SPOILED, part 14

‘So sorry to keep you waiting, Mr Heron. If you’ll follow me.’

‘About bloody time.’

Lord Edmund Fenton followed the apologetic young woman from the comfortable, featureless waiting room he’d been kept in, through to a space that felt altogether more clinical.

‘What the devil is this?’ he asked, noting the sterile equipment, the computers, the surgical tools. ‘I’m here for my Hearing, not a bloody doctor’s appointment.’

Upon learning that he’d let a young, bulking charge slip his grasp - one who’d stolen a notebook containing information on their organisation, no less - the higher-ups in The Rookery were, understandably, upset.

Formal Hearings were the norm for Masters who’d erred. Fenton himself had sat in on a few.

‘Please, take a seat,’ the young woman gestured to a plainish chair, before joining a colleague to talk over some clipboard notes.

But Fenton was in no mood to sit.

‘Now listen here, young lady,’ he said. ‘I’ll not have my time wasted, do you understand? I am a Master.’

And he went to push the door he’d initially been led through, only it was locked.

‘Were,’ said a man entering this room from the other end.

Fenton immediately noticed his grey uniform, which stilled any comebacks that might have been resting on his tongue.

‘You were a Master,’ the man continued casually, conversationally, even. ‘But circumstances have rather changed, haven’t they, Mr Heron?’

Fenton squinted and shook his head, causing his jowly cheeks to wobble.

‘I was... This is supposed to be my Hearing. The other Masters, where are they? I’m meant to make my case before them.’

He felt sweat forming between the folds of his fat neck.

The man in grey nodded to his clinical colleagues, one of whom asked Fenton politely, ‘Could you please remove your clothes, Sir?’

‘My what?’ Fenton balked, though he knew better than to resist a grey uniform. After hesitating, it was with shaking fingers that he began to unclasp his jacket buttons. ‘W-What is this?’

‘Here, let me help you with that,’ the man in grey said, stepping over to assist in the unbuttoning, the removal of jacket, tie, shirt, belt...

Fenton could only feel his nerves surging, his porky fingers uselessly quivering at their task. ‘Please.. I don’t... What is all this?’

In time he was stripped completely naked, here before three strangers in this stark white room. He felt his breaths stutter.

‘Please lift one leg for me, Mr Heron, Sir,’ the young woman asked, and he did so. ‘And now the other, thank you.’

Slipped onto him was a strange piece of underwear with valves of a kind, front and back.

‘What’s - What’s going on?’ Fenton tried again. He felt his mouth drying out.

‘Far be it for me to tell you, this was not your first transgression,’ the grey man said, staring pointedly at Fenton’s enormous belly.

The belly that had been forced onto him many years ago in his younger days when he’d similarly let a young, hugely-bulked chap escape his grasp. Fenton’s added tonnage was the reminder of his crime, one he carried with him for life.

‘However,’ the man continued, holding open the far door, ‘this case is rather more serious.’

Fenton suddenly didn’t want to leave this room. He had no interest in walking through that far door. But the clinicians were gently urging him forward, and, as any Master knew (especially at his lower tier), denying Greys was extremely ill-advised.

He trotted forward on bare feet, swallowing. His whole body had broken into a cold sweat.

‘That’s it,’ the man in grey nodded, beckoning the obese lord through the door.

It opened out into a large warehouse; concrete underfloor, corrugated iron walls, girders everywhere. And in its centre, a tall tank of metal and thick glass, just wide enough for a person’s hands to touch the inner sides. It had no lid.

Two armed Greys also appeared by Fenton’s sides, training rifles in his direction as he was led toward the tank. Its front side was open, and Fenton knew what he must do, though every fibre of his being told him not to go in there.

‘Please...,’ he muttered, ‘w-whatever this is, we can work it out. We can work something out... Please...’

‘If you’ll step inside, Mr Heron, there’s a good chap.’

‘I’m supposed to have my Hearing,’ Fenton repeated, his pitch elevated.

By gunpoint he was walked into the tank. It looked like something Houdini might’ve tried to escape from.

Once inside, one of the clinicians took two hoses that fed from outside, through the tanks thick glass wall, to its interior, and connected each to the front and rear of Fenton’s strange underwear, mentioning that this was ‘to avoid contamination’.

She then stepped outside and the tank was closed, the armed Greys tightening heavy bolts that sealed Fenton inside. He put his clammy palms up against the glass front.

‘What is this?’ he whined. ‘Please, what are you doing?’

His heart felt like it might pop, its beats were hammering absurdly fast.

The man in grey paced leisurely up the tank.

‘A-As a Master, I deserve a formal Hearing,’ Fenton pleaded on. ‘Punishments must only be d-dealt after a verdict. T-There are rules in place... Systems... Please!’

‘The problem is,’ the man in grey said, inspecting his nails. 'the young man you so carelessly let slip away this time - he turned out to be an undercover police detective.’

Fenton’s face fell.

‘Oh shit.’

Then something very strange happened:

Chocolate began to rain down onto Fenton’s bald head. He bristled, tried to stand back in the little space available, and looked up; a long chute was hanging above the tank, and from it thick liquid chocolate was pouring down. It hit Fenton’s bloated, nude body, and dripped down to his feet.

‘W-What are you doing?’ he asked.

The man in grey took a moment.

‘It’s quite simple, really,’ he replied. ‘If you want to survive, you’ll need to drink.’

The chocolate was showering down onto Fenton’s shoulders, onto his plentiful moobs, cascading down his huge belly. He felt it spattering among his toes.

‘This - This is absurd,’ he whimpered, patting his podgy hands once more against the glass. ‘You can’t do this! I’m a Lord! I’m a Master!’

The man in grey looked Fenton up and down, his swollen, pale anatomy now streaked in thick rivulets of brown.

‘I’d advise against wasting time, Heron,’ the man said.

Chocolate was beginning to pool around Fenton’s feet.

‘Let me out!’ he begged. ‘For God’s sake, let me out!’ He banged his hands against the thick glass; it didn’t budge an inch. ‘Stop this! Please!’

‘You know what you must do,’ the man replied. ‘It’s really up to you, whether you want to save yourself.’

Panic had taken full control of Fenton now. His little piggy eyes darted all about this cage they’d sealed him into. He thumped against its walls at random, glancing up to the chute, trying not to get chocolate in his eyes. It wouldn’t stop. He was hyperventilating.

‘Please!’ he wailed, utterly stricken.

When no reply came, he swore and tilted his head back, mouth wide open to catch the falling chocolate, and began to drink.

‘That’s better,’ the man in grey said smoothly, folding his arms.

The downpour was incessant. Fenton couldn’t take all of it at once, he had to stop to swallow periodically, letting excess chocolate billow down his cheeks. He tried to catch it in his hands and feed it back to himself, but more was always coming - A neverending shower of sweet, thick liquid.

(Gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp.) Fenton did his best, but it just wouldn’t stop! It slid down his throat, filling his belly. He felt the thickness of it settling inside him, and dreaded how full he was going to become...

The man is grey smiled.

This was going to be fun...

48 hours passed. The grey uniformed gentleman made his daily rounds to check in on the punishee. He entered the warehouse and was met by the echoing sounds of constant glugging, often punctuated by little whinging noises and nasal breaths. When he approached the tank he saw that the chocolate was up to Fenton’s knees, and the poor man’s belly had stretched into a ginormous hanging ball, the skin scored with fresh stretchmarks. The man in grey estimated perhaps a good few dozen extra pounds were weighing this former Master down now.

Fenton caught his eye during one of his micro-reprieves from swallowing. His face animated into renewed panic, and he began beating the glass as hard as his chubby palms would allow.

‘Please...! (glug, glug) Let me... out...! (glug glug) I’m... begging you...! (glug glug) Please! I can’t... (glug glug) drink any more... I'm... (glug glug) too stuffed...!!’

The man in grey permitted himself a soft chuckle. It wasn’t often the Greys got to administer this particular punishment, and the novelty of it certainly was an amusement. He only wished he could feel that overworked, ballooning belly.

‘Of course you can, Heron,’ he laughed. ‘You want to live, don’t you?’

‘Oh God... (glug glug) Please... I'm too full...!! (glug glug)... Please...!!!’

On Day 6 the man in grey entered the warehouse to be met with a half-full tank and Fenton’s semi-submerged belly warped and fattened to such an enormous degree that it grazed every glass wall in the tank. The poor wretch was still doing his best to keep drinking, but his neck had gotten so fat it was preventing him from tilting his head back much. Then of course his cheeks were engorged, chin practically tripled in size, hugely-flabby arms now permanently up by his sides. His bloodshot eyes wouldn’t stop streaming as he gulped down endless chocolate. His chest convulsed in sobbing motions.

‘Plllsss... (gulp gulp gulp gulp)... plllllsssssss! (gulp gulp gulp gulp) Lemmee ouu... (gulp gulp gulp gulp gulp)... I’mmmbegginyouuu… (gulp gulp gulp gulp)… Ih huuuurrrts... (gulp gulp gulp gulp) Plllsss!… PLLLLSSSS!!!’

Once again his pudgy hands, now more like balloons themselves, thumped and rattled against the thick glass, but it was of course useless.

The man barely resembled a human anymore. It might as well have been a balloon in there.

‘Goodness me, we are hanging on, aren’t we?’ the man in grey chortled. ‘I have to say, this is a valiant effort. I don’t think anyone has lasted past Day 5 before.’

Fenton simply made a whining, screeching sort of sound while the chocolate continued to pour down into his throat. The grey man leaned in close to the tank and whispered,

‘Usually they’ve popped by now.’

By Day 8 the liquid chocolate was up to Fenton’s bottom lip, and he was trying his best to keep his gigantic body up on tip toes despite the fact he was now thoroughly wedged into the tank by his sheer size. He could no longer move his head, and his eyes bulged and darted wildly while he glugged for dear life and snorted heavy breaths from his nose. He no longer spoke, only issued crazed, panicked sounds between swallows.

The man in grey was pleased. He couldn’t believe this one had last so long. Of course much of the tank was brown now, save for the slabs of white belly squashed firmly against each pane, and Fenton’s completely spherical head bobbing at the surface. The former Lord tried as he might to beg with his eyes, but it was only enough to bring out the mirth in the grey uniformed man, who laid a hand against the glass, smiled softly, and watched as Edmund Fenton drank and drank and drank...

It really was a valiant effort.

iii : The Farm

Ben’s eyes opened slowly. He had a thumping headache, not helped by the light pouring into his eyelids. He smelled hay, and felt the texture of it against his skin. He chammed his dry lips, rubbed crust from his eyes.

The subtle creaking of wood, distant sounds of men and machinery reached his ears.

He was laid on dirt ground surrounded by straw. When attempting to stand, his body felt sluggish and heavy - heavier than usual, anyway. Probably the drugs wearing off.

‘Wha... What the...?’ He looked around, dazed. ‘Where am I...?’

Before him were sets of horizontal metal bars. Beyond those were walls of wood and nails, stacks of straw, lumber beams, more metal bars and large cylinders. He was... in a barn..., in a pen...?

‘The fuck..?’

The metal bars didn’t seem so high, plus their spacing was perfect for footholds, so Ben sluggishly made to climb.

But he was jolted backwards, his whole body tilting with a loud rattling sound. He looked back: his right ankle was manacled and chained to a heavy lock in the ground.

‘Jesus! What the-?’ He reached down. The manacle was thick, the chain thicker. No way was it coming off.

‘Hey!’ He shouted to the empty barn. ‘Hey!’

There was another pen directly opposite his, unoccupied.

What the fuck had he got himself into this time? He’d done as Anon and the chef advised, he’d gotten the signal out. But it all went downhill from there.

And had those detectives even seen it? Had any of the effort been worth a damn?

Now he was on a fucking farm?!

The fact that he was still just in his underwear and not freezing to death suggested he’d been taken to a warmer clime, perhaps not even Scotland anymore.

Voices outside, the sound of dragging.

The tall barn doors swung open with a creak and two burly farmers strode in, decked in tight dungarees and rigger boots. Between them a third, seemingly unconscious man was being pulled along by his elbows, head hung low against his big fat chest. Ben watched as they unceremoniously dumped the man into the empty pen, clasping a manacle around his fat ankle then locked the pen door before noticing the other, awakened, occupant.

‘Hey!’ Ben called to them. ‘Where am I? What is this place?’

They ignored him. One of them had the unconscious man’s wallet and was now thumbing lazily through its contents, pocketing ten pound notes as he found them.

‘Who’s this one, then?’ the other farmer asked him. Definitely not Scottish. He sounded English, perhaps West Midlands.

‘Let’s see. Says here... Oh!’ replied the wallet thief, clearly having seen something juicy. ‘Not just any old fat fucker, by the looks of it.’

‘What d’you mean?’

And the former made a show of presenting the open wallet to his hefty colleague. It was just enough for Ben to get a glimpse at:

A police badge, and the name Detective Inspector Arthur Sweet.