chapter 8

I felt so shaken by what happened that night that I have retreated from Lucy and William, hiding away in the attic. I have imparted my own appetite onto her: cavernous and echoing with emptiness like this great house, much too big for the small and unhappy family that called it their own home. But I discovered that night that she had her own appetite and it gnaws at me with an animal hunger that I have never experienced before. Even now there is no escape, I can still feel her insatiable hunger rumbling through me. How could she enjoy him degrading her like that? How could she think of it with carnal longing even now. How could she - but no, ladies do not do such things.

When I was alive I did not enjoy being fat. I hated the feeling of being more bodily and gross, trapped and bound to the earth by flesh. I told myself that I had bloated myself to a weight well beyond William's desire, transformed myself into a pale and flabby whale that would only repulse him. But the truth is that even if he did desire me it would not have mattered. When William touched me I found myself flinching from him and retreating from my own skin. I hated the feeling of his lips kissing my flabby belly, his hands caressing my soft sides.

Food was the only thing I desired and the only sensual pleasure that I truly enjoyed and yet my appetite would rob me of my beauty, my husband's affection, my mother's respect and my social standing if I allowed it. Is it any wonder that I felt suspicious of my body as if its desires were an enemy to be conquered?

Lucy might be in the grips of my gluttony but I have not yet pushed her over the edge into obesity. She is not so far gone that she could not save herself if only she knew how. Though I am not directly influencing her I can still feel her eating, gorging herself though every bite is robbing her of her beauty and burying her once slender figure in blubber. She is 22. By the time I was her age I had become a master of denying my body its wants. I knew every diet trick and could shrink myself down almost as surely as Alice's "DRINK ME" potion. Every time I reached my goal weight I would become convinced that I had finally conquered myself, mastered my desires. But I would always become lax and inevitably end up blowing back up again faster and fatter than ever before.

When Lucy married William she seemed a sort of fay, or a sprite. Barely a woman at all. But every calorie that has passed her lips and been hoarded as fat on her once petite frame seems only to coat her in soft sensuousness and lend her a lusciousness that I never knew in life.

I stand in the attic surrounded by my old possessions. Remnants of a life that is no longer mine, memories of a woman who is no longer me. I feel like I should be able to upturn the furniture and hurl objects across the room, tear through the house like a storm but the world around me is wholly unperturbed by my anguish. No one would hear me even if I screamed so I swallow my pain back down, bury it deep in my lungs.

It is downright perverse that I should be the one to fear her. Why should I hide away in the attic as if I am Mrs Rochester when this was my home long before she arrived? But when I descend the stairs my breath catches in my throat. She sits at the piano in the parlour and he is on his knees before her, clasping her hands in his.

"My darling, will you ever forgive me for being such a brute?" he asks her.

He calls himself her naughty dog, the big bad wolf. He encourages her to tug his forelocks and even rolls up a newspaper for her to lightly smack him on the head with it until she laughs and throws her arms around him.

He kisses her but when he rises to his feet his expression darkens.

"But this has to stop," he says as he reaches out and grips the curve of her chubby little belly.

She blushes. "I suppose i have put on a little weight since we married."

"A little weight? This is not a little weight," he scoffs, giving her excess belly fat a little shake. "Look at you, you're swelling up, becoming a squishy little dough girl before my very eyes."

It's true. She's even fatter than she was when I last saw her. I suppose i always had height on my side, a few extra pounds were easy enough to hide at first but she is so short that every pounds is magnified and her figure cannot forgive even the smallest of gains. It has not taken much to transform her from perfectly petite to squat and dumpy.

After that he searches the house for all the sweets and chocolates that she has hidden and locks them away in his study. Then at dinner when I try to encourage her to fill up her plate so she can pack that rumbling belly of her's nice and full he reaches out and puts a hand firmly on her arm to stop her.

He takes her plate and serves her up a meagre helping of dry partridge breast and a few putrid green brussel sprouts that she stares down at miserably before beginning to eat them without any relish.

I think that things might improve when dessert is served but damn him, he delights in leaving her plate empty while he takes a large portion of plum pudding and drenches it in custard.

He grins at her cheerfully while he eats but barely even finishes half of what is on his plate. He taunts her by making an exaggerated show of rubbing his stomach and smacking his lips. "So delicious but I couldn't possibly eat another morsel."