I called your name, three times three, and begged you to come. You watched me from the shadows and emerged as I took the time and care to visualise you. Your hair, your pale and beautiful face, your long neck, a purple dress that showed off your hips and hinted at cleavage. You arrived only a little chubby. I could see the divot of your belly button ringed by a little doughnut of friendly fat against the front of your dress.

You come home. I’ve been updating my spreadsheet. 141kg after entertaining my sweet treat, and you’ve been snacking on sweets and things since. Then there were those two kids you cornered, each rendering into a gentle increment of adipose tissue, leaving you at 149kg. I’ve been playing with numbers. You’ve been living it. I look up to see a 23-and-a-half stone beauty leaning against my doorframe. Except you’re not 23-and-a-half stone right now.

’m still awake at 4. Beside me you sleep off the two young women. It’s not the noises your gut makes that’s keeping me awake, though they’re constant, filling the bedroom with liquid sounds. Everything is just so perfect. I think back to an earlier life, before I invited you up that mountain. When I carried only the drive to find you, though I didn’t know that you were the one I was looking for.

Before the chocolate girl… You alternate between smug and shy. It should infuriate me—all that hard work dashed, your goal as far away as ever—but just when your smirk makes me want to bring out my stern voice, you’ll lower your eyes and ask me if I like how you look, and I’m putty in your hands. I don’t think you’re doing it on purpose. I honestly think that even after everything, you don’t know the pull you have on me.

Earlier in the day I gave you a drink. It was chalky, bitter, wierdly chemical. You drank it on the promise that it wasn’t anything psychoactive or weird, and that it would make better a gift you were going to receive later. I watched your throat bob as you swallowed a pint of the stuff. Then I kissed you, smiled a secretive smile, and went back about my business. It’s just past six when there’s a knock at the door.

There are two keys. One is in my possession. One I made a special effort to show you. It lives in the middle of a frozen bottle of water in your freezer. The idea is that if you need to get it you can, it’ll just be a lot of effort. What you don’t know is that the water is slightly sweet with sugar. I know how wildly hungry you get and if you’re going to cheat and try to hide that fact I want to be able to detect whether you melted and refroze the key from its prison.

Your shoulders ache from being hyperextended. When you try to take the pressure off them by sitting up you can’t quite get wholly upright and your hips get tired. Laying on your side is just about acceptable, though your belly sloshes to the side as your prey further softens and heads south. You must have nodded off, because I’m suddenly here. My hands stroke firmly up and down your back, exploring the contours.

“I wanted to redecorate anyway.” We’re staring phlegmatically at the bathroom. The toilet is gone, the floor tiles are smashed and broken where it used to sit. Someone has gouged out a chunk of external wall to make space for the upgrade. Downstairs, some trunking in the kitchen has been broken apart, and then it was discovered that it would have to be enlarged to allow for the new, larger pipe.

It’s the middle of the night when I get the call. Mid-dream, it takes me a while to find my phone, answer, and assemble enough English to communicate. “’lo?” “Andrew? It’s Rey.” Better than ice-water. I’m wide awake, sitting up in bed. “Rey, are you okay?” The pause on the other end of the line gives me a chance to process what I’ve heard. You sounded guilty and sleepy. Really sleepy.

We don’t spend every day at the gym or anything. On top of my work and the occasional mysterious calling that occupies your time, sometimes we just chill together. Sundays are good for it. I’m watching you play Braid on the console. I can’t remember if you’d said you’d played it, but you certainly seem to be making good progress through the twisted, time-traveling logic. In fact I’m watching you, studying your face as you furrow your brow, stuck on a particularly difficult puzzle.