The Family Secret (Warning: Unpleasant Reading)

Smoke and wine. Divans and cushions. Raucous male laughter and jiggling male bellies. Satin rippled over hidden, thick hair and over-fed fat, buttons fitted in vain hope that one was not so rotund as one thought strained and exposed unpleasant, cellulite packed skin. Chubby hands clawed for imported tobacco and attempted piggish elegance around sweaty wine glasses.

Third chins wobbled beneath thick, bristly, paintbrush mustaches. Bulbous noses stuffed with wiry fluff flared and pushed out reams of smoke.

"I have an announcement, gentlemen!" the fattest specimen of all announced, standing from his chair and spreading his arms to reveal the large, circular sweat patches leaking through his tunic.

There was a brief uproar of bellowing and snorting and sloppy hands whacking against one another.

"My daughter, as you all know, has now become a fine girl-"

More snorting. More bellowing. More fat-flapping trotters.

"And I am pleased to announce to you all, that her bedsheets were brought to me last week-"

More snorting. More bellowing. More colliding, trembling globs of human flesh.

"And that she has quite officially become a woman."

The laughter thrown into it was filthy. Caked with soot and sinister grub, it spilled from food stained lips and made pieces of cake still clinging to facial hair quiver.

"I think we all know what that means-"

More laughter and emptied wine glasses, stinking boots slamming against miserable, rich carpet.

"So let's get the celebration under way without further ado, shall we?"

Agreement. Thunderous, thumping agreement. Tongues slathered out of mouths and slicked across overgrown and styled lip hair.

"Bring her in!"

And so, she was brought in. A plump creature. Thirteen, dark haired, wide-eyed. Staring at the pig-eyes who stared back at her.

Morgance van Reinhardt was well endowed even then. Smaller in stature, shy, hands clutching at one another nervously. Celebration.

"Smile, duckling!"

She smiled. Nervously. Like a squirrel at the snarl of a wolf.

The table in the centre of the room was cleared, and the doors closed. The men of the House of Reinhardt grinned and slapped wobbly thighs in their amusement.

"Your family have arrived to congratulate you on your womanhood, my dear," Lord van Reinhardt informed her, one arm snaking around her shoulders. "This is your party! It's only right that you're the centre of attention!"

"Get to it, Renny!" an uncle squealed.

"And since they've gone to all this trouble," he sneered, black eyes dribbling down to his daughter's intimidated face. "I think they ought to see the womanhood they're celebrating, neh!"

She stared at him, uncomprehending. "I am here for them to see, father," she pointed out, looking tentatively back at the room.

"Ah!" he answered, grinning. "But they wish to see... all of you, my dear."

His lingering look gave it away, and she instantly bolted for a door. He snatched hold of the back of he dress and snatched her back, hands taking a firm hold on the bodice of her dress and his meaty arms pressing her back into his overfed stomach. He leaned down to whisper to her. "Don't be ungrateful, duckling."

A ripping sound ensued, and she turned her head, blushing profusely as the assets that would be admired all her life were displayed for all the men of her family to leer at.

"She's ripe for her age, Renny!"

"Centrepiece!" one man cried, a soon repeated word in that sickly, airless room.

The rest of her violet dress ensued, pooling onto the floor. She struggled, briefly, until her movement seemed to make them all far more interested in the moving 'assets'. She squeezed her eyes very tightly shut, and tried to swallow the encroaching sense of shame in her own body.

Her father brought her to the table, and quite violently pushed her back onto it to the laughter of the menfolk, who had all begun to rise (in two senses of the word) and head towards the table.

"You made her, Renny!" one redheaded man reminded him, taking hold of one of her arms with one slapping sound. "You get the first go!"

"Why thank you, gentlemen," Lord van Reinhardt sneered, watching as his daughter's tightly shut legs were dragged open for him and unbuckling his oversized belt. "You can all stir my porridge."

More laughter. And bellowing. And heavy breathing.


Morgance van Reinhardt would never be the same.