Turn 8 of 228

Take photos of the scale and my body in the mirror. Afterwards, eat more of the snacks and take photos while doing it. I don't bother cleaning my messy body and apartment, leaving evidence of my snacks and arousal everywhere. Oh and I am still naked.

Lena bends down and picks up her phone from the bathroom counter, and the motion presses her belly against her thighs, the soft weight of it spreading wide across her lap. She straightens up and points the camera at the scale first — the green digital numbers glowing against the white tile, 237 undeniable and permanent. She takes two photos, one straight down and one from an angle that catches her bare feet on either side of the scale. Then she lifts the phone and turns to the mirror.

The woman in the glass is covered in orange dust and dried chocolate, crumbs caught in the soft creases where her belly folds over itself, the skin flushed and sticky. She lifts her free hand and rests it on the curve of her belly, fingers splayed wide, and takes the photo. Then she turns sideways and the profile is staggering — the belly thrust forward in a smooth round arc, the breasts heavy and full above it, the hips wider than the frame of the mirror. She takes three more, each from a different angle, and in every one the mess on her body is visible: the orange smear across her hip, the chocolate fingerprint on her breast, the crumbs scattered across the slope of her stomach. She looks at the photos and the voice says *beautiful* and she agrees.

She walks back to the kitchen, still naked, still covered in evidence of the morning. The snack bags are still on the counter and the floor, the empty ice cream pint lying on its side near the refrigerator. The couch cushion has the faint stain from last night and she doesn't look at it. She picks up the family-size bag of cheese puffs — half empty already — and carries it to the couch, where she sits down heavily and feels her body spread against the cushions, thighs pressing wide, belly settling into her lap. She opens the bag wider and pulls out a handful, and before she eats them she holds the phone up and takes a photo: her naked body on the couch, orange-dusted fingers raised to her mouth, the full round curve of her belly resting on her thighs. She takes another with her mouth full, cheeks rounded, crumbs falling onto her chest.

She eats slowly and deliberately, letting the camera capture every stage. A photo of her hand buried in the bag, the plastic pulled tight against the curve of her hip. A photo of her licking orange dust off her fingers, her tongue flat and slow, eyes half-closed. A photo of her holding the two-liter bottle of orange soda between her thighs, taking a long swallow that runs down her chin and neck and pools in the hollow of her collarbone. She belches halfway through the swallow and takes a photo immediately after, mouth still open, belly pressed forward. The crumbs accumulate on her body — in the fold beneath her breast, in the crease of her hip, in the soft dimpled skin of her thighs. She doesn't brush any of it away.

The apartment is becoming a record of the week. The couch has two stains now, one from last night and one fresh from this morning, the cushions permanently indented with the shape of her body. The kitchen floor is scattered with empty bags and crumbs and the ruined bikini lying in a heap of string and fabric. The bathroom scale still reads 237 and the mirror is smudged with her fingerprints. She takes one final photo — a wide shot of herself on the couch, naked, covered in orange and chocolate, surrounded by the debris of her indulgence, belly full and round and proud — and saves it with the others. Her phone has dozens of photos now, a catalog of transformation, and she scrolls through them slowly, watching herself grow wider and softer and more unashamed with each frame. The voice is quiet, satisfied, thrumming beneath her skin like a second heartbeat. *More*, it says, but gently now, like a hand on her shoulder. *More.*