Holda glared at her husband with her dark little eyes. Elwin wanted to run away, but he was stuck to the floor. Thanks to the generous allocation of food available only for breeding couples, Holda had managed the achievement of being fat in a society where the expense of food meant most people were on rations. She pulled herself up from the chair, the ring of flesh about her middle wobbled as she did this. She moved menacingly closer to Elwin. Her voice was uncharacteristically quiet but every question she asked sounded like an order.
“Where have you been?”
“Just out with Erian.”
“Where were you?”
“At Erian’s apartment,” lied Elwin. He stuttered as he said this, the area around the thorn in near his cheek always hurt when he lied.
“You’re lying, Elwin, now tell me the truth.”
“I was with Erian.”
“I went to Erian’s apartment to look for you. I searched every room, you weren’t there. Now where were you?”
Elwin felt his throat tighten and close over. He gasped several times before he could finally croak the answer out, “I was in the complex next door, in Kylie’s apartment.”
Holda’s fat cheeks flushed red and Elwin knew she was about to start shouting.
“At Kylie’s apartment? You were there with that slut? What’s wrong with you man?! You have a strong feisty wife here who needs your seed and you’re wasting it on some dumb slut who has probably never made a baby before. She’s a stupid skinny bitch without any curves, I am a real woman. A real woman!”
As she declared that she was a real woman she started taking off her clothes in front of him. She was shorter than Elwin, but easily weighed twice what he did. Her skin was lined and marked from too much sunbathing, and the flesh hung from her bones in limp sacks of oily skin. One of her oversized distended thighs was covered in the dark lines distinctive of a thorn. The most disagreeable feature of her was her large drooping belly. Radiating from her belly button was the black web of another thorn. It had been placed directly into her belly button. Her skin around it was uneven with the appearance of stretch marks and bubbles underneath the surface at random places. Elwin was able to contain his revulsion of her naked form, remaining stony faced.
“I am only twenty-nine years old Elwin, my body is big and youthful. I have made five children with this body. Five donations towards paying off the Delforian debt. I am a breeder, an experienced breeder, you are lucky to have been allocated such a woman as I for your first wife. I can make you a baby like I did the other men. You can get twenty-five percent of the profits for delivering a new baby to the nurseries. It’s a wonderful opportunity for you to pay off your share of the debt we all owe. Yet you stupidly spend your time with that skinny whore. If she ever got pregnant you know that you wouldn’t get a scent of the money from handing that baby over.
“You need to come to your senses Elwin. The deadline for impregnating me is in just four months. After that our food privileges for being a breeding couple will be revoked. Now, I am going to be honest about this: I don’t like you Elwin. You’re weird and creepy. I have no idea what you do in that room full of junk every day after work. I am sure it’s strange and treacherous though. I would have reported you ages ago if I wasn’t such a kind person. If it was up to me, I never would have married someone like you. However, I was allocated to you, and you have to make the most of it by treating me well.”
At this point her anger had started to die and she was letting her guard down. Elwin watched transfixed with terror as she took a forlorn breath. He just wanted her to shut up and leave him alone. Could he actually say that to her? Not ever, so long as there is this thorn in my chest he thought. She continued.
“See, while I don’t like you, I do like having this big apartment. I do like eating lots of food. I do like the prestige of being a breeder. I don’t want to lose these things just because you’re not man enough for a real woman like me. So it is like this. Either fulfil your matrimonial duties to me or I will throw out everything in that room of yours. It is your choice.”
Holda stood there smiling proudly as though she had just made a clever argument. The full violence of her threat was readily apparent to Elwin. Thinking about all his writings stuffed away inside the countless nooks and crannies of that room at this moment frightened him more than the illegality of the notes he had already made; Elwin quickly concluded that he had no choice. He had to comply with what she wanted. He looked upon the squat mountain of distorted womanhood before him and swallowed nervously. Meanwhile Holda started to smile, she had realised that her threat had worked.
She stepped forward to grab him, “Come, take your clothes off and join me in the bedroom.”
Elwin remained fixed to the spot. The smile fell from her face and a vicious snarl emerged, “Now!” she snapped.
Elwin allowed himself to be half guided and half dragged to the bedroom. Once undressed Holda pressed her body against him and grabbed at home ferociously. Elwin didn’t feel at all like co-operating, but he feared if he couldn’t match her excitement then she might start beating him or just turn him in to the Kelites out of spite. Elwin closed his eyes and thought of Edith. He imagined her shapely waist, and moving his hand up to grasp her breasts. It was working, Elwin was getting stimulated and as far as Holda was concerned; it was all about her. In his mind though, when Elwin reached for Edith’s long blonde hair, the thorn in his heart drilled hard into his flesh. Edith’s hair fell from her scalp and revealed the baldness that Kylie had warned him about. Elwin panicked, Holda would notice soon that he was losing interest. He needed to imagine another woman. Something to keep him focussed on the moment.
Sophisticated Nonsense 