chapter 20

Mrs. Smith could hardly believe her daughter's appetite. In the year since Zoe had moved back into her old room the girl had done little but eat. Spread out on the living room couch, her body a sedentary ball of buttery flesh, she rarely moved or talked.
With Zoe so lazy and out of shape Mrs. Smith had taken it upon herself to keep her daughter happy and full. She was always cooking, baking, and shopping for her little girl, always working hard to make sure that Zoe had all her favourite fatty goodies within reach.
One day, as Mrs. Smith placed her daughter's latest little treat down before her, Zoe looked up at her mother and smiled.
"Thanks," she said; "I'm starving. I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here to take care of me."
"You're welcome, sweetie," beamed Mrs. Smith. "Still, are you sure you really need all this? You've already eaten so much today."
"Yeah," Zoe grinned, digging her teeth into a frosted cupcake; "but you know I can always make room for a little more."
A thoughtful look on her face Mrs. Smith watched as her little girl gorged, frosting smearing her lips and crumbs tumbling down her chest. It was not a dignified sight. Even she couldn't help but think that her daughter looked like a pig; a happy, drowsy, mindless pig.
Her body had become little but a storehouse for calories and carbs; a huge, heavy shrine to the fatty foods she so loved. In the sagging, drooping mass of soft flesh that'd enveloped the girl every meal she'd ever eaten was recorded. Every feast immortalised in the hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of cumbersome fat that hung from her body.
Over the last year Mrs. Smith had watched, hardly believing her own eyes, as her little Zoe had grown into a pale, doughy mountain of a girl. She was quite simply an addict. Food was her drug, and she had long since lost herself to it.
Somehow, even as she'd dedicated herself to caring for her ballooning daughter, Mrs. Smith had managed to keep her own weight under control. Though it'd taken some effort she'd stuck with the good habits she'd picked up in Zoe's absence.
As the pounds had continued, slowly, to melt from her figure Mrs. Smith had found herself feeling like a new woman. Lighter and brighter, she'd discovered, hidden beneath her many rolls of fat, a strength she'd never thought she had.
Stairs no longer wore her out. She could walk, and even run, without finding herself reduced to a wheezing, aching wreck of a woman. For the first time in decades she'd found that she actually enjoyed moving her body.
As her figure had shrunk, regaining some semblance of its old, feminine shape, the way others treated her had changed. People seemed to smile at her in a way they rarely had before, to respect her in a way they rarely had before. When she talked people would listen and take an interest in what she had to say.
She felt like she'd been set free. Released from a prison in which she'd been locked for so long that she'd almost forgotten that there even was a world outside its walls.
In many ways Zoe had been an inspiration to her. Though ashamed to admit it Mrs. Smith had, at first, resented her daughter's rapid weight loss. Though she'd known it was silly she'd felt as if her little girl had abandoned her.
As time had passed however she had come to be inspired by Zoe's efforts. Rather than to hold the girl's new figure against her Mrs. Smith had decided to try, at least a little, to follow her her daughter's example.
Nowadays Zoe, sadly, provided a very different sort of inspiration. Though she loved the girl above all else Mrs. Smith didn't want to live, or look, like her daughter did.
The mere thought that she had once been even half as massive as her little Zoe was enough to make Mrs. Smith shudder. The girl was a blob, a vast mass of drooping flesh. Any hint of her natural form long since lost under layers of shapeless, shifting fat.
Still only in her early twenties, Zoe could not walk far without wearing herself out. Stairs had become like torture to her, and Mrs. Smith sometimes doubted if the girl was even physically capable of running.
Zoe, for her part, did not seem particularly to worry about her lack of mobility. Hopelessly lazy and spoiled, she much preferred to spend her days resting on her wide, spreading, cellulite-riddled buttocks. There was nothing the girl hated more than having to lift the many hundreds of pounds that had settled upon her figure.
Looking at her little girl Mrs. Smith couldn't help but wonder how heavy she might be. A couple of days ago she'd finally bought herself a new scale, a sturdy one that might actually be able to hold her daughter's weight. Having, quickly, set it up in the bathroom she made Zoe rock herself to her feet and waddle over to find out just how many pounds her lazy lifestyle had put on her.
"192 pounds." Mrs. Smith exclaimed, smiling as she herself stepped down from the scale. "Looks like I've lost a few. I haven't been under 200 in fifteen years. Now why don't you try?"
Zoe said nothing as she settled her bulky body on the scale. She stood there, quiet as the numbers on the display raced upwards, as the machine slowly calculated the immense weight of the behemoth who had been placed upon it.
"So, what does it say?" Mrs. Smith asked.
"I don't know." Zoe shrugged. "I can't see."
Mrs. Smith sighed, her daughter's vast midsection had long since completely blocked her view of the ground beneath her. Looking at the numbers written out in the shadow of Zoe's vast dangling apron of a belly she read them out:
"469 pounds," she said; "dear god, that's nearly four times as much as most girls your age."
"I guess so." Zoe shrugged, removing her weight from the strained scale.
"And you were so thin just a couple of years ago..."
"Mom," Zoe sighed; "I know I'm fat."
"I know sweetie. It's just, you've put on so much..."
"Believe me, I know. I can feel it. But it doesn't matter. I'm not gonna lose weight. I don't want to."
"Alright," Mrs. Smith sighed; "if that's what you want I won't bother you about it."
"Thanks mom," Zoe said, flashing an exhausted smile as she settled herself back on her sofa. "Now could you get me a soda and some snacks?"