No More Than Necessary

Her problem was she knew not when to stop eating; that had to be the only rational explanation the concierge could think of as the homicide investigation entered the building and headed for the elevator. His hands shook as he wiped more fluid off from his face.

 

Detective Samuels tapped his pencil on the side of his neck as he thought up a way to properly articulate his question.

He finally decided upon two words: “She popped?”

“Popped,” explained the concierge. “Like a balloon; a ghastly balloon. It was hideous.”

“I can only imagine.” Tapping his pencil again, he asked, “How?”

The concierge stood still, jaw slackening.

 

It was very easy for the concierge to notice her; she was short, dark-haired and full-hipped. Her skirt clung tightly to her lower half while its black designs ran up the red trim in attempt to draw attention away from how round her backside seemed. A small amount of flesh revealed itself in the slit where her matching blouse could not quite meet the seemingly expensive skirt.

“Hello, miss. Do you have a reservation?”

“Yes, I do, yes, actually, it’s for this afternoon.” A brief moment of silence passed as the young man skimmed over the reservation slip.

“Ah, very well, this all appears to be in order. I’ll see you to your room personally, miss.”

 

A rather light bag was all that had to of been carried up to the fifth floor, as the guest insisted she could carry her own purse. The concierge spent the majority of the elevator ride standing behind her, glancing tactfully down at her behind every few seconds. He was careful not to seem lecherous when she turned around and politely smiled.

“Here’s your room,” he said, bending at the knees to deposit her luggage at her door. “If you’d like anything, please don’t hesitate to ring down. I’ll be more than willing to serve you personally during your stay.”

“How considerate, thank you.” Her dark, bobbed hair was held in place with a silver clip on her left side, giving her the chance to shyly tuck the hair from her right behind her ear. “I’d like you to bring up the lunch special I saw on the notice board on my way past the coffee shop for now, if you don’t mind.” She gave the same polite smile.

“Certainly, miss, it would be my pleasure.” The concierge nodded and hurried to the elevator and upon getting off the lift, hurried to the kitchen to request the order.

 

Later on in the afternoon, a fair-haired man in an unseasonably warm jacket made his way through the lobby accompanied by a man dressed in the attire typical of a chauffeur. Seeing he was heading toward the elevator without checking in, the concierge shouted after. Though he continued to make his way, his driver addressed the young man simply.

“He has an appointment.” Somehow the words made sense and clicked; the young woman to whom he brought lunch up to. She since ordered a Bloody Mary and a plate of gyoza, though he was too busy to bring them up himself.

 

When the concierge returned for lunch, he found a note on his desk from a colleague asking to bring a salad up to his hungry female guest. She greeted him warmly when he rolled the cart in with the salad and lightly buttered rolls. He, in turn, warmly accepted her tip.

 

A bit later, another note appeared on his desk from his guest for an order: a much larger order. A few thoughts crossed his mind at that point. One of them, not surprisingly, explaining mentally why she seemed to be so well endowed in the posterior region. The other being that she must have been ordering for the gentleman that said he had an appointment with.

 

He gingerly knocked on her door, cart at his side and smile on his face.

“Leave it by the door,” rang her voice, muffled from behind the door, “I’m freshening up!”

“I don’t mind waiting, miss.”

“I’m certain you’ve better things to do. Please, leave it by the door.”

Hesitantly, the young man conceded to the guest’s wishes and made haste back to the elevator.

 

Every twenty minutes until nearly two in the morning, the young concierge watched a full cart go into the elevator only to come back down empty moments later. Hulking trays with small bits of food spilling out onto the carpet, empty, as though they were not once filled to such a capacity. He certainly thought one could not consume so much and that there must have been a party afoot somewhere on the upper floors. His shift nearly over, the man clocked out early to investigate.

 

His knock was met with ambient music playing from within: violins.

“Is everything alright in there, ma’am?” he spoke, hoping his voice was recognized. When he again was not acknowledged, he beat on the door harder with a clenched fist until his knuckles took on a salmon hue.

He sighed, nearly willing to give up in his frivolous inquiry. The soft jingle of the keys in his pocket led him to dare.

“I’m coming in.”

Be it from concern, or wonder, or sheer nosiness, the concierge slid his key into the lock and entered the dark room. The light from the hall illuminated a small section of the room; a small section stacked with plates and refuse.

 

Underneath the sound of violins playing was a gentle gurgle and a gentler smacking of lips.

“Miss?” he called, turning toward the light switch as he flipped it on.

 

His eyes leapt from his head as he saw the enormity that was the young guest. Her skirt long ripped at the seams, and her blouse was now a mere bib barely covering her enormous breasts resting atop the caramel-colored dome of her midsection. Brobdingnagian hips supported her accumulated flesh, flaring outward and connecting to bare, dimpled buttocks the size and shape of Swiss exercise balls. As she chewed, the concierge made out distinctly how caked in food she was – a ring of chocolate and other substances encircled her lips; rivulets and crumbs of dispatched comestibles sprinkled throughout like dander; trembling fingers grimed with the remnants of her extensive feast.

 

The slender man shook in fear, amazement and confusion as he fumbled backwards, mouth agape and speechless. Her legs floundered and rippled under the strain though her enormous backside apparently was resting against the far corner of the suite. Despite her colossal growing, she continued to stuff more into her face, prompting her body to stretch to make room. Defying biological laws, her frame continued to swell upward and outward at a steady pace. He gaped in horrified awe as the young girl continued to bulge, the soft gurgle not yet drowned out by the score.

 

She shoveled handfuls of warm pasta into her maw, swallowed without chewing and made no effort to show a sign she was reaching her finale. Her pinnacle seemed never to come as her belly bulged forth, crammed tight as a drum with food, it’s inner workings processing the food into fat and sending it to the nearest available space.

 

Tragedy was, though, that her space was finite. The concierge choked on his own words as he waggled his long finger at her while her face bulged with food. Strands of spaghetti still hung from her lips as her entire body suddenly inflated as with some macabre air-pump. Either of her sides bumped into the walls of the corner, expanding outward as her legs and arms became buried in the cascades of fat. Compulsively, she slurped up the last bit of spaghetti as she chewed her final mouthful.

 

The violins struck the crescendo; the woman reached her limit; the man covered his face and fumbled for the door. The last words she spoke were, “I took in no more than necessary” before the loud, sickening sound of her body rupturing drowned out the sound of the violins and the cries of the young man.

 

Amidst the wreckage, a silver hairpin was found imbedded in a desk lamp. The scent was noxious and the clean-up was grisly. The once pampered suite resembled an abattoir, but to Detective Samuels it was a brutal crime scene.

 

“Tell me, Mr…”

“Reynolds.”

“Mr. Reynolds… you stated there was a man here during the afternoon to visit her? What did he look like? Did he say anything suspicious?”

“Well, no, not exactly. He didn’t say he was visiting her, per se.”

“Is that so? I thought you said he was there for an appointment?”

“I just assumed he meant with her. I don’t know why.”

“Did you question him? Ask him what his business was? Is that not your job?”

“His chauffer checked in, said he had a very important meeting. I didn’t see either of them leave, but I was away from my desk for a time.”

“I see, well what did he look like?”

“He was slender, I’d say. He was sort of pale, with long blonde hair. He wore a jacket that seemed too warm for the weather, I thought that was strange.”

“You mentioned a chauffer? What’d he look like?”

“A tall… eh…black man,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper at the mention of his race.

“I see.” The two continued to answer and ask questions until the detective found enough to piece together a cohesive story, if such an illogical occurrence could have been labeled cohesive.

 

One does not just suddenly swell up and burst like a balloon under normal circumstances, despite devouring such a mind-boggling amount of food. The pale man had to have some manner of connection, some form of hand in the young woman’s murder. There had to be some clue in her last words, some crucial piece to the tattered jigsaw puzzle. As Samuels left the scene, he lit a cigarette and pondered the events. As he took a long drag from it and blew the extracted smoke into the warm air, the detective remained absolutely oblivious to the black car with the tinted windows that drove by, and backfired.

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