The Nurse: An Interview of Extremes - Part 3

My intention to use the bathroom quickly vanished as I entered the Nurse’s bedroom that linked it to the main apartment area. Instead, I quickly became distracted by the chance to try and understand something more about this surprisingly mysterious young woman. I quickly scoured for clues. To one side of the room there was a small, functional dressing table with a small, functional chair. Draped across the back of the chair was a cerise coloured bra; it had moulded cups with some padding, the fabric slightly bobbled and worn - its label read 36 D-cup. In all honesty, I looked simply out of my own personal curiosity.

The rest of the bedroom felt still, and tidy, in a livable sort of way. There were a few discarded garments adding life to the bed, including another freshly laundered uniform. There were also what looked to be an excessive amount of pillows and scatter cushions piled up towards the headboard, taking up what felt like more than one third of the bed. On the far side of the room, a pair of coat hangers were hung up, both of them dripping with unreasonable folds of fabric from what looked like grey sweatshirt and matching grey sweatpants - both of which must have been almost a dozen sizes to large for Isabella’s mildly chubby composition.

A few trinkets and momentos attempted briefly to catch my attention, until I spotted a small, dark book sitting on one of the bedside tables. I approached, and doing my best to remember its position, picked it up with the most delicate manoeuvre my fingers would allow. The cover looked hectic, and the pages within were ruffled and busy. Frozen to the spot, I gently fingered the book open, revealing Nurse Isabella’s journal, of sorts. Skimming the pages, it seemed to contain a mixture of diary-like entries, mixed with notes, scribbles, and sketches. My heart began to pound hard in my throat as I focused on an entry:

‘Took time out today to feed Jaqueline (551081) by hand today. She’s so close to the ton now that I’m taking every opportunity I can. I just can’t help myself. Over three hours flew past, and by the end of it, she was absolutely fit to bust. The sound of her gasping for air beneath all of her delicious, heavy fat had me so worked up I can’t even begin to explain - a ten minute cold shower did nothing to calm me down!’

And then another rambling entry a few pages on, this time the handwriting was a little more shaken:

‘Just imagine; to give in to it, to lay on your back, and to eat, and indulge. No worries, no problems, no responsibilities. No shame, no guilt, just freedom. The freedom to grow bigger and heavier without a care in the world. Maybe one day.’

Then, further on:

‘Watching Rebecca (574422) edge closer and closer towards full immobility is driving me absolutely crazy, I have to confess. Seeing that poor little frame of hers struggle with all of that excessive weight is so unbearably hot I’m finding it hard to concentrate. She’s gaining ten pounds a week on average, so another few days and I think she’ll be done - but she’s determined, so maybe I can watch her crest that tipping point a little longer…’

Plenty of sketches peppered the pages of the book too; some seemed to be portraits, or perhaps fantasies of some of the subjects, but others were unmistakably of the Nurse herself. One sketch warranted a double page spread, and even so, the stunted pages of the journal meant that it was zoomed out so far above as to be almost incomprehensible. It appeared to be a collection of plump, rounded rolls and mounds, and although it lacked detail, at its epicentre was what looked to be a head, and maybe hands and feet - or places where they should be. There was a thick line of pen that wriggled its way onto the page, and up to the ‘head’ of this gigantic charachter. In the same pen, scrawled in a frustrated hand in the bottom right corner of the sketch were the words, ‘Isabella Felicity Beauchamp - The World’s Fattest Women. Ever.’ The word ‘fattest’ was underlined. The word ‘ever’ was double underlined.

Still frozen to the spot, not daring to breathe, my mind began to race. Isabella was, it turned out, not only obsessed with fattening, but actually being fattened herself. Further entries in the little book revealed that the nurse was, if anything, jealous of the girls she was taking care of. Her busy schedule and responsibilities seemed to leave her longing for a more simple existence, and the constant running around the endless maze of corridors had, at least by her own record, made it hard to gain or maintain more than a few extra pounds of her own accord. The journal, however, dreamt of milestones, weigh-ins and extreme over-indulgence that would potentially leave Isabella’s figure buried beneath tons of groaning, unforgiving fat.

An electronic lock resonating in salute to the swipe of a keycard, along with a melody of jostling keys suddenly cut through the heavy silence. Immediately I fumbled the journal back to its resting place on the bedside table, and dashed across the room to the adjoining bathroom with olympic strides. Once through the doorway, I stretched out towards the handle on the cistern, and pulled the lever with the tips of my outstretched fingers. Quickly, I swung around, and kicked the door almost shut, before commencing to wash my hands noisily in the basin. My hope was that this improvised bathroom visit would provide me an alibi when I reappeared into the main room of the apartment. I left, and closed the door noisily behind me, skirting back through the bedroom and arriving just in time to greet Isabella, who had, in a somewhat flustered state, only just noticed my absence.

“All that tea, huh?” Isabella smiled, her cheeks and brow glistening slightly, the bun in her hair now looking a little more frayed. “I apologise for having to leave like that, by the way - it’s one of the downsides of being on call - but for now, everything is okay. It was close though. Hope really is being pushed well beyond her limits. Somehow, her body just keeps on going, but for how much longer I just don't know.”

“If it were left to me,” The Nurse continued, as we took our seats back at the dining table, “I would ease off. Take it much, much slower. Keep her gaining, but, like the balloon analogy, make it so slow her body has plenty of time to react - as well as the staff. It's the higher-ups though, they want progress, at any cost. To them, Hope is just another number, another piece in an enormous project.”

“If I knew more than that, I’d sure as heck be higher up the career ladder than a head nurse!” Isabella went on, anticipating the question that was forming on my lips. “I'll do my best for Hope though. Even on a personal level, I want to see her keep growing, keep gaining. I like Hope, I like her a lot, and her size, well, I'll admit it does drive me kinda wild how huge she is. She reminds me of Emily.”

“Emily was the girl I was telling you about earlier, before I got sidetracked. My first proper subject. I never tired of watching her grow bigger and heavier, and she never tired of being glutted. It was like a dream come true, watching that fabulous little figure of hers blow up like a huge, heaving balloon!”

“She gained, and she gained, and she gained - she just couldn't stop herself from wanting more. She smashed the one ton mark without a hint of apprehension, and I took every moment I could to feed or encourage. Emily loved the attention - I think that's why we worked so well together, if I'm honest. We were practically best friends, in fact, but like, real best friends, no bitchiness or shade thrown. That's super rare.”

“If there's one lesson I've learnt working here, however, it's to be friendly with the subjects, and even be their family, but don't get too attached on a personal level. It's hard, and I'm still bad at it, even now. The subjects are undergoing treatments - experiments if you will - some long term, and others not so long. That's the nature of experimentation I suppose.”

“You also have to bear in mind that this all happened about a decade ago. Ten years is a long time in the context of medical research, and the additives and formulas were far more primitive. Don't get me wrong, they were still incredible back then, but they've also come a long way since. Reaching the ton, for example, was still a very significant milestone when Emily did it. It is still very impressive even now of course, it is an incredible feat of the human body, but we expect most subjects to be able to achieve it these days, one way or another.”

“So, we kept on feeding and Emily kept right on guzzling, and with it she went on to get even bigger and heavier. I was absolutely hooked. With quite impressive pace she eventually pushed beyond 3,000, which, for the time, was a worthy achievement for any department. However, despite generally positive signs, the next few hundred pounds really began to take their toll on Emily, as she heaved towards the ton-and-a-half milestone. Even with the formulas, and oxygen, it was clear that her gorgeous body was getting closer and closer to what it could cope with.”

“If it were up to me,” Isabella continued, gazing forlornly out of the window, “I would slow things down, like I've said, or even just stop and maintain for a while. You know, let science catch up a little, but… but I guess that isn't how it works. The higher-ups insisted that we continue to push, and so we did, and I watched day by day, pound by pound, as Emily helplessly glutted herself and pushed her body to the edge, to its limits.”

“That's the first time I'd ever actually seen it happen, first hand. As a junior I'd been put on standby in other departments, but it had never actually happened. It was a Wednesday - heck, I even know the time; seventeen minutes past eleven at night - when her feeding machine shut off and the alarms sounded. Emily was 3,477 pounds and eleven ounces, and to me, she was perfect. At the time she was only fifty pounds shy of the entire facility record! If I could have paused her progress there, I would have done - and maybe gently fed her over 3,500 eventually, of course. I have my interests too.”

“At first I thought it was a false alarm, but, as I watched, frozen to the spot, I could eventually see it happening. It was slow and steady at first, but it was like watching her gain pounds in real time. As the reaction gradually sped up, it was easier to see her enormous body buck and slosh as fat began fighting for space in Emily's already overloaded frame. I got to work, and did everything I could, as other nurses rushed into the department - it was all hands on deck. At her size and weight, Emily has become something of a diamond on the department's crown, and many of us hoped that she would heartily exceed the expectations of the facility.”

“Instead, however, she continued to swell - ‘Fatspansion’ it is known as - and as I rushed about, I remember the muffled moans and groans she made, still with the inactive feeding tube in her mouth. Her chubby, helpless hands flapped with futility and her dainty feet wiggled as they were gradually swallowed by her cavernous rolls of ballooning leg flesh. Emily became absolutely gigantic, over-filled with delicious, heavy fat. It… it was incredible, I cannot deny. The signal was given, however, and as an entry level nurse, protocol dictated that I should leave, with only senior and specially trained staff remaining.”

“The last vision I have of Emily has stayed with me ever since; a gorgeous, glistening mound of a girl, stuffed to her absolute limits with so much glorious fat… oh boy…”

Nurse Isabella’s cheeks broke out into crimson flushes, and her forehead glittered with perspiration. Delicately, she waved her hand in front of her face in an attempt to cool down, as her eyes darted from left to right with avoidance. 

“Sorry,” Isabella offered, her voice restored to a more gentle lilt, caught out by her climatic enthusiasm as the tale of Emily had concluded, “Tea? More.. tea?”

Continued in… Part 4