Fresh Meat

When Rikki Lorenson moved off earth and into the colonies after finishing high school to go to Alpha Centauri Systems University, her parents seemed perfectly capable of paying off the massive tuition for her Technologies Research degree. She had her plan all ready: She'd get a lucrative job in a laboratory, hopefully somewhere closer to earth for family visits, marry some guy, have a couple kids, and spend the rest of her life in a mansion, waiting for the reaper.

This, however, was before the Recession of 2089. Her father lost his job reparing digtal interfaces, and her mother's legal firm went crashing down. She was stuck on mars, her family scraping by enough money to give her some money to get a house. She looked all over Phaethon for a job, with no luck. This was the situation she found herself in, sitting in her house, with next to no money after groceries. She stared into her cup of Coffee, and pondered what she'd do next. Would she turn to Prostitution? Drugs? Gangs? Is this how life goes downhill? She didn't know. All she could do was stare and sulk as the television showed how far downhill everything was going.

Then her phone rang.

This was unheard of. Someone had called her. But all the places she applied to had already called to turn her down. Maybe a second chance? She couldn't risk wondering, she hurried to pick her phone out of her pocket. "Hello?" she answered, excitedly yet professionally. A voice replied from the other side. "Hello, is This the residence of Rikki Lorenson?" She replied with some more calmness. "Yes, yes this is." The voice spoke. "I would like to offer you a job opportunity. I will be arriving shortly within two hours. Please be ready." She replied curtly. "Yes sir." The call ended, and she hung up, hurrying over to prepare herself for the arrival of the mysterious man. She had no clue who this man was, what he wanted, but all that mattered to her was that it was a job.

She stopped in the mirror as she prepared. She was a rather skinny girl: Not that curvaceous, her breasts weren't the largest, but they were sizable enough. She had the slightest bit of belly flab, and her legs had some meat on them. But not that noticeably enough. She was about 5 feet, 4inches, and 130 pounds. She was attractive, but not stunning. She had blonde hair that reached down to her shoulders She put on a simple uniform: A black skirt, a white button-up, and a striped black dress jacket. Eventually, her doorbell rang, and with the nervousness and excitedness floating in her head, she opened the door to a suave, well dressed man. "Good afternoon, Miss Lorenson." She nodded and replied. "Good afternoon, mister...." He shook his head. "No need. You can just call me sir. I'm here to drop you these papers." She spoke. "Uh, sure. What's in these papers?" He spoke. "The usual. Liability, work forms, a living transit." She raised an eyebrow at 'Living Transit' "Uhm, what does that mean?" He smiled. "Well, we have company housing for you so we can more easily provide food." She spoke questioningly. "Food?" The man smirked. "Ah. We neglected to tell you what you'll be doing. You gain weight, and we pay you." She was taken aback. Gaining weight? On purpose? For money? She needed the money. She rationalized it in her mind as saying to herself that, if she was being dissatisfied, she could just quit. "Uh, sure. Of course."
The suited man smirked. “Good! Mail in the rest of the papers when you finish. A car will come for you when the mail arrives, and get you going for the company housing. We’ll have everything provided for you so don’t worry about your furniture.” They shook hands, and Rikki spent the remainder of the day signing the papers. She sent them in the next day. As she waited the remainder of that day, she thought on this, thinking on the implications. What would happen when she gained ENOUGH weight? Would there be a stopping point? What was the reasoning behind this? She knew she couldn’t do much about it, but she needed all the money she could get. She was stuck without a college degree, on a foreign planet. Her parents probably weren’t doing any better. She passed it off, she’d see where she would go from this point on.

The next day, the car arrived. A black four-seater, a medium-sized car. Like all cars, it was electric, a far cry from the antiquated Tesla models of the early 2000’s, but now they could be powered by a source smaller than a household electrical outlet, and their batteries lasted for hours longer. A man stepped out to open the door for Rikki. “Miss Lorenson. Step aboard.” She giggled at the kindness and spoke. “Hehe, thank you, mister…?” The man gave a polite bow. “Johann Ataturk. At your service, madam.”

It harried Rikki to a nice little community house farther out in the Phaethon countryside. She instantly took a liking to the elongated, two-story building when she smelled hot meat being cooked. From her upbringing at earth, she knew the smell all too well. “Is.. Is that Barbecue Chicken?” Johann beside her spoke up. “As a matter of fact, miss lorenson, it is. Served with a side of Macaroni and Cheese, with Tiramisu for dessert.” She spoke. “If this is getting fat, then this has got to be my calling!” Johann lead her inside, and led her to her room. She walked past a multitude of women of various weights, but one thing was certain: They were all at least overweight. Some just barely had puffy paunches, and a bit of fat across the rest of their body, some so fat that the very act of walking was unbearably exhausting, and they were quickly attended to by white-jumpsuited helpers. All these women were welcoming, those that weren’t utterly exhausted by walking gave her a hearty “Hello!” Johann showed her to her room, where

Rikki set down her belongings, and quickly walked off to the meal hall. She entered the room, where there were plates already set down at each table, as well as some cola. She plopped herself down and began munching.

As she immersed herself in the meal, she looked to her side. To her side was an obese redhead, who spoke a hearty “Hello there! A new arrival, I haven’t seen one in a while. My name’s Molly Thera. What’s yours?” Rikki smiled and replied. “Rikki Lorenson, pleased to meet you!” They two shook hands and resumed eating, pausing for conversation occasionally. “So, they gave you the offer, too?” Rikki nodded. “I took it because the recession hit me hard. I was in the middle of university but I couldn’t pay my tuition anymore.” The woman nodded. “Oh yeah, I know that problem. I was holding down a steady job, but my house got foreclosed on. This had free housing, AND i was gonna be paid to get fat!” Rikki smiled. “Yeah, I’m wondering, how is the fat life?” Molly spoke. “Oh, it’s great, you don’t have to work out, getting paid to sit around and get as fat as possible. I never know why, though. But it’s great, when you hit 500 I hear you get a free vacation to the Vameni Islands!” Rikki’s mouth opened wide. “Vameni? Really? I’ve ALWAYS wanted to go there, they say the water is so clear you can see the fish swimming around in the water!” Molly nodded. “I’m about 200 away, but I’m getting closer!” Rikki spoke. “Yeah...Hehe…” She giggled nervously. She was still slightly reluctant about the purposeful weight gain, she’d heard all her life about how dangerous for your health it was to be obese. But deeper down, she felt some kind of primal curiosity about gaining weight. It was that much more tempting now that she had it there, making money, This just added a little to that base desire, though. Just another peg on the ladder to going faster down the fat lane. The conversation went on a little longer until they finished their meals. Rikki extended her hand to shake Molly’s, which Molly happily shook, her fat sausages of fingers and her fatty palm almost encompassing the thin little fingers of Molly, bidding each other farewells and the two parted. Rikki followed Johann to her room, where Johann spoke to her. “Now, there is a slight little schedule. You can either have breakfast brought to you or you can go get it. Coffee is brought to your room at 8, Breakfast at 9:30. Snacks are available at any request at any time of the day except for during lunch and dinner. Lunch occurs at 1:30, and Dinner at 5:30. You must be in your room by 12:00 P.M.” Rikki observed this schedule. “And besides mealtimes?” Johann replied curtly. “No schedule besides that. And, should you feel so inclined, there is a communal T.V room, of course, the cafeteria, and, should you feel so inclined, a weight-lifting room. Don’t worry about losing weight, though: The cafeteria staff will ensure you keep gaining.” Rikki nodded. “Alright, thank you, mister Johann. I think I’m going to enjoy myself here…”

Within the span of about another year, Rikki’s gains had gone beyond her wildest beliefs. She had gone from a slim 130 pounds to a blubbery 260. Her love handles had expanded substantially, she had expanded significantly in a pear-shape, with her belly also taking a good blow of the gains. Her arms had also bloated up, and her second chin first began popping up. Molly’s gains had hit a wall as her metabolism had caught up with her, and a policy of a mandatory 30 minutes each day in weight-lifting didn’t help her gains. This puzzled Rikki slightly. Why would you have people who need to gain weight, lifting weights when the fastest way to put on weight was to eat more and exercise less? Nevertheless, Molly was able to put on about 30 pounds by year’s end, about 3/4ths of it fat. A similar ratio was achieved in Rikki, and the other gainees in the facility. They didn’t exactly have bulging biceps, they still gained weight in fat, but the fat was more rigid.

Rikki awoke that morning, and sipped on the coffee put down by the bed. She got up and waddled through her usual routine: Today was Pancakes, Bacon, Sausage, and Toast for breakfast, she had a bowl of chips for a snack, she did her 30 minutes of lifting, and continued going into lunch, with 4 slices of new-york style pizza combined with a platter of breadsticks. Her routine continued into dinner, with a large plate of Fettucine alfredo with chicken, as well as chocolate cake for dessert.

Within the next year, the weightlifting changed: It seemed that they wanted to keep the muscle ratio at about 1:4. It changed whenever the 1:4 ratio fell out of balance. This accelerated the gaining spectacularly, combining muscle gains with fat gains. Molly approached Rikki mid-way through lunch, and spoke. “Rikki, I finally did it!” Rikki looked puzzledly. “You did what?” Molly spoke. “I hit 500! They’re taking me off to the islands!” Rikki hugged her morbidly obese friend as far as her arms could reach around her. Facility personell escorted Molly through a set of doors, and a truck hummed off into the distance. Though rikki missed Molly for a while, she was able to funnel this into eating. By the end of the year, she, too, hit the 500 mark. She, too, was escorted off into the truck. As she sat down, she heard a familiar voice. “We’ll send your check to your account, after this vacation we may have another assignment for you.” sitting in a comfortable, expansive seat, and sedated. She was ready to enjoy herself and relax. It had been a strange two years, an

The men watched as the morbidly obese blonde lay in the metal recliner, her massive stomach drooping over her pelvis, her thighs immensely thick and her second chin a full 2 inches below her original chin. One spoke. “So, let’s check how the program did. Hopefully the cholesterol levels are adequately high.” They checked, and it certainly was: 330, with a shocking result of 0 HDL. “Damn! Before we do this one in, take a gene sample. Maybe the boys working on genetic engineering could work on something along this line. Maybe get a whole breed strain like this.” The two looked over a wide array of panels, labelled with different numbers: Her weight, exactly 508.68 pounds, her blood pressure, which was 190 over 80. “By the way, how have the boys on the restaurant front been doing?” “Oh, great. The new weightlifting initiative was manna from heaven. We’ve got the leanest meat around, not as fatty as it used to, but still a substantial amount of meat. Plus, we get less risk of investigation by the big officials. We’re building our political capital by the way, should be able to get the Human Meat Consumption laws passed next year.” The other nodded.

They watched the process with which all future human steaks were butchered. A doctor slipped a tube into the arterial veins leading into the heart. The hypertension made the job of butchering her easier. A large vat of Plaque was hooked up to the hoses hooked up to her heart, already rather muffled by plaque. After a while, the artificial plaque did its job: Blood flow to the heart stopped absolutely, and they carted the obese corpse of Rikki away. “Hmm. Might have to have that one myself,” spoke Johann. “Go ahead.” He watched the process: First the bones and organs were removed via a suction tube, the obese body of the woman sliding down the production line. A horizontal blade sliced the body in half, causing the immense fat, even with its muscular trappings, to jiggle and bleed. With metal pincers dividing the body on the rack into the two halves, the body was moved down. Two sets of blades cut the immense amounts of meat into different cuts of meat, the stomach produced copious amounts of lean meat, especially for a stomach cut, the breast being the largest, but also the leanest cut of Rikki’s meat. Once the body was carved into choice cuts, Johann spoke into a microphone. “Serve me a slice of that breast. Medium Well.” The butcher nodded, and carted it off to the chef. A bit later, the chef carted the steak in, served with a side of steak fries and a glass of soda. Johann smiled, clapped his hands, and cut into the meat. “Mmm, Fresh Meat.”