poolside snack 02

I return from the bathroom. You are in the water again, your face flushed.

“I’m surprised you went back in, love. You’re going to get cramp after eating so much!” I push past the trolley which for some reason has been moved to the entranceway.

You visibly flinch, just a head peeking up over the side of the pool. “I fancied—oof—a swim to let everything settle down. ~BRAuuuoraAuch~ (‘Scuse me.)”

I pick up a silver platter that has slid off the trolley and stack it nearly with its companions. “You sure you didn’t want to just lie back and get a tummy rub so deep it starts from your bum?”

You smile tightly and shake your head. “Maybe in a ~uoooaAAap~ bit.” You bob slightly on the water line.

I realise you’ve not taken your eyes off me and you look kinda guilty. The cloche of the stray platter has rolled a little away. I cast you a glance.

Your smile turns up three notches.

Now suspicious, I examine the poolside. Your lounger has been slid out of place. The trolley had actually ploughed into another lounger, as if it had been recklessly pushed aside. And looking closely… Yes, that green pile of fabric looks like a uniform. Ah, and I spy shoes.

I’m tight-lipped when I look back to you. You bat your eyelashes.

Beneath the waterline your stomach still rolls and sways with the exhausted struggles that light up your insides. Water carries your massive belly for you, so you can feel the stretch without the weight dragging your gut down quite so hard.

The poor bell boy must feel like he’s fighting through treacle inside a rubber sheet, except the treacle is the food he brought for you earlier, mushed-up and caustic; and the rubber sheet crushes him like a boa constrictor at regular intervals. Even through he’s technically all beneath the waterline he hasn’t drowned yet. But that last belch brought with it the promise of blood. He’ll drown in your chyme before long, and then add to it in great meaty chunks, fit for further processing by your belly.

“Is he… still alive?”

Your smile instantly melts into a defensive frown. You wrap your arms around your busy stomach and sink down till the water laps your chin. “Mine.”

I stride over to the poolside and crouch, sitting on my ankles. “I’m not going to… He’s better off where he is, now. Um… fuuuck, I’m going to have to answer some questions. … I thought you were full!”

You stand in the pool and open your mouth like you’re going to say something. Then you force out the last of the bell boy’s air with a musical ~huaaaArp~ and sink back into the water, giggling.

“You’re unbelievable. So greedy. Awesomely greedy. You can just eat and eat and… fuck it.” I throw aside my phone, jump fully-clothed into the water and swim to you. When I get there I dip under the water momentarily and wrap my arms as far as I can around your bloated waist. I give you and your expiring prey the biggest squeeze. When I come up for air I lift you with me, and you splash back into the water, laughing. I swim after you and when I catch you (you don’t really try to evade) pull you close.

“You are the biggest piggy in the world and you deserve cuddles and love forever.”

You wriggle closer inside my arms—a tall order when your already fat-laden body is now wrapped around a young man in foetal position—and accept strokes up and down your back, and kisses on the side of your neck. One slow belch accompanies a death that decants an afterlife into your destroying guts. The event goes unremarked: you are petted and kissed and praised and hugged and rubbed—especially rubbed—till we retire, exhasted, to our room.