Chapter 1 - 1

As he was leaving for the airport, my colleague Mike said something strange, "I hope you brought some diet pills and your gym clothes."

I was taking over for Mike as regional project director to a small east asian country. Our company secured a very large contract to build a nationalized health care system from scratch. Mike spent two days bringing me up to speed before heading back to the states.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"Look... It's gonna sound bizarre, but there's something I need to warn you about. The locals still follow old traditions. They should make a documentary about this place, because their customs are like nothing I've ever heard of."

Mike hesitated.

"You ok?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's just... boy this place is a head trip. I feel like I've just been going through this all alone, and now it's just strange to talk about."

He was starting to scare me.

"What? Do they make you burn your skin with a brand or something," I said laughing.

He chuckled but his eyes were faraway.

"No, man... They make you..." he whispered, looking around to make sure no could hear. "They make you eat a shit-ton."

"What?" I asked.

"It's all based on some crazy ancient tradition," he said. "My translator told me that each tribe used to have a king and a series of councilmen. There is a popular legend about a king who staved off war by glutting himself until he was the fattest man anyone had ever seen.

"The other tribes were planning their attack. When their spies saw that in a matter of a few short years the king became so fat that his belly hung over his knees, however, they worried that they must have misjudged his tribe's resources. In reality, the tribe was poorer than anyone knew. But the king came up with a clever scheme to hide their poverty. He levied a food tax on every family and gorged himself. Each family would reserve a portion of whatever meals they made. They formed a line for nightly offerings. The king would eat and eat, licking his lips and rubbing his growing belly. At first, some were sickened by his gluttony. They grumbled that their king glutted himself openly and joyously while they went hungry. They thought it was a scam from a greedy leader who wanted to feast at the expense of the common tribesman. When they saw that their king's giant belly frightened the other tribes, however, they all paid grave respect. The grumbling stopped. Food offerings to the king became a sacred responsibility.

"An arms race between the tribes started and made it an important job responsibility for a king to eat as much as he could, and to grow as fat as he could. Once all the tribes' kings were massively fat, they found other ways to compete. Important councilmen also fattened themselves. They were careful not to grow fatter than the king, but large enough to show their tribe's dominance.

"The old system died out when the modern presidency was formed, but the old customs are still strong. It sounds crazy, but women love obese men here. They are sex symbols. Elite rich men are often fat and their wives make sure that they they are well fed. Poor men seem jealous, but it's considered tacky for a poor man to gorge himself on peasant food to try to appear rich. Being fat is something reserved for the very top of the upper class. It's the ultimate status symbol."

"Are you fucking with me, man?" I asked him. "Because I don't have time for this."

He turned on the TV in my hotel room. "Don't believe me?" He said. "Look!"

A commercial played in a language I couldn't understand. A giant fat man in an expensive looking suit held up a bag full of fast food. Several pretty women him eyed him longingly. One woman reached out to touch his stomach, but he swatted her away and opened up the bag of food. A catchy theme song played.

"I told you," Mike said. "I'm not pulling your leg. It's a whole different world over here."

"What does this have to do with us?" I asked.

"Well, the locals assume that American men are all fat. They were disappointed when they met me for the first time... haha. Making matters worse, the health minister made it clear that this project is his top priority. He'll send you to local villages and you'll stay with well established families. They'll view you as an important foreign dignitary. They know how invested the minister is, and will want to impress him. Care to guess how they'll try to impress him?"

"Make me eat?" I asked, trying to disguise my growing panic.

"Ding, ding ding. You guessed it. It is considered shameful to not prepare an extravagant feast for powerful male guests. And it is considered rude for these guests to not eat what is offered to them. The rough translation of their expression is, 'a good guest leaves with a swollen belly.'

"If you leave their village as thin as when you arrived, they'll worry that health minister will be upset with them. The health minister has a PhD from Oxford, so of course he doesn't give a shit about the old ways. But no one can convince the tribes that fattening you up won't help them carry favor with the government."

"This is fucking insane," I said.

"Yeah... Seriously... It took me awhile to figure out what was going on when I first got here. They'd push these lavish feasts on me and would act offended if I didn't eat everything they put in front of me. I gained 35 pounds since I've been here. I need to diet when I get home."

I looked Mike over and realized that he did look heavier. He was a normal weight when he left our US headquarters. Now he looked chubby, bordering on fat. His shirt and pants cut tightly into his newly soft stomach.

"You've only been here eight weeks," I said.

"Yes, and I tried very hard to turn down the food they pushed on me. Trust me, I tried. But the local hosts get really touchy about it. We need to work with these people, so it seems important not to upset them."

"Mike, I'm gonna be over here for at least a year. What do I do?"

"I'm really not sure. We can call headquarters and ask the health minister to intervene? Maybe explain to the locals?"

"Would that work?"

"Honestly, I'm guessing not. The customs run deep. They'll think he is trying to be polite and not put a burden on them. If I think about it, that might actually backfire. It might convince them to prepare even more food to show the minister that this isn't an imposition on them."

My mind was racing. This was totally crazy. A major part of my self image was of a slim young businessman. Beautiful women told me that I was very attractive. I couldn't destroy my body for this project, even if it was very high profile.

"What do I do?" I asked again.

He put his hands on his stomach and squeezed its new chubbiness between his fingers. "Clearly I haven't figured that out," he said, his face turning red.

I considered calling my boss to ask for reassignment. As Mike's words echoed in my head, however, I thought about his newly formed pot-belly protruding over his now too tight pants.

My reaction changed.

I put my hands on my taut stomach and wondered what it would feel like if I was larger. I had never been overweight.

Buried in my deepest psyche, however, was a drum full of gasoline waiting for a spark -- a secret fetish that I had harbored since I was 5 years old; a desire to fatten myself.

Years of stuffing pillows under my shirt when no one was home came back to me -- of stuffing myself full of burgers and pizza until I almost threw up when my roommate was out of town in college, of finally coming to terms with the fact that this would need to remain just a fantasy, of aching sadness at having to bury my most primal desire and subjugate it to daily trips to the gym, of convincing myself of the value of maintaining a flawless physique, of dating models so that it would all seem worth it.

But now I was in a moment of crisis. I realized there was no predicting what would happen if I stayed in this country. There was no telling what would happen to my body and my mind if I uncapped my bottled up fat fetish.

I told myself I that I needed to call my boss and get on the next plane out. It seemed impossible to not gain at least some weight while I was here. What if I really liked it? I needed to get out of here while I still had a vice-like grip on my own sexuality.

But, instead, I already felt a fevered passion becoming slowly uncorked and I heard a voice in my head say, "let's see where this goes... it won't be the end of the world if I gain 10 pounds. I can always lose it when I get home."

An image flashed in my head of what it would be like to fly back from the trip with a potbelly like Mike's creasing my tight pants. I would think -- "what have I done to myself?" The thought drove a naughty thrill up the back of my spine and I shifted my pants to hide a growing erection from Mike.

"It's ok Mike," I said. "I'll figure out how to deal with it."

"Your sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure..."