Ratchet Part 4

The room that Monica had been resting in was extremely uncomfortable. There was a prolonged fit of tossing and turning from a still half conked-out blonde woman as she deliriously did her very best to return to a full, restful slumber. Every attempt however was just a futile exercise in rolling back and forth- or rather more like breaching, as Monica’s idea of rolling over involved lifting herself well above the bed to give herself time and room to move her arm out from under her before crashing back down onto the bed like a whale. There was a strong part of her that knew full well that she was awake already and that falling back to sleep was not going to happen. Her dream of feeding a fat black woman on the beach had been weird, but not altogether unpleasant and the euphoric feeling that it had left her with was not yet completely gone in her hazy state.

She wanted to lay there and just demand the world go away, but the bleary heat of the room had become sweltering and unbearable. She kicked off her blankets and stared at the ceiling with a disoriented irritation as she tried to focus her vision on the cheap stucco ceiling. Her stomach growled in angry protest over missed meal and Monica attempted to resist the urge to wipe her eyes as she sat up. Sometimes she could wipe away all the crusty sleep stuff around her eyes, but there was also a good chance that every time she did that, she’d end up with a dull, vicious pain like a rock beneath her eyelid that wouldn’t go away until she pulled the correct eyelash out. This too was a distraction. She could sit there and preoccupy herself with eyelashes and stucco for only so long before she had to face reality again, even as weird as reality had become lately.

She laid in the oppressive heat, staring at the ceiling and allowing the events of the past day and a half to sink back in. She thought about just running, but that would leave her stranded in Los Angeles with nowhere to go and no one to turn to but the very people who put her there in the first place. Even then, Monica thought, Keisha had already said something about not being able to get away in her text message. The disheveled woman reached over and opened up the text log to find that it was indeed still there, along with instructions to delete it after reading. With a renewed sense of dread, Monica felt her anxiety beginning to rise and quickly deleted the message, hoping that no one went through her phone while she was asleep. 

“That’s ridiculous…” She grumbled lowly in an attempt to quietly talk herself through the ordeal in a hushed half-whisper.

With a deep breath and a hearty sigh, Monica resolved that she couldn’t just stay in bed forever. She heaved herself up off of the bed and moved to the mirror to fix her hair before walking back out to face everyone for the second time that day. At first she was almost worried that she was going to look at her reflection and find herself another 60 pounds heavier like in her dream, laughing with relief when she looked just as trim as ever, large boobs notwithstanding. She was like her mom in that regard. Owen loved her large chest and would periodically tease her for looking like one of the girls from an anime or something. It was cute, really. For someone so put together and classy he really was into some dorky stuff, she thought. She smiled to herself at the thought of the time she caught him practicing his sword strikes with a particularly large plastic blade he’d seen on Naruto one time. He attempted to play it off, but she could tell he was embarrassed.

The thought of her adoration of the man had almost made her forget why she was upset in the first place. He was fun and cute and supported her when she needed it. For a moment, she looked at her reflection and wondered what she was so worried about. Maybe this was all a prank or just some weird, harmless, family funkiness that she didn’t have to really be worried about. But the longer she looked, the more bothered she felt. If this was a dream, she thought as she squinted at her reflection, how did Keisha know about her dreams. Even if it was just a prank and Owen was the one texting….how did HE know she would be having weird dreams?

She stared at herself for several seconds, puzzling over what it was that was bothering her. Her chin, she decided was wrong. It seemed less pronounced than before, but in a way that was so surreal her brain almost refused to register it. Her concerns only grew with time as her jaw slowly went slack with the shocked disbelief at what she was looking at She looked tan, but could chalk that up to being out in the sun if she ignored the fact that she normally would have burnt to a crisp and turned into a lobster before her body produced any melanin itself. What she couldn’t ignore was the fact that her eyes had changed color. Where once stunning blue irises shone like cold water in her reflection, they now a stoney, almost brown hazel-gray. It wasn’t an altogether bad look she thought, her anxiety moving rapidly into hysteric amusement territory.

(1)

In that moment, every fiber of Monica’s being wanted to run. Several times she almost did….but for some reason….didn’t. Instead, she walked towards the door to the bedroom and opened it, listening to the eternity that was the noisy creak of the knob and squeaking of the hinges that she knew everyone else in the house heard. Monica walked out to the living room and sat down at the table, her heart pounding out a beat in her chest that would make an ecstacy-blasted raver start dancing. Owen immediately moved to greet her, but his mother took her time blowing out a stick of incense before acknowledging the younger woman. She didn’t sit down at the table, but instead pulled a chair up next to Monica and peered at her sweetly through a pair of thin-rimmed glasses that Monica hadn’t known her to need before.

(2)

“How are ya doing, baby? Hungry yet?” She asked kindly.

Monica stared at the woman and felt her nerves calm slightly, drinking in visual confirmation that her fears were not unfounded and that she was in fact, not actually crazy.

“Your hair isn’t gray anymore.” Monica said blankly. It was more of an accusation than an observation but she simply didn’t have the energy to put more emotion into it. “I know you’re doing something to me. Tell me what it is and why.”

Lovelie smiled again. This time she added a sassy twist of her head to her impressed smirk. “Oh? That’s a big thing to say, especially to your host. What makes you think you can take that tone with me, girl?”

Monica stared clean through her, very aware of the sound of her breathing. Every inhale was calming and clean with the slightest bit of a whistle in her nostrils as she breathed in. Every exhale was refreshing and centered, so perfectly stilling that she actually yawned in spite of her situation.

“Ma’am. With as much respect as I can offer you right now, I am only using this tone because I don’t know in this moment how to feel. But if you attempt to lie or gaslight me, I’m going to remember how to express my emotions again and we’re ALL going to have a problem. 

…So I will clarify. I am not asking nor will I be this polite a third time. Tell me what you are doing and why. Please.”  Monica said menacingly through a cold and placid half-whisper.

Lovelie’s smile vanished and she motioned for Owen to sit down at the table.

“Well. I can’t say I’m not used to having demands made of me but you ARE better about it than Keisha.”

 She said calmly and sat down across from Monica.
“Since you seem to be a smart girl with a good head on your shoulders, I won’t waste your time with bullshit and sugarcoating. My son likes you. I am what you would call a witch and I am working a ritual to test your compatibility with him.” Lovelie said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Monica responded in kind.

“What kind of ritual?” She asked bluntly, apparently believing Lovelie’s explanation without issue.
“One that tests class and resolve. Those dreams you are having are proof that it’s happening. Each of those women you see represent a temptation and a warning. If you do what they say and give of yourself, you will be rewarded and your relationship blessed. If you succumb to temptation and act selfishly, you will slowly change into the image of the spirits that are testing you. You’ve already begun changing. What happened?” Lovelie asked, her explanation actually helping ease Monica’s fears despite how far-fetched it sounded. Luckily for Monica, she’d seen enough horror movies to know not to argue with the evidence in the event of supernatural occurrences. She just never thought it would be part of such a thing.

“There was….a fat woman on a beach. She wanted me to feed her.” Monica said, her blank stupor beginning to recede.

“And did you?” Lovelie asked, now with a blank expression of her own.

“I did.” Monica replied. “But then she disappeared. When I looked down, I was fat too, but not as big as her. It was like I gained weight from what she ate.”
“She vanished. Then what did you do with the rest of the food?” Lovelie continued with a face like a sphinx.

“I ate it I think. And then I woke up.” Monica said.

Lovelie smiled. “Well, there you go!” She said exuberantly. “You were supposed to feed *her* and you ended up stuffing your face instead. You failed your trial and now you’re being punished. But don’t you worry baby, this isn’t permanent…yet.” 

Monica gulped. She hadn’t even thought about that yet. She had been so worried about what was going on that the thought of whether or not it was permanent was far further down the road than processing the mere fact that it was real. Her anxiety spiked again and she gasped slowly and involuntarily.

“What do you mean it’s not permanent yet? How do I undo it?” She asked, her voice beginning to raise with her newly regained ability to feel emotion.

“Oh don’t you worry about that baby. This won’t last more than two weeks if you don’t complete the spell.” The witch said, waving her hand happily. “Every time you succumb to temptation, you will gain an aspect of the spirit that tested you. The woman you saw was most likely Erzulie Freda, Goddess of Love and Fertility. Eating from her plate gave you a hint of her skintone for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you plumped up a bit as a result. From now on you’re gonna have to watch your weight, but we can help you with that.”

Monica closed her eyes and tried to center herself again, breathing in the calming flavor of an incense she couldn’t quite place. It made sense now why Keisha had told her not to eat. She was trying to warn her about the spirit’s test and make sure she didn’t make an absolute pig out of herself during her first trial.

“So what do I do? What’s the test? What happens if I pass or fail?” She asked, sinking into her seat as her muscles began to relax with the knowledge that this was, albeit in a freaky way, all according to plan.
“If you succumb to temptation ten times, you will be forever transformed. Most likely into a black woman, or close enough, and your relationship with my son will end naturally and organically. However, if you do not succumb ten times, you will simply change according to the trial until the time of judgement, which will be exactly two weeks from last night. I realize that this may not be exactly what you bargained for when you started dating my baby, but this is how my family does things.” Lovelie explained, she too easing as Monica seemed to absorb the information calmly.

“How do I uhm….win?” Monica asked, tired from the stress and just wanting the ordeal to be over with.
“If after two weeks, you have resisted at least five out of thirteen temptations, you will revert to your original appearance and the spirits will bless your union with my boy. You two will lead wealthy, happy lives, and your children (should you decide to have any) will be healthy and blessed as well. I apologize for springing this on you, but this is just the way things are done in my culture.” Lovelie said wisely.
Monica nodded solemnly. A part of her wanted to be angry, but be it from exhaustion or relief, she couldn’t bring herself to be angry about an old woman subscribing to ancient practices. Plus, seeing real magic was admittedly cool. Her stomach growled loudly and she remembered just how hungry she was.

“So….If I eat now…will I get fatter?” Monica asked lazily.

Lovelie looked at Owen and the two laughed.

“Well, if you got a piece of Erzulie Freda floating around in there, you prolly gonna have to watch what you eat for a while if you wanna keep your figure, but no, you won't get big out of nowhere. You should be careful, but I can fix you something a little lighter for now.”

Owen walked with his girlfriend over to the couch, apologizing profusely while his mother whipped up a simple bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar. Monica was surprised at her own level of chill about the ordeal. Normally she would have had a panic attack over something so wild, but she’d reached her max capacity for panic for the day. When Lovelie had come back with the oatmeal she accepted it graciously before wolfing it down with a gusto that made the older woman grin at her teasingly.

“Owen baby, take this poor girl out for some food. She ain’t gonna last long on just oatmeal and judging by that little display, she hungry as hell.” Lovelie teased.

Monica moved lazily from the table to the couch, plopping down in front of the tv and immediately spacing out to an old season of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. After a couple episodes the front door opened and Ne-ne walked in, her eyes widening once more at the sight of Monica. She looked sweaty, but Monica was too drowsy to really put much thought into it as to why. The entire world seemed to be moving a thousand miles a second while she crawled at a snail’s pace.

“Hay girl! How are you doin?” She beamed, energetically stretching a fat thigh on the shoe rack.
Monica looked up slowly, tearing her eyes away from the tv to smile politely at the girl.

(3)

“You changed your hair.” She said, squinting again.

Ne-ne’s smile grew wider. “Oh? Oh yeah! I did. I went out for a run and passed by the hair place and said ‘you know what, I’mma get mah hair did.’ So then I did and now it’s done! How you doin? Watchin tv? Yeahhh….Mama’s got that incense burnin huh? You like that smell?” 

Ne-ne’s questions were coming at a rapid pace, and Monica found herself struggling to keep up let alone find an answer that made sense before another was asked. Just as she was beginning to get flustered, Lovelie stepped in.

“Ne-ne! Leave her alone!” She snapped and walked over, putting her hand on Monica’s shoulder.

“Monica here has had a very long day and she doesn’t have the time or the energy to be dealin with yo ass asking her a million tough questions right now.”

“But Mama look, she ain’t even doin nuthin!” Ne-ne pouted and waved her hand in front of the blonde’s face. “See? She just sittin there. She can’t even tell what I’m askin prolly.”

“All the more reason for you to let her be.” Lovelie said sternly before kissing Monica on the head. She called Owen over and told him to get Monica dressed and ready to go out, then dragged Ne-ne off to the kitchen to chew her out for something Monica could barely register. Before she knew it, she was already being rushed into the back room and stuffed into a dress. She wanted to complain or at least talk to Owen about what was going on, but couldn’t get the chance to say anything before he gave her something else to do. She slogged through a her makeup routine and did her hair just as she was told, and the moment she was done, she wandered out to the car just as she was told. Again she tried to speak to her boyfriend about a worry that she was struggling to remember, but the moment he turned on the radio, she was placidly lost in the music.

“We’re here!” Owen said sweetly as they pulled into the parking lot of a fairly posh looking establishment called Bestia. Monica snapped awake, not even realizing that she’d fallen asleep on the car ride over. Owen opened her door for her and helped her out of the car, her high heels clicking on the pavement as she stepped out. The sun was blinding despite the scenic LA smog and Monica felt herself clinging to Owen’s arm for stability as she tried to shake the oppressive lethargy she’d been feeling since she woke up. 

Once inside, the two were greeted by a gorgeous hostess in a magnificent African-style apron that caught the blonde’s eye. Back home in New York Monica was accustomed to seeing black people but the culture was completely different. In LA it seemed there was a much stronger presence of African motifs that she found to be refreshing, intriguing, and exotic. The hostess was thin and professional looking with a dazzling smile and a cheery voice. She led the two to their table while chatting the two up, asking questions about how long they’d been together or if they were celebrating a special occasion. It was sweet, and very unlike what Monica was used to on the East coast.

(4)

By the time she handed them their menus Monica’s energy was returning and with it, her ability to follow and engage in conversation. The charming hostess recommended a few specials and offered them some wine to start. Owen immediately accepted before Monica could decline and insisted against her weak protestations, insisting that it was to celebrate their happiness together. He asked for a bottle of their finest rosé and she nodded happily, promising that their server would be with them soon with their bottle. Before leaving, the slim hostess looked at Monica with an unsettlingly desirous face. Her mouth hung open for just a second and she clenched her teeth in a way that conveyed an almost sexual hunger.

“Drink.” She whispered under her breath. Or at least Monica had thought she did. She was sure she had heard it and scrunched her eyes at the woman quizzically with the intent to ask what she had said, but in the time it took the still sluggish woman to blink, the hostess had already left.

Pieces of the day began returning to her and despite her foggy excitement at being out in a new town with her boyfriend, she could feel herself beginning to put together a stream of thoughts leading to issues she felt desperately needed addressing. She remembered that she had been trying to get Owen alone for some time, but couldn’t hold onto why for long enough to actually say something to him. The thought would come to her like a huge revelation every single time, but then vanish as quickly as it came like a red dot under a cat’s paw.

Owen, for his part rambled on about the city, telling stories of his life growing up in the hood. It was simultaneously entertaining and distracting. For as long as he was talking, she couldn’t focus on anything but what he was saying very easily, even if she was feeling the haze over her attention span beginning to lift. She tried her best to appear interested, but the strain on her face remained evident despite Owen not seeming to notice in the slightest. There was something his mother had said that was bothering her, but she couldn’t get it to come to mind to save her life. She knew it was something about her being white but couldn’t get a fix on whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. Only that it made her uncomfortable. For a moment, she felt a pang of insecurity about her ethnicity, worrying that Owen might prefer black women or that she would fit in better if she had darker skin and knew the culture and community better. It was then that for a brief and shining moment, Monica’s memory sparked to life and she knew what it was that she’d needed to talk to Owen about so desperately.

“Haaayyyy!!!” Their server greeted loudly. “I have a bottle of rosé for the happy couple?” She asked.

Monica stared at the woman blankly, unable to shake the feeling that she looked just like their hostess in different clothes. Not quite the same, she thought. This woman had different hair and was much thicker. 

(5)

She too had a sort of tribal theme to her look complete with an African style collar and large hoop earrings, but her body was more on display as she poured an astonishingly refreshingly looking deluge of wine into her glass. The blonde tried to tear her eyes away from the glass and keep her mind on task, but before she could talk to Owen about whatever it was she needed the waitress to go away. She asked for a salad while Owen ordered a steak, proud of herself for sticking to her guns and refusing more food when encouraged.

“Well, I’ll be back with your food when it’s ready.” The waitress said. “In the meantime, wanna try your wine and make sure it’s to your liking?” 

Monica felt a little pressured to drink (drink), but nevertheless took a polite sip to appease the waitress and her boyfriend who were both looking at her with eager eyes.

“Come on, you can have a little more than that.” Their waitress encouraged.

The pushiness of the statement was played off by a playful smile, but Monica was still offended and unnerved by this random woman telling her what to do in front of her boyfriend. Even worse was the fact that Owen had said absolutely nothing in her defense. He simply stared lovingly at her as if nothing had happened and the waitress wasn’t even there. She grew angry even as she lifted the glass to her lips again, only realizing she was doing it after the taste had awakened her to the fact that she was guzzling the tasty liquid to the point of emptying her glass. Monica didn’t know what had come over her. The moment the wine touched her lips, she found herself chugging it as if it was water after two days in a desert.

“More.” Her waitress commanded firmly, her smile never leaving her face as she refilled the glass.
Monica wanted to throw it in her face and punch the bitch for her behavior, but once again she found herself pouring the delicious drink (drink…drink…drink…) into her mouth. Panting and out of breathe, she nearly slammed the glass on the table once she had finished.

“MORE.” The woman commanded. Monica’s cheeks grew red with anger and she pulled her glass away only to find it already full. She stared at it in horror, wondering how it was already full again.

“Baby?” Owen said, snapping his girlfriend out of her daze.

The woman was gone. Her glass was indeed still full, but she sat alone with a concerned looking Owen who smiled softly at her when she looked at him. For whatever reason, just his presence was enough to comfort her.

“Where’s the waitress?” She asked nervously.

“Where’s the- What do you mean where is she? She went to get our food. What, you expected her to stick around all day? You just wanted her to hang out with us or something?” He responded with a slight chuckle. You seem to like that wine though. Glad you are enjoying it. 

As much as she was afraid to admit it, she was enjoying it. The ravenous fits of chugging aside, she really was very much into the taste of the wine. So much so that despite the frightening and sudden loss of control along with the disappearing waitress, she still couldn’t stop drinking it. She was beginning to feel drowsy again, but this time for a different reason. It had only been what felt like a minute, but she was already beginning to feel tipsy. The room was warm and Owen seemed so comforting. And sexy. She felt her cheeks flush at just the sight of him looking at her.

(6)

The lights of the restaurant seemed to emit heat and Monica felt a delirious heat coursing through her body as she drank (drink…enjoy…) down another glass of wine. 

Something was wrong.
She didn’t know what it was, but the entire restaurant had a surreal quality to it. As she looked around, she could see a multitude of customers all jovially eating and drinking despite her not noticing them even come in. Almost all of them were black and grossly underdressed for the venue, clad in revealing garments that exposed deep cleavage and fat, brown bellies as both strong men and heavyset women indulged in lavish meals that covered their tables end to end. 

“Monica. If you don’t eat, it’s gonna get cold.” Owen said, causing Monica to look down at a massive bowl of seafood alfredo and garlic bread sitting in front of her on the table. Panic began to set in, but once again, the increasingly terrified woman’s body betrayed her. She dug in ravenously, eating and drinking at a breakneck pace as the world began to spin. 

“Good girl. That’s what I like to see.” Owen said, smiling at her appetite. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom. Be right back.” 

Owen got up and began walking down the nearby hall and out of sight, leaving Monica to her helpless binge that felt eerily similar to the dream she’d had just that morning. In that moment, everything came flooding back to her. The texts and dreams, Lovelie’s claims of being a witch and conducting magic rituals to test Monica’s willpower, all of it. She moved to get up, but this time found herself dizzy amd nauseous with the world spinning around her. Grabbing the bottle, Monica squinted her eyes at the bottle. It was almost empty.

“How the…That’s not fair!!” She pouted, whining loudly in the middle of the restaurant. “We JUST got here! How the fuck could I have drank all of this? We literally just sat down like five minutes ago! WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!” 

Monica’s inquiry was neither quiet nor subtle, and several patrons of the restaurant angrily looked up at her from their gluttonous feasts whole others lay sleeping where they sat. Many of the women were completely passed out with food in their hair or dribbled onto their chests and Monica could only do her best to stifle another cry out. 

“Excuse me.” A woman said from her side. Monica turned to look and immediately gasped at what she saw.

“I’m sorry, but some of us are trying to enjoy our meal and your drunk ass is raising a fuss and disturbing us, so would you mind keeping it down?”

The woman was clad in what was effectively a pink, African style bikini and despite being even fatter, was a dead ringer for both the pushy waitress and the hostess that had shown them to their seats only a few minutes ago. Her hips flared out widely and her hair was slightly longer, but Monica was absolutely certain that the three were either related or the same person in some kind of Twilight Zone kind of way. Her mind reeled and the nausea set in again as her wine-addled mind attempted to make sense of things. She found herself once again reaching for the bottle and drinking the rest of the alcoholic beverage straight from the spout against her own conscious will. 

(7)

She got up and moved to escape.
No more listening, no more politeness. No more magic or dreams or witches. No more tests. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Lovelie’s words echoed in her mind, re-warning her about the trials that she was to face and how important it would be to avoid succumbing to temptations like food and drink. Her real focus however was far from any of that. All she wanted to do was run away and escape. To hitchhike back to New York if she had to. Anything to get back to her real life. To her real world. 

She moved past the fat doppelganger and rushed across the restaurant to where she thought the entrance was, but found only another set of tables with another fat family eating at each of them. She turned and slogged in another direction, nearly knocking over chairs as she made a spectacle of her distress. Even she thought that she must have made quite the sight: a busty blonde in a pretty dress drunkenly rampaging through a four star restaurant like a bull trapped in a china shop. But despite her appearance, no one stopped eating long enough to look at her, and despite her desperation she could not find the exit to save her life. Every turn led to another dining area and where she should have at least found the reception desk, there were only a plethora of fully stocked bars that she was ashamed to admit were beginning to look unnaturally enticing.
Monica was never much of a big drinker, and could only assume that this was yet another mindblowing experience that cemented the idea that Lovelie had not been lying when she said that there was magic at work. This was enough convince her that her current circumstances were likely the result of another test temptation that she was just as likely to be failing. Even so, she refused to give up.

Monica carefully, sloppily made her way back to her table and suppressed the irritation on how easy it had been to find. But instead of sitting back down at her table, Monica moved towards the bathroom in hopes of calling for Owen. Even if he was involved with what was going on, he was still her best hope of making it out of this with at least her sanity.

With heavy breaths and aching feet the well-dressed woman made her way to the bathrooms. She called for her boyfriend, but there was no response from the men’s room. She hadn’t even time to feel the fear of being abandoned however, as a massive woman came waddling out of the women’s room on the other end of the hall. She was massively fat and every plodding footfall caused ripples throughout her body. Her sudden appearance was aggressive and almost terrifying. She moved with a sense of ambition and purpose straight towards Monica. This woman too, she realized looked just like the hostess, the waitress, and finally the fat patron in the scanty pink outfit. Unlike them however, this woman’s bare chest was completely on display and she wore little more than a loincloth on a beaded string below her large, sagging belly.

Monica stood in awe of this new figure, only moving in a vain attempt to get out of her way. The woman however did not seem to want past the skinnier woman at all, and instead grabbed her by the shoulders and led her to an open chair. Monica was nearly powerless to resist either the ponderous woman’s strong arms nor her sheer girth and was easily bullied into taking a seat. The massive black woman sat down, straddling Monica’s legs and setting her huge butt cheeks onto her lap. Grinning and rapturous, the woman hefted a massive breast up to Monica’s stunned face and ordered her “Drink.”
Without even a moment to try to fight back, Monica felt her head pressed into a wall of mushy titflesh until her mouth found a fat, pudgy nipple and opened automatically. With a last burst of willpower, the drunken woman attempted to pull away only to be held in place by both a strong arm and a surprising unwillingness to let the woman’s nipple leave her mouth. Within another couple seconds, Monica could feel herself relaxing into a sleepy suckle as the taste of sweet milk began to fill her mouth. Again, the haze of sleep washed over her no matter how hard she tried to fight back against it. 

(8)

She reached out for Owen, hopelessly searching for him as her consciousness drifted away once more. What surprised her most was that just as sleep took her, she managed to feel her man’s gentle hand and hold tight onto it before she blacked out completely.