One Thing Different - Part Three: Kim

I

Kim entered her luxury apartment overlooking the park, tossed the keys in the bowl like she always did then closed the door on the outside world. Then she sighed.

It had been a long day today, more pictures for a fashion segment in New Woman magazine.

Since the dinner party two nights earlier at Gemma’s, she’d been thinking about the crazy statuette and trying to assimilate the message as intended.

Appreciate what you have. That had been Gemma’s little moral nugget this time but it was one that Kim responded to for a change. Because she did find that she complained a lot.

She complained when she was modeling at how long she had to wait between shoots for set-up time. She complained about the salary she took home – even though it was phenomenal really. She worried about whether she was as successful as she should be by her time of life. All the time in fact, she snipped away at her enjoyment of life.

As a matter of fact she had everything going for her really – compared to people who were really in need. There were people starving in Africa obviously, and disaster victims, and political refugees. But more than that, every day she saw hundreds of people who would’ve killed to have the life she did as a rich and beautiful model – the ordinary people working in shops and petrol stations; the single mums and the unemployed.

And she did appreciate it. She really did.

Well she did right now that she was thinking about it, but she knew that she’d likely as not forget and start feeling dissatisfied in no time.

She sighed. That was life unfortunately.

A soft bleep came from Kim’s mobile phone and she slipped it out of the inside flap pocket of her handbag.

There was a message from a number that wasn’t in her address book – which was unusual. As a famous; and very desirable face, she was very careful who got hold of it.

The message said simply:

Exhausted. Curling up in bed with book and glass of wine. Still on for lunch?

Kim frowned. It had to be a misdialed number. Everyone she knew was in her address book. And she was having brunch with Samantha. She didn’t like the taste of wine and she definitely didn’t read books.

Thinking no more of it, Kim hit delete and put the phone on silent, then went through to the bedroom.

II

Kim was sure she’d seen that woman across the road somewhere before but she couldn’t place her.

Kim was standing near the entrance to a designer clothes shop, looking at some pedal pushers she was thinking of buying. The shop was a bit beneath the scale she could have been paying out but she didn’t like to be a snob and the clothes there still had a hundred pound minimum price tag.

The woman was sitting at a bus stop, gawking at the people passing by in wonder – looking like a tourist if anything. She was Japanese and a little chubby with very Asian-looking clothes and a terribly pronounced overbite.

No. Kim was sure she hadn’t seen her before but there was a niggle still in the back of her mind that she had. The name Christine kept popping into her thoughts but the only Christine she knew was…

She shook her head. No. She didn’t know anyone called Christine.

She turned away, instantly forgetting the unfortunate girl and took the pedal pushers to the changing room, reaching for her mobile without looking as she heard the ping.

Kimmy,

… the new text read – which was odd because she hadn’t been called that since she was a girl…

Haven’t heard from you. You okay? Will be at Jasper’s at one if you’re still on for lunch.

She looked at the number. It was the same one that had texted her the night before.

The text was signed:

Auntie Pat.

Kim’s eyes widened with horror. It was someone’s idea of a sick joke; it had to be. Her aunt was dead!

She started to type out an angry reply, telling them to go to hell but relented. That was probably exactly what they wanted. Instead she blocked the number and shoved the phone angrily into her handbag.

She went into the changing room and slipped out of her skirt then held up the pedal pushers.

“Damn it.” She’d taken the wrong size off the rail. It was a twelve. She hadn’t been more than a ten for over a decade.

She was already angry but this really pissed her off. She couldn’t be bothered to go back out into the shop. Feeling increasingly grumpy she decided to try them anyway now she was here. Clothes sizes were notoriously imprecise. She might get the size ten and it be too small for her.

She put first one leg then the other into the pedal pushers and pulled them up – or tried to. They were a little tight round the hips. Which just went to prove her theory.  

She squeezed and pulled them all the way up but she couldn’t do the button at her waist. They were much too small.

Which was weird. She turned sideways in the mirror and examined herself. She did look bloated round the middle and her thighs looked puffy. She had eaten a little more that week – mainly at Gemma’s party – but she hadn’t thought it would show as much as it did.

Well. It was nothing a starvation diet and a bit of bulimia wouldn’t fix. She smiled sardonically and peeled the trousers off. She didn’t have long now to meet Sam. Though she didn’t suppose it mattered that much if she was late. Samantha did manage the showroom.

III

Kim’s clothes felt awfully tight when she pulled up outside of BMW Direct.

It was odd but she must have put on even more weight than she’d thought. Now the car was stationery she was able to check herself out and her waistline looked positively thick. She thought maybe she was having an allergic reaction. She put her finger into her doughy belly and watched it sink in. In the rearview mirror she had more of a roundness to her face than she was used to.

She looked awful actually; almost fat.

She got out the car and looked at her dim reflection in the glass. She definitely didn’t look right. She needed to see a doctor maybe; get tested to see if she was having an allergic reaction. But it could wait. It really wasn’t so bad and she’d never been that slim.

Or… wait. Never been slim? She was a model. She shook her head to clear the slight mugginess she was feeling and checked her watch. She was five minutes late. She had to hurry. Samantha could be a real bitch if she was kept waiting.

She rushed inside the car showroom, looking up at the suite of offices on the first floor to see if she could catch Samantha’s eye and beckon her down. She saw movement up there but when the figure came into sight she saw it was a different woman, though one dressed as elegantly as Sam always did.

Distracted and still looking up there she went to the receptionist and said, “Is Samantha Kemp available? I’m a friend of hers.”

“Kim?” She looked at the receptionist and did a double take. “I’m here.”

It was Samantha. But it wasn’t. She looked like her but she looked really different at the same time. Like she’d gone to seed a little. Her hair was big and curly, her bust bigger, the cleavage showing to a risqué degree, her bare arms mildly fleshy where once they’d been muscular and trim.

She looked, if anything, like a very ordinary, slightly slutty receptionist – not like the athletic go-getter she was meant to be.

“Sam? What are you… What are you doing on reception?”

“What are you talking about? I’ve always been here.”

“Huh?” Kim pointed up at the offices. “No. You.. You manage this…”

But was that right? Did she? Kim wasn’t so sure suddenly.

“Manage? No. You’re having a laugh after what I did.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “You remember? Sleeping with the boss?”

“No,” said Kim. “You didn’t sleep with him. This is all…”

She gripped her waistline and then gaped back at her friend who was already chattering on about a couple of different guys she’d slept with. Neither one of them looked like a keeper but she had one or two more lined up for later in the week she was hoping might stick with her for a change rather than using her for sex.

Sam would never talk like that. She would never dress that way. And this wasn’t an allergic reaction Kim was having. She was even fatter now than she had been when she got out the car.

Her belly was bulging over her waistline. Her hips were noticeably wider. Her boobs – even they looked bigger!

But her clothes still fit!

Her clothes fit her and they had to be at least a size sixteen! She peeled back the top of her skirt and checked the label. No. Eighteen!

She’d put on a ten that morning. There was zero room for doubt in her mind on that. She’d been a ten for a decade or more.  

“I have to go!”

She ran toward the ladies, feeling her body moving differently than she was used to; starting to lumber.

She was running the events of the party back through her mind – the statuette. Samantha… thinking about how different her life would have been if she had slept with her boss. And now here she was – no longer managing the showroom but flaunting herself desperately in the hopes of finding a man to keep her in her dead end job.

And Christine. She knew she’d known that name! Christine, imagining a life where she was still a dumb immigrant straight off the plane. The girl at the bus stop with the overbite and Asian clothes….

And then herself. Thinking about the impact on her life if her aunt had never died. The death that had motivated her finally to slim down... that led ultimately to her life as a model. 

She burst through the door and went straight to the mirror and there she saw a sight she could never have imagined.

She was fat! She was at least a size twenty!

There was a roll of fat around her face. Her boobs were enormous! Her body was shaped like a ripened pear! She looked at her arms, thick and round, soft flesh encircling the bones, then she looked back at her face with its double chin and padded cheeks. And her hair! It was shorter, cut now in a bob. And darker! The highlights were gone!

She hadn’t just grown in weight. She actually looked like she would have done if she’d never been slim – if she’d styled herself around being a fat ordinary woman.

“Kim? Are you okay?”

It was Samantha, coming in behind her filled with concern, in her stiletto heels and short skirt, all bare arms and cleavage.

“Look at me!” cried Kim. I’m fat! Look how fat I am!”

She stared down at her chubby forearms, the rounded shape to her upper arms and shoulders; the bulge around her middle.

Sam’s face flooded with sympathy. “I know darling. But you lost a couple of pounds over the month. You should be grateful for that.”

“What?”

“You’re only a twenty two. You aren’t a blimp.”

“Wait,” said Kim. “You don’t think this is strange?”

A flutter of confusion passed over Sam’s face. “”What? That you’re a bit on the large size?”

“Oh my God.” Kim covered her mouth with her hand, feeling her chubby arms skimming her inflated boob. “I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here right now!” 

“You only just got here.”

“We’ll have to have brunch another time.” She started to go with one final look toward the mirror and her bloated body.

“Brunch? Are you kidding? My boss would never let me have a break mid-morning. I’m going to get it in the neck coming in here without asking permission.”

Kim gaped at her friend for a second in horror then hurried out.

IV

Kim scanned the side of the road as she drove, looking for the Japanese woman she was convinced now that she knew, but she was nowhere to be seen. She was panicking fully now, tears filling her eyes.

This was happening to her. It was really happening!

Then she saw something else on the side of the road and screeched her car to a halt.

She was even fatter now. It was difficult for her to get out of the car without wheezing. She had to move the seat back to swing her bulk round more easily and it was a struggle to stand up.

She had to be at least six stone heavier than she had been and she was sure she was still growing. Despite brief periods of tightness, her clothes kept adjusting to fit her as she got bigger and bigger. But they weren’t designer label now. They’d become ordinary – cheap even. And why wouldn’t they be?

The same thing that had happened to Samantha and… that Japanese girl, whatever her name was, was happening to her. It was altering reality, not just changing her body. Her life was transforming along with her. She was far too fat to be a model now so the clothes she was wearing weren’t clothes that a model could afford. She didn’t know what she was becoming – had no clue at all – but it was coming soon, she felt it; and she was sure she wouldn’t even realise there was anything wrong when it was complete. She’d be as ignorant of the changes as Samantha had been.

There in front of her was a coffee shop. Jasper’s. The name in the text she’d been sent. She pulled out her phone again to check it. The phone was a much older model now, sitting in her chubby hand, the screen scratched. But the text was still there.

Will be at Jasper’s at one if you’re still on for lunch.

Except now the number was recognised from her contact list.

It read Auntie Pat.

Auntie Pat, who hadn’t died. And she hadn’t decided to slim as a result. And she’d just gone on eating. And eating. And eating.

She pushed open the door of the café and there at a table near the back, was her Auntie Pat, alive and smiling happily at her.

Kim was overwhelmed with emotion. Terror that this was happening to her – that her life was changing beyond her control; but also joy – that her aunt was alive again. That she was sitting there waiting for her.

She embraced Auntie Pat, tears streaming down her chubby cheeks, so happy and relieved to see her again, but she caught sight of the pair of them in the wall mirror and she saw that she and Auntie Pat were easily the same size now. She was gigantic! Massive breasts over a pendulous belly. Thick legs and flabby arms. And her hair was now a shapeless no-nonsense style cropped close to her skull.

“Oh Kimmy, it’s so good to see you!” said Auntie Pat.

“It’s so good to see you too.”

“How has work been so far today?”

“Work?”

Auntie Pat pointed out the front window. “At the petrol station.” She smiled benignly. “There. Across the way. Where you’ve been working for the last ten years.” She giggled. “Oh Kimmy. I sometimes despair with you.”

“Petrol station?”

She looked down at her outfit. It had changed again.

Now she was dressed in a sleeveless blouse with an apron over the top stamped with an Esso emblem.

“I work… I work at the petrol station… Yeah. It was fine. A bit mind-numbing but, you know. Nothing new.”

It was happening. It was happening already.

“Wait,” she said. “I have to warn them.”

“Warn who dear?”

“The others! This is going to happen to them! It’s going to happen to all of them!” Her eyes gaped open as she covered her mouth. “Oh my God!”

Anna!

Kim remembered what it was that she had said would make her life different and shuddered in fear for her friend.

“What’s going to happen?” asked Auntie Pat.

“What is what?” said Kim. She felt confused suddenly. What had she been talking about?

The waitress came. “Are you ready to order?”

Kim didn’t even glance at the menu. “Yes. Please. Can I have the double cheeseburger with a bowl of chips. Large. And onion rings please. And some garlic bread on the side? With... two pints of Coke to wash it down. Thank you.”

She smiled while Auntie Pat made a similar order, thinking about how delicious the food was going to be. It was a drag that she had to go back to work this afternoon. And there was still eight hours of her shift left!

But wait! No! This wasn’t right! None of this was real!

She got to her feet, knocking her chair over. She had to call somebody! Tell them this was happening!

“Kimmy? Are you okay? Whatever’s the matter?”

“I have to make a call Auntie Pat. I… I’m so glad you’re alive again. I… I just want to say that…” She put her chubby hand to Auntie Pat’s round face. “I want to say that I don’t mind this happening. If you’re alive again; it’s worth it.” She smiled, tears brimming over and rolling down the round arc of her cheeks.

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about sweetheart.” She gripped her hand. “But I love you too.”

Kim beamed then turned away, catching another flash in the mirror of the obese woman going though her handbag. Then she had her phone out. She was going through her contact list desperately until she found:

Gemma.

She hit the CALL button and waited, absently wondering if she could pinch another packet of Maltesers or two from the stock room that afternoon to help her shift go faster. She just wished she had a better career; but she couldn’t expect much with her grades. She should have paid more attention at school.

And with her body she could hardly have been a model!

The phone went on ringing but for the life of her she couldn’t remember why she had wanted to get in touch with Gemma in the first place.

It went to voicemail anyway. She sighed and went to close up the phone. There was no point hanging around. She only had a half hour lunch so she had to hurry if she was going to get the knickerbocker glory she wanted for desert.

Her finger went to the end-call button, then in a flash she had an almost painful flash of realisation as her former life came back to her one final time.

One final time before her new life as a grossly obese petrol station attendant overtook her forever.

And in that instant she yelled into the voicemail, “Gemma! It’s Kim! The statuette! The magic! It’s real! It’s changing each of us in turn! You have to stop it – somehow – before it’s too late, or else you’ll—”

She stopped, looked down at the phone and said, “Hmmm.”

She looked at Auntie Pat, feeling quite perplexed. “You know I can’t remember what I was going to say.” She shrugged. “It can’t have been important.”

She terminated the call and sat down on her huge behind, making the chair creak ominously, and folded her fat arms across her massive chest. The waitress was just coming out of the kitchen with her cheeseburger and chips and she shared a really happy smile with her aunt.

She was so happy she’d got the chance to meet her for lunch before she had to go back and finish her shift at the garage.

It was just a shame the pay was so dire and the work so pointless. 

But then, what could she expect!