chapter 4

"Look, cherí, all I'm saying is, how much can you really trust some politician you've just met?"

It was Bombshell and Scarlet Flame drinking at the bar at the Oregon Museum of Neuroscience, of all places. Of course, the venue didn't matter. The point was to be seen together, so as to stick it to anybody who thought contractors and rogues shouldn't mix.

"It's funny, the councilor seemed a little distrusting of you, too," Bombshell mused into her cocktail. "Is there some beef between y'all that I should know about?"

"Nothing. Forget about it."

Forget about it. The words reverberated in Bombshell's head like she was in an echo chamber. She'd been grasping to the thread of a thought...and then, somehow, it was gone.

"Sorry, S. Just spaced out there for a second. What were we talking about again?"

"Girls. Boys." Flame smirked. "So tell me about this guy at work who asked you out?"

Bombshell shrugged. "Too skinny. Too vain. Too easy to bleed. I'll think about dating when they start making bulletproof guys in a 6XL."

"Or...or, you can find a bulletproof guy, period, and then just take care of the rest yourself?" Flame pointed out, tilting her glass in Bombshell's direction. Bombshell yelped as a handful of ice cubes spilled into her lap.

"You gotta stop gesticulating while you drink, S. Sides, where the fuck am I s'posed to find a guy who wants me to make him fat? The feedee store?!"

"Bebe, who says he has to start out willing? If I tell this hypothetical man that he wants to be as big as a house, that will become his truth…and he'll throw himself at your feet. And before you say that that's not right, it's basically the same thing you do, except I work on people's minds instead of their bodies."

"How the fuck did you ever make it through the Rivington ethics program?"

"Because, ma coeur," said Flame, "I know how to keep my opinions to myself."

"Fair enough," said Bombshell. "Still...I could never use my powers on some innocent guy."

"Well...what about a bad guy?" Flame slurped up one of her remaining ice cubes and crunched on it. "The last I checked, your city does have a supervillain running amok."

"Not an option," Bombshell shut her down. "At least, not til he actually does something, y'know, supervillain-y."

***

ONE YEAR AGO

It’d been 18 hours and 11 minutes since Tegan had said those wonderful words. Those seven incredible words.

“I like you Eddie. In that way.”

16 of those hours had been spent in blissful anticipation of the last two. Their first date. It wasn’t much, wasn’t any different from the kinds of things they did as friends really: only a simple stroll around the city park. As the summer sun set, they would skip along the pristine paths and compete to kick gravel the highest. They’d point out cute dogs, buy ice cream cones: maybe, if Eddie was lucky, they’d hold hands.

“You remember when we had drama together?” said Tegan, turning to her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend. Eddie tried to play it cool.

“In that old church basement?” he chuckled, his voice cracking. “I could never forget…” That had been how he’d met her, after all. Back then he’d been only a hopelessly anxious twelve-year old, as opposed to the hopelessly anxious twenty-one year old he was now. Despite the prodigal intelligence he possessed, talking to others had never come naturally to him; his mother’s homeschooling regimen, for all its expansiveness, had never quite prepared him for such a strenuous task. But Eddie had been determined to make something, something of his own, something others could see, so after convincing his parents to pay for it (on the grounds that it was “valuable educational enrichment”) Eddie began youth theatre. He’d been a terrible actor, even when he wasn’t immobilized by stage-fright, but he kept going, remained resolute under Tegan’s decadent green eyes, even more so once she finally approached him. Even all these years later Eddie’s astonishment at that moment hadn’t diminished: somebody wanted to talk to him! And often!

For the first time, Eddie had found a friend.

“You remember that time I snuck up on you in the graveyard outside?” Tegan continued. “I mean, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you, I just wanted to say hi because your parents hadn’t arrived yet and my dad hadn’t either—”

“I don’t remember.” Fuck. Too blunt.

“Really? But I scared the shit out of you!” Tegan giggled, her laugh like sparkling wine exploding from a badly-uncorked bottle. “You jumped so high you slipped in the mud and fell face first in the grass. Not ringing any bells?”

“It was a long time ago.” Eddie shook his head.

“I laugh,” Tegan sighed, “but I still feel bad about it.”

“You don't have to.”

“But I want to.”

How could he tell her? How to explain that only his happiest memories of her had ever mattered? For fear of sounding as insanely enamored as he was, Eddie simply shrugged.

“It’s nothing, Tegan. You really think I’d still hold a grudge after all these years?”

“It’d make me feel better if you let me apologize.”

“I mean, I should be sorry, I made you feel bad.”

“Stop apologizing! How many times do I have to remind you—”

“But you’re literally trying to apologize to me! And for something I don’t even remember!”

“You sure you didn’t repress the memory?”

“Repressed memories don’t actually exist, it’s just another fucking fabrication of Freud’s.”

“All the same, I think it was awful for you. You looked so sad!”

“I don’t—”

“Can I say sorry?”

“I can’t stop you.”

“Sorry.”

The pair burst out laughing. Had either of them ever had a more meaningful conversation, Eddie wondered? And then came the ultimate epilogue.

“God, I love you.”

It’d come so much sooner than Eddie had expected. She loved him. She loved him, as he loved her. They loved each other. Eddie’s stomach seemed to swell with sheer rapture.

If the seven-word phrase had been fantastic, those four words felt unreal. Ostentatious, almost, in their perfection. Grotesque, yet so divine.

***

TODAY

Eddie wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t this. As exhausted as she’d been when they’d met, Marion had an undeniable glamour to her, for which this filthy bungalow was entirely unfitting. White plaster peeled off its walls like scabs as strange inky stains seeped down the rough surface. Several of the windows had been sealed shut with cheap balsa, and the thin front door hung on by only one hinge. All the same, the building seemed luxurious to Eddie. It had ample floor space, after all.

Shyly, Eddie rang the doorbell, and was promptly greeted by an enormous woman in a loose lime-coloured dress. Despite its looseness, it clung tightly to her hips, for they splayed out so far as to form flabby shelves on which the dress’ waist could rest. The dress was similarly stretched in its middle, as the woman’s pillowy double-belly bulged forth into the threshold. Through the sheer green fabric, that dark decadent expanse of dough seemed to glow with a hazy emerald hue. She looked so beautiful in that dress, the dress looked so beautiful on her, and the combination of their complimentary effects was disarming, even to someone like Eddie who preferred his ladies “thick” rather than “fat”. He couldn’t let himself be overshadowed, after all.

“Um… Does a Marion live here?”

“Some criminal you are!” The woman laughed loudly, her tummy threatening to tear through the front of her dress as she bent backwards with delight. “You look less like a villain and more like a member of Vampire Weekend. Tell me, is the turtleneck part of the costume? Because it’s despicable, really!”

Anxiously, Eddie tugged at his collar.

“So Marion—”

“—is my partner. I’m Mickey, nice to meet you.” Mickey took Eddie by the hand and led him indoors. Despite their plumpness, her palms were coated in a thick layer of hard, chapped skin; her strong yet squishy grip reminded Eddie of his bug-bitten spring mattress at home, only it felt far more comfortable.

Despite the bungalow’s awful exterior, its insides were remarkably tidy, almost oppressively so; every vintage poster, every overpriced ornament, every item of flea-market furniture seemed to have been positioned with pathological preciseness. Whoever saw to their situation, however, hadn’t been so stringent with dusting: a dull grey fuzz coated every surface like plaster. Worst affected was the waxwork that greeted Eddie as he entered the living room: Marilyn Monroe might have looked magnificent once upon a time, but the dusty veneer it had since acquired left it looking deathly. Her mouth, locked in an iconic laugh, now spewed moths instead of sweet nothings. With the seductive starlet rendered repulsive by the ravages of time, it was left to Marion to bring Hollywood glitz to the drably-decorated room. Clad in a thin-yet-tight scarlet sundress and caked in an indulgent amount of creamy make-up, the bubbly beauty Eddie was sure her job had buried now bounced to the surface. Her hair looked fuller, her face less pale.

“Aha, my man of mystery!”

“You can call me Eddie.” The wannabe-supervillain shrugged shyly. “Eddie Salvidar.”

“Exotic,” Marion cried gleefully, “I like it!”

“Excuse me?”

“She’s like that sometimes,” Mickey groaned, “still stuck in a century she wasn’t alive for.”

“Hey,” Marion laughed, strangely sharply. “Technically I was born in the 1990s!”

“But you should’ve been born in the 1890s.”

“But then I’d never have met you!”

“Aww!” Marion gestured towards her lover with a slender finger, and on cue Mickey bent forth, her many soft rolls all squishing into each other, to receive a lingering kiss on the cheek.

“So”, Marion asked, once Mickey had heaved herself upright, “I expect you’ll be joining us for dinner, Eddie?”

Dinner, it turned out, was overcooked coq au vin with undercooked new potatoes, laid elegantly on a bed of cold lettuce. By its chef’s own admission it wasn’t great, but at least, Marion added, it reminded her of home.

“It’s the sort of thing Vincent Price would serve,” she explained.

“Wasn’t rotting meat more to his taste?” Eddie asked. “Or whatever it is flies eat.”

“He was an excellent cook, as a matter of fact. Released four cookbooks, two of which I own.”

“Wow, you really love classic Hollywood huh?”

“What gave you that impression?” she giggled. “I love the stars, the sets, the costumes, the elegance of it all. They really did make dreams back then, in magnificent monochrome. I only wish I could believe in them.”

“Jaded?”

“More like choking. You could afford to be innocent back then; not anymore.”

“It wasn’t all His Girl Friday,” said Mickey, “don’t forget how shitty the 30s and 40s were.”

“Back then when rich white guys whined about invisible invasions we shot them stone dead,” said Marion, “what’s so shitty about that?”

“The fact they treated us even worse.”

“So we stopped it,” she snapped, “as soon as Japan tugged the isolationists’ heads out their asses. We stamped out the sickness and we swore it’d never happen again, and we were still so stubborn about our standards we never noticed we’d already been infected, long ago. They won, you realize? Blame it all on exceptionalism. They control this country now, and they don’t even know it. Fucking morons.”

“Mari, just because you’re underpaid—”

“And underappreciated too, it seems like.” Her plump lips formed a sulky pout; its sheer prominence would’ve been cartoonish were it not for the raging heat she radiated.

“Look, I love those movies too Mari—”

“You don’t need to pretend—”

“Don’t make this about race. I love those movies as much as you do, you know that, but don’t pretend the world was ever perfect, don’t get angry about the end of an age that never existed!”

“I know it never existed! But we can’t even dream anymore and we’ll never be able to again and the world’s only ever going to get worse…”

“Mari—”

“Just let me dream!” Fuming, Marion charged out the room, the rims of her wheels slipping slightly under her sweaty palms.

“I’m sorry,” said Mickey. “She doesn’t mean to be so… spoilt. She’ll see sense eventually. She’s just under a lot of stress right now.” Suddenly, the bloated beauty began chuckling. “You wanna know how bad things are? I’ve lost weight. Always know times are tough when I start slimming.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Do you know what a feedee is, hon?”

“Um…” The blush of Eddie’s cheeks was all the answer she needed.

“Well, unlike you I was innocent once. Didn’t have much time to myself with two brothers to care for. But then I met Marion, and she taught me all these terrible truths about myself, and before I knew it she was fattening me up to 350lbs and I was loving every second. We never had much money for fancy food, but we got by. My belly got us by. So I gotta keep it nice and chunky, for both our sakes. Besides, I gotta have plenty of fat round back, I’m lying on asphalt most of the day!”

“What?”

“I’m a mechanic. A lady mechanic. We exist, believe it or not. Can’t promise we aren’t all lesbians, though.”

“Awesome!” Eddie grinned, “I’m a bit of an engineer myself in my spare time.”

“Clearly; I hear you built a rocket belt for Christ’s sake. Bet you’re a real genius in your day job, huh?”

“Naw, I work in cybersecurity; it’s as dull as it sounds. Not nearly as well paid as you’d expect either.”

Mickey shook her head, her two chubby chins wobbling.

“All the white collars are shit-stained these days,” she muttered. “Just as filthy as my overalls.”

“Too true.”

“Me?” Mickey shrugged. “This is all I’ve known. Had to toughen up quick; mom was too pissed too often to teach me jack shit. Mari, meanwhile? She used to have it good, real good. Old news-baron blood, the yellow kind. Honestly I think the feedism would’ve disgusted them as much as the lesbianism had they ever found out. And that’s saying something.”

“I can imagine…”

“You really can’t; folks like that ain’t normal, I swear. They have their own rules, and when you talk to them you know you’re breaking several but you can never know which ones. When those bastards finally found out about Mari and me, well…” Mickey sighed, and rested her head on one hand, her stony knuckles sinking upwards into her pillowy cheeks. “Well, it would’ve been fine. We would’ve had enough to last both of us for years were it not for Mari’s accident.”

“Can I ask—”

“Mugging, real nasty. She was lucky the paralysis was the worst of it.”

“I’m so sorry…”

“Don’t be. She’s made peace with it, or as much as she can. The real blow was the cost. We didn’t have healthcare insurance; still don’t as a matter of fact. Didn’t seem to matter back then, doesn’t seem obtainable right now. And I doubt it ever will be.”

“Looks the same for me. Thank god I’ve never needed it…”

“What’s your tragic backstory then? Was it some science experiment gone-wrong or are you just plain evil?”

“I’d… I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Embarrassing?”

“Yes, but more so hurtful. Annihilating, even.”

“And I thought Mari was melodramatic…” Mickey muttered, smirking. “Speaking of Mari, you should probably go check on her in her workshop. Who knows, you might help her get her spark back.”

“I don’t know if I could do that on my own.”

“Dude, you have no idea of the effect you’ve had on her already. Now, shoo!”

Following Mickey’s directions, Eddie wandered down the hallway until he found the workshop she was referring to. The room was long and narrow, so much so that Eddie doubted Mickey could fit inside it. Then again, he realized, Marion would probably enjoy watching her try. Her humongous hips would sweep plenty of movie posters clean off the wall as their blubbery breadth brushed against it, and before Marion could stop it Clark Gable’s face would be crushed under the supersized servicewoman’s stumbling soles. If, by some miracle, Mickey managed to wiggle her way to the low desk at the room’s far end, her enormous overhanging gut would splash onto the surface, scattering scraps of fabric everywhere with its wobbling. As it oozed around the sturdy sewing machine and under the sloping ceiling, that jiggly belly would become jammed, its pudge packed too tightly into too small a space to be prised free easily. And, even if she could somehow free her titanic tummy from its tiny prison, how could Mickey ever turn around to escape? Without a doubt, her massiveness had to cause her countless issues every day.

Eddie envied those issues so badly.

However, Marion’s excited squeals snapped him out of his daydreaming.

“You’re here, you’re here!” she cried. “I’ve already drawn up a few quick sketches, nothing too detailed but there is such a thing as overdesign anyway, what I’m really aiming for is a classic look, classic and classy—”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Eddie interrupted. “Let me guess this straight: you’re going to make me a costume?”

“I prefer the term outfit, but yes!”

“And you’re going to just give it to me.”

“Yes…” Marion rolled her eyes.

“And I’ll need to pay…”

“Nothing!” She crossed her arms and smiled sweetly. “Nothing at all!”

“But you’re—”

“A morally upstanding citizen, who happens to be a skilled tailor! Was that not clear?”

“No, I understand, it’s just…” Eddie shook himself. “You’re awfully kind.”

“Kind? I’ve never had an opportunity like this, you’re the generous one! Designing a supersuit, holy moly—!” Her enthusiasm was electric; it felt almost awkward to be around.

“In terms of design, I love, love, looooove the helmet.”

“I mean, it’s only an old android head I found in the wreckage of the Hexaco plant. All I did was hollow it out and repaint it; I figured it was insensitive to wear Biocide’s colors.”

“Don’t discredit yourself: it looks amazing, and the colors you chose? Perfect. Oppressively technocratic yet undeniably stylish, and, dare I say, sexy. So I thought we’d run with that, really lean into the Big Tech name: I’m making you a tux.”

“What?”

“It’ll look great on you, I promise—”

“I don’t know…”

“You’ll also need a button-up—”

“Sold.” Eddie wasn’t sure if a smart suit really said “supervillain”, but it would definitely be an incredible outfit to be fattened in.

In his mind’s eye, he saw Bombshell standing over him as his expanding belly erupted out of his shirt, out of jacket, sending buttons flying like bullets before flopping heavily over a ripped rocket-belt… Eddie knew that, now he had imagined that moment that way, he’d never see it any other way again.

“Ideally the jacket will be lined with Kevlar,” Marion continued, “if you can get your hands on any, can you get your hands on any?”

“Assuming anyone’s thrown some in the dumpster recently, yes.”

“Great! In that case you can also be on the look-out for more of these robot heads—”

“How many robot parts have you seen lying around in trash cans?”

“Fair point. If you can’t get any don’t worry, but more armor pieces would be nice. I’d really like to redesign the shell of your ray gun if you’ll let me. Can’t promise Mickey won’t go to town on the techie-bits though.”

Logically, Eddie should’ve been more hesitant. He barely knew either of these women, and his own history had taught him to be skeptical of the sort of interest they’d taken in him. Yet, somehow, for all their arguing, the love they seemed to share felt so timeless, so cozy: it was impossible for Eddie to imagine either of them lying. So, Eddie would trust the pair with everything; perhaps, eventually, even his erotic interests. In any case, he would do whatever it took to achieve his goal, anything at all, anything that brought him closer to his metamorphosis into a massive mushy mound of lard, unable to stop his squishy stomach wobbling, unable even to move…

Anything for Bombshell’s attention.