* The solution described * A prayer for increase * The feasting begins

* Weeks of progress * My routine described * New-found pleasures * Discouragment

Though it was yet dark, I wasted no time in summoning the maids and all the staff. If they were surprised to see me naked before them as the dawn had barely begun to rise above the horizon, their faces gave no indication. Instead, they listened with rapt attention as I told them what I had seen that night just passed. I told them of my revelation and of my solution and of my determination to effect that same solution as quickly as might be possible. There was great joy went through their hearts and faces for it was clear that they all truly loved their master, and they could see the wisdom of my plans. After much discussion and consultations, they arrived at a plan to convert one of the rooms on this floor into a new kitchen that food should always be at hand. They hurried off to make preparations and I walked over to where my lover lay in his dark sleep. I lifted his frail body into my embrace, pressing his sleeping face against my bosom and whispering to him of my deep and abiding love.

It seemed like only moments had passed before the first of the servants returned with the beginnings of the preparations. They brought in a large table, suited for the most lavish gathering, and at its head placed a single chair, plush and wide and suited more for comfort than for the proprieties of dining. A few moments later a parade of servants began carrying in the china and the silver-plate, a sideboard and a serving cart, carving implements and serving utensils. Not long after that, the first dish of food arrived, a steaming porridge, redolent with cinnamon and sugar and sweet butter.

Standing, I placed my hands on the soft mound of my stomach, considering its sweet appearance for a moment. The sounds of preparation quickly died down as the staff realised the solemnity of the occasion, listening carefully as I spoke to my stomach, saying, "Grow hunger, and expand my gut to fit all I feed it. Grow me full and fat, yet let me feel privation in the face of plenty. Hunger increase that I may consume all that is served me with ardour and purpose. Feed my form that my hips grow wide as the horizon and my stomach precede me by yards and leagues. Make me round as the moon and as large as my love for my poor dear Cambel."

With those words, I began to walk to the table, and as I passed by the loyal servants, each of them made certain to place their hands or their lips on my soft flesh, and with each kiss or caress, I could feel my appetite growing, so that by the time I reached my seat, my stomach growled with impatience and fairly pulsed with anticipation. I began to feed myself, but each spoonful of porridge only seemed to increase my feelings of being famished. No sooner had I finished one bowl than the attentive footman refilled it with another serving. Soon, the porridge was gone and was replaced with a platter of great fluffy egg omelettes enough to feed several men. I ate those, too, then sat back for a short rest. As I reclined in my seat, one of my young maids handed me a tumbler of sweet milk, which I drank quickly, feeling the cool liquid filling in the empty spaces inside my stomach.

After a short while, I felt ready to eat again, and this time I was treated with cakes and breads and cheeses which I continued to consume long after my stomach had ceased to complain of hunger. When I pushed back from table this time, I was forced to lay flat, for the threat of dyspepsia was not far away. I must have fallen asleep for a short time, only to be awakened by the sumptuous aroma of roasted lamb. My hunger had returned, although I could not imagine how, after looking down at my stomach, swollen as large as I had ever seen it. Nevertheless, I ate great slabs of the pink meat, washing them down with flagons of ale, until I had consumed a goodly portion of the beast's leg. The ale had made me drowsy, and so I once again took some sleep

Throughout that day, my feeding continued, great rounds of gorging punctuated by short sleeps. My trips to the chamber pot were strange affairs, my balance being affected by the great quantity of comestibles which so engorged my stomach. Night fell, and I continued my gluttony long beyond my wildest expectations. When finally, I felt the need for a night's sleep, my loyal Lily and Rose helped me to the bed they had prepared adjoining Cambel's sickbed, and I climbed in, laying on my back. It was an amazement to see how full my stomach was that it defied gravity's beckoning and stood straight up like a hillock above the flatlands. The skin was dry and suffering from the strain of such sudden expansion, and the two girls, upon seeing this, took it upon themselves to anoint my flesh with fragrant oils. Their warm hands radiated heat through my soul and set up such feelings in my groin that after a while I had to ask them to stop for I was certain that I would soon explode in some strange ecstasy.

As I prepared to drift off into sleep, I noticed that the two girls had brought chairs over to the sides of my bed and were preparing to spend the night there. "Why do you not go to your own chambers?" I asked. "We wish to be here should you wake up in the middle of the night with the desire to eat something," one of them replied. I smiled and said, "Even should that occur, I do not desire that you should be so uncomfortable as to sleep in your chairs. There is room enough in this bed for the three of us. Come and sleep with me." They complied after only short hesitation, and lay down next to me, one slender girl on each side of my swollen self.

The next morning I awoke with renewed hunger and quickly set about trying to satisfy that unquenchable desire for satiation. That night I fell asleep again, in my maidens' embrace, gorged beyond comprehension, yet strangely hopeful. And so the days passed. I ate with passion and fury, consuming fish and fowl and flesh and cakes and ales and puddings and pastries and breads and cheeses and all manner of confections. Some nights I arose from the table to find that I had grown noticeably fatter since first I had been seated that morning. After only one week, the two strong young girls lifted my bedstead and informed me that I now weighed fourteen stone seven. After two weeks, I weighed fifteen stone nine and after three weeks, I weighed sixteen stone thirteen and was of much greater weight than ever I had been before!

My routine of continuous eating was interrupted only by a few select daily events. Each morning and noon and evening, I spent time at Cambel's side, holding his hand and brushing his hair, and speaking to him of my day's progress. His eyes remained closed and he did not so much as bestir himself, but I could feel that the heard me in some way. As my body grew bigger, I took his hand and manoeuvred it across my swollen flesh, delighting in secret thrills as his cool hands brushed my breasts or the deep recesses of my womanhood, fancying that I could hear his murmurs of approval at my engorged figure.

Another of my daily activities was the inspection of the eggs which the female butterfly had laid in neat rows on the undersides of dozens of oak branches before her sudden, yet expected demise. In contrast to the sickly appearance of the previous crop of eggs, these seemed all to be vibrant and viable, and I was rewarded after only a week of observation, with the hatching of hundreds of healthy caterpillars, each as determined to eat and grow fat as was I!

The final part of my daily routine took place before I went to sleep each night, when I waddled my way, with the assistance of my two faithful bed-mates, down the staircase to stand in the doorway and gauge my progress. Each time I stood in that portal-way, I felt my growth as I felt it no place else. As I grew ever greater in width and circumference, the walls of that small room seemed to close in on me, and as the quarters became ever tighter, I felt ever closer to my freedom. Indeed, it became a great delight to me to press my soft abdomen against the latch repeatedly, feeling the gentle vibrations as it gently slid into its open position, propelled at the insistence of my swollen body. As the days turned into weeks and my girth continued to expand, I became ever more thrilled at the increase in the distance at which I could place my feet and still have my stomach make contact with the surface of the door.

My stomach was not the only part of me that was growing, however; each day my hips, too, grew wider, and my derriere grew even softer, spreading out when I was seated to fill my dining chair. Mere weeks ago, when began my odyssey of gluttony, that seat had seemed wide enough for luxury and comfort; by the time my bulk neared eighteen stone, that chair was becoming merely adequate, and soon would seem cramped. My arms grew thicker, too, and began to develop hanging folds which quivered gently as I raised my fork ever again in my unending orgy of consumption. The looking glass which I had brought into the chambers revealed my face, too was growing rounder, with a rosy plumping of my cheeks and the beginnings of a second chin, like a shadow around my jawline; this was revealed upon close inspection, for the distance necessary that I might take in my entire form in a single glance was too great for me to observe any such details of my changed appearance. My breasts, too, participated in this amplification, growing both in width as well as in pendulousness.

Much joy came to me in my increasing size, but not only in the freedom to consume inordinate amounts of food with no repercussions. Besides my delight in looking at my burgeoning dimensions, there was the added happiness involved in the new sensations which attended on my expanding flesh. Walking had become a new pleasure, for with each step my soft body quivered and quaked, heightening the experience of what had heretofore been an activity mundane and unremarkable. My breasts swung from side to side with each step, their travel interrupted by contact with the swell of my stomach or the soft flesh of my upper arms. My belly rode a circuit, up and down and right and left, while my buttocks shook to their own rhythm and my great thighs rubbed against one another. This last motion created a friction which served to ignite my nether regions into a continuous state of arousal; that arousal in turn fuelled my hunger, which brought me full circle.

Despite my satisfaction with my situation, when the fourth week had half-passed, I found myself with a waning inspiration. The Count lay helpless as ever in his dark sleep, the staff were no less industrious and solicitous in their preparations, my maids had not backed off one whit in their attentions, and, yet, a malaise had begun to creep over me.

As I sat one morning, staring at the cocoons in which the horde of caterpillars had so recently encased themselves, I felt myself dreading the necessity of returning to table to consume another tun of bland puddings, character-less pottages, burnt roasts and the like, of which my diet had consisted exclusively since began my gorging. I let my mind wander to that summer past and the feasts we had revelled in, my father and I. Memories came flooding back to me: sunny Italy, with its profusion of macaronis, swimming in sauces made of brilliant red tomatoes, fragrant spices, garlic and onions; Provence, with its meats and vegetables clothed in the flavours of olives, capers and fresh herbs; Switzerland, where we feasted on spaetzle, a rich noodle doused in sauces of melted cheeses; Austria, the land of wursts and schnitzels and pastries of such sinful richness that I felt I would gain weight just by thinking of them; Greece, where egg and lemon and the salty feta cheese competed with finely seasoned lamb for our palate's attentions.

My mood must have been quite obvious, for, without so much as a word from me, the two girls came over to sit by my side and ask of me what was the matter. "I am bored," I said. "There must be more to my eating than the mere act of consumption. I needs find some excitement and adventure in my meals, or I fear I shall not be able to continue towards my goal. The mere thought of mindlessly gorging on foods which serve as nothing but filler has become anathema. Can you not see this?"

They looked at one another, the expression of incomprehension clear on their faces. "Do you not take pleasure in your dining?" I asked them.

"Ià I have never felt that of a meal," Lily said.

"I merely eat what I must in order to be healthy," Rose continued. "I have never taken delight in my food as you seem to do."

"Perhaps," I said, "that is because you are served the same thing each night. Do you not long for discovery and novelty?"

"Well, yes," the first girl replied, "but I never thought to seek such things in a plate of food." She turned from me then and I followed her glance to where the cook was peeking apprehensively through a crack in the door. She summoned the cook and suggested that I explain my plight to the woman who might be capable of remedying the situation. After I described to her some of the dishes I had tasted in my travels, my maid asked her, "Can you prepare such dishes?"

"I can prepare whate'er ye will," she said. "I shall send some of the men t'find the things ye require, and beginning tonight, ye shall have the dishes your appetite desires." With that, she bowed deeply and hurried away.

"I fear she will be disappointed in her quest for the proper ingredients," I said, when the cook had vanished from my sight. "Some of the herbs and fruits can not be found in England, nor can they be found in the winter-time."

"Fear not," Rose replied, "for time and geography are quite different in the land where castle Scudamore resides, and even now our men have scattered to the corners of the globe that they might help to revive your flagging inspiration. In the meantime, milady, can you not find in you the smallest hunger, that you may bring yourself closer to your goal while you await your supper feast?"

At that very instant, my hollow stomach let out a fierce roar and I could not stifle a laugh as I said, "I suppose I should be capable of eating something, if I must!" We walked towards the table, and despite my earlier protests, I proceeded to devour the large bowl of porridge that waited for me, promptly sinking into a deep sleep when my hunger had become temporarily sated.

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