austenian-decadence

[austenian-decadence]

"It's getting harder," They had said to me one evening. "To hide my esteem for you."

The shrew in me wanted to strike back. Speak for yourself! I wanted to say. Look at what you've done to me.

But I dare not. I dare not, because they were holding that delightful new cake they'd brought over from London. And I was as much a thrall to that cake as I was to them.

It had all started very innocently, of course. I was a shrewish debutant in her fifth season. With a plethora of elder siblings to marry before me, nobody minded that I was rushing towards spinsterhood. They were a gentle eyed gentry newly arrived from the north. They jested to me as we talked that they had no idea what to do with themselves in London. "In the North, the ladies aren't nearly so delicate," They had said with a smile. "There's so much fussing and obfuscating here. In the North the ladies say what they want, do what they want, and eat what they want. They have an appetite for independence."

My stomach had growled at that. Both at the idea of independence, and of appetite. I had always been somebody who preferred food over flights of fancy. I'd rather be in the library with a plate of biscuits and a book than dancing and chatting. But something about them piqued both my curiosity and my hunger.

I think they knew that, even then. Because after our dance they returned with a tray laden with cakes and sandwiches. I didn't notice until later, when I went home with a bit of a stomach ache, that they'd eaten none of it.

They began to pay me visits. They always came in the afternoon around tea, and they always brought food. They were (and remain so) as big a literature fanatic as I, so we would discuss books and learning as we ate. Or, I suppose, as I ate. They were delightfully slender, with a schoolmaster's physique, and they rarely touched food. I, on the other hand, positively devoured whatever came. Discussing books always seemed to give me an appetite, and it began to show.

I would leave those meetings with more thoughts in my head and food in my belly than I ever had before. I would make an excuse to my family and take a nap just so I could lay in bed, one hand on my swollen stomach. The loose cuts of gowns obscured how very much I had enjoyed their hospitality, but it couldn't be hidden when I laid down. My stomach was hard to the touch, absolutely crammed full of food. I would rub it to try and sooth the discomfort, and I would ignore how much the discomfort wasn't really discomfort. I'm making a pig of myself. I really should stop.

But I didn't. I didn't, because of the most horrible reasons.

No, it wasn't that I liked to eat, or that I liked to be so terribly full.

It was because I liked them.

Them, with their gentle eyes and insistent nature, carefully hidden under genuine kindness just as I carefully hid my encroaching waistline under loose gowns. Them, who told me how lovely I looked even as I could barely breath from eating. Them, who sent over ginger cookies the day after I nearly made myself positively sick from eating.

It was them, who had unlocked this terrible hunger in me, and had shown me terrible kindness in return. I should hate them, I think, as I stare at myself in the mirror. My belly pressed at my stays, swelling out despite the tightest lacing I could stand. I could barely breath from the pressure, my stomach unhappily confined by propriety. I doubted it'd be the last. My arms had grown soft, flesh causing the shoulders of my dress to pinch at the skin. The only thing that hadn't grown was my chest, which only made me look more like an apple left to soak in water. Where before I had only looked round when I overate, I now looked like I'd constantly overeaten. I wasn't nearly as large as other women, but I was beginning to burst the seams of my old body. This morning I'd noticed the first stretch mark on my belly.

It made me hungry.

"It's getting harder," They had said to me one evening. "To hide my esteem for you."

The shrew in me wanted to strike back. Speak for yourself! I wanted to say. Look at what you've done to me.

But instead I simply said: "Well. It's a good thing that we marry tomorrow."

They smiled, and allowed themselves a caress of my belly.

There was no need for me to take many of my clothes to the North. I doubt I'd use them long.

[austenian-decadence]

[austenian-decadence]

@su9ray on ig