chapter 2

It didn't take me long to get home. My parents were both second generation Scottish Italians: the children of immigrants who came to this country with nothing and made a living satisfying Scotland's love of cheap and fast fried foods long before burgers and fried chicken made their way across the Atlantic. My dad ran a fish and chip shop and we lived in the small flat above it.

While the tantalising aroma of fried food was a constant backdrop to my life, my mum cooked the homely Italian food that my Nonna had raised her on. Northern Italian comfort food rich and heavy with lard, butter and cheese. The kind of food that sticks to your ribs and I certainly hadn't seen or even felt my ribs in years. Food was the centre around which our lives revolved. Every special occasion, every warm and happy memory that I could recall seemed to involve food.

My dad only made a modest income from his business but he was an indulgent man who could never resist spoiling us. He coddled us, pampering his two obese princesses. While my dad enabled us, my mum and I normalised each other's eating. We were two fat peas in an oversized pod. My mother always resembled a larger version of me; I had inherited her dark Italian colouring and striking features but also all of her body hang ups and her weakness for high calorie foods.

Occasionally we would try to lose weight, prompted by a cruel comment from a stranger, a tactless remark from a friend or a lecture from a doctor. Together we'd been through gym memberships, slimming groups, juice cleanses and every fad diet you could name. But it never lasted. Food was just too tempting, too delicious, too good to ever resist for long.

We also kept each other safe from the reality of just how much we weighed. Our home had no full length mirrors and a set of digital scales that hadn't had a functioning battery in years. The last time I had been weighed was during a doctor's appointment two years ago. I weighed 273 lbs back then and, though all my clothes from that time had been overgrown and were consigned to the back of my wardrobe, I was content to live in denial about how big I had allowed myself to become.

My mother still seemed to me to be very beautiful but it was becoming obvious that her weight was limiting her. At close to 500 lbs she had become so fat and heavy that she had trouble getting around. She seldom left the house and she didn't work, except occasionally helping my dad. Her life was becoming increasingly confined to the four walls of our flat and her days one long, monotonous binge. I knew that she was a glimpse into my not too distant future if I didn't change my lazy and greedy ways but unlike mum I didn't have anyone who would love me unconditionally while my weight spiralled further out of control.

The first place I went when i got home was the kitchen. It always was.

"How was work?" my mum asked.

"Fine," I muttered.

"That good, huh?" she smiled. "Well, never mind, let me get you something to eat."

I watched as she got up and slowly waddled towards the stove, every step a fight against her increasingly debilitating girth. She returned with a plate piled high with rich ragu atop a pool of creamy polenta. It was easily enough to feed two or even three people but still I didn't think twice about covering the whole thing in parmesan or devouring the whole plate. Sometimes I thought that I really had no concept of full, that I really could just eat and eat with no end in sight.

Mum lowered herself slowly and carefully into her chair but it was more out of habit than anything. The chairs at our dining table were a mismatch different designs because of how many she had broken but I knew my dad had finally bought one that was extra wide and specially reinforced to bear weights as high as 600 lbs. Just like I knew she sometimes sat on it to do the washing up or prepare meals. But I would never acknowledge it because I knew it embarrassed her how difficult she now found tasks that most people take for granted. I also wouldn't acknowledge how heavily she was breathing after such a short walk or the way she grunted when she sat down, relieved to take the burden of her weight off her aching knees.

"Uncle Michele dropped off some of those pastries you love from his deli earlier," mum said when I had finished. "Do you want dessert?"

I hesitated. I did love cannolis but I shook my head. "I think I'm just going to take a bath and have an early night."

I watched her try to hide her disappointment. I knew she had noticed that I had been a little distant with her since I came back from university and was increasingly opting out of our nightly binges together.

Now alone in my bedroom you're about to see it: the thing I kept hidden from everyone, the thing I knew no one else would understand. The real reason why I couldn't stop getting fatter, why I couldn't control my appetite, why I couldn't just lose weight and be normal. I don't remember precisely when or how I discovered that there were people like me. People who got sexual gratification from stuffing themselves, who got turned on by fat and getting even fatter.

No, I don't remember exactly when it started but this had been my secret life for years now. Except that it wasn't really secret, was it? I felt like my fat betrayed the vice that I wanted to keep hidden. My huge, obese body, every part of it swollen with gluttony was the consequence of every time I had lustily and greedily stuffed myself. Sometimes I wished that I didn't want this for myself, wished that I could be like everyone else but when I was in the grip of desire I didn't care what all those fattening foods were doing to me or what other people thought of my body, I just wanted to give in fully to my hunger.

You might find it hard to believe that I was still hungry after everything I had eaten but I was. Hungry. And horny. I was tingling with anticipation before the chocolate even passed my lips. I didn't just experience the pleasure of food as taste but as an erotic full body sensation.

Stuffing was enough to arouse but not to satisfy so I slid my hand under the heavy weight of my gut, the pressure of my fully belly echoed by the pressure in my clit. At first I excited myself by stroking the soft flesh of my cellulite rippled thighs before giving my hungry clit some attention.

The knot of tension inside me unfurled into waves of pleasure but still I needed more. Sometimes it was enough just to think about how each bite was going to make me bigger and bigger. Other times I fantasised about a feeder: someone to encourage me to stuff myself, to praise my growing body, to treat me like their plump princess or prized piggy and lavish love upon my full curves, my plush body. Or maybe something a little darker: someone to tease me for how fat I was, denying me pleasure until I was as big as they wanted me to be, force-feeding me to enormous proportions before humiliating me by putting my obese body on display. Was it any wonder I had never had a girlfriend?

But tonight only one thing would do: the thought of the expression of disgust on Alex's face when she caught me gorging myself, the hot feeling of shame at being revealed to be a hog. The sweetness of chocolate still on my lips, my full belly swollen big and round, shuddering with my climax. I came and was finally satisfied.

After a few moments I got up to ran myself a bath. I wouldn't think about it any more that evening but while my mind could deny what I had done, deep down I knew that in my sleep my body would be working its secret magic, new fat settling on my already expansive thighs, hips and belly.