Turn 6 of 28

wake up and realize its Saturday morning. 3 am to be exact. Weigh herself while completely naked. Go back to sleep. Once awake, spend entire weekend alternating between stuffing herself and sleeping. Don't bother putting on clothes. Farting and burping increase. Only go to washroom to pee and poop. Don't shave, shower or brush teeth. Find extreme pleasure in current state.

Lena wakes in darkness. The couch cushion has molded itself around her during the night, cradling her widened hips, and for a long moment she doesn't move. Her belly rises and falls with slow, deep breaths, the empty food containers still balanced against her side. She can feel where crumbs have stuck to her skin overnight, where grease has dried on her fingers. The apartment is silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the sound of her own breathing. She reaches for her phone on the floor and the screen lights up: 3:02 AM, Saturday. She has nowhere to be. No one expecting her. The thought settles over her like a second blanket.

She rolls off the couch with a soft grunt, her body shifting heavily as she stands. The floor is cool under her bare feet. She walks to the bathroom, naked, feeling the weight of herself move with each step — belly swaying, breasts heavy, thighs brushing together. She steps onto the scale and the digital display flashes, climbs, settles. The number is higher than she has ever seen in her life, significantly higher than it read just days ago. She stares at it for a long time, the green glow painting her bare feet. The warmth pulses beneath her skin, a slow, approving thrum. She steps off without recording it, knowing it will be higher again tomorrow.

She shuffles back to the couch and lowers herself onto it, feeling the cushion sink beneath her. Her belly rests heavy on her thighs when she sits, soft and full. She pulls the blanket over herself and closes her eyes. The last thing she feels before sleep takes her is the warmth spreading through her midsection, her body growing in the dark, inch by quiet inch.

When she wakes again, grey morning light fills the apartment. She doesn't check the time. She reaches for her phone and orders breakfast delivery — pancakes, eggs, bacon, hash browns, a large orange juice — then lies still and waits, feeling the rumble of hunger and something deeper, something that wants to be filled. When the food arrives she answers the door naked, takes the bag from the startled delivery driver without a word, and eats on the couch with her fingers. Syrup runs down her wrist and pools in the crease of her elbow. She licks it off. A belch rises out of her, low and resonant, and she feels her belly expand with the release. She finishes everything and falls back asleep with the empty carton still resting on her stomach.

The weekend collapses into a rhythm without structure. She wakes, she eats, she sleeps. She orders again — pasta, pizza, burgers, Chinese takeout, milkshakes — and eats each delivery on the couch in the same spot, the cushion growing more permanently indented beneath her. Her farts have grown longer, deeper, rumbling against the couch fabric in warm, sustained bursts that she releases without shifting position. She feels each one bloom through her lower body and dissolve into the apartment air. Her burps come between bites, some of them rolling up from deep in her chest, and she leans into them with her mouth open. Her body odor has grown stronger — she can smell herself, a warm, dense musk that clings to the blanket and the couch cushions — and she doesn't move toward the bathroom except when her body demands it. She pees and poops and returns to the couch without washing her hands, without showering, without brushing her teeth. Her hair is matted against the pillow. The soft hair on her legs and under her arms grows visible, unchecked. She doesn't care. The voice in her mind has been silent for days, and in its absence she hears only herself: the chew and swallow, the creak of the couch, the low rumble of her own body processing what she feeds it, and the warmth. Always the warmth, pulsing, growing, pushing her softly outward in every direction. She eats until the containers stack on the floor beside her, until her belly is taut and round and aching, and then she sleeps again, and when she wakes she is bigger, and she eats again, and the cycle continues through Saturday into Sunday without interruption.