Turn 82 of 228

Discuss work with Diane and invite Carl over for dinner. The boyfriends stop wearing clothes and go barefoot in public as well

Lena is on the couch — 411 pounds spread across the stained cushions, the belly resting on her thighs, the breasts heavy on the belly — and the phone is charged. She plugged it in three days ago, finally, and the screen filled with notifications she mostly ignored. OnlyFans is at 340 subscribers. Henderson's emails are handled. The midnight buzz from Thursday was a corporate memo about dress code that Diane already intercepted and quashed. The phone is alive again and the thread with Diane is open and Lena types with thumbs that are thick and soft and the yellow nails tap the glass.

"Branch numbers came in," she writes. "Haverston is second. We're ahead by eighteen percent."

Diane replies in thirty seconds. "I saw. Henderson sent flowers. Actual flowers. To the office. I put them on Carl's desk."

"Carl still there?"

"He quit Haverston. Transferred to Garfield last week. Corporate approved it in two days. I didn't ask for it — he did. He's in the cubicle by the window. He's naked. He's barefoot. He's eating a family-size bag of Doritos and his quarterly projections are better than anyone on the floor."

Lena smiles. The screen is warm and the apartment is warm and Marcus is beside her — 360 pounds, naked, unwashed, his belly pressed against hers, the controller in his hands, the toenails long and yellow and curling over the tips of his toes. He stopped wearing clothes two weeks after they met. Stopped wearing shoes the same day. Walked to the bodega barefoot in October and the clerk rang up the chips and didn't look up and Marcus came back and sat on the couch and that was it. He works from home — software, contracts, the laptop on the coffee table — and he works naked and he games naked and he walks outside naked and the world doesn't stop and the sidewalk is rough and the toenails click and the belly hangs and he doesn't care.

"Invite Carl over," Lena types. "Dinner. Tonight. Bring food."

Diane: "He's already asking what you have."

Lena: "Tell him everything. Tell him to bring more."

The thread goes quiet and Lena sets the phone on the belly and Marcus pauses the game and looks at her and his eyes are brown and warm and his beard is thick and his smell is warm and his belly is warm against hers.

"Diane and Carl?" he says. "I like Carl. He smells like he means it."

"Everyone smells like they mean it now," Lena says.

Marcus laughs — a low, deep laugh that shakes his belly against hers — and the apartment is warm and the evening is coming and the door will open and Diane will walk in naked and Carl will walk in naked and the four of them will eat and smoke and the apartment will hold them and the smell will be layered — four unwashed bodies, four bellies, four sets of yellow nails — and the evening will go where it goes.

They arrive at seven. Diane first — 387 pounds, the beard dark and full, the belly round, the body hair thick, the stretch marks catching the hallway light. Carl behind her — 345 pounds, bearded, barefoot, naked, a bag of takeout in each hand and a case of beer under his arm. He walks in and the apartment welcomes him the way it welcomes everything and he sets the bags on the counter and the smell of him joins the smell of the apartment and Diane sits on the couch beside Lena and the couch protests — four hundred pounds of Lena, four hundred pounds of Diane, the cushions sinking, the frame groaning — and Marcus moves to the floor and Carl sits beside him and the four of them are in the apartment and the food is on the counter and the evening is long.

"Henderson wants a site visit," Diane says. She opens a beer and drinks and the belly shifts and the beard is dark with foam.

"I told him no. He's pushing."

"Let him come," Lena says. "Let him see."

Diane looks at her. The brown eyes. The beard. The belly. The stretch marks.

"You're serious."

"I'm serious. Let him walk in and see the best-performing branch in the company. Let him see the office. Let him see the carpet. Let him see us."

The room is quiet and the four of them are eating — takeout and chips and donuts and beer — and the smell is layered and the bodies are warm and the bellies press together and the evening goes where it goes.