Eloise's Interview - Part 2

“It's Hobson's choice,” Eloise gasped, exhausted as her body processed the barrage of indulgence, “I actually look forward to being fed. I mean, what else can I do? That's all that I can do.”

“It's almost two years since I started ‘volunteering’ here, believe it or not. In all that time they never actually tell you what they really want. It's always ‘just a little more,’ or ‘another few pounds’, but it never is. They just keep on feeding you and fattening you, until you can't do anything about it. That's all that you know.”

“I remember the day I became fully immobile as though it were yesterday. I was devastated. I sobbed and sobbed. Even standing was impossible, I felt enormous. I guess I was. Then food became the only salvation. Eating because I was bored, and bored because I was eating. It's a vicious cycle.”

“Shortly after that day, things changed up a gear for sure. You're a captive audience - well - subject. There's no chance you can run, or waddle away. Out come the big guns - the feeding pumps. They familiarise you with them beforehand, of course - they use them for ‘one-off’ experiments or sessions for some reason or another. Now though, you've got one next to your bed!

“It's not even that you resent it so much. You relish the attention, the fuss, the encouragement. There's nothing else to do except watch TV or read, and you can happily sip away at a milkshake whilst doing those activities anyway. You get to a point where you're like, ‘I'm already this big, what's the worse that can happen?’”

Eloise shot me a sideways glance, her cheeks flushed slightly.

“Then they just keep pumping you up. Pumping and pumping, hour after hour, day after day. It's relentless. And all you can do is lay there, watching in bewilderment as your poor body just grows larger and larger, filling out like a big, heavy, human balloon. Surreal is how I would describe it; maybe that's what makes it so hard to process at the time? You can’t really believe it’s happening.”

“Yet the fatter you become, the more you gain, the more attention you get, the more praise. The nurses here are some of the friendliest people you'll ever meet, and that's deliberate. Even with what has happened to me, if it came to an end, I would miss them.”

“And the milkshakes, right? They are incredible! I am pretty sure they have addictive properties, let's be clear, but they also taste amazing. I dare you to take one sip, and not want one for a month!”

“So you just lay there, gaining, saying that tomorrow you will cut back. Except it isn't really in your hands at that point. I would argue it wasn't from the start. Now, however, you need these people. I mean, I couldn't have gone home weighing 500 pounds - my Mum would have flipped out - let alone 1,500! You start to realise this is it!”

“At some point, actual solid food becomes a ‘treat’, something that's squeezed in between the almost constant pump feeding schedule, a reward for hitting a target or some such. Even though you are painfully full, you desperately push down several huge, stacked burgers and a mountain of fries, because you've earned it. Even when you know full well what is going on, it's hard to say no. You become hooked, addicted. Food is everything. It's currency. It's your life. It's what keeps you going.”

“As for my future,” continued Eloise, a slight confession of worry on her brow, “I try not to think about it too much. They want more, that's for sure. Even now, getting fatter, and faster seems to be their only interest. ‘The show must go on’, as the chief nurse says. Personally I am really beginning to wonder how much further I can ‘go’ though. Then again, I have been thinking that for a long, long time.”

“I'm too big,” Eloise whimpered, “but it's never enough! I feel like I'm being simultaneously crushed, and pulled apart and pumped up at the same time. Stuffed and pumped to my absolute limits. Just look at me - the human body isn't designed to get this, this… huge! Just how much fatter do I have to get?!”

With that, the little bell rang. Eloise threw another guilty look of embarrassment as her belly grumbled fiercely.

I wished Eloise well, and stood back as the busy swarm of nurses returned to their duty of care. The familiar low resonance of the feeding pump filled the background, as the staff chatted busily amongst themselves.

Whilst many of the nurses were busy with practical duties - feeding, bathing, monitoring and so on - others provided Eloise with some much needed companionship. One slim, petite nurse perched atop a small stepladder, and began to read a book out loud to the guzzling girl. Another used a cherry-picker to reach beyond the gigantic buttocks, and get behind Eloise's head, brushing her lush, well-fed mane of hair, before gently plaiting it. Something about this existence seemed both terrifying, yet at the same time quite serene.

“About 22 pounds a day is her average,” a bubbly nurse told me, as she studiously monitored some charts, “but 25 is her record, so far. It might have been Thanksgiving, I think. Boy can Eloise gain! She's a natural!”

“We're actually trialling a new formula at the moment. With it we're hoping to see her average 30 pounds a day, maybe more if we're lucky!”

My mind struggled to imagine Eloise any more gigantic than she already was, but clearly she had been correct all along - the department had only one concern, getting her fatter, and doing it faster. That's all that mattered.