Liam rubbed the thick gooey cocoa butter deep into his stretchmarked sides. He pawed at the deep red tributaries that flowed up from his hips and fanned out across heavily bloated and convexed stomach. As he rubbed the butter deeper into his slightly burnt but browning layers of excess skin, he wondered how long it would take for the marks to finally fade and belched loudly, having inadvertently applied too much pressure to his pyloric valve. He looked down at his billowing belly and frowned, his chubby forehead crinkling up like a moist sponge. A single bead of sweat deftly made its way down through the creases and trickled into his eye. It stung of sun tan lotion. He belched again and lifted a paw in order to attempt to wipe the stinging sweat from his eye, but only proceeded to make it worse as the back of warm hand was still coated in a very real yet invisible layer of cocoa butter. He winced and hitched up his swimming shorts, in a failed attempt to cover his hefty ass crack, as he clambered to his feet. He stumbled slightly, squinting, his protruding belly smashing into the desk in his hotel room. The blunt force of the trauma sent wave-like ripples of fat rolling up his multitude of doughy layers and overhangs. His pyloric valve slammed shut and he belched loudly and deeply. The stench of regurgitated Dr Pepper Strawberries and Cream wafted up his piggy nose and began to feel slightly dizzy. I’ve been in the direct sun too long - he thought to himself and lumbered towards the bathroom, holding his distended gut in one hand and his swimming shorts up with another. Once inside the airless bathroom he let his swim wear drop to his ankles and belched once more as he fell down so hard on the toilet seat that it sounded like it was going to crack. With sweat now pouring from his low hairline, he grimaced, and cursed his mother for not checking that the air conditioning in their rooms also extended to the en suites. He spent the next ten minutes thunderously squirting out ultra-carbonated diarrhoea while wiping off his soaking face with a used bath towel that he had left in the sink that morning. Finally his pyloric valve opened again and the gaseous attack was over. He decided that it was easiest to clean himself off in the shower. He squeezed his sweaty bulk into the cubicle and turned on the shockingly cold but relieving water. As his huge body finally began to cool, he felt and heard a large rumbling coming from deep within his stomach. He wondered what the time was and whether he was late or not to meet his mother.

The hotel restaurant was large and spacious but already heaving with hungry guests. There were floor to ceiling glass doors down the entire left side that gave an open and uninterrupted view out onto the Atlantic ocean. These were kept permanently closed in order to prevent the heat from the day entering. Every so often someone would open one in order to smoke a cigarette on the whitewashed balcony. These selfish oafs almost always left the door open behind them causing the cool air conditioned air to escape much to Liam’s and the serving staff’s annoyance. Dotted with over two hundred white clothed tables Liam had calculated that it held at least a thousand diners. Most of whom seemed to have beaten him there. He pulled at the ends of his shirt and wondered what microwaved frozen delights that ‘international’ buffet was offering tonight. He was about to head straight there when he noticed his mother waving at him from a table next to an open door. She was wearing that horrible purple dress with the clematis seemingly growing all over it. Her hair was newly permed in that way that only women from the mid-west seem to be so fond of. He watched as she wiggled a dried out bingo wing at him. He so hoped that it was cancerous. He sighed and waddled over to join her.

“Why do you always insist on sitting by a door? You know that cigarette smoke enrages my asthma.”

Selma watched her obese son sit down. His chair creaked under the weight of his enormous ass. She so hoped that the legs would give way and he’d drop to the floor like the useless sack of potatoes that he was. His fat lips and thick tongue pouted at her, she studied the anger marks, hiding themselves between the bulging fleshy cheeks, and pondered over whether to abandon him here in the Atlantic ocean. He could swim to Africa - she thought. I wonder what the people of Western Sahara would make of him? Maybe they’d use him as a raft and sail him straight back here?

“I like the view. You know that. Please let’s not argue over the same thing every day.”

“The view is perfunctory at best, and while it does not offend me, unlike that ridiculous garment that you seem to keep insisting on wearing, these uncouth Europeans that seem hellbent on passively infecting my wonderfully capacious lungs with emphysema definitely do offend me.”

Selma took a quick look at the man smoking on the balcony. “He’s clearly British, Liam.” 

“What?”

“He’s British, not European. You can tell by the hairstyle.”

His mother’s stupidity irritated Liam massively. He felt a small build up of gas in his recently emptied and cavernous stomach and rolled his big brown eyes at her. “How many times Mother, Britain is still a part of Europe. The whole country has not geographically emigrated a thousand miles out into the sea. A British man is still a European!”

The smoking man made his way back towards the door to reenter the restaurant when a waiter closed it in his face. Liam gaffawed causing his rumbling belly to bounce. He eyed up the obese monstrosity and pulled the door open himself, purposefully leaving it ajar.

“Excuse me, Sir..”

Selma interrupted her ignorant son quickly in order to try to prevent the inevitable argument. “Yes, excuse us. Me and my son were just having a discussion about whether it is possible to tell where someone is from by their appearance. May I be so rude as to ask you where you’re from?”

The gruff voice answered, “Manchester. Why? Where'd you think I’m from?”

“I thought that you were English…,” Selma lied about her level of accuracy on purpose just to annoy Liam, “..but my son thought that you were European.” Liam glared at her with his big bear eyes. Was this woman trying to put him in an early grave? He did a small belch.

“Am I fuck! I’m British and proud, me!” The man glared at the young elephantine man with half of his bulging abdomen on show.

“T’fuck made you think that?”

Laim looked at the tasteless faded tattoo of some soccer club that he didn’t know on the man’s hairy sunburnt arm and regretted ever having been born. He said nothing. The man stared at the almighty gut resting on Liam’s thighs and then suddenly jabbed at it with a pointy nicotine stained finger.

“Oi!” Liam belched as he screamed in surprise. “American!” the man said loudly. “Anyone can look at you and know that you’re American. That one’s not hard!” And with that he marched away to rejoin his table at the other end of the restaurant.

“What on Earth did you do that for mother? Are you trying to get me killed? He could have had a knife! Are you aware of how much knife crime there is in the United Kingdom? The whole place is like a Jack the Ripper movie. For all you knew he could be a serial killer, a perverted sodomite of chunky young boys! Do you have any idea of the danger that you just put me in?”

It was Selma’s turn to roll her eyes. This only enraged Liam more as it drew his attention to her gaudy pink eyeshadow. He belched loudly, blamed her for inflaming his gastric stress, and declared that he needed to eat in order to satisfy his valve. His chair crapped noisily along the faux-marble floor as he pushed it back in order to extricate himself from the table, as he breathed heavily in order to prepare his knees for standing his mother spoke once more. 

“ You’re not a young boy, you’re twenty nine, and fix that damn shirt before you go anywhere. Half of you is on display. I have no idea how you dare come out in public looking like that!”

Liam looked down at his wonky shirt. No wonder it felt so uncomfortable. In his rush to meet his mother on time he had completely miss-buttoned it so that the left side was sitting three buttons higher than the right side. This meant that the right side of his belly had been bulging out in full view ever since he had left his room, overhanging fat rolls, stretchmarks and all. To his mother’s horror he unbuttoned the shirt completely causing his huge heavy stomach to balloon forwards and free. Liam felt the release of pressure and told his mother that he was going to leave it undone as it was warm in there anyway. He pawed at his wet uncombed hair causing it to rise up on one side and waddled off to the ‘international’ buffet.

Six plates down and not yet finished, Liam munched happily on yet another fried squid drowned in aioli. Selma, totally bored with watching her obese son eat himself even closer to an early grave, suggested that she would meet him by the outside bar. He reminded her of how many times she’d forced him to stay at the table during family boring meals when he was young. She sighed and ordered a double Jack and Coke from a passing waiter.

“I still don’t understand why we had to come all the way out here, what’s wrong with Florida?” Liam asked her, spitting out crumbs of fried batter as he spoke.

“I told you, I wanted to come somewhere with some culture for a change. The Canary Islands are where Columbus stopped on his way to America. For all we know the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria may once have been anchored right out there.” Selma pointed out of the window.

Liam turned his thick neck to look at the endless ocean that wrapped itself continuously around the entire globe and wondered if his mother had maybe been dropped on her head as a baby.

“And what culture have you found here, mother? The drunken British hussies tripping over their own heels and pissing in the bushes outside our rooms at three am? The demanding Germans zieg heiling their way to one of the less than numerous sunbeds by the pool? Maybe that racist brexiteer blowing cancer into my lungs who you seemed so fond of? Or how about the locals peddling two euro watered down beer and microwaved burgers to the zillion drunken tourists who plague this entire archipelago of vice?”

“There’s that pyramid that I saw a flyer for. I’d really like to go and see that pyramid.”

Liam knew his mother to be a dolt but this was a new low. He guzzled down the last of the squid and started gnawing on the crab sticks before launching into the passionate diatribe that she clearly needed to hear.

“I promise you now that there are many places on this Earth and beyond where there are no pyramids. New Jersey is one and Teneriffe is another, as is Mars. If you wanted to see a pyramid then we should have gone to Egypt or even better Mexico. Why you have insisted on dragging me away from the North American continent in order to witness this lurid cacophony of debauched European chaos I will never know. The only people here with any dignity are those poor Africans selling watches and melons on the beach. Belch! They are both assiduous and industrious in their attempts to lure these Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic, and Bavarian idiots out of their money in return for cheap Chinese trinkets and sweatshop produced fake soccer shirts. I sincerely hope that one day my African brothers succeed in retaking these islands from the barbaric Iberian conquistadors and returning them to their natural idyllic beauty. Until then I think that I would rather spend my days sewing Barcelona patches onto nylon t-shirts alongside the impoverished children of Bangladesh. Belch!”

Selma ordered a second Jack and Coke. This waiter informed her that they only had the local whiskey. She shooed him away. She just needed the alcohol.

“And just how do you think you will fare working the line in a sub-continental factory? You’ve only ever had one job, that online gig, and you got fired from that! Tell me again Liam how you can be fired for turning up late to a job where you work from home?”

Liam stopped licking the tomato ketchup off his plate and lowered it slowly back down from his fat lips and thick rasping tongue. “Mother, you really are insistent on causing me extreme intestinal pain this evening, aren’t you? I’ve told you many times that that was a case of workplace bullying. You are the one who refused to pay for the lawyer to fight my case. Do you know how hard it is to find suitable employment once you have been tarred as a whistle blower? Now if you don’t mind I fear that I may have over done it on the savoury items. If I don’t get something sweet in me soon then I fear that I will be gaseous all night. You know how my valve plagues me. I must fetch ice cream.”

Selma watched as Liam laid his paws on the table in order to lift his heavy mass from the seat. His face strained as the force of his mighty weight bore down on his sweaty palms. He farted obnoxiously as he rose, and belched as his belly bashed into the table spilling the local whisky and coke substitute. As soon as his back was turned Selma rose quickly herself, stumbled over her chair, and headed straight out to the poolside bar.

Liam burped continuously as he made his way towards his mother, who was sitting on a bamboo bar stool talking to that awful British man. ‘The tiki bar’ was as out of place as they were and even more outlandish. To the left of the bar there stood a totem pole of the kind found in the pacific north west. The creature at the top of the pole was an owl. This poor bird has been decorated with Mardi Gras style beads and a Hawaiian ‘lei’ necklace. Liam’s side knocked into it as he passed, he groaned and gave his expansive love handle a rub, before looking up at the monstrosity and shuddering. With great difficulty he clambered up onto one of the high bar stools and perched himself perilously on the edge of the seat. The flimsy bamboo structure creaked and he was certain that if he wasn’t careful that he may topple off at any moment. His wide ass hung off the stool in every possible direction. He leant his giant elbows on the bar in order to try to maintain his balance.

“Liam, this is Malcom, we’ve been having a very interesting talk.” Malcolm stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray immediately in front of Liam, causing Liam to cough loudly. Liam’s flabby chest shook violently as he did so. If he caught emphysema here then he would be sure to litigate the ass off this English chump. Malcolm opened out his hand for Liam to take it. Liam studied the yellow stains on the man’s fingers and very delicately offered a paw and shook the man’s palm, releasing quickly. He wiped his hand on the sides of his tight bulging shorts.

“I’m sorry if I offended you earlier,” Malcolm said, “I was rude to insinuate that all Americans are fat.”

“You need to be more careful what you say to people,” Liam offered the man some advice, “I happen to suffer from rather bad gastronomical and intestinal discomfort due to the stress of still living with my mother. The US economy is very bad at the moment for young people.”

Malcolm blinked a few times, took a sip of his beer, and lit another cigarette. “I am aware. It’s the same everywhere with house prices. The UK is no better. Trump will sort it out though with these tariffs. He’ll get you a good old-fashioned manufacturing job. Your Mam was telling me that you are interested in factory work?”

Liam stared at Malcolm so hard that he could feel his own eyes reflecting off the lunatic racist's bald head. He was about to berate him about his complete lack of understanding of the intricacies of American politics when his mother spoke first.

“That’s right ishn’t it, Liam,” she slurred, “You were jusht telling me about how you wanted to work in a factory?”

The barman approached and asked Liam what he wanted to drink. He ordered a beer.

“Mother, you are such a contemptible moron, that you can’t even tell when your own son, whom you birthed from your own loins, is being ironic. If anyone here is an American stereotype, Mr Malcolm, then I’m afraid that it is my mother.”

The barman served Liam his beer. He gulped it down in one, bleached loudly, and ordered another, demanding that the next one be served in a chilled glass.

“You really shouldn’t talk to your Mam like that. That isn’t acceptable where I’m from and I’m pretty sure that it isn’t acceptable anywhere.”

Selma smiled at the British knight defending her honor. “That’sh right, It ishn’t acsheptable anywhere!”

Liam picked up his new beer. The glass was boiling hot; clearly straight out of the dishwasher. “Ow!” he yelled, and blew on his giant paw. “You’ve burnt my hand! You’ve burnt my hand!” His mother told him to shut up. To Malcolm’s surprise this scolding seemed to have a positive effect and Liam fell silent while he waited for his beer glass to cool down.

“You know, Selma, you and Liam are the first Americans that I’ve ever met in Teneriffe. I never really thought of it as a place that people from the US would visit?”

“United started flying here from Newark a few years ago. I just really liked the idea of getting out of the US at the moment, see some real culture. Did you know that Columbus stopped here?”

Liam tutted at his mother’s blatant denigration of their homeland, they both ignored him. He slugged at his beer.

“Oh, I never knew that there were direct flights, that’s cool, but I think that Columbus landed in Gran Canaria not Teneriffe.” Selma was impressed by Malcolm’s expert grasp of American history. Liam rolled his eyes and ordered another beer and some chips.

“Oh, how interesting!” She said, eyes fluttering.

“You know if you’re interested in history then you really should take the trip to see the pyramid!” Liam flung his huge arm and paw out, knocking his empty glass onto the floor. It smashed loudly and shattered into a thousand pieces. “Oopps,” he said. The barman looked at him with disgust and fetched a broom.

“I told you that there were pyramids!” Selma told him.

“Pyramid, mother. He said pyramid, singular. And I promise you it’s a fake. It’ll be some awful tourist trap where they rinse us of our hard earned money. You may as well let yourself be flagellated.”

“My hard earned money,” she reminded him. “And if I want to be whipped then I might just pay for that as well!” With this shameless declaration she suddenly slapped Malcolm’s backside. He didn’t seem to mind.

The glass cleaned up, the barmen returned and handed Liam his new beer in a plastic cup. To Liam’s confusion he told him that he had to wait a few minutes for the chips. He gulped at the beer and wondered how his mother could ever be so cheap as to bring him to a hotel where they served drinks in plastic. To his horror, Malcolm turned to him and engaged him in conversation. “So if not manufacturing, what type of work would you like to do lad?”

Liam firmly believed that work was the worst of all the four letter words. Only slaves and the poor worked. He was a part of the intelligentsia. Had he been born a century or so earlier then his level of education alone would have granted him access to the echelons of the idle upper class. Damn his luck to have been born to his harlot in New Jersey. “I think I might go into academia, but I have yet to find the right college to match my specialism.”

“Liam hash a master’sh,” Selma said with a sudden but fleeting sensation of pride in her son.

“Very impressive, lad.” Malcolm said. At least he recognises that, Liam thought.

The barman placed a plate of french fries in front of Liam. “What the fuck? I didn’t order this!” Malcolm giggled but Liam ignored him. The barman looked at him, he pulled a face that politely said, don’t fucking swear at me. “Chips,” he said, pointing at the plate of fries. “No! Not chips! French fries!” Liam picked up a fry and waved it in the barman’s confused face. “Chip!” the barman said with a smile.

“Oh jusht eat them, Liam! Shtop complaining! You know very well that you’re jusht going to eat them anyway!”

“French fry!” Liam repeated before placing the fry on top of his thick greedy tongue. It tasted warm and salty. He ate another and snorted through his piggy nose.

“Most staff here only have limited English,” Malcolm explained to him, “He knows the names of the items on the menu and not much else. He’s used to British tourists. Like you said, Americans are rare in this part of the world. You need to ask for crisps if you want potato chips. We call them crisps in England.”

“Ohh, I never knew that!” Selma exclaimed. Liam didn’t speak as his mouth was stuffed full of french fries. He had known that but he wasn’t about to admit it to this bald limey racist.

Liam awoke the next day with severe gastronomical pain. He felt the underside of his sagging stomach and pushed hard against his valve in an effort to open it. He belched loudly and with real effort rolled over onto his otherside. His giant belly splayed out on the bed in front of him. He pressed at it again and continued to burp. He had really overdone it the previous night. Feeling a sense of excitement stirring in his boxers he reached down the side of his heavily gaseous and bloated belly and began to relieve himself. He cursed loudly when he realised that he didn’t have any kleenex.

Dressed in his giant swimming shorts and a soiled t-shirt he hung the do not disturb sign on the door handle, in order to keep the damn housekeeping busybodies out of his room, and headed down for breakfast. They’re all probably thieves, anyway, he said to himself.

Over his eight omelette breakfast his mother explained to him that Malcolm had offered to drive them to the pyramid in his rental car. Liam wondered when on Earth he had done that. He had been with them all evening and couldn’t recall any such conversation. He complained massively but his mother pointed out that if he didn’t want to come and expand his mind then he could just as well stay in the hotel by himself all day; her and Malcolm would probably have a better time alone anyhow. The very thought of leaving his mother alone with that ignorant Mancunian clown made Liam feel sick to the pit of his stomach. He belched loudly. Slugged down a large glass of orange juice and declared that he would come if only to see the look on her stupid face when she realised that the pyramid was indeed fraudulent.

Malcolm didn’t try very hard to pretend to be pleased when he saw Liam accompanying his mother. He watched the elephantine boy’s belly bounce and jiggle with every heavy step as they approached the car. “Nice to see you,” he said.

Liam regretted agreeing to come as soon as he squeezed himself painfully onto the back seat of the car. The door frame was low and narrow and he had to suck his stomach in as far as he possibly could just to be able to foist himself in sideways like some sort of demented obese crab. One in the car his knees were pushed up so far against the seat in front of him that they dug into the underside of his belly. He struggled to release his left arm from under his side fat and somehow managed to shut the door. The car had been parked in the morning sun and it was boiling hot inside it. He felt like a plump roast Turkey baking in an oven.

“Does this car not have AC?” he asked.

“No, sorry, big boy. I’ll open the front windows.” Malcolm replied as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

Liam looked at the window next to him and was horrified to see that it only had a small catch in order to open it an inch. This sat at the back of the window. He was never going to be able to move himself adequately in order to reach around and undo it. “What sort of piece of shit car is this anyway?”

“Liam, manners!” His mom told him.

“That’s OK Selma, the big lad’s right. This is a rubbish car. It’s a Seat Mii. I didn’t see any point in wasting money on anything better. I’ve got a Range Rover at home.” He added this extra piece of information in order to see if anyone looked impressed. Selma did. Liam was too uncomfortable squashed in the back, like a hunk of sweaty spam in a can, to look anything but deranged. Malcolm thought him to be the biggest ball of lard that he had ever seen.

The engine started up and the car lurched forward as Malcolm put it into first gear. Liam felt his heavily loaded stomach leap forwards, pushing up against his other overworked internal organs, as the car jumped into second. “Sorry!” Malcom yelled.

“I thought Europeans were supposed to be able to drive sticks?” Liam snarled.

“The Range Rover’s an auto,” Malcolm explained, “And don’t call me European or I’ll drive this fucking car into the sea! Me and your Mam will swim out and you’ll sink to the bottom like the heavy sack of shit that you are!”

Selma squeezed Malcolm’s hand. Had Liam noticed this then he probably would have vomited immediately. As it was he fell into a foul silent mood in which he contemplated the many different ways in which he could kill Malcolm. The only noise that came from the back seat for the rest of the drive was an occasional belch.

The exhaust of the Seat Mii scraped on the speed bump as they entered the parking lot for the pyramid. Liam thrust the door open and pushed and heaved himself out of the car into the fresh air. He took a deep breath in order to try and remove the smell of rotten eggs that had been tormenting his tastebuds for the last half hour of the journey. When this failed he was pleased to spot a vendor selling chilled drinks across the lot. He purchased two bottles of Sprite for five euros and cleaned his mouth out with the sweet, sugary, refreshing bubbles. Belch.

“Are you ready?” Selma asked him irritably as he finished gurgling the last drops.

“I have never been more prepared to see your disappointment in my life!” Liam deposited the empty plastic bottles into a trash can and lumbered towards the entrance complaining that the last speed bump had put his valve out.

They walked past a sign that read: Parque Etnográfico & Jardín Botánico, PIRÁMIDES DE GÜÍMAR. Liam took note of the plural Spanish ending but said nothing to his mom. She was far too stupid to read Spanish anyway. Secretly concerned that he would be proven wrong he blabbed on and on about fraudulent alien conspiracies, pyramids on Mars, little green men travelling between Aztec Mexico and ancient Egypt in spite of the thousands of years time difference, Astro Zoranism, and scientology. He was just about to launch into a diatribe about how Tom Cruise was probably a main benefactor of this horrendous museum when he noticed the first display that explained about the history of the pyramids. He was overjoyed.

“Mother, Mother! You must come over here and read this. I insist! No, for God’s sake don’t read outloud! You know I can’t bear it when you do that! It’s like listening to a four year old trying to pronounce latin. Just read the damn thing!”

Selma read the information. It informed her that the pyramids had been discovered by the famed Norwegian explorer and scientist Thor Hyderdahl in 1990 who studied them and found that they had an astronomical alignment with the stars.

“So? They’re pyramids! The ancients built them as some sort of temple to worship the Gods. Isn’t that amazing, Liam?”

“No! You didn’t read far enough! He’s a kook! He’s a fraud! A fake! A lunatic believer in the occult! He believed that the Egyptians sailed to South America on log boats and they became polynesian! He’s total fake news, a revisionist loon! It says that no one is sure exactly what these so-called pyramids are, but they’re no older than a couple of hundred years and were probably built by local farmers! Some local José probably just got a bit creative with where to pile the spoil from some excavation of farmland! This whole place is a sham! I knew it! I’m going to demand my eighteen euros back immediately!”

With that Liam thudded off triumphantly back towards the cash register. “But Liam, you didn’t pay anything! I have the tickets and receipt!”

“Oh, let him go, Selma. We can at least take the tour without him bothering us.” Malcolm put his arm out for Selma to hook hers under it and they walked off together in the direction of the pyramids and gardens. Malcolm whistled a happy tune.

Exhausted from his failed ten minute altercation with the girl selling tickets. Liam slumped into a chair in the museum cafe and glowed in triumphant victory over his mother. The cafe was cool and air conditioned and offered very pleasing views down the mountain and out to the sea. It also sold the most delicious cake, bienmasabe, made with ground almonds and lemon, served with a side of ice cream. Liam was just about to devour his fifth one when his blasted mother and Malcolm returned.

“Enjoying that, are you?” Malcolm asked him.

“It’s doing wonders for my constitution.”

“It’s doing wonders for your waist line,” Malcolm retorted.

“Mother, I must insist that we spend no more time with this ignorant old world man. He is transfixed by my physique and shows no sympathy or understanding for the intestinal discomforts from which I suffer. Have you even told him about my valve?”

“She’s been explaining quite a lot about you actually Liam. How you’ve wasted your education which your father saved so many years for. How you sit at home all day consuming everything in sight. How you stink the house out with your flatulence. How you lost the only job you ever had through sheer self-sabotage.”

“How dare you talk to this racist incompetent English scoundrel about Dad! You know only too well how I exonerate that man of all our family's failings. You drove him to a heart attack and now here you are bad mouthing him to your new English pimp!”

Malcolmed smacked Liam in his huge bloated cheek with real force. A splattering of blood, bienmasabe, and ice cream flew sideways out of his shocked open mouth and landed on the floor beside him. He grabbed hold of his aching chipmunk cheek and screamed in absolute horror. “You vile beast! You child beater and molester of the worst kind! Mother! I have been viciously assaulted! I demand that you ring the police and have this man arrested immediately! You will spend the rest of your days rotting in a Spanish jail, that’s if they don’t hang you that is! I bet they still hang people like you in the street around here!”

“Oh shut up, Liam! You deserved that! The way you speak to me. Suggesting that I’m a whore just for talking to a nice man like Malcolm. The police here won’t do a damn thing to help you if I explain to them how you treat me! That is a catholic country. Catholics worship their mothers. If they're likely to hang anyone it’ll be you!”

Liam dropped his heavy head deflated. He felt his valve close and a huge build up of gas forming in his intestinal tract. He belched horrendously.

“If they can find a rope strong enough,” Malcolm said.

Liam spent that evening at a poolside table alone while his mother and Malcolm drank and talked and laughed at the debasement to humanity that was the tiki bar. He downed beer after beer and belched loudly as his stomach continued to bloat and swell. All the time planning how to take down Malcolm in more and more nefarious ways. That perverted British loser had to go. Nothing good had ever come out of that rotten little country anyway. Why the good ol’ USA had twice rescued them from German defeat he never knew. At least the Germans made good cars. The only thing that England had ever exported was colonial death and horror. He thought about the potato famine in Ireland. The concentration camps in Kenya. The millions that Churchill starved in India. The Zulu wars. The Opium war in China. All good ways to kill Malcolm. All juicy and ironic. He glugged down another beer and realised that he needed the toilet. He tried to get up out of his white plastic garden chair but his wide expansive ass had become too sweaty and the chair was glued to his backside. Rolls of fat protruded out through the gaps under the chairs arms. He yanked at the chair in an attempt to remove it from his body and lost his balance. He hit the floor with such a thud that his valve closed and he did an immediate sick up. He lay prostrate in pain, the chair still glued to his ass, desperately trying to block out the sounds of the tables of English, Irish, German, and South African people hysterically laughing at the massively fat American on the floor stuck in his chair. Eventually a waiter came over and begrudgingly helped him to a series of hisses and boos from the other drinkers, upset that the entertainment was over so soon. He lifted his shirt and massaged his aching fat side and inspected his overhanging rolls for any sign of a developing bruise similar to the one on his left cheek. He was about to berate the waiter who helped him up for the sorry and pathetic state of the furniture on supply in the hotel when he spotted his mother standing right in front of him. “Go to bed, Liam.” she said.

The next morning Liam wasn’t at all surprised to discover that his t-shirt no longer seemed to fit him. His belly always bloated when he was under duress. He pulled it down as best he could and slowly plodded down to the restaurant for breakfast determined to be nicer to his Mom. That was the first part of the plan.

He spotted his mother sitting at a table by an open door. Malcolm was standing out on the balcony smoking a cigarette. In spite of his hunger pangs he walked past the buffet and sat himself down opposite his mother. “Good morning, mother dearest.”

“You seem surprisingly chipper, considering the day you had yesterday.” Liam winced at the memory of what he had already named ‘Tragic Tuesday.’ He grinned unnervingly.

“Yes, mother. I have realised that I was wrong to make such solicitations towards you. My behavior was deplorable. It is none of my business who you chose to spend time with and I plan to start looking for work as soon as we get home. I hear that the University of Louisiana has a very interesting programme in medieval history” Liam gulped as he swallowed a belch. Not now he said to his valve.

“That’s wonderful, Liam. You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that!” Selma blushed with pride. Malcolm threw his cigarette on the floor and stamped on it. He had overheard their conversation. He didn't believe a word of it but knew that now was not the right time to say anything. Liam watched him litter the hotel balcony with filthy cigarette ends and held in another belch.

“Malcolm darling, Liam says that he’s going to look for a job!” Selma beamed.

“That’s good to hear, lad. I’m sure that you can still make your mother proud, and all it took was a few true words and a bit of discipline. I’m sorry if I bruised your ego, Liam, but trust me a bruised ego never hurt anyone in the long term.”

Liam rubbed a huge paw against the bruise on his flabby cheek. “Although I can never agree with violence, being a true pacifist at heart, I forgive you for your reckless and cruel outburst against my physical form. Now if you’d both please excuse me I require sustenance in order to please my valve.” He rose to his feet trying not to show any of the discomfort that he was feeling in his intestines, knees, or ego. He plodded away to fetch the first of what would ultimately be many courses of breakfast. Malcolm stared at his bare lower back and exposed bloated ass cheeks.

“One step at a time,” Selma said to Malcolm, placing her hand on his knee, “One step at a time.”

The next few days passed by peacefully enough. Liam continued to appease his valve and Malcolm noted to Selma how the boy only seemed to be growing in spite of his already humongous size. He was quite frankly startled by how anyone so obese could continue to gain weight. There was the odd passionate argument about who had actually won the second world war, and the long term global implications of the British empire, but all in all the unlikely threesome managed to get along ok. Selma was still shocked though when Liam suggested that they take a fishing trip together.

“He hates the water. He hasn’t even been in the swimming pool since we’ve been here.”

Malcolm didn’t know what to make of it either, but suggested that they go along with his plan in order to maintain the relative peace.

The boat was a small twenty six footer captained by a man called José. It had a mast but no sails. The engine spluttered into life and Liam sat happily on the stern munching down Lay's tomato flavored chips apparently at peace watching the world go by. He didn’t know the last thing about fishing, but still paid no attention to José’s safety briefing or demonstration of any of the equipment. All he knew was that there were several different types of rods and a giant spear for hooking up any particularly forceful fish that didn’t quite like the idea of being suffocated and eaten.

They motored out for a few hours in search of fertile fishing grounds until the silhouette of Teneriffe and Mount Teide had long since disappeared from view. The waters were calm and the sun beat down on Liam causing him to perspire heavily. He cooled himself with another Dr Pepper Strawberries and Cream and belched. The boat slowed to a snail's pace and he heard the engine cut out. Relieved that the terrible vibrations that had been terrorizing his folds had finally stopped, he opened another bag of Lay’s and watched in silence as Jose helped Malcolm and his mother set up their lines.

“Are you not going to join in, Liam?” Malcolm yelled at him from the bow.

“I never cared much for fish unless they are already deboned.” He responded. He wiped the chip crumbs from his heaving breast after speaking. He studied the horizon. There wasn’t another vessel anywhere in sight. Just the sparkling blue of the Atlantic. “Quite frankly I’m beginning to suspect already that this trip was a complete waste of time. I’m pretty sure that these waters were overfished decades ago by legions of marauding Spanish sailors. I doubt that you will catch a single minnow.”

Malcolm went to say something but Selma placed a hand on his arm and whispered something in his ear.

“Speak louder, mother. It is beyond rude to keep secrets. Especially in such a confined space as this appalling fishing craft.” Liam banged a giant clenched paw against the hull of the boat. “I fear that this vessel is already beyond repair. I fear that it was never built for one with a physique such as mine. I fear that if we don’t head back soon then we all may drown and be lost to the depths, and I for one have no intention of spending eternity in Davey Jones’s Locker.”

“Listen here you expansive sack of shit. I’ve had about enough of your crap already today. This trip was your idea and it cost your mother and me a pretty penny. Now buck your ideas up or shut the fuck up!” Malcom was reddening in the face and it wasn’t from the sun.

“Mother, he’s at it again! Do you hear how he speaks to me? Your one and only beloved son. If you weren’t so fond of this bigoted limey I’d be tempted to teach him a lesson myself.”

“Please, Liam! Give it up!”

“Teach me a lesson? Teach me a lesson! I’d like to see you try, you fat self-centred yankee prick! How’d it go for you last time, at the museum? Malcolm was now making his way towards Liam fists clenched. Liam rose slowly to his feet causing the boat to wobble. He thundered forward and began to charge at Malcom, like a cross between an angry rhinoceros and a sumo wrestler. They clattered into each other and the boat shook again as the impact of Malcolm against the thick layers of fat sent ripples crashing through Liam’s body. They grappled and lurched from side to side as Malcom tried but struggled to get a grip on one of Liam’s sweating sun cream soaked folds. Liam landed a heavy punch to the side of Malcolm’s face with his massive right paw and the bald English man staggered backwards from the force colliding into the boat’s cabin.

“Stop it now! Stop it, both of you!” Selma screamed as she clung on to the boat’s railings in order to keep her balance as it began to sway more violently. Jose, who was at the wheel, turned to see what all the commotion was.

“Right that’s it, you’re in for it now Moby Dickhead!” Malcom reached inside the swaying and slamming cabin door and grabbed a hold of the spear that was leaning against the interior wall. Liam screeched in fear and began to charge from left to right in order to make himself a more difficult target. “Senors! Please! We could capsize!” Jose screamed to no avail. The wooden deck creaked and moaned from the pressure as Liam’s heavy steps caused the boat to lurch one way and then the other. Malcolm charged at him but lost his footing and slipped on a spilled patch of Dr Pepper Strawberries and Cream and Elephant sweat. His feet flew high into the air and he lost his grip on the spear which flew up into the air just as he crashed down onto the deck. Liam, who had dodged the attack by leaping to his left, thundered into the starboard railings just as the boat was arching on a downward trajectory in the same direction. He screamed in pain as the metal railing slammed into his soft heavy side fat, closing his valve. He belched loudly just as the spear came hurtling back down out of the sky and punctured the top of Malcolm’s left thigh. Malcolm screamed in agony and slid sideways into the water as the small fishing boat finally gave in to the forces and toppled over. Liam felt his belly swell as it filled with gallons of salt water. This is going to cause me some real discomfort later he thought.

Liam had no idea how long he had been in the water. Filled with natural buoyancy he had just been floating like an overblown giant starfish. He had neither seen nor heard anything of the boat’s other three occupants since it had overturned. The boat itself has long since drifted out of sight. He was alone in the ocean with nothing but the blue of the sea and the sky to look at. Thankfully a full bag of Lay’s tomato flavored chips had come floating past him. He was happily munching on these when he heard the voice.

“Bonjour Monsieur, avez-vous besoin d'aide ?” He looked up at the African fisherman, muscular and barechested. He was smiling and leaning down over the railings of his tiny wooden craft, smoking a cigarette. Liam was amazed that he hadn’t spotted the boat approaching.

“Hello, do you speak English?”

“Oui, Yes, Monsieur, I have good English. Do you need some help?”

“Only, if you put out that dreadful cancer stick first. I have no intention of being rescued by someone who poisons their own body. I’ve only just ridden myself of one of those.” The fisherman whistled and flicked the remains of the cigarette down into the ocean. It landed close to Liam. “You could have burnt me! Please do me more careful when attempting to raise me from the water. I’ve suffered enough traumas this past week to last me a lifetime!”

The fisherman threw Liam a rope and with a real effort that almost put his back out managed to heave him up onto the small wooden boat. Liam sat panting heavily on the deck massaging his valve, belching, and spitting up saltwater. “What is your name?” he asked his dark saviour in between intestinal convulsions.

Sacha introduced himself to Liam and vice versa. “You don’t happen to have any food onboard do you, Sacha? My valve is playing havoc with me.” The lone muscular fisherman stood tall and firm, looking down at Liam. He studied the roundness of his red, panting face, the bloated cheeks, the fat red lips, and thick heavy tongue, hanging out like a dog’s. He took note of the lack of any real neck, the thick triple chins, the heavily padded yet naked broad shoulders, the low hanging doughy chest - larger than his mamma’s, but it was the stomach that he couldn’t take his eyes off. The mountainous ball of fat that was Liam’s stomach rode high into the air. Its crown rose and sank a few inches with every heavy lumbered breath that the glutton took. It sagged loosely over the sides of his thunderous thighs and reached all the way down to his fat laden knees. The underside of the stomach lathered in cocoa butter, suncream, salt water and sweat, stuck to the hot decking of the boat between the obesely splayed legs. “Non,” he said. “Then you may as well put me back in the water,” Liam pouted. Sacha seriously considered this option.

The trip back to Port de Laâyoune, in the La Marsa region of Western Sahara, took twelve agonising hours of severe gastric discomfort. Sacha asked him where he came from and when he said New Jersey he considered the possibility that the white whale had actually floated that far. Liam explained that he had been on vacation in Teneriffe with his mother when she had been abducted by a sun crazed Englishman and taken at gun point. He waved his huge arms and paws around as he described in detail how he had followed them to the boat and snuck on board in order to save them. An almighty fight had broken out when he revealed himself and he had grappled with the crazed kidnapper over the gun which had accidentally gone off in the melee shooting a hole in the boat’s fuel tank, this had then ignited and the entire boat exploded in an inferno of flames casting him violently into the sea. He firmly believed that he was the only survivor due to his ample frame protecting his vital organs from the full force of the blast. He thought that the uneducated African seemed very impressed by his story.

At first Liam had tried to insist that Sacha take him back to Teneriffe but the fisherman was insistent that they would be turned away by the coast guard as illegal refugees and that they even risked being shot at. Liam tried to explain that a man of his stature and complexion could never be mistaken for a refugee, but Sacha’s English proficiency seemed to be lacking on this point. He complained loudly that he was an American citizen and that the dark continent would not at all suit his constitution. He feared terribly coming down with dengue fever and worried about the effects that a nasty bout of ebola might have on his valve. Sacha worried about the effects on his conscience of leaving another human being to drown.

They finally moored in Port de Laâyoune just as the morning was beginning to break. Liam took in the sight of hundreds of similar small fishing boats and wondered how hard it would be to secure passage back to Teneriffe with a more suitable companion; one who actually took adequate provisions with him.

Sacha led Liam to a small ramshackle house not far from the harbor and Liam was delighted to see a rather plump, dark haired woman slaving over a giant cooking pot in the makeshift kitchen. Sacha embraced his mother and spoke to her in French for a few minutes while Liam made himself comfortable on a worn and torn sofa from the nineteen seventies.

The jambalaya was delicious. Having not eaten for over half a day, Liam consumed so much of it that the entire cooking pot was drained. His stomach was warm and full and comfortable and his valve reopened for the first time in what felt like forever, thankfully saving his kind hosts from the stench of his flatulence. He sat happily pawing at his bloated belly while Sacha and his mother spoke to each other with rising voices. Not understanding anything that they were saying he fell into a wonderful daydream in which a tearful Malcolm sank below the waves clutching onto his heavily bleeding thigh over and over again. The thought that they were arguing about him never crossed his satisfied mind.

Sacha’s mother was demanding that her son remove the white whale from her presence with immediate effect. She had never cared much for white people and was particularly appalled by this one. Sacha pointed out that it was an Islamic duty to feed and support anyone in need. His mother pointed out that the monstrosity of a human in their living room had self-handedly consumed an entire week's worth of food for the family in a single breakfast, and that he had returned from his fishing trip without a single fish. Who was going to pay to keep the whale? Scolded by his mother, Sacha reluctantly agreed to risk the trip and return Liam to Teneriffe as soon as possible.

News soon spread through the small fishing town about the unusually sized American visitor and a plethora of brothers, cousins, neighbours, and second cousins came by to gawp at Liam throughout the day. Unaware of Sacha’s agreement to return him to Teneriffe he spent his time with them telling wilder and wilder stories about his wealth, prominence, and importance in America in an attempt to convince one of them to return him to the all-inclusive hotel. He told them about how he held high office at the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Social Affairs, CIA, and State Department. He promised to purvey for all of them a multitude of different types of visas, green cards, and fast tracked paths to citizenship. This is why when he set sail for Teneriffe the next day, Sacha’s little wooden fishing boat was overloaded with no less than thirty two people all excited to be on a journey towards a new and better life.

Keen to appease their obese savior, all of them had brought a vast array of dishes in order to keep his valve satisfied during the voyage and ensure that he kept his promises to them. Aware that their futures were at his mercy Liam was supplied with more jambalaya, jollof rice, spicy grilled meat skewers, fufu, puff-puff, yassa, and fried plantain, than even he would normally consume. His valve wide open, he gorged himself on all of these new treats and flavours, stuffing his cavernous stomach to the point where his belly was visibly expanding in front of him. Several of the West-Africans started taking bets on just how big it would grow. Unaware of this, Liam happily munched on and on.

Over twenty hours later, the boat listing badly at the stern where Liam and his eager onlookers were sitting, labored into Spanish waters. Had it been light then the summit of Mount Tiede would just about have been visible on the horizon. Sacha cut off the engine to help aid in avoiding being caught and a small sail was raised. Liam asked about this through a mouthful of Ogbono soup. He tried to explain that the Spanish authorities were sure to be looking for him and that they would all be welcomed as heroes for rescuing such a notable American personage as him, hence there was no need for such subterfuge. They didn’t restart the engine, though. This gave Liam an extra ten hours of eating time, which he put to good use.

Dangerously swollen and bloated, his stomach blimped, he was furious when they dropped anchor only twenty miles off coast. Sacha tried to appease him by explaining that they absolutely had to wait until nightfall before they attempted to land. He secured him the last of the supplies of chicken yassa in order to keep him quiet, but it wasn’t enough. With his massively expanded belly topped up with chicken and rice, Liam continued to complain and began retelling the story of his importance in his homeland. He was just explaining to a guy named André, about how he was the Chief Justice of the United States when the guy squashed up next to him seemed to suddenly awake from his slumber. This guy, a cousin or something of Sacha’s, lifted his head from Liam’s right side moob (which he had been using as a pillow), and demanded to know how he could be both Chief Justice of the USA and Deputy Director of the FBI? Surely that was a conflict of interest?

Liam’s failure to adequately answer this question led to a complete rumpus breaking out on the tiny overloaded boat. Dozens of angry African men started screaming at him in French simultaneously. Every so often he would catch words of English like, fat, useless, or liar. One or two of the men started to push and jostle, trying desperately to get closer to their deceiver, in order to seek vengeance upon him. Realizing the danger he was in, Liam screeched, and attempted to stand to defend himself, but his knees could no longer bear his hugely increased mass, so he thumped down onto the deck landing on top of a screaming helpless woman. This only seemed to make the crowd even angrier and the boat tossed and turned from side to side as he rolled from one side of the deck to the other as the kicks and punches landed repeatedly into his thick soft layers of fat. He cried and screamed for his mother as the agony of the beating grew in severity until the boat eventually listed at an angle of more than seventy degrees. Liam rolled off the side. On his way off the boat he smashed through the light wooden barrier that was once the railing, taking several angry and confused Africans with him. As he once more plunged into the water, just before the boat overturned, he felt his aching valve close.

Battered and bruised, and bloated as hell, Liam’s giant swollen body floated listlessly in the water. He was conscious, but in too much pain to move. His valve now firmly shut, and his belly stuffed full of way more African cuisine than any one human should ever eat in a lifetime, he felt the gas beginning to build. He winced and cringed as his intestines inflated until finally he let out the deepest, longest, and loudest belch of his life. The gas flew out of his fat wide greedy mouth with such force that it propelled his body a few feet backwards. He then farted awfully and the same thing happened again. He heard a voice in the distance yell: “Regardez, le gros sac à vent géant se propulse tout seul !”

A dozen or so large muscular men, who had not gone down with the boat, started swimming rapidly towards him. He kicked and floundered at them, desperately trying to push them away. They grappled with each other and grabbed painfully at his fat folds, trying desperately to get a good hold and save their own lives. He screamed at them to get off, he screamed that he would have them all arrested, but a few of them managed to clamber on top of his huge swollen stomach anyway. The pressure of the weight of three men pushed down on his valve and he belched furiously again, pushing them all a few precious feet closer to the shore. The man whooped and cheered in delight and purposefully applied more pressure to the fat wind bag. But more of them arrived and the fight for survival continued. They hit and fought each other as Liam was submerged more than once, before bobbing up again out of the ocean. His gut and lungs flooded with sea water, he continued to belch and fart. In the distance there was the sound of a motor boat. Someone on a megaphone was shouting: “Policia! Policia!” Liam heard the sound of gun shots and prayed that the Spaniards were as skilled as the American police at shooting black men whilst leaving the white ones safely alone. Splatters of blood spilled into the ocean, and as the sun went down he felt himself falling asleep from exhaustion.

Liam washed up on the beach at Playa de las Americas the next morning; unconscious but alive. Hundreds of tourists gathered around him to stare at the car crash that was the obscenely obese and bloated American boy, with the giant round blimped sunburned stomach, belching in his sleep, while three dead naked West Africans, still clinging onto his fat rolls, lay peacefully by his side. The police had to break their fingers with pliers to get them off him.

“Look Mum, It’s Cthulhu!” the voice of an excited chubby young boy shouted.