"Kit Reed - The Last Big Sin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Kit)

We're not talking Sodom and Gomorrah here. Now that pretty much anything goes in that department,
nobody much notices what you do to get your kicks. Except for the one thing. The Reverend Earl has hit
on the last great vice. It's so big that it leaves the Seven Deadlies in the dust and us feeling all dirty and
glad, writhing with delight because it's our secret and it's so terribly wrong, and it's … Think soft cheeses
in gobs: baked Brie and triple creme dripping off your knife; think Porterhouse steaks, so richly marbled
that the fat goes straight into your heart valves; think chocolate in any form.

Food is the forbidden fruit.

It's the ultimate seduction, the guilty secret you keep—that box of Godivas you sneaked before sex, the
ice cream after and none for her—the joy of scarfing hamburgers on the sly, secretly larding your veins
because you know it's bad, and being bad is such a rush. It's the last guilty pleasure and the hell of it is,
most people get away with gorging because they work out or they scarf and barf and nobody knows.

The unforgivable sin isn't overeating. It's getting fat.

Which brings us to me.

I know you look at me and go, eeewww. I see you leering, like I'm a walking piece of pornography.
You're excited to look, you're ashamed because you get all evil and lascivious and OK, superior: Oh
man, I am never going to get like that. You want to touch but you're afraid to touch; you'd like to
poke that finger at my belly and see how far in it goes because I am the physical expression of your own
secret, cherished vice. You are excited and revolted, shrinking as I pass, like I am overflowing into your
personal space, and the difference between us? Body weight.

Shrink says I'm overcompensating. Mom says I was born big-boned. I blame thyroid. Those pesky
brown cells.

OK, it was the food: sausage grinders and pizza at midnight, the B.L.T. but with two pounds of bacon on
it instead of two strips; special ice cream sundaes at four A.M., quart of Ben and Jerry's Everything But,
with hot fudge sauce and smashed white chocolate and pork rinds crumbled on top so it isn't too sweet;
buy out the candy at the movies and take two buckets of popcorn into the midnight show and gobble it in
the dark, and this is exclusive of my daytime three squares. See, foodaholics are no different from that
bunch confessing over coffee at AA: when you want it all the time because you're seriously addicted,
nobody sees you binge. At mealtimes I was a model of restraint. Seconds only. Sweet'n Low and no
milk. Even Mother wondered; OK, I lied. The rest, I sneaked, in the dark hours when nobody sees you
and they can't hear you belch; close the door softly and tiptoe downstairs after your lover goes to sleep,
if she wakes up she will reproach you: wasn't I enough?

In daylight, nobody knew. Listen, when I dress for business, clients treat me with respect. So what if I
shop at Big Men Outfitters, the XL rack? The black suit, I had hand tailored with matching vest, vertical
pinstripes, and if I do say so I look impressive. Like Gibraltar. Like, who wants to buy life insurance from
a young guy? But no matter how successful I am, I hear you muttering as I go by.

I have not gone without women. Amazing what turns some people on. Girlfriends came into my life and
then they went; it was a mutual conclusion arrived at over time. I had my needs. No woman could
compete.

I moved back home after the last breakup, because in the settlement Nelda took the apartment and all
my stuff. I would be there still if it hadn't been for Mom. After her Saturday night macaroni and Belgian