[Story] A Curious Reaction
Brody’s lack of satisfaction in any specific area in his life was overshadowed by the loss of his dog, Edgar. The two had shared a special bond for a decade, and it all came crashing down with an ill-timed dash across the street. Brody had no more control over the vagaries of dogs or traffic than you or I, but he still blamed himself. And how could he not? He’d even thought of keeping Edgar on his leash a few minutes longer. But perhaps fate would have sent another car a few minutes later. Perhaps a disease was metastasizing within Edgar’s innocent body. Perhaps there was purpose in all of this. These thoughts didn’t cross Brody’s mind, nor would they have comforted him if they did.
He assumed a week of suffering would placate his anxiety, but instead he only felt guiltier for the tragedy that befell his beloved pet. Edgar trusted Brody entirely, and look where that landed him. He was suffering now, but not as much as he, in his self-deceit, told himself. And suffering was even more easily accessible than it was for most. Ever since he was a child, he and his two younger brothers had been warned of their mutual allergy to chocolate—a terrible allergy that would land them in the hospital or worse. Consequently, the dark candy had never crossed his lips.
Brody defiantly slammed down a bar of the cheapest chocolate he could find onto the convenience store counter. The anemic attendant quite understandably paid no heed to the weird man giving her bad vibes on a Friday. Instead, she counted out the appropriate coins and turned back to clearing old text messages from people she hadn’t bothered to put in her address book.
The garage door sounded like thunder as Brody pulled in and emerged from his car with his prize. He was going to do it, but... He set the bag of chocolate on the counter and stared at it. Could he really just…do it?
His breathing grew more intense. He shoved the bag behind a few soup cans before trotting into his bedroom to brood. If not with his grief, then with his brooding and waiting he had earned the indulgence of self-immolation. Brody did not realize that he had lied to himself so thoroughly about his state of mind that nothing but the image of himself consuming the poisonous treat filled his head. It was less than an hour before he was in the kitchen, throwing aside the cans to extract the chocolate bar from the crumpled bag.
His fingers looked skeletal as he watched them tear away the wrapper. The horrible, delightful smell met his nostrils as he snapped off a block and suspended it in front of his mouth. Less than that quiet snapping held back greater disasters.
But Brody told himself he was weak.
He threw the block in his mouth and bit down. The taste was not one of poison or of pleasure, but of ecstasy. Though he rarely indulged in drugs now that he had transgressed the threshold of his fourth decade, his teenage years had been punctuated with experiences with the usual variety of recreational substances. And he knew what was happening now. He was experiencing a high. But Brody knew that third-rate convenience store chocolate wasn’t supposed to provide any more of a high than a honeyed cup of tea. Yet here he was.
It took him an hour of wonder before he correctly guessed it was his supposed allergy that transformed the experience of eating chocolate into one of indescribable sensuous delight and emotional high. But he incorrectly assumed that pain of corresponding intensity was just around the corner. Indeed, the rest of the evening (and the rest of the chocolate) vanished without Brody’s mood or body showing a hint of unease. Instead, he felt better than he had since before he lost his beloved Edgar, as blasphemous as that sentiment would have been if he allowed himself to consider it.
He contemplated telling his brothers, but nobly elected to continue his experimentation with chocolate to ensure there were no side effects. To avert the suffering of Austin and Eric was a noble, nay, a saintly goal. And who other than he would succeed in that saintly goal? No one, he told himself, as he returned to the store to continue an experiment that would have made St. Peter himself say, “Damn, bro, that’s some good shit, bro.”
~
Brody spent sixty dollars in chocolate on that trip to the store. He piled the forbidden treat in his filing cabinet behind his tax filings, where no one but an accountant would dare venture. He felt like a teenager again, hoarding drugs in odd holes in his home. Ah, youth.
And though no side effect seemed to come, he derived a giddy pleasure from the secrecy of his new habit. He felt the high of a forbidden sexual encounter when he was buying chocolate. He knew it was silly, but he didn’t care. He might have wondered if this feeling matched the experience of his brother Austin prior to coming out of the closet, but Brody’s sweet captivation precluded any empathetic breakthroughs that were not pushed upon him.
Indeed, as Brody honed his new pastime of gorging on diverse chocolates, Brody didn’t notice that he was changing. Not his mood, of course—he was well aware that was improved—no, no, it was his body that was subject to a decreasingly subtle alteration.
Brody was the wiry kind of guy who rarely ate just as he rarely engaged in the exercise that was preached so loudly to him by voices which seemed so at odds with his laissez faire dietary habits. The addition of chocolate to those habits, however, marked the fleshing out of his formerly gangly arms to limbs for once entirely proportional to his torso. As for said torso, its elusive shadows began to his simplistic wardrobe to its increasingly rounded will. Many would find the tightening of the waistband sufficient declaration of the nature of the changes that were manifest in Brody’s body, but every hint his brain gave him that something was wrong was ignored in favor of a delicately unfolding scroll of white lies. It was an old pair of pants. It was a bloat. It’s natural to gain a bit of weight when you’re thin. It’s merely a natural part of aging that will taper off with adjusted portions. These white lies, much like his new clothes, ultimately failed to disguise what was happening to him.
He was descending the stairs into the basement when the reality of his situation came crashing through to him with an operatic pomp that made his flesh crawl with a confused, horrible delight. Was he...jiggling?
Brody looked down at his belly. He was almost surprised to see how far forward it had advanced, now hanging over his pants with the lazy confidence with which its owner usually tackled life. He pulled his shirt up and grabbed the offending portion of his body with a needlessly violent shake. Yes, it would be madness to declare the wobbling sensation he felt as anything but jiggling.
After retrieving the bottle of wine that had inspired his trip to the basement, Brody retreated to the bathroom to survey with greater accuracy the validity of his terrifying moment of self-awareness. Now primed to discern his transformation, it was with a gasp that he looked at his reflection in the mirror.
His middle wasn’t the only victim of this mysterious change. His face has become round and hale, with his chin a hearty dessert away from becoming unmistakably double. But how could this be so?
To give up his most accessible form of pleasure was a last resort so remote he hadn’t even articulated to himself that it was possible. But days of unsuccessfully repelled self-reflection did little to delay the recognition of the horrible truth: his chocolate allergy hadn’t been a lie at all. But the side effect wasn’t rashes and a swollen throat, it was weight gain.
Defeated, he stopped eating the forbidden candy and the weight began to slide off. But the grueling self-denial didn’t last and as regular as the sun, pints of chocolate cherry ice cream, dark chocolate bars, and cartons of chocolate milk found their wily way into his shopping cart. He always deserved a last hurrah before he got back on track tomorrow, always tomorrow.
And as these happy hurrahs multiplied, his doughy middle continued to balloon, he developed love handles, his skinny legs became thick and tightly packed into his pants, and his ass rounded out like twin loaves of bread. The double chin which had once been a casual suggestion was now plainly stated on his round, scruffy face.
No one said a word to him. Well, no word that Brody identified as such, but he assumed they simply forgot how he had once looked, even though he himself had not. Perhaps that would have been the end of it but for Brody’s brother Austin.
~
Austin was a belligerently dependable man two years Brody’s junior. As Brody was outdoorsy and easy-going, Austin was pale and dedicated to his latest hobby, whether it be collecting obscure memorabilia or in competing in games with his husband who, like him, found transcendental satisfaction in the ecstasy of victory, no matter how trivial, provided the rules were clearly established and the intent of all participants was honorable. That Austin would be the first person to make an issue of Brody’s increasing girth would be a surprise only to people who hadn’t set eyes on him. Austin was the tallest of the three brothers, and the only to maintain a clean-shaven face and a strictly tailored wardrobe. He wasn’t much broader than Brody had once been, but his professional demeanor and sharp haircut made him more imposing than his long-haired brother.
Austin’s manic obsession (or as he called it, “concern”) cemented in his mind the day Brody’s chin first doubled. Before that, Austin was providing common courtesy (anything less was rude), but there were lines that could not be crossed. Austin resolved to find a way to approach his brother about this troubling trend. Austin was perhaps too clever to believe himself, but if one couldn’t believe oneself, who else was trustworthy?
Austin kept the inaugural text casual—he knew as well as anyone the dread of “We need to talk”—so he merely suggested they get takeout and watch some science fiction of the exact grade in which talking over it would anger no one. Brody didn’t work on weekends, and it wasn’t pleasant to have the already unpleasantness of Sunday evenings ruined by a concerned relative, so its corollary, Friday night, was of course the correct time to broach the subject.
Acceptance of the date and time received, Austin mentally revised his approach until he had crafted three salient points. If he was more aware of his own intelligence, perhaps he would have avoided the laundry list of concerns for a unified message of brotherly support, but Austin didn’t quite grasp his lack of limitations and how obnoxious that could be.
He wore a tank top without a logo to project approachability. His shorts were snug and white, just like he was himself. He arrived with takeout five minutes early, the proper time to show respect without implying an entitlement to time not committed to by the host. Everything was perfectly in place, which made Austin perfectly happy. He smiled confidently as Brody opened the door.
Brody looked even bigger than Austin remembered from a month prior—surely, it was just the shirt he was wearing, a bright red t-shirt that left little to the imagination. Austin focused on Brody’s face to avoid staring, but his failure was inevitable: he glanced at Brody’s gut, which was round and protruding even more than he remembered. He threw his gaze back to his brother’s face, which had filled out so much, he looked like a different person. So it was that he still felt like he was staring, but Austin valiantly maintained eye contact with his brother, lest he suffer defeat at the hands of the social impropriety of body shaming. Brody’s life was on the line.
It was insensitive to broach the subject of Brody’s weight while they were eating, of course. Austin waited for them to finish an episode (he would never let it be said he didn’t know how to have a good time), and he poised himself on the emotional cliff. There was a thrill to being so close to both disaster and success. Though Brody had no idea of Austin’s poise, the latter felt compelled to speak now or give up for the evening.
“So…can we like, talk for a minute?” Austin asked.
“About what?”
“I just want to make sure you’re doing okay. Like…your weight has changed a lot lately. If you’re feeling depressed, or if there’s anything I can do…”
Brody, trapped by his own existence, had nowhere to flee and nowhere to look other than directly at his brother.
“You don’t need to worry about me.” He said quietly.
“Right, but I am. And I don’t know how not to. Especially since, like—you’ve gained a lot of weight, and I’m worried about whether you’re doing okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“If you’re lonely—I mean, without Dan, I don’t know what I’d do on bad days.” Austin clasped his hands. “I know it’s hard, after losing Edgar.”
“For fuck’s sake, Austin, how many times do I have to say that I’m okay?”
“Then you’re working on your weight?”
“Dude, it’s not your goddamn business.” Brody, his face red, stood up abruptly. “Look, I’m fine. My health is fine. I just put on some weight. It happens. Is that so hard for you to accept?”
Austin, only now realizing how badly he had performed, lowered his voice. “I just want what’s best for you.”
“Can we just move on?” Brody sat down. “I don’t want to let this ruin the evening—any more than it has to.” He put on another episode, and the rest of their time together passed with but a vague patina of mutual loathing.
~
Brody was still spending significant emotional energy each day ignoring his confrontation with Austin when he had lunch with his youngest brother Eric, the most outspoken of them about everything from iambic pentameter to video game microtransactions. He was shorter than his brothers by a good four inches, and had the lightest hair, almost blond, which he cycled between short and classically unkempt. Unlike Brody, who always wore a beard, and Austin, who never wore one, Eric was always experimenting with and regrowing his facial hair. At the present, he wore a thick mustache and sideburns that contrasted with his no-nonsense style of jeans and a t-shirt (never with logos, and never in black). Eric had little filter, something he wore as a badge of honor, as many cursed with such a disposition are eventually forced to do.
Like Austin, Eric was surprised to watch Brody’s transformation from having his shirts hang off him to his shirts seams ready to burst. But it wasn’t the fact of this transformation that drew his attention most, but its suddenness and intensity. The latter qualities threw into stark relief the changes that Brody exhibited, such as the curious gait that accommodate his belly, and the way his face turned into a surprisingly different one. And though Eric observed these changes with a morbid fascination, he rehearsed his acceptance until his darker impulses were frustrated. It would be a betrayal of their relationship for him to treat Brody any differently than last year when Brody was the slimmest of the three of them. Eric had long held his eldest brother in a particular regard. Brody was the forerunner, the peacemaker, the one who’s inner goodness surpassed anything his mischievous successors could ever hope to muster.
They chatted amiably over their meal, speaking of politics, technology, and the goddamn road construction. Eric congratulated himself for not launching into a discursive analysis of the nation’s transportation systems, instead allowing his brother to lead back to something less tied to Eric’s particular emotional soft spots.
At last, Brody said, “Austin talked to me last week.”
Eric knew exactly what those words meant, but it was his habit to feign a degree of innocence that might deceive others into thinking he was normal.
“About what?” Eric asked.
“About my weight.”
Eric didn’t trust himself to talk about this. What if he cracked a joke? What if he was too harsh—or not harsh enough? His mind spun as he considered the depths of his own inadequacy refracting against the enormity of existence. (Or perhaps it was how the cheeseburger sat in his stomach.)
“Oh? Was he very—you know—Austin about it?”
Brody let out a nervous chuckle. “Yeah. I know he can’t help himself, but it was shitty.”
“I don’t know what’s going on in his head—which is for the best.” Eric said. “But I’m sure on some level he knows that it’s none of his business.”
Brody stared at his tray. “I know, but makes me wonder: am I wrong?”
“Wrong for what? Existing?”
“No, like…wrong for making him feel bad. He’s just worried about me, which isn’t a crime.”
Eric noted smugly to himself the accuracy of his preconceptions about his brother. This pathological goodness would be his undoing yet.
“Brody. Look at me.” (His brother obeyed.) “You are not responsible for how Austin feels about your body. You are responsible for you. And you’re an adult, and you get to do what you want.”
Brody’s mood remained unchanged. “What do you think?”
“I just said what I think.”
“No, I mean about my weight.”
There it was, direct as ever. Eric was not prepared to think about this, not because he was frightened of Brody, but because he was frightened of himself.
“It’s not my business.” He said haltingly.
“But I want to know what you think.”
“It doesn’t change anything.” He grasped for the right rhetorical structures. “You’re my brother. That’s all that matters.”
“Thanks, Eric. That means a lot.”
Eric smiled. “Sure thing, bro.”
~
Eric’s internal debate over whether to talk to Austin was a welcome distraction killed all too soon by Austin himself requesting a coffee date. Austin had reasoned they were due for time together regardless of his more specific motivation. Really, it was just more efficient this way. After some small talk, Austin shifted the tenor of the conversation to the personal.
“How’s Krista?” Austin asked.
“We broke up last month.”
“What—last month? You didn’t tell me?”
“What’s to tell?”
“I mean, what happened? Are you okay?”
Eric shrugged. “Shit happens, and probably.”
“Sorry, Eric. I really am. That sucks.”
Eric could have told Austin the full story. Of Krista’s assaults on his personal style and belittlement of his height. Of the cycle of insults and requests for forgiveness. Of the disappearance of books and knickknacks she found distasteful. Eric feared Austin would psychoanalyze him as much as listen to him. The price of entry to the satisfaction of human empathy was in this case too high to conscience.
“I’ll be fine. But you didn’t ask me to come to a coffee shop to talk about my love life.”
Austin blushed. “I’m just worried about Brody.”
Eric crossed his arms. “Why, what happened?”
“His weight,” Austin almost whispered. “It’s getting out of control, and he’s not doing anything about it.”
“I’m not a diet cop, Austin.” Eric was nonplussed.
“No, it’s not like that.” Austin gazed with annoyance at the smug curve of that ridiculous mustache. “If both of us go to him, saying that we’re here to support him and help him however we can, maybe he won’t feel so helpless.”
“What exactly did he tell you?” Eric asked.
“He acted like it wasn’t a big deal—which I do not understand.”
“Is that so?” Eric uncrossed his arms. “Look, Austin, it’s his deal, big or not. He has to figure out this shit for himself. Having Little Brother One and Little Brother Two harassing him is just another problem for him to deal with.”
“But he seemed so complacent.”
“Fucking hell.” Eric said. “Just tell me exactly what he said.”
Austin was backed into a corner, and Eric knew it. And when push came to shove, Austin wouldn’t bitch out on him. He never did.
“He said he was fine, his health was fine, and it was just a matter of him having put on weight.”
Eric gestured emphatically. “See, you need to stop. He can take care of himself.”
“He obviously can’t.” Austin leaned closer. “He was skinny less than a year ago. No one gains weight that quickly unless they have a problem.”
Eric pressed his index and middle fingers against his eyebrows. “God…” He whispered.
“What? How am I the bad guy here?”
“You need to give him space. Even if something is wrong, you can’t force him to see that. All you’re going to do is make him mad. It’s his body, and it’s his choice what he does with it.”
“Come on, don’t bullshit me.”
“I’m serious.” Eric said. “Didn’t you want us to respect your choice in a romantic partner?”
“Oh my god.” Austin’s brow furrowed. “That is not even remotely the same. That you’d even imply those are the same—”
“Woah, woah, hear me out.” Eric evened the tone of his voice. “Look, you were right to want us to accept you. You have the right to self-determine. So does Brody.”
“Being gay isn’t a choice.”
“I know, but choosing to accept yourself is a choice. The right choice.”
Austin sipped his iced tea, but said nothing. They stared at their beverages for a minute with occasional begrudging glances at each other.
“So you think I should just drop it?” Austin finally said.
Eric nodded.
“But this is about Brody’s health.”
“Is it, Austin? Is it?” Eric ran a finger along his condensation-laced plastic cup. “Because to me it just seems like you have a problem with fat people existing.”
“That’s not fair.”
Eric shrugged. “I don’t know what else to say. Except that if you’re going to keep harassing Brody, that’s on you.”
“It’s for his own good.”
“Listen to yourself. This is moral panic.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I think I’m being more than fair.” Eric said.
Austin tried to lighten his tone as they wrapped up their meeting, but neither of them were under the disillusion that anything but a few days of absence could restore them to their usual tempers.
Eric, however, was merely glad he hadn’t spoiled the extent of his fascination with Brody’s unusual circumstance. Not yet, at least.
~
Austin found no solace in the inaction counseled by his younger brother. If there might be a problem, it needed to be identified, and if a problem was identified, it needed to be fixed. That was how you did things as an adult, and the three of them were most certainly adults.
As he drove home, it was Eric’s final accusation, however, that haunted him. Was Austin merely projecting a his personal antipathies onto Brody? Would a more level-headed person embody Eric’s unambiguous quiescence?
Once dinner was out of the way, and Austin was loading the dish-washing machine, he queried his husband: “So, weird hypothetical question…”
Dan perked up the prospect of a game. “Yeah?”
“How would you feel if I…if I gained weight. Like if I gained a lot of weight?”
“Am I supposed to answer that directly?” Dan asked flatly.
“I’m just asking a question about our relationship. You know, like we’re supposed to do.”
“That question is about our relationship like the Civil War was about states’ rights.” Dan stopped cleaning the kitchen. “You can’t just ask me, can you? Just something so simple as, ‘Hey Dan, I’m feeling like a bit of an asshole for how I think about my brother now that he’s put on weight. Would you like to comment on this, dearest husband?’ But you have to use it as a tactic to pretend like you’re investing in our relationship when, as always, it just comes back to how you feel.”
They both knew the game was up, and that Dan had won.
“A lot of assumptions there,” Austin finally ventured.
Dan’s tone softened somewhat. “Yeah, but I know you.”
Austin returned his attention to the dishes in a vain attempt to save face.
Dan, however, was accustomed to dealing with his husband’s well-meaning and twisted internal plots and knew well that the sooner it was tackled, the better it would turn out for everyone, himself included.
“Well, are you going to tell me how you feel about Brody?”
“Eric thinks I should do nothing. Said Brody has the right to self-determination.”
“That sounds like Eric.” Dan said.
Austin waited for more, but receiving no affirmation, he sought it: “Am I crazy? Brody’s bigger every time I see him. That does not just happen.”
“Look, hon, he’s not you. He has his own life, his own habits, and his own values. Doesn’t change that he’s your brother or that you love him, does it?”
“No, of course not.”
“Right. So, you just need to be his brother. And you’ll be there for him when he needs you.”
“Okay.” Austin didn’t feel okay.
While he was trying to sleep, Austin’s mind kicked into gear once again. Did Eric and Dan have access to an essential goodness of human nature that he, through some accident of birth, had been bereft? He was no sociopath, surely, but the doubt lingered that everyone was good but him.
He opened a blank note on his phone. He typed, highlighted, deleted, mumbled. Sorry I offended you. Sorry I assumed. Sorry I don’t understand. It all rang so hollow, so utilitarian. He was unwilling to admit it, but this half-hearted apology did not find root in fraternal affection, but in personal embarrassment.
Austin was trying to ignore something that was deeper than his concern for his brother—something that was less pleasant than the medical uncertainty that had taken the ungainly form that had angered his brothers in the first place.
“I thought you said no Twitter after ten.” Dan said quietly.
“I’m not on Twitter.”
Austin felt Dan’s cool hands slide around his torso. “I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”
“I’m just checking something.”
“The first step is admitting you have a problem.”
“Jesus, it’s not Twitter.”
Dan withdrew his hands.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to snap.” The darkness swirled around for a moment before Austin continued. “I just need to get some sleep.”
Dan grunted in affirmation and they returned to their preferred positions of slumber.
Left thus with the option of confronting his own darkness and deferring his botched apology for a live performance, the latter finally asserted itself as the clear choice, allowing Austin to drift off to sleep with less than an hour of unpleasant contemplation.
~
And so Austin set up a meeting with Brody the next evening.
Even Brody could identify that something was wrong. “Hey, what’s up?’
“Hey.”
Brody placed his elbows on his small dining table and waited with dread.
“I’m… Look, I’ve been trying to think of what to say, but I can’t figure it out. I was wrong to be so aggressive about your weight. I was…not minding my business. I don’t understand why I was so shitty about it.”
“I know you were just concerned.” Brody said with unsurprising sincerity.
Austin made a peak with his fingers. “I keep telling myself that, but I don’t know if that’s true.”
“What do you mean?”
Austin began to feel the depths he had ignored. An unpleasant, turgid rush of understanding pressed against the sluice gate. It would be damning, horrible to see the truth—but his brother was worth it.
“I think I was upset by losing some…idea of you. As if seeing you change was losing part of you, and the fear…that other people would see it like that—you being less you.”
Brody’s face was red with the shock of such honesty. He wasn’t sure he understood, but he wasn’t going to ask for details lest he break the terrible spell that hung over this conversation.
“I wish I was as empathetic as Eric.” Austin said. “He knows just what to say without even trying. So let me try to know what to say. I accept you completely—or I want to. And I don’t have to ‘get it’ to recognize you have agency.”
A wave of frisson enveloping Brody’s skin. The ecstasy of indulgence was locked behind a few simple words, and only an intense discipline had kept them safe from the unwitting ears of his brothers. With horror at his own indiscretion, he said: “You could understand.”
“I’m glad you believe in me. I’m trying not to be a dick. Seems like I’m always trying.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” Brody looked away. His hand were trembling.
“Then what do you mean?”
The nervous energy many hours Brody spent pondering whether to create this moment of revelation burst forth in his mind as he realized the time had come.
“You know our chocolate allergy?”
“Uh, yeah, I do.” Austin said. “And everyone we know knows so that we aren’t poisoned.”
“That’s the thing: it isn’t poison.”
Austin looked confused. To him, this was nonsense. Chocolate was poison. Those were the rules.
“Uh, Mom and Dad were pretty clear—”
“I don’t know if they knew or not, but eating chocolate doesn’t kill us. It changes our bodies, makes us bigger.”
Brody felt a weight on top of his already considerable weight lift from him. He studied Austin’s shocked visage for a good ten seconds before Austin spoke again.
“You’re serious?”
“Yes. My diet isn’t much different from when I was skinny. The only difference I can identify is chocolate.”
“Then stop eating chocolate, for god’s sake.”
Brody shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. Chocolate is the best thing ever. It’s like a drug in a way I don’t think it is for other people. I don’t know if I could stop if I wanted to.”
“You don’t want to?”
“Bro, it’s that good. I am in a good mood all the time now. It’s incredible.”
“So you’re addicted.”
“Maybe. Though I did stop for a while to prove I would lose weight if I did. Which I did.”
“And then you went back?” Austin was scandalized.
Brody’s face reddened again. “Yes.”
“For the high?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“I don’t know how to process this.” Austin said. “Have you told Eric?”
“No, but will now that I’ve told you.”
Austin stood up. “Then we can have dinner together or something and talk about this, but right now, I just need to think.”
“I understand.”
Brody did not understand. He told himself he did, but in truth, he had believed in his heart that the truth would wash over his brothers, leaving in its wake nothing but compassion for their eldest brother’s strange tribulations.
~
After Austin left, Brody immediately called Eric.
“Hey, do you have a minute?”
Eric confessed he did have a minute.
“Look, I just told Austin something that you also deserve to know.” He explained the true nature of their chocolate allergy through Eric’s barrage of hushed expletives.
“This is so fucking weird, but I get the lie part.” Eric said. “It’s a bit harder to stay away from something delicious when it’s not going to kill you.”
“I’ve been wanting to tell you for so long, you have no idea.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“It seemed like…an unnecessary temptation. I mean, look what happened to me. I just like chocolate too much.”
“Bro…” Eric paused. “That’s fine.”
“Yeah, tell Austin that.”
“Don’t worry about Austin.” Eric said. “I trusted you to do what you needed to do, you know? But now that it’s out: you are totally fine. You’re the exact same Brody, just…more so, as it were.”
Brody’s voice was choked with emotion. “Thank you, Eric.”
Eric quickly swooped in with a less sincere line of conversation lest they feel the burden of emotion too severely. “But I’ve been curious about something—and you’re the first person I feel like I can ask—do you feel different from when you were thin?”
“I don’t feel bad, if that’s what you mean.” Brody said with a hint of caution in his voice.
“You seem like you feel good, just maybe different—you sure look different.”
“I barely recognize myself sometimes.” Brody said with a nervous laugh.
“I recognize you.” Eric said. “I think it works for you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, some plus size model vibes.”
“Wow. That’s really nice of you to say. Thank you.”
“And thank you for telling me about all this.”
“Sure thing.”
The call ended. Eric threw on a sweatshirt and stepped out of his apartment complex into the cool summer evening.
He crossed the street. The gas station was only blocks away, scarcely sufficient space to reconsider his actions—but Eric already knew the debate he held in his mind was a farce. He was going to buy a bar of chocolate, that forbidden pleasure, and eat the entire thing in one sitting. The defiance! And if what Brody said was true…
A smooth electronic beep heralded his entry to the store. He glanced at the candy near the register—far too commonplace. His first time should be a bit more special than that. He browsed the candy aisle: milk, dark, white, sea salt, caramel and more. He had wistfully gazed at these hands of Midas gloves stacked neatly in their boxes ever since he was a child. Today the curse would be either be broken or realized. And though his adrenaline-soaked consciousness had difficulty identifying which, he knew in his heart there was no alternative to this banal awakening.
He selected an organic milk chocolate bar. Pure, classic, sufficiently priced beyond other options to inspire a feeling of superiority. He approached the register.
“Find everything okay?” The young registrar said with a half-yawn in her voice.
“I found exactly what I need.”
She grunted and announced the total. Eric relinquished his credit card. She handed him the card, the receipt, and the bar. He thanked her with perhaps too much enthusiasm for such a transaction and trotted into the parking lot.
He looked from side to side. There were benches, but they didn’t seem terribly clean or romantic. The side of the building was for cigarettes, not this stranger drug. He settled on a curbside overlooking the edge of a wooded area. His hands trembled as he turned over the candy bar and scanned the nutrition facts. The tearing of the seal was like sacred music, the foil wrapper brightly chiming as he revealed his dark prize. He didn’t even bother breaking off a block, instead placing the bar in his mouth and taking a bite.
Brody’s cheery endorsement of chocolate did nothing to prepare him for the shot of ecstatic pleasure he experienced at that first taste. Whatever was wrong with him and his brothers was not “wrong” at all. He refused to believe it! Anyone being able to derive half this much ecstatic pleasure from a convenience store product was not cursed but blessed in the highest, surely.
Within minutes, the entire bar, which Eric had told himself he was to savor, had vanished. He pulled out his phone and called Brody.
“It’s amazing.” Eric said.
“You mean—”
“You were right. Chocolate is incredible. Beyond words.”
Brody exhaled loudly. “Oh, thank god it’s not just me.”
They chattered about the candy for a few minutes. Brody recommended brands and flavors, which Eric insisted he compile in a list and send to him.
“I gotta go. I need to get more.”
“Pace yourself.” Brody said. “That stuff hits hard.”
“I can pace myself later.”
Eric returned to the store and slapped ten more bars onto the counter in front of the now more awake registrar, who gave him not a small amount of side eye.
Eric whistled merrily as he returned to his apartment. The future looked clear, bright, and 45 percent cocoa.
~
As the months dragged on, Austin reached a measure of obsession with his curious situation that he hadn’t experienced since he was a manic 17-year-old. Was he too a candy splurge away from losing his abs? Would he find the temptation too great to resist? Already, it seemed like this lurking intoxication would forever hang over his head. Was his plan to live the rest of his life in fear of enjoying something as banal as chocolate?
He watched with quiet desperation as Eric too began to change, his flat stomach slowly expanding like a water balloon, his face’s edges vanishing, and his pecs become soft and round. He dare not say a word about this inevitable transformation lest they ask him what his own decision had been. What should he tell them? He’d just give in? Or languish in anxiety forever? Become an ascetic monk and move to Eastern Europe?
Austin continued to stare at his phone as Dan asked him what was going on. And then what was up. And then what was wrong. A skilled man at detecting the truth, Dan was. Austin feigned ignorance, knowing perfectly well that once again the game was up.
“As you know,” Dan said. “I’m here when you’re ready to share.”
Austin exhaled dramatically. “Yeah, I’m ready.” He told Dan of the curious medical condition he and his brothers shared. “And they just decided to roll with it. They know perfectly well why they’re getting so big, but they just keep eating it.”
Dan knew his partner well enough to let the narration unfurl.
“I don’t know how to handle it. I can’t go back to not knowing the true nature of my allergy. Do I owe it to them to share their experience? I shouldn’t, but I feel like there’s a barrier between us every time we hang out, and blows dick. Like…it’s never really been like this before. They’ve always been there for me.”
“They’re important to you. Not everybody can boast a functional relationships with one sibling, let alone two.”
“Good point.” Austin paused and placed his clenched fists over his mouth. “And they say it’s better than drugs.”
Dan raised his eyebrows.
“I’d just try it, but I know I’ll just get hooked. And me getting bigger—I mean, it wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“Fair to me? How do you figure?”
“You know... You deserve to feel attracted to your husband.”
Dan leaned closer. “Do you honestly think I wouldn’t be attracted to you anymore if you were fat? You should know me better than that.”
“Should I? Would you?” Austin let out an exasperated gasp. “This is all very stressful. I’d be happy if you just told me what to do at this point.”
Dan ran his hand along his husband’s face before giving him a kiss. “Look, dumbass, I married you because I love you, not because I needed a fuckable body to keep in stasis forever. The plan is to love you when you’re old too, you know—provided neither of us dies or finds our long latent heterosexuality.”
Austin nodded.
“Besides, I’ve dated bigger guys before. There’s nothing wrong with being big.”
Austin nodded again.
“But this isn’t about me, is it? You’re worried you won’t like it.”
Austin nodded again.
“It’s not worse than you moping forever. I certainly don’t deserve that.”
“Fair point,” Austin kissed his husband. “You deserve all the good things.”
“I know I do.” Dan smiled.
“I’ll figure it out.” Austin said.
“I know you will.”
~
Eric’s life was now characterized by a constant glut of endorphins in which the lingering anxiety of his last relationship vanished. Hobbies that languished for months returned to his routine, if interspersed with ample helpings of chocolate. That this emotional stability was accompanied by the instability of his body was less a source of consternation than of fascination. First his abs vanished, then his clothes grew tight—and before he knew it, he began to feel his belly jiggle when he went down the stairs. The cascade of subtle changes in his body brought him a delirious excitement that propelled him on to the next discovery. But rather than unease or disgust, he felt curiosity and satisfaction. Was there a point where he would become upset by all of this?
One day while spending time with Brody, Eric brought up the issues as directly as he dared: “Do you have any tips for managing the weight gain?”
“Besides not eating chocolate?”
“No, I mean for making the process easier on me. I don’t want this to be more stressful than it has to be.”
“Oh.” Brody, clearly surprised, paused for a moment to think this over. “Moisturize your skin like crazy. And set aside extra money for clothing, obviously. And go on walks or whatever.”
Though the stated purpose of Eric’s inquiry was clear, the subtext was, to Eric at least, equally clear: he was signaling to Brody that he was happy with his new lot. And Brody’s lack of pushback either indicated he understood or that the idea was seeping into his brain regardless. Either way it was a win for both of them, Eric reasoned. Too bad he couldn’t talk to Austin like this, but there were limits.
“Thank you. It’s a pain looking up anything online since most everything is about losing weight.” As Eric crossed his arms, he felt his belt press into his belly’s overhang. “Everybody is obsessed with losing weight. Their loss.”
“Everyone marches to the beat of their own drum.”
“This is my drum.” Eric slapped his gut.
They laughed.
~
Some months later, Eric picked up Austin and Brody for an evening at a fancy restaurant. The discomfort that had characterized their time together lingered but vaguely. They had formed the unspoken rule that whenever Austin was around, they wouldn’t speak of anything to do with their curious allergy.
But none of them could quite say if Eric’s penchant for wearing tight clothes was more a statement than a necessity. Austin certainly noticed, but Brody had lived in carefree introspection for too long to really track what was happening. Without his terrible secret, Brody had resumed gardening again, return to favorite breweries, and even considered adopting a new pet. There was time and energy to really and fully live.
Indeed, it wasn’t until now that Brody, glancing over at his brother, really realized just how fat Eric was getting. His once slight belly now hung out over his pants by few inches. Instead of looking like a jock who liked to eat, he exuded the energy of a man who spent his spare time thinking of amusing ways to jest about his decadent diet in order to put others at ease.
But there were subtle changes as well. Eric had diversified his wardrobe to include button-downs, sweaters, and tank tops, articles of clothing that simply hadn’t interested him before. There was a change in his mindset brought on by the challenge of dressing a new body, a body increasingly outside the culturally constructed norm. Of course, as a student of philosophy, Eric knew this, but he mostly enjoyed the metaphorical ‘Fuck You’ to the society toward which he loved to levy criticism.
Brody noticed little of this, only thinking to himself, “Wow, Eric’s looking big.” And, “Glad we’re hanging out today.”
They spoke of small talk and idle bits of news throughout dinner. Austin was quieter than the others, because he had a plan. The server asked if they wanted dessert. Brody and Eric ordered.
“I’ll have a slice of French silk pie.”
Austin felt a wave of anxiety and satisfaction as he watched his brothers’ eyes bulge.
After the server left, Brody whispered, “Are you really going to do it?”
“I’m not going to spend the rest of my life wondering, am I?” Austin sounded as nervous as he felt.
“You don’t have to do anything for us.” Brody said. “If this is about, you know—before.”
“It’s not like that.” Austin said. “I owe it to myself to try to be a more, I don’t know, empathetic person.”
Eric was already onto a more salient point: “What about your weight?”
Austin visibly swallowed. “What happens happens.”
“That’s the spirit.” Eric said.
They waited what seemed like an eternity for dessert to arrive. Austin beheld the simultaneously crisp and soft slice of pie. It was too late to go back: the decision was made. His fork slid effortlessly through the creamy chocolate. The silky sweetness broke over his tongue like a waterfall. The sensation of pleasure that washed over him was indescribable. How could food provide such an intense satisfaction? It was like the high of jogging combined with the warmth of drinking tea while curled up with a loved one on a raining day. That didn’t make sense, but none of this made any sense to Austin in the way it made sense to Brody.
All he knew was that, despite the confusion of why this was happening, he finally understood his brothers.
Brody and Eric nodded excitedly, waiting for verbal recognition.
“Oh.” Austin finally said. “It’s fucking incredible.”
They cheered Austin perhaps a bit too loudly. Austin proceeded to down the rest of the slice.
As they began to babble about the best kinds of chocolates to cry, Austin’s head spun with happiness. He was probably going to lose his abs, but at least he felt relief at long last.
~
Austin’s world was plunged into a happy instability. Feeling like he had less control than ever should have upset him, but he felt better than he had in a long time. He renewed his interest in cooking. He paid less attention to his obligations and more attention to his husband. He tried not to consider it, but his very personality was changing.
Of course, his personality wasn’t the only thing to change. Austin watched with horrible fascination as within two months his abs became covered by a noticeable layer of flab. He carefully planned ahead, buying bigger clothes in hopes that the change wouldn’t be too noticeable. Dan, however, was not as naive as Austin desperately hoped. He sat his softening husband down and quietly but decisively said: “Why didn’t you tell me you started eating chocolate?”
Austin felt his face turn red.
“Well?” Dan insisted.
“I don’t understand what I’m doing.” Austin paused to reflect. “But I feel so good all the time, it’s crazy. It’s like I’m a kid again, except not smelly and stupid. And the weight…doesn’t seem that bad.”
“No, Austin.” Dan’s voice became louder. “I’m asking whether your husband deserves to share in something like that.”
Austin thought back to before he tried chocolate. What even was his mindset back then? Keep Dan from worrying? Accept the burden placed on him by his birth? It was all a blur.
“I mean, we did talk that one time.”
“Yeah, one time.” Dan said. “It seemed like something important enough to discuss again.”
“I’m sorry.” Austin said.” I was going to tell you eventually, I just...hadn’t yet.”
“You waited way too long.” Austin’s face flushed as Dan rested his hand on Austin’s slight paunch. “I would have preferred to hear it from you before your gut gave you away.“
Austin closed his eyes. He didn’t want to look at his body right now.
“I was going to try chocolate one time to understand Brody and Eric. But it made me feel so good, I didn’t want to stop.”
“Well, I certainly do like happy Austin. He’s a welcome addition to the family.”
“Didn’t know I was such a drag.”
“You know what I mean.” Dan said. “I like it when you’re happy.”
Austin paused, trying to spit out some coherent before finally asking, “You don’t miss my abs?”
Dan slipped his hand under Austin’s shirt. “I’m sure they’re doing just fine under there.”
Austin looked at his husband with incredulity. Was Dan giving him permission to do what he wanted with his body? Did he honestly feel like it wasn’t a problem? It should be a problem. Dan should be upset.
“I know, but I want you to be happy too.”
“I don’t know what to think yet.” Dan said. “But I don’t own your body, just your heart.”
“Oh, gag.”
Dan laughed at Austin’s discomfort. “Yeah, yeah. But seriously, I want to be open to change, especially if it makes you happy. But I also want to be kept in the loop. That’s part of what makes all this work.”
Austin nodded. “I know. I promise to be better about it.”
“Okay.” Dan said.
~
Eric was thrown into a state of excitement and anxiety as he watched Austin put on weight. On the one hand, seeing Austin relax reaffirmed the correctness of Eric’s decision to consume chocolate without putting himself through emotional toil. Hist instinctual acclamation of his brother’s fattening, however, filled him shame. Austin had taken so much pride in maintaining the body of a model, and here Eric was, actively rooting for the destruction of that pride.
Was it destruction or creation? Why had he felt less troubled by Brody becoming fat? He didn’t know the truth back then, for one. And there was the nagging worry that he had helped pressure Austin into doing this. But that was hypocritical: Austin was an adult who could make his own decisions—the same kind of argument Eric had levied during Austin’s initial outburst concerning Brody’s weight. If Austin wanted to, he could just stop eating chocolate whenever he wanted to. Well, as much as any of them could.
The next time Austin and Eric hung out was at Eric’s place. Austin was wearing a long sleeve baseball t-shirt whose white fabric only emphasized the softness of Austin’s belly, which was by now unmistakable. The fabric was bunched up around his gently rounded pecs, and the sleeves fell four inches short of his wrists.
“I like that shirt on you.” Eric said.
“I used to like it too, but it’s probably time to retire it now that you can see my belly button through it.”
Eric looked again. “Yeah, maybe so.”
“Everything’s too small.” Austin complained. “I’m blowing up like a balloon.”
“You could stop eating chocolate.” Eric said.
“The hell are you talking about? Absolutely not.” Austin tugged at his sleeves.
Eric grinned. “That’s the spirit. Hey, I’ve got some old clothes that might fit you. They may not be your style, but…”
“No, that would be great.”
Eric led Austin to his room, entered the closet, and began pushing out bags of clothes he had outgrown.
“Glad I can pass these on. Only got a few months out of some of these.”
“Who can say no to free clothes?” Austin peeled off his baseball shirt, his belly popping into place with a silky jiggle. Eric marveled at how completely his brother’s fit physique had been consumed by the effects of his new diet. His chest was soft, he had well-rounded love handles, and his arms had lost their muscular definition.
“Looking good.” Eric said nonchalantly.
“I don’t know what the fuck I look like these days, other than fat.”
“You can look good and be fat.”
“Hopefully that’s true, because I’m not getting any thinner any time soon.”
Austin grabbed a t-shirt that Eric knew was already too small for Austin. As the struggle commenced, Eric thought back to the smallness he experienced during his time with Krista, and how wrong it had felt to him to even long for the immensity of self that had characterized a lurking aspect of his identity prior to those strange days. Perhaps it was that lurking aspect that was now on full display in both his attitude and in the way his gut spilled over his pants into a floral button-down.
“Honestly, I like my body better now.”
“Wait, really?” Austin finally extricated himself from the size large t-shirt.
“I like feeling like I occupy space. It’s nice.”
Austin opened his mouth to say something, but instead fell silent. Eric heard his breath in the brief silence.
“I think you make it work for you.” Austin said. “I could probably learn a thing or two from you.”
Eric flopped onto the bed and they talked about books they had been reading while Austin continued to sift through Eric’s old clothes. When all was over, Austin had created a pile of seven shirts, three pairs of pants, and a belt.
“I owe you coffee.” Austin said. “This saves me like two hundred dollars.”
“Happy to help.” Eric said. “We’ll do it again some time.”
Austin laughed nervously. “Oh god. We’ll see.”
~
Brody rose already refreshed by the prospect of a beach day with his brothers and Dan. Eric insisted they go to a lake perhaps a bit busier than he would have preferred, but Brody was happy to assent if it meant relaxing in the sun. He picked up a beaten ex-library novel he’d been reading. Before he could reach the kitchen, he was met with the frenzied pattering of his new dog, Jenny. He scratched her behind the ear and muttered a few pet names, all of which she received with a glowing roundness in her dark eyes.
He spent a few hours puttering around the house before leaving to pick up Eric. He only had to wait a couple minutes before Eric emerged from his apartment building.
The car dipped as Eric got in. Brody glanced at his brother. Eric was probably fatter than he was by now. Regardless, his bright blue t-shirt left little to the imagination. As long as he was happy, eh? And he certainly seemed to be. Their conversation, animated and varied, carried them to their destination without more than a minute of silence. They hauled the umbrella and towels to the beach.
“Why didn’t we bring the drinks?” Eric asked. “It’s already hot as balls.”
Brody, knowing Austin and Dan were prone to arrive when they intended, reminded Eric that thirty minutes wasn’t long to wait. But it was no more than five minutes before Eric excused himself, leaving Brody to get down to business: sunbathing and reading.
Eric didn’t leave because he wanted to get a drink, however. It was because he had already spied the target of his ulterior motive: his ex-girlfriend, Krista.
He got within ten feet before calling out, “Hey, Krista, how are you?”
She looked at him with neutral confusion, then with shock.
“I’m fine, but—oh my god, Eric, is that you?”
“Sure is.”
“What happened?”
“I’m doing fine, thanks for asking.”
“How can you say you’re fine?” She sounded more offended than worried.
“I’m happier now than I’ve ever been. Ever.”
“Just because it didn’t work out between us doesn’t mean there weren’t good times.” She furrowed her brow. “But if this is how to take care of yourself, I guess I dodged a bullet.”
“Maybe you did dodge a bullet: if I was who I am now, we never would have gotten together.”
“You’ve got that right.”
“Goodbye, Krista.”
She let out a sound of disgust and walked away. God, he was finally free. He would find a woman who loved him for who he was, and he would love her for who she was, and it would be beautiful.
Eric sat returned to Brody and sat down. He closed his eyes and let the warm summer breeze gently wash over him. The scent of lake water mingled with the trees, pavement, and sunscreen in the archetypal blend of the summer escape of the working man. He opened his eyes and looked across the lake, where the docks of richer folk dotted the forested edge of the placid waters. Eric’s body shifted and jiggled as he turned to his brother.
“Watcha reading?”
Brody described the science fiction novel, but Eric’s mind tried to pull him back to his conversation with Krista. Time would mend him or break him, or create a new him. He was, after all, a different and bigger man than he once had been.
Austin and Dan arrived exactly on the half hour mark. Despite their similar height, they had become an unconventional-looking couple. Dan was trim and clean-shaven with a swoop haircut. Austin, however, had short hair and had grown his beard to mute the effect of his bourgeoning double chin. He was as round and curvy as Dan was slim and angled.
Indeed, no one would guess Austin had been fit relatively recently unless a particularly astute person observed the sculpted roundness of his otherwise chubby chest that suggested the gym was not entirely foreign to him. His lean and judgmental expression had by default become full and inviting. He was still a bit awkward in how he walked, occasionally bumping into things with his sculpted posterior or protruding fore.
Dan pulled Austin’s tank top off and began rubbing sunscreen into his husband’s skin with rapt enthusiasm.
“That’s probably good enough,” Austin said.
“Patience, I have more mileage to cover now.” Dan leaned in and briefly kissed Austin’s cheek.
Austin laughed sheepishly and waited. Dan’s acceptance had gone so much further than Austin could have predicted. The new dynamic was still awkward at times, but overall Dan’s focus on the positives of Austin’s almost one hundred pound weight gain was unflagging. Austin still felt a bit guilty, as if he was making Dan reconsider society beauty standards while Austin still got to enjoy his fit husband without thinking twice—but wasn’t that very guilt part of the problem? He had decided it was, and he went back to chatting with his brothers about a film they had watched recently.
A few hours into the afternoon, however, Austin looked at his brothers and felt his heart rush. This was the moment: he was going to let go of all of it. The worry he had for Brody, for his relationship with Dan, for the stolen glances of coworkers and friends—for all of it. For in this moment, he only saw their humanity. Well, and their enormous guts, but the two weren’t incongruous. It was just who they were. And what could be wrong about that?
He assumed a week of suffering would placate his anxiety, but instead he only felt guiltier for the tragedy that befell his beloved pet. Edgar trusted Brody entirely, and look where that landed him. He was suffering now, but not as much as he, in his self-deceit, told himself. And suffering was even more easily accessible than it was for most. Ever since he was a child, he and his two younger brothers had been warned of their mutual allergy to chocolate—a terrible allergy that would land them in the hospital or worse. Consequently, the dark candy had never crossed his lips.
Brody defiantly slammed down a bar of the cheapest chocolate he could find onto the convenience store counter. The anemic attendant quite understandably paid no heed to the weird man giving her bad vibes on a Friday. Instead, she counted out the appropriate coins and turned back to clearing old text messages from people she hadn’t bothered to put in her address book.
The garage door sounded like thunder as Brody pulled in and emerged from his car with his prize. He was going to do it, but... He set the bag of chocolate on the counter and stared at it. Could he really just…do it?
His breathing grew more intense. He shoved the bag behind a few soup cans before trotting into his bedroom to brood. If not with his grief, then with his brooding and waiting he had earned the indulgence of self-immolation. Brody did not realize that he had lied to himself so thoroughly about his state of mind that nothing but the image of himself consuming the poisonous treat filled his head. It was less than an hour before he was in the kitchen, throwing aside the cans to extract the chocolate bar from the crumpled bag.
His fingers looked skeletal as he watched them tear away the wrapper. The horrible, delightful smell met his nostrils as he snapped off a block and suspended it in front of his mouth. Less than that quiet snapping held back greater disasters.
But Brody told himself he was weak.
He threw the block in his mouth and bit down. The taste was not one of poison or of pleasure, but of ecstasy. Though he rarely indulged in drugs now that he had transgressed the threshold of his fourth decade, his teenage years had been punctuated with experiences with the usual variety of recreational substances. And he knew what was happening now. He was experiencing a high. But Brody knew that third-rate convenience store chocolate wasn’t supposed to provide any more of a high than a honeyed cup of tea. Yet here he was.
It took him an hour of wonder before he correctly guessed it was his supposed allergy that transformed the experience of eating chocolate into one of indescribable sensuous delight and emotional high. But he incorrectly assumed that pain of corresponding intensity was just around the corner. Indeed, the rest of the evening (and the rest of the chocolate) vanished without Brody’s mood or body showing a hint of unease. Instead, he felt better than he had since before he lost his beloved Edgar, as blasphemous as that sentiment would have been if he allowed himself to consider it.
He contemplated telling his brothers, but nobly elected to continue his experimentation with chocolate to ensure there were no side effects. To avert the suffering of Austin and Eric was a noble, nay, a saintly goal. And who other than he would succeed in that saintly goal? No one, he told himself, as he returned to the store to continue an experiment that would have made St. Peter himself say, “Damn, bro, that’s some good shit, bro.”
~
Brody spent sixty dollars in chocolate on that trip to the store. He piled the forbidden treat in his filing cabinet behind his tax filings, where no one but an accountant would dare venture. He felt like a teenager again, hoarding drugs in odd holes in his home. Ah, youth.
And though no side effect seemed to come, he derived a giddy pleasure from the secrecy of his new habit. He felt the high of a forbidden sexual encounter when he was buying chocolate. He knew it was silly, but he didn’t care. He might have wondered if this feeling matched the experience of his brother Austin prior to coming out of the closet, but Brody’s sweet captivation precluded any empathetic breakthroughs that were not pushed upon him.
Indeed, as Brody honed his new pastime of gorging on diverse chocolates, Brody didn’t notice that he was changing. Not his mood, of course—he was well aware that was improved—no, no, it was his body that was subject to a decreasingly subtle alteration.
Brody was the wiry kind of guy who rarely ate just as he rarely engaged in the exercise that was preached so loudly to him by voices which seemed so at odds with his laissez faire dietary habits. The addition of chocolate to those habits, however, marked the fleshing out of his formerly gangly arms to limbs for once entirely proportional to his torso. As for said torso, its elusive shadows began to his simplistic wardrobe to its increasingly rounded will. Many would find the tightening of the waistband sufficient declaration of the nature of the changes that were manifest in Brody’s body, but every hint his brain gave him that something was wrong was ignored in favor of a delicately unfolding scroll of white lies. It was an old pair of pants. It was a bloat. It’s natural to gain a bit of weight when you’re thin. It’s merely a natural part of aging that will taper off with adjusted portions. These white lies, much like his new clothes, ultimately failed to disguise what was happening to him.
He was descending the stairs into the basement when the reality of his situation came crashing through to him with an operatic pomp that made his flesh crawl with a confused, horrible delight. Was he...jiggling?
Brody looked down at his belly. He was almost surprised to see how far forward it had advanced, now hanging over his pants with the lazy confidence with which its owner usually tackled life. He pulled his shirt up and grabbed the offending portion of his body with a needlessly violent shake. Yes, it would be madness to declare the wobbling sensation he felt as anything but jiggling.
After retrieving the bottle of wine that had inspired his trip to the basement, Brody retreated to the bathroom to survey with greater accuracy the validity of his terrifying moment of self-awareness. Now primed to discern his transformation, it was with a gasp that he looked at his reflection in the mirror.
His middle wasn’t the only victim of this mysterious change. His face has become round and hale, with his chin a hearty dessert away from becoming unmistakably double. But how could this be so?
To give up his most accessible form of pleasure was a last resort so remote he hadn’t even articulated to himself that it was possible. But days of unsuccessfully repelled self-reflection did little to delay the recognition of the horrible truth: his chocolate allergy hadn’t been a lie at all. But the side effect wasn’t rashes and a swollen throat, it was weight gain.
Defeated, he stopped eating the forbidden candy and the weight began to slide off. But the grueling self-denial didn’t last and as regular as the sun, pints of chocolate cherry ice cream, dark chocolate bars, and cartons of chocolate milk found their wily way into his shopping cart. He always deserved a last hurrah before he got back on track tomorrow, always tomorrow.
And as these happy hurrahs multiplied, his doughy middle continued to balloon, he developed love handles, his skinny legs became thick and tightly packed into his pants, and his ass rounded out like twin loaves of bread. The double chin which had once been a casual suggestion was now plainly stated on his round, scruffy face.
No one said a word to him. Well, no word that Brody identified as such, but he assumed they simply forgot how he had once looked, even though he himself had not. Perhaps that would have been the end of it but for Brody’s brother Austin.
~
Austin was a belligerently dependable man two years Brody’s junior. As Brody was outdoorsy and easy-going, Austin was pale and dedicated to his latest hobby, whether it be collecting obscure memorabilia or in competing in games with his husband who, like him, found transcendental satisfaction in the ecstasy of victory, no matter how trivial, provided the rules were clearly established and the intent of all participants was honorable. That Austin would be the first person to make an issue of Brody’s increasing girth would be a surprise only to people who hadn’t set eyes on him. Austin was the tallest of the three brothers, and the only to maintain a clean-shaven face and a strictly tailored wardrobe. He wasn’t much broader than Brody had once been, but his professional demeanor and sharp haircut made him more imposing than his long-haired brother.
Austin’s manic obsession (or as he called it, “concern”) cemented in his mind the day Brody’s chin first doubled. Before that, Austin was providing common courtesy (anything less was rude), but there were lines that could not be crossed. Austin resolved to find a way to approach his brother about this troubling trend. Austin was perhaps too clever to believe himself, but if one couldn’t believe oneself, who else was trustworthy?
Austin kept the inaugural text casual—he knew as well as anyone the dread of “We need to talk”—so he merely suggested they get takeout and watch some science fiction of the exact grade in which talking over it would anger no one. Brody didn’t work on weekends, and it wasn’t pleasant to have the already unpleasantness of Sunday evenings ruined by a concerned relative, so its corollary, Friday night, was of course the correct time to broach the subject.
Acceptance of the date and time received, Austin mentally revised his approach until he had crafted three salient points. If he was more aware of his own intelligence, perhaps he would have avoided the laundry list of concerns for a unified message of brotherly support, but Austin didn’t quite grasp his lack of limitations and how obnoxious that could be.
He wore a tank top without a logo to project approachability. His shorts were snug and white, just like he was himself. He arrived with takeout five minutes early, the proper time to show respect without implying an entitlement to time not committed to by the host. Everything was perfectly in place, which made Austin perfectly happy. He smiled confidently as Brody opened the door.
Brody looked even bigger than Austin remembered from a month prior—surely, it was just the shirt he was wearing, a bright red t-shirt that left little to the imagination. Austin focused on Brody’s face to avoid staring, but his failure was inevitable: he glanced at Brody’s gut, which was round and protruding even more than he remembered. He threw his gaze back to his brother’s face, which had filled out so much, he looked like a different person. So it was that he still felt like he was staring, but Austin valiantly maintained eye contact with his brother, lest he suffer defeat at the hands of the social impropriety of body shaming. Brody’s life was on the line.
It was insensitive to broach the subject of Brody’s weight while they were eating, of course. Austin waited for them to finish an episode (he would never let it be said he didn’t know how to have a good time), and he poised himself on the emotional cliff. There was a thrill to being so close to both disaster and success. Though Brody had no idea of Austin’s poise, the latter felt compelled to speak now or give up for the evening.
“So…can we like, talk for a minute?” Austin asked.
“About what?”
“I just want to make sure you’re doing okay. Like…your weight has changed a lot lately. If you’re feeling depressed, or if there’s anything I can do…”
Brody, trapped by his own existence, had nowhere to flee and nowhere to look other than directly at his brother.
“You don’t need to worry about me.” He said quietly.
“Right, but I am. And I don’t know how not to. Especially since, like—you’ve gained a lot of weight, and I’m worried about whether you’re doing okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“If you’re lonely—I mean, without Dan, I don’t know what I’d do on bad days.” Austin clasped his hands. “I know it’s hard, after losing Edgar.”
“For fuck’s sake, Austin, how many times do I have to say that I’m okay?”
“Then you’re working on your weight?”
“Dude, it’s not your goddamn business.” Brody, his face red, stood up abruptly. “Look, I’m fine. My health is fine. I just put on some weight. It happens. Is that so hard for you to accept?”
Austin, only now realizing how badly he had performed, lowered his voice. “I just want what’s best for you.”
“Can we just move on?” Brody sat down. “I don’t want to let this ruin the evening—any more than it has to.” He put on another episode, and the rest of their time together passed with but a vague patina of mutual loathing.
~
Brody was still spending significant emotional energy each day ignoring his confrontation with Austin when he had lunch with his youngest brother Eric, the most outspoken of them about everything from iambic pentameter to video game microtransactions. He was shorter than his brothers by a good four inches, and had the lightest hair, almost blond, which he cycled between short and classically unkempt. Unlike Brody, who always wore a beard, and Austin, who never wore one, Eric was always experimenting with and regrowing his facial hair. At the present, he wore a thick mustache and sideburns that contrasted with his no-nonsense style of jeans and a t-shirt (never with logos, and never in black). Eric had little filter, something he wore as a badge of honor, as many cursed with such a disposition are eventually forced to do.
Like Austin, Eric was surprised to watch Brody’s transformation from having his shirts hang off him to his shirts seams ready to burst. But it wasn’t the fact of this transformation that drew his attention most, but its suddenness and intensity. The latter qualities threw into stark relief the changes that Brody exhibited, such as the curious gait that accommodate his belly, and the way his face turned into a surprisingly different one. And though Eric observed these changes with a morbid fascination, he rehearsed his acceptance until his darker impulses were frustrated. It would be a betrayal of their relationship for him to treat Brody any differently than last year when Brody was the slimmest of the three of them. Eric had long held his eldest brother in a particular regard. Brody was the forerunner, the peacemaker, the one who’s inner goodness surpassed anything his mischievous successors could ever hope to muster.
They chatted amiably over their meal, speaking of politics, technology, and the goddamn road construction. Eric congratulated himself for not launching into a discursive analysis of the nation’s transportation systems, instead allowing his brother to lead back to something less tied to Eric’s particular emotional soft spots.
At last, Brody said, “Austin talked to me last week.”
Eric knew exactly what those words meant, but it was his habit to feign a degree of innocence that might deceive others into thinking he was normal.
“About what?” Eric asked.
“About my weight.”
Eric didn’t trust himself to talk about this. What if he cracked a joke? What if he was too harsh—or not harsh enough? His mind spun as he considered the depths of his own inadequacy refracting against the enormity of existence. (Or perhaps it was how the cheeseburger sat in his stomach.)
“Oh? Was he very—you know—Austin about it?”
Brody let out a nervous chuckle. “Yeah. I know he can’t help himself, but it was shitty.”
“I don’t know what’s going on in his head—which is for the best.” Eric said. “But I’m sure on some level he knows that it’s none of his business.”
Brody stared at his tray. “I know, but makes me wonder: am I wrong?”
“Wrong for what? Existing?”
“No, like…wrong for making him feel bad. He’s just worried about me, which isn’t a crime.”
Eric noted smugly to himself the accuracy of his preconceptions about his brother. This pathological goodness would be his undoing yet.
“Brody. Look at me.” (His brother obeyed.) “You are not responsible for how Austin feels about your body. You are responsible for you. And you’re an adult, and you get to do what you want.”
Brody’s mood remained unchanged. “What do you think?”
“I just said what I think.”
“No, I mean about my weight.”
There it was, direct as ever. Eric was not prepared to think about this, not because he was frightened of Brody, but because he was frightened of himself.
“It’s not my business.” He said haltingly.
“But I want to know what you think.”
“It doesn’t change anything.” He grasped for the right rhetorical structures. “You’re my brother. That’s all that matters.”
“Thanks, Eric. That means a lot.”
Eric smiled. “Sure thing, bro.”
~
Eric’s internal debate over whether to talk to Austin was a welcome distraction killed all too soon by Austin himself requesting a coffee date. Austin had reasoned they were due for time together regardless of his more specific motivation. Really, it was just more efficient this way. After some small talk, Austin shifted the tenor of the conversation to the personal.
“How’s Krista?” Austin asked.
“We broke up last month.”
“What—last month? You didn’t tell me?”
“What’s to tell?”
“I mean, what happened? Are you okay?”
Eric shrugged. “Shit happens, and probably.”
“Sorry, Eric. I really am. That sucks.”
Eric could have told Austin the full story. Of Krista’s assaults on his personal style and belittlement of his height. Of the cycle of insults and requests for forgiveness. Of the disappearance of books and knickknacks she found distasteful. Eric feared Austin would psychoanalyze him as much as listen to him. The price of entry to the satisfaction of human empathy was in this case too high to conscience.
“I’ll be fine. But you didn’t ask me to come to a coffee shop to talk about my love life.”
Austin blushed. “I’m just worried about Brody.”
Eric crossed his arms. “Why, what happened?”
“His weight,” Austin almost whispered. “It’s getting out of control, and he’s not doing anything about it.”
“I’m not a diet cop, Austin.” Eric was nonplussed.
“No, it’s not like that.” Austin gazed with annoyance at the smug curve of that ridiculous mustache. “If both of us go to him, saying that we’re here to support him and help him however we can, maybe he won’t feel so helpless.”
“What exactly did he tell you?” Eric asked.
“He acted like it wasn’t a big deal—which I do not understand.”
“Is that so?” Eric uncrossed his arms. “Look, Austin, it’s his deal, big or not. He has to figure out this shit for himself. Having Little Brother One and Little Brother Two harassing him is just another problem for him to deal with.”
“But he seemed so complacent.”
“Fucking hell.” Eric said. “Just tell me exactly what he said.”
Austin was backed into a corner, and Eric knew it. And when push came to shove, Austin wouldn’t bitch out on him. He never did.
“He said he was fine, his health was fine, and it was just a matter of him having put on weight.”
Eric gestured emphatically. “See, you need to stop. He can take care of himself.”
“He obviously can’t.” Austin leaned closer. “He was skinny less than a year ago. No one gains weight that quickly unless they have a problem.”
Eric pressed his index and middle fingers against his eyebrows. “God…” He whispered.
“What? How am I the bad guy here?”
“You need to give him space. Even if something is wrong, you can’t force him to see that. All you’re going to do is make him mad. It’s his body, and it’s his choice what he does with it.”
“Come on, don’t bullshit me.”
“I’m serious.” Eric said. “Didn’t you want us to respect your choice in a romantic partner?”
“Oh my god.” Austin’s brow furrowed. “That is not even remotely the same. That you’d even imply those are the same—”
“Woah, woah, hear me out.” Eric evened the tone of his voice. “Look, you were right to want us to accept you. You have the right to self-determine. So does Brody.”
“Being gay isn’t a choice.”
“I know, but choosing to accept yourself is a choice. The right choice.”
Austin sipped his iced tea, but said nothing. They stared at their beverages for a minute with occasional begrudging glances at each other.
“So you think I should just drop it?” Austin finally said.
Eric nodded.
“But this is about Brody’s health.”
“Is it, Austin? Is it?” Eric ran a finger along his condensation-laced plastic cup. “Because to me it just seems like you have a problem with fat people existing.”
“That’s not fair.”
Eric shrugged. “I don’t know what else to say. Except that if you’re going to keep harassing Brody, that’s on you.”
“It’s for his own good.”
“Listen to yourself. This is moral panic.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I think I’m being more than fair.” Eric said.
Austin tried to lighten his tone as they wrapped up their meeting, but neither of them were under the disillusion that anything but a few days of absence could restore them to their usual tempers.
Eric, however, was merely glad he hadn’t spoiled the extent of his fascination with Brody’s unusual circumstance. Not yet, at least.
~
Austin found no solace in the inaction counseled by his younger brother. If there might be a problem, it needed to be identified, and if a problem was identified, it needed to be fixed. That was how you did things as an adult, and the three of them were most certainly adults.
As he drove home, it was Eric’s final accusation, however, that haunted him. Was Austin merely projecting a his personal antipathies onto Brody? Would a more level-headed person embody Eric’s unambiguous quiescence?
Once dinner was out of the way, and Austin was loading the dish-washing machine, he queried his husband: “So, weird hypothetical question…”
Dan perked up the prospect of a game. “Yeah?”
“How would you feel if I…if I gained weight. Like if I gained a lot of weight?”
“Am I supposed to answer that directly?” Dan asked flatly.
“I’m just asking a question about our relationship. You know, like we’re supposed to do.”
“That question is about our relationship like the Civil War was about states’ rights.” Dan stopped cleaning the kitchen. “You can’t just ask me, can you? Just something so simple as, ‘Hey Dan, I’m feeling like a bit of an asshole for how I think about my brother now that he’s put on weight. Would you like to comment on this, dearest husband?’ But you have to use it as a tactic to pretend like you’re investing in our relationship when, as always, it just comes back to how you feel.”
They both knew the game was up, and that Dan had won.
“A lot of assumptions there,” Austin finally ventured.
Dan’s tone softened somewhat. “Yeah, but I know you.”
Austin returned his attention to the dishes in a vain attempt to save face.
Dan, however, was accustomed to dealing with his husband’s well-meaning and twisted internal plots and knew well that the sooner it was tackled, the better it would turn out for everyone, himself included.
“Well, are you going to tell me how you feel about Brody?”
“Eric thinks I should do nothing. Said Brody has the right to self-determination.”
“That sounds like Eric.” Dan said.
Austin waited for more, but receiving no affirmation, he sought it: “Am I crazy? Brody’s bigger every time I see him. That does not just happen.”
“Look, hon, he’s not you. He has his own life, his own habits, and his own values. Doesn’t change that he’s your brother or that you love him, does it?”
“No, of course not.”
“Right. So, you just need to be his brother. And you’ll be there for him when he needs you.”
“Okay.” Austin didn’t feel okay.
While he was trying to sleep, Austin’s mind kicked into gear once again. Did Eric and Dan have access to an essential goodness of human nature that he, through some accident of birth, had been bereft? He was no sociopath, surely, but the doubt lingered that everyone was good but him.
He opened a blank note on his phone. He typed, highlighted, deleted, mumbled. Sorry I offended you. Sorry I assumed. Sorry I don’t understand. It all rang so hollow, so utilitarian. He was unwilling to admit it, but this half-hearted apology did not find root in fraternal affection, but in personal embarrassment.
Austin was trying to ignore something that was deeper than his concern for his brother—something that was less pleasant than the medical uncertainty that had taken the ungainly form that had angered his brothers in the first place.
“I thought you said no Twitter after ten.” Dan said quietly.
“I’m not on Twitter.”
Austin felt Dan’s cool hands slide around his torso. “I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”
“I’m just checking something.”
“The first step is admitting you have a problem.”
“Jesus, it’s not Twitter.”
Dan withdrew his hands.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to snap.” The darkness swirled around for a moment before Austin continued. “I just need to get some sleep.”
Dan grunted in affirmation and they returned to their preferred positions of slumber.
Left thus with the option of confronting his own darkness and deferring his botched apology for a live performance, the latter finally asserted itself as the clear choice, allowing Austin to drift off to sleep with less than an hour of unpleasant contemplation.
~
And so Austin set up a meeting with Brody the next evening.
Even Brody could identify that something was wrong. “Hey, what’s up?’
“Hey.”
Brody placed his elbows on his small dining table and waited with dread.
“I’m… Look, I’ve been trying to think of what to say, but I can’t figure it out. I was wrong to be so aggressive about your weight. I was…not minding my business. I don’t understand why I was so shitty about it.”
“I know you were just concerned.” Brody said with unsurprising sincerity.
Austin made a peak with his fingers. “I keep telling myself that, but I don’t know if that’s true.”
“What do you mean?”
Austin began to feel the depths he had ignored. An unpleasant, turgid rush of understanding pressed against the sluice gate. It would be damning, horrible to see the truth—but his brother was worth it.
“I think I was upset by losing some…idea of you. As if seeing you change was losing part of you, and the fear…that other people would see it like that—you being less you.”
Brody’s face was red with the shock of such honesty. He wasn’t sure he understood, but he wasn’t going to ask for details lest he break the terrible spell that hung over this conversation.
“I wish I was as empathetic as Eric.” Austin said. “He knows just what to say without even trying. So let me try to know what to say. I accept you completely—or I want to. And I don’t have to ‘get it’ to recognize you have agency.”
A wave of frisson enveloping Brody’s skin. The ecstasy of indulgence was locked behind a few simple words, and only an intense discipline had kept them safe from the unwitting ears of his brothers. With horror at his own indiscretion, he said: “You could understand.”
“I’m glad you believe in me. I’m trying not to be a dick. Seems like I’m always trying.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” Brody looked away. His hand were trembling.
“Then what do you mean?”
The nervous energy many hours Brody spent pondering whether to create this moment of revelation burst forth in his mind as he realized the time had come.
“You know our chocolate allergy?”
“Uh, yeah, I do.” Austin said. “And everyone we know knows so that we aren’t poisoned.”
“That’s the thing: it isn’t poison.”
Austin looked confused. To him, this was nonsense. Chocolate was poison. Those were the rules.
“Uh, Mom and Dad were pretty clear—”
“I don’t know if they knew or not, but eating chocolate doesn’t kill us. It changes our bodies, makes us bigger.”
Brody felt a weight on top of his already considerable weight lift from him. He studied Austin’s shocked visage for a good ten seconds before Austin spoke again.
“You’re serious?”
“Yes. My diet isn’t much different from when I was skinny. The only difference I can identify is chocolate.”
“Then stop eating chocolate, for god’s sake.”
Brody shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. Chocolate is the best thing ever. It’s like a drug in a way I don’t think it is for other people. I don’t know if I could stop if I wanted to.”
“You don’t want to?”
“Bro, it’s that good. I am in a good mood all the time now. It’s incredible.”
“So you’re addicted.”
“Maybe. Though I did stop for a while to prove I would lose weight if I did. Which I did.”
“And then you went back?” Austin was scandalized.
Brody’s face reddened again. “Yes.”
“For the high?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“I don’t know how to process this.” Austin said. “Have you told Eric?”
“No, but will now that I’ve told you.”
Austin stood up. “Then we can have dinner together or something and talk about this, but right now, I just need to think.”
“I understand.”
Brody did not understand. He told himself he did, but in truth, he had believed in his heart that the truth would wash over his brothers, leaving in its wake nothing but compassion for their eldest brother’s strange tribulations.
~
After Austin left, Brody immediately called Eric.
“Hey, do you have a minute?”
Eric confessed he did have a minute.
“Look, I just told Austin something that you also deserve to know.” He explained the true nature of their chocolate allergy through Eric’s barrage of hushed expletives.
“This is so fucking weird, but I get the lie part.” Eric said. “It’s a bit harder to stay away from something delicious when it’s not going to kill you.”
“I’ve been wanting to tell you for so long, you have no idea.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“It seemed like…an unnecessary temptation. I mean, look what happened to me. I just like chocolate too much.”
“Bro…” Eric paused. “That’s fine.”
“Yeah, tell Austin that.”
“Don’t worry about Austin.” Eric said. “I trusted you to do what you needed to do, you know? But now that it’s out: you are totally fine. You’re the exact same Brody, just…more so, as it were.”
Brody’s voice was choked with emotion. “Thank you, Eric.”
Eric quickly swooped in with a less sincere line of conversation lest they feel the burden of emotion too severely. “But I’ve been curious about something—and you’re the first person I feel like I can ask—do you feel different from when you were thin?”
“I don’t feel bad, if that’s what you mean.” Brody said with a hint of caution in his voice.
“You seem like you feel good, just maybe different—you sure look different.”
“I barely recognize myself sometimes.” Brody said with a nervous laugh.
“I recognize you.” Eric said. “I think it works for you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, some plus size model vibes.”
“Wow. That’s really nice of you to say. Thank you.”
“And thank you for telling me about all this.”
“Sure thing.”
The call ended. Eric threw on a sweatshirt and stepped out of his apartment complex into the cool summer evening.
He crossed the street. The gas station was only blocks away, scarcely sufficient space to reconsider his actions—but Eric already knew the debate he held in his mind was a farce. He was going to buy a bar of chocolate, that forbidden pleasure, and eat the entire thing in one sitting. The defiance! And if what Brody said was true…
A smooth electronic beep heralded his entry to the store. He glanced at the candy near the register—far too commonplace. His first time should be a bit more special than that. He browsed the candy aisle: milk, dark, white, sea salt, caramel and more. He had wistfully gazed at these hands of Midas gloves stacked neatly in their boxes ever since he was a child. Today the curse would be either be broken or realized. And though his adrenaline-soaked consciousness had difficulty identifying which, he knew in his heart there was no alternative to this banal awakening.
He selected an organic milk chocolate bar. Pure, classic, sufficiently priced beyond other options to inspire a feeling of superiority. He approached the register.
“Find everything okay?” The young registrar said with a half-yawn in her voice.
“I found exactly what I need.”
She grunted and announced the total. Eric relinquished his credit card. She handed him the card, the receipt, and the bar. He thanked her with perhaps too much enthusiasm for such a transaction and trotted into the parking lot.
He looked from side to side. There were benches, but they didn’t seem terribly clean or romantic. The side of the building was for cigarettes, not this stranger drug. He settled on a curbside overlooking the edge of a wooded area. His hands trembled as he turned over the candy bar and scanned the nutrition facts. The tearing of the seal was like sacred music, the foil wrapper brightly chiming as he revealed his dark prize. He didn’t even bother breaking off a block, instead placing the bar in his mouth and taking a bite.
Brody’s cheery endorsement of chocolate did nothing to prepare him for the shot of ecstatic pleasure he experienced at that first taste. Whatever was wrong with him and his brothers was not “wrong” at all. He refused to believe it! Anyone being able to derive half this much ecstatic pleasure from a convenience store product was not cursed but blessed in the highest, surely.
Within minutes, the entire bar, which Eric had told himself he was to savor, had vanished. He pulled out his phone and called Brody.
“It’s amazing.” Eric said.
“You mean—”
“You were right. Chocolate is incredible. Beyond words.”
Brody exhaled loudly. “Oh, thank god it’s not just me.”
They chattered about the candy for a few minutes. Brody recommended brands and flavors, which Eric insisted he compile in a list and send to him.
“I gotta go. I need to get more.”
“Pace yourself.” Brody said. “That stuff hits hard.”
“I can pace myself later.”
Eric returned to the store and slapped ten more bars onto the counter in front of the now more awake registrar, who gave him not a small amount of side eye.
Eric whistled merrily as he returned to his apartment. The future looked clear, bright, and 45 percent cocoa.
~
As the months dragged on, Austin reached a measure of obsession with his curious situation that he hadn’t experienced since he was a manic 17-year-old. Was he too a candy splurge away from losing his abs? Would he find the temptation too great to resist? Already, it seemed like this lurking intoxication would forever hang over his head. Was his plan to live the rest of his life in fear of enjoying something as banal as chocolate?
He watched with quiet desperation as Eric too began to change, his flat stomach slowly expanding like a water balloon, his face’s edges vanishing, and his pecs become soft and round. He dare not say a word about this inevitable transformation lest they ask him what his own decision had been. What should he tell them? He’d just give in? Or languish in anxiety forever? Become an ascetic monk and move to Eastern Europe?
Austin continued to stare at his phone as Dan asked him what was going on. And then what was up. And then what was wrong. A skilled man at detecting the truth, Dan was. Austin feigned ignorance, knowing perfectly well that once again the game was up.
“As you know,” Dan said. “I’m here when you’re ready to share.”
Austin exhaled dramatically. “Yeah, I’m ready.” He told Dan of the curious medical condition he and his brothers shared. “And they just decided to roll with it. They know perfectly well why they’re getting so big, but they just keep eating it.”
Dan knew his partner well enough to let the narration unfurl.
“I don’t know how to handle it. I can’t go back to not knowing the true nature of my allergy. Do I owe it to them to share their experience? I shouldn’t, but I feel like there’s a barrier between us every time we hang out, and blows dick. Like…it’s never really been like this before. They’ve always been there for me.”
“They’re important to you. Not everybody can boast a functional relationships with one sibling, let alone two.”
“Good point.” Austin paused and placed his clenched fists over his mouth. “And they say it’s better than drugs.”
Dan raised his eyebrows.
“I’d just try it, but I know I’ll just get hooked. And me getting bigger—I mean, it wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“Fair to me? How do you figure?”
“You know... You deserve to feel attracted to your husband.”
Dan leaned closer. “Do you honestly think I wouldn’t be attracted to you anymore if you were fat? You should know me better than that.”
“Should I? Would you?” Austin let out an exasperated gasp. “This is all very stressful. I’d be happy if you just told me what to do at this point.”
Dan ran his hand along his husband’s face before giving him a kiss. “Look, dumbass, I married you because I love you, not because I needed a fuckable body to keep in stasis forever. The plan is to love you when you’re old too, you know—provided neither of us dies or finds our long latent heterosexuality.”
Austin nodded.
“Besides, I’ve dated bigger guys before. There’s nothing wrong with being big.”
Austin nodded again.
“But this isn’t about me, is it? You’re worried you won’t like it.”
Austin nodded again.
“It’s not worse than you moping forever. I certainly don’t deserve that.”
“Fair point,” Austin kissed his husband. “You deserve all the good things.”
“I know I do.” Dan smiled.
“I’ll figure it out.” Austin said.
“I know you will.”
~
Eric’s life was now characterized by a constant glut of endorphins in which the lingering anxiety of his last relationship vanished. Hobbies that languished for months returned to his routine, if interspersed with ample helpings of chocolate. That this emotional stability was accompanied by the instability of his body was less a source of consternation than of fascination. First his abs vanished, then his clothes grew tight—and before he knew it, he began to feel his belly jiggle when he went down the stairs. The cascade of subtle changes in his body brought him a delirious excitement that propelled him on to the next discovery. But rather than unease or disgust, he felt curiosity and satisfaction. Was there a point where he would become upset by all of this?
One day while spending time with Brody, Eric brought up the issues as directly as he dared: “Do you have any tips for managing the weight gain?”
“Besides not eating chocolate?”
“No, I mean for making the process easier on me. I don’t want this to be more stressful than it has to be.”
“Oh.” Brody, clearly surprised, paused for a moment to think this over. “Moisturize your skin like crazy. And set aside extra money for clothing, obviously. And go on walks or whatever.”
Though the stated purpose of Eric’s inquiry was clear, the subtext was, to Eric at least, equally clear: he was signaling to Brody that he was happy with his new lot. And Brody’s lack of pushback either indicated he understood or that the idea was seeping into his brain regardless. Either way it was a win for both of them, Eric reasoned. Too bad he couldn’t talk to Austin like this, but there were limits.
“Thank you. It’s a pain looking up anything online since most everything is about losing weight.” As Eric crossed his arms, he felt his belt press into his belly’s overhang. “Everybody is obsessed with losing weight. Their loss.”
“Everyone marches to the beat of their own drum.”
“This is my drum.” Eric slapped his gut.
They laughed.
~
Some months later, Eric picked up Austin and Brody for an evening at a fancy restaurant. The discomfort that had characterized their time together lingered but vaguely. They had formed the unspoken rule that whenever Austin was around, they wouldn’t speak of anything to do with their curious allergy.
But none of them could quite say if Eric’s penchant for wearing tight clothes was more a statement than a necessity. Austin certainly noticed, but Brody had lived in carefree introspection for too long to really track what was happening. Without his terrible secret, Brody had resumed gardening again, return to favorite breweries, and even considered adopting a new pet. There was time and energy to really and fully live.
Indeed, it wasn’t until now that Brody, glancing over at his brother, really realized just how fat Eric was getting. His once slight belly now hung out over his pants by few inches. Instead of looking like a jock who liked to eat, he exuded the energy of a man who spent his spare time thinking of amusing ways to jest about his decadent diet in order to put others at ease.
But there were subtle changes as well. Eric had diversified his wardrobe to include button-downs, sweaters, and tank tops, articles of clothing that simply hadn’t interested him before. There was a change in his mindset brought on by the challenge of dressing a new body, a body increasingly outside the culturally constructed norm. Of course, as a student of philosophy, Eric knew this, but he mostly enjoyed the metaphorical ‘Fuck You’ to the society toward which he loved to levy criticism.
Brody noticed little of this, only thinking to himself, “Wow, Eric’s looking big.” And, “Glad we’re hanging out today.”
They spoke of small talk and idle bits of news throughout dinner. Austin was quieter than the others, because he had a plan. The server asked if they wanted dessert. Brody and Eric ordered.
“I’ll have a slice of French silk pie.”
Austin felt a wave of anxiety and satisfaction as he watched his brothers’ eyes bulge.
After the server left, Brody whispered, “Are you really going to do it?”
“I’m not going to spend the rest of my life wondering, am I?” Austin sounded as nervous as he felt.
“You don’t have to do anything for us.” Brody said. “If this is about, you know—before.”
“It’s not like that.” Austin said. “I owe it to myself to try to be a more, I don’t know, empathetic person.”
Eric was already onto a more salient point: “What about your weight?”
Austin visibly swallowed. “What happens happens.”
“That’s the spirit.” Eric said.
They waited what seemed like an eternity for dessert to arrive. Austin beheld the simultaneously crisp and soft slice of pie. It was too late to go back: the decision was made. His fork slid effortlessly through the creamy chocolate. The silky sweetness broke over his tongue like a waterfall. The sensation of pleasure that washed over him was indescribable. How could food provide such an intense satisfaction? It was like the high of jogging combined with the warmth of drinking tea while curled up with a loved one on a raining day. That didn’t make sense, but none of this made any sense to Austin in the way it made sense to Brody.
All he knew was that, despite the confusion of why this was happening, he finally understood his brothers.
Brody and Eric nodded excitedly, waiting for verbal recognition.
“Oh.” Austin finally said. “It’s fucking incredible.”
They cheered Austin perhaps a bit too loudly. Austin proceeded to down the rest of the slice.
As they began to babble about the best kinds of chocolates to cry, Austin’s head spun with happiness. He was probably going to lose his abs, but at least he felt relief at long last.
~
Austin’s world was plunged into a happy instability. Feeling like he had less control than ever should have upset him, but he felt better than he had in a long time. He renewed his interest in cooking. He paid less attention to his obligations and more attention to his husband. He tried not to consider it, but his very personality was changing.
Of course, his personality wasn’t the only thing to change. Austin watched with horrible fascination as within two months his abs became covered by a noticeable layer of flab. He carefully planned ahead, buying bigger clothes in hopes that the change wouldn’t be too noticeable. Dan, however, was not as naive as Austin desperately hoped. He sat his softening husband down and quietly but decisively said: “Why didn’t you tell me you started eating chocolate?”
Austin felt his face turn red.
“Well?” Dan insisted.
“I don’t understand what I’m doing.” Austin paused to reflect. “But I feel so good all the time, it’s crazy. It’s like I’m a kid again, except not smelly and stupid. And the weight…doesn’t seem that bad.”
“No, Austin.” Dan’s voice became louder. “I’m asking whether your husband deserves to share in something like that.”
Austin thought back to before he tried chocolate. What even was his mindset back then? Keep Dan from worrying? Accept the burden placed on him by his birth? It was all a blur.
“I mean, we did talk that one time.”
“Yeah, one time.” Dan said. “It seemed like something important enough to discuss again.”
“I’m sorry.” Austin said.” I was going to tell you eventually, I just...hadn’t yet.”
“You waited way too long.” Austin’s face flushed as Dan rested his hand on Austin’s slight paunch. “I would have preferred to hear it from you before your gut gave you away.“
Austin closed his eyes. He didn’t want to look at his body right now.
“I was going to try chocolate one time to understand Brody and Eric. But it made me feel so good, I didn’t want to stop.”
“Well, I certainly do like happy Austin. He’s a welcome addition to the family.”
“Didn’t know I was such a drag.”
“You know what I mean.” Dan said. “I like it when you’re happy.”
Austin paused, trying to spit out some coherent before finally asking, “You don’t miss my abs?”
Dan slipped his hand under Austin’s shirt. “I’m sure they’re doing just fine under there.”
Austin looked at his husband with incredulity. Was Dan giving him permission to do what he wanted with his body? Did he honestly feel like it wasn’t a problem? It should be a problem. Dan should be upset.
“I know, but I want you to be happy too.”
“I don’t know what to think yet.” Dan said. “But I don’t own your body, just your heart.”
“Oh, gag.”
Dan laughed at Austin’s discomfort. “Yeah, yeah. But seriously, I want to be open to change, especially if it makes you happy. But I also want to be kept in the loop. That’s part of what makes all this work.”
Austin nodded. “I know. I promise to be better about it.”
“Okay.” Dan said.
~
Eric was thrown into a state of excitement and anxiety as he watched Austin put on weight. On the one hand, seeing Austin relax reaffirmed the correctness of Eric’s decision to consume chocolate without putting himself through emotional toil. Hist instinctual acclamation of his brother’s fattening, however, filled him shame. Austin had taken so much pride in maintaining the body of a model, and here Eric was, actively rooting for the destruction of that pride.
Was it destruction or creation? Why had he felt less troubled by Brody becoming fat? He didn’t know the truth back then, for one. And there was the nagging worry that he had helped pressure Austin into doing this. But that was hypocritical: Austin was an adult who could make his own decisions—the same kind of argument Eric had levied during Austin’s initial outburst concerning Brody’s weight. If Austin wanted to, he could just stop eating chocolate whenever he wanted to. Well, as much as any of them could.
The next time Austin and Eric hung out was at Eric’s place. Austin was wearing a long sleeve baseball t-shirt whose white fabric only emphasized the softness of Austin’s belly, which was by now unmistakable. The fabric was bunched up around his gently rounded pecs, and the sleeves fell four inches short of his wrists.
“I like that shirt on you.” Eric said.
“I used to like it too, but it’s probably time to retire it now that you can see my belly button through it.”
Eric looked again. “Yeah, maybe so.”
“Everything’s too small.” Austin complained. “I’m blowing up like a balloon.”
“You could stop eating chocolate.” Eric said.
“The hell are you talking about? Absolutely not.” Austin tugged at his sleeves.
Eric grinned. “That’s the spirit. Hey, I’ve got some old clothes that might fit you. They may not be your style, but…”
“No, that would be great.”
Eric led Austin to his room, entered the closet, and began pushing out bags of clothes he had outgrown.
“Glad I can pass these on. Only got a few months out of some of these.”
“Who can say no to free clothes?” Austin peeled off his baseball shirt, his belly popping into place with a silky jiggle. Eric marveled at how completely his brother’s fit physique had been consumed by the effects of his new diet. His chest was soft, he had well-rounded love handles, and his arms had lost their muscular definition.
“Looking good.” Eric said nonchalantly.
“I don’t know what the fuck I look like these days, other than fat.”
“You can look good and be fat.”
“Hopefully that’s true, because I’m not getting any thinner any time soon.”
Austin grabbed a t-shirt that Eric knew was already too small for Austin. As the struggle commenced, Eric thought back to the smallness he experienced during his time with Krista, and how wrong it had felt to him to even long for the immensity of self that had characterized a lurking aspect of his identity prior to those strange days. Perhaps it was that lurking aspect that was now on full display in both his attitude and in the way his gut spilled over his pants into a floral button-down.
“Honestly, I like my body better now.”
“Wait, really?” Austin finally extricated himself from the size large t-shirt.
“I like feeling like I occupy space. It’s nice.”
Austin opened his mouth to say something, but instead fell silent. Eric heard his breath in the brief silence.
“I think you make it work for you.” Austin said. “I could probably learn a thing or two from you.”
Eric flopped onto the bed and they talked about books they had been reading while Austin continued to sift through Eric’s old clothes. When all was over, Austin had created a pile of seven shirts, three pairs of pants, and a belt.
“I owe you coffee.” Austin said. “This saves me like two hundred dollars.”
“Happy to help.” Eric said. “We’ll do it again some time.”
Austin laughed nervously. “Oh god. We’ll see.”
~
Brody rose already refreshed by the prospect of a beach day with his brothers and Dan. Eric insisted they go to a lake perhaps a bit busier than he would have preferred, but Brody was happy to assent if it meant relaxing in the sun. He picked up a beaten ex-library novel he’d been reading. Before he could reach the kitchen, he was met with the frenzied pattering of his new dog, Jenny. He scratched her behind the ear and muttered a few pet names, all of which she received with a glowing roundness in her dark eyes.
He spent a few hours puttering around the house before leaving to pick up Eric. He only had to wait a couple minutes before Eric emerged from his apartment building.
The car dipped as Eric got in. Brody glanced at his brother. Eric was probably fatter than he was by now. Regardless, his bright blue t-shirt left little to the imagination. As long as he was happy, eh? And he certainly seemed to be. Their conversation, animated and varied, carried them to their destination without more than a minute of silence. They hauled the umbrella and towels to the beach.
“Why didn’t we bring the drinks?” Eric asked. “It’s already hot as balls.”
Brody, knowing Austin and Dan were prone to arrive when they intended, reminded Eric that thirty minutes wasn’t long to wait. But it was no more than five minutes before Eric excused himself, leaving Brody to get down to business: sunbathing and reading.
Eric didn’t leave because he wanted to get a drink, however. It was because he had already spied the target of his ulterior motive: his ex-girlfriend, Krista.
He got within ten feet before calling out, “Hey, Krista, how are you?”
She looked at him with neutral confusion, then with shock.
“I’m fine, but—oh my god, Eric, is that you?”
“Sure is.”
“What happened?”
“I’m doing fine, thanks for asking.”
“How can you say you’re fine?” She sounded more offended than worried.
“I’m happier now than I’ve ever been. Ever.”
“Just because it didn’t work out between us doesn’t mean there weren’t good times.” She furrowed her brow. “But if this is how to take care of yourself, I guess I dodged a bullet.”
“Maybe you did dodge a bullet: if I was who I am now, we never would have gotten together.”
“You’ve got that right.”
“Goodbye, Krista.”
She let out a sound of disgust and walked away. God, he was finally free. He would find a woman who loved him for who he was, and he would love her for who she was, and it would be beautiful.
Eric sat returned to Brody and sat down. He closed his eyes and let the warm summer breeze gently wash over him. The scent of lake water mingled with the trees, pavement, and sunscreen in the archetypal blend of the summer escape of the working man. He opened his eyes and looked across the lake, where the docks of richer folk dotted the forested edge of the placid waters. Eric’s body shifted and jiggled as he turned to his brother.
“Watcha reading?”
Brody described the science fiction novel, but Eric’s mind tried to pull him back to his conversation with Krista. Time would mend him or break him, or create a new him. He was, after all, a different and bigger man than he once had been.
Austin and Dan arrived exactly on the half hour mark. Despite their similar height, they had become an unconventional-looking couple. Dan was trim and clean-shaven with a swoop haircut. Austin, however, had short hair and had grown his beard to mute the effect of his bourgeoning double chin. He was as round and curvy as Dan was slim and angled.
Indeed, no one would guess Austin had been fit relatively recently unless a particularly astute person observed the sculpted roundness of his otherwise chubby chest that suggested the gym was not entirely foreign to him. His lean and judgmental expression had by default become full and inviting. He was still a bit awkward in how he walked, occasionally bumping into things with his sculpted posterior or protruding fore.
Dan pulled Austin’s tank top off and began rubbing sunscreen into his husband’s skin with rapt enthusiasm.
“That’s probably good enough,” Austin said.
“Patience, I have more mileage to cover now.” Dan leaned in and briefly kissed Austin’s cheek.
Austin laughed sheepishly and waited. Dan’s acceptance had gone so much further than Austin could have predicted. The new dynamic was still awkward at times, but overall Dan’s focus on the positives of Austin’s almost one hundred pound weight gain was unflagging. Austin still felt a bit guilty, as if he was making Dan reconsider society beauty standards while Austin still got to enjoy his fit husband without thinking twice—but wasn’t that very guilt part of the problem? He had decided it was, and he went back to chatting with his brothers about a film they had watched recently.
A few hours into the afternoon, however, Austin looked at his brothers and felt his heart rush. This was the moment: he was going to let go of all of it. The worry he had for Brody, for his relationship with Dan, for the stolen glances of coworkers and friends—for all of it. For in this moment, he only saw their humanity. Well, and their enormous guts, but the two weren’t incongruous. It was just who they were. And what could be wrong about that?
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