Chapter 4 - section 4

[2 September Saturday]

Seven days cycle by.

Within those days, Georgia has been starving herself sick. Yes, she's withered, but not much. One kilogram is all. Two at most. The scale has been jittering in the decimal zones. But ten was the damage, and one or two is all she has to show for her famine-ringed eyes. Silly thing is, she won't talk to Ruby, won't let this competition go. Because if she did, she'd find out that Ruby has been through, and come out again, from exactly the same thing - this constant starving, sponged dry of energy. Even her eyes are less vibrant than they have been. It's dissolving her.

Ruby on the other hand has been clear-eyed like nobody has ever seen her. When Tamara had asked why, Ruby wouldn't tell everything... but there was every waving of the flag that it was a boy in her life. Tamara was ecstatic, Jane was stoically impressed enough to badger Ruby with excruciating details about him, and although Georgia was still shocked enough to be impressed, she had sworn off saying anything too early since Ruby knows Georgia is savvy to mister Lucio Bean and Ruby in his bed.

But dimpled Ruby's childlike glee has only sparked a germ of Jealousy in Georgia, feeding on the emptiness inside her, deep down in her stomach where it's as starved, desolate and cold with hunger as the antarctic, until the germ has multiplied into seething colonies of Resentment.

On the other hand, she saw something yesterday at work. It wasn't necessarily a good thing. Nor anything bad, as such. It was a sight that struck her enough to make her remember it. An image which still returns to her mind's eye for peekaboo now and again - and, here's the thing; one that she will come to see more and more often. For now she doesn't want to think about it, but in the end she has to.

What confused her so much was the type of guy he was.

So, yesterday, on the way back her car after completing her shit, she noticed a cute guy, as you do. Going past, she sussed it out low-key. He was shutting car door and going around the other side to help his girlfriend from the car. Expecting a birdy looking blonde or brunette, hair parted in straightened layers and walking on lithe legs, out came a heavy girl with a rotund waist and cellulited thighs. He proceeded to clasp hands with her and walk smiling into the plaza complex. The two were practically fawning over each other. She looked over her shoulder to see receding away from her the fat backs of tan thighs jiggling freely, and two globular ass cheeks bobbing up and down.

It was odd; how slender and fit he was compared to her, looking like the type of guy to have a gymned-up blonde at his side.

Sitting alone in her car, she suddenly feels hollow.

On the way home she stops by a cake shop where she buys a double-chocolate mudcake and eats it at a booth for lunch. It makes her feel even worse.


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[4 September Monday]

Since forgetting the shadowy emotions caused by her Saturday stop at the cake shop, she heads off early for work today so she can drop by at mcdonald's for breakfast, purely to re-live her high school memories of newly licensed freedom-on-wheels, which was triggered by a catch-up phone call with an old friend and a whole lot of reminiscing.

'Hey, can I get a...' Georgia hesitates. Craning her neck up at the menu board and leaning into the counter at hip level to get a better look, the swell of her stomach can be seen over the counter top. The till girl, figuring that hips (ahem, lovehandles) don't lie, adjusts her cap and abandons asking whether she's "twenty weeks in".

Georgia finally decides, 'Can I get a large creamy aioli wrap with fries and a chocolate thick shake?'

'Coming right up.'

The till girl pokes numbers at the panel, flicks her a receipt and Georgia moves out of the line to wait. Then from the corner of her eye, a framed advertisement trips her attention up.

Under mysterious, intimate grey lighting a man and a woman curled body-to-body, their body parts only just hidden with such tact as to let your eyes draw the rest of it. What strikes her, or anyone, is that the woman is not lithe, not even toned, but almost fat. Her cleavage fights with itself for room and a few side rolls are plainly evident as she gazes sideways prettily at the camera. Same goes for the guy, who is not so much fat as heavy set. Above it all, in smooth sans-serif, reads a heading PARRIARE RED, and in the bottom right corner two alternate bottles of the same perfume. She wants to look at the male face, appreciating the model's hard set eyes and fine jaw, but she keeps returning to the side rolls of the woman, the way her upper stomach leads out to the bottom of the frame where she's left to infer the rest of her waist: something like a wide muffin top, spilling buttocks, fat thighs.

Nearby, a middle-aged asian guy notices her frowning at the advertisement. 'Crazy, right?' he says, engaging in friendly chatter.

'Huh? Georgia looks around, sees him.

'The advert.' He gestures to it.

'Oh.'

'I used to work in advertising. Know the tricks. That there is the oldest trick in the book. Pair what you want to sell with something they already want, condition them into thinking if they get your product, they'll get the other thing. People started blocking it out years ago. Everyone was savvy to it, so it lost effectiveness. But somehow this one here works. I know that because I left the agency on the tail-end of that job and sales for items that used that trick were jumping. Take the oldest trick in the book but make it new, use different elements. Nobody has ever used big models quite like that. Simple but efficient: "big people fun time if buy this thing", ha-ha.'

They both stare at the advert.

Too awkward to respond, Georgia sort of curls her lips in an pout of appreciation and nods.

Later, eating her breakfast meal alone at a booth, all she can see is the advertisement.


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[7 September Thursday]

Georgia speed-walks down the mall space hurrying to work. Her uniform is fitting badly today. She constantly needs to shift it around as she walks, fabric settling into places it isn't supposed to - up her crack, tightening around her armpits, creasing under her chest. She can feel the insides of her thighs starting to chafe inside work slacks which are tight enough to lay clear and creaseless the shape of her growing legs.

She hurries past an indoor cafe at which two people sit facing each other over lattes. One glances up at Georgia while chatting, gives her body a down-and-upper, lingering around her hips, scowls a little then resumes talking. It was all so brief, but Georgia isn't walking so fast anymore. Her feet suddenly feel heavy as lead and the mall space seems to surge up and around as if to swallow her. Anxiety circulates through her veins.

Putting it out of her mind as best she can, she continues on. Even now, she's become conscious of her belly jolting around under the fabric of her orange work shirt the same way you become conscious of your breathing. Her heart is thumping away by now.

So, yes, she's had a rush of anxiety from it all, caused by just one flippant look, not even in a fraction of a second... who wouldn't? But, while that anxiety will persist, going nowhere until she can shed a solid fifteen or so kilos - while she'll come to expect this mucky feeling of worthlessness as routine as a doctor's appointment - it'll come, just like anything else you grow familiar with for long periods of time, to morph. Much like her body, it will not exactly transform into something entirely new... but rather gain something else, something extra. Something which might (and don't quote me on this) change for the better.


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