Sweet Tooth: Read Free Online Short Stories

After his mother's heart scare, his other mother, Gretel, had taken up the crusade to get Marlin to change his ways. Chocolate, she insisted, was the first to go. Nevermind that quitting chocolate would surely mean losing his job. She'd never liked his choice of profession.

"That chocolate, it is the death of you! The death of both of you," Gretel said. Marlin sat with the gray-haired woman in the hallway as Helga slept in the room behind them. Silent and bare, the entire ward smelled like the chocolate factory during shutdown week. Blank. She placed a gnarled hand on his elbow. "You must give it up, you must quit chocolate!"

Honestly, it was if Gretel had asked him to cut off an arm, chocolate was such a vital part of his daily existence. Why, he was the number one taste tester! He could never give up chocolate!

"Marlin? You are listening to me? You must give it up. Look at what happened to Helga when she didn't give up her bad habits!" She gestured to the doorway of Helga's room. "Helga would want you to give it up," she said, her voice soft.

"Then why are you whispering?"

Gretel leaned forward, placing her elbows on her knees. All during his childhood, this had been the position she'd assumed before a big lecture. He felt as though he should be sitting on the floor Indian-style looking up at her instead of in an uncomfortable folding chair a few sizes too small for his generous rump. She stared intently at Marlin, who blushed. "How much chocolate did you eat last week, Marlin?"
Marlin reflected. One of the new Fudgy bars, two bites of the Hazelnut Express, sixteen miniature Wally Bites, and a piece of Mallow Light. And that was just this morning. Maybe Gretel had a point.

"I think you might be a, how do they say it? A junky? I saw a show on the boob tube. The warning signs, you have them all, okay? Marlin, you are a chocolate junky!"

"A junky?" Marlin had never considered the possibility! He imagined himself shivering in a back alley somewhere, wearing ripped jeans and a dirty Mallow World sweatshirt.

"Chocolate is for the children, Marlin. You are a grown man now. You must give up this foolishness."

Marlin's head dropped slowly, and he groaned.

"Don't worry, Marlin," Gretel said. She dug through the enormous purse sitting on her lap. From within she removed a tri-fold pamphlet with bent corners. This she handed to Marlin. "There's a meeting tonight."

"Chocoholics Anonymous? Gretel? Seriously?" At the mention of chocolate again, Marlin's stomach grumbled. It had been a long day; he hadn't eaten since breakfast. Now his mind filled with visions of chocolate bon bons, fondue fountains, and creamy milk chocolate bars. He shook his head. "Maybe you're right, Mom. Maybe I got a problem."

He looked down at the pamphlet Gretel had given him. A twelve-step program, weekly meetings, no chocolate ever again. Gretel's cold hand touched his elbow again.

"Don't worry, Marlin, you will just try, I know you can do it. It will be our secret, okay? We don't tell Helga until the time is right."

__________________________

"My name's Marlin, I don't know if I'm a Chocoholic, but I sure got a problem."

Itchy in the tweed jacket Gretel had insisted he wear, Marlin stood stiff-armed in front of a room of the twitchiest people he had ever seen in one place at one time. The sole person not shaking, a blob of a woman with short brown hair and a lime-green tracksuit sighed and crossed her legs. Behind them, mint-green walls held framed posters of bland nature scenes and tag lines like "Believe" and "Mind Over Matter".

"I haven't eaten the stuff for three days, and it's all I can think about. Marshmallows dipped in milk chocolate, those cheese-filled sugar puffs," he said, and paused, thinking. "You know, they're Italian, I think... Kind of round..."

"Cannolis?" asked the lime-green woman, who winked.

"Yeah, yeah! Cannolis! The ones dipped in fudge. And ice cream, god, what I wouldn't give for a scoop of old rocky road..."

Marlin's voice trailed off as he noticed the expressions on the faces in front of him change. They had been nodding along but now their mouths tightened and their dark eyes flashed. Betty, the leader of the group, came up and whispered in his ear.

"Oh, holy cannoli, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean... Rule #3: Don't tempt your fellow resisters. Right." He adjusted his collar and wiped his forehead with the back of a hand.

Just then, a glint of silver caught his eye. It was the lime-green woman again. She pushed a rectangular-shaped object half-hidden in the folds of her zip-up pullover back into her pocket. Chocolate contraband, no doubt. When she saw him watching, she winked.

"Listen," Marlin continued, ignoring her. "I got a big problem here! I mean, yeah, we all have a problem, that's why we're here, but my problem... Whew, boy, is it a biggie! My job, I can't quit my job!"

A man with a toffee-colored t-shirt stood up. He had a scruffy gray beard and wisps of matching hair squashed flat by the hunting cap he clutched in his hand. "Marlin? It's Marlin right, like the fish?" Marlin nodded, wrinkled his nose. "My name is Larry. I'm a Chocoholic."

He paused as a smattering of applause filled the room.

"Listen," he continued, "most places, you just tell them you have a problem. You just tell them you can't eat chocolate, give them the card Betty printed up, they'll understand. Me, I'm a teacher. I just tell my kids on the first day, I tell them they can't eat chocolate in class, can't even bring it into the room. I get some weird looks, don't even want to think what the kids are saying about me on the school yard." Larry smoothed his hair with a pale hand, placed his hat back on his head, and plunked back into his seat. "But, hey, it works. Just try it," he said, nodding. "I think you'll find people are real understanding about this."

"Thank you, Larry," Betty said, echoed by the rest of the Chocoholics. "Now, Marlin? What do you think about Larry's idea? Can you try that?"

Marlin felt his face flame with sudden resentment. He struggled to maintain the tempo of his voice. "No, I cannot try that!" Anxiety squealed onto the end of his sentences. "That won't work at all!" He took a deep breath and thought about sand between his toes, the way the CA brochure advised. Sand. Waves. Sun. Sunburn, jelly fish, mmm, Swedish fish. With chocolate... Wait! What kind of twisted system was this?

"I work in chocolate!" he spurted out, unable to hold it in any longer. He looked up, and, when he saw the accusation in their eyes, quickly back down. "I'm a taste-tester."

Why don't you tell them schnitzels how much they pay you, Marly? Thank god, Helga wasn't here to witness this travesty.

"I'm the V.P.," he said. Trying to ignore the way his belly pooched over his waistband, Marlin studied the tops of his brown loafers for a minute before dropping his final bomb. "At Mallow World."

At the mention of the local chocolate factory, the room filled with sharp gasps and harsh whispers.

"I'll be sacked!" said Marlin, shaking his head. "It's the bottom of the bag for me."

Betty stood and propelled Marlin to the door without saying a word. As soon as the two stepped out of the room, she stopped and looked up at him with doleful eyes.

"Marlin, listen, we sure do appreciate you coming out to see us today. Believe me, the Good Lord never gives us more than we can handle, so me and Jesus wish you the best of luck." She took a deep breath. "But, honey, even the Devil knows it ain't safe for you to be here."

Flabbergasted, Marlin glanced down the long tube hallway, expecting to see addicts sneaking around with knives in their teeth and ninja masks or, perhaps, a marshmallow-shaped bandit with a long, pointy stick, but he saw nothing in the sterile hallway. "Not safe?"

"You don't know what these people are like, what they'll do." Betty made the sign of a crucifix over her chest. "A few of them in there, they ain't right in the head. You'd better get out of here right now. Please, Marlin?"

Marlin shook his head, turned, and slunk toward the exit, his heavy footsteps filling the empty hallway. Just as his hand touched the door, he felt a soft tap on his shoulder and spun around. It was Betty, who had snuck up behind him. Slightly hunched, she looked everywhere but at his eyes.

"Marlin, honey, May the Good Lord forgive me," Betty said. "But do you get a discount?" Silent need filled the woman's bleary eyes, and she released a soft gush of air while crossing herself again.

"Be strong, Betty," Marlin said, fighting back a smile. He placed his hand on her shoulder. "You be strong now."

With that, he turned again and marched outside.

__________________________

He still remembered his first time. Skinny as a rake, he was six years old, and it was his birthday. Ten children crowded the living room and giggled over the wall full of cuckoo clocks. Fifteen birds sprung forward on the hour, and his friends were delighted. He was delighted by the presents his friends had piled on the kitchen table.

When a pink-frocked Goldilocks had asked Marlin why he had two mommies, he had answered her with no hesitation, but when she asked why he didn't have a birthday cake, he was stumped. That it was verboten was all Marlin could think. In fact, Helga and Gretel had forbidden all things sugar: sweets, ice cream, sugared cereals, jelly donuts, gumdrops, bits of candy glass, and chocolate. But why was it forbidden? He still wasn't sure.

That first scrap of chocolate was an accident. While Helga and Gretel were bickering in the kitchen about the birthday feast, a mom with matching golden curls floated into the room and handed each child a square of holistic heaven: creamy and smooth milk chocolate. Her smiling moon face had beamed down at him as the square melted on his tongue, and, all the while clutching the hand of the young cherub in pink, he grinned up at her, sure she was an angel.

After the party, Marlin searched for abandoned coins and empty bottles: trinkets and trash to everyone else, but like gold to a six-year-old with a chocolate habit. The first time Marlin braved Clark Mark, intending to exchange his stash for candy bars, the elderly woman rubbing her cloth on the counter had looked at him with such an expression of knowing that Marlin had almost scooted right back out the door. But the vision of shiny, pretty bits of candy reined him in and from that moment on, Marlin was an insatiable sweet tooth.

"Yeah," Marlin said, the sound flying out the car window in a gush. "Now, look at me." He pinched the spare tire of his gut. He looked like a guy who worked in a chocolate factory.

He had gained twenty-five pounds in his eighth year. By the time he was sixteen years old, Marlin had developed a sloping walk to accommodate his excess weight. Stumped, Gretel brought in a psychologist she had seen recommended on Dr. Phil. The doctor brought glittery crayons and stacks of colored paper. After drawing stick figures and being asked to talk about his feelings for forty-five minutes, all the while listening to Helga and Gretel argue about whether or not this was worth the fifty dollars they'd paid the doctor, Marlin finally caved and confessed that he'd been a steady user since he was eight.

When the doctor stopped laughing, he swept the crayons and papers back into his brief case. After snapping it shut and adjusting his bowler, he patted Marlin on the head. "You're lucky you made it this far, son," he said, and left. Marlin sometimes suspected that Gretel had never quite forgiven him the embarrassment.

After graduation, he'd found the job in the chocolate factory. At first he was a delivery boy, hauling the packages of sweets all over the city. He had done that for a few years, despite his parents' protests, then taken a job on the assembly line. He had memorized each smooth fold of the different candy bars, watching as the machine plunked out piece after piece of the gooey chocolate.

By the time he was thirty, he was the plant manager, supervising a crew of thirty chocolateers. On his thirty-sixth birthday, he had approached the factory owner, given him an ultimatum. Within a few weeks, he had at last assumed his dream position, the most coveted of jobs, the number one taste tester.

Every day he went to work and tasted chocolate: new blends of old favorites, original recipes by the factory chef, innovative approaches to the world of chocolate. He was the one who had suggested the newest line of chocolate-covered espresso beans, an extra dash of vanilla to the fudge-filled bon bons. The company had begun producing dipable, individual serving cups of creamy chocolate after Marlin had seen a woman at the bus stop dipping pretzel sticks into her cup of yogurt. In short, Marlin was a veritable chocolate expert and his weekly paychecks proved his success.

And now he had given up chocolate. How was he supposed to give up chocolate? An image flashed in his mind of a brunette soccer mom with shaking fingers lighting a cigarette in the parking lot before the Chocoholics Anonymous meeting. After a deep puff, her shaking had stopped, and her tight grimace relaxed into an easy smile.

He turned hard into the parking lot of a small convenience store and threw the car into neutral before releasing the clutch. He leapt from the car and ran inside. He panted, breathless, at the counter.

"A pack of a cigarettes," he said, when he'd recovered his voice. "I don't care what kind."

The ratty counter girl blinked at him, unmoved, and reached up behind the glass stacked high with boxes as vibrantly colored as the candy display below.

"These okay?" she asked, flashing a pack. "Matches?"

"That's fine, yes," he said, reaching into his pocket for his wallet. "And, I'll take one of those candy bar there, a big one! No, no... make it a little candy bar, one of those bite-size ones. You got the bite-size?"

The girl pointed at a basket in front of the register. Marlin stared at the chocolate nuggets and shook his head.

"No! Just the cigarettes," he said. He tossed a five on the counter and snapped up the pack. "Keep the change." He shoved the wallet back in his rear pocket as he strode to the door.

"Hey buddy?" Marlin spun around, the doorbell jangling as he bumped into it. The counter girl's hand lifted slightly and released a flying object. Her face retained the same dull expression she'd had the whole time, but something like recognition flashed in her eyes. He caught the golden item, pushed back against the door, and retreated.

In his car, he opened his hand to see a crushed candy bar. "Ahh... caramel!" He tore it open and lifted it to his nose, inhaling deeply. "Ahhh, sweet chocolate!" He stuck out his tongue, straining to the candy.

Chocolate is for the children, Marlin, he heard Gretel admonish in his mind.

A knock on the window caused him to drop the candy, which rolled off his lap and onto the floor. He looked through the glass to see the lime-green woman from the meeting motioning for him to open his window. After a moment's hesitation, he opened the window a crack.

"Yes?"

"Aren't you Marlin?" said the woman.

Marlin shook his head.

"Yeah, yeah, Marlin like the fish! How you doing?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about," he said, and rolled up the window and started the car.

The woman knocked on his window again, but he ignored her, instead slowly pulling out of his space. He could hear the woman yelling something so he turned up the volume on his car stereo. A woman with a high-pitched voice squealed about the misdeeds of her boyfriend of the week. When the woman leapt in front of his car, he slammed on his brakes.

"Are you nut-so or something?" Marlin said, jumping out of the car. "I could have run you over!"

"Am I nut-so?" The woman said, jamming her hands against her hips. "I was just trying to talk to you!"

"Then talk," Marlin said, glaring at the woman and cursing his sudden decision to start smoking.

The woman's green eyes grew wide, and she chewed her bottom lip.

"Well?"

"I was just saying... Listen, do you want to get a cup of coffee or something?"

"No!" Marlin gave the woman a look he hoped conveyed his utter contempt. He turned, stalked to the door, and jerked it open with a grunt. Before he climbed inside, he looked back at the open-mouthed woman. He felt a twinge of guilt, but then he remembered the contraband candy bar. "You got problems, lady," he said.

"Sandy," the woman said. "My name's Sandy."

Marlin tore out of the parking lot in a squeal of tires and gravel dust and didn't relax until he'd turned the corner, off Marrow and onto Winding Way. He pulled over and reached for the cigarette pack, which he ripped in his haste to open it. When he struck the first match, his hands were shaking much in the same manner as the smoking soccer mom he'd seen earlier that day. The flame caught then fizzled out in a puff of blue smoke.

"Come on, you stupid thing," he said, striking another match. This one flared, and he brought it to the cigarette he'd jammed between his lips. He took a deep drag then coughed so hard, he dropped the cigarette on the sidewalk. Just then, he saw a flash of green. "Not again!"

The tracksuit woman, Sandy, came jogging around the corner. Marlin dove for the floor, realized he wouldn't fit, so sat awkwardly hunched over, staring at the floor mat and counting to 60 in his head. At the knock on the window, he sighed.

"Come on, Marlin," Sandy said. Out of the corner of his eye, Marlin saw her face close to the window. She wasn't bad to look at, even if she was a nut. "Just one cup? My treat."

He didn't know what changed his mind, but five minutes later, Marlin found himself sitting at the Coffee Beanery, running out of things to say. Suddenly, Sandy leaned over, and Marlin's eyes were drawn to her line of cleavage unwittingly. He looked away quickly, but not before a blush had risen to his cheeks. "I know something better than cigarettes and chocolate," she said. He didn't have to ask her what she meant.

An hour later he found himself sitting on the edge of her bed in his shorts while she smoked a cigarette out the window. "I don't do this kind of thing all the time," she was saying. "I just need something sweet when I'm not getting my sweets." Marlin stood up, pulled on his trousers and his shirt, leaving the bottom buttons undone and untucked, and draped his jacket over his arm. "You, though, you were real sweet." Marlin looked at the woman again, who was staring out the window, then started down the stairs. "Hey, Marlin! Where ya going?"

__________________________

"Marlin? Is that you?" Gretel called out in her usual singsong, as he locked the door. "I am in the kitchen, Marlin, cooking for you. Potato pancakes, your favorite!" He hated potato pancakes. Why had he never told her he hated potato pancakes?

"Marlin? Are your hosen frozen?" asked Gretel, brushing her hands on her apron. "Come, come, give me a hug!" She clasped him to her ample bosom, then dropped her arms to her sides and sniffled. "Marlin? Have you been smoking?"

Marlin turned and staggered up the stairs to his bedroom, ignoring her calls. He plopped onto the bed, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. After a few minutes, he slipped into an uneasy sleep filled with visions of chocolate-covered monsters wielding candy swords. In them, the woman in the tracksuit rode a unicorn with bronze saddle, instead of her bike, and laughed when her mount tried to impale him.

He awoke to soft knocking on the door.

"Marlin? Marlin? You are hungry, yes? Imagine, went to bed without dinner, first time in twenty-some years," Gretel said, prattling. "Your boss, he called this morning. I told him you were sick with worry over poor Helga." She paused, as if waiting for an response. "Not to worry, Marlin, Helga says she feel better soon, okay?

Marlin lay in the bed with his eyes closed. He didn't want to move. So, for the first he could remember, he didn't. He ignored Gretel's repeated offers of sauerkraut, bratwurst, and Weiner schnitzel. For three days he insisted he wasn't hungry and refused to open the door.

On the fourth morning of his isolation, Marlin opened his eyes. Something felt different. He tried to conjure the taste of chocolate in his mouth but found he couldn't do it. Was he conquering his chocolate addiction?

He stood up, looked in the mirror, and winced at his scruffy reflection. The sun beamed through the orange-rimmed leaves of the tree in the backyard, and he decided he'd like nothing more than to take a stroll around the neighborhood. He was fully dressed in a pair of gray sweatpants and a Mallow World t-shirt by the time Gretel came to his door.

"I know you will come down to breakfast today, Marlin," she said through the door. "All better now, Helga says. She is waiting downstairs for you. Won't you please come?"

"Mom? Can you put on some coffee?" asked Marlin, pulling open the door. "I'm going for a walk."

Beaming, Gretel squeezed Marlin tightly for a moment before backing away. "Whew, Marlin, you smell like you rolled in rotten knockwurst," she said. "Better get a shower first, okay?"

When he walked into the kitchen, Gretel worried around him, pinching his cheeks and his arms and poking his stomach. "You are wasting away, Marlin," she said, ushering him to the table. "Here, eat up, it's your favorite," she said, and plopped a giant spoonful of apple strudel on the plate in front of him. "You are getting too skinny for the likes of us."

"Yeah, he looks like shit," Helga said, her first words of the morning.

Gretel inhaled sharply. "Helga! You don't look so hot yourself, old women. Been in your bed so long you just about dried up."

Marlin just smiled and went over to give Helga a kiss on the top of her salt-and-pepper hair. "You're looking good, you old fart."

"Will you be going to work today, Marlin?" Gretel said.

"Work? What work?" His head sank to the table. He hadn't been to work in a week. He'd sunk so low in his chocolate-free existence that he hadn't given the factory a second thought, until now.

"Everything is fine, okay?"

What was she talking about? Everything couldn't possibly be fine. His job, that longed for dream job, the only thing that mattered in his life. Gone.

"Go to work, you will see. You still have your job, you don't have to worry."

__________________________

"Chocoholics Anonymous?" his boss had said. "Should have told me sooner, Marly! Been thinking about a new line, ever since my kid started with the program. Larry told me he saw you down at the school."

"Larry?" Marlin's gaze fell upon a family picture he'd seen a thousand times but never really noticed. He took a step forward. The guy in the back looked vaguely familiar. "You know Larry?"
"Sure do, buddy boy, Larry's my oldest." He tapped the glass in front of the photo then sat on the edge of his desk. "Chocoholics? Third one this month!" He shook his head. "Thing is, Marly, it ain't even the chocolate that's the problem!" His booming laugh filled the office.

"It isn't?" Marlin was confused.

"Hell no! It's all that damn sugar! Sometimes I swear they mix the stuff up with cocaine down in South America or something. Not that I've ever much minded it!" He laughed again. "Great for business. But, I'll tell you, Marly. I bet you a million your problem ain't got so much to do with chocolate as it does with sugar."

"Sugar?"
"Hell yeah, Marlin! That's why I'm starting the new line, with you at the head of it."

"New line? I don't..." Marlin's voice trailed off and he stared out the massive glass window down to the plant operations below. The people moving below were tiny insects with white hats. As he watched one climb a ladder to the top of the Fudge Maker and tip a giant purple bucket of white powder into the top, he felt a glimmering of understanding. "You mean?"

"Sugar-free, Marly buddy, sugar-free!" He clapped Marlin on the back. "We're going to be rich, buddy. Rich!"

Marlin was still recreating the experience in his mind when he got home. As he opened the door, a smell so enticing filled his senses that he stumbled straight for the kitchen when he entered. "Gretel? Helga? What is that smell?"

"Spaghetti sauce, Marlin, Helga's idea!" Gretel tugged on his arm, urging him closer. "We talk, come up with a solution to your problem."

"Spaghetti sauce?" Marlin had a hard time imagining spaghetti sauce as a solution to any problem.

"Hey, kid, you'd be surprised!" Helga said, leaning on her cane as she walked into the kitchen. "Now sit down and shut up!"
Marlin inhaled the heady scent of tomatoes and spices as Gretel made him a plate and handed it to him. He began to eat without even waiting for her to sit down. It was the most delicious plate of food he had ever eaten; it sure beat weinerschnitzel and sauerkraut. The tangy tomato flavor blended with basil, oregano, cinnamon, and, wait a minute... "Chocolate?"

Helga cackled. Marlin had taken two more bites before she stopped laughing long enough to talk. "I told you the kid would figure it out!" Helga stood up from her chair and gestured for him to follow. "Not you!" She pointed at Gretel. "This here's between me and Marly."

Gretel's eyes widened but she stayed put.

"Come on, fatso! I'm seventy-two years old, ain't got a minute to waste!"

Marlin followed her into the foyer.

"There!"

She pointed up, but all he could see were the antique cuckoo clocks on the wall.

"Where?"

"Right there, that little door!"

He looked again and noticed a small door on the side of the smallest clock. He'd never examined the clock closely enough to see the door in the middle of the intricate carvings adorning the sides.

"Open it, Marlin!"

Marlin reached out a hand and gently opened the door.

"Watch, watch!" Helga cried, reaching her hand underneath his to catch the small balls tumbling out.

"What are those?" he said, reaching for one.

Helga cupped her hands together.

"Not yet." She took a deep breath. "Marlin, I shoulda told you this all those years ago. That old bitch don't even know!"

Marlin looked at the woman standing before him with clutched hands, looked at her in a way he never had. Her eyes glittered with a joy he'd never seen in her face until now.

"Mom?"

Holding the bulk of the treasured balls against her chest, she pinched out a small red ball toward him.

"See this? A malt ball. A real one, not like those Whoppers you used to buy down at the deli, but real malt. You ever had a malt ball, Marly? No, I suppose you haven't."

He shook his head, and she stretched her hand to him.

"Here. Go on, just the one."

He took the candy, sucked in the smooth pleasure and shook his head.

"Mom? It's delicious, but..."

"It runs in the family. Gretel, she doesn't know, never had much of a craving for the stuff, but I do. You were born into a sugar-loving family, kid, never had a chance."

Marlin blinked and plunked down on the stool behind him.

"We tried to stop it, Gretel and I, but it didn't work. It's your destiny, Marlin, for better or worse."

"So you mean?"

"All those years trying to keep you away from chocolate, shoulda just taught you how to control it. Now look what happened! If we'd have been smarter, you wouldn't have to give up sugar, just like I never gave up malt balls. Or skydiving!" She laughed. "Go on downstairs, Marlin, get another plate of spaghetti."

Marlin stood up, dazed.

"You might have to give up the sweets, the ones with sugar anyway, but me and Gretel, we'll help you satisfy that craving. An unexpected taste of chocolate here and there should do it," Helga said, reaching up to drop the malt balls one by one into a small hole at the corner of the clock. When she was finished, she looked at him. "I know I got a gruff exterior here..." she stopped to take a deep snorting breath. "You know I love you, right?"

"Aw, Mom!" Marlin leaned over to hug Helga. "I love you, too!"

"Yeah, yeah, now get the hell outta here." Marlin started down the stairs, amazed at the day's events. "And, hey, Marlin?"

Marlin turned back to Helga, whose wrinkled face flushed with pleasure as she held up one of her treats to the light.

"Stay the hell away from my malt balls."

Copyright 2006
Moira Anne Richardson