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“I’m sorry,” says Vanessa, crossing her arms over her chest, “the vampires have concentrated their forces where ?”
Ethan leans forward in his seat, and from her vantage point she has a perfect view of how his stomach is just beginning to push against the buttons of his waistcoat. She digs her fingernails into the flesh of her palm. She’s worked diligently to keep her feelings for Ethan — or her stirrings of peculiar interest in his direction, whatever they may be — deeply under wraps, but the longer he stays at Grandage Place and enjoys three or four good meals a day, the harder it becomes.
“Here,” he says, pointing to a city block bordering Chelsea on the map of London that’s spread across the table. “The building itself looks pretty plain, but it’s, uh, well-attended.”
The air goes out of Vanessa’s lungs. “Which building?”
“Brick, kind of … stout? Gold sign outside that says ‘Alderman’s’. It’s a few doors down from a pub and a gallery.”
Sir Malcolm turns his grey gaze on Vanessa. “Do you know it?”
“In a manner,” says Vanessa, avoiding his eyes. “I’ve passed it before. I quite enjoy taking walks in that neighborhood.”
Ethan sits back in his chair, lacing his hands over his stomach. “Any idea what kind of place it is?”
Mr. Lyle has been standing by uncharacteristically quietly, but now he meets Vanessa’s eyes over the table. He raises his eyebrows. Vanessa widens her eyes in consternation, and he dips his head in understanding.
“I’m familiar with it,” says Mr. Lyle, stooping in to glance at the map. “Close to Mr. Wilde’s residence, if I’m not mistaken.”
It’s a risky maneuver, and Vanessa deeply appreciates that he’s deploying it on her behalf. Malcolm’s gaze abruptly jumps to Mr. Lyle. “I wouldn’t know,” he says, perfectly neutrally. “What kind of establishment is it?”
Vanessa takes a breath. Mr. Lyle simpers. “A gentleman’s club,” he says. “For those of us of … size.”
This is obviously not the admission Malcolm is expecting, and he stares back at him blankly.
“ Oh ,” says Ethan, and Vanessa busies herself with the teapot, unable to look at him for fear that she’ll give herself away. “A fat men’s club. There’s a few in the States that I’ve heard of.”
“Exactly,” purrs Mr. Lyle. “Aren’t you worldly, Mr. Chandler! Have you any personal experience with them?”
Ethan laughs. “I can’t say I have. In the states there’s a minimum you have to meet, but at the rate I’m going, it won’t be long before I qualify.” He pats his belly, and Vanessa sets her teacup on its saucer with a conspicuous clink. She does, for entirely unrelated, normal reasons, enjoy walking the Chelsea neighborhood for its rich bohemian culture and unusual sights. But she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t also specifically made note of a route that passed by the club in question. Ethan will need quite a few meals to bring him up to a fighting weight, as it were.
“But why here?” Malcolm asks, unamused. “What does a venue such as this offer to the creatures we seek?”
To Vanessa’s surprise, and clearly also to Malcolm’s, Mr. Lyle laughs. “Is it not obvious, Sir Malcolm? What is the vampire’s prerogative?”
“To feed,” says Malcolm, brows furrowing in the stubborn dismay of someone outside of the joke.
Mr. Lyle palms his own considerable middle. “Exactly. To feed. And where better to do it than a group formed for that same purpose?”
At which point Vanessa has to take a walk to the kitchen and back, frankly unsure how much longer she can hold it together. She stands over the icebox and lets the cold seep into her hands, and when she feels a bit less at sixes and sevens, she makes her return. Of course, she brings a platter of biscuits.
—
The company decides that Ethan is their best chance at infiltration. He’s charming enough to talk his way into some details, and unlike Mr. Lyle, he has the skill to defend himself if things turn bad. There’s just the problem of his figure.
“I believe fifteen stone is traditional,” Mr. Lyle offers, pushing the plate of biscuits across the table to Ethan, who takes one good-naturedly.
“I’ll start now, then,” he jokes, and Vanessa bites her tongue. But later, after they’ve bid Mr. Lyle goodnight and Malcolm has retired for the evening, he joins her where he’s sitting by the fire with a glass of brandy, his hips filling the armchair opposite the divan where she’s wrapped in a blanket.
“You knew what it was, too,” he says by way of greeting, and she looks at him sharply.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The club. You knew, didn’t you?” His tone isn’t accusing, merely curious, but she can’t make her spine unstiffen. “You got quiet. You barely offered an opinion after that. It’s not like you, and you know we all trust your instincts with things like this. And I know you’re not put off by a few vampires, so …?”
“I’ve seen it in passing,” she says curtly. “I walk that area often.”
“Hey,” he tries again when she doesn’t elaborate. “You can tell me anything, Miss Ives. I’m not in the business of divulging other people’s secrets. I’ll even give you one in return if you like. Of equal value.”
“You first,” she says without moving her gaze from the flames.
“All right,” says Ethan gamely. She hears him sip from his whiskey and set it down on the table beside him. “Well, I trust you know about Mr. Lyle’s — preferences.”
Vanessa’s stomach drops. “I do,” she says carefully. She bears no ill will toward Mr. Lyle for his interests, and she wouldn’t toward Ethan either — it would be rather hypocritical, considering the depth of her feelings for Mina — but it’s so separate from what she knows of his romantic history and so separate from what she feels for him that she can’t quite make it square in her head. “I respect them immensely. Admire, even. It takes a lot of bravery in this day and age.”
“As do I,” says Ethan pleasantly. “Now, we’re not quite the same, but we overlap, if you understand me. I don’t — I don’t have much preference when it comes to the sexes. Anything goes. Hell, I courted a gal for a while back in America who’d been born an Edward but grew up to be an Edith.”
He says it so plainly that she can’t help but turn to glance kindly at him. “I’m glad for you,” she says. “Thank you for trusting me. I understand that attitude quite intimately, myself.”
Ethan’s face warms with a smile. “Seems like we always find each other somehow,” he says. “Now, if you had another proclivity — say, for larger people — then I’d say that I wouldn’t find it strange in the slightest, and what’s more, I wouldn’t hold any judgment against you for it.”
She cuts her eyes at him over her shoulder, but he’s no longer looking at her. He drains his whiskey, catches a soft belch in his fist, and lays his hands over his stomach.
“That’s good to hear, Mr. Chandler,” she says, turning her glass in her hands. “I daresay any proclivity of mine might prove itself quite useful in this endeavor, if it were to exist.”
“So it would seem,” he agrees, and she starts a bit when she hears him crunch into something — the plate of biscuits, she realizes. Damn her inability to leave well enough alone.
“I’m sure there’s some sort of spell or illusion I could manage,” she says, turning back to the fire and drawing the blanket around herself more snugly. “To put you on equal footing with the rest of the club.”
Ethan scoffs. “Illusion? Nah, I’ve got a plan to do this organically.”
He waits until her curiosity is piqued enough to turn and look at him, and then he grins. “And I wouldn’t say no if you decided to offer some of your expertise in the matter.”
At this Vanessa tosses back the rest of her brandy in one swallow, desperate for a bit more courage than she actually possesses. “I suppose it’s only prudent,” she says. “What with everything on the line.”
—
Fortunately, and perhaps unfortunately for Vanessa, Ethan proves to be a consummate eater. He graduates easily from first and second helpings to steady thirds and occasional fourths, and no matter how much he eats, he always goes back for a second dessert. Vanessa, to her exquisite horror and awful delight, begins to be regularly confronted with the aftermath of his voracity. When they take their coffee by the fire in the evenings, she can barely concentrate on her novel but for Ethan’s stifled belches and hiccups, the sounds of his overtaxed stomach digesting his glut ever niggling at the edges of her consciousness.
At their rendezvouses around the map of London and various relics, Ethan often rests a hand on his belly or supports it with his laced fingers; sometimes he drags over a chair if he’s pushed his limits too far. Worse, he comes home the following week with a large spring scale almost certainly intended to weigh factory parts or the like, but stations it in his room so he can track his progress. The first time he stands on it — Vanessa lurking in the doorway feeling deviant, even though he specifically included her — he tops out at 81 kilograms, or almost 13 stone. He’s so tall that even though he’s not that far off from the 15-stone minimum, the weight doesn’t look like much on his frame.
“What would you do?” he asks after stepping off, and Vanessa can see in the mirror behind him that her eyes are comically wide. “How would you have me do this?”
She flounders for a moment, the possibilities too titillating to fully consider. “Well, you’re eating quite well,” she says at last. “I fear if you tried to stuff down any more at meals, you’d burst. But perhaps we should introduce smaller meals throughout the day as well, to increase your appetite. Cream and sugar in your coffee, and a glass of whiskey in the evening. Eat as much as you can stomach before bed, and move as little as you see fit.”
Ethan stares at her for a long moment, and she squirms under his attention, self-conscious of the blatant amount of thought she’s put into this. “Of course,” he says finally. “I should have trusted that you’d have a plan. I don’t know why I didn’t ask you first thing. Could have saved myself a few weeks of underperforming.” He grins at her. “Hold onto your hat, Miss Ives.”
Vanessa feels vaguely faint. Her hat be damned; she’ll be lucky to get out of his with just her wits.
—
Never in her life did Vanessa expect she would enjoy taking care of a man the way she enjoys keeping Ethan sedentary as he softens. In the evenings, after Sir Malcolm has gone to bed, they hole up by fire and Vanessa attends to him. She brings him coffee thick and sweet with cream and plenty of sugar, complemented by a whiskey to aid digestion and add a few extra calories. He eats all he can at supper, and then usually after a few hours, he’s regained enough room to stuff himself again with leftovers, desserts, biscuits and pastries and sweets Vanessa quietly procures during her daily walks and smuggles back up to her room lest she arouse suspicion. Ethan eats until he’s out of breath, until his every exhale gives way to a belch and he can barely speak for being so overfull. He’s gaining weight quite steadily, and he’s burst a button once already from his waistcoat after a particularly indulgent meal.
“Tell me why this feels so good,” he moans one night, and Vanessa reaches over and gives his swollen stomach a soothing pat.
“Because you’re giving in to your basest instincts,” she says, only half-teasing. “You’d be blacklisted from society if you ate like this in any respectable restaurant, no matter how exquisite the food or how much you might want to. A taboo, if you will. Of course it feels perversely satisfying to defy it. And besides,” she adds, “I expect you’ve been stretching your stomach quite a lot recently. It will only take more to fill you up.”
Ethan belches aloud, and both of them freeze. “Oh, god,” he groans a moment later, his cheeks flushing. “Pardon me, Miss Ives. My reflexes are a bit … buried.”
“You’re forgiven,” she says, and she can tell her face is also flaming. “Please, don’t worry about that with me. I’m helping you in this bizarre endeavor; I’ve no right to judge you for how your body responds.”
Ethan’s body responds with another, deeper belch. He looks incredibly heavy, debauched , like this, supporting his round, tight stomach with both hands.
“Thank you,” he manages, and Vanessa tries to ignore her pervasive self-consciousness as she rubs at the curve of his belly.
“Of course, Mr. Chandler. It’s the least I can do.”
—
It’s not just Ethan’s stomach that’s expanding; he’s growing broader and softer all over, and it’s making Vanessa feel as if she’s dying a very slow, excruciating death. His hips and thighs swell wider than his trousers can contain, and even the next size up from the tailor isn’t large enough to fit him well. He takes to wearing sweaters rather than buttoned shirts, the swell of his stomach muted beneath the thick knits. And his face — oh, his face! — grows softer and sweeter as well, his cheeks plump and round when he smiles, his strong jawline blurred with stubble and fat. His gait has slowed a bit, the new glut of weight on his frame setting him slightly off balance, and even the stairs up to the second floor of Grandage Place leave him a bit winded. The weight suits him incredibly well, and Vanessa takes a heady, silent pride in knowing how much of it is her doing.
Finally, he bursts through even his largest pair of newly tailored pants, and Vanessa makes him stand on the scale in his nightclothes, which, despite their looseness and softness, have also started to strain.
“Eighteen stone,” she says proudly, laying a proprietary hand on his round belly. “Oh, Ethan — look at you. How do you feel?”
“Like a Christmas goose,” he jokes. “Stuffed to the gills and then some.”
“You’ll more than fit in with the club’s membership,” she says fondly, stepping closer so that the curve of his stomach brushes the stiff ribbing of her bodice. “Just think about how much larger you’ll be after a few meetings of ingratiating yourself with them.”
Ethan puts a hand on her waist, and she holds her breath, hoping. “I’ll make you very proud, Miss Ives. Will you help me recover when I come home?”
“Of course,” she says, and he tucks her into her arms and kisses the top of her head. “I’ll be waiting.”