Sharp Shooter

Chapter 1

Steam curled up off the bubbling surface of the water and into the starless sky as Victor sipped his fourth martini of the photoshoot, the tips of his thick fingers slick from the condensation on the outside of the glass. In the rooftop hot tub, every sensation was another note in a symphony: the light crunch of the ice chips between his teeth from his cold, tangy drink; the night’s chilly air against his warm skin; the roll of the jacuzzi jets underfoot and against his back; and of course, the POP POP POP of Lainey’s camera flash, painting neon blue and violet streaks against the insides of his eyelids when he blinked.

“Marvelous. Just marvelous!” exclaimed the marvelous woman behind the camera. In the brittle, streetlight-streaked darkness of the city’s wee hours, Lainey’s personal garden and pool area was the very portrait of paradise, high in the clouds as ‘Heaven’ itself–she’d taught him that word, even if, by her own admission, she wasn’t very good at explaining it. With the damp breeze fluttering the hem of her long skirt around her ankles and flicking the ends of her long red hair against her back, she stood tall in her high heels, and even taller atop the textured glass cocktail table on which she balanced for that high angle she liked, the one that accentuated the curve of his belly as it rose up out of the water.

“If you insist,” he said, smirking in spite of himself.

“As a matter of fact, I do!” Hopping down with a bounce on the balls of her feet that gave away her lifelong expertise in maneuvering the world in such unforgiving shoes, she tossed him a towel to catch in midair. “Come and see!”

With the towel in hand, he gripped the rim of the hot tub and began to push himself upright. “Wait! Slower,” she commanded, grabbing a few more shots as he eased himself up and out, warm water running in rivulets down the hairy curves and bulges of his belly and moobs and plastering the fabric of his swim trunks to his globular ass cheeks and thickened thighs. “Perfection!” As he toweled himself off, starting with his hair and working his way downward, she clipped up to where he stood, turned her phone around, and thumbed each new snapshot past the last so he could really take a look at himself. “Hard to believe, huh?”

Actually, it wasn’t so hard to believe, even without her flashing his ‘before’ pictures–the ones where he still had stick-thin limbs and a stomach as flat as a board. Day in and day out, she filled his life with reminders of how far he was coming along.

Like how she lavished him with words of praise (and everything else her mouth was capable of) every time his appetite grew to crave one more platter of pre-meal canapes or post-meal sweets than in the week before.

And how she read his growing dimensions out to him every time she had to measure him for an updated wardrobe.

And how she spooned him from behind in bed to squeeze and play with his belly all night long.

Not that he would tell her their routine was growing mundane, even if to him, that was a good thing. Lainey was the kind of person who liked to burn in your heart like the light of a star, bright and unignorable. “You’ll have to tell me next time we do a weigh-in whether you’ve doubled me yet,” he said. “Remember, I can’t even see the number anymore!”

There was, however, one unbelievable thing about the turn his life had taken: a woman as wealthy and beautiful as Lainey could have anyone she wanted, for whatever purpose she desired. Why, then, had she picked him out of the crowd to take in as her project? Sure, there was the risk that a more powerful man would not only reject her proposition, but report her for ‘compassionate re-education’. These days, the neuruploads were full of unskippable service announcements about ‘feeders’: men and women afflicted with the ‘tragic compulsion’ to make you eat until you exploded, who, for their own sake and the sake of the public good, needed to be brought in for as many perceptional years of UpLink labor as it took to ‘cleanse’ their minds. (Not that Victor used to ever have time for neuruploads, but the announcements got aired over the PA and plastered onto posters, too.)

Did anyone actually fall for that crap, though?

“Can I ask you a question?” said Victor.

Lainey giggled. “Didn’t you just?”

“What did you…see in me? That day at the banquet?”

***

Lustor Richmond was the CEO of NeuroCorp. As the wealthiest man in the world, he alone could boast of being more powerful than the High Councilor of the Initiative, if not on paper, then at least in practice. At his level of importance, it shouldn’t have mattered to him whether his daughter attended all his networking events, but he refused to yield on the subject of her participation.

Lainey Richmond probably got her stubborn streak from Daddy.

It was at one of these dull investor banquets that she spotted him: this lanky blond thing in a labor force uniform, with pretty, sad eyes, wiping down the surface of a buffet table between the burners with a micromesh cloth that he proceeded to toss into the nearest ‘to incinerate’ bin. She was fairly certain he was old enough to drink (and they’d just raised that again), but he had this weary way about him that both aged him by years and stripped him of the innocence the world should have let him keep.

And as the other workers flitted about the banquet hall, eyes down, movements automatic, he gazed longingly at the trays and trays of food that none of the big-money execs were even touching, displayed for display’s sake instead of proper enjoyment.

Oh, she knew exactly what she wanted to do with him.

With any luck, he was going to be hers, to favor, to fuck, and to fatten. (She’d had the same thought about more men in the past than she cared to enumerate, even to herself, but this one? For crying out loud, his sad blue eyes and every sunken hollow of his frame were practically begging for her intervention.)

As he worked, and as her father chatted up the other big-wigs, all of them holding champagne and probably sky-cruising on stim-tabs, she disappeared between throngs of names to know and picked up a plate, which she proceeded to load high with piles of plump steamed dumplings, crawfish bisque, juicy cuts of chicken and steak, fat tortellinis glistening with butter and melted cheese with real mushrooms on top…everything she’d seen the lovely stranger’s eyes land on, she made a grab for, and when her wrist could support no more, she tucked a fork under one dumpling, found her prospective prize by the wine station and said, “I’m Lainey Richmond. I’d like you to meet me out back.”

Perhaps that was unfair of her to do, as much weight as her name carried. But, stepping out the back door, plate still in hand, to the view of the loading dock where the catering truck was still parked, she thought to herself that it wasn’t like she’d strongarmed him into anything. After all, how could she have tracked him even if she tried? It wasn’t as if she had his name or anyth–

“Hi.”

The door fell shut behind him as he joined her.

Not even a minute had elapsed.

He looked even more breakable up close, all shivers and bony angles.

“I’m Victor.”

“Pleased to meet you. I thought you might be hungry.”

When she pushed the plate toward him, his hands rose eagerly to accept it and he tore into the food, his cheeks bulging with it as he shoveled it into his mouth indiscriminately.

She waited until he could swallow and catch his breath before asking, “Do you want any champagne?”

“Oh…that’s alright,” he said, seeming to remember himself, the heel of one uniform boot scuffing against the pavement. “You’ve already been so generous, Miss Richmond.”

“Oh, no, honey, you call me Lainey,” she said. “And if I were to go back and fetch us some beverages…? I’m rather thirsty, too, you know…”

“I guess just a water,” he replied, timidly, after a pause.

“Consider me at your service!”

By the time she dipped back in and came back out (with water for him and champagne for herself), his plate was clean and set aside on top of the banquet hall’s grease trap…good boy.

As they sipped, she asked him questions. Like about how long he had worked in private catering. (As it turns out, he didn’t; he usually drove the truck, but they were short on waitstaff, so he’d had to put on an extra hat for the night, but he shouldn’t have said that, and would she please not tell his boss?) Or about what kind of neuruploads he liked, or whether he had a pet. (He had time for neither.)

You know. Smalltalk.

And, considering how her brain spun with thoughts of how he would flourish and thicken, how even those gaunt cheeks of his would swell with pudge until a soft double chin came in to frame them if she had her way, she thought she was doing a pretty good job of it.

“I can fix you another plate, if you’d like,” she offered.

“Oh, no…I couldn’t…”

“You couldn’t?” she asked, a smirk spreading across her face. “As in, you don’t want to? Or as in, you think yourself an imposition?”

“I…I…”

“You know,” she went on, “back at my penthouse, I have chefs on call around the clock who are always happy to provide. It’s a really nice place, there’s a rooftop garden, a real feather bed, and everything!” The spark of curiosity in his eyes didn’t escape her, and she began to bounce on the balls of her feet in her million-and-change-SCU heels. “How would you like to work for me?”

“At…at your penthouse?” he asked. “Like…as a housekeeper?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” she assured him with a wave of one manicured hand. “You’d just have to live in there with me…keep me…entertained…and eat everything I give you. Oh, and let me make you resplendently fat.”

She’d never forgive herself if she didn’t explain outright her terms and conditions.

She knew she was taking a huge leap of faith. She had just met this man, and in the year XX26, it was a risk to be…well, to be someone with her set of predilections. How was she to know he wouldn’t turn her over for rehabilitation? But then…was she not already living in a prison, designed long before she’d known better than to question it?

She knew what she wanted out of life, and if she couldn’t have it…well then, perhaps thought-crime bio-battery mind-jail might be a mercy.

“Do…do you have the onboarding paperwork with you?” he asked, wide-eyed, and, dare she believe, hopeful? “Or do we need to go back to your place?”

“Thank Heaven I haven’t scared you off!” she exclaimed. “Here, let me get it…” She dug in her Saturday night handbag for her phone, whipped it out, and pulled up the necessary forms. “Oh, and it’s in the fine print already, but just so you know, I’ll also want to shoot you.”

His face blanched even paler than it already was, because that was somehow possible. “What?”

Oh. Her mistake; she should have clarified: “With my camera, silly! I may be affluent, but I’m not insane!”