Turn 9 of 28
Order even more food and drink and celebrate harder. In the middle of celebrating, check what Priya's response is. After that, cap the celebration by masturbating and getting off to her fat, smelly, hairy, disgusting body and then pass out on the couch. While sleeping, she continues to release loud and disgusting burps and farts.
Lena scrolls through the delivery app with one hand while the other rests on the taut curve of her belly, thumb leaving a smear of cheese sauce on the screen as she taps. She adds a second cheesecake, a platter of fried chicken, three bottles of red wine, a crate of beer she's never heard of, and an entire chocolate cake designed to serve twelve. The total is staggering. She doesn't look at it. She hits confirm and drops the phone onto the cushion beside her, reaching for the champagne bottle with her free hand, tilting it back and drinking deep. The fizz rolls up into a belch that she forces wider, longer, pressing her stomach forward with her palm, and the vibration travels through her whole body and settles between her hips in a warm, liquid pulse. She exhales slowly through her teeth.
The food arrives in four bags the delivery driver sets on the doorstep without a word. Lena carries them to the couch in two trips, her body heavy and swaying, and tears into the chicken with her fingers, grease running down her wrists and forearms. She eats with her legs spread wide on the couch, the wet blanket beneath her warm against her thighs, and cracks open a beer with her teeth. The first swallow brings a deep, rolling belch that she leans into, eyes closing, feeling it build in her chest and release in a wave that makes her toes curl. A fart follows, long and low, rumbling against the soaked cushion, and the warmth of it pools beneath her. She reaches for the chocolate cake without opening her eyes.
Her phone buzzes against the cushion. She wipes her fingers on her thigh and picks it up, the screen smudged with grease and sauce. Priya's name glows in the notification bar. She opens the message: "omg lena YES. i'm so glad you texted. are you free this week? i want to see you in person. also i showed your insta posts to my roommate and she literally screamed. you look so good i can't even tell you." Lena reads it twice. Something warm moves through her that isn't the wish and isn't the champagne — a flicker of the person she used to be, nervous about being seen, uncertain about what Priya will think when she sees what she's become in the flesh. The warmth pulses and the nervousness dissolves. She types back with a greasy thumb: "this week works. i'm free whenever. i quit my job btw lol." She sends it and drops the phone.
She reaches for the wine and drinks from the bottle, red liquid running from the corner of her mouth and down her chin, dripping onto her chest. She finishes the chicken, the cake, half a cheesecake, and most of a beer before the room starts to swim. She can smell herself — the thick, dense musk of her unwashed body, the sharp undertone of the blanket beneath her, the mix of old food and sweat and something animal — and instead of turning away from it she leans into it, breathing deep, feeling the warmth sharpen between her hips. She runs her hands over herself, over the round mass of her belly, the soft folds at her sides, the thick hair on her legs and under her arms, the greasy skin and dried food and the smell rising from every inch of her. Her fingers trail lower and she presses her stomach down hard, forcing out a long, sustained fart that vibrates through her, and the sound and the smell and the feeling of her own body — huge, unwashed, uncontained — crest in a wave that breaks over her and leaves her shuddering on the couch with her eyes closed and her mouth open.
She lies still for a long time afterward, her breathing slow and deep, the empty containers stacked around her like the walls of a small fort. The blanket is soaked and warm beneath her. The apartment smells like her — like all of it, everything she's eaten and released and become. She feels the warmth pulse one more time, a slow, satisfied thrum, and sleep pulls her under. Her body settles into the couch, heavy and still, and in the quiet that follows a long, low belch rises out of her sleeping chest, filling the room. Then another. Then a fart, deep and rumbling, that vibrates through the cushion and trails off into silence. Her body keeps going without her — processing, releasing, growing — while she sleeps the deep, warm sleep of someone who has stopped fighting every single thing.