He
By Empress Yellow Plug
Statistically, Detroit is the fattest city in the world. There are all types of obesity here and it's spread among a greater number of the population. Still, when I see his massive form not more than 30 feet away from me, my heart skips a beat. He is the fattest man I have ever seen in person. I am taken aback by my immediate feelings for him. It's like love at first sight. Love with a vision of our history together and a photo album included.He approaches me, laughing, with a tall and strapping guy I recognize.
“Hey there, Mitchell!” I call, waving to get them to come over to me. He wobbles when he walks, but he looks sturdy. The closer they get to me the more I realize what a treasure I have found. He's a pear shape with a flat, thick heavy paunch that pushes the material in his pants sagging to his knees. His enormous feminine buttocks and hips sticks out to each side of him like overstuffed sandbags on the sides of an ass. I feel my uterus move. I want to see those knees, but the material in his jeans is so thick and heavy, I can't get more than an idea of what they look like.
I smile. They're standing in front of me. I smile because I realize that he can't be that much taller than I. He seems so big, because he's so wide. His eyes, like glistening black stones, reached out to mine from beneath feathery lashes on skin the color of chestnut, magnets above a charmed porcelain smile.
“Well, hello there! Imagine seeing you here, Lizzy.” My friend Mitch grabs me up in one of his rough hugs. I feel my breasts press against his ribs.
“I know,” I grin, pushing away. “How are you, Mitch?”
“This is my good buddy, Alex. We've been friends since kindergarten.”
“Really? It's hard to believe you have any friends, Mitch,” I joke, taking the opportunity to wink at the hulking behemoth. “Alex, huh? I'm Elizabeth. Listen, why don't you two come hang out at the house later. I've just finished remodeling and I'd love to have you see it.”
“Sounds wonderful, but I don't think I could make it. Plus, I've got a flight overseas in two days and I have to finish up preparations.”
“Too bad for you, Mitchell. How about you, Alex? I'd really like the company.”
“Well, maybe I could come.” The first sound of his thick baritone voice goes through me like the vibrations of a sovereign bell. I notice he is flirting. He is confident, and I get wet.
“Listen, Lizzy, I'll leave you two to chat. I have some errands I have to get done by night fall.”
“Ok.”
“Sorry, Alex, I'll call you.”
“No problem here, man. I'm loving where I am.”
He invites me for coffee and I am delighted to discover that he's eating normally in front of me. He sits his 2-½ foot wide haunch on the flimsy fast food furniture, pulling a chair up to the booth, without the slightest show of discomfort. He leans forward over the table keeping a lot of weight on his legs. He's been fat his whole life.
He carries his weight brilliantly, I think. I can't help wondering what he would be like at twice this size. My conversation with him is effortless. He is luminous and energetic. It isn't long before I question him directly.
“You're a funny type guy, Alex,” I venture.
“What do you mean?” He adds more sugar to his coffee and stirs it roughly. I watch his long, chubby and surprisingly delicate-looking fingers. He takes a sip.
“You're a pretty big guy. How much do you weigh?”
“Now, about 350.” His voice gets softer as he answers, and he glances about at the java jerks behind me.
“Somebody looking?” I question, checking over my shoulder disapprovingly. When I turn back he's looking me squarely in the eyes, with an amused gaze. I avert my own eyes, and smile. “Uh…uh, you said 'now'? Meaning what? You've gained some or lost?” I feel safe pushing him to answer because he lets me feel that way. He's not intimidated.
“I've been losing, actually.”
“Wow. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean, if you feel like you've accomplished something by losing it. All my congratulations to you.”
“If? Does that mean you think it's not an accomplishment?”
“Well, how much did you lose?” We laugh. “No, seriously, though, I think the media tells us too much about what is good, what is healthy and what is deplorable, that's all.”
“Ok. Yeah… I get you. Well, then congratulate me, because if I had kept going in the same direction there was a good chance of my doing some real damage.”
“Congratulations. Losing weight is really hard.”
“Yes it is.”
“I like you, Alex.”
“I think I like you, too.”
And that's exactly how it happened. I don't think there was a second thought from that moment on. We courted in the old fashioned way for three or four months before he proposed to me. We were married on a cruise ship by my father, who is a pastor. We had sex for the first time after the ceremony. Very conventional. Very traditional. As normal as the sunrise.
Three months into our marriage everything changed.
Alex had been working in education for years and was used to spending his afternoons at home alone. This evening, I came home to find him purging. I pushed the door of the restroom and there he was, leaning over the sink with his fist in his mouth. His eyes were moist and red.
“Alex!” I cried. “What are you doing?”
When he looked up at me, my heart broke. He sat down on the edge of the tub and I sat down next to him. He told me of how he'd been trying to maintain his weight. He was harboring a fear that I would leave him if he began to gain. We talked for hours and I cried. I held his chubby face between my hands.
“I will NEVER leave you. Do you understand? Never!”
I took him by the hand and led him to the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator door and took out a loaf of bread, luncheon slices, cheese, mayonnaise and other sandwich ingredients. I took his hand and laid it on each item.
“You are going to eat. You are my husband and you do not have the right to starve yourself. You are a valuable person and you are going to eat.”
I made him a couple sandwiches, put them on a plate and sat him down at the table.
I made two more and sat across from him. We talked; he ate. When he had finished the first plate I gave him the second and got up to get some fruit from the hanging basket. “Balanced diet. Your natural body size NEEDS a certain amount of calories to keep healthy, otherwise you put a strain on your heart.” I told him. “There is no more of this, I'm going to make sure you are well taken care of.”
I had gotten pretty close to my new in-laws. Some of Alex's relatives were very candid about his weight. He wasn't the only big guy in the family and the rumor was there had even been an uncle who had died from complications of his obesity. Alex's sister warned me not to pester him.
“They made a record of everything he ate,” she told me. “That's when he started to hoard.”
I hated to admit it, but the love I felt for Alex had always been mixed with the somewhat bizarre fantasy involved in the prospect of gaining. I don't think I even realized what I was doing in the beginning.
I found myself printing out charts and schedules. “It's going to be simple, honey. We'll just write everything down.” And we did.
Life went on that way for months and we were both at peace. Alex kept a good record, which I could validate and he never gained a pound. Then we went to a dinner party. Our mutual friend, Mitchell was taking final steps to move permanently to Tokyo. Alex found his suit, and I a nice formal. I laid them out on the bed next to each other and felt my panties moisten just looking at the difference in the sizes. I saw the dent in the mattress where Alex slept.
“Alex!” I called, eagerly gathering the clothes. “You should have a snack before we go.”
“What?” he answered confused.
“I don't want you sitting there, counting calories around your buddies. Just grab something in the kitchen while I get your clothes together.”
“Alright, then. I'll mark it on the chart.”
“Don't bother. You've been doing so well, you don't need to worry about that.”
The next morning I made breakfast. We usually didn't eat breakfast.
“Here's to us, baby,” I said, filling his glass with orange juice.
I conveniently forgot to mark the chart. While he was in the shower, I threw out food that I had just purchased. At dinner that evening I confronted Alex with deep concern.
“We should take down the charts.”
“What are you talking about, it's working great. I feel wonderful, and I'm thinking about everything I eat.”
“Well, maybe you're thinking too much. I just think the chart is not accurate, that's all.”
“What?”
“I've heard about your hoarding. It's not necessary. I mean Alex. Didn't I tell you that I would never leave you? Didn't I tell you that you could eat? You're a man, you need to eat.”
“What are you getting at, Liz? I mark the chart faithfully.”
I threw my napkin onto my plate and pushed back from the table. I put my eyes down.
“I mark it faithfully, Liz. What do you want me to say?”
After about three weeks of this, I ripped the chart off the wall and made an appointment with our family doctor. But the stress I was putting on him was already working. He had stopped eating from the house and was buying fast food and junk food on the way to and from work. There were crumpled bags tucked into the yard waste cans. He was careful to keep any evidence out of his vehicle.
I felt bubbles in my stomach when I thought of what I was doing to him. But to see how tight the top of his belly had become made my mouth water. Things got even better after we saw the doctor.
“I can't make it on 1200 calories, Lizzy.”
”You don't even love me anymore, Alex. You want to die.”
“Liz, this is ridiculous.”
“Fine.”
I found old photos of him at his highest weight and pinned them up around the house. He looked like he could have been around one hundred pounds heavier than he was when we met. 450 lbs.
Two weeks after he started the diet I came home from work early and caught him sneaking food. I left the house and slammed the door behind me. I sat in my car for hours looking angry, but I was just browsing the radio. When I finally crept back into the house, Alex was sitting dazed in nearly the exact spot where I had found him. The food was gone and he had a look of self hate on his face that I believe I have never seen on anyone before or since.
“Truce?” I said to him, rubbing my hand across his thick neck and the curving lump of his back fat. “I love you, Alex.”
“I love you, too, baby.” He said.
“I want you to gain weight for me.”
He looked at me angrily, as if I were teasing him cruelly.
“You have never been so mean to me, Liz. I am trying the best I can.”
“I mean it, Alex. I want to see what nature is calling you to be. I want to know what happens when you get to follow your instincts. There is a reason why you have to eat.”
“I haven't really eaten much. It just seems that way, because I'm so big now. You saw the charts, you know how I eat.”
“I know, honey. Why don't we just give it a try? Let's set a goal.”
“What kind of goal?”
“Weight gain is too easy for you. Let's see if you can make it to your peak weight in three months.”
“Three months? You want me to put on 100 pounds in 3 months?”
“You don't think you can do it?”
“I can do it, I just don't think it will be fun. Besides, I don't really see the point.”
“You eat normally, and I'll help push you beyond your limitations.”
“Liz.”
“Alex, do you love me?”
“You know I do, Liz. Do you love me?”
“You know I do. Now show me something.”
That night I ordered $300 worth of food from Buca di Beppos. Mostly pastas and dessert.
“Take your time baby. I'm here with you. You can eat it all tonight or spread it out. But you have to finish this order in 8 hours.”
He ate and every time he tried to stop, I picked up the fork and fed him more. I think that he was scared then already, but he looked at me and ate it just to please me. It did please me. He'd just about finished the order, when he wretched and the whole thing came back up on the table.
He looked at me, while he was choking on the bits with the silliest expression I have ever seen and we both burst out laughing.
“Don't worry, baby,” I said jumping up from the chair where I had perched beside him. “All is not lost! We'll fill the empty spots with protein drinks and cream.” I made the drinks and he just gulped them down. I figured I would keep him always drinking juice, since it's full of hidden calories. He ate familiar foods, mostly those high in fat and carbohydrates and he ate constantly and too much. Soon the queasy stomach settled down and he could take three times as much as he had eaten before. And at every meal I gave just a bit more than the last time.
He put on the weight. In three months he had hit bottom and sunk past. Not only did he add the needed hundred pounds, but he ended up weighing in at 462!
Congratulations to me.
Those chubby knees that I adored so much became an everlasting source of inspiration.
“I want to cover up your knees.” I whispered to him. “I want to see this little tab of skin get plump and bubble down over your knee cap.”
“Liz… hun… I'm gaining so much weight already. I hate to climb the stairs at the school and there's only 8 of them. It's too fast. I need to let my muscles adjust to the weight.”
“I don't want that. I want to see the fat cover your knees and then your ankles. I want your thighs to drag the floor. You have such wonderful legs! I want your back fatter. I want to help you lift your arms in the shower, because you can't hold them up long enough to wash beneath them. Better yet, I want to wash your body for you in the bed because you can't make it to the shower.”
I'd said too much.
“Liz, no.” And he got up from the table and slid slowly down the hall into his office. He shut the door. And I didn't see him again for the rest of the evening.
The next morning I made breakfast for him, but it was in the same place I left it when I got home that evening. And Alex wasn't there.
I was just sitting down to call his family when the phone rang.
“Ms. Arden-Bowles?”
“This is she.”
“I'm sorry, ma'am but there's been an accident. You need to come down to Detroit Receiving.”
I hung up the phone in a daze. The voice had assured me that Alex was stable, but I couldn't get past the fear of losing him. My hands were shaking so badly that I could hardly get the car door opened.
I called his brother, Jessie to take me down.
When we walked into the room, the sound of emergency equipment hit my eardrums. But there were two beds in the room, and my husband wasn't hooked up to any machines.
“He's got a pretty bad break, Mrs. Bowles,” droned the doctor, gesturing to the plaster encased leg. “A man of his size can't be too careful.”
“You're right, doctor.”
“He's going to have to stay off of it for a while. We're keeping him overnight, but he can go home in the ambulance as early as…”
“Yes?”
“As early as tomorrow. Looks like you're going to miss some work there, buddy.”
“Looks like it.”
Alex was in a lot of pain, luckily the doc prescribed something. Lucky for me it was steroid based. Alex was stuck in bed and he was considerably bored and depressed. It was a lucky break for me. I had backed off of trying to make him eat more than he wanted, but the truth was, he was in a natural cycle; bored – eat, miserable – eat. So I just kept food within reach.
After the cast came off, the doctor made a house call and suggested he use crutches to get around. This made Alex very unhappy. He couldn't think of anything more embarrassing than being a fat guy on crutches. But he had to baby the leg. And without any physical activity, it was pretty tough just lugging himself around without even thinking about the injury. Just being in the bed with his slow metabolism he'd put on nearly the same amount as he had when we were trying. When the doc came he weighed in at 556. He was by every estimate a very heavy guy.
And I was secretly rejoicing, because his knees had long been covered.
Alex was up and about again not long after the visit. He cut back his intake sharply and took slow walks down the length of our block before sunrise. He lost about 50 pounds without even trying.
It was about that time that I was pissed and frustrated. You can imagine. I was so uptight, that I started rambling on to his brother, Jessie, of all people. Imagine my surprise when Jessie responded with a sympathetic joke about tube feeding anorexics!
He told me about the process and even gave me the number to a medical supply company that would ship me a used machine for a reasonable price. I stopped laughing. Jessie stopped laughing.
“Do you think we could do this?” I asked him.
“I think we should,” was his reply.
So I bought the machine. It wasn't long before Jessie had used his skills in electronics to rewire it, add a stronger motor to the pump and substitute a tube three times larger than the one included.
We caught Alex in his sleep. He was a pretty sound sleeper and Jessie gave him a quick injection just to keep him still. The tube was much easier to insert than it seemed it would be. I held Alex's head as Jessie slipped it into the right nostril and kept feeding it slowly until the specified mark indicated it had reached the stomach. We turned the machine on immediately.
I had debated with Jessie the best way to keep Alex in the bed. Our final plan was a bit brutal but it worked. While he was still knocked out on the drugs, Jessie took a hammer and broke Alex's toes. All ten of them!
With the weight that he was carrying he would need them for balance. Without them he would end up on the floor. The pain would be enough to dissuade him from trying anything for the first couple of months. I thought it would be a good idea to keep him on the sleeping pills for a while anyway, as extra security. I ground them and mixed them into the liquid, crossed my fingers and hoped it would work.
When Alex finally woke up he was furious. His feet hurt something terrible and his throat was a bit sore. But he gave in when he saw Jessie was a part of it. When he saw his big thin brother standing there by the bed his eyes just went gray. He ate his meals like a good boy and I flicked on the machine to supplement his snacking while he lay in bed during the day as well as to plump him up during the night.
I remodeled his room and took photo after photo of his thick rippling river like form. He grew slowly, but consistently. Weekends were a roman festival of gluttony. He still took no pleasure in it, but he couldn't have survived without the mind dulling act of binging. The constant movement of his jaws became an afterthought.
We got a new bed when he reached 750. It was miserable for him to be moved by so many people. He kept a brave face, but actually wept when they went to the great room with Jessie for refreshments. Witnessing this gave me astonishing pleasure.
At 950 lbs, we had out first serious conversation.
“Elizabeth…hhh…do you …hhh… love me…?”
“….Alex, you know I do.”
“hhh…you… have….hhh…hhh…you have made … hhh… a sort of…hhh… prisoner… out of me…”
“You are very natural, Alex. It's a wonderful thing to be.”
“hhh…Do you really ….hhh…appreciate…hhh…me… better this…hhh… way?”
“How much more do you think you can hold?”
“hhh…hhh…I'm … hhh… crested.” He replied, with a dry chuckle.
But I could see in his eyes he knew he could grow much fatter and he was petrified.
Even on the tilting bed, his stomach pressed into his chin. His legs had gotten to be very pleasant to the eye, his base, a six-in. sheet of flesh that tipped the very boundaries of the wide platform on which he perched and melted into his tall, wide enormous thighs, pushing themselves apart like twin humpbacked whales pushing up out of the sea. His right side was heavier than his left, leaving a breathtaking uneven effect on the lower calves. The ankles had been covered over, even to the toes, which poked up like so many smooth stones. The fat on his back and neck kept his head from ever touching down. I placed two pillows beneath it, so that he could rest or sleep. Most wonderfully, his chest had come to accept morbid obesity with delight and gave a breathtaking fat old breast-y lady representation. They pushed out to the sides of his immense tummy and had to be moved to allow any mobility in his arms.
“Eat.”
“hhh… I … I…”
“Eat, Alex.”
“hhh…”
I turned the machine to its highest power and added more meat, carbs and powder to the mix. “You're going to eat, Alex. Like it or not.” I said, breaking up pieces of baguette and dipping it in melted butter. I obliged him to take bits in though his teeth. “Your body needs this.”
“hhh… I…mmhate…hhmmh…this…hhh…MmmElizabeth… hhh.”
Against his will, over forced heaping tablespoons, he salivated.