Diana trudged through the cluttered living room of her dingy apartment, her 400-pound frame brushing against the stained couch where her husband, Kevin, sat hunched over his controller. His small, wiry body was swallowed by a faded Call of Duty hoodie, his glasses reflecting the flickering glow of his latest gaming marathon. He didn't look up as she shuffled by, her flip-flops slapping the linoleum. She didn't care. Kevin was a deadbeat, a meek little man with a small penis and smaller ambitions, but he was there--barely enough to keep the Wi-Fi on and the rent paid when she nagged him into it. Beyond that, he was just noise, like the TV blaring cartoons for the kids or the hum of the fridge stocked with off-brand soda.
Her two offspring, Brayden and Kaylee, screeched from the corner, wrestling over a cracked tablet smeared with syrup. Brayden, six, had a Kool-Aid mustache streaking his face, while Kaylee, four, yanked at his shirt with sticky hands. Diana didn't flinch.
"Quit it," she muttered, her voice a dull drone, before sinking into a kitchen chair that groaned under her weight. She tugged at her stretched-out Starbucks apron--still dusted with coffee grounds from her shift--and ran a hand through her greasy blonde bob, a choppy mess she'd last hacked at with dull scissors.
Her phone buzzed, and she squinted at it. A text from Cheryl, another breed sow from the complex: "Park later? My boss is a dick again." Diana grunted, typing back: "Yeah, Kevin's useless too. Kids need air." That was her world--other sows like Cheryl, swapping gripes about men and jobs at the playground while their broods ran wild. The news? Politics? Didn't matter. If it wasn't about diaper deals or Brayden's teacher "picking on him," it didn't exist.
Diana's life hadn't always been this grind. In her 20s, she'd been "the fat slut," a 300-pound blonde storming through dive bars and trailer parks, her tight tops barely containing her rolls. She didn't care about the snickers or the stares--sex was a thrill, a distraction, and she chased it shamelessly. Kevin had been a mistake, a scrawny gamer she'd tumbled with after too many shots. When she got pregnant, her wealthy, church-obsessed parents swooped in.
"You're marrying him," her mother, Linda, had snapped, her tone dripping with judgment. Diana, too lazy to fight, shrugged.
"Fine," she'd said, sealing her fate.
Now, at 34, she was a breed sow through and through, her existence orbiting Brayden and Kaylee. She hauled herself to Starbucks five days a week, steaming lattes and dodging snide customers, all while Kevin sat at home "looking for work" between respawns. Her parents, perched in their gated McMansion, had the cash--her dad owned a chain of car dealerships--but they'd cut her off after the wedding.
"You made your bed," her father had said, washing his hands of her. Linda, though, still meddled, especially since her gastric bypass surgery three years back.
Linda had shed 150 pounds, her once-plump frame now a wiry 120, and she wielded her new thinness like a weapon. At their last Sunday dinner, she'd eyed Diana's third helping of mashed potatoes and cooed, "Oh, honey, you'd feel so much better if you just tried a little. I mean, look at me--I'm a new woman!"
Diana had stared blankly, her chins wobbling as she chewed, while Linda added, "And that hair--did you cut it with a lawnmower?" Brayden had giggled, but Diana just shoveled in another bite.
"Whatever, Mom," she muttered, her voice flat. Inside, she seethed--Linda's barbs stung, but fighting back took effort she didn't have.
Diana's submissiveness was her backbone. She took Kevin's laziness, her parents' disdain, and the world's sneers with the same dull shrug. At Starbucks, she'd lumber through the line, expecting customers to wait, but if a manager barked at her for Brayden's meltdown during a rare visit, she'd bristle.
"Don't you dare talk about my kid like that," she'd growl, her piggy eyes flashing, before waddling off with her brood in tow, oblivious to the eyerolls.
Kevin stayed glued to his screen, his meekness a limp shadow to her apathy. He'd knocked her up, sure, but he'd never had the guts to leave--or the spine to argue. She'd trash him at the park, her voice thick with scorn: "Can't even take out the trash, just sits there gaming like a loser." Yet she stayed, tied to him by inertia and the kids, a sow to her deadbeat anchor.
That afternoon, after her shift, Diana herded Brayden and Kaylee to the park, her bulk swaying in her stained leggings. She plopped onto a bench beside Cheryl, who was already griping about her boyfriend's latest screw-up. Diana nodded, her chins jiggling, and tossed out, "Kevin didn't even watch the kids while I worked. Had to drag 'em to my mom's, and she spent the whole time yapping about my weight."
Cheryl snorted, and they settled into their ritual--complaints and commiseration--while the kids tore through the dirt. Diana watched them with vacant pride. They were hers, her brood, her everything. The rest--Linda's jabs, Kevin's uselessness, the world's judgment--could rot.
It was a rare night when the apartment wasn't a warzone of kid noise. Brayden and Kaylee were sprawled asleep on a pile of blankets in the living room, the TV looping some brain-dead cartoon about singing dogs. Diana, still in her coffee-stained Starbucks apron, shuffled into the bedroom where Kevin sat cross-legged on the mattress, his controller clicking furiously. She'd had a brutal shift--some skinny bitch in yoga pants had snapped at her for forgetting oat milk--and she wanted something, anything, to numb the day. Sex wasn't love with Kevin; it was a transaction, a clumsy release. She figured he'd be up for it--he always was, the desperate little creep.
"Put that down," she grunted, peeling off her apron and tossing it onto the floor. Kevin glanced up, his sunken eyes flicking over her 400-pound bulk as she tugged her leggings down, revealing pale, dimpled thighs. He hesitated, then set the controller aside.
"Yeah, okay," he muttered, shucking his hoodie and boxers, his scrawny frame a stark contrast to her mass. She flopped onto the bed, springs creaking, and spread her legs with the enthusiasm of someone clocking into overtime.
He climbed on, his small hands fumbling, his breath shallow. She stared at the ceiling, waiting to feel something--anything--but it was like tossing a pebble into a canyon. After two kids and years of neglect, she was too loose, too stretched, and he was too pathetic to make a dent. Kevin huffed, his bony hips grinding pointlessly, and she sighed, loud and exasperated.
"You even in yet?" she snapped, her voice cutting through the dim room.
His face flushed red, sweat beading on his forehead. "Maybe if you weren't so damn big, I could--" He stopped himself, but the damage was done. She shoved him off, her meaty arm sending him tumbling to the edge of the bed.
"Get off me, you useless prick," she barked, yanking the sheet over her chest. He scrambled upright, grabbing his boxers like a shield.
"Useless?" he shot back, his voice cracking with rare venom. "I'm useless? You're the one who can't even feel me 'cause you've turned into a goddamn whale!" The words hit like a slap, and for once, Diana's dull apathy cracked. She sat up, her chins trembling, her piggy eyes narrowing.
"Oh, you wanna talk about me?" she bellowed, her volume rattling the thin walls. "You sit there all day with your stupid games, Kevin, while I'm busting my ass at Starbucks to feed your brats! You think I got fat on purpose? Who knocked me up, huh? You and your limp little dick!"
Kevin flinched, but the fight was in him now, fueled by months of quiet resentment. "Yeah, and who's the slut who spread her legs for half the county before me? You're lucky I stuck around, Diana--nobody else would touch you now, you fat pig!" He jabbed a finger at her, his gamer-pale skin glowing with rage.
She lunged forward, the bed groaning, and swung a pillow at him. It missed, thudding against the wall. "Don't you call me that, you short-ass loser! All you do is play your dumbass games--can't fix a sink, can't watch the kids, can't even fuck me right!" Her voice was a primal roar, years of breed sow frustration boiling over. "I should've let my mom set me up with that church guy instead of you!"
Kevin sneered, yanking his hoodie back on. "Yeah, 'cause your mom's such a prize now, all skinny and smug. Bet she'd love to hear you're too loose to keep a man--probably blame it on the donuts you shovel down!" He grabbed his controller and stormed toward the living room, nearly tripping over Brayden's toy truck. "I'm done with this shit. Go cry to Cheryl about it."
Diana sat there, chest heaving, the sheet clutched to her rolls. She wanted to scream more, to hurl something heavier than a pillow, but the fight drained out of her as fast as it'd flared. She flopped back, staring at the water-stained ceiling, her mind replaying his words--"fat pig," "too loose." They stung worse than Linda's dainty jabs, cutting into the soft underbelly of her apathy. Out in the living room, she heard the game boot up, the familiar gunfire and explosions filling the silence. He'd retreated to his world, and she was left in hers--alone with her brood, her weight, and her dead-end life.
The next morning, she'd drag herself to the park with Cheryl, muttering about Kevin's "tiny dick energy" and his latest cruelty, but she wouldn't leave him. She couldn't. He was still the anchor, the provider, however shitty. And she was still the breed sow--too submissive, too stuck, to do anything but complain and carry on.
The morning after her blowout with Kevin, Diana dragged herself to Starbucks, her 400-pound frame aching from a night of tossing on the lumpy mattress. She'd dumped the kids at Linda's with a grumbled "Thanks, Mom," ignoring the usual thin-lipped jab about her leggings. Her uniform polo was a wrinkled mess, riding up over her doughy belly as she shuffled behind the counter. Her greasy blonde bob clung to her scalp, and she smelled faintly of yesterday's coffee grounds, but she didn't care--until he walked in.
Ryan J. Carter, Attorney at Law, strode up in a crisp suit, dark hair slicked back, jaw sharp enough to cut glass. He was hot--way hotter than Kevin's gamer pallor--and Diana felt her chins quiver as she fumbled his doppio espresso.