#king size

Once upon a time, in a far away kingdom, there lived a handsome prince. With loose waves of chestnut-coloured hair and a jaw like carved stone, maids and knights alike swooned at every twinkle of his blue eyes. None could deny that Prince Leopold was the fairest in all the land.

Leo’s skills as an athlete were the stuff of legend. He was as able with a sword as he was on horseback, and though he was slender and lithe, his deadly aim made him the envy of even the finest archers. On each hunt he loosed arrow after piercing arrow, returning to the castle with braces of pheasant, quail, and grouse.

After the death of Leo’s father the king, the whole realm mourned, and none grieved more than Leo himself. His carefree life as prince was at an end, and now the weight of the crown sat heavy on his head. His idle days of sparring with knights, long rides through the forest, and week-long hunts were over. The burdens of his new role were many, and he knew that hard work lay ahead of him.

With little time to spend on his favourite pastimes, Leo soon discovered a new outlet for his energies: feasting. As prince, he often dreaded his father’s banquets, wishing he could be riding or hunting instead. Soon after taking the throne, Leo realized what his father had known all along, that the business of government is easier on a full belly.

Before long, Leo feasted often and enthusiastically. His brothers returned from their frequent hunts with game and fowl, and the kitchens bustled with activity. The cooks had never been busier, preparing dish after dish for their hungry new king.

And Leo ate. Plates of venison and lamb, roasted chicken and suckling pig, mince pies and rashers of bacon, Leo devoured it all, washed down with wine, ale, and mead. He feasted from dawn until dusk. By the end of the night, he had gorged himself into a stupor, his stomach stuffed and protesting by the time he made his way to bed.

It didn’t take long before the new king began to grow plump. As he filled his stomach relentlessly, pushing himself to the edges of his capacity and then beyond, his appetite grew. The roundness his midsection acquired after bouts of gluttony began to stick, until his stomach, once flat, swelled and softened into a fleshy orb. As the months passed, he was left with a fat belly and a pair of meaty love handles. Even his face changed, and he began to grow out his beard to cover his softening jawline.

Leo’s ass and hips grew, as well. Fat began to build around his slender thighs, and his buttocks bulged and ripened, struggling against the cloth of his breeches. Leo’s servants realized the problem before their king. Each morning they dressed Leo, and his clothes seemed to grow tighter by the day. Leo could see them exchanging meaningful glances as they tried to squeeze his added bulk into undersized clothes, afraid to tell him just how hard it was becoming to fit him into his garments.

Leo eventually capitulated. He spoke to the royal tailor, who soon became almost as busy as the cooks, constantly measuring the ever-expanding monarch for new shirts and pants to contain his ballooning poundage.

And so, Leo ate, and drank, and slept, and governed, and grew. The lords and ladies of court seemed shocked at just how fast their new overlord was gaining weight, at how unable he was to control his appetite.

None dared to question the king’s love of food. His wife, the queen, seemed unimpressed, but she had done her duty and given him a pair of twin boys. The realm had its heir. Now, the king ignored her, preferring the attention of handsome servants and dashing knights. This didn’t bother the queen, preoccupied as she was with her lady-in-waiting.

His belly swelled further, growing softer and heavier. By the anniversary of his coronation, it hung out in front of him, soft and round, drooping far over the waist of his pants. He often went shirtless, leaving his fattened torso exposed beneath a fine ermine cloak. That cloak had belonged to his father; it was too large when Leo took the throne, but now it fit him comfortably, and would soon become tight.

He was fatter all over, the small muscles of his chest now hidden under hearty slabs of fat. Below his breasts, his globular belly clung to his torso, flanked at the sides by thick handfuls of fat that projected over the top of his pants. His thighs were broad and hefty, and his rump had expanded to truly king-sized proportions.

A few years into his reign, the finest artist in the realm came to court. He had painted Leo before, and he stared in shock at the bearded, fat-bellied man Leo had become. In his fine cloak and glimmering crown, wearing a good-natured smile, Leo cut an image of a powerful but generous ruler.

He hardly resembled the strapping young knight he had so recently been. The painter looked back and forth between the old Leo and the new, his recent portrait of a slender prince and the overfed monarch now posed in front of him, seeming not to believe his eyes. The poor artist pleaded with his king to stay still, but Leo refused to stop eating and drinking, stretching his pendulous stomach to an ever-greater size. The buttons of his tunic were struggling by the end of the sitting, and hours on his feet had left him exhausted and sore-legged.

Over the years of King Leo’s reign, his girth only increased. His dimpled, rosy cheeks swelled rounder and plumper, and beneath his impressive beard, his jowls sagged and his double chin expanded. His chin grew so thick that it seemed to merge into his body, replacing his neck, and his shoulders broadened with soft fat. His chest billowed out atop his colossal stomach, a rack of teats to rival the bustiest milkmaid, and his stomach exploded in size, leading the way ahead of him and hanging low in front. He was a great bear of a man, as wide as a barge, large enough to intimidate anyone who crossed his path.

On his 26th birthday, after five years as king, he realized with annoyance that he had grown too fat for the throne, unable to squeeze his rear-end between its arms. It was an uncomfortable old chair, anyway, and Leo had no time for discomfort. So he commissioned a new one, and thereafter sat his humongous behind on a throne as wide as a bench, built of heavy, gold-painted wood but still seeming to sag at the middle beneath his towering weight.

Some say that Leo was the greatest king of all. What his ancestors had settled at war, Leo handled with diplomacy: nobles were brought together at the feasting table, where petty feuds were put to rest over food and drink. They knew that food, not scheming, was the way to secure the king’s trust. Any request was usually accompanied by generous gifts, and whenever the king held court, platters streamed from the kitchens and filled the great hall. According to legend, the people flocked to Leo with offerings of food, just to marvel at his enormous belly and its seemingly limitless capacity.