RUSSIAN DOLL
By Kid A
Part 1
There was a fly in the bathroom. Spying the intruder through half-open, sleepy eyes, Daphne cursed as she shut the door behind her and flipped on the light. Alarmed by her presence, the tiny insect buzzed towards the relative safety of the shower as she swatted it away and sat down on the toilet seat.
Daphne exhaled in frustration, the short burst of breath sending a few locks of her blond hair upwards like a cheesy, comedic moment from an 80’s era sitcom. “It’s no wonder we have flies in here,” she mumbled to herself. “With that fat pig of a roommate planted to the couch out there.”
Smirking in self-satisfaction, she stood up and flushed the toilet. It wasn’t even 6:30 in the morning, and the aforementioned roommate was surely a couple of hours away from waking up and extracting herself from said couch. Daphne had found Mora through an online service; and while the portly brunette was her polar opposite in every way possible, she did pay her share of the rent on time and other than generally being in the way, wasn’t a bad tenant.
Mora hung with the goth “gamer” crowd and unlike Daphne (who was getting ready to hit the gym - 8th day in a row, she thought to herself with pride), was content with her couch potato existence. She was an odd, moody girl - who even fancied herself a Wiccan, much to Daphne’s poorly concealed derision.
Intangibles aside, Mora’s defining characteristic was certainly her weight. There was zero chance of getting her on a scale to confirm, but Daphne suspected she was close to 500 pounds. And from the way she stuffed her face around the clock, it was no surprise. Mora always kept their fridge fully stocked through a local grocery delivery service; Daphne repeatedly told her it wasn’t necessary (all those empty calories laying around!!) but as Mora always said, it was the least she could do.
Daphne finished a brief makeup application and looked at herself in the mirror. In the upper right corner, written in a smudged flourish of purple lipstick, was the number “135”. A couple of months back, she had read the tip in one of her health magazines; write your weight on the mirror every night so you are forced to deal with it. None of that “out of sight; out of mind” crap. That was surely for fatties like Mora, she thought to herself smugly.
“One hundred and thirty five pounds,” she said slowly. Smiling, she admired the reflection of her firm yet curvy figure. Daphne was on the short side (only 5’ 2”), so she had to watch her weight like a hawk - hard to hide extra pounds on a frame like that. But with a little hard work and determination, she had sculpted what was at one time a fairly pear shaped bod into a lean, mean workout machine.
Stepping back into her bedroom for a moment, her alarm clock went off. Tuned by default to a local radio station, she cringed as “Hit Me Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears blared over the tinny speakers. She was in quite a rhythm with her workouts and healthy eating; so much so that she was apparently waking up and getting ready before that clock even had a chance to rouse her.
As she walked out into the dimly lit living room, she gagged from the smell. As predicted, there lay Mora, snoring on the couch in a semi-reclined position. She had apparently passed out in the middle of a late-night game of Fortnight. The game controller sat atop her huge dome belly, nestled between her chubby and dimpled hands. Her wide, flabby body took up the better part of two couch cushions; she was wearing a huge pair of pajama pants (easily a 4X, Daphne thought to herself in disgust) and an even larger, food stained t-shirt.
As she continued to snore loudly, her blubbery double chin jiggled from the effort; Daphne cleared her throat for effect and Mora snorted as she awoke to find her roommate staring at her with disdain.
“You gonna clean up this mess today??”, Daphne asked her abruptly, motioning to the various fast food containers and pop cans strewn across the living room carpet. Mora rolled her eyes as she yawned loudly, raising her soft, flabby arms above her head in an attempt to wake herself up.
“Well good morning, princess,” she replied warmly, ignoring the now customary hostilities from her gorgeous but bitchy roommate. “Off to the gym are we?”
Irked by the dismissal of her complaint, Daphne pursed her lips. “Yes, I am. I assume you’ll still be sitting there when I get back?”
Mora returned the glare as Daphne bounced towards the door and stopped to grab her car keys. Noticing an unopened box of Godiva chocolates on the counter, she turned back to Mora. “I assume these are yours?”, she asked sarcastically.
Tearing off the cellophane wrapping and reaching into the box, she retrieved a delicious looking caramel and raised it to her mouth. “Sure looks good”, she remarked as Mora turned her head and protested from her station on the couch.
“You know what, Daphne, those ARE mine. And a very good friend from online sent them to me.”
“Put it back right now,” she spat. “Or else.”
A look of faux horror spread across Daphne’s well defined, tanned face as she laughed in reply. “Or else WHAT, Mora??”
“You gonna come over here and do something about it?”
Cursing, Mora attempted to lift her bulk off the couch and confront her tormentor. The springs creaked and moaned in protest as she planted her huge, fat arms behind her and tried to stand up. Her bulging belly rolls sagged down between her chubby knees as she wobbled there unsteadily for a moment before falling back into the cushions with a soft thud.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought,” Daphne snarked before popping the caramel in her mouth she quickly exited the apartment and slammed the door behind her.
If she had looked back, she probably would have been very concerned, however. Because as Mora sat there in the dark, frustrated and alone, anchored to that couch by her morbidly obese body, her eyes seemed to glow bright red as she fired back a reply to no one but the living room walls.
“So be it, Daphne. Have my piece of chocolate. As a matter of fact, you can have ALL OF IT.”