The day started like every working weekday; at the shrill bequest of Brolly’s 7.45am alarm. The noise pecked his skull and drilled into his consciousness. He itched his nose on the Kit-Kat pillowcase and wiped his eye mucus onto the Freddo duvet. He scratched his cheek, dragged his left arm above his head and dug his right arm under his belly. With capillary bursting effort and an extended elephantine grunt, he pushed into the heavy gauge bedsprings and leveraged his body onto its left side. He dropped onto his back and used his weight’s momentum to roll onto the other side of the Super King Size bed which, with its reinforced and melded mesh base was designed, like everything in Brolly’s life, for the obese. 

He rested on his right flank as he wheezed and caught his breath. He stretched for the phone and stopped the alarm. Its intrusive digital piercing was replaced by the seamless fade of aeroplanes’ secret greetings. He swivelled his cracked, swollen feet, his barely discernible ankles to the edge of the bed, ripped back the duvet and pushed against the mattress with guttural wrenching. His frame extended in a diagonal line from shoulders to legs as his stomach engulfed his thighs and dropped halfway to the floor. He didn’t like the uncontrollable pull of flesh and groaned, rubbed the soles of his feet against the solace of the shagpile carpet, offered a message of consolation to the rest of his suffering body. 

Upright, he punched his right thigh and kneaded its subcutaneous knots. His heart pounded and his lungs flapped. He squeezed his legs together and like an over-sized testicle, cupped his stomach from below, moved it onto his lap. He opened his legs and leaned forward as he let it slip, inch by inch, to the floor. He released his hands, inhaled a deep breath and heaved upwards so that he stood, finally, fully erect, his head woozy from the effort. 

In his self-designed British Racing Green dressing gown, he hobbled onto the landing and made a bee-line for the filing cabinet which nestled in the corner diagonally opposite. A six slice family toaster stood on top of the filing cabinet and on top of that rested an oat coloured plate, two dirty knives and a half consumed bag of sliced white bread. Next to the toaster on the right lay butter and jars of Marmite, marmalade, raspberry jam and peanut butter. Brolly grabbed two slices of bread, crumpled one into a ball, shoved it into his mouth and spread the other with butter and marmalade. After he devoured the second slice, he grabbed six more and dropped them into the toaster before side-stepping to his right. 

He knocked gently on the door like always. He waited courteously for a response which he never received. He wiped a marmalade globule from his lower lip and entered. Gill always slept on her back, mouth wide open, her snoring interminable, pulmonary rumble in, apocalyptic road drill out. Not that this was the reason they no longer slept together (that was because no bed was sufficiently large or strong to support them both) but Brolly was glad he didn’t have to endure the disturbance on a nightly basis - an ungodly noise that would surely top the CIA’s annual torture playlist at Guantanamo Bay. 

Brolly took Gill’s hand and watched her with love; her plucked eyebrows, her ski jump nose, all her chins. She muttered unintelligibly and stopped snoring. Stopped everything. Brolly’s wheezing, a wild animal sleeping deeply, filled the silence before school children gurgled outside. “Gill…” He whispered. “Gill?” She didn’t answer. He froze. Assessed her danger. No rapid eye movement, no heaving of mountainous chest, no random twitching. Time trampolined in front of him. Did a summersault. And then a double flip. He grabbed her shoulder and shook it gently. “Gill!” He concentrated on the lack of movement in her upper torso. He gripped her upper arm and shook it harder. “GILL!??” With panicked start and a sword’s slash of air, her body wobbled. Brolly jumped. The toast popped. She coughed. He involuntarily sucked in a small kangaroo pouch of her musty bedroom smell. She greeted him with a winning smile.

“Hiya…” She croaked with a languorous, deep sea trawl. 

“You OK?”  

“Bit tired but yeah, why?” The fillings in her teeth shone as she yawned. 

“I really think you should see the doctors.”

“What for?” 

“Your breathing.”

“Oh for God’s sake! I’ve just woken up.”

“Yeah I know but, you know…Breathing is quite important.”

“Best way to go, in your sleep…”

“Not when you’re 34.” Gill shook her head, snarled like an Elvis impersonator without a building to leave. 

“I’m hungry. Let’s talk about this another time.” Gill’s indifference kneecapped Brolly’s worry. He knew he was fighting a losing battle, that he’d never persuade her to do anything she didn’t want to do. Her nose twitched, sniffed in staccato bursts. “Smells good.”

“Come on then, let’s get on with it.” Brolly staggered to the bottom of Gill’s bed, also designed for the obese. She closed her doughy legs but even with her thighs squashed together, her two feet remained two feet apart. She kicked them from underneath the duvet, groaned and panted as she pushed her arms into the mattress and struggled to sit up. Brolly grabbed her legs, lifted them into the air and swivelled her to the side of the bed nearest the toaster. He let go of her legs and grabbed her hands. She focused, inhaled confidently, and after a mutual glance, a balletic nod, pushed as he pulled. Pain strangled her intestines, stabbed at her shins, ground her hip bones and with noises befitting a zoo, she stood up.

After he buttered the first two slices, she layered them with jam on peanut butter, munched both with unassailable vigour. The third, she spread for him, also jam on peanut butter, and fed him as he prepared the remaining slices. She lacquered the next two with marmalade on marmite and ate one herself as Brolly snatched the other from her clutches. Although she had every intention of giving him the final slice, an every-woman-for-herself fog clouded her generosity and she devoured it aggressively. 

Brolly slipped another six slices into the toaster as Gill hobbled to their specially installed bariatric bathroom which both agreed had been a worthwhile investment; getting stuck in showers and baths and falling off toilets was no fun for anyone. It hadn’t come cheap, but after Gill’s Aunt Violet’s unexpected death almost a decade ago and after her equally unexpected will which designated Gill as sole beneficiary, not only could Gill afford it but she could also afford to eat whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it. The almost 2500 sq foot Victorian terraced house off the Walworth Road, on the Kennington side towards Camberwell Green, had five bedrooms of which Gill and Brolly only ever properly used three so the conversion had been an easy decision on every level. 

The extractor fan rumbled as Gill clung onto one of the room’s many grab rails next to what had become, by default, a decorative loo roll (they’d been using the same one for almost three months now) and lowered herself onto the toilet. She took a deep breath and pushed until her face turned cherry tomato red. Guttural snatches of concentration punctuated her effort along with a large gush of urine.

“Any luck?” Brolly shouted.

“Not so far…” She muttered.

“When’s the last time you went?” He sauntered in and handed her three slices of dripping toast. 

“Monday, I think.”

“This Monday just gone?”

“Monday before that.” 

“That’s almost two weeks!” 

“Yeah. What about you?”

“Tuesday.”

“This Tuesday?”

“Yeah.”

“Not bad!” It was Friday; only three days ago. Gill hid her jealousy well.

“Yeah I was pretty chuffed. You gonna try again? Third time lucky?”

“Naah; it’s hurting a bit; think I’ll just have a shower.” 

“Maybe we should get you some more of those laxatives?”

“I’ll be fine.” Brolly had had enough problems down there to know that irregular bowel movement was not fine. Not for anyone or anything, least of all for Gill and her anus. 

The shower’s downpour momentarily deafened Gill. She looked like an amateur disco dancer practicing bad moves as she kept re-positioning herself to keep warm under the spray. Brolly squeezed an anti-fungal shower gel into an exfoliating mitten and lathered it. She closed her eyes and splashed her face as he followed in small circular motions with mitten. He cleaned her skin, all of it. No pound left unturned, no intimacy unexplored, no fold insanitary. Her chins, her bulging neck, her bony shoulders, her sticky armpits, her pendulous breasts, deep into the layers of her tummy and below to just under the knees. “All done?” Gill asked after he’d washed and rinsed front and back.  

“Almost.” Rogue suds slipped under a nipple-less breast-like hanging, below the back of her ribs. He tried to lift the hanging. It slipped out of his grasp. He grabbed it more assertively. His grip tickled. She shivered.

“What you doing?” 

“Hang on…” He aimed the nozzle, sent most the suds packing but a few slivered down the crack between her buttocks. He grabbed Gill’s left cheek, squeezed it as if testing the fullness of a football, moved it to one side. Her haunch contracted involuntarily and she giggled.

“Brolly! What’re you doing!?”

“Just getting rid of all the soap.”

He paid similar attention to drying and moisturising Gill and to cooking their daily breakfast which was always a variation on a theme: The Full English. Six rashers of bacon, four sausages, four medium eggs (scrambled or fried), four slices of toast, a tin of baked beans, a tin of tomatoes, a tin of mushrooms and deep fry chips. Each. Sometimes more.

After waving Gill off to work and cleaning up the kitchen, he hunched over the confectionery cupboard. Stocks were depleted but they were always depleted on a Friday. He grabbed a packet of Haribo Tangfastics, a tube of Pringles Originals, a five pack of Curly Wurlys, a solitary Twirl and a packet of Starburst chews. He bent his left arm across his belly and trusted the confectionary into its nook.

He wobbled along the hallway and salivated as he debated which to eat first: chocolate he decided quickly but a Curly Wurly or the Twirl? There were five Curly Wurlys but they were wrapped within wrappers wrapped within a wrapper and fiddly to open on the move. The Twirl was an easier proposition and always burst like a pure adrenaline rush in the mouth. But there was only one and eating it first was like a band opening a set with their most popular song; not a good idea. Brolly squeezed into the stairlift which they’d installed at the same time as the bathroom. He strapped the safety belt underneath his belly, twisted the dial to minimum speed and pressed the start button. He opened the Curly Wurly five pack and pulled the first bar out. He tore that open, stuffed the bar into his mouth and tasted his childhood. He finished it half way up the stairs and started on the second Curly Wurly. 

He ate the third whilst dressing and started on the Pringles immediately after. He loved Pringles. Admired the uniformity of their curve, their USP which elevated them above other crisps which were shoddily made, crinkled or overly geometric, unequal in size, callused in comparison. 

As he brushed his teeth, he saw a human football with squashed, stray puppy eyes in the mirror. He wasn’t sure what had happened to his chin, how many he now had. He attempted a smile but looked like a neurotic Pufferfish without the stubble. It wasn’t a good look. He opened the Tangfastics, fed the different shapes into his mouth like coins into a slot machine. He watched himself with morbid fascination, more and more coins, a game he’d never win, a game he’d always lose. 

The second flight of stairs to his office at the top of the house was too small to justify another stairlift and as his stomach had expanded over the years, so his breath had shortened. He crashed into his bariatric office chair and was overcome with lashings of disappointment, stabs of self-disgust. How long did a packet of Tangfastics last normal people, he wondered? An hour? A day? A week? His packet had lasted under four minutes. He hadn’t even appreciated the subtle flavours, the different textures, the fizzy tang. Couldn’t remember delineating the sweets’ individual and carefully thought out identities. His life felt meaningless. He glared at the remaining confectionary as if trying to incinerate it with disapproval. He picked up the Twirl and threw it in the dustbin but it stuck to his hand. He did love the semi-metallic midnight blue wrapper and all that it teased. He ripped it apart, stuffed the first stick into his mouth, demolished it before regretting his boldness. Without further ado, he threw the rest of the packet and the remaining confectionary into the bin.

“Ha!” Self-control was great, self-flagellation productive, self-denial to be encouraged. A halo hovered above his head like a large Polo. He opened his computer and started on his work emails. Inspired by a three piece suit, part Scarface, part Saville Row, which his best friend Tiny Tim had brought back almost eight years ago from a trip to Thailand, he’d contacted the tailor, Bangkok Dave (real name Bhumibol Sripariyattiweti) and ended up commissioning a one button two piece for himself. After a glut of compliments, he had a Eureka! moment and decided to set up ‘Suits You, Sir!’ a bespoke business offering tailored solutions to the paunchy fop. No size was too big, no design too fantastic. Through word of mouth and expert client relations, a sustainable, web-based business was born and boasted clients from all over the world. 

Less then a minute and a half after he opened the first email, his self-control jumped off a cliff. He picked up the bin and rummaged through it. The Curly Wurlys were easy to rescue as was the Twirl which he ate immediately. Waves of compressed chocolate unraveled in his mouth, sent bursts of ebullience, telegrams of cheer to his furthest reaches. He devastated the Curly Wurlys with similar vigour. Sticky dregs of phlegm desecrated the Starburst packet which had fallen to the bottom of the bin but he didn’t care, he ripped that open, poured the chews onto the desk and counted them. He arranged them in a straight line, colour coding his least favourites first; three orange, two lime, three strawberry, two blackcurrant. He unwrapped the first orange sweet and ate it as he unwrapped the second one and ate that as he unwrapped the third. He did this meticulously until he finished the packet which took under a minute. He clasped his hands together, rotated his thumbs around each other, knew he had no control about what he was going to do, hated himself for what he was about to, encouraged himself to do what he was about to do.

Back downstairs by the confectionary cupboard, with eyes shut, he raised his arm as if it was a machine claw. He dropped it gently and lucky-dipped a Crunchie bar. “Yeah, baby!” But as he jerked upright, he started to suck his cheeks and chew his lips. He admired the Crunchie’s geometry, marvelled at its elegance, salivated over its honeycomb sweetness but swallowed a shot of his own saliva and threw the bar back into the cupboard. He guffawed. Abstinence felt good. Abstinence felt like a million dollars. He left the kitchen.

But returned. 

He gnawed on his thumb; it tasted of washing up liquid and badly cooked human sacrifice. Its started to crack, to bleed. He sucked the blood, drowned it in spit, opened the confectionary cupboard again, grabbed the Crunchie and devoured it. It wasn’t good, it was great. It was all conquering. It over-powered the tang of his blood. He rummaged around for another Crunchie, grabbed that, a four pack of Picnics, a large sharing pack of chilli heatwave Doritos, some fruit pastilles, a Toffee Crisp, a Bounty, and from the fridge, a bottle of Lilt. He puffed his way back to his office and finally settled down to work.