Faith Means Fat Profits (complete)

Chapter 1

Content warning: force feeding, violence, slavery. This story is a dark thriller featuring explicit mature themes. All characters are of legal age. The reader’s discretion is appreciated by the author.

Chapter 1:

The ritual began at noon.

Grant Pham could smell the covered platters of food on the side tables all the way from his seat in the front left corner of the ballroom, carefully chosen for a good view of the acolytes.

Attending this session were thirty women seated in rows in a half circle beneath the central dais, all of them in their late twenties or early thirties. Each woman wore a plush green robe belted loosely around her massive tummy as she sat on a round velvet cushion barely wide enough to hold her bulk. Sitting above them all was the High Priestess, a slender Black woman in her late forties looking powerful and composed in a green dress embroidered with golden leafy vines spreading up from the hemline and ending just below her chest. She gazed down at her fat flock with a benevolent smile and silently listened to their eager chatter with polite interest.

At the stroke of twelve, the High Priestess rose from her cushion and clapped her hands sharply. The conversation below stopped almost instantly as thirty pairs of hungry eyes fixed themselves upon her. Two tall male attendants wearing black tuxedos and red cloth masks emerged from the rear doors to her left, carrying large white ceramic jugs decorated with a bright floral pattern and bags of blue disposable plastic cups.

“Welcome, Sisters,” the High Priestess said. Her voice was a smooth tenor, sweet as honey. “I greet you in the name of the Earth Mother.”

A small wave of her outstretched hands dispatched the men into the crowd, distributing cups among the worshippers and filling them with dark red liquid from the jugs. Several of the women cast covetous glances over at the tables on either side of them, loaded with their steaming platters. Ten more attendants stood next to the tables and waited patiently to begin serving.

The High Priestess raised her arms dramatically. “The world outside torments you and denies your natural beauty. Drink your Mother’s spirit and regain your inner strength. Drink!”

Her obese audience raised their cups and emptied them in a single gulp, giggling with excitement. Around them the staff silently removed the covers of the platters and took them from the tables, placing the food on the floor within arm’s reach of each drinker. Grant could see that their eyes were already beginning to glaze over, their giggles quickly becoming less lucid as the unknown liquid in the cups established its hold on them.

The High Priestess saw it too. “Here we are free, Sisters. Enjoy!”

The worshippers attacked the food with wild abandon the moment she finished speaking. No utensils were provided, but this didn’t seem to be a problem for anyone. Each woman simply grabbed a pudgy fistful of whatever food sat closest to her cushion and crammed it unthinkingly into her mouth: hot or cold, wet or dry.

Grant stared in shock as rivers of thick gravy ran down the multiple chins of a pale-skinned blonde acolyte and soiled the front of her robes. Seemingly oblivious, she made no attempt to clean herself as she stuffed biscuit after biscuit into her gaping maw, pausing only to wash them down with a large cup of milk placed next to her by an attendant. The brunette sitting to her right was inhaling hot dogs as fast as she could swallow them, cramming herself with so much force that her heavy breasts wobbled with the effort. She seized a nearby cup of soda and drained it dry in a flash before turning back to the meal. The acolytes around her wallowed in their sloppy mess like sows in a pigsty, heedless of anything except their next mouthful of food.

Above the feeding frenzy, the High Priestess returned to her cushion. She appeared almost regal as she regarded her gluttonous court, a small smile tugging at the corners of her thin lips. It took Grant a moment to notice that no food or drink had been brought to her.

It was not long before the acolytes began to slow down in their feasting. Several masked men took seats on the floor beside them, firmly propping their bodies upright with one arm and bringing food to their mouths with their free hand. The women chewed mechanically, gradually slowing to a stop like toys with low batteries. Their eyes drifted closed as the men carefully lowered them to the floor and began to clean up the space around them. Other attendants cleared the tables of leftover platters.

The ritual was clearly over. Grant closed his reporter’s notepad and stood up to leave, filled with more questions than answers. He carefully picked his way between thirty unconscious bodies sprawled haphazardly on the floor and made it halfway to the ballroom’s entrance doors when the High Priestess called out to him.

“Have you decided how you’ll mock our faith in your article, Mr. Pham?”

Grant paused in mid-step, turning on his heel to look back at her. “I have no intention to mock your faith, Ms. Couteau. Just to report what I saw.”

“But do you understand it?” She stepped down from the central dais and made her way through the human obstacles on the floor to meet him. “Seeing something is not the same as understanding it.”

Grant nodded slowly. “That’s true. Would you like to do a personal interview? I’d hate to think that I was misrepresenting your religious practices.”

“Certainly.” She beamed warmly at him and indicated the main doors with an arm. “We can have it right now, if you have time. The staff can finish up in here and my office is just down the hall.”

“Alright. Lead the way.”