Bottomless Bill (Patreon)

Bill, Gordi and Russel hadn’t seen each other in years. Seventeen years, to be precise. Back in high school the three of them had been inseparable, the kind of bros you always saw dicking around, sorta making trouble but not really. Real blood brothers type-stuff.

But time marches on and all that. The trio graduated from school, disbanded, and, well, life took over. You know how it goes - careers, partners, kids, the whole bit. In the blink of an eye over a decade and a half just slid right out of view, just like that.

BZZZZT!

Well, tonight was the big night. The time had come for the ol’ grand reunion of our three amigos.

‘Hello?’

That was Bill’s voice over the intercom for his building, sounding older, deeper, probably not wiser.

He, Gordi and Russel had been planning this night for months.

‘Let us up, doofus!’ Russel crowed into the little circular speaker set next to the intercom controls.

‘Yeah, we come bearing gifts!’ added Gordi.

Beer. The gifts were beer.

For three grown men in their mid-thirties, each with multiple commitments - a wife and kids in Russell’s case - simply finding an available slot to meet up had taken military planning.

‘Duuuuuudes!’ came Bill’s voice back through the system, a little crackly and metallic.

Shortly thereafter came the deep, elongated chime that universally heralded The Door Is Open.

Gordi tugged at the thick handle and he and Russel stepped through. Pretty soon they were in the elevator pushing for the fifth floor - the top.

Oh sure, the three guys had made the usual paltry attempts to keep in touch over social media that most old friends do over the years, but tonight would be the first time they’d actually be back together in person in seventeen years.

‘Dude, can you actually believe this?’ Russel asked of Gordi while they ascended. ‘Like holy shit, it’s been so long!’

‘I know, right?’ Gordi replied. ‘I’m like weirdly nervous, haha.’

‘Dude, same! What the hell? Ha!’

They were grinning like dopes by the time the elevator doors slid back open. It was as though school were still in session and they were back under the bleechers stealing drags of weed between fits of giggles. The cans of beer dinked and glugged in Gordi’s bag when he and Russel sidled up to Bill’s front door.

It opened before they could knock, and there was Bill, beaming just as emphatically as they.

‘Duuuuudes!!’

His face was rounder than it used to be, his middle thicker, but there wasn’t much time for a decent looksee, considering how Bill just dragged his two fellow bros into the biggest, strongest hug known to man.

‘Fucking… fuck, man! Haha!’ he laughed, releasing them with a wide grin. ‘Come in, come in!’

And from there it was like slipping into an old pair of shoes. Three childhood besties reunited after so many years, back to talking shit and sipping on beer like time had never passed. That’s how it always was with the closest friends. Just picking up where you left off.

And Gordi could see it now - Bill had gotten thicker. Not that that was a bad thing, of course. Life had clearly been good to the man. Nowadays Bill ran his own management consultancy business, he said. It had afforded him this swanky bachelor pad on the top floor of the building. And it had graced him with good eating, evidently. Back in school Bill had always been this rake of a guy, wiry and naturally athletic, despite avoiding sports like the plague. They used to call him Bottomless Bill on account of how much he ate - none of it ever seemed to stick. Well, Gordi saw it sticking now. Bill’s middle had bulged out to a generous 40” waist, with a nice bit of overhang creeping past the belt line, all snug within Bill’s tailored shirt. There was a healthy amount of man-cleavage nestled above that too, a plump chest with a layer of fat, all coated in mahogany hair that poked out atop his open collar. And the fine jaw Bill used to sport back in the day? That was now home to a nascent double chin with intentional six-o-clock shadow. Once you threw in a few grey streaks to top the whole thing off, it painted a picture of a man happy and fed in his thirties, enjoying all that life had to offer. Most importantly, he’d never lost that infectious smile. Bill looked great.

They had a lot of catching up to do, and plentiful beers to tide them over in the doing so. Notions of going out partying like old times had been floated - maybe a bar crawl, maybe a strip joint - but when push came to shove, all that really mattered was the company. Just three bros hanging out, shooting the shit like nobody was watching. Being here in Bill’s uptown apartment, beers in hand, maybe some PlayStation later, definitely some eats, that was all they needed.

Gordi, also the steadfast bachelor, told Bill and Russel of his exploits. After something of a winding career path he’d landed on his feet giving talks on marketing all around the country, and sometimes abroad. It paid well and he loved the travel.

Russel, on the other hand, had settled into the life of a family man, marrying his college sweetheart and fathering two boys. He worked in finance, and took pride in taking care of his household. Thankfully he hadn’t turned into a stock market asshole, though he did kinda dress like one - this was something they could laugh about.

‘My dudes, who’s hungry?’ Bill asked, on his third beer. ‘I didn’t know what you guys would want so I haven’t ordered anything yet.’

‘To be fair, you do look like a hungry man,’ Gordi smirked, giving Bill’s hearty midriff a pat or two.

‘Ha! Get fucked, dude,’ Bill countered with a laugh. ‘Alright, I might’ve gained a few pounds. We’re not teenagers anymore, sue me, haha!’

‘Nah, it’s all good, bro,’ Russel chimed in, cognizant that only he had yet to pick up any excess bodily baggage over the years. ‘You couldn’t stay Bottomless Bill forever, right? Ha!’

‘Oh he’s still around,’ Bill chuckled, now smoothing down his belly where Gordi had patted. ‘I just, uh, pay for it a little more these days, if you know what I mean? Heh.’

‘Nuthin’ wrong with that, my friend. Nuthin’ at all,’ Gordi added, as a way of saying that he’d meant no ill-will. ‘I could go some pizza, if you guys want?’

‘Sure.’ Russel slugged some more beer.

‘On it, Gord.’ Bill brought up his phone and was already scrolling the Pizza section of the Deliveroo app - it lived on the front page.

In no time at all they’d picked out the best pizza joint in town (PizzaPiazza) and had selected all their favorites, with trimmings of course.

‘You remember his fuckin’ obsession with extra cheese?’ Gordi muttered conspiratorially to Russel while Bill completed the order with thick finger taps against his phone screen.

‘Dude, don’t start,’ hissed Russel in response, smirking.

‘There’s no option for extra cheese…,’ Bill proclaimed aloud with a frown, right on cue.

‘Oh my God, haha!’

‘What?’

Approximately one and a half beers later came the intercom buzz heralding the PizzaPiazza delivery guy. Bill let him up, and gave the young lad a more-than-adequate tip (eliciting a ‘Hey, thanks!’), before laying bare the spoils on his big glass living room table.

Pizzas, beers, hot buffalo wings, fried mozzarella, jalapeño poppers, crispy-skinned wedges with all the dipping sauces, half-baked cookies - Bill, Gordi and Russel got to work immediately, each sinking into one of Bill’s comfy living room chairs.

‘This literally is just like old times, huh?’ Russel smiled between bites of a barbecue chicken slice. ‘My wife would never let me eat like this back home.’

‘Mi casa, et cetera, man. Wouldn’t have it any other way,’ Bill responded happily. ‘I’m just so fucking’ stoked we finally got to do this.’

Gordi was eyeing Bill’s shirt above a slice of meat feast. All the pizza and extras were certainly taking a toll, stretching the fabric some, but he wondered…

‘Say, uh, Bill, buddy…,’ he began, ‘how’s the ol’ black hole? Reckon you could go another round after this?’

Bill laughed, cheeks full. ‘I told you, dude, it’s not a black hole anymore. When we were kids, sure, I could eat like a horse and I’d stay a stick figure. But now? If I wanna eat, I pay the price, haha! Comes with age, I guess.’

With this he cupped one hand along the undercarriage of his now slightly taut gut, not unhappily.

‘Ah, but that’s not what I’m saying,’ Gordi riposted, returning to his beer, feet up. ‘Sure it’s gotta go somewhere, but what I’m saying is - Do you feel full? Could you go another round?’

Russel gave this his attention too, waiting keenly on Bill’s response.

‘Could I…?’ Bill thought aloud. His hand was making circular laps around his belly’s surface on autopilot. ‘I mean… Probably? I wouldn’t say I’m full, per se…’

‘Damn,’ Russel exclaimed.

They’d each consumed their bodyweight in pizza with all the accompaniments a grown adult could handle. Three satiated bros.

‘Bottomless Bill never really went away, huh?’ Russel added mirthfully.

‘So what’s say we make this interesting, Russ?’ Gordi asked across the leftover-slathered glass table.

‘Meaning?’

‘Twenty bucks says Bill can pack the whole thing away all over again.’

Bill’s curious expression ping-ponged between them. ‘What am I, the evening’s entertainment now? Haha.’

But Russel leaned forward and answered, ‘You got yourself a deal.’

And before Bill could speak another word, Gordi was tapping at the food delivery app on his own phone. ‘Same topping again, bud?’ he asked of Bill without looking up.

‘Uhhh…’

‘Okay done. On its way.’ Gordi pocketed his phone with a satisfied smirk.

‘Easiest twenty bucks I’m ever gonna make,’ Russel countered, back to his beer.

‘Don’t I get a say in this?’ Bill asked, but the trademark smile betrayed how amusing he really thought the whole thing was. In all honesty he was just so glad to be back with his bros. And beyond that… sure, he could eat.

BZZZZT!

This second buzz came about 35 minutes later. It was the same PizzaPiazza delivery guy.

When Gordi went to get the door, the guy asked, ‘Didn’t I just… deliver here, like, not even that long ago…?’

‘We got a little wager going,’ Gordi told him, accepting the goods.

‘It’s stupid!’ Bill called out from his couch.

Gordi explained the whole thing to the delivery kid (whose name was Buck), even going so far as to delve a little into the Bottomless Bill origin story.

‘Are you serious?’ Buck the delivery guy asked in genuine incredulity. ‘He’s gonna eat all that again?’

‘He’s so not,’ Russel called lazily after a swig.

‘Can I… Can I stay and watch?’ Buck asked.

‘Pull up a pew, my dude,’ Bill said to him with a motion of his hand.

‘Oh sure,’ snorted Russel. ‘This won’t last long anyway. He won’t even get halfway.’

And so it was that Bill started the process of tucking into Round Two, folding slices of pepperoni into his mouth, only now with an audience.

‘Hey Buck, you want a beer, man?’ Gordi asked the lad who couldn’t take his eyes off Bill’s endlessly chomping maw.

‘He’s a delivery driver, dumbass,’ Russel intervened.

But Buck, still glued to the action (Bill was nearing a third of the way through the extra large Pepperoni Supreme already), replied, ‘Oh sure, I’ll take one… thanks…’

The kid was mesmerized, and had probably stopped caring about the rest of his shift.

Bill, for his part, was going at it like a trooper, displaying the kind of appetite Gordi and Russel recognized instantly from their high school days, only this time Bill’s stomach was taking the hit. His shirt was straining against his gut, pretty soon little fleshy ovals would start emerging between the buttons. But Bill didn’t look uncomfortable, or in distress, or anything. The guy just kept right on chomping…

‘Looks like you’re about to lose twenty big ones, sucker,’ Gordi preened to Russel, having handed the delivery kid his beer.

‘Yeah, yeah, I’ll grab my wallet,’ Russel grumbled in return.

Buck, unable to avert his gaze from Bill’s dismemberment of buffalo wings and wedges (he’d since demolished the pizza, not a crumb left in the box), added, ‘You know… they do that challenge over at Panda Garden… That Chinese place over on Main? If you can finish the, uh… the Grand Panda Feast - I think they call it - in under an hour, you get the whole thing free...’ He slurped on his beer, teenage facial-fluff grazing the bottle. ‘Do you… Do you reckon…?’

Gordi’s face practically lit up. ‘Do we reckon what? That Bill’s up for it?’ He turned to his lifelong pal who was sucking the tips of his fingers, entire meal gone. ‘Whaddya say, old buddy? You got room for more in the tank?’

There was no food coma, no digestive stupor or blowing out of cheeks. Nothing like that. A completely fine, unaffected Bill (perhaps the same couldn’t be said for his button-down) replied casually, ‘Uhhhh, sure, why not?’

‘Fuck, dude…,’ Russel’s face knotted in a kind of amused disbelief.

‘He’s totally fine…,’ Buck murmured to himself. ‘How is he totally fine…?’

Bill let out a spectacular belch, and said, ‘Pass me another beer, wouldya?’

Gordi was back on his cellphone.

‘Buck, what was the name of that place you said? Panda Garden?’

‘One Grand Panda Feast…,’ the second delivery man started to say as the door opened for him, but his words trailed off at the sight of so many pizza boxes stacked up around the occupants of the apartment. ‘Oh, you guys ate already? Have I got the right place?’ He started to check his phone.

‘No, no, you got it right,’ Gordi, who’d answered the door, told him.

‘Uhhh, okay…’

‘Come on in.’

‘Alright.’ This Panda Garden guy stepped tentatively into what must have looked a slightly odd scene: Another delivery driver was perched on a nearby couch, between some finance bro and a dude who’s shirt looked ready to pop right open from the force of his pumped-up gut.

‘’Cos if one of you guys is doing the Grand Panda Feast Challenge then I gotta film it on my phone and show it to my boss as proof. That’s how you get it for free, see. We actually reimburse you once he’s seen the video. It’s like a whole thing.’

‘Take a seat, pal,’ Gordi said to the bewildered man, alleviating him of the delivery bag and swiping pizza boxes aside to make room for this new feast. ‘Bill here’s gonna take care of it.’

‘Really? He looks pretty… full up already…’

Fat. That’s how Bill looked. Pregnant with a colossal food baby. Possibly triplets. But the second delivery person was most likely trying to be polite.

‘Ah, it’s all good, man,’ Bill shot a smile across the increasingly laden glass table. ‘Do your video thing. I got this.’

‘It shouldn’t make sense,’ Russel felt compelled to add, upon seeing the latest driver’s furrowed brow, ‘but somehow here we are.’

‘Cheers,’ said Buck (who’d evidently decided to stay), and he raised his beer.

The Panda Garden employee, called Dee, fished his phone back out of his pocket with uncertain fingers and pointed it at Bill, who got to work immediately.

Laid before him were 10 thick spring rolls, 12 corners of stacked sesame prawn toast, 2 large cartons of chicken chow mein, another 2 of egg-fried rice with peas, 18 generously-sized deep fried pork balls with sweet and sour dipping sauce and 10 duck pancakes in sticky plum soy.

It was incredible, watching Bill go at it. He was methodical, but fast. He knew exactly the volume of food to ply each forkful with to best fit his mouth. He skewered pork balls, twirled noodles around his fork, plucked each segment of prawn toast with calculating efficiency. Nothing spilled, nothing was wasted. He even dabbed his thumb to any escapee sesame seeds on the table to hoover them back between his lips.

It appeared that Dee forgot he was filming at some point; Russel looked over to see the man’s jaw hanging loose.

‘It’s amazing, right?’ Buck asked of the new guy. ‘I didn’t believe it at first, either.’

‘Oop!’ Bill laughed as the southernmost button of his shirt suddenly pinged straight off, landing somewhere in the kitchen area. ‘Thar she blows! Haha.’

The exposed belly flesh left in its wake was taut beyond belief. Gordi imagined it might feel rock solid to the touch, perhaps like a warm wrecking ball, and wanted badly to find out. He wrestled between asking permission or simply reaching out with his hand. Probably better to wait til after the challenge.

Bill had just blown past the halfway mark.

‘I think someone’s getting his free meal,’ Russel conceded.

‘Yeah, and to think you didn’t even believe he’d finish the second pizza!’ Gordi goaded him.

‘Hey, I’m a big enough man to admit when I’m wrong.’

‘Not as big as Bill, though, heh.’

‘Hey, I resemble that remark,’ Bill grinned with rice-swollen cheeks.

‘My boss is gonna have a fit when he sees this…,’ Dee stated, phone still pointed at Bill’s swollen vicinity. ‘He doesn’t actually like when people complete the Grand Panda Feast Challenge. We’ve only ever had like three or four folks finish…’

‘Well, better make it five and cough up the dough, my friend, because I,’ Bill replied, letting his fork clatter to the empty plate like a mic drop, ‘am done!’

‘Holy shit…’

Bill then patted his stretched middle where the button had popped and Gordi swore it sounded exactly like a drum.

No-one could quite believe it when Bill went on to say, ‘What’s next?’

He was into this wholeheartedly now, whatever ‘this’ was.

Bottomless Bill had well and truly entered the game.

The group decided to give Pot Roast Paradise a try next, since there seemed to be no stopping Bill’s appetite. It was Russel who did the ordering this time, now fully shirked of any doubts over how much his old school friend could handle. Pot Roast Paradise was a buffet of sorts, but they would deliver to your home whatever choice cuts you wanted. They had roast beef, pork with the crackling skin, roast chicken in herbs stuffed with potatoes, meatloaf, vegetarian nut roasts with house-made stuffing, all kinds of gravies and mash, a list of baked vegetables as long as your arm…

Russel ordered some of everything. All for Bill.

When he took up the mantle of door-answerer, he was greeted by a third delivery person, this time a girl in her twenties who kinda side-eyed the whole fratboy party situation going on in the apartment. That was, until she was invited to join the festivities, not quite believing that the order was all going to one man who’d not long ago devoured two huge pizzas with all the trimmings followed by a full-on Chinese feast. But curiosity won her over and, like Buck and Dee, she felt compelled to watch.

Russel was in the process of closing the front door when another voice from out in the hall asked,

‘What is all this? What’s going on in here?’

Bill looked up, in no fit state to stand, to see his downstairs neighbor pushing her face to the gap in the doorframe; she must have followed the Pot Roast Paradise girl up here.

‘Mrs Collins,’ he called out. ‘Everything all right? Sorry if we’re being kinda loud. We’re having a reunion kinda thing-‘

‘No, it’s not that. It’s not noise,’ Mrs Collins responded. ‘I just keep seeing all these delivery people coming up here. I don’t know what’s going on…’

Her eyes then met Bill’s exposed lower belly in all its expanded glory. It was beginning to put beach balls to shame.

‘I’d better explain the Bottomless Bill story again, hadn’t I?’ Russel sighed, door still in hand.

‘The what now?’ came Mrs Collins’ reply.

‘Come on in.’

And as the story was unfurled before her, Mrs Collins the downstairs neighbour showed genuine curiosity. Like the others, she could scarcely believe one person could eat so much AND have room for more! However, it was when she was informed that Bill had wine stocked in the kitchen that Mrs Collins became convinced that Yes, she needed to stay and observe, just as the three delivery drivers were doing.

Lucinda - that was the Pot Roast Paradise girl - displayed only raw fascination at witnessing Bill pick apart his meats, his veg, all slathered in thick gravy which he’d poured from the little polystyrene cup.

‘So is it like… You know how a dog never feels full up? Like they have no receptor in their brain that says ‘I’m full’ or something like that? That’s why they’re always begging for food, even if you’ve literally just fed them. Do you think it’s like that?’ she asked the group at large.

More buttons had lost the war against Bill’s encroaching stomach; it proudly protruded, almost fully exposed, creeping further outwards with each considered bite, like an expansionist nation determined to occupy the entirety of his lap. Bill, as he ate, simply shrugged.

‘He was always like this, back when we were kids,’ Russel explained. ‘He could just eat and eat and eat…’

‘Expect he never got fat then,’ Gordi added cheekily, no doubt aided by all the beer. ‘It was more like all the food went into some black hole to another dimension or something.’ His gaze remained on the overinflated beach ball of skin stuck to Bill’s abdomen. ‘But now… it’s pretty obvious where it’s all going, heh.’

‘Are you in pain, dear?’ Mrs Collins asked of her chewing neighbor.

Bill contemplated his answer while he chomped on crispy pork crackling dipped in apple sauce. He made a face like he’d never even thought of this before. ‘Uhhh… no? No. I’m fine, haha.’ And thus he returned to his meal, occasionally rubbing what was fast becoming a mammoth ballgut with one hand while the other forked more meats.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ the delivery girl added.

‘Nor had we,’ Buck replied. ‘Beer?’

‘Mrs C, what say you?’ Gordi asked. ‘You know any other good food joints around here? I think it goes without saying we gotta keep this train running, heh.’

‘You mean… You mean he’s going to keep eating even more after that?’ Mrs Collins’ eyes bulged for a moment. If she’d been wearing pearls, chances were high she’d have clutched them.

‘If you’re game, Bill?’ Gordi asked across the table now piled high with containers.

‘Sure!’ Bill smiled, pushing the last of the potatoes into one cheek. ‘Bring it on, haha.’

The Pot Roast girl just shook her head in disbelief, the man before her looking unnaturally swollen.

‘Well…,’ Mrs Collins chimed back unexpectedly. Perhaps morbid curiosity was taking over.  ‘… There is the German place across the street. I believe they also deliver…’

‘Schnitzel-Haus, at your service, delivery for - What the heck is going on in there…?’

‘Tell the man, Buck.’

‘Okay, so this guy on the couch is Bill, but they call him Bottomless Bill, right…’

It took a little bit to get delivery driver #4 up to speed, but once the story had been told and this latest package of delicious Bavarian fare deposited before the owner of the apartment (getting cosier by the hour), it was showtime.

Bill dug deep into tubs of sauerkraut and potatoes, into reams of thick German sausages, great pork medallions coated in breadcrumbs, and schnitzel of course. There were strong German beers passed around (the latest delivery guy followed the trend of wishing to stay and bare witness to this seemingly unstoppable eating machine of a man), and after all of that came mighty slabs of black forest gateaux, moist with chocolate and cherry.

Gordi was the first to notice when Bill’s shirt finally gave up the ghost, and wondered how long it would take the man’s poor, suffering belt to follow.

A second neighbor, Mr Lovell from across the hall, demanded to know what all the ruckus was about, was summarily placated with Bavarian booze, and, in the absence of beating them, joined them - ‘them’ being the growing watch party surrounding Bill and his inexplicable belly, now stretched to ungodly disproportion.

Gordi could wait no longer and laid a hand upon the bulging skin - very warm to the touch and utterly without give.

‘Hey, I wanna go,’ Buck nudged his way over to Bill’s midsection to feel for himself. ‘Holy fuck, it’s like… I don’t know what that’s like. I’ve never felt anything like that before.’

‘And you seriously don’t feel like sick or… bad, or anything?’ Lucinda the Pot Roast girl asked Bill.

He swigged his German beer and shrugged, ‘Nuh-uh.’

‘More,’ Gordi stated. ‘More...’

Next came Greek cuisine - endless flame-grilled kebabs and lamb slathered in yogurt and spices, followed by cheeses dipped in honey with herbs and mint - and more onlookers. Neighbors from across the building were coming to join the show, each of them staring in disbelief as Bill ate and widened yet further. The Greek delivery driver wanted to live-stream the whole thing for his Instagram story, which, to Bill’s great amusement, soon racked up likes and love-hearts all over the lad’s phone screen. The driver said it was good publicity for the restaurant and that his boss would very much approve.

After that, an order of Caribbean food was placed and delivered.

Bill filled up on jerk chicken and pork, spiced rice with beans and vegetables, flavors practically bursting on his tongue while his expectant crowd jostled for a better view of this inhuman food factory. Bill’s belly had easily quadrupled in size since the festivities had begun. Probably more. And he showed no sign of slowing down.

‘My followers are asking how you do it, man,’ the Greek delivery driver asked of Bill while the man himself dabbed jerk seasoning from his mouth with a napkin. ‘How can you possibly fit so much food into your stomach like this?’

‘He’s a freak of nature,’ Gordi got in there first, lips curled into some kind of proud smile. ‘In the best possible way, of course.’

Bill went to respond, but instead let out a belch that actually blew Gordi’s beard back some, perhaps wiping that smirk away a smidge in the process.

Some of the crowd laughed and cheered, before a unified rally of ‘More! More! More! More!’ went up.

It wasn’t even about the food anymore. Even though the orders from WaffleTown, with its sweet, crispy, doughy, loaded waffles, followed by all of the delicate Japanese cakes from the Sun Bakery that just recently opened up across town - soft cherry blossom sponges and melt-in-your-mouth mochi delights - were all of them a patchwork of taste and texture, it was more about the spectacle of the thing now. Friends, neighbors, delivery drivers, all came for the curio but stayed for the sheer wonder of watching this man, this so-called Bottomless Bill push so far at the boundaries of human possibility as to downright obliterate them.

He was abnormally swollen, gargantuanly so, in fact. No tailor’s tape measure would ever fit around his girth in its current state. Bill’s belt had cleanly snapped in half somewhere between the Caribbean and East Asia. And more was coming.

Someone had ordered Italian food, the better to witness Bill chow down spaghetti, tortellini, penne, conchiglie, ravioli, cavatelli, all in rich, meaty sauces, some of them so creamy as to stupefy the senses. He tucked into huge slabs of lasagne that would have turned Garfield green with envy. He crunched into sumptuous cannolis overflowing with cream, all with his resolute efficiency, entirely unbothered that his gut was overtaking his knees, and that half his building wanted a feel of it (much to protective Gordi’s chagrin).

‘This has gotta be some kinda world record,’ Russel mused, shaking his head.

‘Only if he keeps going,’ Gordi insisted.

When the Land Of Thai delivery showed up next, it came accompanied with a local news reporter who’d been following the Instagram live-stream and had sniffed, among another things, a story here. She nudged her way in alongside the Thai delivery guy (who appeared so far out of his depth, the food bags had to be taken from him before he dropped them in disbelief), and dragged her cameraman in beside her, harrying him to set up as quick as he could.

‘We’re here at local man Bill Parker’s apartment on Fairview where, according to many here at the scene, history is being made…’

Bill ate the Thai. Of course he did. He demolished the green curry, the red curry, and summer rolls and peanut satay skewers and golden potatoes. Then he ate southern fried chicken from ChickBites, gorging by hand each gorgeous piece of peppered, spiced, crispy-coated breast and wing. He downed fries with just about every kind of sauce. He knocked back cokes and beers like there was no tomorrow, often releasing burps that went on for longer that could have reasonably be deemed possible.

‘He’s being dubbed Bottomless Bill and it’s not difficult to see why…,’ the reporter droned on.

The Greek lad’s Instagram story was exploding. Apparently the internet loved Bill, and no-one could believe their eyes.

He barely resembled a human being anymore. Bill’s stomach had taken on a life of its own, expanding out in all directions, unbelievably taut, solid to the touch and spectacularly large. He looked like a balloon with limbs and a head. A head that wouldn’t stop eating.

Gordi was pretty sure that by the time Ultra Burger arrived, all of Bill’s building were here too. The place was cramped full of onlookers, all gathered around Bill and his insatiable appetite. At one point a faint groaning noise caused Russel to share a look of concern with Gordi, neither man sure if the sound had come from Bill’s stupendously round belly, or elsewhere. The former, for all its overstretched absurdity, got further plied with bacon double cheeseburgers, triple stacked “Ultra Patties”, crispy coated chicken burgers dripping in relish and tomatoes, even bison burgers, all with boxes and boxes of fries and enough dipping sauce to fill a bathtub.

The crowd were going nuts, each completed burger earning their renewed enthusiasm. Over the endless cheering was that sound again, though. Russel definitely heard it; a kind of protracted moan or creak.

When a police officer showed up, it seemed like the party might get popped. That was, until he posed next to Bill’s boulder-belly, grinning like a tourist with his thumb jerked up for the Instagram story. He straightened up somewhat upon noticing the actual news camera, however.

Indian cuisine was next on the menu, which Bill tore into with as much aplomb as the rest. Folks from the crowd helped to unpack the bag and set pertinent items onto the conveniently massive shelf Bill’s gut had become. He started with vegetable samosas - 20 of them to be precise - before moving on to fat, spongy bhajis (20 again). He scooped heaped spoonfuls of pilau rice into his mouth, alongside dollops of tikka masala, madras, bhuna, balti. Gordi helped tear the 16 naan breads into pieces to be easily dunked in mango chutney and lime yogurt raita.

Russel could have sworn he felt the floor rumble, but perhaps it was simply the jostling of so many bodies packed tightly around he and his old buddies, one of whom was morphing into a zeplin before his eyes.

But it was the delivery of Ice-Cream-A-Go-Go that cemented it - Russel had no doubt that the floor was really creaking. In fact, he was starting to see evidence of the wooden parquet boards bowing right under he and Bill and Gordi and the innumerable “guests”.

‘Uh… guys…’

‘Not now, dude, Bill’s just started the Rocky Road.’

There were 32 tubs of ice-cream stacked all around (and on top of) Bill, double of every flavour Ice-Cream-A-Go-Go did. And Bill supped on every one of them, always with that satisfied, downright placid expression on his face. Nothing about the surrounding madness was phasing the man. The only thing that mattered to him was Mint Choc Chip, then Raspberry Whirl, then Pistachio Dream…

‘Guys, seriously…,’ continued Russel.

SNAP!

Something buckled, or broke, or something. Russel couldn’t see what it was, but plaster was falling down from a support beam above them. This was enough to pull Bill from his tub of White Chocolate Surprise.

‘Huh,’ he commented, letting his spoon rest. ‘D’you think-‘

CCCCCCRRRRRRRAAAAASSSSHHHHHH!!

The apartment floor disappeared beneath the three bros and all of the spectators. Floorboards cracked and caved inwards, creating a gaping wide hole that pulled sofas and humans down into it. Everybody screamed and scrabbled for purchase. Beneath the broken flooring, the pipework got similarly crushed under the weight of so many people - one of whom was a giant ball of flesh.

And they all fell. They fell through the floor of Bill’s apartment and the ceiling of Mrs Collins’, before breaking her floor to smithereens and continuing to descend heavily down and down and down, crashing and crunching through wood and plaster and dust and paint and rugs. One floor gave way to the next, then the next, the crowd erupting in waves of screams, each level breaking their fall but not stopping it. Somewhere along the way a burst water pipe got half the mass of falling persons soaking wet.

This lasted for five storeys until finally they each landed in an unruly heap, covered in God-only-knew how much crap. A few landed on Bill, his giant stomach providing something of a cushion, if a solid one.

There were bruises, scrapes, confusion, questions, but no-one was seriously injured, thankfully. After untangling himself from the news reporter and massaging his head, Russel went to help Bill into an upright position, which proved to be no mean feat. Gordi soon helped out, followed by Buck and a couple others.

‘Fuck…,’ somebody said in the falling rubble.

‘Holy shit…’

‘Are you guys okay?’

‘I think so… Are you okay, Bill?’

Bill blinked a few times, wiped his face of plaster which only smeared it on deeper. But he nodded. He was okay.

Gordi actually laughed. Probably a reflex thing.

‘Phew!’ Bill echoed his friend’s oddly-placed mirth.

Then he added, ‘What’s the next course?’