Chapter 4 - gary

Crammed full of food again, he stood backward on the scale and twitched impatiently to know the verdict. 169. I smiled. I don't think he'd gone to the bathroom yet this morning, either, but four pounds was four pounds. "Congratulations," I said, and he grinned. Later that day he got his pill and allowed me to ply him with several pieces of cake. For dessert, he munched happily on his refurnished Oreos.

170. I was ecstatic to be in the next decade of digits--all told, it was more than ten pounds I'd made him gain, although it wouldn't count toward his drug ration until 172. But I didn't tell him that, just said, "You haven't lost." He was satisfied and went out to finish last night's cookies as if it were second nature. I admired the slight curve of his belly under his shirt, diminutive, but there.

173. Eras grinned when I reported it to her, and we hatched a plan. Unbeknownst to Charlie, his ten pounds were going to take more like thirty. We wouldn't let him know his weight and wouldn't reward him with any extra pills just yet.

175. 176. 175. We attacked, claiming he'd lost another four pounds. I acted stunned. "How could you lose that much weight?"

He was just as surprised and growled in frustration. "I ate beforehand and everything!" he complained. (I had not, however, told Eras about this tactic. The way I saw it, Charlie was stuffing himself before weighings to try to trick the scale, and whatever he ate then could just be counted toward his weight a few days later, so no harm done.)

Red-faced, he rushed out into the dining room and attacked a bowl of chocolate pudding, while the other three humans exchanged glances. They'd long since noticed his sudden appetite, and were now almost used to it. Sometimes they smiled superiorly, as if they'd known he'd cave sooner or later. The next day I pretended the scale didn't read 177 and told him he'd gained only a single pound back of the four he needed to make up. He flung his arms out and said, "That's ridiculous!"

"I'm sorry," I said, "I don't know what to do. All I can recommend is eating more, but it doesn't seem to be doing you any good."

He worked his jaw and stared at me. I didn't think he was figuring it out--I thought he was trying to pull a solution to his missing pill out of my brain.

"I want to give you the pill, but I can't. Trust me, Eras would know."

Decisively, he said, "Oh, I'm gonna get it back. What's for lunch?"

"Chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn bread, and mac and cheese."

My pulse raced as he gorged himself on it; he looked like he was struggling a bit at the end, but with the fire of determination in his eyes, he ate it all and even asked me for dessert.

***


Once I'd broken the seal of sweets for him, anything would do, but I knew he especially enjoyed chocolates. We had a plate of fudge today that the other three were almost finished devouring. I rescued a slab of it and set it on Charlie's plate, and he finished it, licked his fingers and wiped the streaks off the plate to lick those, too. I swallowed hard.

He did the same at dinner. For the first time, I saw him settle back into the couch near the others, groaning and holding one hand to his side delicately. I couldn't wait to weigh him when he'd had time to metabolize all of that--and he didn't disappoint. 180.

My plan never wavered. For the next few days of withheld pills, I told him deadpan, "Well, you're not losing," and he scowled unhappily and ate more than the day before.

***


Meanwhile, the othes continued to pork up like the delectable little pigs they were. Stacy was now a study in rolls. She'd gotten round, filling in a wide, droopy sphere around her midsection, and her thighs and arms were marbled with pucker marks. Jill was fast approaching the same state, eating so much cake and pudding and pie I was hard-pressed to keep up. And Luke--

Over breakfast, I smiled, gazing at Luke. He'd surpassed Stacy. His clothes were all elastic now. Each of his plump cheeks and the roll under his chin wobbled as he inhaled his breakfast, and I stepped closer to put a hand on his shoulder, pleased that the greedy piggy didn't react at all, not stopping the constant shoveling motions from his plate to his mouth even for a second. The only thing that existed for him was food. I sighed. The rich, fattening food that I fed him, making him as soft and plump as a pile of pure lard. This was the greatest job in the world.

***

The next day was Charlie's 184-pound day. I relented and told him he'd gained back just enough for another pill. That afternoon, he said, between bites, "I've decided I'm gonna get those extra pills. You think if I eat like this for the next few days, I'll just about make it to ten pounds?" and I, lovingly watching him gorge himself on clam chowder and sourdough bread and his beloved macaroni and cheese, said, "Perhaps if you're willing to wait a couple weeks. It'll be slow going," and didn't tell him that he was already more than double that.

That same day, the Organizer assigned a new human to me. His name was Gary, and he was a replacement for a human who'd been fattened up to industry-standard size and taken out of another liaison's cage, but given to me because they were preparing to move Luke. He came to me already fairly plump, but terrified of food. He tried to lock himself into his bedroom and work out first thing, and I, sensing a problem, had to lock him out of his room and watch him like a hawk.

Charlie was by now noticeably heavier, and he had a habit of running his finger under the waist of his jeans as if something were bothering him as he ate. I kept both his pills and his desserts coming to him. Hearing Gary's attitude--"I can't eat that! No, don't give me any more, I don't want it!"--I was concerned that he might remind Charlie that he was supposed to be uncooperative. So I talked to Eras, and she agreed to let me schedule a force feeding in someone else's cage.

Actually, there was an empty cage that was used fairly often for this. I took Gary there the next morning and, as soon as we were inside, seized him by the wrists and forced his weakly struggling frame into the chair with manacles on its arms. He bucked and succeeded in doing nothing to prevent me from fastening them tightly over his wrists. "No, what are you doing? Stop!" The guard stepped forward and opened his mouth to jam a funnel into it. Gary gagged. The funnel had a long, fairly wide tail that extended past his uvula, and what went into it would bypass his swallowing mechanism. It was the least painless way ever invented of pumping someone full of your food of choice. Today, it was a tasteless mixture of vitamin-bearing vegetables and much, much more fatty beef and pork and a fair amount of sugar and corn starch. It didn't have to taste good, because Gary wasn't going to be savoring any of it.