Shareware Supreme Volume 6 #1/swsii.zip/swsii/201/RUBYV22.ZIP/RUBY22-4

Text File | 1993-06-26 | 13KB | 224 lines

Copyright 1993(c)
                             LONELY
                         By Jackie Jones

     She was enormous, 5'1" and over 250 pounds. She'd been told
the ground shook when she walked past. At 25, Amy expected the
world's mockery and received it in spades. Other girls got wolf-
whistles. Amy got giggles, laughs, hoots and howls.
     When she walked, she emitted various sounds. Her thighs
rubbed together with a sticky sound, the rubbing causing sores that
oozed continuously. Her feet thudded the ground, thumping their
way under a greater burden than they were meant to carry. Each
roll of flesh on Amy rubbed and squished together to create a
symphony of fat.
     If you stood too close to Amy, your nose was assailed by
odors. She hated to bathe, dreading the chance the bathtub would
hold her prisoner. She sponged and spritzed with deodorants and
perfumes to cover the smells caused by sweat and running sores.
Talcum powder, liberally applied, dusted her apparel. Her clothing
consisted of drab tents, hung from her shoulders. Amy's one vanity
was high-heeled shoes. She wore them defiantly, daring her weight
to topple her. Her tiny feet, the only smallness on her body,
always hurt.
     Amy had been a fat baby, a plump child, a huge adolescent, and
a larger adult. She hated the world that laughed at her. She had
problems fitting into cars, chairs and stairways. An escalator
trapped her firmly not two years past, causing a commotion that
resulted in a front-page guffaw in the town's daily. She avoided
department stores with escalators. In fact, she avoided department
stores; mail order worked nicely. The only stores she was unable
to avoid were bakeries and bookstores. Amy ate and Amy read,
usually at the same time. Amy also hated.
     On this hot July day, Amy sweated her way to the town library.
The sign outside proclaimed the building to be "The Rustenberg ---
rary". It helped fuel Amy's contempt to see they had never
replaced the three missing letters. She liked her contempt level
to be high to counteract the contempt projected at her. She paused
at the foot of the stairs, hating the people who built them.
Marble, spread too far apart and miles high, it took her an
eternity to climb them. With each step she climbed, her breath
hitched a huffing sob. Amy hated to exercise. Her feet jabbed her
mind with complaints as they tottered on three-inch heels up each
step.
     Part of the way up, she paused to catch her breath and slip
her left foot out of her shoe, holding a clumsy balance while she
stretched it. She watched a group of giggling children at the head
of the stairs. They whispered and pointed at her. As her hate
level surged, one of the children ran down the stairs, seeming to
fly as he passed her. She wasn't certain of a push, never felt it
as he passed. She never felt much of anything, after the fall that
followed his passing.
     The weeks in the hospital were an ugly blur, leaving her with
memories of screws in her head and a bed that turned her upside
down. There was no pain to speak of, except the pain of rage.
Locked in the mountain of her body, Amy could feel nothing below
her neck. Her mind nurtured the rage, gathered it close and was
comforted by it. It strengthened her. It taught her. It fed her
hunger beyond the nasty hospital food.
     The confused doctors never could explain the phenomena of Amy,
the girl who gained weight on baby food and IV's.
     At the end of her time in the hospital, she smirked at the
problems she caused. There was no family to take care of Amy. She
had no friends, not even a cat. She couldn't take care of herself,
and there was no one else who would take care of her. Social
Services took on her case with a vengeance, which was all Amy's.
   Another month passed before it was decided she would be
allowed to return to her apartment under the care of rotating
nursing shifts. The state would foot the bill for her care, as
well as for the rent on her apartment. Amy was certain it had all
been arranged in order to get her out of their way. She hated them
for wanting her gone, and practiced her rage.
     The transfer from the hospital to her apartment went less than
smoothly. Amy was too big for a regular gurney. The final version
had been reinforced often enough that it more resembled a tank than
a gurney, causing another month's delay. It required two strong
men on each side to carry it. Luck was with them in that her
apartment was on the first floor. Amy hated stairs. The short
flight from the sidewalk to the lobby took an hour's maneuvering.
The front door was removed from its hinges in order to let the
gurney wheel past, sans men, as was the door to the apartment.
Amy's rotating hospital bed was set up in her former living room,
leaving her bedroom for the use of the nurses. Amy hated them.
Gradually, her nurses learned to hate Amy.
     Following the abrupt termination of the fifth nurse assigned
to the case - the woman simply refused to return to the apartment
Social Services determined the need for a staff psychologist. They
decided to send their very best, the head of staff himself. They
requested the services of Dr. Timothy Ryan. Dr. Ryan, following a
discussion with the run-away nurse, decided to send his assistant,
Jacob Myers. Jake had no choice in the matter. He went.
     Daunted, he stood before Amy's apartment house and reviewed
the conversation he had with the nurse who quit just that morning.
She was considered to be the best in her profession, experienced
with the most curmudgeonly of patients. A rock of Gibraltar, she
had cracked sometime in the small hours of the night, refusing to
explain anymore than that it was all "too weird," and that she
would have "nothing more to do with any of it." His review of
Amy's chart told him little outside of her physical problems and
her aggressive behavior. What could be sending away experienced
nurses was something he would have to discover on his own. His
stomach rumbled, colitis predicting the coming stress. Jake
climbed the few stairs to the lobby of the apartment house and
stared at the sign tacked to Amy's door.

                            WARNING

                        RABID SOW WITHIN

     With a sigh, Jake tapped on the door and entered without
waiting for an answer.
     "Excuse me," he began, "I'm Jake Myers. Dr. Ryan sent..."  In
the midst of his introduction, Jake stopped dead and gaped at the
apparition in front of him.
     The first shock to his senses was the smell. It reminded him
vaguely of church and notions of frankincense and myrrh, with an
underscent of whorehouse. The walls of the room were covered in
gently billowing waves of scarlet velvet. The ceiling was draped
in sheets of white gauze and fine lace. There were flowers on all
surfaces, roses and lilacs, baby's breath and ferns as well as a
few he had never seen before. The bed before him was strewn with
rose petals at least an inch thick. It more resembled a throne
than a bed, with the occupant ensconced on a satin mountain of
pillows. The sight of the occupant took his breath away.
     Her body filled the bed from side to side, flowing over the
edges for several inches. She was covered in layers of pink satin
and white lace ruffles, looking rather like a hill of strawberry
ice cream with whipped topping. Jake had known she was fat, but
her size amazed him. He decided she was at least 500 pounds, and
had gained 200 pounds since her accident. That puzzled him. Amy
was totally paralyzed from the neck down. Who was feeding her?
     "Yes, you may enter," said Amy, "Begin at the starting point,
go on to completion, and then finish." The misquote was simpered
at him from the depths of the bed and ended with a shrill giggle.
   "Excuse me," Jake tried again, "Dr. Ryan sent me." He stared at
Amy's face, or rather, her whole head. There had been a picture of
Amy included in her chart. It had shown a very fat young woman with
long, drab brown hair. She had small brown eyes nearly hidden in
fat, like raisins in bread dough. A daub of a nose and meaty lips
completed his memory. What was before him now was nothing
like that picture.
     Amy's hair was short and curly and looked made of spun gold.
Peaches and cream suited a description of her skin. Her eyes were
very big and very blue, a true sky-blue like a tropical sky. Her
nose was tiny and tilted at the tip. Her mouth was a perfect
cupid's bow, cherry red and pursed. Amy's head would have been
perfectly at home on a Kewpie doll. On the pink mountain in the
bed, it was obscene.
     "My God, who did this to you?"
     The perfect arches of Amy's eyebrows came together in a frown.
"Why, whatever do you mean, who did this to me? I fell down the
stairs and broke my neck, that's who did this to me." Amy's simper
turned to a pout.
     Jake's mind raced. Cosmetic, it was all cosmetic. Someone had
dressed her like that, perfumed her, painted her face and dyed her
hair. They had also decorated her room and fed her whatever she
wanted. He saw the remains of a chocolate cake on a bedside table.
Plastic surgery wasn't out of the question, either, perhaps
liposuction on her face. He settled down to get some answers from
Amy, deciding this was the weirdness mentioned by the runaway
nurse.
     Half an hour later, he was no closer to the truth. Amy
insisted there had never been any people in her apartment, other
than the nurses. She never had a visitor. She was delighted to see
Jake. This was made very clear to him as Amy's eyes fluttered her
flirtations. Jake tried to ignore it. When Amy made it very clear
that was not an option, Jake decided to leave. He mumbled an excuse
concerning the office and necessary forms he was missing, and went
to the door.
     It wouldn't open. Jake tried again, tugging firmly at the
doorknob. It wasn't locked, but it wouldn't open. He frowned. "Your
door's stuck," he told Amy. "I'll speak to the landlord
about it, after I leave." Jake went to the phone beside the cake
on Amy's bedside table. Amy simpered sweetly.
     There was no dial tone on the phone. Jake held it away from
his ear and stared at it dumbly. He checked the wire connections,
finding no problems. "Phone's dead," he told Amy. "I guess I'll
have to report that, too, when I leave." He wandered vaguely over
to the window, pushing past velvet and satin drapes.
     He couldn't lift it. "Stuck," he muttered as he tugged at the
frame, "The damn thing's stuck." His stomach grumbled loudly in
reply. With a stricken look, he turned back to Amy. "I need to
break this window. I hope you don't mind, but I really need to
leave now. Colitis, you see, and I need to report these problems
for you." He picked up a tiny end table and smashed it against the
glass.
     Nothing happened. Jake's mouth hung open as he stared at the
unmarked window. The table in his hand showed no sign of abuse.
Jake hauled back and swung harder, hitting the window with the
force of a homerun batter. Nothing happened. Jake whimpered.
     "Ridiculous!" he shouted. "I need to get out of here. There
has to be a way." Holding the invulnerable table like a weapon,
Jake rammed it into the door. The door gave, bowing outward
silently. Jake gaped. He bashed the table against the door again,
watching it as it sprang back with a soft thud. Or was that a
sprong?  The door seemed made of rubber. Hysterical, Jake flailed
the table against the door and walls. His bowels rumbled a liquid
warning.
     "It's a padded room," Jake shrieked. "I can't get out, damn
it. I have to get out!" Jake was sobbing as he said, "Lady,
please. I have colitis. I have to go to the bathroom. Please, lady.
How do I get out of here?"
     "Do you?" whispered Amy, "Do you really have to go to the
bathroom? Check." There was a slight smile on her rosebud lips.
With slitted eyes, she watched him.
     "Of course I do," he screamed, "What do you mean, check?
Couldn't you hear my stomach rumble?" He walked toward her bed.
"Lady, if I don't get to a toilet, I'm going to make a mess all
over your oriental carpet."
     "Check."
     Jake frowned at her. Check? His stomach rumbled a warning
again. As it did, he felt a tug inside, a pulling feeling as if
something were withdrawn. The rumble disappeared.
     In the bathroom down the hall, outside of Amy's padded room,
he heard a toilet flush. From the corners of her eyes, Amy watched
him. Her tiny mouth wore a huge, predator's grin.
    Amy's lonely.
                              END