Another cup of jasmine tea

chapter 12 carol

As a successful business owner of my own bakery and cafe, specialising in vegetarian and vegan food, I had often wondered what would happen if someone had no brakes on their appetite. How much would they be able to consume in one go and how fat would they get?
In my younger days, I had experimented with lots of different recipes. I had not just checked out modern day chefs and their cook books, I had done some historical research too. Some of the books I checked out were written by ‘wise women’. These wise women were the women called upon when a woman gave birth, or someone needed to be laid out after death, or looked after when they were ill. They had many strange powders, tinctures and teas that claimed to heal in some way. Many of these wise women were accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake.
There were a couple of recipes that interested me. One was for a tea with jasmine as it’s base that claimed to increase the appetite in someone who was an invalid. With the help of the tea, they could be made to feel like eating again and it would lead to them gaining back any weight they had lost during their illness.
Another mixture claimed that it could assist in the control of someone’s mind. It had a sedating effect that lasted for half an hour or so. In that time, the drinker was very responsive to do what they were told to do and they would not remember anything about it afterwards. It sounded like a hypnotising liquid. I tried it out, just for a laugh amongst some people I went to university with. I had one girl thinking she was a cow for a day and a boy I hated suddenly became very good at swinging from trees, lampposts or any overhanging object like a monkey.
I had been biding my time waiting for a possible candidate for a combination of both of these ‘spells’ (for want of a better word).

When Pete came along he was an ideal candidate. He was young. He did not have contact with his family. He was new to the city and he did not have very good accommodation.
I’d decided to try him out on what I called ‘jasmine tea’, but really it was the combination of the two ‘spell’ recipes with the taste of jasmine. I gave him some at our first meeting. I pretended to drink some myself, but what I drank was pure jasmine and perfectly harmless.
Within minutes of taking his first sip, he was suitably sedated and open to my suggestions.
That first day was difficult. I was nervous. It was my first time doing something like this. I was gentle at first. I didn’t want him to suspect anything was wrong. I made him eat a cream cake that he would have no memory of eating when he woke up.
That’s how it started.
Every day, I gave him more of my jasmine tea mixture, every day, I conditioned him to bend to my will and think less for himself. Every day I gave him some kind of cake to eat while he was sedated, sometimes two pieces.
By the time he agreed to move in with me he was already plumping out nicely. I threatened the rest of the staff with the sack if they questioned my motives or refused to serve him.
When he moved in with me I knew when he wanted to ask me something, because I made him oink or snort like a pig. I got him to associate bring stuffed full with pleasure and sex, so that he would force himself to eat more and more! I must say, I was astonished with how much the poor boy put away sometimes. He gained a lot of weight very quickly. I loved watching him grow big and fat. I loved watching him struggle with everyday tasks that were once so simple to complete.
But then he got so huge that he was reaching the point where he was going to need extra help to get washed and dressed and such. I was not prepared to involve myself with his nursing care. So I locked him in with no food.
He was not going to starve to death. He had enough fat stored to live on for several weeks without any intervention from me.
My aim was to slim him down again, slow his metabolism down. Then when he was slim enough, I would start fattening him up again!