The King's Guilty Wife

Kiara sat in silence as the servants filed into the dining room, their practised hands quickly laying the table with glasses, cutlery, and – most importantly – several large platters of food. Kiara could only watch from the head of the table as they layed out the meal before her, observing their work. She still hadn’t grown used to having her every little desire waited upon so attentively, never quite able to shake a sense of embarrassment at all the reverence and care. She still let them do it though, and sometimes these days she even managed to forget that they were there. Perhaps she really was becoming a noble after all.

The table was set and the servants promptly vanished, leaving Kiara alone in the room with the huge breakfast. As usual, it was far too much for a single person, an array of ludicrously expensive luxuries on silver platters burdening the mahogany dining table before her. Once upon a time, back when she’d been a simple adventuring knight instead of the pampered wife of the King himself, she would have laughed at the very idea of these dishes. Gorged hummingbirds roasted whole; an entire bowl of chocolate-dusted truffles; a salad topped with a dozen braised rabbit hearts. Any one of these dishes cost roughly as much as a small house, their very existence an almost comical display of excessive luxury, yet the royal cook regularly prepared her half a dozen just for breakfast.

Sighing, Kiara tucked into the meal, hating how much she’d come to enjoy the sickeningly lavish delicacies. When she’d first married the King, she’d imagined herself doing some good for the land with her newfound station. Instead, he was out winning glory on crusade whilst she was sitting here gorging herself on battered calamari and gold-dusted plum pie. The Kiara of a few years ago would have been horrified to see herself today, horrified by this soft, spoiled noblewoman lounging around the lap of luxury… and yet even as she railed against herself, hating who she had become, she kept on eating.

There was nothing to be done today, or any day, after all. The idle hours until it was time to sleep again stretched out ahead of her, with nothing to fill them with but petty pleasures, snacking on delicacies, lounging around in her bedroom, in the gardens, waiting endlessly for a something that likely wasn’t ever going to come. It was no wonder she’d grown as fat as any other noble’s wife in so short a time, her body feeling softer with each lazy week that dawdled by.


She found herself full without really even noticing, her stomach contented by her rich breakfast, but she didn’t stop idly eating. Her hand wandered out and served another stuffed hummingbird onto her plate, dribbled a little glazing over it, then pushed it whole into her mouth. It was almost unnaturally delicious, and with nothing to do but waste time she ate another, and then another. What was the point of holding back?
She speared a loop of calamari and prodded it between her disinterested lips. It was beautiful, a perfectly prepared blend of flavours, and she swallowed it unenthusiastically to join the rest in her increasingly stuffed belly. She wondered for a moment about how much the food slowly digesting inside her gut was worth; more than she’d made adventuring as a knight errant in a year, no doubt. Those had been better times, she thought to herself bitterly, pushing another bite of something expensive into her mouth. She’d been a better person back then, brave and fit and glad to fight for whatever seemed right. Nowadays…

An uncomfortable twinge from her overstuffed gut nudged her from her aimless reflection. She’d finished nearly half of the assembled dishes through her idle grazing and she could feel it, the heavy mass of food sitting inert inside her, straining her stomach out beyond its natural capacity with the sheer volume of luxury. She rolled up her tight undershirt and massaged her midsection, embarrassed and irritated with herself that she’d ended up eating so much. She could feel the taut bulk of her stomach beneath the thick pillow of fat that covered it, her fingers working to ease some of her indulgence-induced discomfort. The flab was soft and warm beneath her hands, a cloying, bloated mass bulging out in front of her where once there had only been firm, defined muscles. Even the skin there looked pastier than it once had been, marked with thin red stretch marks as evidence of how quickly her lifestyle had changed from that of a robust adventurer to a pampered, lazy noble’s wife.

A polite rapping at the dining room door set her jumping sharply in her seat, spikes of pain shooting through her midsection as she jostled her overstuffed belly in the process. Cursing under her breath, she hastily tugged down her undershirt to recover the bloated bulk of her flabby gut – though she was all-too aware that the clingy fabric hugged her overfed body so tightly that it hardly made a difference – and sat up a little straighter at the table.
“Come in.”
One of the menservants stepped neatly into the room, bowing politely.
“Sorry to disturb Your Majesty’s meal, but you have some visitors; three knights errant who profess to be former companions of yours.”
Kiara felt her breath catch in her throat. She hadn’t laid eyes on her old party for nearly two years now. Last she’d heard, they’d been out on the vertical wastes, no doubt seeking out whatever monsters were terrorising that cursed region this season. The very thought of them struck her with a powerful yearning to see them again – then, a moment later, an awful shame at the thought of them seeing what she had become in turn.
“V-very well,” she swallowed, “Direct them to the main drawing room, and send in the maids to prepare me to meet them.” Her dresses were veritable miracles of tailoring; perhaps one of the most flattering over her tightest corset might disguise most of… most of what had happened to her.
The manservant coughed politely.
“I did suggest they wait in the main drawing room, Ma’am, but they seemed to believe that you would be glad to see them at once,” he said carefully, “Indeed, they seemed to find the notion of Your Majesty expecting them to wait until the maids could attend you rather uproariously amusing. Shall I inform them that they will indeed have to wait upon Your Majesty’s convenience?” He looked rather excited by the prospect, no doubt looking forward to rubbing it in her old friends’ faces that they would have to wait like any other visitor, and she felt a surge of resentment at his attitude.
“No, send them in at once. I’ll meet them here,” she ordered, and the manservant blinked.
“Very good Ma’am.” He backed out of the room with a bow, and even before he was out of sight Kiara was already regretting her decision. She couldn’t let them see her like this! At least in one of her dresses, her bulging waist squeezed into a corset, overgrown backside downplayed by the cut, it wouldn’t be so immediately obvious just how much her body had been changed by this life of luxury, just how much muscle she’d lost and fat she’d gained. They might think her fancy clothes comical, be somewhat hurt that she’d made them wait in the drawing room, but at least they wouldn’t have to see her like this, pale bulk spilling out of an outgrown undershirt as she sat alone before a feast fit for half a dozen.

Before she could chide herself any more for her stupid decision, however, the door to the dining room burst open, and her comrades – former comrades – were here.
Cufus, always the leader, was first in, his muscular, rough-hewn frame looking almost comically unrefined within the elegant dining room. Only a step behind Cufus was Rigo, his face wearing, as always, a wide, enthusiastic grin. Last of the three, glancing around uncertainly at all the luxury, was Cait. She and Kiara had been close back in those halcyon adventuring days; at the time, Kiara had liked to imagine she’d been somewhat of a role model for the younger knight. Their enthusiasm as they entered, all boisterous enthusiasm and excitement to see their friend, only made the sudden shift into silent shock at the sight of her all the more painful.

“Hey guys…” the sound of her voice finally broke the uncomfortable silence, “How’s the, uh, the adventuring going?” For a moment she went to stand up, feeling awkward being the only one sitting, but then she realised that that would only reveal the pale, flabby bulk of her thighs and plump hips to their justifiably judgemental eyes and sat down again hastily, feeling her swollen breasts and bloated, overfull belly wobble with the jolt. The three knights just stared at her.
Eventually, Cufus managed to find some words.
“It’s going well…” he said, evidently struggling between instinct and manners, “It’s been a long time, Kiara, you’re looking… healthy. The noble life is treating you well after all? It, ah, looks like you’ve taken to it more easily than you feared.”
 “I-I suppose so,” she tried to laugh lightly, attempting to play off her pampered, overindulged new body as though it were amusing rather than appalling, but the chuckle caught in her throat at the sight of her friends’ faces and almost choked her. Even Rigo looked taken aback by the image of her, his normal confident grin gone from his face, “It’s still all a bit much for me though,” she hastily added, trying to put herself back on their side; wasn’t she still the same Kiara who’d laughed with them at the self-obsession of the nobility, still the old friend they’d fought and bled alongside in the name of chivalry and honour, after all? “I, uh, don’t think I’ll ever really feel at home here.” It wasn’t a very successful attempt. If she’d still been tough and toned, had firm abs instead of a round, swollen bulk of flab sagging from her midsection, had been eating in her own rooms instead of this oversized ornate dining room, perhaps she could have convinced them that she hadn’t changed. As it was, even the lightest glance revealed the truth.

“You sure about that?” Cait pushed Rigo aside as she stepped forwards, a barely-concealed shade of anger playing about her face, “Looks like you’ve made yourself pretty at home to me.” Her eyes roved over the decimated feast, across Kiara’s flabby chest spilling from her undershirt, and down to the stuffed, bulging gut that sat in her lap. There it stayed, staring into the dark eye that was the impression of Kiara’s navel through the fabric.
Kiara flushed with embarrassment, her cheeks that were now so much paler than the healthy tan of a few short years ago lighting up red.
“I guess I’ve- well, I mean- it’s not like that, Cait, it’s just-” she tried half-heartedly to defend herself, but the guilt roiling in her stomach, the guilt that was shifting and churning and aggravating the heavy mass of food inside her tumescent stomach, made her protestations sound even hollower than they really were.
“Save it,” the younger woman snapped. She looked personally aggrieved by what had happened – what Kiara had let happen, “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”
There was another awkward silence, the three knights standing awkwardly by the door as Kiara sat at the head of the table, they looking down on her, she staring down at the floor – or rather, at the triplet bulges of her breasts and belly that blocked her view of the floor.
“Well, um, we’ve been enjoying ourselves too,” Rigo piped up, breaking the silence again, “You’ve missed so much lounging around in this castle, Ki. We’ve been out on the vertical wastes, and some of the stuff out there’s just horrendous! Harpy after harpy, spider-giant after spider-giant. It’s been brutal. Cait broke five ribs when our camp got raided by bat-boons, and I spent two months straight hallucinating after I ate some skyweed. You’d have loved it.”

“Sounds great,” Kiara nodded, but – she realised with a genuine spike of horror – it was a lie. A couple of years ago the idea of that sort of adventuring would have delighted her, invigorated her. Now it just made her feel a little sick, the very mention of spider-giants leaving her suddenly very grateful for the thick keep walls and even the polearmed personal guards that she’d thought so unnecessary when she’d first arrived. She’d grown accustomed to the comfortable safety of her new lifestyle, and just the passing recollection of the trio’s adventures left her feeling anxious. Perhaps the last couple of years had affected more than just her body after all…

The trio seemed to sense this latest lie, and already they were inching towards the door. They looked at her, and all they saw was a spoiled, pampered nobleman’s wife, her soft body and uncertain face betraying that the Kiara of a couple of years ago was truly gone, buried by the lazy, cowardly woman before them now. Cait looked let down and angry; Rigo seemed confused. By far more painful than either of those expressions, however, was what she saw on Cufus, for on his face Kiara saw only disappointment.

After the trio had made their hasty excuses and been shown out by the self-satisfied manservant, after the clattering of their booted feet had long since faded from earshot down the frescoed corridors of the castle, Kiara sat alone again in the dining room, staring emptily down at her hands. They were plump and soft, not the slightest hint of a callous or scrape showing anywhere on the smooth white skin. The nails were carefully trimmed and cleaned, her gleaming wedding band tight around one pudgy ring finger. The only blemish was a slight discolouration down the back of her right thumb, marking the place where she’d been splashed by a mermaid’s toxic blood nearly five years ago now. She stared at the old scar, watching it shift as her hand reached idly out to the half-finished dishes on the table before it and served her another helping of minotaur tongue, then watched it move closer as that same hand brought the food to her lips.
Guilty, hating herself, but with nothing else left to do, she began once again to eat.