Chapter 1: Feeding the Beast (And the Soul)
The kitchen sighed under her weight. Every shift, every settling groan of the floorboards was a familiar conversation between Wendy and the old house. The air hung thick with the ghosts of a thousand meals—grease, sweetness, the faint tang of spoiled milk from the overflowing sink. She leaned against the counter, its edge digging into the lower swell of her belly, and watched Delilah move through the chaos with the grace of a bomb disposal expert.
“Almost ready, honey,” Delilah sang out, not turning from the oven. The blast of heat that rolled out as she opened it was a physical wave, carrying the scent of charring bacon and sharp cheddar. It made Wendy’s mouth water, a purely mechanical reaction she felt almost ashamed of.
Her stomach let out a long, low rumble that vibrated through the layers of fat and flesh, a subterranean tremor. She patted the shelf of her upper belly, a futile attempt to quiet it. “Sounds like there’s a diesel engine in there,” she muttered, her New England accent broadening the vowels.
“That’s just your stomach applauding my culinary genius.” Delilah slid the heavy ceramic dish onto the stovetop. It was a monstrosity of her own creation: a brick of baked macaroni, each noodle slick with cheese and heavy cream, every inch swaddled in a lattice of crispy, fatty bacon. It steamed, promising a temporary, delicious oblivion.
“Del, I shouldn’t.” The words were ash in Wendy’s mouth. Her hands, broad and dimpled, already reached for a fork.
“Bullshit.” Delilah grabbed a plate, a chipped relic from a diner, and dug the serving spoon in. The sound was a thick, gluey schlop. “You’ve gotta stop letting them fatphobic assholes live rent-free in your head.” She flicked a stray breadcrumb from the vast expanse of Wendy’s cleavage, where it had come to rest in the shadowy canyon between her bosoms. The gesture was so casual, so intimate. “They don’t know you. They see a sidewalk and think it’s a person. Fuck ‘em.”
Wendy took the plate. It was hot, almost burning her fingers, but the discomfort was part of the ritual. The first bite was always a revelation—salty, creamy, the bacon crunch giving way to give way to soft, rich pasta. It flooded her senses, pushing the world back for a second. She ate another forkful, faster.
“See?” Delilah smiled, leaning her hip against the cluttered counter. She watched Wendy eat with a fondness that felt, sometimes, like study. “Happy place.”
“It’s a place,” Wendy corrected, her voice muffled. She was already a third of the way through the mountain on her plate. The hunger, that bottomless pit in her gut, gnawed as if she hadn’t just fed it. It was always there, a silent, screaming companion. “Remember the fold-out chair at Shane’s wedding?”
Delilah’s smile tightened. “Oh, honey. Don’t.”
“The sound it made.” Wendy stared at the congealing cheese. “Like a gunshot. In the middle of the vows. And everyone… they didn’t even look. They pretended not to hear.” The memory was sharper than the bacon. The feel of the seat’s metal frame biting into her thighs, the sudden, dizzying drop, the hot wave of humiliation that followed. She’d eaten two full pieces of the wedding cake afterwards, standing in the kitchen alone, tears mixing with the buttercream.
Delilah was quiet for a moment. The only sounds were the hum of the ancient refrigerator and Wendy’s chewing. “That was five years ago,” she finally said, her voice softer. “And Shane’s a dentist who smells like bleach. His opinion is worthless.”
“It’s not about him.” Wendy put the fork down. The brief haze of pleasure was gone, replaced by the familiar, leaden reality of her body. She felt its vastness, the sheer acreage of herself. The counter pressing into her lower belly, the way her thighs spread wide on the stool, swallowing it whole. The tight, angry lines where her skin stretched and protested. “It’s about the… the physics of me, Del. The logistics. I’m a tax on furniture.”
“You’re my best friend.” Delilah crossed the room, her own small, sure footsteps a whisper against Wendy’s seismic stillness. She put a hand on Wendy’s shoulder, a warm, steady weight. “You’re funny, and you’re smarter than anyone I know, and you have a heart bigger than this whole goddamn house. The package it comes in is irrelevant.”
Wendy wanted to believe her. She clung to those words like life rafts, but they were slippery, hard to hold. The hunger was more honest. It didn’t lie. It just was.
She picked up the fork again and finished the plate, scraping every last bit of cheese. The emptiness roared back, louder, angrier.
Delilah watched the clean plate, then looked at Wendy’s face. She saw the vacancy there, the need that food could only briefly fill. “There’s more,” she said, her voice carefully neutral.
“I know.”
Without being asked, Delilah refilled the plate. This time, she placed it on the small table by the window, where Wendy’s bulk was currently wedged. It was an unspoken shift. Moving was an event, a orchestrated negotiation of space and weight. Here, she could stay.
Wendy ate the second helping slower. The urgency bled out, replaced by a heavy, buzzing fullness. The kitchen seemed to grow smaller, the piles of clutter pressing in. She looked past her own reflection in the dark window—a pale moon of a face floating in the black glass—and imagined the quiet, orderly world outside. A world of cars she couldn’t fit into, of restaurant booths that were torture chambers, of glances that slid away in pity or disgust.
“I think,” Wendy said, her voice a low rumble almost lost in the sound of her own breathing, “the worst part isn’t the wanting. It’s that after all the wanting, and all the having, you’re still just… here. And you’re still hungry.”
Delilah didn’t have a bright, reassuring answer for that. She just started cleaning, running water into the sink, creating a small island of order in the sea of mess. It was her own kind of language.
Wendy shifted, and the whole structure of her chair-and-body groaned. A pain, sharp and familiar, lanced through her lower back. She sucked in a breath. It was a different kind of signal, one that not even cheese could silence. It was the physics of her, undeniable, complaining under the strain.
She looked down at the empty plate, then at the distant, unreachable sink. At Delilah’s back, working to keep the chaos at bay. The full, tight ache in her stomach was now a dull prison. The hunger was gone, for now. But she was, very suddenly, aware of the sheer, monumental effort it would take to rise, to walk, to be in this body for the rest of the night. The momentum of the next hour, the next day, felt like a mountain she was too tired to climb.
A single, cold truth settled in her gut, heavier than the food:
This wasn't living. This was waiting. And she wasn't even sure what for.
And she wasn't even sure what for.
The heavy silence was broken by the squeak of the faucet as Delilah turned off the water. She dried her hands on a towel already stiff with old spills. “Shift in topic,” she announced, her voice deliberately bright. “Don’t panic, but I’m having a reporter come by the bistro tomorrow. For a piece on local, woman-owned businesses.”
Wendy grunted, using two hands to push herself more upright. The movement sent a cascade of crumbs from her lap to the floor. “That’s great, Del.”
“It is. His name’s Jace. Seems nice from his emails. Young.” Delilah kept her tone light, but she was watching Wendy. “I might need my best friend for moral support. You know, looming in the background like a benevolent mountain. Gives the place character.”
“Looming is my primary skill set.”
“You’re a natural. So you’ll be there? Around, say, two?”
Wendy nodded, the promise already forming a low knot of anxiety in her stomach, right beside the mac and cheese. A stranger. A reporter. Eyes that would see the bistro, then see her, and inevitably connect the two. She felt a fresh, hollow craving open up. “I’ll be there.”
The problem with anxiety, Wendy had learned, was that it was just another flavor of hunger. A sharp, metallic one. By 1:30 the next afternoon, planted in the bistro’s cluttered back storage room, the craving was a scream. The bistro was closed for the interview. Delilah was out front, frantically wiping down already-clean tables, the click of her heels a nervous morse code.
The storage room was Delilah’s secondary test kitchen. It held a small, battered fridge and a hotplate. Wendy had come back to grab a diet soda—a laughable concept—and had seen them.
Eight triple cheeseburgers, meticulously assembled on wax paper, sat in a neat row on the folding table. They were for a catering order later that evening, a kids’ hockey team celebration. Cold, solid, immense. Each one was a fortress of beef, cheese, and bun. They weren’t meant for her. They were a logistical arrangement, a business transaction.
Her hand hovered. The first one disappeared in four vast, urgent bites. The second one followed, the cold congealed grease coating her throat. By the third, she was sitting on the sturdy desk chair Delilah kept back there for her, the wood creaking a steady protest. She wasn't tasting anything. She was building a barricade.
She was on number five when the bell on the front door chimed. Delilah’s high, enthusiastic greeting floated back. A man’s voice, warmer and softer than she’d expected, answered.
Wendy froze, a sixth burger halfway to her mouth. Shame, hot and immediate, washed over her. The evidence was everywhere: the empty wax papers, the specks of shredded lettuce on the shelf of her belly, the smell of pickles and meat in the close air. She couldn’t go out there now. She’d reek of desperation and stolen burgers.
She heard them moving closer. Delilah was giving him the tour. “...and this is our storage and prep area in the back, kind of the engine room…”
The door swung open.
Delilah stopped short. Jace stood just behind her. Wendy watched his eyes take in the scene: the mountain of a woman, the devastated platter of catered food, the quiet, shameful aftermath. His gaze wasn't cruel. It was… observational. Like a photographer assessing a scene.
Wendy lowered the burger. Her voice, when she found it, was a gravelly defensive joke. “Hockey team’s going to be really disappointed.”
A slow grin spread across Jace’s face. It was a good face, open and kind. He was compact, fit in a simple t-shirt and jeans. “I guess the post-game talk is gonna be about more than just teamwork.”
It was a dumb, gentle joke. The exact right one. A snort of surprised laughter escaped Wendy. “Food insecurity is a real issue.”
Delilah looked like she might faint. “Wendy, this is Jace Barton. Jace, my best friend, Wendy.”
“The moral support,” Wendy said, waving a beef-stained hand.
“The benevolent mountain,” Jace said, nodding as if it made perfect sense. He took a step into the room, glancing at the shelves of napkins and condiments. Delilah, flustered, stepped in after him.
“Don’t mind the chaos back here,” Delilah said, her voice too high.
The heavy fire door, old and cantankerous, swung slowly shut behind them. No one paid it any mind until the metallic clunk echoed in the small room.
Delilah turned and tried the handle. It didn’t budge. She jiggled it. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
“Stuck?” Jace asked.
“The deadbolt on the other side… it’s old. It must have slid home when it shut.” Delilah pulled out her phone. “No service. Not back here.” She looked at Wendy, a silent apology screaming in her eyes.
Wendy felt the world shrink to the size of this greasy, fluorescent-lit box. Trapped. With a beautiful stranger and the carnage of her failure.
“It’s okay,” Jace said, his voice calm. “We’ll just wait until someone misses you. Do you have a partner who’ll come looking?”
Delilah shook her head. “Not really.”
“I have a cat,” Wendy said. “His concern is limited to the timing of his dinner.”
Jace laughed. A real, unfiltered laugh. He leaned against a shelf of paper towels, somehow making it look comfortable. “So, Wendy. You’re a burglar of children’s sports celebrations. What’s your day job?”
The hours dissolved in talk. The initial, prickling horror faded. Delilah called out for help a few times, then gave up. Wendy and Jace just… talked. He was sharp, funny, and asked real questions. Not about her size, but about what she read (historical biographies, mostly), what she thought of the city’s new mayor (a lightweight), and why she thought deli pickles had gone downhill (a tragic corporate abdication of responsibility). She made him laugh, a deep, easy sound that did something strange to the cramped room.
He was telling a story about a politician who’d slipped in a puddle of his own hair gel during an interview, when the first deep, rolling cramp seized Wendy’s lower belly.
She tensed, her breath catching. Eight cold, triple cheeseburgers were staging a violent, greaqueous revolt. A low groan escaped her.
“You okay?” Jace asked, his smile fading.
“Indigestion,” she murmured, her face heating. “The wages of sin.”
He didn’t look away in awkwardness. He just nodded. “That’s a brutal payment plan.” He paused. “My mom gets awful cramps. Says pressure sometimes helps. Would it… be completely out of line if I…?”
He gestured vaguely with his hand. The offer was so absurd, so shockingly kind, it short-circuited her shame. She was in genuine, grinding pain. The old chair groaned as she shifted, trying to find a position that didn’t feel like her insides were knotting.
“It’s a lot of real estate,” she warned, her voice tight.
“I’m a fast learner.” He knelt beside the chair, his movements careful and non-threatening. “Just tell me to stop.”
He placed his warm palm flat against the aching curve of her lower belly, over her stretched t-shirt. The heat was an immediate shock. He didn't knead or poke. He just held it there, a steady, firm presence. The cramp pulsed, then began, infinitesimally, to loosen its fist.
Wendy let out a room shaking belch she didn’t know she’d been holding. The simple human touch, devoid of expectation or pity, was so foreign it felt revolutionary. The tension in her shoulders, the constant guarded hunch she lived in, began to soften. She sank back into the chair, the creak of wood the only sound besides their breathing.
Delilah watched from across the room, her eyes wide, saying nothing.
Jace kept his hand there, a quiet anchor in the storm of her body. Wendy closed her eyes, not from discomfort now, but from the sheer, overwhelming novelty of feeling… attended to.
The heat from his palm seeped through the cotton, a small, focused sun against the cold, greasy ache. For a few heartbeats, there was only that: the warm pressure, the receding cramp, the surreal quiet of the storage room. Then, a deep, resonant tremor built from the very core of her, a seismic event of digestion she had no hope of containing.
It erupted—a long, thunderous belch that seemed to shake the cans on the shelves. It was profoundly, almost mythically, loud.
In the immediate, horrified silence that followed, Wendy pressed a hand over her eyes. “Okay. So now you’ve heard the foghorn of my digestive tract. The full, mortifying experience.”
Jace’s shoulders were shaking. He was trying, and failing, to suppress a laugh. “That,” he managed, his voice choked with amusement, “was the most impressive thing I’ve heard all week. Are you sure you don’t do competitive novelty acts?”
Before she could muster a retort, a fist banged on the other side of the heavy door. “Hello? Everything okay in there? Sounded like a bear died!”
The deadbolt clattered and the door swung open, flooding the room with the softer light of the bistro. Leo, Delilah’s produce delivery guy, stood squinting in. “Heard a hell of a noise. You guys trapped?”
Delilah sprang into motion, a blur of forced normalcy. “Leo! Thank god. The bolt slipped. It was so stuffy in here, Wendy just had a little… air bubble.” She shot a look at Wendy that was equal parts apology and conspiracy.
The spell was broken. The world, with its judgments and its logistics, came rushing back in. Wendy carefully pushed herself up from the chair, its final groan echoing Leo’s puzzled glance. Jace stood, too, his hand falling back to his side. The absence of its warmth felt immediate and sharp.
“You’re a lifesaver, Leo,” Delilah babbled, herding him back toward the front. “Let me get you a coffee for your trouble.”
The storage room was just a storage room again. Wendy busied herself gathering the damning pile of wax paper, her movements stiff. The intimacy of the last hour now felt like a shared dream, dissolving in the harsh fluorescent light. He’d been kind, trapped with her. It was a courtesy of circumstance. Now he was free.
She lumbered out into the bistro proper, aiming for the trash can behind the counter, a wall of polite goodbye already forming in her throat.
“Wendy.”
Jace’s voice stopped her. He was following her, his hands in his pockets, but his posture wasn’t casual. It was deliberate.
She turned, the trash in her hands a crumpled, greasy shield.
He didn’t smile his easy smile. His expression was open, serious. “I have to file this piece by Tuesday,” he said, his tone conversational. “But I was thinking, after that… I’d really like to continue that debate about the mayor’s hair. It’s clearly a toupee, and I feel like you’re the only one who appreciates the gravity of that.”
He took his phone out. Held it loosely. “Can I get your number?”
The question hung in the air between them, simple and impossible. Wendy stared at him. She saw his eyes—clear, direct, waiting. He wasn’t looking at the mess in her hands, or the vastness of her frame blocking the hallway. He was looking at her. The woman who argued about pickles and politics.
Delilah had frozen by the espresso machine, a portafilter in her hand.
“You don’t have to,” Wendy said, the words automatic, a defense built over decades.
“I know I don’t have to.” He didn’t put the phone away. “I want to. If you’d like to hang out sometime.”
Hang out. The phrase was so normal, so devastatingly simple. It wasn’t “go on a date.” It wasn’t shrouded in pity or fetish. It was just… hang out. Like she was a person someone might want to spend unstructured time with.
Her heart was a frantic, trapped bird in the cage of her ribs. The voice in her head, the old, familiar one, screeched warnings. It’s a trick. He feels sorry for you. He’s collecting a story about the world’s largest woman. Where would you even go? You’d break his furniture.
But then she felt the ghost of his hand on her belly, a steady anchor in a storm. She heard his laugh, unfiltered and real.
Her own voice, when it came, sounded foreign to her. “Okay.” She recited the number, watching as his thumbs tapped the screen. He read it back to her. She nodded.
A quick, bright smile touched his lips. “Great. I’ll text you. So you have mine.”
Then, with a nod to Delilah, he was gone. The bell on the door chimed his exit. The bistro settled into a silence that felt louder than before.
Delilah exhaled violently. “Holy. Shit.”
Wendy stood rooted to the spot, the greasy papers forgotten in her hands. She felt unmoored. The solid, predictable landscape of her life—the hunger, the shame, the quiet desperation—had just developed a hairline crack. And through it shone a sliver of light so startling and strange it felt like terror.
Or maybe, just maybe, like hope.
She finally moved, dumping the wrappers in the bin. She didn’t look at Delilah. She couldn’t. If she did, the fragile new thing inside her might break. She just walked, her steps heavy and measured, toward the back door, toward the familiar sanctuary of her chaotic kitchen, her mind already racing ahead to the silent, waiting screen of her phone.