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You will disappoint him.
Mycroft stares at his fiancé when he isn’t looking, usually from the corner of his eye. That cheeky smile can charm the trousers off any person within its vicinity - often literally in Mycroft’s case. Greg Lestrade is all olive skin that tans exquisitely, coffee brown eyes that twinkle, a symmetry in face that could inspire odes, and a broad carriage of shoulders. Mycroft cherishes watching that arse on the move in Greg’s easy-going swagger. He delights in running his fingers through that hair, silver like sand on the moon. It’s premature, but it fits him, lends him a mix of casual cool and handsomely distinguished.
How did you ever get a beautiful man like him to agree to marry you?
He’s about to watch that exquisite face fall in disappointment, though. Greg will never look at him the same way. Not after this.
“Greg,” he says. It’s time to tell him. To tell someone before it goes on too long.
Greg faces him. He must see that Mycroft is in distress, as he flips off the television and faces him. They're sitting on the sofa in what has become Greg's rec room since moving into Mycroft's house. It seems like a dream, now, the cream colored rug in front of the lumpy brown leather sofa.
Mycroft had been horribly teased as a child - a chubby adolescent that slimmed into a gawky young man with acne on his face and a severe widow’s peak. His skin was milk white and burned scarlet when too long in the sun.
So to the shadows, Mycroft clung.
The bullies were dealt with in time.
Only three of the mirrors in his cavernous home are where Mycroft can see them. There’s the round one that hangs in the master en-suite for shaving. There’s the long, rectangular one within his wardrobe so he can check the fit of his suits. There’s the third, an eight-sided mirror that is longer on its side than it is tall, that hangs over the fireplace in his library. He seldom looks into it.
Just as people seldom see him when he stands next to Greg, who seems to possess a centre of gravitational pull stronger than most. There’s a hard pebble of disquiet behind his ribs when he thinks of those who will attend the ceremony - some of Greg’s family, and a group from Scotland Yard. They’ll see the two of them at the altar, side by side, the polished Mycroft with his cold stare and receding hair beside the affable, handsome Greg.
He’s predicted that Greg’s ‘mates’ already consider him unsuitable.
He’s still waiting for Greg to realise it.
The solution formed in his head when he came across a photo of a muscled model holding a lettered sign that stated “Abs Are Made in the Kitchen.”
For the wedding, he thought.
He would control his appetite for the wedding.
He made scrambled egg whites for breakfast with a side of spinach accompanied by a cup of coffee (75 calories). A smoothie for a snack made with water and greens and protein powder (200 calories). A salad for lunch with edamame, two servings of grilled chicken, and chopped veggies (588 calories). Tea was one cup without milk or sugar, and a handful of almonds with some kind of fruit (212 calories). Steamed broccoli or some other vegetable and protein, usually grilled salmon, for dinner (575 calories, or thereabouts). Greek yogurt with fruit and sunflower seeds for pudding (254 calories). No cake. No bread at all.
He was eating less than 2,000 calories per day.
He continued his time on the treadmill, running an hour per day while listening to podcasts and historical audiobooks.
He didn’t know what it could do. He failed to predict-
“What is it?” Greg says, and slides closer to him on the sofa.
Sometimes when he thinks of that fat little boy, he is reminded of the monster Charybdis. She was a fleshy thing with a gargantuan maw who was chained to the rocks on one side of a strait. She waited for passing ships, sucking down her prey in a voracious whirlpool before her neighbour Scylla snatched up too many of the sailors.
He doesn’t have to wonder what it is, to be a despised thing that aches with appetite.
He knows what it is to sit there and watch trays of food pass by while a gnawing desperation crept up from his gut and into his brain, knocking his focus from the issue at hand to think about his next meal, to plan tomorrow’s meals, to obsess over the food he eats and the food he wants. He knows what it is to have eaten and to be hungry too soon after. He’s smelt the cakes and the meat pies and the curries that others indulge.
He’s watched from a distance as he denied himself.
For the wedding.
For him.
Greg grabs his hand. “Mycroft, you’re scaring me.”
That same pebble of disquiet weighs heavy in his gut.
The noun taunt means a gibe or jeer intended to provoke someone. The verb taunt is intended to provoke or challenge. To tantalise is to tease or torment. Tantalus was a wicked king of Phyrgia who was famed for his riches. After killing his son, he was punished by the gods to forever thirst and hunger in the realm of Hades, even as he stood in a pool of water beneath grapes in bunches - all out of reach. The crime wasn’t killing his son, but for feeding his son’s remains to the gods themselves.
The offer of pastries and cakes were daily at the Diogenes, so he avoided the Diogenes. Anthea ate a curry at her desk and the aroma invaded his olfactory bulbs. He snapped at her that day, and she said, “I can’t wait for this wedding to be over and for you to be off this ridiculous diet.”
The day he saw it, his vision narrowed and his pulse thudded in his ears. The perfect little cream puff pastry. He passed it in the window of a little French cafe that he knew served flavourful pastries with the lightest, fluffiest dough, and the best brewed espresso. He’d passed pleasantries with the owner in the past while jazz softly played on the speakers and the tip of his brolly clicked against the flagstone.
He ate the cream puff, taking pleasure in the exquisite flavor and sensational mouthfeel of fattening, sweet dairy inside the airy, flaky crust of a perfect pastry. He drank the espresso slowly, rolling the dark and bitter liquid across his tongue, the perfect foil for the sugar.
When sugar activated the receptors of his tongue, it sent signals to his brain. Like a flashing runway of feel-good hormones, all those validating and inviting surges of dopamine flooded his cortex. It was an addicting concoction.
He was still walking as guilt nagged at him, as sticky-fingered failure dug into his side, pinched his fat and reminded him of his mistake. His stomach churned and his acid reflux flared, and soon enough, he dodged into an alley and upended the contents of his stomach onto the dingy asphalt.
After, he felt better. No harm done. He’d slipped, just once, and he wouldn’t have to tangle with the weighty consequences. As his body would slim down and tone up, he would be more worthy of the silver-haired Adonis that was to be his for the rest of their lives.
Except that it wasn’t the last time.
Not even the second to last time.
He could say the first few times he purged were due to his unfortunate delinquency, that he was driven to it naturally by a tremendous gut wrench of upset and disappointment.
There are these demon-like creatures across various Asian cultures called Hungry Ghosts. There are different kinds of Hungry Ghosts, but the ones Mycroft is most familiar with are those with the needle-thin necks. They can taste food, roll the food around in their mouths across their tongue, savour it on their palate, but never can they swallow it. Never will they fill their protruding, cavernous bellies. They wander hell and earth, belching fire and fecal matter. Tormented by dissatisfied cravings and insatiable hunger, they haunt shadowy places in despair.
The shadows where Mycroft lingers are of his own making.
The pebble of disquiet lodges in his throat.
“It should have never happened,” he says now to Greg. “I should have been able to control it.”
Greg frowns and his forehead wrinkles. “Control what?”
“My appetite.”
One of the myths about eating disorders is that they only affect teen girls. Grown women get eating disorders. And about one in three people suffering from an eating disorder is male.
He knows this now, because he sees a psychiatrist who specialises in disordered eating. She's the brusque, no-nonsense type with two PhDs and published books that can't be considered of the pop psychology vein. Her office is plain, with dark wood paneling across the walls and a single potted plant by the window. With thick black frames balanced on her nose, she says, “There must be some reason you do it, some sort of payoff. Even when we engage in behaviours we know to be unhealthy, we do it again and again because there’s something in it for us. So, what do you feel when you purge?”
Mycroft thinks back, thinks to leaning over a toilet bowl and watching the remnants of his biscuits rain down into the water. There’s that moment, that rush of -
“Relief.”
“You feel relieved?”
“Yes,” Mycroft breathes, as if it were the most simple and obvious answer in the world.
She stares at him. Then she says, “The pressure must be hell.”
Greg tries to drop him off at every appointment, and pick him up, when he can. He never asks, never pries into what they speak of. He only asks how he can be supportive. He asks questions to help better his understanding.
“I’m willing to bet you’re a meticulous person who plans and organises. Detail oriented. Doesn’t have to Marie Kondo the closet because everything has a place and everything is in its place.”
“Yes.”
“I imagine you hold yourself to exacting standards.” He'd expected that she would need to hold a pad and write things down, but her hands remain folded in her lap. She's fifty-five, with a middling weight problem herself.
“Should I not?”
“That’s not what this is. I’m pointing out that you’re exactly the kind of person this happens to. Someone who puts themselves on a strict diet, and then punishes themselves for slipping.”
Mycroft doesn’t answer.
“So, you count calories?”
“Yes.”
“It’s time you stopped.”
“As if it were so easy. The numbers come when I just look at a food item. A medium sized apple is ninety-five calories. A serving of beef wellington is seven hundred forty-four calories. Name anything; I will tell you the calorie count.”
She stares at him. He despises her shrewd brown eyes, and her thin lips. She says, “I get the feeling you’re not a very forgiving man.”
Mycroft thinks of saving his brother again and again. Of a mother who keeps her distance though displays a genial nature. A sister he hasn’t killed for her transgressions - but then, he’s done unforgivable things, too, hasn’t he?
The Hungry Ghosts aren’t demons - they’re dead people who were neglected by their families and were reborn in hell.
The psychiatrist says, “I speak of forgiveness for yourself.”
Mycroft looks away. The pebble rattles about in his rib cage.
On that terrible night when he told Greg, he wept. He couldn’t remember the last time he wept. Now it’s psychiatrist appointments, and Greg and Anthea bringing him meals and eating beside him. Greg takes him for walks in the park while his treadmill sits at home unused. The bathroom scale is thrown out. Mycroft's toothbrush is replaced. They eat healthy dinners accompanied by bread, and Mycroft ignores the impulse to purge after.
Mostly.
Mycroft imagines it’s what possession feels like. When he’s made the decision to eat the food, some part of him slips into the back of his mind. Something else takes over. It’s as if he were the consciousness outside his body while a second consciousness eats the food, knowing, knowing, what he’s going to do with it later.
He’d watch himself eat, bite after bite after bite, until he was full.
And without feeling anything except only the tiniest hint of shame, he would take himself to the toilet, his mind and body still somehow not his own.
The Alonguians of North America told tales of the Wìdjigò - a spirit that possessed men and invoked them to terrible acts of cannibalism and insatiable, murderous greed. This word was later anglicised to wendigo.
It’s somewhat of a relief that his terrible acts involve only baked goods and his dignity.
“What made you do it?” Greg asks one night.
“Pardon me?” Mycroft was undressing, and he pauses now.
“What made you decide you needed to go on a diet?” Greg is wearing sky blue pants, and nothing else. He’s entered Mycroft’s wardrobe, and stares at him with doleful eyes.
Mycroft looks down at himself. Thinks of the smattering of hair across his thin chest and flabby belly. The toneless calves and thighs. “I wanted...I thought if I...the wedding…”
“For the wedding?”
“Yes.” Mycroft’s heart beats in his ears as his face grows hot. The pebble that’s been lying in his throat seems to weigh on his tongue now. “Because I would have to stand next to the most beautiful man in the world, and everyone would see we are ill-matched.”
Greg’s face falls. There’s a painful squirm beneath Mycroft’s rib cage in response.
“Come here, you stupid man,” Greg says, his face pointed to the floor, but his arms open.
That night as Greg lays Mycroft out on the sheets, he kisses all of Mycroft’s softest parts.
“I love you here, and I love you here, and I love you here…” repeating this mantra even as Mycroft’s eyes prickle and his breathing grows ragged.
The wedding day passes in a blur; all that matters is how Greg glows like the sun, and how his eyes settle on Mycroft as if he were the Western horizon. They wear matching tuxedos and no one could have ever convinced Mycroft that they didn't belong together. He barely remembers who was there, except a quiet congratulations from Sherlock, standing beside his doctor.
Anthea hugs him.
It takes time. They’re wearing matching bands and on their honeymoon at a sandy beach with a private villa to call their own. Greg plies him with fruity, alcoholic drinks that are loaded with sugar - and he is able to block the part of his brain that calculates the calories. They make love with the curtains open, moonlight spilling across the bed and across their bodies.
“You know all those art museums we’ve been to?” Greg is lying half over Mycroft’s chest, braced on one arm.
Mycroft smirks. “Yes, I do recall several.”
“When I look at you, I’m reminded of the portrait galleries, or the paintings done by Renoir or Vermeer.” He smiles and kisses the tip of Mycroft’s nose. He touches the side of Mycroft’s cheek, and strokes downward. “Your skin. It’s like those paintings you talk about, how the artists capture skin tone by paying attention to the light, and understanding that there are more colours than you think for creating skin tone, light or dark.” He traces his fingertips down Mycroft’s neck, and over one freckled shoulder. “You’re like one of those paintings from the masters. Luminous.”
Mycroft closes his eyes as his throat tightens.
“And this body. I love the way you move - have I ever told you that?” He strokes his hand from collarbone to rib cage. “Like liquid. You move like liquid. This body holds the man I love, and I am forever grateful for that.” He grabs Mycroft’s hand and places it on his chest. “And bodies come with appetites. Not just for food. But for sex, and for art, and for life. And I love that. I love your appetites.”
Mycroft opens his eyes to see Greg staring at him, his face ever earnest, ever open, ever full of love when he looks at Mycroft. “Appetites make us fallible.”
Greg laughs at this, that throaty bark of laughter that Mycroft craves hearing. “To live is to be fallible, don’t you think? Appetites can help us enjoy living.”
He’s right. He knows he’s right.
And Mycroft is neither a wicked king, nor a voracious monster, nor an insatiable spirit.
He is a man. With appetite.
At breakfast, there are croissants at the table. Something in Mycroft’s gut twists at the sight and he presses his lips together.
Greg is there, wearing a dressing gown that only reaches halfway down his thighs. “It’s okay,” he says. “Have one if you want.”
Mycroft doesn’t move.
Greg takes the croissant and splits it in half. He places one half on Mycroft’s plate, and the other on his own. “We’ll do this together.”
As all significant things do, it will take time.
“Thank you,” Mycroft says in a low voice.
Greg smiles, his gray hair still mussed from bed. “Of course.”
Mycroft stares off in the distance at the sea. The pebble seems to have gone, fallen from his mouth at some point, perhaps. In its place in a great sense of relief, and relief, he realises, is somehow lighter than air.