Free Thinner by Richard Bachman

The weight loss was still going on, and it wasn't slowing down; it was speeding up. He had gotten to the last hole in the Niques belt he'd believed only two months ago he would have to quietly retire as too small. Now he needed a seventh hole, which he didn't have.
    He looked at his watch and saw he'd have to get back soon. But some things were more important than whether or not Judge Boynton decided to enter a will into probate.
    Halleck listened. The men's room was quiet. He held up his pants with one hand and stepped out of the stall. He let his pants drop again and looked at himself in one of the mirrors over the row of sinks. He raised the tails of his shirt in order to get a better look at the belly which until just lately had been his bane.
    A small sound escaped his throat. That was all, but that was enough. The selective perception couldn't hold up; it shattered all at once. He saw that the modest potbelly which had replaced his bay window was now gone. Although his pants were down and his shirt was pulled up over his unbuttoned vest, the facts were clear enough in spite of the ludicrous pose. Actual facts, as always, were negotiable - you learned that quickly in the lawyer business - but the metaphor which came was more than persuasive; it was undeniable. He looked like a kid dressed up in his father's clothes. Halleck stood in disarray before the short row of sinks, thinking hysterically: Who's got the Shinola? I've got to daub on a fake mustache!
    A gagging, rancid laughter rose in his throat at the sight of his pants bundled around his shoes and his black nylon socks climbing three-quarters of the way up his hairy calves. In that moment he suddenly, simply, believed ... everything. The Gypsy had cursed him, yes, but it wasn't cancer; cancer would have been too kind and too quick. It was something else, and the unfolding had only begun.
    A conductor's voice shouted in his mind, Next stop, Anorexia Nervosa! All out for Anorexia Nervosa!
    The sounds rose in his throat, laughter that sounded like screams, or perhaps screams that sounded like laughter, and what did it really matter?
    Who can I tell! Can I tell Heidi? She'll think I'm crazy.
    But Halleck had never felt saner in his life.
    The outer door of the men's room banged open.
    Halleck retreated quickly into the stall and latched it, frightened.
    'Billy?' John Parker, his assistant.
    'In here.'
    'Boynton's coming back soon. You okay?'
    'Fine,' he said. His eyes were shut.
    'Do you have gas? Is it your stomach?'
    Yeah, it's my stomach, all right.
    'I just got to mail a package. I'll be out in a minute or so.'
    'Okay.'
    Parker left. Halleck's mind fixed on his belt. He couldn't go back into Judge Boynton's court holding up his pants through the pockets of his suit coat. What the hell was he going to do?
    He suddenly remembered his Swiss army knife - good old army knife, which he had always taken out of his pocket before weighing himself. Back in the old days, before the Gypsies had come to Fairview. No one asked you assholes to come - why couldn't you have gone to Westport or Stratford instead?
    He took the knife out and quickly cored a seventh hole in the belt. It was ragged and unlovely, but it worked. Halleck buckled the belt, put on his coat, and exited the stall. For the first time he was aware of just how much his pants were swishing around his legs - his thin legs. Have other people been seeing it? he thought with fresh and stinging embarrassment. Seeing how poorly my clothes fit? Seeing and pretending not to? Talking. . .
    He splashed water on his face and left the men's room.
    As he came back into the courtroom, Boynton was just entering in a swish of black robes. He looked forbiddingly at Billy, who made a wan gesture of apology. Boynton's face remained fixed; apology definitely not accepted. The droning began again. Somehow, Billy got through the day.
    He stood on the scales that night after Heidi and Linda were both asleep, looking down, not believing.