chapter 1

Mrs. Aldridge did not approve of Zoe Smith. Though undeniably thin and pretty the raven haired nineteen year old had few other qualities to recommend her. She was, thought Mrs. Aldridge, a very mediocre girl. An airhead who though of little but fashion and film stars. She had neither any special skills, nor any special education. She came from no special family and had no special background. The girl just wasn't good enough.
Zoe's many insufficiencies would not have bothered Mrs. Aldridge quite so much if it wasn't for the fact that her son; Patrick Aldridge, a young man recently turned 21 years old; had taken a very different view of her. He had fallen head over heels in love with the girl.
Perhaps it was her fresh young face, her long, raven hair, her deep, dark eyes, her bright, vibrant smile, or her shapely, sensuous curves. Whatever his reason the young man was obviously smitten with miss Smith. The two of them had been going steady for some time and Zoe had recently moved in with Patrick and his mother.
It wasn't her personality that was the problem. Zoe was a polite girl. She did her best to pay her respects to the woman she thought would be her future mother in law. The problem was that Mrs. Aldridge thought her son deserved better. He deserved someone intelligent, someone ambitious. A girl from a good family with a good education. The aimless and ordinary Zoe simply wasn't up to snuff.
Given time she had no doubt that Patrick would tire of the girl all on his own. But that might take years. By then he might have married her. Or worse: gotten her pregnant. The only question was how to get rid of her.
That question got it's answer when one evening, to Mrs. Aldridge's dismay, her son dragged her along to meet with Zoe's parents.
Like so many girls her age Zoe seemed always to be on a diet. She shunned sweets of all sorts and avoided rich foods like the plague. Upon meeting the girl's mother Mrs. Aldridge quickly understood her fear of fatty foods
Mrs Smith looked very much like her daughter. The two shared the same features and, as far as Mrs. Aldridge could tell, the same bone structure. But, unlike Zoe, Mrs Smith was not thin. She was massive. A huge ball of a woman with a round red face. Her once pretty features made small by round cheeks and wobbling chins.
Intrigued at the woman's sheer size Mrs. Aldridge decided to find out more. Upon scouring through some old photo albums she found that things had not always been as they now were. Mrs. Smith had not always been fat and Zoe had not always been thin.
Zoe's mother had, in fact, been a very beautiful woman once upon a time. She'd been every bit as shapely and curvaceous as her daughter was now. Her pregnancy, and the stress of raising little Zoe, seemed to have irrevocably ruined her figure. Over the years her body had slowly expanded until finally she had reached her present state.
Zoe on the other hand had, as it turned out, been a very fat little girl. As she looked through the old photos Mrs. Aldridge saw a girl with thick thighs, full arms, a round belly, and a cherubic face with a soft spare chin. Not until she was sixteen years old had Zoe turned into the slender, sensuous woman with whom Mrs. Aldridge had the misfortune of being familiar.
A conversation with Mrs. Smith soon revealed more. It seemed that as a child Zoe'd had quite an appetite. She'd loved nothing more than to stuff her face with sweets and with the heavy meals her mother cooked for her. It was not at all strange that she'd grown into a very fat little girl. Mrs. Smith had never minded her daughter's size and for many years neither had the girl herself.
As she reached her teens however Zoe's weight had turned into a problem. Her friends had teased her and boys had paid her no attention. In the end she'd sworn to shed every last inch of superfluous fat from her figure. She'd wanted to look just like the glamorous film stars that she so admired and adored. Mrs. Aldridge couldn't help but to think that the girl had been very succesful.
"Zoe really is a beautiful girl." Said Mrs. Aldridge. "You must be very proud of her?"
"Oh yes." Said Mrs. Smith, though she did not sound quite as enthusiastic as Mrs. Aldridge would have expected. In fact Mrs. Aldridge thought that she could detect a hint of resentment in the woman's voice. Though she was undoubtedly proud of the beautiful Zoe it seemed that Mrs. Smith secretly envied her daughter her slim figure. "Still..." Mrs. Smith said. "I worry that she isn't eating enough. It can't be healthy to starve yourself like that just to squeeze into a dress."
"Well..." Mrs Aldridge did her best not to smile. "Maybe I could help with that? If you were to tell me Zoe's favourite foods I could make sure to keep her well fed."
And so Mrs. Aldridge took notes and tried her best to suppress a gleeful grin as Mrs. Smith listed all the fattening foods that her dear Zoe simply couldn't resist.
On the walk home Mrs. Aldridge took the opportunity to secretly study Zoe's figure. The girl was no doubt very beautiful. However, at closer inspection Mrs. Aldridge saw that her arms were just a little too full, her ankles just a little too thick, her chin just a little too weak and her curves just a little too rounded. She had all the signs of a girl who was going to get fat. Mrs. Aldridge had no doubt that given time Zoe would swell up all on her own. But there was no telling how long that might take. Perhaps, she thought to herself, it wouldn't hurt to give sweet Zoe a little push down the road to obesity.