chapter 3

August 11, 2009

Winna watches in horror as her mother force feeds her sister another bite of a half gone 2 pound stick of lard, each bite first dipped in sugar. Sammi holds her arms, and clothes pins bite her nostrils, earlier forcing the tiniest gap to open occasionally in her pursed lips. Now she is too tired though, and her tear-streaked face looks defeated, and drugged. "There baby, there's another bite, we're almost done. Just a few more. There's a good girl." Her mother'd forced some sleeping pills and muscle relaxers into her early on when Lessi was struggling too much, thin arms thrashing as best they could in Sammi's grip. Now there was no fight. Her mouth just opened automatically at her mother's gentle cooing, and closed, chewed a little, and swallowed.

It was the second day. The second day of horror. The second day of their mother's decision to force boys and their desires to stay away in the only way she thought could be effective and permanent: by making Lessi 'undesirable' to them. She thought at first, apparently, about maiming her, or scarring her face, or burning. But she knew she couldn't bring herself to physically harm her children, her darling babies. She had never even been able to spank them. And she couldn't make Sammi do it--she'd never be able to forgive her. So she'd decided to force Lessi to eat for a while. To overeat for a while, actually. And when Lessi'd balked, she'd had to find ways to overcome her daughter's resistance, for her own good, as any truly loving mother should and would. For the second time, Lessi'd refused to eat the breakfast set out before her. After today, she never would again. "it can taste good, or it can taste bad, sweety." Her mother'd warned in a surprisingly understanding and concerned tone, brushing her cheek with a thumb, "but either way these calories are going to have to go into that naughty perverted body of yours."

Winna watched, finishing the last of her own cereal fearfully, as the wrapper was scraped of remaining fat, and the last of it was meticulously dipped in sugar and finger fed into Lessi's open mouth. Her glazed eyes were dead, and her muscled stomach bulged obscenely. At her mother's request, Sammi lifted her from the chair and laid her on the chaise in the corner. Lessi's labored snores could already be heard. "Fat for fat," her mother comments sadly, but resolutely.

September 15, 2009

Winna returns home from her third day of senior year. She finds her sister in their room, crying. She is on a chain now, 18 feet long, to which there is no longer a key. An immense pot pie sits half eaten nearby, an empty second tin beside it. Lessi stares down, broken, and flicks and plays with the tender new roll of fat above her workout shorts. The calories have indeed begun to coat her lean body in fresh young fat, but it is distributed very healthily and evenly, her plump ass looking very perky in those same shorts, her breasts heavier, her soft cheeks, dimpled like her sisters, only appear a little more youthful than before, a little more baby fat. Her chin is softer, and her thighs a little thicker. Only the roll at her middle is really novel. She mouthed off to mother at lunch, and so she'd been forced into tight clothes for the first time in weeks. It was to show her how useless it was to fight, how powerless she was against her mother's will, how she was being made fat: not voluptuous, not full-figured--FAT. '140 POUNDS IS TOO FAT FOR CHEERLEADING' is written across her cute bare tummy in permanent ink. Her coach had said that at a meet not six months earlier, and Lessi had parroted it, almost thoughtlessly at dinner, though Winna knew it was from distress. Momma had realized, but she had remembered. The words were not written there to punish her, though: they were there because Momma knew what they'd mean to her. That cheerleading was over, her old life was over, becausue 'this'? 'This' was just the beginning.