Turn 5 of 233
Order more food. Burp and fart and eat like a slob. On the way back from work, I notice i feel both fatter and stronger.
Lena finishes the maple bacon donut and licks the glaze from her thumb, but the warmth in her belly isn't satisfied. It rarely is anymore. She pulls out her phone and opens the delivery app, scrolling past the salads and grain bowls she used to order, and stops on a burger place two blocks away. She orders a double bacon cheeseburger, a large fries, a milkshake, and a side of onion rings. She adds it to the cart without hesitation, without the old mental calculus of calories or consequence, and hits confirm. The estimated delivery is twenty-five minutes. She turns back to her screen and opens the next file.
When the food arrives, the delivery guy pauses at her desk — eyes flicking to her bare feet, the straining tank top, the soft belly visible beneath the hem — and she takes the bag with a thanks and a smile that doesn't waver. She eats at her desk without closing her door. The burger is thick and greasy and perfect, and she bites into it without bothering with napkins, juice running down her wrist. She tears fries loose from the container by the handful, shoving them in two and three at a time, and lets out a long, rolling burp halfway through the milkshake that carries across the cubicle wall. Somewhere nearby, a chair creaks. She doesn't look up. She eats the onion rings in quick, crunching fistfuls, grease pooling in the paper bag beneath them, and when the pressure builds low in her gut she leans to one side and lets a short, rumbling fart push free. The sound of it in the quiet office is absurd and she grins, licking salt from her fingers.
The afternoon passes in a haze of fullness and focus. Her belly presses tight against the desk edge, round and heavy with the weight of everything she has eaten, and she cradles it absently between keystrokes. The work keeps flowing — clear, sharp, effortless. She sends off two more reports and drafts a client proposal that usually takes her three hours in forty minutes. When she finally leans back and stretches, her tank top rides up completely, exposing the full curve of her stomach, and she tugs it down without urgency. The fabric barely covers her anyway. She catches Derek hovering near the water cooler down the hall, his eyes darting toward her doorway and away. She waves. He doesn't wave back.
The walk home is slow and deliberate. She takes the long route again, through the park, and the evening air is warm against her bare feet and the strip of belly the tank top won't cover. Something is different tonight. Her thighs are thicker — she can feel it in the way they press together with each step, the friction broader and warmer than this morning — but the legs beneath them feel solid, powerful. Her stride is longer and more grounded, her feet striking the pavement with a confidence that has nothing to do with thought. Her arms swing at her sides and she notices the faint new firmness in her calves, the way her body carries its extra weight not as burden but as presence. She feels fatter. She also feels stronger. The two sensations sit side by side in her awareness without contradiction, and she lets them.
A woman walking a terrier crosses her path and stares openly — at the bare feet, the grease-stained tank top, the belly swelling soft and round above the waistband of jeans that look one deep breath from splitting. Lena meets her eyes and the woman looks away first. Something in Lena's chest expands at that, a quiet thrill that tastes like the donut shop sugar and the burger grease and the fresh evening air all at once. She is not who she was yesterday. She is not who she was this morning. The scale in her bathroom will confirm it and she already knows she won't flinch.