Chapter 5

Her hands briefly stilled, she looked out on the expanse of her salt-bleached deck and watched HIM doze in the morning sun, his torn clothes mended with some small skill...it was all she had to fit him he was so big.

With the tattered shreds removed they actually looked decent, his torn shirt and pants cleverly whittled down to a white shorts barely containing his girth and a short sleeve tunic affair, now unbuttoned to the warming sun.

He was reclined in a teak deck chaise, relaxed, and she could see the large dome of his rounded belly rise and fall as he breathed. She couldn't take her eyes off the soft shadows his roundness created basking in the sun and she recalled what he looked like nude...so incredibly round, so beautifully soft and vulnerable.

An erotic twinge down deep inside brought her back to reality. Shaking her head she realized she had been standing there for long minutes and the dishwater was now cool.

It had been a rough couple of days for them both, he still had no memory of his name let alone his past. Her major concern had been his weakness and dehydration and, more seriously, potential kidney damage from drinking salt water.

Her years of medical training had come back to her in a rush as she nursed him, after all gastro-intestinal medicine was her forté and the fruits of it had become her ways and means to retire. She smiled ruefully as her past flickered behind her eyes...the successes, the awards, the international recognition, the patents from her independent research and the sudden flood of money.

More money than she could spend rolled in monthly, even after buying this deserted chunk of pristine coastline. A fortune in permits and fees both to the county and architects and engineers who helped her create this cliff side aerie.

She went back over the past several days as she slowly dried and put away the bowls and left over makings from their morning breakfast...watching his near comatose slumber as his body slowly recovered. The difficulty she had in keeping him hydrated to flush his kidneys, her gentle insistence in feeding him, virtually impossible to manage his great weight without his almost zombie like assistance.

The trips to the bathroom and keeping his massive body and deep folds clean and dry was difficult. He was like a huge, malleable baby and yet despite it all she felt her clinical aloofness slipping away more eaxch day as she was exposed to his marvelous body. The thought of it made her twinge again...the long hot showers, his soft bulging fat sliding through her hands as she bathed him. Yes, his amazing softness in places her last man never was.

Yes, him...my love. Years ago, seems like an eternity. Gone before I had the skill and the knowledge to help him. A great man, huge. A great rounded abdomen that I chided him about, the dangers for his heart and arteries, yet he wanted to be like that. He loved it. Yes, I wanted him to be like that and I hated myself for loving it, loving him. Because it killed him, yes I killed him despite all my energies to find a safe way for him to enjoy his size. For us to enjoy his beautiful, majestic size.

The irony of it all...my medical breakthrough finally proved in endless trials and lab tests, the damn results proving success the day after his passing. Too late.

The hurt and the fear and the self hate. Then the retreat from all that I loved, friends that I loved. To disappear into the wilderness like a hermit.

And here is my castaway. Like a package from heaven washed up on my doorstep.

Do I accept the package?

Or return him address unknown.