Jerome the Third

      Sallie's upbringing in Villejo had been meagre, and from childhood she had the sort of skinny body that fat would never even consider clinging to, but then, a strange thing happened when she met Jerome the Third. An energetic thief, whose every crime was petty, Jerome the Third made a big deal out of everyone calling him Jerome the Third, as if calling him that would at least sound important, no matter  how unimportant he always felt. He referred to it as his "calling card"that would distinguish him from his cronies, and even Sallie had to admit when she first met him, she'd had visions of a Jerome the First and Second who may have somehow been wealthy, and that some of that wealth might trickle down to the Third. But, of course, like everything else with Jerome the Third, this fantasy soon wafted away, and what she was left with was a mean man who nonetheless liked to take her out to fancy meals.
      And, like never before in her life, Sallie began to put on weight. Making love with Jerome the Third, bumptious and not always pleasant, seemed to magically change her metabolism, and soon, all the angles that first attracted Jerome the Third to her disappeared under mountainous curves of soft flesh, and mere months after getting together, Sallie was  healthy, happy with how she felt, and getting fatter without  regret.  Jerome the Third, at first in love with her bony body, now fell deeper in love with her as she began to bloom larger, and he was especially turned on by the fact that each and every meal he bought her gave her such intense happiness that, for the first time in his life, he felt he had a true purpose: to find finer , more exotic restaurants to take her to, so he could watch her devour every rich morsel of the food laid before her. Sallie ate, and Jerome the Third was nourished.
      Then, as of the ground had been sufficiently prepared, Sallie got pregnant.
      Without even knowing if it was a boy or girl, they decided to name it Chaz. Jerome the Third wanted no Fourth to eclipse him, and Chaz sounded smooth and sexy to them both, so their son (no thought of a daughter, really) would be named Chas on his arrival into their world, for which Jerome the Third began to plan and connive: a next "job" had to be found, and this one had to be his largest petty crime yet.