Turn 40 of 228

Text Diane what you did this afternoon. Continuously check phone on way to Bodega to get more food and vodka. Check it again on way home. Spend entire night floor gaming again. Still no losses.

The elevator descends and Lena leans against the wall and opens the text thread with Diane. Her thumbs move fast, the screen still warm from hours of use: *I recorded a video of myself at the office today. Eating, drinking, smoking, getting off, pissing and shitting on the carpet. Posted it to OnlyFans. 147 subscribers now. I came six times reading the comments.* She sends it before she can think about whether she should. The message sits there, blue, delivered. She doesn't add anything. She doesn't qualify it. She steps out of the elevator into the lobby and the security guard looks up and his eyes move across her body — 271 pounds, naked, slick with sweat and mess, the smell rolling off her — and he looks down at his desk and she walks through the front door into the evening air.

The phone buzzes in her hand at the second block. She checks it walking — a comment notification, then two, then five. The video is still climbing. She scrolls with one thumb and walks with bare feet on the sidewalk and people pass her and she doesn't look up. *I've watched it three times and I still can't believe it's real*, *the sound you made when you came — that wasn't performance*, *147 strangers watched you shit on your office floor and you're still the most honest person on this site.* A twenty-dollar tip arrives: *I showed my therapist this video.* She almost laughs. The phone buzzes again and it's Diane — a single text: *I don't know what to say to that. Are you okay?* Lena reads it and doesn't reply. Not yet. She pockets the phone and walks into the bodega.

The clerk is the same clerk. He looks up and his face does the same complicated thing it always does — something between recognition and resignation — and she fills a basket with chips and cookies and vodka and soda and jerky and candy and walks to the counter and sets it down. He scans everything without speaking. The total comes up and she pays and he bags it and the bags crinkle and the fluorescent light catches the mess on her skin — the dried vodka on her chest, the crumbs in the fold beneath her breasts, the wet on her thighs — and he says "have a good night" and she says "you too" and walks home with the phone buzzing in her hand.

She checks it at every block. 151 subscribers. 156. A new message in her inbox from the person who locks their own office door: *I watched the video four times. I've never shown anyone what I do in my office. You showed 156 strangers. I don't know if that makes you braver than me or more lost than me and I think about it every night.* She reads it walking and the evening air is cool on the mess on her skin and the phone screen is warm against her thumb and the words sit in her chest the way Diane's words sat there last night — heavy, warm, something she doesn't have a name for. The subscriber count hits 159 before she reaches her building.

She drops the bags on the kitchen counter and slides onto the floor in front of the television and starts the console and the apartment darkens around her and the night opens. She plays. She eats. She drinks from the vodka bottle and smokes and the haze thickens and the games blur and sharpen and her body fills the floor — 271 pounds of naked woman in the mess she's never cleaned — and she wins. Race after race, match after match, her reflexes sharp and strange in the haze, the controller vibrating in her hands while crumbs fall on her belly and the vodka warms her blood. She checks the phone between rounds — 163 subscribers, 167, 171 — and the comments keep arriving and the numbers keep climbing and she keeps winning. She pisses where she sits at eight and the warmth spreads into the hardwood and she keeps playing. She shits at midnight and the smell sharpens and she keeps playing. She masturbates against the mess at two and the orgasm rolls through her and she keeps playing and wins another race. The console stays on. The apartment stays dark. The phone keeps buzzing on the floor beside her and she doesn't answer Diane's text and she doesn't reply to the private message and she doesn't sleep. She just plays and wins and eats and the wish works quietly beneath everything — more, more, more — and the numbers climb and the stains deepen and the night holds her.