Payback

As the weeks went on, she ate more and more and began to put on weight. She didn't even realize how much weight she had gained until Eddie mentioned it at the dinner table one evening. In his characteristic way he simply told her that she was "getting fat". There was no prelude to his announcement, no consideration of how she might feel or softening of the blow, just a blunt, insensitive observation from a blunt, insensitive mind.

"I am not getting fat, Eddie," Priscilla retorted, eyes flaring. "I put on a few pounds, that's all."

"Babe," he replied, trying not to anger her. "It's okay. Forget I mentioned it."

She laughed scornfully. "How can I forget it? You just called me 'fat'.

"Please, let's not argue over it. I know you're going through a rough time."

"Well, that's unusually thoughtful of you, Eddie," she replied dolefully. Suddenly, the steak she was eating no longer looked appealing. "I'm depressed, alright? I had some unresolved issues with my dad. I'll get over it."

Eddie offered no reply. He continued to eat mechanically, sullenly looking up at her every so often as if to gauge her shifting mood.

"Besides, nobody at work mentioned that I was putting on weight," she resumed. "Not even Claudia."

"Maybe they don't want to hurt your feelings," he said without emotion.

Priscilla rose from her chair and flung the plate of half-eaten food into the sink, the dish making a harsh, crackling noise as it broke into pieces.

"Hurt my feelings?" she asked, turning on him. "Nobody has hurt my feelings, Eddie. Nobody but you!"

"Oh, come on babe!" he whined. "So you put on a little weight. I was just making an observation, that's all."

Priscilla stared down at him defiantly and stormed out of the kitchen. She was mad at herself for allowing her anxieties to take over her life, and mad at Eddie for speaking out loud what she had felt inside. Moments later she found herself standing on the bathroom scale—she had gained over ten pounds in the past few weeks. She looked at her face in the mirror. She was developing a double chin. It was barely noticeable, but it was there: a solemn reminder that she was now on a downward spiral and heading for even deeper waters.

By the time her one-year wedding anniversary was approaching, Priscilla had gained over forty pounds. She was now clocking in at about 220 pounds and most of this weight was distributed in her tits and ass. Her double chin was only slightly pronounced, but her face had lost its angular dimension and had become more rounded and fleshed out. No one at work said a word about her weight gain. Even Eddie kept quiet on the subject. But she had noticed that with the passing weeks he seemed to grow more distant and had only initiated sex with her twice in a one-month period. Not only was she depressed over the loss of her father, but now she was feeling unloved as well.

The only people with whom she confided in were her mother, Claudia, and Danielle. All three women were very helpful in their attempts to get her to stop her reckless eating habits, and with some professional help, she began to confront the demons that had been persecuting her since she was a child. And then, just as she was beginning to make some headway, she felt the rug pulled out from under her feet.

Claudia Olivetti, being a true friend and honest to a fault, felt it her obligation to report to Priscilla an event that took her completely by surprise. She had never really liked Eddie, but when she ran into him in a local sports bar kissing a strange blonde woman, she realized her intuition about him was right. It was Priscilla and Eddie's one-year anniversary and he was supposed to have been at lunch with some friends, which of course was a lie, and was going to be taking his wife out to dinner that very same evening to celebrate. All this Priscilla had conveyed to Claudia that morning before leaving for work. That Claudia saw him was itself a coincidence because she never frequented that particular bar and only did so because she needed change for the parking meter. When she saw Eddie kissing and fondling the blonde woman, she could only feel disgust for him. Yet she watched, even as the two of them left the bar and walked down 72nd Street toward the Ramada Inn. She followed after them and saw them enter the hotel. The last she saw of the couple was when they entered an elevator. She then decided to call Priscilla, suggesting that they meet at their favorite kiosk in Central Park.

The news struck Priscilla like a bolt of lightning. She would have never suspected Eddie of infidelity. Despite his crude manners, he seemed devoted to her, and the thought of him having sex with another woman was the last thing she could have imagined. For several minutes after hearing the news, she sat dumbly on the park bench shaking her head in disbelief.

"I wasn't going to tell you anything, Priscilla," Claudia said, trying to comfort her. "But I felt as though I'd be betraying you if I didn't."

"I know," Priscilla replied softly.

"The truth can be an ugly thing sometimes, but it's better than living a lie."

Priscilla stoically accepted her friend's rationale and smiled faintly. "Today is our one-year anniversary."

"I'm so sorry, honey," Claudia replied, throwing her arms around the unhappy girl's neck. "Eddie is a no good son of a bitch."

As strange as it seemed to her, Priscilla didn't cry. Her tears had flowed freely enough for her father, but Eddie's repugnant behavior provoked no such reaction within her. Instead she felt a great surge of anger overcome her; not the violent anger that compels one to act rashly and without thought, but the kind of anger that breeds revenge—a patient, willful, exacting revenge.

"Was she at least pretty?"

"Not as pretty as you," Claudia answered. "And it looked like she dyed her hair."

Despite her anger, Priscilla couldn't suppress a laugh, which forced Claudia to laugh too.

"That bastard always had a thing for blondes. I hope she gives him venereal disease!"

"I have to tell my mother what's going on," Priscilla said, her voice suddenly turning solemn. "And Danielle too. Eddie is not going to get away with this. I'm going to teach that fucking asshole a lesson he'll never forget!"

************

The lights had been on until well into the wee hours of the morning as Priscilla, Claudia, and Danielle sat around contemplating the best way to pay back Eddie for his cheating ways. Priscilla had feigned illness so that she could leave work without having to confront her husband. She left a message with his secretary that she would call him later in the day, which of course she had no intention of doing. She and Claudia had gone straight to Danielle's house and all three had eaten dinner together and then spent the rest of the evening thinking up myriad ways in which to bring Eddie to his knees.

"How many messages has he left you already?" Danielle asked Priscilla.

"Seven, so far. I'm not calling him. He can go to hell."

"Yeah," Claudia agreed. "Let the scumbag worry himself to death."

It was around 2:00 a.m. that Danielle was suddenly struck with a novel idea. With one great burst of energy, she jumped up out of her chair and raised a pointed finger to the ceiling. "I've got it ladies! I've got it!" she exclaimed, grinning fiendishly.

"What? What?" Priscilla demanded to know.

"Do you remember that drug that Mary Douglas gave me some time ago? You know...the Inferitol stuff?"

"What of it?"

"Well, I was thinking. What if we gave some of it to Eddie?"

"Are you serious?"

"Of course I am. I'll call a meeting of the 'Larger than Life' group—all my big, beautiful women friends whom your cheating bastard of a husband would refer to as "fat," and we'll pretend that you're waiting for him here so that you two can make amends."

"That means that Prissy is going to have to tell him everything," Claudia said.

"That's right. She can't go on forever avoiding him."

Priscilla balked. "But I don't want to see him or talk to him."

"You have to, Priscilla. It's part of my plan. Call him now and tell him that you know that he's been cheating on you and get him to come here tomorrow night. Tell him you can't see him just now because you're hurt and angry. When he gets here you two can talk and I'll slip the drug into his drink. I'll have the girls hiding out in the back yard. When you're ready we'll pull our surprise on him."

Suddenly the thought of Eddie surrounded by a bunch of big women appealed to her. "Do you think he'll come?"

"If he has any feelings for you at all, he'll come."

Claudia threw her head back and laughed. "Can you imagine Eddie under the influence of that drug? Can I stand the excitement?"

"He'll be shocked and humiliated. He deserves no better," Danielle affirmed.

"No," Priscilla agreed. "He doesn't. Let's get the son of a bitch."

************

The following evening Eddie's car pulled up into Danielle's driveway at precisely 7:00 p.m. She greeted him at the door and led him into the parlor, where he found Priscilla calmly waiting for him. He was still dressed in his business attire but the tie was gone and his shirt was wide open. He was perspiring heavily.

"I'll leave you two alone," Danielle said as she exited the room.

For several seconds neither of them said a word, they just stared at each other looking uncomfortable. At last, Eddie spoke up.

"Who told you?" he asked.

"That is irrelevant," Priscilla said coldly. "That fact that you betrayed me is all that matters. Why did you do it, Eddie? Why?"

It was unusual for Eddie to be at a loss for words, but he was. He looked down at the floor and shuffled his feet as if trying to erase a bad memory. "I don't know why I did it. I just did."

"Oh, come on," Priscilla said, her voice dripping with scorn. "There had to be a reason. Have you fallen out of love with me?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I don't know."

"Or was it because I didn't excite you sexually anymore?"

"I don't know. I don't know!" he protested loudly.

"I think you do know," she said reproachfully. "You think I'm a fat pig, don't you? Go ahead Eddie, say it. Tell me to my face that putting on forty pounds of flesh has turned you off on me."

Eddie swallowed hard. "I...I didn't think it would," he stammered. "But you look so different now with all that weight on. Don't get me wrong. I still like you. You know, I like your mind and personality and all that but..."

"But I'm fat," she concluded dourly.

Eddie said nothing. He just stood there mutely and stared down at his shoes.

His admission was no real surprise to Priscilla. She had known for a very long time that he had a problem with fat people in general. Who was she to be exempt from his prejudice?

"You know, Eddie, you are a real asshole," she continued, raising her voice in anger. "Do you know that? You've got things backwards. My mind, my personality...those are the things you should be in love with, not my physical appearance. You can go and fuck as many thin blondes as you want, but you'll be searching in vain if you ever think you're going to find the kind of love I gave to you. My love was real. My love was true. It was real because I loved you for you! Not for your body or your money or whatever other qualities people think are so fucking important. And you threw it all up in my face by doing what you did yesterday—and on our anniversary no less! Eddie Schwartz, you are a fucking loser!"

Her words hit him as if he had suffered a physical blow. He took a few steps backwards and fell into a chair, his head resting in his hands.

It was not the way Danielle had planned this meeting to go. Upon hearing Priscilla's heated words she came into the room carrying a bottle of champagne and two filled glasses, one of them containing the fertility drug.

"I'm sorry," Danielle said apologizing. "I heard you shouting and hoped that maybe some wine would help settle your nerves."

"I'll take some," Eddie said, reaching for the proffered glass.

He drank down the contents in one gulp.

"I don't want any, thank you," Priscilla said to Danielle.

The two women looked at each other knowingly and Danielle left the room without another word.

"Do you have anything to say to me?" Priscilla inquired of her husband.

"What do you want me to say?" he replied, feebly.

"How about 'I'm sorry'?"

"What good would that do? The damage has been done."

She looked at him and shook her head numbly. "Do you love me?"

For the first time that evening Eddie found the courage to look her directly in the eyes. "No," he replied. "I don't think I've been in love with you since you started to let yourself go."

It was a truthful but nonetheless heartless remark that cut her to the quick. But instead of offering a rebuttal, she called for Danielle, who came running into the room within seconds.

"Do you know, Danielle," Priscilla said without taking her eyes off her husband, "that I've let myself go? That's what my husband thinks."

"Is that so?" Danielle replied, casting an unfavorable glance upon the seated man. "I think you look just beautiful."

"Only another 'big' woman would say that," the insensitive clod remarked. "Being fat is not beautiful."

"And only a person such as you would be unable to see that both terms are not mutually exclusive."

"Well, Priscilla's got a pretty face. I'll give her that. But she's let the rest of her body go to hell—same as you."

Danielle felt like striking the insolent man across his face but kept her temper in check. "You have a bias against big, beautiful women?"

"I have a bias against any woman who can't control her mouth, whether that's eating too much or talking too much."

The deliberate emphasis upon "talking" was not wasted on Danielle. "So it seems we big, beautiful women just do everything too much, is that it, Eddie?"

"Look," he said, as if trying to drive home his point, "being overweight is not attractive. I don't care how nice a person you are. The human body doesn't look right with all that extra flesh hanging off it. You big, beautiful women, as you call yourselves, are only half right—and that's about being big, or fat, or whatever you want to call it. To me you're all just a bunch of fat broads who don't know when to put the fork down."

Danielle had heard enough. She turned to Priscilla. "How did you ever wind up marrying this asshole?"

"He thought I was beautiful once."

"That's right babe, I did," Eddie affirmed with a smarmy smile. "But that's when you were thin and had things under control."

Priscilla was going to respond but was preempted by her friend. "So now Priscilla is out of control. Is that what you're saying?"

"I don't need to say it. Look for yourself."

Danielle stole a quick glance at her friend and picked up a nearby phone. She said a few words into it then hung up. "They're on their way," she said to Priscilla.

"Who's on their way?" Eddie asked.

"Oh, didn't I tell you? We're having a meeting of the 'Larger than Life' club tonight and you're going to be our guest of honor."

Eddie looked suspiciously at Danielle and then at his wife. "What's going on here?"

"I told you," Danielle replied. "Don't tell me that you're afraid to meet a few of my large friends. They won't eat you. I promise."

"Priscilla? What the hell is she talking about?"

"Just shut up, Eddie and take it like a man."

"Take what like a man?" he said, raising his voice. "I don't want to meet any of her friends."

"Oh, but they want to meet you!" Danielle said with a fiendish smile. "They know all about you. Priscilla told them everything. Come in girls!"

No sooner had she uttered those words than a large group of roughly one hundred women came walking slowly into the room, making a loud, clamoring noise as their heels impacted upon the wooden floor.

Eddie's face registered complete surprise as he watched the long procession of women pass before him, each one it seemed bigger than the one before, looking upon him as if he were a piece of vermin. "You've got to be kidding me!" he exclaimed. "You guys set me up!"

"I strongly advise you not to leave the house, Eddie," Priscilla warned him. "You know that glass of champagne you just drank? It was full of Inferitol, the male fertility drug I told you about."

Suddenly Eddie's was face was drained of all its color. "You gave that shit to me?" he cried. "How could you do that? Why? Tell me why?"

"It's simple, Eddie," she countered. "It's called 'payback'."

At that moment Claudia, accompanied by three other very large and attractive women, entered the room pushing a large and imposing bedlike apparatus whose purpose was not immediately evident to either Priscilla or Eddie. Eddie was shocked to see the very thin and fit Claudia amongst the hefty group of women.

"You're part of all this?" he said to the beautiful girl.

"Surprised, Eddie?" Claudia laughed. "Don't you just hate surprises?"

The four women were dressed curiously like milk maids and one of them carried a clear, plastic, one-gallon container, which she purposely waved at Eddie. Another woman—Priscilla recognized her as Betty—held a cow's mask in her hands, which she, too, waved insouciantly at the dumbstruck husband. Eddie didn't know what to make of it all.

"What the fuck is going on here?" the philanderer demanded of Danielle.

"Allow me to clue you in, Eddie. You've got a lot of sperm building up in your testicles right now and it needs to be released. That's why we brought in the milking table. We're going to drain your body of every drop of sperm."

"You people must be out of your minds!" he cried.

"I assure we are not," Danielle said calmly.

"You're going to drain my body of sperm?" he asked aghast. "In front of all these women?"

"Yes. And I gave you a double dose of the drug, so you'll be ejaculating for a very long time."

The startled man turned to the woman he once loved hoping to find some reassurance, but finding none in her placid expression, he tried to make a run for it. Before he could reach the door, a dozen women were upon him, forcing him onto the floor. At that point more women joined in the fray, punching him and tearing at his clothes until his body was completely denuded.

"Get the fuck off of me you bitches!" Eddie screamed, as he fought futilely to prevent his outright humiliation.

"Don't you dare call us bitches!" Betty snapped, hitting Eddie squarely in the face with the back of her hand. "The next time I'll kick you in your fucking balls!"

The women now took the naked man and forced him onto the milking table so that he was positioned on all fours with his penis and testicles half submerged into the clear, plastic container. A pretty Latino woman with a set of enormous tits took the cow's mask and placed it over his face.

"Moo for us like a cow!" she ordered the confused man while she cruelly pinched his nipples.

"Oww!" Eddie screamed as she twisted the sensitive flesh between her fingertips.

"Not 'Oww' you idiot! I want you to say, 'Moo'! Now say it or I'll tear your nipples off!"

Eddie obediently fell to making the silly sounds she demanded of him while his arms and legs were secured with leather straps. Priscilla recognized several women right away. Besides Betty, there was Allison, Lindsay, and Madison, all of whom were having a grand time watching the cheating husband get his comeuppance. They taunted him mercilessly and called him every vulgar name one could think of. Some of the women slapped his ass as they ridiculed him, and Priscilla chuckled to herself when her husband let out a loud yelp after each hit.

After several minutes of this abuse, Danielle ordered everyone to stop.

"Enough!" she said. "The drug should take effect any moment now."