Chapter 15 salvation?

My plan didn’t quite work out as intended. I woke up with my stomach still feeling full. I tried to eat, the bean and cheese stuff was still hot. Not warm, hot. I don’t know what Horace had going for this funnel feeder thing, but it wasn’t letting the food get anywhere near lukewarm. So good, at least I didn’t have to worry about food poisoning. I ate as much as I could before passing out again. I ate more than I had expected I would, but I’m positive it wasn’t enough to finish by morning. I fell asleep with a stomach painfully full of food, and a mind painfully full of dread.

I didn’t wake up to suck down beans and cheese how I had expected, but rather to a far nicer image. Junior stood above me, his face was a mask of grim sorrow. He said “Hey Debbie.” And my mind raced. I was saved! And just in the nick of time. I would have to face whatever insanity my kidnapper would have in store for me when I woke up and. . . Junior saw the look on my face and said “I’m sorry, but I’m not here to set you free.” My heart sank so hard and so fast that It would have gone straight down to the core of the earth if the news was any worse. I couldn’t even speak through the shock and misery. Junior must have seen that in the look on my face, as he continued to say “E.H.S. 1969, I recognized that threatening comment was my dad’s, I had logged in on that account more than a few times before. It stands for his name and birth year, Edward, Horace, Smith 1969.” I said “Okay, but why aren’t you freeing me?” Junior said “Well, what he’s doing is crazy. But he IS my dad. I can’t have him go to prison, I-” and I cut him off with “THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE AFRAID OF!?!?” Junior visibly recoiled and said “I repeat. He is my father. He raised me alone. My mom died when I was an infant. He’s all I’ve got. Even if he is crazy, I’ve got to save him, I’m sure I can convince him to let you go. I just need time.” I sighed and said “What is it with you two and trying to save each other? Your dad wanted to save you from the grips of my evil Bust-Ex addicted heart. Just break me out of here and I won’t call the police. Deal?” Junior shook his head sadly and said “No, he has to do it willingly.” I rolled my eyes and tried to move my head too, but it was restrained. I shouted “But he threatened me that if I didn’t eat his giant vat of beans by breakfast he would. . . Do something. He just said ‘Or else.’ So no details.” Junior’s shoulders slumped as he sighed. He said “Yeah, that checks. He would have beans. Dad is cheap as hell and,” “CHEAP?!?!” I interjected, “Guy can be the cheapest man alive and I don’t care. He kidnapped me and is threatening me if I don’t eat everything he puts in front of me, which is a ton it turns out. Even more than I can eat.” Junior fished something out of his pocket as he said “Maybe more than you can eat without help.” And held out two bottles of pills, taken from my bedroom.

He said “Here, I’ll smuggle your meds in here for you and you try and keep him happy while I work on getting him to let you go.” I hated this plan, but it’s not like I had better options. I opened my mouth and said “Aaahhh,” as Junior held the pill bottles, saying “Hey, you said that you thought the Extenz only effected you so badly because you combined it with a growing dose of your old stuff, right?” I nodded and he continued “And my dad knows you’ll go through withdrawals without the Bust-Ex right?” I nodded again and he held out two Extenz pills, saying “Then take two of these, and no Bust-Ex. They actually help your stomach to hold more, and if you break into a sweat from withdrawals he’s more likely to buy it.

In hindsight it was pretty dumb to try out shenanigans with drug doses and withdrawals with nobody who knew how exactly they worked present. But at the time I thought it was a great idea, and agreed without a second thought. And so I took two of the Extenz pills and no Bust-Ex. After this Junior left and I went back to trying to eat the billion beans. Okay, not a billion literally. But it was a lot of freaking beans. At first everything felt more or less normal, then the Extenz kicked in and, to be fair it WAS less extreme than my first time taking two. Just not by as much as I'd expected.

Suddenly, not only did I not feel full, I felt the second most extreme hunger I had ever had. I just couldn’t eat fast enough. Mouthful after mouthful of the burrito filling went down my throat as quickly as I could swallow it. I would have screamed in frustration that I couldn’t eat faster, but that would require that I stop eating to open my mouth. Not eating was a crime which I could not tolerate for even one second. My stomach hurt from being over full, but I didn’t care. It hurt far more from the lack of food than from the excess. I could feel my stomach filling to excess. It was packed fuller and fuller. The pain I had endured at the end of my last frenzy of eating came to mind. But even that hellish thought was not enough to slow me down for more than a moment. All I could feel was the need for more, for more and more and more without end. In hindsight I had the other effects of the pills to thank for my very survival. Much like the first time I had taken two Extenz pills I ate until everything was gone. Then was flooded in pain as I began to actually feel my stomach, once I was no longer distracted by the need to eat more. I don’t even recall losing consciousness, I was just gone.

Eventually I regained my consciousness to find Edward standing over me. My stomach still hurt, it hurt in a way that felt painfully hungry and painfully full at the same time. Edward looked into the, now empty, vat of beans and said “So, I realized my mistake before coming here. When I had done my research to find out the upper limits of what the human body could consume, what I found was the world record of the most food eaten in one sitting by an individual. So, for two days in a row, you had ten percent less than a world record, thankfully I had dialed back the amount slightly to be safe. I was certain you couldn’t finish it all, and yet, here you are, and here the food is not."

After this Edward heard my complaints and requests for less food. He said he would reduce the amount there by a quarter, on the grounds that his desire was to help me embrace the joy of eating, not to cause pain and suffering. I did my best to bite my tongue, rather than say he was a monster. He was crazy, and I had been running a fetishist Onlyfans, so yeah, that. It was worse when the withdrawal started the next day though. I started to feel hot and cold at the same time, I broke out into a sweat. I screamed at Junior the next time he brought me Extenz to bring me more Bust-Ex, but he refused. He brought me a single Extenz, pill each day, since two apparently still has the same effect it did when I was taking Bust-Ex.

Withdrawals suck. Like, I had assumed they would suck, but they are worse than I had expected. I was constantly thinking about those damned pills, I didn’t even care if I ended up like Dr. Jones anymore. I just needed them now. My muscles ached, I was sweating bullets, and I couldn’t even move my head. It was probably for the best, I may have hurt myself if I could move freely. I spent every day eating as much as I could, like, I probably would have anyway. But right now it was my only saving grace, like, it didn’t make the withdrawals end, but when I was eating I felt them less.

The days dragged on, without a clock, calendar, or window my only clue toward how much time had passed was that Edward told me whether each meal was breakfast, lunch, or dinner. One thing jumped out at me as interesting though. Other than the, steadily worsening, withdrawal symptoms I had no clear signs of change from quitting the Bust-Ex. Like, I didn’t expect my breasts to melt or anything crazy like that, but nothing happened at all. My appetite didn’t lessen, my enjoyment of food stayed unusually high, even oatmeal and beans. I even continued to receive that warm, tingling feeling in my chest after eating. Maybe that was why taking two Extenz pills went so badly? That effect could not have been normal, the bottle approved of 1-2 pills taken at a time. Two would never be approved of by anyone if that was the common reaction. How long did this Bust-Ex stuff take to clear out of your system?

Edward undid the restraints on me after putting shackles on my ankle. I still wasn’t anywhere near free, but I could finally stand and look around, the room had a single door on its otherwise featureless walls, it had been situated directly behind my bed, which I could now see was some sort of modified hospital bed. After Edward left I noticed something in the corner of the room. A scale. Maybe Edward had put it there as part of his plans for me and forgotten about it? I approached the scale and stood over it. I had not weighed myself since I started doing eating videos online, no, before that. I hadn’t since about when I'd started taking Bust-Ex pills. I had been about 140 pounds when this had all started. Now? No clue. I felt an odd sort of dread when I approached the scale, like knowing my weight closed a door behind me. Like it finalized the idea that I would never return to living anything resembling a normal life again. In the end I did not use the scale, and began to walk slow circles around the room. My weight was not the only thing that made it surprisingly difficult to do so, my legs felt like jelly from laying strapped to a bed for so long.
I didn’t have a mirror, so It was difficult to see myself per se. But over the course of an unknowable period of time (okay, I probably could keep track of it by meals, but I honestly didn’t want to know) I knew I had continued to gain weight at an extraordinary pace. If anything that pace was speeding up in this low energy environment where I was forced to eat a constant stream of food with even less exercise than I normally had. The weight gain was clear mainly because of my clothes, I had been wearing simple pajamas when I was taken, they were pretty loose fitting and baggy at that time. Yet, I could feel them growing tighter with each passing meal. The arms and legs began to feel, not quite tight, but not as loose as they once were. My stomach began to push my shirt up, it now peeked out slightly, not allowing my top to touch my pants anymore. Most notably of all was my chest, it made the shirt uncomfortably tight where it covered them. All the more proof that the Bust-Ex was still active, somehow. After what must have been weeks of being able to stand I gave in, I decided to check my weight on the scale. It spun up and up until it finally stopped. Three hundred and twenty eight pounds.

I felt my heart jump into my throat, “Three Twenty Eight? Holy cow!” then laughed a bit saying “That’s me, I’m the cow, holy is debatable.” I wondered how much of that weight was on my chest. It’s funny, I had gone from the image of traditional beauty, except having a tiny chest, to having giant tits, and absolutely nothing else that could be considered traditionally attractive. Then I heard a voice behind me, Edward said “See, I woulda pinned you at about two eighty, tops. Maybe three hundred. Must be that so much is going to yer chest. It can’t be muscle. You’ve got damn near none of that as far as I can tell.” I noticed he didn’t have a massive amount of food with him for once and asked “So, what brings you here?” Horace smiled and said “Well, I’ve been thinking about this situation and, honestly, I don’t know if it was wise to bring you here.” I interrupted with “It was not.” And Edward simply held up a hand to silence me as he continued. “My reason was to save my son Junior and, well, things have happened with him. He has not taken your disappearance well, and he has firmly condemned, not you, but whoever took you. At first I thought it meant I was right, that the boy was too obsessed with you and corrupted by his time as your assistant. But now, now I don’t know. I was thinking I’d let you go.” I felt my heart leap for joy. Holy crap, it worked? I had very close to zero odds on Junior’s plan working. I guess he knows his father pretty well after all. Edward continued “But, this can’t have all been for nothing. Tell me, has this helped you to change at all?” My first thought was to shout “NO!” and smack him. But I quickly thought better of it, this was my best chance of getting out of here alive, I wasn’t going to blow it that easily. So what I actually said was “Yes, I think you taught me to value my connections to others more. My friends, my family, hell, even random folks on the street. I never realized how much I care for them till now, and now I want nothing more than to not be alone anymore.” Then I remembered why he brought me here and added “Food is great, but it’s better when it is shared with people who you trust and care about, rather than in a lonesome prison cell.” Edward asked “So, what do you think you’ll do if I let you go?” I shrugged and said “I don’t know, I think I’ll take this opportunity to stay clean, my withdrawals have stopped, other than the sweating, which is annoying but bearable.” This was a blatant lie, if anything I was sure that I was the person on the bottle’s warning label who keeps having withdrawals for years after stopping. But I figured it might help me convince him to let me go. Edward nodded with a finger on his chin and said “Alright, I will release you. But if you ever hurt my boy then this will look like a vacation compared to what I’ll do to you.” Well, that was pretty terrifying. Especially coming from a man who defined a few sexy looks at a camera as hurting his boy. But I needed to play along, so I nodded and said “Understood. I won’t do anything to harm him.” Before I have you thrown in a cell, I added mentally. This seemed to satisfy the man, and he produced a key, leaned down, and undid the shackles on my feet.