Frontispiece by The Studio
MARIANNE/MARE
Take yesterday: I'm watching one of those news channels, waiting for Rachel to tell me she's finished with her breakfast, when I first see Marianne Weatherly. A slender, well-dressed brunette in her late twenties, Miz W. is sitting in on one of those political gabfests which seem expressly designed to make the most extreme political views possible look well-thought and moderate. Speaking into the camera with the kind of self-assured delivery that makes you think of student council presidents and high school debate contests, the telegenic pundit is speaking out against the minimum wage.
"This is America," she tells us, "where people can raise themselves as high as they want. If an American - and I'm not talking illegals or anything like that - is working in the food service industry or as a motel maid, it's simply because they made the kinds of choices in life which put them there. Why should I, if I'm a business owner, be expected to pay for that?" Her voice is high and girlish; her clipped enunciation emblematic of an American upper middle-class upbringing.
I could give a rat's ass about politics. The world is not the kind of place where inequities can be addressed by anything as simpleminded as political ideology. But watching Marianne Weatherly pontificate about the folly of a standard working wage, one thing becomes clear: this is a woman who has never toiled a day at a menial job, lambasting a program designed to help those who did. I squint at the plasma screen and I suddenly know all about her. Country club family, time spent in a Big Ten Midwestern college, a career spent editing and writing for a succession of agenda driven publishers - she's had it easier than most and doesn't even have the grace of mind to appreciate it. "I'm not saying they don't work hard," she continues, a slight smile curling her patrician lips, "but if they'd simply applied themselves, they'd doubtless be working smarter." Behind her words, she simply exudes self-satisfaction.
I really focus in, and though Rachel can't see it, the plasma becomes multi-screen for me, showing Marianne from all angles. Her face is Stepford Wife pristine: thin and pretty, professionally made-up with the sort of polished well-coiffed look that can only come from hours of professional work. Within her crisp silk top is an athletically slender torso with slightly-larger-than-expected breasts; she shows just enough cleavage to draw attention to them without being obvious. Her legs are long and lankily shapely: not much different from my wife back in her cheerleading days, come to think of it - many, many pounds ago.
The woman is between boyfriends at the moment: her last, an editor, had been primarily a career fuck, anyway. Though not a very sexual being - the whole act strikes her as more messy than enjoyable - she's not above using her appearance as an audience come-on. She works hard to keep up her good looks since she knows it's part of what she's selling. As a result of this self-packaging, Miz Marianne has an overpriced apartment not too far from the studio and the means to pay for it.
Okay, I decide, this will be fun. And I head into the dining room to tell my wife I'll be gone most of the day. She looks up at me, her beautifully multi-chinned face flush from her last three hours of breakfast, and she nods with her mouth full. Most days, I spend at home with Rachel - talking, playing games, watching her eat, sitting in front of the television, helping her make the half-hour trek to the shower and back - but when the planets are in alignment, I'm required to leave and do my job. Nothing too extreme, just the basic reorganizing of one particularly deserving person's life. It's a part of the compact I made to have the life I live with my mega-sized wife, though Rachel knows nothing about it. To her, I'm simply going into the city to meet with my lawyers.
"Don't stop eating on my account," I tell Rachel as I walk around the side of her reinforced chair and lean over her bulging right shoulder to kiss her on a well-fed cheek. She smiles and temporarily drops her fork, turning her head as far as she can so our mouths will meet. I taste Denver omelet, feel the press of a cushiony breast against by chest, and for a moment I consider abandoning my trip into the city. I mean: just look at her! Over nine hundred pounds of full-bodied woman, in a simple sleeveless tee-shirt which only manages to cover the top half of her belly and shorts you can barely see between her bulging thighs and midriff. She is all that I could wish for. The sooner I get my job done, though, the sooner I can get back to Rachel.
So I blow her a goodbye kiss as she chomps into a marmalade-slathered English muffin and switch over to the city. I catch Marianne Weatherly right where I expect to find her: just outside the studios of the cable news network, still looking glossy from her TV appearance. It's a good part of town for what I want to do - all the resources are close by - so I watch as her aloofly lovely self leaves the building alone, and I follow Miz W. for a block until she's right beside a fast food restaurant. She's hurrying home to work on a column for an online magazine, but the woman's never going to get to it.
First thing I do, of course, is kick-start her appetite. Ever since her teen years, the woman has acclimated herself to a daily low-cal diet, but it's only the work of a moment for me to focus on her body and elevate its minimal expectations. As I do - it's like turning up the contrast on your television with a remote - the years of insufficient calories call out to be corrected.
When she makes her long-limbed stride past the entrance, Marianne is struck by a niggling feeling of hunger for something she hasn't had in ages: for cheeseburgers, big juicy cheeseburgers. The scent of the restaurant wafts to her nostrils, and, though she hasn't been in one since she was a college senior, she turns around and purposefully walks into the burger place, practically pushing aside the lower-wage workers and tourists who are standing in line to make an order. Perhaps if she was less of a class snob, she wouldn't be so rude, but perhaps not - nagging hunger can make a person do some uncharacteristic things, after all. Once the slender media personality is asked what she wants, she does something she's never done before: she super-sizes it. Though a tiny voice in the back of her head asks what she's doing, I mute that vestige of her old self.
When her tray arrives, she's surprised to see how small the portions appear. "Is this all there is?" she says to herself with her mouth half full of bun and burger. It tastes so good - the juicy meat, the sauce, the melted cheese - that she quickly takes a second big bite. In less than ten minutes, Marianne's finished them all - a half-pound cheeseburger, extra-large order of fries and a vanilla shake - and gotten back in line. This second time, she doubles her order, without once even thinking about how unlike her this is. "Two super-size meals," she says, her girlish voice nearly quavering with hunger. The pudgy counter girl has been too busy to even recognize that this customer is coming back for seconds.
I view this display from a corner table, sipping a Cherry Coke and thinking about getting my wife a takeout order for six. People come and go inside the restaurant, but Marianne remains rooted in her booth, discovering the joys of a good thick hamburger. She's lost in her first true moment of gluttony. It is easily the most pleasurable thing she's ever known - each bite she takes makes her want to take two more - and the sensation is rapidly becoming the central-most part of her life. She finishes her second course, oblivious to the fact that special sauce has dripped onto her silk wrap blouse, and hits the line again. This time, however, she's almost out of cash, so she has to pull out her debit card. To keep from having to go up again and again, Marianne orders four full super-sized meals and carries 'em to a booth, the counter girl clucking to herself as she finally recognizes her repeat customer. That unwritten column - a piece on why tax cuts for the working poor don't benefit the general economy - totally forgotten, Marianne loses herself in her fast food banquet.
By now her blouse and skirt are a food-stained mess, but that's the least of the woman's worries. Over the last hour, the still-famished Marianne has gained thirty-five pounds. Her garments are already feeling the strain: the cleavage on her blouse has grown significantly and her once slim waist has filled in enough to make it clear that this is a body that's going to grow apple-shaped. Her thighs have started to thicken and flatten against the fiberglass booth seating, and her face - which has lost some of its crisply made-up look thanks to all the extra-large hamburger buns pressed against her cheeks - has the start of a chin line forming.
She doesn't bus her booth, just leaves it and returns to the counter. This time, instead of the half-pounders she's been gorging on, Marianne goes for boxes and boxes of fried chicken fingers. Taking them to a clean two-person booth, she lays each box aside each other, covering the table top, then starts to polish them off a box at a time. The chicken strips are tasty, but they lack the full-bodied pleasure of holding a double-decker burger up to your face, so she finishes this course quickly. Midway into it, Marianne's much-strained skirt rips. Why shouldn't it? She's already gained another fifteen pounds. Though she hears and feels the tear, she doesn't let it interfere with her dining. Once she's finished, there's no way she'll ever be able to fit into her blown outfit again.
Torn between getting more and mortification over the fact that her belted skirt has ripped all the way up its side, showing off her sensibly sexy panties, she looks around the restaurant, grateful that there's no one she recognizes in the place. A pudgy girl with a shopping bag passes by her booth. "Hi-Class Clothes for Lo-Class Prices" it says, and she can see by the logo what I already knew: the store is right across the street. Modesty prevailing, Marianne quickly rises from her booth, holding as much of her skirt together as she can with her right hand, and toddles across the street to Hi-Class Clothes. I see that her heels are making it difficult for her to walk with her extra forefront, though to be honest, I find the sight kind of cute. She's still way too skinny for my tastes, but I know that this won't last.
The selection in Hi-Class isn't Marianne's usual style: polyester tops, low-riding jeans designed to show off each well-rounded butt cheek, decorator tee-shirts, plus a large rack of muumuus and sundresses. She looks at all the cut-rate garments and considers backing right out of the store, but a flash of breeze on her exposed plump thigh quashes that impulse. She'll simply buy as plain an outfit as possible, she decides, wear it home to her apartment and then toss it down the garbage chute.
It takes the plump Marianne a while to find a top and jeans that'll fit her, since she's not accustomed to thinking of herself as a size eighteen, and as soon as she steps out of the dressing room, I focus in and add another twenty-five pounds to her frame, most of it on her hips and thighs. "Damn!" she realizes, once her jeans button pops open. "Too small!" She ups both top and jeans one size, returns to the dressing booth to try these on, and I do the same thing to her again. Soon as she steps out of the booth, she's twenty-five pounds heavier, comically beyond the new outfit she's wearing. Her top is gapping between every button down the front; her low-ride jeans have dropped further down, revealing a large midriff bulge of flesh on both sides of her; her breasts have grown even more pendulous. "Can't they size worth a damn in Hong Kong?" she mutters to no one, in particular. Then she sighs and returns to the racks, her midriff shining in the store fluorescents.
We go through this happy routine two more times before Marianne wises up and picks a bright, size twenty-six sundress. This time, I leave her alone. Her hunger's starting to grow more demanding, and I know she'll quickly outgrow this brightly colored covering on her own.
I let her buy the gaudy dress without incident - with a plus-sized bra and panties to help her along - and a cheap pair of wide canvas shoes. As she's added heft, she has lost three inches in height, much of it in her no longer lanky legs. Her hair is mussed from trying on so many tops; her makeup isn't even a memory. Her once-thin face is now emphatically double-chinned; her pundit's lips have grown fuller and more prominent. She's a far cry, in other words, from the self-absorbed professional woman I'd first seen on television. At over twice her old weight, in a tropical patterned dress that hugs her globular torso, she looks like a stereotypical fat lady: the kind of woman who dresses as cheaply as possible because anything too costly would cut into her food budget. Not a Marianne, just a Mare.
While she pays for her clothes with her debit card, her reawakened appetite grows more forceful. Famished, the upper mid-sized Mare waddles back across the street to make the first of a whole new series of orders. As she does, I shorten her dress to show off more of her bulging calves and change the pattern of her dress from tropical flowers to burgers, hot dogs and fries, scattering a few merry scripted Let's Eat!s throughout the cartoon images. Okay, so this Mare's a gal who's not afraid to make a little fun of herself. Her uncovered upper arms hang down over her elbows, while the exposed back of her right shoulder shows the first true token of her new past: a small Petunia Pig tattoo that she'd gotten years ago at the behest of her then-boyfriend.
By the time she's gotten back to the restaurant, she's panting heavily; her forehead sweats from the unaccustomed effort of carrying so much extra weight. As she steps inside, the glass door bumps against her shelving rear unexpectedly: Mare's still not fully attuned to her large-assed self and her more ponderous way of moving. Over at the counter, the pudgy girl can barely stifle a giggle taking note of her way-too-tight super-sized sundress and the invitation to gluttony decorated all over it. I can't resist the urge to add another twenty-five pounds to her, but this time I focus on higher ground until, within the cleavage of her dress, Mare's breasts are starting to slowly squeeze themselves out of the top of her insufficient bra. When they finally escape, I'll kindly make the inefficient support disappear.
She pants out a family-of-five-sized order, both chins jiggling with hungry anticipation, carries it to a fresh booth and once more loses herself to the act of unrestrained gourmandizing. As my newborn glutton continues to gorge and grow, I idly wonder what my wife is doing. Pizzas, I bet: they're her comfort food when I'm not home. I'm so distracted by this thought that I nearly miss Mare's slow and ponderous return to the counter for her second family-sized order, but that's okay. It's the third one I'm looking forward to.
On trip three, her debit card no longer goes through. "That can't be," she protests, as she desperately searches through her purse for a credit card to use. Though her wallet once contained a full array of platinum cards, the only one Mare can find is a simple gold Discover card. Eager to pay for her meal, she hands it to the counter girl, only to learn that the card has apparently long been maxed out. "I always pay my bills on time," she moans, though as she frantically tries to think back, she's unable to remember the last time she's mailed out a check. Didn't she used to pay most of her bills on-line? Naw, that couldn't have been her . . .
"Sure, you do, hon," the sympathetic counter girl says. "Mebbe you kin get it straightened out over the phone." She hands Mare a free apple turnover as consolation, and, though a part of her feels embarrassed by this small act of kindness, it doesn't stop Mare from grabbing the pastry and tearing the package open with her teeth. Still famished, she grabs a downtown bus for a working class borough far from where she used to live - to a brownstone basement apartment. As she sits, taking up most of her seat, her fat body shakes appealingly with every jolt the vehicle takes. Her heavy calves feel as if she's been working on her feet all day. The last vestiges of apple turnover disolving on her taste buds, she rummages through her purse, looking for a candy bar. I give her a large dark chocolate Dover. The smile of relief on her round face reminds me of Rachel; as she bites into it, she unconsciously lets out a small mew.
Because I've put it together for her, I don't need to follow Mare into her new place to know what's waiting for her: a sparely furnished two-room with a much abused futon and crate furniture; a 19-inch teevee and an answering machine with two messages from Discover Card waiting for her; a closet stuffed with muumuus and sundresses faded from over-washing, plus a series of tees and sweatpants with food stains set into them and holes from the neighborhood laundromat's brutal machines. Unlike her old place, there's no computer or writing nook. It's not that Mare has lost the intelligence or ability to write, it's just that she doesn't see herself as a writer. Her kitchen - because I could never let a hungry woman suffer - has its cupboards crammed with store-brand snacks and cereals; an extra-large fridge stuffed with convenience foods and a freezer packed with Tony's frozen pizzas and store-brand ice cream. On the kitchen window is a selection of cutesy ceramic pig salt-and-pepper shakers.
Soon as she waddles into the kitchen, Mare pulls out two pizzas - one Mexican, the other pepperoni and sausage - and happily places them in the oven. While they cook, the weary fat woman leans her fulsome butt against the kitchen sink and absent-mindedly polishes off a half-gallon of Neapolitan. The scent of the oven is enough to make her forget the humiliating scene with her credit card at the fast food restaurant, ignore the blinking answering machine. As the stovetop timer ticks to its final minute, she unconsciously pats her corpulent belly on the side as if to say, "We're almost ready!"
I leave her for the night, knowing full well what's up for the next ten hours: a night of nonstop gluttony in front of the tube. The joy of eating has become so strong that Mare barely notices what's on the screen, though occasionally one of the skinny starlets will elicit a small tsk! from her over how unhealthy they look. At some point she'll wriggle out of her Let's Eat! dress - probably the first time she drops a dollop of tomato sauce onto her considerable paunch - and change into sweats and tee-shirt that says "Nora's Truck Stop: Home of the Two-Pound Steak!" She'll hold the shirt up before pulling it over her FF breasts, remembering the time she and her ex drove cross-country, back when the sonuvabitch thought her boundless appetite was cute. It was also the night that she made a major dent in Nora's buffet tables. She had taken the "all you can eat" advertisement as a personal challenge. She can visualize that buffet more clearly than she can her ex, who mercifully has grown fuzzy and indistinct in her memory over the years. Then, waxing sentimental, she'll pull on her sweats and, since the waist feels tight on her capacious tummy, let it drop underneath her belly apron.
By the time, she's pulled her futon down and settled her 385-pound body onto it, she's fully into her Mare self: a uncontrollably gluttonous fat lady who dropped out of community college - before she could get her Associate's Degree - after eating all her spring tuition money in the fall. She'd worked steadily in college food services until she met Ray, the food delivery trucker who'd promised to take her away from all that. He'd driven her across the country to New York, only to abandon her four years later for getting "too damn fat," though at the time she was a string bean, a mere 250 pounds. Five years later, she lives alone, barely supporting herself, dodging her creditors and unpaid bills, working in the fast food restaurant right across the street from where she bought her comical little sundress. The job pays shitty, but, unlike some franchises (as she's learned from experience), the manager allows her to eat as much as she wants between busy times, and she always keeps a bag of fries near her under the counter. And at least she was able to stick that asshole Ray with most of her credit card debt: only card still in her name is Discover, which rests in her plastic purse alongside her bus pass.
She falls asleep on her side, her ballooning belly spilling over the edge of her futon, the bottom of her truck stop tee-shirt rolled up underneath her breasts. Her Petunia Pig tattoo has grown more florid and fuller cheeked over the night to match her owner's face. Feeling full for the first time all day, her mind no longer distracted by hunger or the overriding pleasure of good high-cal food, the sated fat woman momentarily has the feeling that her life had once been very different, that she once was another young woman entirely. But that's just a late-night fantasy: she's always been Mare, a hard-working woman with a very hearty appetite.
I arrive at the restaurant next morning just in time to see my latest assignment wobble in for work, a job that as far as anybody there remembers she's held for the past three years. She's done her hair up in a bun and has gone without makeup, though the act of carrying her nearly quarter ton body from the bus stop to the restaurant has reddened her bulging cheeks considerably. Her once impeccably made-up face is now mainly just scrubbed clean with facial cleanser bought at the Dollar Store; her once baby-smooth skin has dimples and creases that are accentuated as she chews on her sixth breakfast Danish. As she waddles through the door, Mare's looming belly jiggles and sways within her thin dress; her huge panties' lines are visible in the back of her muumuu; her braless breasts droop to both sides of her belly. She raises a heavy arm to stop the door from swinging against her prominent end: dealing with the inconveniences of a fat-unfriendly world has become second nature to her by now. Because the franchise doesn't have a uniform that goes up to her size, the super-sized counter woman is allowed to wear a apron with the company logo on it over her dress. She grunts a little as, just for fun, I add four more inches to her waist and hips, causing her apron to come undone. Thanks to her shelving rear, she has a hard time reaching around her back, so she asks the plump counter girl for help getting it retied. I wait a bit, then add another four inches for good measure. This time, the knot has to be replaced by a safety pin because the ends barely meet.
But, aside from that little tweaking (if you can call growing a 74" waist little), I don't feel the need to mess with this new fat woman's reality any further. I've done my bit for the universal balance this week. When I step up to give my order, I find that I'm speaking to a genuinely nice lady. Her voice is no longer so girlish, and the edge of condescension that I heard on TV has vanished. It's clear, just from the way she presents herself, that the hard times she's experienced in her life have made Mare appreciate those days when things aren't so bad, when there's plenty of food in the fridge and enough of the bills have been paid that nobody's gonna call you that night, when none of the customers have been cranky and there's even a leftover burger or two to nibble on the bus ride home. I give her a takeout order for six, and as she tallies up the order, her tongue unconsciously licks her fat woman's lips.
Before I turn and leave, I do her three small favors: divert the morning line of breakfast customers to a Hardee's down the street, put two still-hot half-pound cheeseburgers beneath the counter and place two large cheesecakes back home in her fridge. By the time I'm home, Mare's already scarfed down the first half-pounder, along with a super-sized cup of Pepsi. "Looks like it's gonna be a good day," she thinks, happily chewing on a mouthful of fries, her cheeks and chins jiggling merrily. In that simple moment of joy, she looks lovelier than even I could've imagined. Behind her, at the fry vat, a small boombox is playing some morning political shock jock, but she pays it no heed.
Mare's changed life is now in proper motion; inertia will handle the rest. In a few weeks, the safety pin on her apron strings won't cut it anymore; perhaps she'll have to take up sewing to cover her still-growing middle. It's all for the best in my eyes because, by my standards, she's still a little on the puny side, especially when compared to my Rachel.
The restaurant takeout is still warm when I hand the first bag to my wife. "Missed you," she coos, as she greedily tears into the sack, her dimpled cheeks quivering with delight. I can see by the pile of corrugated pizza boxes on the side of her couch, that she's kept well fed in my absence, however. On the television, a blond pundit named Carly Eaves has replaced Marianne Weatherly, but I don't feel the need to do anything about it if I could. Already, my time-sensitive power is fading. There are other forces out there working on Carly; she's another writer's story.
I feel pretty good about the work I've done. There are parts of Mare's future that I know; parts I don't. Whether she meets a guy who appreciates her for her overeating self is a matter I prefer to leave up to chance. She will, I know, be promoted to night manager in six months. Her new position will help her maintain minimum payments on that maxed-out credit card, provide a little extra snack money and keep her off her feet - which she'll definitely appreciate. And as night manager, she'll get to able to carry home all the restaurant leftovers that she can handle. Within a year, her 500-pound self will be a skinny memory.
No matter how huge she grows, Mare will always have a job at the downtown restaurant. From all her years of fast-food experience, the super-super-sized fat woman will make an exemplary supervisor. She knows, after all, what it's like to have to work hard to keep your belly full . . .
Copyright © 2007 - OakHaus Designs
