Turn 43 of 226

Weigh in and assess the body after the rest days. I weigh 225. I'm bigger and more disgusting. I feel the need to piss. I piss on the bathroom floor. It feels good

The scale reads 225. Lena stands on it and the number is there and the display flickers once under her weight and stabilizes. She steps off and the bathroom floor is cold under her bare feet and the mirror — the mirror she cleaned two cycles ago — is clouded again, a fine film of condensation and grime from weeks of training and sleeping and living in a body that does not stop producing heat. She wipes a streak across it with the heel of her hand and looks.

The body in the mirror is enormous. There is no other word for it. At six-six and 225 pounds she fills the frame — her shoulders are broad and the fat over the deltoids is thick and smooth and the muscle beneath pushes the shape outward. Her breasts are heavier than they have ever been, full and wide, the nipples pointing down, and they rest on the curve of her belly which is round and full and hangs over her thighs when she stands. The belly is different now — there is structure behind it, the core work giving it a tension that keeps it from sagging, but the fat on top of that structure is thick and soft and her hand goes to it automatically and the warmth of it under her palm is familiar. Her thighs are massive. The muscle is visible when she moves — the quadriceps shifting beneath the fat, the outer thigh pushing against the inner, and the legs are brown from the sun and covered in hair that has been growing for weeks and the hair is dark and coarse and she does not care.

The grime is worse. The layer of sweat and oil and dirt has thickened — her skin is brown from the sun but darker in the creases, in the folds under her breasts, in the crease where her belly meets her thighs, and the smell is strong. Not an undertone. A presence. The smell of a body that has been working and eating and training and sleeping on a dirty floor for weeks and has not been washed and is not going to be washed. Her teeth are darker yellow. Her hair is matted — the long strands that used to be brushed are now tangled and flat against her skull and the oil has made them dark and heavy. Her nails are long and ragged and dirty underneath. She looks at all of it and the warmth pulses and it says yes. This is the body. This is what it looks like and it is correct.

The pressure in her bladder is sharp and sudden. She has been standing in the bathroom for three minutes and the need has gone from a background awareness to an urgency that fills her lower belly and she shifts her weight from one foot to the other and the motion makes her thighs press together and the pressure increases. The toilet is two steps to her left. She looks at it. The lid is down and there is a ring of dust on it because she has not sat on it in — she does not remember. Days. Weeks. The toilet is a thing she stopped using at some point she cannot identify and the stopping was not a decision. It was a gradient. The body decided.

She stands on the tile and her feet are flat and her legs are apart and the pressure is at its peak and the warmth says nothing about the toilet. The warmth says here. She lets go. The stream hits the tile and the sound is loud and bright in the small bathroom and the urine spreads across the floor in a warm pool that reaches her toes and the heat of it against her skin is — she closes her eyes. The relief is immediate and total. The pressure drains from her belly and the warmth of the puddle around her feet is spreading and the smell rises and mixes with the smell of her body and the combination is rank and thick and the warmth pulses and it says good. Her bladder empties and the stream slows and stops and she stands in the puddle and her eyes are closed and her breathing is slow and deep and the relief is not just physical. It is the relief of a body that has stopped pretending. That has stopped performing the rituals of a person who cares about surfaces and tiles and what goes where. The puddle is cooling around her feet and she opens her eyes and looks down at it and looks at herself in the mirror — 225 pounds, brown and dirty and hairy and huge, standing in her own piss on the bathroom floor — and the warmth says yes. This is what comfortable means. This is what the wish wanted. She steps out of the puddle and walks to the living room and lies on the floor and the carpet is warm and the ceiling is above her and the rest day continues and the body rebuilds.