LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘Then please sign this contract, here and then here.’ Doctor Sage handed Caitlyn the contract and a second mauled biro. ‘Do you have the cash?’

      ‘Yes.’ Caitlyn anxiously handed over the purple wad and signed the contract; it was only a signature, wasn’t it?

      ‘See you next week then Caitlyn.’ The doctor snatched back the contract, opened up the door by the sharp end of the screwdriver and let Caitlyn, who could not quite digest what she had just experienced, go.

      

      When Caitlyn arrived home that day, she opened up the box of cakes and marvelled at their beauty. They looked even better in her own home than the stomach turning office of Doctor Ellie Sage. She took a picture of them on her camera phone and sent it to her niece and nephew. She picked up the first cake; the weight of it was perfect, and she could feel just by holding it that it was baked to perfection. With her sausage-shaped finger she scooped a load of the sugary icing onto the tip and carried it to her mouth like a truck offloading at a barge. It tasted like angel dust as it dissolved onto her slippery tongue leaving just granules of delightful sugar. She peeled back the edge of the paper and sunk her wardrobe-sized mouth into the fluffy cake. It tasted like a Sunday afternoon, like vanilla bean taken straight from the pod, like sleeping in new pyjamas and ironed bed sheets. It tasted like falling in love, like jumping on a trampoline, like laughing so hard your belly aches, like almond and sugar and sweetness beyond anything you have ever known. It was divine. Each bite was swallowed gorgeously, the mixture sat in her belly, pregnating her beaming body with a placebo of energy and happiness; this was the best day ever.

      Caitlyn ate normally throughout the rest of the day. She watched television, put the washing out and brought it back in a few hours later before deciding to have her second cake. This time she sat down to eat it–she knew how to enjoy this one properly. She had read an article once, where this hot guy only liked sleeping with big women, they don’t get it often enough so when they do, they really go for it, was his reasoning. Git, she thought. She slowly unwrapped the casing, as if undressing the man from the article, she imagined unbuttoning his smarmy shirt, pulling it off his chunky self-righteous shoulders as she plunged, for a second time, into the cupcake. Her nose tingled with the sugar rush. Fabulous. That taste rippling on her tongue made her see herself jumping into the sea in a bikini she looked great in, she could taste the cinnamon on the roof of her mouth swallowing her, tippling her upside down, she saw herself sipping a cocktail on a balcony of an expensive hotel, the sun on her hair, laughing hysterically as the exotic flavours exploded in her mouth; mango fruit, pineapple, coconut, saffron and love and love and love. She flipped her head back onto the sofa and indulged. The phone rang, but Caitlyn let it ring out.

      That night, whilst in bed, Caitlyn dreamt of the woods, she pictured herself being chased by rabid wolves. The wolves were angry and frantic, they snarled and they spat. Their ears darted back in fury as they nipped at the back of Caitlyn’s heels, snapping at the back of her dress; she ran to the trees and tried to climb but she was too unfit, too big, too bulky, too heavy to pull herself up. She tried with more effort but it was no good, she kept falling further and further, as each finger came away from the branch she had gripped onto, she started to fall into the open dribbling mouths of the wolves and then…she woke sweating, breathing heavily, panicking. And then the most awful pain struck in her stomach, it was a sharp stabbing pain that made her sit up in surprise. In agony, doubled over, she made her way to the bathroom and sat down on the toilet. She hadn’t even sat for more than a moment when she realized she was going to vomit. Still sitting on the toilet she leant over the sink and allowed herself to throw up. Within moments she began to be violently sick, her food came up but then so did a vast amount of blood. All she could do was vomit. As it continued to come up, the blood became almost blue, it spiralled down the plughole and splattered onto the taps and the tiles like the evidence of toothpaste a parent looks for to check that their messy child has brushed their teeth. The spots like freckles, no like chocolate chips, disgusting, food was disgusting wasn’t it? The thought of the food made her throw up even harder, furiously, she didn’t want to be fat, she didn’t want to be like this. She was sick of herself and that made her more sick, she was sick of the sly comments of passers-by and that made her even more sick, she was sick of the way people pulled their chairs in at restaurants when she walked past them, when people always felt the urge to tell her she had lost weight when she hadn’t, she was sick, sick, sick. Caitlyn’s eyes filled with water, she spat out the last metallic taste from her mouth and was glad it was over. With bleach, she scrubbed the sink white again, brushed her teeth and went back to bed, exhausted. The pain had gone.

      

      When she woke up, Caitlyn put the previous night’s occurrence down to stress. She made herself a cup of tea and ate her first daily cupcake; the first bite was even better than she had remembered. Like a drug this time she bit, hard, aching for it, and how did it feel and taste so good? She saw herself at the bottom of a candyfloss machine spinning, pink and frothy like the head on a cappuccino and lovely and light, she was so lovely and light, like the shoe of a slight ballerina. She saw herself smart and smug like the red heart on a jam tart on a picnic blanket. And then as though she were a cage of doves, the door was unlocked and how she flew freely, innocent and gone, away, and out and into ecstasy.

      However, that night again the same thing happened. Caitlyn woke to a sharp stabbing pain. Already familiar with the symptoms, she ran to the bathroom and allowed herself to throw up. Blood came out again, but this time followed by what appeared to be chunks of meat. When Caitlyn had finished throwing up she looked closer at the meat. She hadn’t eaten anything meaty in the last couple of days; she picked a piece up and held it in her hand, wiping the stringy snot off, inspecting it closer. Must be from a while ago, she decided. Meat can carry in a human’s body for up to seven years, and this was a big old body. She picked up the cleaning cloth and, as before, scrubbed the sink, the taps, and the bathroom mirror. The sockets of her eyes were leathery with smoky brown patches underneath and her mouth was encrusted in a reddish residue, she looked like a monster, she splashed her face with water.

      

      The next morning Caitlyn invited herself to visit Doctor Ellie Sage. She pressed on the buzzer and asked, as before, to see the doctor. The door released and Caitlyn let herself into the dingy hallway. As well as the junk that was there before, some other odd bits of crap had moved into the rotten hall: a bicycle and a number of different sized suitcases, spilling over with clothes that looked dirty and stained. The same disturbing smell haunted the shabby corridor. Caitlyn bumbled up the staircase as fast as she could and then she knocked on the door with the screwdriver.

      ‘Hello, Doctor Sage, it’s me, Caitlyn…’

      Caitlyn waited outside the door. She could still taste the blood in her gums. Her stomach still panged with a chalky acidic ache. Eventually the door opened.

      ‘Good morning Miss Anderson. Please, come in.’

      Doctor Ellie Sage’s professionalism seemed strange in comparison to the squat that the office was laid in. Caitlyn followed the doctor in.

      ‘How is the medication working for you, Miss Anderson?’ the doctor asked, sizing Caitlyn up.

      ‘Well, that’s just it, the cakes are lovely, really they are, but I keep getting these pains, I’m not sure if I’m allergic to something in the ingre—’

      ‘Yes, that’s normal. Anything else?’ the doctor asked.

      ‘Well, yes, actually. I’ve been vomiting,’ Caitlyn said shyly.

      ‘Yes, and anything else?’ Dr Sage looked vacant.

      ‘Vomiting blood.’ Caitlyn shuddered at the memory of the chunks of meat that had come up. Flashbacks of meat, separating slow and gloopy in long sticky hunks, she pictured the body of the dead rat that kid in her primary school had dissected and stapled to the notice board. The insides were so grey, why were they so grey?

      ‘Good.’ The doctor began fishing through a filing cabinet.

      ‘Good?’ Caitlyn asked. ‘How is that good? That’s not normal.’

      ‘It

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