chapter 5 jason's research project

One evening, Jason told her he was going to start on some research, but he needed volunteers to help him. Would she be one of them?
She did not have to go anywhere or do anything unusual. It just involved a little bit of hypnotism, but he would record the whole session, so that she knew he was not going to make her do anything weird like bark like a dog when someone said 'sausages'.
He put it forward as a serious legitimate research project, using hypnotism to help patients with anxiety and other emotional problems. He gave Sarah his paperwork about the project to read. It was all printed on hospital headed paper, with his department's details underneath. She had no idea what most of it meant. It was all medical gobbledegook, but she signed the official consent form anyway because she trusted Jason. What did it matter anyway, if she could listen to the whole session again afterwards.
Jason was doing no such project. The whole thing was a ruse so that he could hypnotise his wife in an attempt to gain more weight. It was a risky strategy, because hypnotism would not make her do something she would not want to do in ordinary life.
The next night, he lay her down on the sofa and put her under his spell. He switched the recorder off.
He told her she was losing interest in exercise. She preferred video games instead. She would soon forget about running, she would forget she had ever run. She would forget this conversation had ever taken place.
He switched the recorder back on and started the therapy session. Sarah awoke feeling refreshed and relaxed.
A week later he had another session with her. This time when he switched the recorder off, he told her she liked to snack when she played on her console. She could snack on anything she could find in the house. As long as it did not need cooking. Despite all her snacking, she would still have an appetite for her proper meals. He turned the recorder back on again and started the 'official' therapy session.
The snacking definitely had an affect on her by the end of the week!
She had rounded out all over. Her size ten clothes still fit, but they were a little more wrinkled where they were just that bit tighter.
He decided to put her into stretchy outfits to wear at home. Besides being comfortable to wear, it would give him more time to find size twelves to match her existing wardrobe. He would need to cut out the new labels and sew in the old size ten ones if the was not going to notice any weight gain.
The next week, during their 'therapy' session, Jason he told her that she liked that contented feeling of being full. If she did not feel full after one of her main meals, she would tell him and he would give her another portion.
If she felt full halfway though her second serving, though, she would continue to eat until the plate was clean.
She would think Jason was eating exactly the same as she was.
She would not remember him telling her this. He switched the recorder back on and continued with a standard relaxation treatment.
This third 'therapy' session made a big difference to how much she ate at a main meal. She started asking for seconds at her very next meal. Jason was happy to oblige, but watched her struggle to clear her plate. He liked to watch her abdomen grow from being slightly rounded to distended and full. By the end of the week, she could manage two helpings of every meal much more easily.
She was returning to work the week after. Jason gave her a break from therapy. He switched her clothes and hoped she didn't notice.
She was so used to snacking all day now that he hoped that she would struggle without. He filled her car with chocolate bars, sweets and bags of crisps. She often had to go on site as part of her job. Now she could snack as she travelled between the office and the site. He knew she was eating them because he disposed of the empty wrappers and stocked up ready for the next day, so she had no idea how much she was eating.
Sarah noticed she was putting on weight. She blamed her sedentary lifestyle when she had been injured. Funny, she couldn't for the life of her remember how she had injured herself. Nevertheless, she convinced herself she would lose it when she started back at work. She did a lot if walking from one office to another, then more walking on site. Yes, she would soon lose it, she thought to herself as she removed the wrapper on a chocolate bar and took a big bite.
Of course she didn't lose it, she kept gaining. After a month back at work, even her size twelve clothes were getting a little tight.
Jason replaced the size twelves for size fourteens and sewed in size ten labels.
Every week he was still replacing ingredients in her diet for higher calorific ones. He had replaced the milk in her coffee completely with single cream and was now starting to replace the single cream for double cream. He had increased the sugar in her coffee from none to one and a half teaspoons. She had single cream on her cereal with extra sugar and her portion had doubled.
In a packed lunch, he spread butter thickly on her sandwiches. He used plenty of mayonnaise and squeezed as much filling as he could get into her four sandwiches. She used to just have two, with a low fat yoghurt. The low fat yoghurt was replaced by a thick and creamy one, which in turn was replaced by a dessert in a pot, with whipped cream on the top.
Dinner was on large plates and covered with food that she tucked into eagerly. Jason tried to add extra oil, fat, butter, cheese or cream, depending on the recipe. Consequently, she had a lot of creamy cheese sauces, savoury pies with short crust or puff pastry.
Dessert might be a quarter of a sweet tart, swimming in single cream or a stodgy suet pudding like jam rolypoly with lots of custard. For seconds, she could choose savoury or dessert.
After giving her a month off his therapy, he started again. He encouraged her to enjoy her food. He encouraged her never to say no if food was offered to her, no matter how full she was. Of course, her favourite foods would be full of sugar.
Jason started to offer her sugary fizzy drinks whenever he could. She took to them quickly and was soon consuming a litre a day, every day.
Sarah was not just gaining a little bit of weight, she was gaining a lot and she was putting it on faster.
Jason was exhilarated by it. If he had a fat wife, he wouldn't have other men trying to poach her. He would have her all to himself, which was exactly what he wanted, but he had not expected the process to be so thrilling!
Sarah was aware something strange was happening to her body. She could not remember ever struggling to catch her breath when she walked on site, but she did now. Even climbing one flight of stairs would leave her blowing hard. She knew it was probably the extra weight she was carrying. She would have to start cutting down on all of those sugary treats. She thought, as she took a bite out of a chocolate covered biscuit. She would start next week.
Of course, she didn't start the next week, or the week after. But she couldn't have said why.