Turn 120 of 228
Check OnlyFans for BD reactions and subscriber count then energetically skip to Dr. Reeves for the August study visit. Afterwards, propose to Marcus. He says yes
Lena reaches for her phone. The screen is greasy — cake frosting smeared across the glass, the yellow nails leaving new smudges as she scrolls. The OnlyFans notification counter has been climbing all day. She tapped the app open at noon and the numbers were already moving. Now, at midnight, the birthday photos have been up for twelve hours and the chat is a river.
The subscriber count reads 1,431. Thirty-one new subscribers since the birthday post — the photos of the four of them, the cake, the bodies, the bacchanalia. The tips have passed six hundred dollars. The chat moves fast: *happy birthday* and *more* and *you look incredible* and *how much more* and *the four of you are unreal* and *more more more.* Someone writes *820 pounds and your bloodwork is clean? that's not possible.* Someone else writes *the doctor post changed my life.* Someone writes *I've been watching since you were 245 and I'm never leaving.*
Lena scrolls. The birthday post has 847 likes. The doctor post from February still gets comments — someone sharing their own bloodwork, someone asking if she's faking the results, someone posting a screenshot of a medical journal article about impossible health outcomes. The Diane post is still live too. Two bodies, two doctors, two clean charts. The chat treats it like scripture now.
She puts the phone down on the belly. The belly rises and falls. The hum sings quietly — the birthday singing fading into the steady warm hum that has been there for months. Marcus is asleep beside her on the floor, his hand still resting on her belly, his 530 pounds rising and falling in the dark. Diane is on the couch. Carl is on the kitchen floor. The apartment is destroyed and the apartment is warm and the apartment is theirs.
The alarm goes off at seven. Lena hasn't set an alarm in months but she set this one last night — the August study visit. Dr. Reeves. Monthly bloodwork, monthly vitals, monthly pages of notes. Lena disentangles herself from Marcus carefully. The bodies are tangled — his arm across her belly, her leg under his thigh, the four of them spread across the apartment floor and couch like a map of something. She stands. 820 pounds rising. The knees don't hurt. The back doesn't hurt. The body is comfortable.
The walk to the medical building is twenty minutes barefoot through the August heat. The sidewalk is warm under the yellow toenails. The belly swings. The thighs roll. The body is 820 pounds and the body is naked and the body is unwashed and the body has never been wrong. The receptionist doesn't stare anymore — six months of monthly visits have trained the staring out of her. The pen clicks. The clipboard is ready. The exam room opens.
Dr. Reeves is waiting. The white coat is crisp. The notebook is thicker than last month — Lena can see it on the counter, pages tabbed with colored flags, the handwriting dense. The stethoscope is warm this time — Dr. Reeves has learned to warm it. The blood pressure cuff fits. The scales still don't go high enough but the number 820 is in the chart now and the pen writes it without stopping.
The bloodwork is drawn. The results come back fast. Dr. Reeves sits across from Lena and opens the chart and the notebook and the colored flags. Blood pressure 120/78. Heart rate 61. A1C 5.2. Inflammatory markers lower than July. Liver normal. Kidneys normal. Thyroid normal. EKG clean.
"Six months of data," Dr. Reeves says. The voice is not the clinical voice. The voice is something else — the fifth expression, the hunger, the thing that has been building since February. The pen taps the notebook.
"Six months. Your numbers don't just hold. They improve. Your inflammatory markers have dropped every single month. Every month. That doesn't happen. That doesn't happen in anyone. That doesn't happen in bodies half your size living perfectly clean lives."
Lena sits on the exam table. The paper crinkles. The belly rests on her thighs. The hum is warm.
"I'm going to keep coming," Lena says. The yellow nails drum the belly.
"Every month. Until you understand it or until it stops being interesting."
"It's not going to stop being interesting," Dr. Reeves says. The pen stops tapping.
The walk home is warm. The August sun is on the enormous belly and the matted hair and the yellow nails. The sidewalk is busy and the people look and Lena doesn't care because Lena hasn't cared for months and the not-caring is the wish and the wish is the hum and the hum is warm and the hum says *more* and the *more* is everything.
Marcus is on the couch when she gets back. 530 pounds, controller in hand, the screen flashing. He looks up. The beard is crusted with this morning's cereal. The yellow nails are on the buttons. The belly spreads across his thighs. He has been here for months — the apartment has absorbed him, the stains are his, the smell is his, the warmth is his.
Lena stands in the doorway. 820 pounds in the doorframe. The belly first. The hum is warm. The hum is quiet. The hum says something it has never said before. Not *more*. Something else. Something that feels like *now*.
"Marry me," she says.
Marcus sets the controller down. The yellow nails leave the buttons. 530 pounds shifts on the couch and the couch groans. He looks at her. The face — bearded, unwashed, the yellow teeth, the matted hair — is open. Not the performing face. Not the screen face. The underneath face. The one that has been there for months underneath the gaming and the eating and the smoking and the living.
"Yes," he says.
The word is simple. The word is the only word. The hum sings. Not the birthday song — something older, something deeper, something that has been in the wish since the bathroom mirror and the whispered request and the warmth in the stomach. The wish said *comfortable* and the body is comfortable and the body is 820 pounds and the body is healthy and the man on the couch said yes and the hum sings and the apartment holds them and the apartment has always held them.