of ice cream. The ‘ready salted’ of ice cream. It’s like I always say, ‘why does vanilla have to be so…’”
“Vanilla?”
“Exactly!” Mr Collins said, with an assertive point.
“I… It’s not just this place. All the food joints around the northern parts of Coventry are all doing a roaring trade. I don’t know what it is, but something…” and Mr Lewenburg paused, and began twisting his wedding ring about his finger again, thinking about his wife. “Something is going on with the people here”.
“Well, whatever’s going on here… I just hope they roll it out nationally”
+
And, just as Mr Collins had hoped for, it started to get rolled out nationally. Or, at least, bleed into other nearby regions. Mainly Coventry still, but slowly rearing its head in Nuneaton now too. It was still largely geographically contained, but the area that was containing it was growing at about the same rate as those within it.
At a local level though, it was all anybody in Coventry city centre ever talked about. There were those who were ‘affected’ and those who weren’t. The disembodied voice on the end of the phone had put Imran together with someone else, an old military man who preferred to be known simply as Wolf. Together, they began to reach out to others in the community who also hadn’t been ‘affected’. Slowly, a rebel group formed.
+
“I just want my wife back, y’know? Like, I don’t care about the dress size, I really don’t. It’s just… her eyes. Y’know. It’s… they’re different. Like she’s not there. Not fully. Just a faint whisper of her, drowned out by a cacophony of feeding and reading”
Mr Lewenburg said to the group, fiddling with his wedding band.
“And the masturbating. Have you… have any of you…”
The rest of the group nodded in agreement. They all knew about the masturbating. It was a frenzy, and it was getting worse. The more they ate, the more they pleasured themselves. Until it was relentless. Each and every member sitting around in the darkened room in the town hall could remember the loud groans of whichever loved one they knew that was caught up in it. Groans louder than anything Mr Lewenburg had ever elicited from his wife.
“And… I’m worried this is my fault. I… I think I did this”
“What do you mean?” Imran said, leaning forward with suspicion. Wolf leaning forward at the same time and with the same intent, as if part of a post-modern dance troupe.
“I wished for this. You know. For something… it’s hard to explain. I… my business was doing really badly and we were struggling to make ends meet and I was worried they’d shut my store down and I just… I know you shouldn’t… but I just… I spent evening prayers praying for a change in fortunes. I feel like Mr White with that monkey paw, wishing for just £200”
The group just looked sadly at Mr Lewenburg, who was sobbing now. There couldn’t be a more innocent, well-meaning man than he, and nobody could muster the slightest amount of blame for the poor man. Except for Mrs Pique.
“My son. My son caught this… whatever it is… from your ice cream parlour. You gilipollas” she spat out aggressively.
“Yo! Hey, chill! Alright… it’s not Mr Lewenburg. Okay? Look, it got my sister before it got Juan and Cerys. So… I think maybe my sister is patient zero” Imran interrupted. “Now, we any further on these stories?”
The group fell quiet. One man raised his voice.
“I haven’t heard from Alistair since he said he’d have a look for us”
“I have… he came into the parlour the other day. Ordered four scoops. And flake, sprinkles, you name it. It got him too” Mr Lewenburg muttered forlornly.
“So, we need to find out about these stories, but without actually reading the bastard things. Like trying to slay a Gorgon. And I need to talk to my sister again. Because we need to find out how it started” Imran added, assertively. Finding his stride, leading this band of desperate men and women.
Wolf, dressed still in camo despite being kicked out of the army a good twenty years ago and despite the interior of this particular town hall not being entirely conducive to traditional jungle camouflage, grizzled his own tenpenneth in.
“We need outside help. Anyone here know the names of any of them journalist people?”
+
“We any further on these stories, Jake?”
Mr Collins pulled down his office blinds before asking.
“Nothing, boss, I’m afraid. Do you want us to get a tech nerd… guy… person, to deal with it. I feel we could really do with the expertise”
Mr Collins sat back in his chair and tapped his desk while thinking.
“No. Not yet. I want this staying between us two, for now. But, ummm… expand the Free Hit Fund though. I want investment in all the places that can profit from this when this thing blows. And, you know what I always say Jake, everything blows eventually”
“Sure thing, boss” Jake said.
“And one more thing, Jake…”
“Yes boss?”
“Press that Imran kid a bit further. I really wanna find it out. I wanna control the flow of information on this. And, whatever you do, keep up the nutty conspiracist thing. I want him to think we’re on his side”
 

Part 1
 
It started simply enough. Fingers dragging along a touchpad. Press down on the link, and it opened. It wasn’t the first time that Hettie had gone down a rabbit hole. No reason to think that this was different. Just an idle journey to a corner of the internet. And that was how it started.
The next day, and she was there again. Retracing her steps down the same rabbit hole that she had visited the day previous. Reading black words on blueish-grey background, eyes drifting slowly from left to right, until the line ended, and then back to the first line again. And, as she re-scanned the words that she was first acquainted not twenty four hours earlier, her hand drifted towards the millionnaire’s shortbread on her desk, half-eaten. It wasn’t half-eaten for long.
The day after, Hettie met up with some friends outside the lecture hall at the University of Coventry. They stood around in their flock and looked at their phones, occasionally unattending the screens to talk about how hard this week’s reading was. Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Will Self’s Quantity of Madness. Men and their stories. But Hettie wasn’t listening. Hettie wasn’t looking up from her phone. The pixels that she was staring at, had her eyes in a vice-grip. The other hand was in a packet of doughnuts. None of the other girls said anything, but they all noticed.
It took Faizah to intervene, a few days later. They hadn’t seen much of Hettie. The bouncy girl with the giddy smile. Missing the flat party and the Pride march set off alarms. So, Faizah intervened.
“Hey babe… you okay?”
“Mmmhmm”
Faizah paused, and collected her smile again.
“It’s just that we were hoping to go out. Do some shopping. Shay’s coming too”
“Don’t like Shay”
“Oh. Umm… since when?”
“Dunno”
Hettie hadn’t really looked up from her laptop the entire time. Eyes doing that march across the screen, like tired lemmings. The hand not on her keypad, was bringing a slice of cake to her lips. Most of it ended up between them. Some ended up on them.
“We were thinking of clothes shopping, maybe? Come on babe, Top Shop has a sale on, the store’s closing or something and…”
“I’m good”
“Are you though? You look like you could do with some new clothes”
It had only been a week. A week since it started. And the evidence had still made itself apparent. Hettie was never the most lithe girl. Not every curve was in the right place. Boxy was an adjective that had been used in the past, though only by those with a cruel way with words. But, especially compared to Faizah, with an elegant pose to go with her elegant shape.
Hettie was, undoubtedly, boxier than the week before. Fluffier. More cuddle-some. The undone button on her size 12 jeans were a feature that the previous seven days had forced upon her. The way her striped top pulled tight across her chest another strain of proof. 7 days had made 7 pounds. And the cause was smeared around her lips.
“Look, are you okay, babe? You can talk to me, you know?”
“I know”
Hettie still hadn’t looked up. Her eyes like an unattended lighthouse, with nobody to switch its beam on.
“You’ve… are you stressed? Everything okay at home? What aren’t you telling me babe? I’m a little worried”
“I’m fine”
Faizah took a deep sigh. She wouldn’t normally say what came next, but a perfect storm of concern and frustration were the perfect invitation for harsher words.
“You’ve been eating… well. Like, quite a bit, recently”
“Have I?”
Hattie replied, as the cake slice rose to her maw once more.
“Yeah, you’ve… I think you might have put on a few. Quite a few, actually. I’m… well, me and the girls, we… we’re a bit worried”
Hattie paused. Her eyes for the first time left the blasted screen, and worked there way up to Faizah. There was somebody home in there, at all.
“It’s fine Faizah. Honestly, it is. I’m just… cutting loose a bit. I mean, you’re only at university once. Why not? After this, it’s all desk jobs and drudgery. So, I’m enjoying myself for these three years. Three years of freedom. Before the bone-crushing reality of adult inevitability. To do whatever the fuck we want. So I’m savouring it. Enjoying it. Making the most of it. Because, after these three years, life starts. This is all just the prelude”
And with that, Hattie’s eyes turned back to her screen. And Faizah just stood there, her mouth open wider than Hattie’s.
“What’s got into you, Hattie? You are acting so fucking weird, you’re creeping me out. And what the… actual… fuck… is on that laptop that is so fucking enchanting?”
If she hadn’t have asked that question, at that precise point in time, maybe it would have ended. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it was destined to leak out anyway. I guess we’ll never know. But things are the way they are, and things were the way they were and Faizah asked that question. And it was then that that which had at that point merely started, continued.
+
Hafsah went to reach in the cupboard for her crisps. For 30 of her 42 years, she had always ended her evening with a packet of Walker’s salt and vinegar crisps. Just part of her evening routine. The soft potato chip, the quiet sharpness of the vinegar’s acid, and Eastenders on the telly. It was just how it was. It was just how it always was. But it wasn’t that way tonight.
“Imran!”
She waited for the inevitable grumble, the lumbering footsteps and her youngest son to appear in the kitchen. But nothing.
“IMRAN!”
She stood still and sighed. No noise but the clicking of the kitchen clock on the wall. He must have had his headphones on. Kids and their bloody headphones.
She dragged herself up the stairs, muttering under her breath about it was always the same with the youngest one. Not like his brothers, or his sister, it was always the youngest one. At the top of the stairs and first bedroom to the right, she banged on the door.
No reply, so she opened it.
“Oh my god mum, don’t you knock!” he said, crouching beneath his bed to hide his naked body.
“I literally just knocked and you didn’t answer!”
“I was having a shower”
“You should have still answered”
“I didn’t hear! I was having a shower! What the hell, you’re so embarrassing!”
His mum just rolled her eyes at him.
“You know, I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed, I’ve seen it all before. You were born naked you know”
“Oh my god mama, you’re so embarrassing at times…” he paused with his eyebrows raised. “...Well?”
“What?”
“What is it that you want?”
“My crisps”
“You are kidding me. For real? You broke into my room…”
“I didn’t break in. It’s my room and your father’s room. We paid for it. If you want to put some money towards the mortgage, that’s fine. Then maybe it will be your room. But, until then, it’s my room and you are a guest. Now where are my crisps?”
“I don’t know!”
“Don’t you lie to me, Imran. I know it’s you”
“It’s not. For real, it’s not”
“Well then, who had them? Because they’re not there. I bought an 8-pack of them yesterday and now they’re gone. You better not be selling them, trying to make money of my crisps. You’re as bad as your father, Imran”
She folded her arms assertively.
“It’s… try next door. I don’t know, but I bet she’s got them”
“Your sister? Your sister wouldn’t pull anything like this. She’s a good girl, unlike you”
“Because I’m not a girl or because I’m not good…”
“Don’t you get smart with me, Imran, I swear to Him I will…”
“She’s been acting weird all week. I bet it’s her. I bet it’s Faizah who took them. Like crisps are so important anyway”
Within thirty seconds of that defence, there was another bang on the door. On the door of her only daughter, Faizah. Because, the truth of the matter was that Imran was right. About her daughter at least, he was wrong about pretty much everything else. But Faizah had been acting weird, and she had been acting that way all week. Faizah was a good girl. First woman in the family to go to university, paying her way through it by working evenings and weekends, and when all the other girls were philandering with boys and smoking ** in dingy student accommodation she was at home, with her parents, as it should be. This Coventry girl had dun good. At least, until the past week.
It started with a McDonalds. McFlurry and all. The empty packet was left in the outside bin, her mum noticed it when she emptied the dyson. It continued with fish and chips on the way back from campus. Faizah never ate chips. It was the enemy of a good skin complexion and was thus an enemy of Faizah. By the time that the weekend had swung around, baklava had been laid to waste, caramel fudge cake turned to ash and crumb, apple and blackcurrant pie put out to pasture.
“Faizah! You open this door, girl!
The room was not the room her mother remembered. Brown and orange walls, like something from the sixties, and just a bed and a dressing table for furniture. And a sea of silver-foiled detritus on the floor.
“Where are my crisps, girl? You better not have eaten them? Where are they?”
“Dunno”
“Wh… what sort of way is that to talk to your mother? Now, answer me properly when I talk! Look at me when I am talking to you, young woman!”
Faizah was near horizontal on the bed, and gradually lowered her laptop screen, to see her mum peering over it with her arms crossed. She made no sound, but she looked, with tired eyes. When was the last time that she had slept?
“What’s going on, Fai? This isn’t you. You’re a good girl. What… is it a boy? Because some boys your age are good-for-nothing…”
“Mum, I’m just busy reading”
“For university?”
“No, just… a story”
“What story?”
“Just a… well, come here mum, and I’ll show you. I think you’ll like it” her daughter moved the laptop to her side to make room for her mum to sit next to her. It was then that Hafsah got a full look at her daughter. A week later of utterly turpid eating habits rested ever so gently above the waistline of her pj shorts. Her daughter, her little daughter, her little angel, was looking a little less little than usual.
“What is it? I might have read it already?”
“I doubt it. It’s an online thing. It’s really good. It’s called A Free Hit. It’s by this author called Swahilimonkfish and it’s really good”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about these young girls who go to university and… they decide to cut loose a little, since you’re only at university once. Why not? After this, it’s all desk jobs and drudgery. So, they’re enjoying themselves for these three years. Three years of freedom. Before the bone-crushing reality of adult inevitability. To do whatever the fuck they want. So they’re savouring it. Enjoying it. Making the most of it. Because, after these three years, life starts. This is all just the prelude”
And with that, her mother cautiously sat down, with a reserved scowl on her forehead. And so it continued, just as it started.
 

Meta and hot as hell. Weird and excellent ideas.

Part 2
It started just like any other day. With two scoops of ice cream.
“Are you sure you should be eating that?”
“Well, I’m not gonna drink it, am I? Silly-head!”
Cerys rolled her eyes at her boyfriend, Juan, before licking the bit that was about to drip on the table. Strawberry with bits. And a chocolate flake. Plus sprinkles.
“Ha, you’re so funny, C” he replied, with lacquered on sarcasm. He scrunched his face up in a sarcastic smile as an accompaniment, to make sure the meaning wasn’t lost.
“I know I am”
The meaning was lost.
The two sat at the table quietly after that, with Cerys preoccupied with her phone and her ice-cream, and her boyfriend checking out the latest Instagram story of his ex.
“Fuck me, hey Cerys, look at this” Juan said, sliding his mobile over to his girlfriend.
“I’m a bit busy at the minute”
“Yeah, whatever, you need to check this out, this is so mad, man. So, you remember my ex, Hattie? Yeah, well guess who got fat?”
“I think she looks cute” Cerys said, taking a quick glance off her own screen and onto his. Hattie was there, wearing skinny jeans that didn’t flatter her. With the tight black belt halfway up her midriff, it clearly cut her stomach into two, with bulges both over and underneath. Her arms looked chunky and her breasts looked full in her white top.
“Fuck that. She’s a right elephant now. You’re just saying that so I don’t nag you if you gain weight” he replied, with a cheeky grin.
“She’s just having fun. You’re only at university once. You might as well. It’s a free hit. Enjoy life. You’ve got just three years before…”
“What are you even going on about, C? She’s gained like 40lbs in 3 weeks. She’ll be huge come graduation. Absolutely...’”
“Rutherford size? Yeah, I know. Hot right? So I was reading this story. Marcie recommended it, I think Shay told her and…”
+
The media got wind of it not too many weeks after. Firstly, it was only local news. Reporters treating the piece as some sort of hokey ‘And finally…’ news item before the anchor could cut to the weather. The Coventry Telegraph reporting it as a cheap jokey piece about how young girls at the local university were deciding to cut loose a little. I mean, why not? After all, they were only at university three years and…
The reporter had to remind the interviewed student that they were actually on a four-year course, but the students didn’t seem to care.
The media interest was what alerted the conspiracists of Facebook. Leaving vaccinations, 5-G and George Soros alone for just one second, they diverted their gaze to this innocent little piece simmering in the local media. Obviously it was the water that caused it. Too much fluoride in the water altering their body’s metabolism. After all, User432HMax said on 8Chan that he was a doctor and this was all possible.
One post on Reddit was from a boy called Imran who claimed to be the brother of patient zero. It got downvoted to hell. Nobody is that gullible. His claim that his sister and mum now had it, that they were gaining weight at a staggering rate, and that they were enjoying it, seemed a little too far-fetched even for the tinfoil hat brigade.
Except, it seemed, one.
+
His legs curled up tight, his shoulders slunk. His face illuminated solely by the dull greenish light of his phone. His voice was a whisper. And he listened to the man on the other side of the phone.
“Do you know what the story is called?”
“No, I… should I even be talking to you about this? Man, this is like some spy shit, bro!”
Imran was sat in the family’s Toyota Carolla, rammed in the gloomy darkness of the external garage, away from his family. He was sunk deep into the backseat, desperately paranoid of being observed. Whatever had started over in this university town had got him anxious.
“Relax, you’re using a burner and the NSA don’t track calls from Nokias anyway, everyone knows that” the gruff voice from the other line said. “Now, what’s the story called?”
“I dunno, bro. Like… how do I even find out?”
+
“Hey, sis… can I…” Imran said quietly, walking into his sister’s room. It hadn’t improved since that time his mum had ventured in there. In fact, it had deteriorated no end now that the person responsible for the shopping was a willing ally.
“Yeah, whatever” she said, not looking up. Her eyes locked in a dancer’s embrace with the Swahilimonkfish Deviant Art page.
She looked different from when he last saw her. Which was just three days ago. Which was different from the three days before that. Young Faizah had yet to go clothes shopping since the day it started for her, when she tried to entice her best friend Hettie to go, simply to coax her out of an eating frenzy. That simple, innocent and good-hearted decision, now six weeks ago, had thrust her along the same path. A path where shopping for clothes only sounded good if they could stop off at the indoor food market before. And after.
So, six weeks of unabated gluttony later, and Faizah was just wearing her blue cotton nightgown. And just about wearing it too. The formerly slinky minx was now awash with supple-skinned softness and pillowy billowing. Her breasts strained against the quondam loose covering, her stomach outlining itself against the blue material that, when sitting down, as she was here and invariably, the small **-hole of her navel could be spotted through it.
None of this caused her to interrupt her ice cream sundae.
“Just wandering, y’know that story you’re reading?..”
“Mmmhmm”
“Could you tell me the name? My… mates would love to read it too”
Suddenly her eyes, glazed over like the donuts she had eaten just an hour earlier, suddenly burst to life.
“Well… which story? Cos, I’m more of a Burgermania girl cos Sweeney is ma girl, but I am totally loving Rosie Richards at the minute. Shay is all about Betty Bollingbrooke because - I wonder why, let me think. Then there’s Cerys’ favourite, Playing Your Cards Right, cos she’s a soft girl at heart. Oh, and Hattie is all about The Free Hit, still. I mean, you gotta love the classics, right? Like the way Rutherford loves classic films, only how it's actually only a façade to build her persona to hide her insecurities and then it gets thrown out of the window when the fun kicks in”
Imran stood still for a second.
“And mum?”
“Something called Mandy Lee’s Chance Meeting in Camelot. Not my jam, but she is so into it. No, I recommend A Free Hit as a starter or Playing Your Cards Right as a mild intro. Don’t go straight for the heavy stuff. You aren’t ready for I’m Addicted To You yet. Oh, and could you pass me that second ice cream sundae bro? Even though it’s Thursday, right? Not Sunday? Ahh man, that joke kills in Burgermania. Such a good story”
+
“Burgermania, she said?” the voice on the other end of the line asked.
“Yeah, I mean, she had her mouth full but…”
“I’m searching for it - in a public cafe, I’m not a noob - and all I’m finding is fast-food chains by that name. One in Denmark, one in the Netherlands… is it one word or two?”
“I mean, how do I know, bro? She didn’t exactly write it down for me. She’s gone, bro. Like, gone. That girl there, she wasn’t my sister. I didn’t even recognise her”
Imran said, burying himself deep into the back seat footwells of the Toyota.
“It’ll be the electro-magnetic waves, it’s fine. They won’t stick unless you live near a mast. Anyway, anything else? Cos I can’t find anything. Unless the CCP have already deleted it. They liaise with the NSA and…”
“Something about A Free Hit…”
“No, I’m just seeing a book about women’s cricket…”
+
Mr Lewenburg was looking forward to today. It wasn’t every day that the CEO came to visit, after all. Mr Lewenburg was just the person responsible for running an ice cream parlour just on the edge of Coventry, and this time two months ago, was high on the list for closure. Then, Cerys and her boyfriend bought their first ice cream from there. That was when it started.
He sat down, and then stood up again, before straightening his suit one more time with his hand. He needed to do something with his hands, otherwise he would just spend the entire meeting twisting his wedding band anxiously. God, his wife was so proud. At least, until she became distracted…
“Hey, Mr Collins, welcome to… well, your parlour. One of your parlours. I dunno… I”
Mr Lewenburg spluttered out as two men with grey hair and greyer suits walked in.
“Not just one of my parlours. My number one parlour. Your figures are off the roof. Listen, I don’t know how you did it, but I said to Jake, I said ‘Mr Lewenburg, he knows his customers’. Didn’t I say that, Jake? Didn’t I? Didn’t I say he’d turn it around?”
“Sure did, boss” the second grey-haired man in a grey suit said.
“I sure do know my customers”
“But… in all serious… I gotta ask… how you do it? Like, the numbers are crazy. Great, but crazy. Like, what’s your secret? It’s not money laundering, is it? Cos, I… we have enough trouble as it is with HMRC as it is and…”
“Honestly, I dunno…”
“Ahh, that’s disappointing. I was hoping you’d know. Wasn’t I hoping he’d know, Jake?”
“Sure were, boss”
“Mr Collins…”
“Please… Colin. We’re all friends here. It’s a family company. Call me Colin”
Mr Lewenburg caught himself fiddling with his wedding band again. He was just so nervous and, well, it would have been nice if he had an explanation for the sudden surge in trade.
“Sure. Sure. So, Colin… I honestly… it’s the locals. They’ve… gone mad. They’ve…”
“That’s what I like to hear, Mr Lewenburg, isn’t it Jake? Which one?”
“What?”
“No, let me guess, mint choc chip? No, that’s too traditional. Ahh, salted caramel? Is it salted caramel? It’s always salted caramel, isn’t it Jake? It’s the zeitgeist, you see. You gotta… always be moving forward. Like a shark. Or a pig on an escalator. Isn’t that right, Jake?”
“Sure is, boss”
“Actually, it’s… all of them. I mean, don’t get me wrong, salted caramel is doing well. Like, I mean, really well. But all of them are. Choc chip, raspberry ripple, vanilla…”
“Vanilla is doing well?”
“Yeah, it’s…”
“But, nobody likes vanilla. Vanilla is the beige of ice cream. The ‘ready salted’ of ice cream. It’s like I always say, ‘why does vanilla have to be so…’”
“Vanilla?”
“Exactly!” Mr Collins said, with an assertive point.
“I… It’s not just this place. All the food joints around the northern parts of Coventry are all doing a roaring trade. I don’t know what it is, but something…” and Mr Lewenburg paused, and began twisting his wedding ring about his finger again, thinking about his wife. “Something is going on with the people here”.
“Well, whatever’s going on here… I just hope they roll it out nationally”
+
And, just as Mr Collins had hoped for, it started to get rolled out nationally. Or, at least, bleed into other nearby regions. Mainly Coventry still, but slowly rearing its head in Nuneaton now too. It was still largely geographically contained, but the area that was containing it was growing at about the same rate as those within it.
At a local level though, it was all anybody in Coventry city centre ever talked about. There were those who were ‘affected’ and those who weren’t. The disembodied voice on the end of the phone had put Imran together with someone else, an old military man who preferred to be known simply as Wolf. Together, they began to reach out to others in the community who also hadn’t been ‘affected’. Slowly, a rebel group formed.
+
“I just want my wife back, y’know? Like, I don’t care about the dress size, I really don’t. It’s just… her eyes. Y’know. It’s… they’re different. Like she’s not there. Not fully. Just a faint whisper of her, drowned out by a cacophony of feeding and reading”
Mr Lewenburg said to the group, fiddling with his wedding band.
“And the masturbating. Have you… have any of you…”
The rest of the group nodded in agreement. They all knew about the masturbating. It was a frenzy, and it was getting worse. The more they ate, the more they pleasured themselves. Until it was relentless. Each and every member sitting around in the darkened room in the town hall could remember the loud groans of whichever loved one they knew that was caught up in it. Groans louder than anything Mr Lewenburg had ever elicited from his wife.
“And… I’m worried this is my fault. I… I think I did this”
“What do you mean?” Imran said, leaning forward with suspicion. Wolf leaning forward at the same time and with the same intent, as if part of a post-modern dance troupe.
“I wished for this. You know. For something… it’s hard to explain. I… my business was doing really badly and we were struggling to make ends meet and I was worried they’d shut my store down and I just… I know you shouldn’t… but I just… I spent evening prayers praying for a change in fortunes. I feel like Mr White with that monkey paw, wishing for just £200”
The group just looked sadly at Mr Lewenburg, who was sobbing now. There couldn’t be a more innocent, well-meaning man than he, and nobody could muster the slightest amount of blame for the poor man. Except for Mrs Pique.
“My son. My son caught this… whatever it is… from your ice cream parlour. You gilipollas” she spat out aggressively.
“Yo! Hey, chill! Alright… it’s not Mr Lewenburg. Okay? Look, it got my sister before it got Juan and Cerys. So… I think maybe my sister is patient zero” Imran interrupted. “Now, we any further on these stories?”
The group fell quiet. One man raised his voice.
“I haven’t heard from Alistair since he said he’d have a look for us”
“I have… he came into the parlour the other day. Ordered four scoops. And flake, sprinkles, you name it. It got him too” Mr Lewenburg muttered forlornly.
“So, we need to find out about these stories, but without actually reading the bastard things. Like trying to slay a Gorgon. And I need to talk to my sister again. Because we need to find out how it started” Imran added, assertively. Finding his stride, leading this band of desperate men and women.
Wolf, dressed still in camo despite being kicked out of the army a good twenty years ago and despite the interior of this particular town hall not being entirely conducive to traditional jungle camouflage, grizzled his own tenpenneth in.
“We need outside help. Anyone here know the names of any of them journalist people?”
+
“We any further on these stories, Jake?”
Mr Collins pulled down his office blinds before asking.
“Nothing, boss, I’m afraid. Do you want us to get a tech nerd… guy… person, to deal with it. I feel we could really do with the expertise”
Mr Collins sat back in his chair and tapped his desk while thinking.
“No. Not yet. I want this staying between us two, for now. But, ummm… expand the Free Hit Fund though. I want investment in all the places that can profit from this when this thing blows. And, you know what I always say Jake, everything blows eventually”
“Sure thing, boss” Jake said.
“And one more thing, Jake…”
“Yes boss?”
“Press that Imran kid a bit further. I really wanna find it out. I wanna control the flow of information on this. And, whatever you do, keep up the nutty conspiracist thing. I want him to think we’re on his side”
 

Part 1
 
It started simply enough. Fingers dragging along a touchpad. Press down on the link, and it opened. It wasn’t the first time that Hettie had gone down a rabbit hole. No reason to think that this was different. Just an idle journey to a corner of the internet. And that was how it started.
The next day, and she was there again. Retracing her steps down the same rabbit hole that she had visited the day previous. Reading black words on blueish-grey background, eyes drifting slowly from left to right, until the line ended, and then back to the first line again. And, as she re-scanned the words that she was first acquainted not twenty four hours earlier, her hand drifted towards the millionnaire’s shortbread on her desk, half-eaten. It wasn’t half-eaten for long.
The day after, Hettie met up with some friends outside the lecture hall at the University of Coventry. They stood around in their flock and looked at their phones, occasionally unattending the screens to talk about how hard this week’s reading was. Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Will Self’s Quantity of Madness. Men and their stories. But Hettie wasn’t listening. Hettie wasn’t looking up from her phone. The pixels that she was staring at, had her eyes in a vice-grip. The other hand was in a packet of doughnuts. None of the other girls said anything, but they all noticed.
It took Faizah to intervene, a few days later. They hadn’t seen much of Hettie. The bouncy girl with the giddy smile. Missing the flat party and the Pride march set off alarms. So, Faizah intervened.
“Hey babe… you okay?”
“Mmmhmm”
Faizah paused, and collected her smile again.
“It’s just that we were hoping to go out. Do some shopping. Shay’s coming too”
“Don’t like Shay”
“Oh. Umm… since when?”
“Dunno”
Hettie hadn’t really looked up from her laptop the entire time. Eyes doing that march across the screen, like tired lemmings. The hand not on her keypad, was bringing a slice of cake to her lips. Most of it ended up between them. Some ended up on them.
“We were thinking of clothes shopping, maybe? Come on babe, Top Shop has a sale on, the store’s closing or something and…”
“I’m good”
“Are you though? You look like you could do with some new clothes”
It had only been a week. A week since it started. And the evidence had still made itself apparent. Hettie was never the most lithe girl. Not every curve was in the right place. Boxy was an adjective that had been used in the past, though only by those with a cruel way with words. But, especially compared to Faizah, with an elegant pose to go with her elegant shape.
Hettie was, undoubtedly, boxier than the week before. Fluffier. More cuddle-some. The undone button on her size 12 jeans were a feature that the previous seven days had forced upon her. The way her striped top pulled tight across her chest another strain of proof. 7 days had made 7 pounds. And the cause was smeared around her lips.
“Look, are you okay, babe? You can talk to me, you know?”
“I know”
Hettie still hadn’t looked up. Her eyes like an unattended lighthouse, with nobody to switch its beam on.
“You’ve… are you stressed? Everything okay at home? What aren’t you telling me babe? I’m a little worried”
“I’m fine”
Faizah took a deep sigh. She wouldn’t normally say what came next, but a perfect storm of concern and frustration were the perfect invitation for harsher words.
“You’ve been eating… well. Like, quite a bit, recently”
“Have I?”
Hattie replied, as the cake slice rose to her maw once more.
“Yeah, you’ve… I think you might have put on a few. Quite a few, actually. I’m… well, me and the girls, we… we’re a bit worried”
Hattie paused. Her eyes for the first time left the blasted screen, and worked there way up to Faizah. There was somebody home in there, at all.
“It’s fine Faizah. Honestly, it is. I’m just… cutting loose a bit. I mean, you’re only at university once. Why not? After this, it’s all desk jobs and drudgery. So, I’m enjoying myself for these three years. Three years of freedom. Before the bone-crushing reality of adult inevitability. To do whatever the fuck we want. So I’m savouring it. Enjoying it. Making the most of it. Because, after these three years, life starts. This is all just the prelude”
And with that, Hattie’s eyes turned back to her screen. And Faizah just stood there, her mouth open wider than Hattie’s.
“What’s got into you, Hattie? You are acting so fucking weird, you’re creeping me out. And what the… actual… fuck… is on that laptop that is so fucking enchanting?”
If she hadn’t have asked that question, at that precise point in time, maybe it would have ended. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it was destined to leak out anyway. I guess we’ll never know. But things are the way they are, and things were the way they were and Faizah asked that question. And it was then that that which had at that point merely started, continued.
+
Hafsah went to reach in the cupboard for her crisps. For 30 of her 42 years, she had always ended her evening with a packet of Walker’s salt and vinegar crisps. Just part of her evening routine. The soft potato chip, the quiet sharpness of the vinegar’s acid, and Eastenders on the telly. It was just how it was. It was just how it always was. But it wasn’t that way tonight.
“Imran!”
She waited for the inevitable grumble, the lumbering footsteps and her youngest son to appear in the kitchen. But nothing.
“IMRAN!”
She stood still and sighed. No noise but the clicking of the kitchen clock on the wall. He must have had his headphones on. Kids and their bloody headphones.
She dragged herself up the stairs, muttering under her breath about it was always the same with the youngest one. Not like his brothers, or his sister, it was always the youngest one. At the top of the stairs and first bedroom to the right, she banged on the door.
No reply, so she opened it.
“Oh my god mum, don’t you knock!” he said, crouching beneath his bed to hide his naked body.
“I literally just knocked and you didn’t answer!”
“I was having a shower”
“You should have still answered”
“I didn’t hear! I was having a shower! What the hell, you’re so embarrassing!”
His mum just rolled her eyes at him.
“You know, I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed, I’ve seen it all before. You were born naked you know”
“Oh my god mama, you’re so embarrassing at times…” he paused with his eyebrows raised. “...Well?”
“What?”
“What is it that you want?”
“My crisps”
“You are kidding me. For real? You broke into my room…”
“I didn’t break in. It’s my room and your father’s room. We paid for it. If you want to put some money towards the mortgage, that’s fine. Then maybe it will be your room. But, until then, it’s my room and you are a guest. Now where are my crisps?”
“I don’t know!”
“Don’t you lie to me, Imran. I know it’s you”
“It’s not. For real, it’s not”
“Well then, who had them? Because they’re not there. I bought an 8-pack of them yesterday and now they’re gone. You better not be selling them, trying to make money of my crisps. You’re as bad as your father, Imran”
She folded her arms assertively.
“It’s… try next door. I don’t know, but I bet she’s got them”
“Your sister? Your sister wouldn’t pull anything like this. She’s a good girl, unlike you”
“Because I’m not a girl or because I’m not good…”
“Don’t you get smart with me, Imran, I swear to Him I will…”
“She’s been acting weird all week. I bet it’s her. I bet it’s Faizah who took them. Like crisps are so important anyway”
Within thirty seconds of that defence, there was another bang on the door. On the door of her only daughter, Faizah. Because, the truth of the matter was that Imran was right. About her daughter at least, he was wrong about pretty much everything else. But Faizah had been acting weird, and she had been acting that way all week. Faizah was a good girl. First woman in the family to go to university, paying her way through it by working evenings and weekends, and when all the other girls were philandering with boys and smoking ** in dingy student accommodation she was at home, with her parents, as it should be. This Coventry girl had dun good. At least, until the past week.
It started with a McDonalds. McFlurry and all. The empty packet was left in the outside bin, her mum noticed it when she emptied the dyson. It continued with fish and chips on the way back from campus. Faizah never ate chips. It was the enemy of a good skin complexion and was thus an enemy of Faizah. By the time that the weekend had swung around, baklava had been laid to waste, caramel fudge cake turned to ash and crumb, apple and blackcurrant pie put out to pasture.
“Faizah! You open this door, girl!
The room was not the room her mother remembered. Brown and orange walls, like something from the sixties, and just a bed and a dressing table for furniture. And a sea of silver-foiled detritus on the floor.
“Where are my crisps, girl? You better not have eaten them? Where are they?”
“Dunno”
“Wh… what sort of way is that to talk to your mother? Now, answer me properly when I talk! Look at me when I am talking to you, young woman!”
Faizah was near horizontal on the bed, and gradually lowered her laptop screen, to see her mum peering over it with her arms crossed. She made no sound, but she looked, with tired eyes. When was the last time that she had slept?
“What’s going on, Fai? This isn’t you. You’re a good girl. What… is it a boy? Because some boys your age are good-for-nothing…”
“Mum, I’m just busy reading”
“For university?”
“No, just… a story”
“What story?”
“Just a… well, come here mum, and I’ll show you. I think you’ll like it” her daughter moved the laptop to her side to make room for her mum to sit next to her. It was then that Hafsah got a full look at her daughter. A week later of utterly turpid eating habits rested ever so gently above the waistline of her pj shorts. Her daughter, her little daughter, her little angel, was looking a little less little than usual.
“What is it? I might have read it already?”
“I doubt it. It’s an online thing. It’s really good. It’s called A Free Hit. It’s by this author called Swahilimonkfish and it’s really good”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about these young girls who go to university and… they decide to cut loose a little, since you’re only at university once. Why not? After this, it’s all desk jobs and drudgery. So, they’re enjoying themselves for these three years. Three years of freedom. Before the bone-crushing reality of adult inevitability. To do whatever the fuck they want. So they’re savouring it. Enjoying it. Making the most of it. Because, after these three years, life starts. This is all just the prelude”
And with that, her mother cautiously sat down, with a reserved scowl on her forehead. And so it continued, just as it started.
 

Curvage is practically the home of "weird and excellent ideas". I'm just tryna do my bit

You are wildly observant, you rascal  I'm not imaginative enough to do anything wildly original, so every story is a descendent of a Free Hit. And you can probably tell where I studied if you wanted to work it out, it's probably about the only place in Britain I've never mentioned, lol. I'm running out of places!!! 

Part 2
It started just like any other day. With two scoops of ice cream.
“Are you sure you should be eating that?”
“Well, I’m not gonna drink it, am I? Silly-head!”
Cerys rolled her eyes at her boyfriend, Juan, before licking the bit that was about to drip on the table. Strawberry with bits. And a chocolate flake. Plus sprinkles.
“Ha, you’re so funny, C” he replied, with lacquered on sarcasm. He scrunched his face up in a sarcastic smile as an accompaniment, to make sure the meaning wasn’t lost.
“I know I am”
The meaning was lost.
The two sat at the table quietly after that, with Cerys preoccupied with her phone and her ice-cream, and her boyfriend checking out the latest Instagram story of his ex.
“Fuck me, hey Cerys, look at this” Juan said, sliding his mobile over to his girlfriend.
“I’m a bit busy at the minute”
“Yeah, whatever, you need to check this out, this is so mad, man. So, you remember my ex, Hattie? Yeah, well guess who got fat?”
“I think she looks cute” Cerys said, taking a quick glance off her own screen and onto his. Hattie was there, wearing skinny jeans that didn’t flatter her. With the tight black belt halfway up her midriff, it clearly cut her stomach into two, with bulges both over and underneath. Her arms looked chunky and her breasts looked full in her white top.
“Fuck that. She’s a right elephant now. You’re just saying that so I don’t nag you if you gain weight” he replied, with a cheeky grin.
“She’s just having fun. You’re only at university once. You might as well. It’s a free hit. Enjoy life. You’ve got just three years before…”
“What are you even going on about, C? She’s gained like 40lbs in 3 weeks. She’ll be huge come graduation. Absolutely...’”
“Rutherford size? Yeah, I know. Hot right? So I was reading this story. Marcie recommended it, I think Shay told her and…”
+
The media got wind of it not too many weeks after. Firstly, it was only local news. Reporters treating the piece as some sort of hokey ‘And finally…’ news item before the anchor could cut to the weather. The Coventry Telegraph reporting it as a cheap jokey piece about how young girls at the local university were deciding to cut loose a little. I mean, why not? After all, they were only at university three years and…
The reporter had to remind the interviewed student that they were actually on a four-year course, but the students didn’t seem to care.
The media interest was what alerted the conspiracists of Facebook. Leaving vaccinations, 5-G and George Soros alone for just one second, they diverted their gaze to this innocent little piece simmering in the local media. Obviously it was the water that caused it. Too much fluoride in the water altering their body’s metabolism. After all, User432HMax said on 8Chan that he was a doctor and this was all possible.
One post on Reddit was from a boy called Imran who claimed to be the brother of patient zero. It got downvoted to hell. Nobody is that gullible. His claim that his sister and mum now had it, that they were gaining weight at a staggering rate, and that they were enjoying it, seemed a little too far-fetched even for the tinfoil hat brigade.
Except, it seemed, one.
+
His legs curled up tight, his shoulders slunk. His face illuminated solely by the dull greenish light of his phone. His voice was a whisper. And he listened to the man on the other side of the phone.
“Do you know what the story is called?”
“No, I… should I even be talking to you about this? Man, this is like some spy shit, bro!”
Imran was sat in the family’s Toyota Carolla, rammed in the gloomy darkness of the external garage, away from his family. He was sunk deep into the backseat, desperately paranoid of being observed. Whatever had started over in this university town had got him anxious.
“Relax, you’re using a burner and the NSA don’t track calls from Nokias anyway, everyone knows that” the gruff voice from the other line said. “Now, what’s the story called?”
“I dunno, bro. Like… how do I even find out?”
+
“Hey, sis… can I…” Imran said quietly, walking into his sister’s room. It hadn’t improved since that time his mum had ventured in there. In fact, it had deteriorated no end now that the person responsible for the shopping was a willing ally.
“Yeah, whatever” she said, not looking up. Her eyes locked in a dancer’s embrace with the Swahilimonkfish Deviant Art page.
She looked different from when he last saw her. Which was just three days ago. Which was different from the three days before that. Young Faizah had yet to go clothes shopping since the day it started for her, when she tried to entice her best friend Hettie to go, simply to coax her out of an eating frenzy. That simple, innocent and good-hearted decision, now six weeks ago, had thrust her along the same path. A path where shopping for clothes only sounded good if they could stop off at the indoor food market before. And after.
So, six weeks of unabated gluttony later, and Faizah was just wearing her blue cotton nightgown. And just about wearing it too. The formerly slinky minx was now awash with supple-skinned softness and pillowy billowing. Her breasts strained against the quondam loose covering, her stomach outlining itself against the blue material that, when sitting down, as she was here and invariably, the small **-hole of her navel could be spotted through it.
None of this caused her to interrupt her ice cream sundae.
“Just wandering, y’know that story you’re reading?..”
“Mmmhmm”
“Could you tell me the name? My… mates would love to read it too”
Suddenly her eyes, glazed over like the donuts she had eaten just an hour earlier, suddenly burst to life.
“Well… which story? Cos, I’m more of a Burgermania girl cos Sweeney is ma girl, but I am totally loving Rosie Richards at the minute. Shay is all about Betty Bollingbrooke because - I wonder why, let me think. Then there’s Cerys’ favourite, Playing Your Cards Right, cos she’s a soft girl at heart. Oh, and Hattie is all about The Free Hit, still. I mean, you gotta love the classics, right? Like the way Rutherford loves classic films, only how it's actually only a façade to build her persona to hide her insecurities and then it gets thrown out of the window when the fun kicks in”
Imran stood still for a second.
“And mum?”
“Something called Mandy Lee’s Chance Meeting in Camelot. Not my jam, but she is so into it. No, I recommend A Free Hit as a starter or Playing Your Cards Right as a mild intro. Don’t go straight for the heavy stuff. You aren’t ready for I’m Addicted To You yet. Oh, and could you pass me that second ice cream sundae bro? Even though it’s Thursday, right? Not Sunday? Ahh man, that joke kills in Burgermania. Such a good story”
+
“Burgermania, she said?” the voice on the other end of the line asked.
“Yeah, I mean, she had her mouth full but…”
“I’m searching for it - in a public cafe, I’m not a noob - and all I’m finding is fast-food chains by that name. One in Denmark, one in the Netherlands… is it one word or two?”
“I mean, how do I know, bro? She didn’t exactly write it down for me. She’s gone, bro. Like, gone. That girl there, she wasn’t my sister. I didn’t even recognise her”
Imran said, burying himself deep into the back seat footwells of the Toyota.
“It’ll be the electro-magnetic waves, it’s fine. They won’t stick unless you live near a mast. Anyway, anything else? Cos I can’t find anything. Unless the CCP have already deleted it. They liaise with the NSA and…”
“Something about A Free Hit…”
“No, I’m just seeing a book about women’s cricket…”
+
Mr Lewenburg was looking forward to today. It wasn’t every day that the CEO came to visit, after all. Mr Lewenburg was just the person responsible for running an ice cream parlour just on the edge of Coventry, and this time two months ago, was high on the list for closure. Then, Cerys and her boyfriend bought their first ice cream from there. That was when it started.
He sat down, and then stood up again, before straightening his suit one more time with his hand. He needed to do something with his hands, otherwise he would just spend the entire meeting twisting his wedding band anxiously. God, his wife was so proud. At least, until she became distracted…
“Hey, Mr Collins, welcome to… well, your parlour. One of your parlours. I dunno… I”
Mr Lewenburg spluttered out as two men with grey hair and greyer suits walked in.
“Not just one of my parlours. My number one parlour. Your figures are off the roof. Listen, I don’t know how you did it, but I said to Jake, I said ‘Mr Lewenburg, he knows his customers’. Didn’t I say that, Jake? Didn’t I? Didn’t I say he’d turn it around?”
“Sure did, boss” the second grey-haired man in a grey suit said.
“I sure do know my customers”
“But… in all serious… I gotta ask… how you do it? Like, the numbers are crazy. Great, but crazy. Like, what’s your secret? It’s not money laundering, is it? Cos, I… we have enough trouble as it is with HMRC as it is and…”
“Honestly, I dunno…”
“Ahh, that’s disappointing. I was hoping you’d know. Wasn’t I hoping he’d know, Jake?”
“Sure were, boss”
“Mr Collins…”
“Please… Colin. We’re all friends here. It’s a family company. Call me Colin”
Mr Lewenburg caught himself fiddling with his wedding band again. He was just so nervous and, well, it would have been nice if he had an explanation for the sudden surge in trade.
“Sure. Sure. So, Colin… I honestly… it’s the locals. They’ve… gone mad. They’ve…”
“That’s what I like to hear, Mr Lewenburg, isn’t it Jake? Which one?”
“What?”
“No, let me guess, mint choc chip? No, that’s too traditional. Ahh, salted caramel? Is it salted caramel? It’s always salted caramel, isn’t it Jake? It’s the zeitgeist, you see. You gotta… always be moving forward. Like a shark. Or a pig on an escalator. Isn’t that right, Jake?”
“Sure is, boss”
“Actually, it’s… all of them. I mean, don’t get me wrong, salted caramel is doing well. Like, I mean, really well. But all of them are. Choc chip, raspberry ripple, vanilla…”
“Vanilla is doing well?”
“Yeah, it’s…”
“But, nobody likes vanilla. Vanilla is the beige of ice cream. The ‘ready salted’ of ice cream. It’s like I always say, ‘why does vanilla have to be so…’”
“Vanilla?”
“Exactly!” Mr Collins said, with an assertive point.
“I… It’s not just this place. All the food joints around the northern parts of Coventry are all doing a roaring trade. I don’t know what it is, but something…” and Mr Lewenburg paused, and began twisting his wedding ring about his finger again, thinking about his wife. “Something is going on with the people here”.
“Well, whatever’s going on here… I just hope they roll it out nationally”
+
And, just as Mr Collins had hoped for, it started to get rolled out nationally. Or, at least, bleed into other nearby regions. Mainly Coventry still, but slowly rearing its head in Nuneaton now too. It was still largely geographically contained, but the area that was containing it was growing at about the same rate as those within it.
At a local level though, it was all anybody in Coventry city centre ever talked about. There were those who were ‘affected’ and those who weren’t. The disembodied voice on the end of the phone had put Imran together with someone else, an old military man who preferred to be known simply as Wolf. Together, they began to reach out to others in the community who also hadn’t been ‘affected’. Slowly, a rebel group formed.
+
“I just want my wife back, y’know? Like, I don’t care about the dress size, I really don’t. It’s just… her eyes. Y’know. It’s… they’re different. Like she’s not there. Not fully. Just a faint whisper of her, drowned out by a cacophony of feeding and reading”
Mr Lewenburg said to the group, fiddling with his wedding band.
“And the masturbating. Have you… have any of you…”
The rest of the group nodded in agreement. They all knew about the masturbating. It was a frenzy, and it was getting worse. The more they ate, the more they pleasured themselves. Until it was relentless. Each and every member sitting around in the darkened room in the town hall could remember the loud groans of whichever loved one they knew that was caught up in it. Groans louder than anything Mr Lewenburg had ever elicited from his wife.
“And… I’m worried this is my fault. I… I think I did this”
“What do you mean?” Imran said, leaning forward with suspicion. Wolf leaning forward at the same time and with the same intent, as if part of a post-modern dance troupe.
“I wished for this. You know. For something… it’s hard to explain. I… my business was doing really badly and we were struggling to make ends meet and I was worried they’d shut my store down and I just… I know you shouldn’t… but I just… I spent evening prayers praying for a change in fortunes. I feel like Mr White with that monkey paw, wishing for just £200”
The group just looked sadly at Mr Lewenburg, who was sobbing now. There couldn’t be a more innocent, well-meaning man than he, and nobody could muster the slightest amount of blame for the poor man. Except for Mrs Pique.
“My son. My son caught this… whatever it is… from your ice cream parlour. You gilipollas” she spat out aggressively.
“Yo! Hey, chill! Alright… it’s not Mr Lewenburg. Okay? Look, it got my sister before it got Juan and Cerys. So… I think maybe my sister is patient zero” Imran interrupted. “Now, we any further on these stories?”
The group fell quiet. One man raised his voice.
“I haven’t heard from Alistair since he said he’d have a look for us”
“I have… he came into the parlour the other day. Ordered four scoops. And flake, sprinkles, you name it. It got him too” Mr Lewenburg muttered forlornly.
“So, we need to find out about these stories, but without actually reading the bastard things. Like trying to slay a Gorgon. And I need to talk to my sister again. Because we need to find out how it started” Imran added, assertively. Finding his stride, leading this band of desperate men and women.
Wolf, dressed still in camo despite being kicked out of the army a good twenty years ago and despite the interior of this particular town hall not being entirely conducive to traditional jungle camouflage, grizzled his own tenpenneth in.
“We need outside help. Anyone here know the names of any of them journalist people?”
+
“We any further on these stories, Jake?”
Mr Collins pulled down his office blinds before asking.
“Nothing, boss, I’m afraid. Do you want us to get a tech nerd… guy… person, to deal with it. I feel we could really do with the expertise”
Mr Collins sat back in his chair and tapped his desk while thinking.
“No. Not yet. I want this staying between us two, for now. But, ummm… expand the Free Hit Fund though. I want investment in all the places that can profit from this when this thing blows. And, you know what I always say Jake, everything blows eventually”
“Sure thing, boss” Jake said.
“And one more thing, Jake…”
“Yes boss?”
“Press that Imran kid a bit further. I really wanna find it out. I wanna control the flow of information on this. And, whatever you do, keep up the nutty conspiracist thing. I want him to think we’re on his side”
 

Part 1
 
It started simply enough. Fingers dragging along a touchpad. Press down on the link, and it opened. It wasn’t the first time that Hettie had gone down a rabbit hole. No reason to think that this was different. Just an idle journey to a corner of the internet. And that was how it started.
The next day, and she was there again. Retracing her steps down the same rabbit hole that she had visited the day previous. Reading black words on blueish-grey background, eyes drifting slowly from left to right, until the line ended, and then back to the first line again. And, as she re-scanned the words that she was first acquainted not twenty four hours earlier, her hand drifted towards the millionnaire’s shortbread on her desk, half-eaten. It wasn’t half-eaten for long.
The day after, Hettie met up with some friends outside the lecture hall at the University of Coventry. They stood around in their flock and looked at their phones, occasionally unattending the screens to talk about how hard this week’s reading was. Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Will Self’s Quantity of Madness. Men and their stories. But Hettie wasn’t listening. Hettie wasn’t looking up from her phone. The pixels that she was staring at, had her eyes in a vice-grip. The other hand was in a packet of doughnuts. None of the other girls said anything, but they all noticed.
It took Faizah to intervene, a few days later. They hadn’t seen much of Hettie. The bouncy girl with the giddy smile. Missing the flat party and the Pride march set off alarms. So, Faizah intervened.
“Hey babe… you okay?”
“Mmmhmm”
Faizah paused, and collected her smile again.
“It’s just that we were hoping to go out. Do some shopping. Shay’s coming too”
“Don’t like Shay”
“Oh. Umm… since when?”
“Dunno”
Hettie hadn’t really looked up from her laptop the entire time. Eyes doing that march across the screen, like tired lemmings. The hand not on her keypad, was bringing a slice of cake to her lips. Most of it ended up between them. Some ended up on them.
“We were thinking of clothes shopping, maybe? Come on babe, Top Shop has a sale on, the store’s closing or something and…”
“I’m good”
“Are you though? You look like you could do with some new clothes”
It had only been a week. A week since it started. And the evidence had still made itself apparent. Hettie was never the most lithe girl. Not every curve was in the right place. Boxy was an adjective that had been used in the past, though only by those with a cruel way with words. But, especially compared to Faizah, with an elegant pose to go with her elegant shape.
Hettie was, undoubtedly, boxier than the week before. Fluffier. More cuddle-some. The undone button on her size 12 jeans were a feature that the previous seven days had forced upon her. The way her striped top pulled tight across her chest another strain of proof. 7 days had made 7 pounds. And the cause was smeared around her lips.
“Look, are you okay, babe? You can talk to me, you know?”
“I know”
Hettie still hadn’t looked up. Her eyes like an unattended lighthouse, with nobody to switch its beam on.
“You’ve… are you stressed? Everything okay at home? What aren’t you telling me babe? I’m a little worried”
“I’m fine”
Faizah took a deep sigh. She wouldn’t normally say what came next, but a perfect storm of concern and frustration were the perfect invitation for harsher words.
“You’ve been eating… well. Like, quite a bit, recently”
“Have I?”
Hattie replied, as the cake slice rose to her maw once more.
“Yeah, you’ve… I think you might have put on a few. Quite a few, actually. I’m… well, me and the girls, we… we’re a bit worried”
Hattie paused. Her eyes for the first time left the blasted screen, and worked there way up to Faizah. There was somebody home in there, at all.
“It’s fine Faizah. Honestly, it is. I’m just… cutting loose a bit. I mean, you’re only at university once. Why not? After this, it’s all desk jobs and drudgery. So, I’m enjoying myself for these three years. Three years of freedom. Before the bone-crushing reality of adult inevitability. To do whatever the fuck we want. So I’m savouring it. Enjoying it. Making the most of it. Because, after these three years, life starts. This is all just the prelude”
And with that, Hattie’s eyes turned back to her screen. And Faizah just stood there, her mouth open wider than Hattie’s.
“What’s got into you, Hattie? You are acting so fucking weird, you’re creeping me out. And what the… actual… fuck… is on that laptop that is so fucking enchanting?”
If she hadn’t have asked that question, at that precise point in time, maybe it would have ended. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it was destined to leak out anyway. I guess we’ll never know. But things are the way they are, and things were the way they were and Faizah asked that question. And it was then that that which had at that point merely started, continued.
+
Hafsah went to reach in the cupboard for her crisps. For 30 of her 42 years, she had always ended her evening with a packet of Walker’s salt and vinegar crisps. Just part of her evening routine. The soft potato chip, the quiet sharpness of the vinegar’s acid, and Eastenders on the telly. It was just how it was. It was just how it always was. But it wasn’t that way tonight.
“Imran!”
She waited for the inevitable grumble, the lumbering footsteps and her youngest son to appear in the kitchen. But nothing.
“IMRAN!”
She stood still and sighed. No noise but the clicking of the kitchen clock on the wall. He must have had his headphones on. Kids and their bloody headphones.
She dragged herself up the stairs, muttering under her breath about it was always the same with the youngest one. Not like his brothers, or his sister, it was always the youngest one. At the top of the stairs and first bedroom to the right, she banged on the door.
No reply, so she opened it.
“Oh my god mum, don’t you knock!” he said, crouching beneath his bed to hide his naked body.
“I literally just knocked and you didn’t answer!”
“I was having a shower”
“You should have still answered”
“I didn’t hear! I was having a shower! What the hell, you’re so embarrassing!”
His mum just rolled her eyes at him.
“You know, I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed, I’ve seen it all before. You were born naked you know”
“Oh my god mama, you’re so embarrassing at times…” he paused with his eyebrows raised. “...Well?”
“What?”
“What is it that you want?”
“My crisps”
“You are kidding me. For real? You broke into my room…”
“I didn’t break in. It’s my room and your father’s room. We paid for it. If you want to put some money towards the mortgage, that’s fine. Then maybe it will be your room. But, until then, it’s my room and you are a guest. Now where are my crisps?”
“I don’t know!”
“Don’t you lie to me, Imran. I know it’s you”
“It’s not. For real, it’s not”
“Well then, who had them? Because they’re not there. I bought an 8-pack of them yesterday and now they’re gone. You better not be selling them, trying to make money of my crisps. You’re as bad as your father, Imran”
She folded her arms assertively.
“It’s… try next door. I don’t know, but I bet she’s got them”
“Your sister? Your sister wouldn’t pull anything like this. She’s a good girl, unlike you”
“Because I’m not a girl or because I’m not good…”
“Don’t you get smart with me, Imran, I swear to Him I will…”
“She’s been acting weird all week. I bet it’s her. I bet it’s Faizah who took them. Like crisps are so important anyway”
Within thirty seconds of that defence, there was another bang on the door. On the door of her only daughter, Faizah. Because, the truth of the matter was that Imran was right. About her daughter at least, he was wrong about pretty much everything else. But Faizah had been acting weird, and she had been acting that way all week. Faizah was a good girl. First woman in the family to go to university, paying her way through it by working evenings and weekends, and when all the other girls were philandering with boys and smoking ** in dingy student accommodation she was at home, with her parents, as it should be. This Coventry girl had dun good. At least, until the past week.
It started with a McDonalds. McFlurry and all. The empty packet was left in the outside bin, her mum noticed it when she emptied the dyson. It continued with fish and chips on the way back from campus. Faizah never ate chips. It was the enemy of a good skin complexion and was thus an enemy of Faizah. By the time that the weekend had swung around, baklava had been laid to waste, caramel fudge cake turned to ash and crumb, apple and blackcurrant pie put out to pasture.
“Faizah! You open this door, girl!
The room was not the room her mother remembered. Brown and orange walls, like something from the sixties, and just a bed and a dressing table for furniture. And a sea of silver-foiled detritus on the floor.
“Where are my crisps, girl? You better not have eaten them? Where are they?”
“Dunno”
“Wh… what sort of way is that to talk to your mother? Now, answer me properly when I talk! Look at me when I am talking to you, young woman!”
Faizah was near horizontal on the bed, and gradually lowered her laptop screen, to see her mum peering over it with her arms crossed. She made no sound, but she looked, with tired eyes. When was the last time that she had slept?
“What’s going on, Fai? This isn’t you. You’re a good girl. What… is it a boy? Because some boys your age are good-for-nothing…”
“Mum, I’m just busy reading”
“For university?”
“No, just… a story”
“What story?”
“Just a… well, come here mum, and I’ll show you. I think you’ll like it” her daughter moved the laptop to her side to make room for her mum to sit next to her. It was then that Hafsah got a full look at her daughter. A week later of utterly turpid eating habits rested ever so gently above the waistline of her pj shorts. Her daughter, her little daughter, her little angel, was looking a little less little than usual.
“What is it? I might have read it already?”
“I doubt it. It’s an online thing. It’s really good. It’s called A Free Hit. It’s by this author called Swahilimonkfish and it’s really good”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about these young girls who go to university and… they decide to cut loose a little, since you’re only at university once. Why not? After this, it’s all desk jobs and drudgery. So, they’re enjoying themselves for these three years. Three years of freedom. Before the bone-crushing reality of adult inevitability. To do whatever the fuck they want. So they’re savouring it. Enjoying it. Making the most of it. Because, after these three years, life starts. This is all just the prelude”
And with that, her mother cautiously sat down, with a reserved scowl on her forehead. And so it continued, just as it started.
 

Just dropping by to see what sort of stories ur up to 🧐 each one is wildly different, but they’re all anchored to the first story in some way 👌 I wonder if Coventry is where u study?

Part 2
It started just like any other day. With two scoops of ice cream.
“Are you sure you should be eating that?”
“Well, I’m not gonna drink it, am I? Silly-head!”
Cerys rolled her eyes at her boyfriend, Juan, before licking the bit that was about to drip on the table. Strawberry with bits. And a chocolate flake. Plus sprinkles.
“Ha, you’re so funny, C” he replied, with lacquered on sarcasm. He scrunched his face up in a sarcastic smile as an accompaniment, to make sure the meaning wasn’t lost.
“I know I am”
The meaning was lost.
The two sat at the table quietly after that, with Cerys preoccupied with her phone and her ice-cream, and her boyfriend checking out the latest Instagram story of his ex.
“Fuck me, hey Cerys, look at this” Juan said, sliding his mobile over to his girlfriend.
“I’m a bit busy at the minute”
“Yeah, whatever, you need to check this out, this is so mad, man. So, you remember my ex, Hattie? Yeah, well guess who got fat?”
“I think she looks cute” Cerys said, taking a quick glance off her own screen and onto his. Hattie was there, wearing skinny jeans that didn’t flatter her. With the tight black belt halfway up her midriff, it clearly cut her stomach into two, with bulges both over and underneath. Her arms looked chunky and her breasts looked full in her white top.
“Fuck that. She’s a right elephant now. You’re just saying that so I don’t nag you if you gain weight” he replied, with a cheeky grin.
“She’s just having fun. You’re only at university once. You might as well. It’s a free hit. Enjoy life. You’ve got just three years before…”
“What are you even going on about, C? She’s gained like 40lbs in 3 weeks. She’ll be huge come graduation. Absolutely...’”
“Rutherford size? Yeah, I know. Hot right? So I was reading this story. Marcie recommended it, I think Shay told her and…”
+
The media got wind of it not too many weeks after. Firstly, it was only local news. Reporters treating the piece as some sort of hokey ‘And finally…’ news item before the anchor could cut to the weather. The Coventry Telegraph reporting it as a cheap jokey piece about how young girls at the local university were deciding to cut loose a little. I mean, why not? After all, they were only at university three years and…
The reporter had to remind the interviewed student that they were actually on a four-year course, but the students didn’t seem to care.
The media interest was what alerted the conspiracists of Facebook. Leaving vaccinations, 5-G and George Soros alone for just one second, they diverted their gaze to this innocent little piece simmering in the local media. Obviously it was the water that caused it. Too much fluoride in the water altering their body’s metabolism. After all, User432HMax said on 8Chan that he was a doctor and this was all possible.
One post on Reddit was from a boy called Imran who claimed to be the brother of patient zero. It got downvoted to hell. Nobody is that gullible. His claim that his sister and mum now had it, that they were gaining weight at a staggering rate, and that they were enjoying it, seemed a little too far-fetched even for the tinfoil hat brigade.
Except, it seemed, one.
+
His legs curled up tight, his shoulders slunk. His face illuminated solely by the dull greenish light of his phone. His voice was a whisper. And he listened to the man on the other side of the phone.
“Do you know what the story is called?”
“No, I… should I even be talking to you about this? Man, this is like some spy shit, bro!”
Imran was sat in the family’s Toyota Carolla, rammed in the gloomy darkness of the external garage, away from his family. He was sunk deep into the backseat, desperately paranoid of being observed. Whatever had started over in this university town had got him anxious.
“Relax, you’re using a burner and the NSA don’t track calls from Nokias anyway, everyone knows that” the gruff voice from the other line said. “Now, what’s the story called?”
“I dunno, bro. Like… how do I even find out?”
+
“Hey, sis… can I…” Imran said quietly, walking into his sister’s room. It hadn’t improved since that time his mum had ventured in there. In fact, it had deteriorated no end now that the person responsible for the shopping was a willing ally.
“Yeah, whatever” she said, not looking up. Her eyes locked in a dancer’s embrace with the Swahilimonkfish Deviant Art page.
She looked different from when he last saw her. Which was just three days ago. Which was different from the three days before that. Young Faizah had yet to go clothes shopping since the day it started for her, when she tried to entice her best friend Hettie to go, simply to coax her out of an eating frenzy. That simple, innocent and good-hearted decision, now six weeks ago, had thrust her along the same path. A path where shopping for clothes only sounded good if they could stop off at the indoor food market before. And after.
So, six weeks of unabated gluttony later, and Faizah was just wearing her blue cotton nightgown. And just about wearing it too. The formerly slinky minx was now awash with supple-skinned softness and pillowy billowing. Her breasts strained against the quondam loose covering, her stomach outlining itself against the blue material that, when sitting down, as she was here and invariably, the small **-hole of her navel could be spotted through it.
None of this caused her to interrupt her ice cream sundae.
“Just wandering, y’know that story you’re reading?..”
“Mmmhmm”
“Could you tell me the name? My… mates would love to read it too”
Suddenly her eyes, glazed over like the donuts she had eaten just an hour earlier, suddenly burst to life.
“Well… which story? Cos, I’m more of a Burgermania girl cos Sweeney is ma girl, but I am totally loving Rosie Richards at the minute. Shay is all about Betty Bollingbrooke because - I wonder why, let me think. Then there’s Cerys’ favourite, Playing Your Cards Right, cos she’s a soft girl at heart. Oh, and Hattie is all about The Free Hit, still. I mean, you gotta love the classics, right? Like the way Rutherford loves classic films, only how it's actually only a façade to build her persona to hide her insecurities and then it gets thrown out of the window when the fun kicks in”
Imran stood still for a second.
“And mum?”
“Something called Mandy Lee’s Chance Meeting in Camelot. Not my jam, but she is so into it. No, I recommend A Free Hit as a starter or Playing Your Cards Right as a mild intro. Don’t go straight for the heavy stuff. You aren’t ready for I’m Addicted To You yet. Oh, and could you pass me that second ice cream sundae bro? Even though it’s Thursday, right? Not Sunday? Ahh man, that joke kills in Burgermania. Such a good story”
+
“Burgermania, she said?” the voice on the other end of the line asked.
“Yeah, I mean, she had her mouth full but…”
“I’m searching for it - in a public cafe, I’m not a noob - and all I’m finding is fast-food chains by that name. One in Denmark, one in the Netherlands… is it one word or two?”
“I mean, how do I know, bro? She didn’t exactly write it down for me. She’s gone, bro. Like, gone. That girl there, she wasn’t my sister. I didn’t even recognise her”
Imran said, burying himself deep into the back seat footwells of the Toyota.
“It’ll be the electro-magnetic waves, it’s fine. They won’t stick unless you live near a mast. Anyway, anything else? Cos I can’t find anything. Unless the CCP have already deleted it. They liaise with the NSA and…”
“Something about A Free Hit…”
“No, I’m just seeing a book about women’s cricket…”
+
Mr Lewenburg was looking forward to today. It wasn’t every day that the CEO came to visit, after all. Mr Lewenburg was just the person responsible for running an ice cream parlour just on the edge of Coventry, and this time two months ago, was high on the list for closure. Then, Cerys and her boyfriend bought their first ice cream from there. That was when it started.
He sat down, and then stood up again, before straightening his suit one more time with his hand. He needed to do something with his hands, otherwise he would just spend the entire meeting twisting his wedding band anxiously. God, his wife was so proud. At least, until she became distracted…
“Hey, Mr Collins, welcome to… well, your parlour. One of your parlours. I dunno… I”
Mr Lewenburg spluttered out as two men with grey hair and greyer suits walked in.
“Not just one of my parlours. My number one parlour. Your figures are off the roof. Listen, I don’t know how you did it, but I said to Jake, I said ‘Mr Lewenburg, he knows his customers’. Didn’t I say that, Jake? Didn’t I? Didn’t I say he’d turn it around?”
“Sure did, boss” the second grey-haired man in a grey suit said.
“I sure do know my customers”
“But… in all serious… I gotta ask… how you do it? Like, the numbers are crazy. Great, but crazy. Like, what’s your secret? It’s not money laundering, is it? Cos, I… we have enough trouble as it is with HMRC as it is and…”
“Honestly, I dunno…”
“Ahh, that’s disappointing. I was hoping you’d know. Wasn’t I hoping he’d know, Jake?”
“Sure were, boss”
“Mr Collins…”
“Please… Colin. We’re all friends here. It’s a family company. Call me Colin”
Mr Lewenburg caught himself fiddling with his wedding band again. He was just so nervous and, well, it would have been nice if he had an explanation for the sudden surge in trade.
“Sure. Sure. So, Colin… I honestly… it’s the locals. They’ve… gone mad. They’ve…”
“That’s what I like to hear, Mr Lewenburg, isn’t it Jake? Which one?”
“What?”
“No, let me guess, mint choc chip? No, that’s too traditional. Ahh, salted caramel? Is it salted caramel? It’s always salted caramel, isn’t it Jake? It’s the zeitgeist, you see. You gotta… always be moving forward. Like a shark. Or a pig on an escalator. Isn’t that right, Jake?”
“Sure is, boss”
“Actually, it’s… all of them. I mean, don’t get me wrong, salted caramel is doing well. Like, I mean, really well. But all of them are. Choc chip, raspberry ripple, vanilla…”
“Vanilla is doing well?”
“Yeah, it’s…”
“But, nobody likes vanilla. Vanilla is the beige of ice cream. The ‘ready salted’ of ice cream. It’s like I always say, ‘why does vanilla have to be so…’”
“Vanilla?”
“Exactly!” Mr Collins said, with an assertive point.
“I… It’s not just this place. All the food joints around the northern parts of Coventry are all doing a roaring trade. I don’t know what it is, but something…” and Mr Lewenburg paused, and began twisting his wedding ring about his finger again, thinking about his wife. “Something is going on with the people here”.
“Well, whatever’s going on here… I just hope they roll it out nationally”
+
And, just as Mr Collins had hoped for, it started to get rolled out nationally. Or, at least, bleed into other nearby regions. Mainly Coventry still, but slowly rearing its head in Nuneaton now too. It was still largely geographically contained, but the area that was containing it was growing at about the same rate as those within it.
At a local level though, it was all anybody in Coventry city centre ever talked about. There were those who were ‘affected’ and those who weren’t. The disembodied voice on the end of the phone had put Imran together with someone else, an old military man who preferred to be known simply as Wolf. Together, they began to reach out to others in the community who also hadn’t been ‘affected’. Slowly, a rebel group formed.
+
“I just want my wife back, y’know? Like, I don’t care about the dress size, I really don’t. It’s just… her eyes. Y’know. It’s… they’re different. Like she’s not there. Not fully. Just a faint whisper of her, drowned out by a cacophony of feeding and reading”
Mr Lewenburg said to the group, fiddling with his wedding band.
“And the masturbating. Have you… have any of you…”
The rest of the group nodded in agreement. They all knew about the masturbating. It was a frenzy, and it was getting worse. The more they ate, the more they pleasured themselves. Until it was relentless. Each and every member sitting around in the darkened room in the town hall could remember the loud groans of whichever loved one they knew that was caught up in it. Groans louder than anything Mr Lewenburg had ever elicited from his wife.
“And… I’m worried this is my fault. I… I think I did this”
“What do you mean?” Imran said, leaning forward with suspicion. Wolf leaning forward at the same time and with the same intent, as if part of a post-modern dance troupe.
“I wished for this. You know. For something… it’s hard to explain. I… my business was doing really badly and we were struggling to make ends meet and I was worried they’d shut my store down and I just… I know you shouldn’t… but I just… I spent evening prayers praying for a change in fortunes. I feel like Mr White with that monkey paw, wishing for just £200”
The group just looked sadly at Mr Lewenburg, who was sobbing now. There couldn’t be a more innocent, well-meaning man than he, and nobody could muster the slightest amount of blame for the poor man. Except for Mrs Pique.
“My son. My son caught this… whatever it is… from your ice cream parlour. You gilipollas” she spat out aggressively.
“Yo! Hey, chill! Alright… it’s not Mr Lewenburg. Okay? Look, it got my sister before it got Juan and Cerys. So… I think maybe my sister is patient zero” Imran interrupted. “Now, we any further on these stories?”
The group fell quiet. One man raised his voice.
“I haven’t heard from Alistair since he said he’d have a look for us”
“I have… he came into the parlour the other day. Ordered four scoops. And flake, sprinkles, you name it. It got him too” Mr Lewenburg muttered forlornly.
“So, we need to find out about these stories, but without actually reading the bastard things. Like trying to slay a Gorgon. And I need to talk to my sister again. Because we need to find out how it started” Imran added, assertively. Finding his stride, leading this band of desperate men and women.
Wolf, dressed still in camo despite being kicked out of the army a good twenty years ago and despite the interior of this particular town hall not being entirely conducive to traditional jungle camouflage, grizzled his own tenpenneth in.
“We need outside help. Anyone here know the names of any of them journalist people?”
+
“We any further on these stories, Jake?”
Mr Collins pulled down his office blinds before asking.
“Nothing, boss, I’m afraid. Do you want us to get a tech nerd… guy… person, to deal with it. I feel we could really do with the expertise”
Mr Collins sat back in his chair and tapped his desk while thinking.
“No. Not yet. I want this staying between us two, for now. But, ummm… expand the Free Hit Fund though. I want investment in all the places that can profit from this when this thing blows. And, you know what I always say Jake, everything blows eventually”
“Sure thing, boss” Jake said.
“And one more thing, Jake…”
“Yes boss?”
“Press that Imran kid a bit further. I really wanna find it out. I wanna control the flow of information on this. And, whatever you do, keep up the nutty conspiracist thing. I want him to think we’re on his side”
 

Part 1
 
It started simply enough. Fingers dragging along a touchpad. Press down on the link, and it opened. It wasn’t the first time that Hettie had gone down a rabbit hole. No reason to think that this was different. Just an idle journey to a corner of the internet. And that was how it started.
The next day, and she was there again. Retracing her steps down the same rabbit hole that she had visited the day previous. Reading black words on blueish-grey background, eyes drifting slowly from left to right, until the line ended, and then back to the first line again. And, as she re-scanned the words that she was first acquainted not twenty four hours earlier, her hand drifted towards the millionnaire’s shortbread on her desk, half-eaten. It wasn’t half-eaten for long.
The day after, Hettie met up with some friends outside the lecture hall at the University of Coventry. They stood around in their flock and looked at their phones, occasionally unattending the screens to talk about how hard this week’s reading was. Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Will Self’s Quantity of Madness. Men and their stories. But Hettie wasn’t listening. Hettie wasn’t looking up from her phone. The pixels that she was staring at, had her eyes in a vice-grip. The other hand was in a packet of doughnuts. None of the other girls said anything, but they all noticed.
It took Faizah to intervene, a few days later. They hadn’t seen much of Hettie. The bouncy girl with the giddy smile. Missing the flat party and the Pride march set off alarms. So, Faizah intervened.
“Hey babe… you okay?”
“Mmmhmm”
Faizah paused, and collected her smile again.
“It’s just that we were hoping to go out. Do some shopping. Shay’s coming too”
“Don’t like Shay”
“Oh. Umm… since when?”
“Dunno”
Hettie hadn’t really looked up from her laptop the entire time. Eyes doing that march across the screen, like tired lemmings. The hand not on her keypad, was bringing a slice of cake to her lips. Most of it ended up between them. Some ended up on them.
“We were thinking of clothes shopping, maybe? Come on babe, Top Shop has a sale on, the store’s closing or something and…”
“I’m good”
“Are you though? You look like you could do with some new clothes”
It had only been a week. A week since it started. And the evidence had still made itself apparent. Hettie was never the most lithe girl. Not every curve was in the right place. Boxy was an adjective that had been used in the past, though only by those with a cruel way with words. But, especially compared to Faizah, with an elegant pose to go with her elegant shape.
Hettie was, undoubtedly, boxier than the week before. Fluffier. More cuddle-some. The undone button on her size 12 jeans were a feature that the previous seven days had forced upon her. The way her striped top pulled tight across her chest another strain of proof. 7 days had made 7 pounds. And the cause was smeared around her lips.
“Look, are you okay, babe? You can talk to me, you know?”
“I know”
Hettie still hadn’t looked up. Her eyes like an unattended lighthouse, with nobody to switch its beam on.
“You’ve… are you stressed? Everything okay at home? What aren’t you telling me babe? I’m a little worried”
“I’m fine”
Faizah took a deep sigh. She wouldn’t normally say what came next, but a perfect storm of concern and frustration were the perfect invitation for harsher words.
“You’ve been eating… well. Like, quite a bit, recently”
“Have I?”
Hattie replied, as the cake slice rose to her maw once more.
“Yeah, you’ve… I think you might have put on a few. Quite a few, actually. I’m… well, me and the girls, we… we’re a bit worried”
Hattie paused. Her eyes for the first time left the blasted screen, and worked there way up to Faizah. There was somebody home in there, at all.
“It’s fine Faizah. Honestly, it is. I’m just… cutting loose a bit. I mean, you’re only at university once. Why not? After this, it’s all desk jobs and drudgery. So, I’m enjoying myself for these three years. Three years of freedom. Before the bone-crushing reality of adult inevitability. To do whatever the fuck we want. So I’m savouring it. Enjoying it. Making the most of it. Because, after these three years, life starts. This is all just the prelude”
And with that, Hattie’s eyes turned back to her screen. And Faizah just stood there, her mouth open wider than Hattie’s.
“What’s got into you, Hattie? You are acting so fucking weird, you’re creeping me out. And what the… actual… fuck… is on that laptop that is so fucking enchanting?”
If she hadn’t have asked that question, at that precise point in time, maybe it would have ended. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it was destined to leak out anyway. I guess we’ll never know. But things are the way they are, and things were the way they were and Faizah asked that question. And it was then that that which had at that point merely started, continued.
+
Hafsah went to reach in the cupboard for her crisps. For 30 of her 42 years, she had always ended her evening with a packet of Walker’s salt and vinegar crisps. Just part of her evening routine. The soft potato chip, the quiet sharpness of the vinegar’s acid, and Eastenders on the telly. It was just how it was. It was just how it always was. But it wasn’t that way tonight.
“Imran!”
She waited for the inevitable grumble, the lumbering footsteps and her youngest son to appear in the kitchen. But nothing.
“IMRAN!”
She stood still and sighed. No noise but the clicking of the kitchen clock on the wall. He must have had his headphones on. Kids and their bloody headphones.
She dragged herself up the stairs, muttering under her breath about it was always the same with the youngest one. Not like his brothers, or his sister, it was always the youngest one. At the top of the stairs and first bedroom to the right, she banged on the door.
No reply, so she opened it.
“Oh my god mum, don’t you knock!” he said, crouching beneath his bed to hide his naked body.
“I literally just knocked and you didn’t answer!”
“I was having a shower”
“You should have still answered”
“I didn’t hear! I was having a shower! What the hell, you’re so embarrassing!”
His mum just rolled her eyes at him.
“You know, I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed, I’ve seen it all before. You were born naked you know”
“Oh my god mama, you’re so embarrassing at times…” he paused with his eyebrows raised. “...Well?”
“What?”
“What is it that you want?”
“My crisps”
“You are kidding me. For real? You broke into my room…”
“I didn’t break in. It’s my room and your father’s room. We paid for it. If you want to put some money towards the mortgage, that’s fine. Then maybe it will be your room. But, until then, it’s my room and you are a guest. Now where are my crisps?”
“I don’t know!”
“Don’t you lie to me, Imran. I know it’s you”
“It’s not. For real, it’s not”
“Well then, who had them? Because they’re not there. I bought an 8-pack of them yesterday and now they’re gone. You better not be selling them, trying to make money of my crisps. You’re as bad as your father, Imran”
She folded her arms assertively.
“It’s… try next door. I don’t know, but I bet she’s got them”
“Your sister? Your sister wouldn’t pull anything like this. She’s a good girl, unlike you”
“Because I’m not a girl or because I’m not good…”
“Don’t you get smart with me, Imran, I swear to Him I will…”
“She’s been acting weird all week. I bet it’s her. I bet it’s Faizah who took them. Like crisps are so important anyway”
Within thirty seconds of that defence, there was another bang on the door. On the door of her only daughter, Faizah. Because, the truth of the matter was that Imran was right. About her daughter at least, he was wrong about pretty much everything else. But Faizah had been acting weird, and she had been acting that way all week. Faizah was a good girl. First woman in the family to go to university, paying her way through it by working evenings and weekends, and when all the other girls were philandering with boys and smoking ** in dingy student accommodation she was at home, with her parents, as it should be. This Coventry girl had dun good. At least, until the past week.
It started with a McDonalds. McFlurry and all. The empty packet was left in the outside bin, her mum noticed it when she emptied the dyson. It continued with fish and chips on the way back from campus. Faizah never ate chips. It was the enemy of a good skin complexion and was thus an enemy of Faizah. By the time that the weekend had swung around, baklava had been laid to waste, caramel fudge cake turned to ash and crumb, apple and blackcurrant pie put out to pasture.
“Faizah! You open this door, girl!
The room was not the room her mother remembered. Brown and orange walls, like something from the sixties, and just a bed and a dressing table for furniture. And a sea of silver-foiled detritus on the floor.
“Where are my crisps, girl? You better not have eaten them? Where are they?”
“Dunno”
“Wh… what sort of way is that to talk to your mother? Now, answer me properly when I talk! Look at me when I am talking to you, young woman!”
Faizah was near horizontal on the bed, and gradually lowered her laptop screen, to see her mum peering over it with her arms crossed. She made no sound, but she looked, with tired eyes. When was the last time that she had slept?
“What’s going on, Fai? This isn’t you. You’re a good girl. What… is it a boy? Because some boys your age are good-for-nothing…”
“Mum, I’m just busy reading”
“For university?”
“No, just… a story”
“What story?”
“Just a… well, come here mum, and I’ll show you. I think you’ll like it” her daughter moved the laptop to her side to make room for her mum to sit next to her. It was then that Hafsah got a full look at her daughter. A week later of utterly turpid eating habits rested ever so gently above the waistline of her pj shorts. Her daughter, her little daughter, her little angel, was looking a little less little than usual.
“What is it? I might have read it already?”
“I doubt it. It’s an online thing. It’s really good. It’s called A Free Hit. It’s by this author called Swahilimonkfish and it’s really good”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about these young girls who go to university and… they decide to cut loose a little, since you’re only at university once. Why not? After this, it’s all desk jobs and drudgery. So, they’re enjoying themselves for these three years. Three years of freedom. Before the bone-crushing reality of adult inevitability. To do whatever the fuck they want. So they’re savouring it. Enjoying it. Making the most of it. Because, after these three years, life starts. This is all just the prelude”
And with that, her mother cautiously sat down, with a reserved scowl on her forehead. And so it continued, just as it started.
 

Absolutely! Michelle's Rite of passage. IMO the best wg story ever written in this forum. Perfect plot, timing and details... I wish anybody could continue it exactly in the style of the original writer...
 

Thank you so much. And so many of the ideas you suggested months ago inspired this chapter. I remember realising where the story had to go after our discussion. So thank you on that front too

I wrote this story ages ago, but never posted it on here. But the pandemic has sapped my creativity so I'm posting it now - in about 12 parts - to help mitigate the boredom/anxiety/fear for y'all.
 
Bluebell's 2019
 
 
January 2019***
 
Light scattered on her blue shimmering hair as the warm singes of air emanated from the hair straightener that she was running through it. Electric blue, according to the hair colourist. Bluebell blue according to her. According to Bluebell.
And as the straightener sucked all of the girl-next-door frizz out of her hair, Bluebell’s eyes hung with heavy sadness at the mirror’s reflection. Why did they have to go out on a Thursday night? Thursday night preceded Friday mornings, and Friday mornings felt hot coals and scissors at the best of times. Not everyone was a student, Bluebell heard herself chunter as she allowed the straightener to relinquish its grip finally. But Bosh was, and Thursday nights were £1 pints at Emporium, so out they went.
Hair straightened, lithe and sleek like a car commercial, while Bluebell’s heavy eyes scanned the rest of her reflection. She was proud of her hair. It was part of who she was. Blue as her name, bright as her personality. She gave herself her best cutesy smile and a girlish pirouette. Then her cutesy smile loosened up to a genuine one. She grabbed her phone and selfied the results, before Snapchatting it to Bosh. Maybe tonight wouldn’t be so bad.
 
Omg babe! U look so hot!
 
It was a nice reply. Bosh was no poet, but she was always earnest and it tickled Bluebell’s heart warm.
She felt hot too. Her normal crop top and dungarees that made up the majority of her clothing were on the end of her bed. Instead, trickling down her ivory skin like rain down a window was her LBD, usually only brought out for birthdays and post-break-ups. But she’d been feeling in a rut of late. Bosh had football and classes, meaning she had too little time to spend with her girlfriend. She needed a spark again, and her reflection might be just the spark.
The black dress, ruffled at the shoulders and spangly across the torso, celebrated every inch of the 5ft5 girl. It swooped down to reveal her collarbones, but not so far as to reveal her diminutive bust. It whittled inwards at the waist, tightly gripping where the blue-haired 116lb girl was most slender. It ended sharply on her thighs, cocktail dress length so that her finch-like legs could spindle their way like spider legs to the floor. And, best of all, her arms were left uncovered, so she could bear her pride and joy, the blackly inked bluebell on the inside of her forearm in all of her ornate glory. Bluebell wore it with pride, the lean black lines of her identity needled into her arm. She always did wear her heart on her sleeve.
 
Outside yours, Blue. You cumin?
Bosh x
 
Yeah, tonight wouldn’t be so bad.
 

Thank you so much. And so many of the ideas you suggested months ago inspired this chapter. I remember realising where the story had to go after our discussion. So thank you on that front too

I really enjoyed the deep dive update. This is such a rewarding, surprising, and tangible story to follow.