chapter 3: the goal of alchemy

I watched, transfixed, as the Baroness ate. The sight sent an unutterable erotic thrill running through me, but it also unsettled me. What I was seeing defied all reason: Ruelli swallowed plateful after plateful without pause and without difficulty. Roasts and casseroles; pies and pastries; exotic delicacies important from the far east; everything that came within reach. She gorged like one in the grip of madness: she stuffed herself near-frantically and without decorum. When her swelling stomach began to rip her rich purple gown apart from the inside, she tore it off impatiently and continued to lay waste to the banquet naked.

I am only human, and have always had a weakness for women of excessive size and appetite. I paced up to her and wrapped my arms around her superlative body from behind. She paused long enough to turn around within my embrace and kiss me briefly yet with an insane passion. Then she returned to her feast.

She cleared both of the room's two vast banqueting tables while I (perhaps infected with some of her strange, passionate madness) grabbed at her softly alluring rolls of flesh and explored her physique with hand and eye. When she was done- when every platter and dish was licked clean- she spun around, shoved me onto a hitherto-unsuspected settee and then leapt upon me. She tore off my clothes and... well, I'm sure your imagination can furnish you with the details of what happened next. Decency- and my reputation- forbid me from telling you more than this: her particular form of mad lovemaking was as creative as it was passionate.

*

I awoke sometime during the night. The Baroness Ruelli and I must have slipped from the settee at some point, for we now lay entwined on the floor just by it. I allowed myself to savour the Baroness's form a moment: she was even fatter than when I had first arrived at the house. The diameter of her belly and her hips now outstripped my height. Her breasts and buttocks were both fuller and rounder. When I came here, she had filled the entryway corridor comfortably. Now, I suspected, it would be a very tight squeeze for her.

It occurred to me to wander how it was a mortal woman could expand so rapidly... but my musing was cut short by a strange noise. Somewhere below me, in the bowels of the manor, I could hear a rhythmic pulsing, as of some vast and ancient heart. I rolled away from the slumbering Ruelli and pressed my ear to the floor, straining to identity the low, unearthly sound.

The sensible thing to do (and, more importantly, the RESPECTABLE thing to do) would be to wait until Ruelli awoke in the morning and ask her what bizarre oddity lay in her manor's basement and why it made such a noise. However, the notion crept over me that Ruelli might be reluctant to to answer this question. As this idea articulated itself in my head, the origin of the pulsing noise took on a central and all-consuming importance in my perceptions. I had to know what it was. I slipped away from the peacefully-sleeping Baroness and began to look for a way to access the lower levels of the estate.

The other rooms of Ruelli's manor- which I had not before laid eyes on- had a double-effect on me. On the one hand, they put me in mind of Ruelli and her self-indulgent character, and therefore warmed my heart. On the other, they were so extreme in their excesses and presentation that they also perturbed me. As I hunted for a downward staircase to take me to the source of the noise, I passed through one room that was crowded with case after case of splendid diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires, alongside manikins sporting gold and silver ornamentation. The concentration of wealth seemed almost... obscene, somehow. Another room was nothing short of a pantry the size of a ballroom, overstocked with the mountains of food that the Baroness craved constantly. Another housed Ruelli's garments, each more lustrous (and each, I noted, bigger) than the last. Another rivalled the finest art galleries in England for its quantity of paintings. The list of things that the Baroness Must Have The Best Of seemed endless, and each was typified by one of the rooms.

Finally, I came upon a downward-wending staircase that took me into the heart of the estate. I knew I was on the right track, for I could hear the pulsing sound more clearly and distinctly than ever before. At the bottom of the staircase, a heavy wooden door blocked the way. I expected it to be locked but- as I was to learn over the course of our relationship- caution was not one of the Baroness's strongest traits. The door swung open easily and there, in front of me, was the source of the pulsing...

I had heard of alchemy, of course, but I had never expected to see an alchemists lab with my own eyes. But what else could this be? Tubes of chemicals and indecipherable machines all pulsed and hummed in time, creating the noise I had heard upstairs. They seemed to be performing functions I could not begin to guess at. At the centre of the network of machines and tubing lay the thing that drove the pulse and kept it in-time: a strange stone with cryptic symbols etched into its surface.

I do not know how long I stood and stared, but I was brought to my senses by the sound- and the feeling- of footsteps. With each step, the laboratory (and, I suspected, the whole manor) shook. Stone-dust was shaken from the walls and ceiling and beams of strong timber creaked and resettled. Then the door to the lab opened and the gigantic, seductive figure of the Baroness Ruellli squeezed through. She was, of course, the source of those earth-shaking footsteps. It took her a full two minutes to push her soft-but-gargantuan body through the doorway, and she didn't notice me until she came into the room. Then her eyes lighted on me and widened.
"Oh Redwell- I thought you had gone out to take some fresh air! You shouldn't have seen this place!"
She looked lovely and enormous. For the first time since I met her, she also looked as though she might be dangerous. That huge body which she had delighted me with just a few hours ago could just as easily be used to crush me or overpower me... but she made no move to cause harm. Only stared in horror at my presence.
"What is this place, Ruelli?" I finally asked her. "What have you been doing here?"
Ruelli sighed sadly. "My father- the old Baron- broke all the laws of nature here... but I am the fool has reaped the consequences of this action."
I was touched by this unexpected use of fine, high prose in her speech and asked gently "What did your father do here? What consequences have you invoked?"
"In this lab, my father discovered the final goal of alchemy: he succeeded in creating a philosopher's stone. But I am the one who used it."

***

TUNE IN TOMORROW FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER AND TO DISCOVER HOW ALCHEMY CAUSED RUELLI'S ENORMOUS APPETITE. EXPECT MORE FEEDISM, MORE MYSTERY AND MORE RUELLI.