Copyright© 2004 by Carlos Malenkov

She had finally broken into the big time. The recording contract with GMG was starting to bring in decent money and three movie studios were bidding on her life story. Not too shabby for a lingerie salesgirl turned rock star.

On stage. Live. There she be! Beltin' it out fo' all she worth. Shakin' dat skinny ol' booty. Do it, girl! ALEXXIA!

At 5'11" she weighed an anorexic 108 pounds, and her enormously long legs were her trademark. It took constant starvation dieting and two hours of daily workouts to keep in shape.

Phat love! Monster love!
That's what I been living for.
Phat love! Monster love!
Only you that I adore.
Phat love! Monster love!
Wrap that bod aroun' me now.
Phat love! Monster love!
My puss-puss will show you how.
PHAT LOVE!

The health checkup should have been routine. But the blood tests showed elevated liver enzyme levels. "Nothing to worry about," Doc Keldysh told her. "Just to make sure, though, we'll run a few more tests, and maybe a CAT scan."

Nothing to worry about??? _A CAT scan?_ Geezus, twenty-seven years old and she was knocking at death's door!!!

"The good news is that it's not life-threatening."

Alexxia nearly fainted.

"Unfortunately, you seem to have developed a fairly serious thyroid disorder, possibly as a result of the nutritionally deficient diet you went on, and against my advise I might add. This could lead to rather striking metabolic changes."

"_What_ kind of changes?"

"Others with similar conditions have manifested significant weight gains and accumulations of body fat in the breasts and buttocks."

"Fat!!! That would ruin me!"

"As it happens, fat storage in the adipose tissues is an ancient survival trait in the human species. Thousands of years ago, _homo sapiens_ lived under feast or famine conditions. Only those of our distant ancestors able to gorge on available food and accumulate massive body fat deposits managed to survive, and they passed down the genes for that tendency. Everyone else starved."

"But that doesn't make sense any more, doc. There's plenty of food for everyone, at least in civilized countries, and anyway... FAT IS DISGUSTING!" Her voice had risen to a shriek.

At 140 pounds, Alexxia had developed classically feminine contours. She was wearing a 36C bra and her fanny was plumping up nicely. For the first time in her life she had round hips, and her spidery legs had filled out. Even cutting her daily nutritional intake below 800 calories and lengthening her exercise periods hadn't slowed her steady weight gain. The less she ate, the more maddeningly efficient her damn metabolism became.

Fat! Disgustingly fat! She didn't dare let herself be photographed any more. Her records sales were plummeting and the movie studios had lost interest. Her agent wasn't returning her calls. Worst of all, Ronnie had dumped her. He thought fat chicks were disgusting. And he was right, damn him!

At 220 pounds, she had a distressingly ripe figure. Even Rubens might have found her a bit much. The only way she dared go out in public was disguised in dark glasses and wearing baggy, shapeless clothes. She hadn't cut a new recording in six months and had been celibate almost as long. Men took one look at her huge butt and guffawed.

At 290 pounds, the world looked bleak. Eating only a single miniscule meal of brown rice a day (350 calories) and jogging and bicycling to exhaustion kept her fit, all right. She could still run a mile in a little over five and three-quarters minutes and could reel off 75 pushups without getting short of breath. Her weight had finally stabilized, but it would not -- damn it! -- _would not_ drop.

Having big breasts wasn't so bad, but those fifty-two inch hips! And that gigantic ass! She didn't dare show that ass in public, even in concealing, baggy clothes.

The worst of it was that her sex drive hadn't in the least diminished. If anything, it had increased. And masturbation was a pitiful substitute for someone to caress, to hold into her arms, to accept into her body. Just having someone to talk to, to awaken next to -- that was what she missed the most.

A desperate enough woman will do almost anything to ease the pain of loneliness. Even looking up an old acquaintance years later. Even looking up an old acquaintance she had once utterly despised.

She found his e-mail address by sheer accident in a software developers' chat room. It figured. He had always been a nerd, even back then at Calvin Coolidge High. For an entire year that pathetic piece of shit had followed her around like a homeless mongrel, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. She had tossed him a scrap of attention from time to time, just enough to keep him on the leash. A word or two, a casual half-smile once in a while was all it took. An asshole the guy had been. A complete zero.

The poor dear. She knew that even after all these years he'd still be her abject slave. Good enough. His company would be better than nothing, and she had nothing now. And maybe she'd even let him share her bed... if he begged.

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 22:44:00 -0700 (PST)
From: M. Gardens <marvmarv@monoposoft.com>
To: alexxia@alexxmuzzic.com
Subject: Re: A Blast From the Past

By golly, you're the absolute last person I ever expected to hear from. Sandra Chesler! You were the nicest looking babe in the senior class, all right. But who'd have ever guessed that you'd become a mega rock star.

Well, in answer to your questions, I've never married, and right at the moment I seem to be between girlfriends. Unencumbered, you might say. Sure, it might be interesting to get together and catch up on what's been happening since way back when. Yeah, why the hell not?

M.