chapter 11.1

All in all, Oriana could have done better as far as her living arrangement was concerned.

Self-consciously, she led the way up to her apartment. "Sorry about the stairs," she muttered as she let Eddie in. "And sorry it's so small." When she had moved into the place, she had anticipated being alone for quite sometime. That was the life of a bulletproof superhero for you.

Not a super ergonomic setup. Not very fat-friendly. Two years ago, though, that hadn't mattered to her. It had been a hundred bucks cheaper to rent on the third floor than the first. She'd never imagined she'd one day be harboring a super-sized fugitive. A fleeting moment of beauty was all she'd ever expected out of each of her fights. Then: legal matters. Paperwork. Cops. The stuff she preferred not to stick around for.

"Well, here it is, I guess," she said, standing in the living room. "Welcome to the FatCave. It ain't much, but it's home. Over there'll be the kitchen, bedroom through there…"

Eddie hadn't responded. She felt like she'd lost his attention...until she turned around and caught him staring in disbelief at the collection of implements strewn about a mid-sized table slightly to the right of the front door.

It housed a variety of equipment that could be used in feedist scenes, from measuring tapes to calipers, beer bongs to restraints, and a whole 5-lb tub of that gainer powder bodybuilders used that all the popular gainers online loved to appropriate for their sexual ends.

She'd never thought to hide any of it: the only people who ever came over were the cousins, and they already knew she was some kind of way.

"I assumed there wasn't a man in the picture," said Eddie. "I mean, given that moment in the truck and all."

"Oh, I'm single. People just be sending this shit through fanmail all the time."

"You get fanmail?"

"Mhmm! To the Bombshell PO box. I know I'm a walking controversy, but some people do like me. Anyway, on with the tour…"

He followed her into the bedroom and looked around. "So there's really no other man."

"Single as a Pringle."

"What about Dick over there?" he asked, gesturing toward the body pillow lying across her bed, bearing a hyperrealistic representation of former president Richard Nixon.

"People ain't s'posed to see that…" She hastily moved Nixon onto the armchair by the bed. "It's mostly an inside joke with myself, since Nixon was the one that legalized masked vigilantism." Heavily regulated it, too, but for his time, it had been a progressive move.

And normal, healthy people kept inside jokes with themselves, right?

"There's only one bed, but I'll take the couch, it's fine," she insisted. She let Eddie collapse in bed while she herself settled in the armchair, on top of Nixon.

"What is this?" he asked. "You're just going to look at me now?"

"Look, we all know that when a life's in danger, I'll intervene, whether I'm wanted at the scene or not."

It clicked for him then. "I'm on suicide watch." It wasn't a question.

"Just for the next seventy-two hours. I want to make sure you're okay."

"You...you really do care."

"Bro, I just made out with you in the back of a freight truck. Obviously, I'm invested."

"But what did I do to deserve you?"

"Besides save my life?"

"You saved mine too, we're even."

"Just work with me here," she said. "If you want, we can make a game out of it. Get to know each other. Hey: what's your favorite color?"

He shrugged. "Lately orange has been growing on me."

"Good answer. Favorite movie?"

"The Nexus, hands down."

"A great flick that had exactly zero sequels," said Oriana.

"Oh, come on, the second one wasn't bad."

"Zero. Sequels," Oriana insisted. "Favorite restaurant?"

"I don't know."

"What kind of self-respecting feedee don't know the answer to that question?"

"It's not like I've ever actually been practicing!"

"You should give it a try sometime. I'd be happy to show you the ropes." She smirked.

He flushed scarlet and went silent. Obviously, she was making him feel awkward.

"Let's watch some TV. You ever seen Splice Sisters?"

"What?"

&qu ot;Oh my God, you'll love it!"

Oriana turned on the TV and queued up the pilot.

It was her favorite childhood cartoon, following the story of Keiko, Keisha, and Klaudia, three adoptive sisters who made a pact to fight crime after discovering they all had powers due to experimentation during their infancy.

"I mean, I know the show has its problems," Oriana said as the first episode's fight scene came to a climax. "The mad science origin story definitely sleeps on those of us that were born with powers. But back then, it was about teaching little girls we could do anything. Even before I knew about my powers, them three little bitches were my heroes, man!"

"It's a good show. Let me guess, you saw yourself as Keisha?"

Oriana shook her head. "Keiko. She was always the fighter."

They made it through about half of season 1, but eventually, Eddie passed out. She was surprised it had taken him that long. More than tripling your weight within seconds was exhaustive on the human body. Most of the time, the criminals she fattened lost consciousness before the forklift and crane company could show up.

She undressed, threw her getup in the wash, and showered off the remaining blast debris. The plan was to take the couch in the living room, but she didn't stick to that plan for long. After slipping into some track pants and a shirt that some anonymous college hook-up had left in her dorm and never come back for, she began her evening in the living room on her laptop, one ear on the police radio listening for news of her own flight from the scene of a showdown, but her focus was wavering. The city had calmed down for the night.

She helped herself to a glass of sauvignon blanc.

Before too long, she resigned herself to trying to sleep, but the couch was lumpy, uncomfortable, and in need of replacement. She could only ever pass out there if she was much more blasted.

As stealthily as she could on the creaky floorboards, she let herself into the bedroom.

There was space on the bed, she convinced herself, emboldened by a little wine. Besides, it wasn't like Eddie would mind waking up next to her. Had he not gone through all this trouble just to get her attention?

The space on the bed, as it turned out, was scarce--she wasn't exactly a size two herself. Staying on the mattress required her to push her whole body flush against Eddie's side. It was nice, feeling his softness yield to her frame, warm and comforting. Fuck. She shouldn't be feeling comforted. Her life had been thrown into chaos. She was actively harboring a fugitive. But she couldn't help it. Feeling herself sinking into his pillowy rolls of fat made her too relaxed to even fathom remaining awake for more than a few minutes.

When the next morning's sunlight roused her, she found that not only had she snuggled up even closer to Eddie in her sleep, but he'd thrown one heavy thigh over her hips, pinning her delightfully to the sheets. Grinning, she thought to herself that she'd be content to stay put for a hot minute.

She hadn't slept this well since the heater broke in January.

Just then, he stirred. "Shit...sorry." He rolled off of her.

Her first instinct was to curl into him, seeking warmth. She wanted to tell him, 'put it back.'

But it was still too soon.

She remembered her duty: suicide watch.

He was vulnerable. She couldn't in all good faith take advantage of him, even if she did want his squishy arms around her, his weight upon her ribs and hips, his softness surrounding her…

She moved into the chair, with Nixon, and watched as Eddie woke up and got his bearings.

That's when the FatPhone rang.

"I have to take this," she said.

"Is it time for Bombshell to save the day?"

"Looks like it. Let's just hope I have it in me after yesterday." She plucked the phone off her nightstand and checked the caller ID.

Area code: 947. Cason du Wandeaux. She could think of only one person who would want to contact her at nine thirty in the morning from across city lines.

This might not actually be an emergency.

Just in case she was wrong, she answered, "You've reached Bombshell, what is your emergency?"

"Word on the street is, Bombshell and Big Tech absconded together from the scene of a fight in the back of a Go Fork Yourself moving truck. Not how I prefer to hook up, but like my mother used to say: there's a time and a place to put haste before taste."

Of course, it was just Scarlet Flame, hungry for gossip. Oriana covered the receiver. "It's Scarlet Flame. She be doing this, from time to time." Returning to her phone call, she said, "S, what have I told you bout calling this number?"

"Well, it's not like I can call your regular phone, the way the boss has got me tapped."

"I'm sure the government doesn't actually watch you that closely."

"Are you kidding, cherí? At least twice a year, they send me to save the President."

Oriana sighed. "Good point."

"Anyway, dirty details over lunch? I'm fifteen minutes outside of Blackwater following a lead. Let me take you to PriceCo again."

Oriana would have had no choice, if her companion's powers of compulsion worked over the phone. As it stood, the distortion of her voice acted as a safeguard, and Oriana was free to determine her own plans.

"I dunno, S. Every time we do that PriceCo thing, some bitter Boomer comes on Twitter and calls us sleazy."

"And since when do you care what they say? It was your idea first. You said it yourself, it's not technically stealing. They're called free samples for a reason. And I was hoping to get a cheat meal in before I go fully vegan."

"Look, S, I kind of got something going at home right now. I was gonna just cook here."

S gasped. "Oh my God! You're still with him, aren't you? Put me on speaker! Bonjooour, Bombshell's new boytoy!"

"Yeah, I'm not gonna do that."

"You take good care of my best friend okay? Or I'll find you. I'll find you and make you rip your own dick off and shove it up your ass!"

"You're not on speaker," Oriana repeated. "And with the temper you got on you, it's probably a good thing he can't reach. Look, S. I miss you too, but it's been a really long night and I'm still super tired."

"Oh my God...you haven't even sealed the deal yet, have you?"

"S--"

"Wha t are you even doing on the phone with me?"

"YOU CALLED MY EMERGENCY LINE!"

"Look, I love you, B...now go rock his world before he can change his mind!"

"It's not even like that!"

"What?!"

" ;I mean...not yet. I'm tryna wait."

"Again. What?"

"Just like, three days or so?"

"Oh my God, like one of those three day curse, true love's kiss, Disney movie things? B, you do know that in all those corny movies, three days is the deadline, right?"

Oriana sighed. "I know, S, I just--"

She didn't want to have to explain to her best friend in the industry that she had Big Tech on suicide watch. Why tell on him like that?

"Look, you sound like you have a lot to figure out, B. But don't make the mistake of a lifetime, now that you finally have him in your clutches!" The line went dead.

"What did she say?"

Oriana chewed on her bottom lip. "A lot of stuff. Some of which is probably right. She was kinda my mentor, back in the day. But she's too much."

It was 9:40 now.

She glanced back at Eddie.

She wanted him. Dear Lord, she wanted all of him. On top of her. Surrounding her. Pushing unrestrained, almost liquid, into the gaps between her manicured fingers as she squeezed his ample sides while he worked his way inside her…

But the situation was still so precarious. Besides, she was being terribly rude; here she was answering phone calls and she hadn't even offered breakfast.

"Do you like omelets?" she asked.

***

"Hey, Tom, it's Oriana, from analytics," she said into the phone, holding it in place with her shoulder as she browned chopped garlic in a pan. "Listen, I'm gonna be working remotely the next few days."

"But we have that big meeting with AmeriCorp--!"

"And I'd--" She feigned a fit of coughing. "I'd be happy to do it over Zoom, but I'm just too sick to come in, and the last thing we need is to give the CEO of AmeriCorp the plague."

Almost as soon as she was off the phone with her boss, her line to Councilor Freeman rang on the counter. She picked it up as she was adding mushrooms and bell peppers to her pan.

"I think I misjudged Big Tech," Jasmine confessed.

"It's alright, Jazz. He did literally market himself as a villain. I never fell for it, but not everybody has my intuition."

"Then why did you hit him?"

Oriana shrugged, tipping the vegetables into three other pans, where she had perfectly round slabs of sunshine-yellow egg sizzling away. "What's a couple hundred pounds between friends?"

"Look, I still don't understand what happened between you two," said Jasmine, "but the survey results are in, and I have this election in the bag: thanks to that midair showdown at my press conference, I'm the only candidate whose name anyone knows anymore. Plus, you saved my life. You, and Big Tech, and your, uh, fish."

"You're welcome, Councilor. Or should I say, Commissioner?"

"Well, I shouldn't count my chickens, but that does have a nice ring to it. And when you see Big Tech, tell him I talked to the District Attorney and his warrants are going to be pardoned."

"That's great! And what about my warrants?"

"God knows I'm eternally grateful to you, Bombshell...but would it kill you to pay your speeding tickets?"

After Jasmine hung up, Oriana topped the omelets with shredded provolone, folded them, and finished them with a sprinkle of more cheese and a generous dollop of chipotle crema she'd prepped before she started the vegetables. "I have good news and bad news," she said, sauntering with two plates into the living room, where she found Eddie on the sofa--the only piece of furniture he would trust in the apartment aside from the bed, and not without good reason--flipping channels. "The good news is, Jasmine got you off the hook legally. The bad news, and you probably already knew this: you can't go back to the office. Call up Tom and make up an excuse for why you have to work remote from now on. If you show up, no one in software development's not gonna know you pissed off Bombshell."

"Fuck Cyber Security, Inc," he said, which came as a surprise to her...albeit, a refreshing one. In the wake of all that had happened in the last 24 hours...Jesus. Life was too short and too precious to waste behind a desk.

"You know what? You're absolutely right! It's a soul-sucking company that hires out our skills to other soul-sucking companies and pays us pennies on what our labor is actually worth! If you're leaving, I'm leaving, too!" She handed him his plate and a fork and plopped down on the couch next to him. "Anyway, a friend in the industry tells me Digital Defense, Inc. would pay us better anyway."

"Too bad we signed a three-year no-compete."

"They can't enforce that!"

"They do, though. Mike from research is still tied up in a lawsuit."

"Well, fuck." She picked at her food, suddenly disinterested, and not because she hadn't done a good job.

Eddie certainly seemed to appreciate her talent. While they'd been talking, he'd absentmindedly cleaned his plate. She took it out of his hands and walked back to the kitchen to fix him seconds, leaving her own plate abandoned on the coffee table.

When she returned, he'd cleaned up her leftovers, too. Though totally endeared, she said nothing, simply replacing the plate in his hands, setting the empty one on the floor, and resuming the conversation. "I guess we could just change fields," she remarked. "I never did like that the prison they built specifically for guys I hit turned out to be one of the most brutal in the county. And maybe Jasmine can get me in there? I could make some reforms, put rehabilitation programs in place, do some real good! I'm telling you, they's not all bad guys. Most of them was just at the end of their ropes, hitting licks to survive. Just people I couldn't let turn into killers in the moment. But they ain't beyond help!"

"That would be amazing!" said Eddie between bites. "You're actually really inspiring when you get all passionate like this."

"Aww…just trying to keep a base level of human decency," she said, curling up on the far side of the couch against the armrest. "What about you?"

He shrugged. "Well, Chimera did pay pretty well--"

"Oh, no. Tell me you're not thinking of doing the full-time supervillain-for-cash thing. Trust me, I know a guy who's a government mercenary. He hates his work and he's a raging alcoholic."

"No, no, I just mean, I'm set for a while. And I've reverse-engineered technology before."

"You mean--?"

"Chimera was a mistake."

"Tell me about it."

"But he had some good inventions. I don't want to get into arms dealership or anything, but...but some of this stuff could help people--"

"I'm sure it has its applications!" She took yet another empty plate out of his hands. Normally, she would be rapt with lust just watching him go to town on her cooking, but she had become so wrapped up in the conversation. Here they were, talking about the future, a future that she so wished would be convergent for the both of them. It could happen. And in the moment, he sounded so hopeful. Her worries about the possibility of losing him were dissipating by the minute, and yet…

It was still too early to say.

Then, suddenly, reality seemed to hit him. "Holy shit, I didn't even realize I'd finished thirds," he said with a self-conscious blush.

"Well, you did pick up a few. Your TDEE's probably sitting somewhere round 4k now?"

"Huh?"

"Fo ur thousand. Calories. Total daily energy expenditure. Basically how much you need to eat just to stay alive and do stuff." It was her turn to be self-conscious. "They offered nutrition as an elective at Rivington Hero School, and I took it just to apply it in nasty feeder ways." She fiddled with the hem of her shirt and continued, "Yeah, is it shocking I got expelled with a failing grade in ethics?"

"You're...you' re not so bad," said Eddie.

"I know I'm not...but I'm weird. There's no gettin' around that." That she liked what she liked, she would never apologize for. But she knew the nerdy statistician side of her fascination with weight gain could be off-putting.

"Hey. What's your favorite thing to cook?" he asked, abruptly changing the subject.

"Probably Cajun."

"What's your favorite radio station?"

"95.1."

&qu ot;What's your favorite musical?"

"Well, what's yours?" she asked.

He scoffed. "Little Shop."

"Grease 2."

"How did I--?"

"HOW'D I ALREADY KNOW?"

Were...were they flirting?