Turn 93 of 228

Post the email and destroyed office on OnlyFans. Then call Diane's question, ask her what she's been avoiding. She answers honestly and resolves her issues. Then go home and tell Marcus about the raise. His salary also quadrupled! Double celebration!

Lena picks up the phone from the belly. The screen is still bright with the email — the compensation committee's words, the numbers, the effective immediately — and the office is still destroyed around her. The carpet is a landscape of everything they did last night. The corner behind the filing cabinet is visible in the phone's frame. The wrappers, the bottles, the stains. She opens the camera and angles up — the belly, the breasts, the email on the screen behind her, the ruined carpet, the wall where they sat — and takes three photos and posts them without a caption. The photos say everything. The numbers say everything. The carpet says everything.

Diane is on the floor beside her, the tablet on her belly, the email open, the beard matted, the brown eyes still wide. Lena locks the phone and sets it on the carpet and looks at her. The office is quiet and the building is empty and the afternoon is gold and the two of them are alone.

"What's the question?" Lena says.

Diane's eyes change. Not the management look — not the quarterly-report face, not the careful neutrality. Something underneath. Something that has been sitting under the beard and the belly and the nakedness and the numbers for weeks. The mouth opens and closes and the beard shifts and the brown eyes look at the carpet and then at the wall and then at Lena.

"The question is whether I did this for me or for you," Diane says. The voice is quiet. Not soft — quiet. The beard frames the words and the belly is still and the stretch marks catch the light.

"The clothes. The shower. The beard. The weight. All of it. Whether I stopped because I wanted to stop or because I watched you stop and you were the first person I'd ever seen who looked like she meant it."

The office is still. The carpet is still. The building hums its empty hum.

"And the answer is both," Diane says. "I watched you and you were real. And then I felt my own body and it was real. And the question was whether I would have gotten there without watching you. And I don't know. And I spent six weeks thinking I should know. And I don't. But the body is mine and the beard is mine and the numbers are mine and the carpet is mine and I don't need to know how I got here to know I'm staying."

Lena looks at her. The brown eyes are wet. Not crying — wet. The beard is dark and matted and the belly is round and the stretch marks are everywhere and the body is 387 pounds and unwashed and the body is hers. Lena reaches over and puts her hand on Diane's knee. The yellow nails on the thick skin. The warmth. Diane puts her hand on top. The two of them sit on the ruined carpet in the destroyed office and the question is answered and the building is empty and the afternoon is gold.

They leave at four. The hallway is quiet and the elevator takes them down and the lobby is empty and the security guard is at the desk and sees them — two enormous naked unwashed women, barefoot, the yellow nails clicking on the tile — and nods. The evening air is warm. Lena walks home. Diane walks beside her and then peels off at her street and the beard catches the last light and the brown eyes are clear and the question is gone.

Marcus is on the couch. 360 pounds, naked, barefoot, the controller on his belly, the screen on, the apartment warm and dark and smelling like him and like food and like the week they've been living. Lena opens the door and the light from the hallway falls across him and he looks up and the beard is full and the eyes are tired and the body is warm and she says, "My salary just quadrupled."

Marcus stares. The controller falls off the belly. The screen keeps going. He picks up his phone. Opens his own email. His eyes move. His mouth opens. He looks at Lena. He looks at the phone. He looks at Lena.

"Mine too," he says.

The apartment is quiet. The screen is on. The body is warm. The wish hums under everything. Marcus stands — 360 pounds rising from the couch, the stretch marks catching the light, the belly wide and heavy — and the two of them are standing in the living room and the numbers are real and the salaries are real and the evening is warm and the celebration starts with the sound of the couch springs exhaling and the fridge opening and the controllers picking back up and the apartment holding them both.