Chapter 13: The Aftermath

The green light on the camera went dark, leaving the room in the ordinary glow of the softbox lights which suddenly seemed too bright, too clinical. Jennie’s triumphant smile lingered for a second longer before it shifted into something more practical. She turned from the tripod without looking at Sugi, already moving toward the laptop on the dining table.

Sugi remained on her hands and knees.

She couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. Her body was no longer a collection of limbs and a torso. It was a single, unified mass of pain and fullness, a solid object resting heavily on the carpet. The initial shock of the violation was gone, burned away by a deeper, systemic overload. Her stomach was a dense, hard boulder pressing down against her thighs from the inside. Lower, the liquid slurry formed a separate, warm lake of pressure that stretched her colon into a shape she’d never felt before. Breathing was a shallow exercise. Each inhale made everything shift and press in new, awful ways. She kept her head down, staring at the grey swirls of carpet fiber. A string of drool, thick with grease and lipstick, hung from her lips and touched the floor.

Across the room, Jennie tapped at the laptop keyboard.

“Okay,” Jennie said, her voice bright with professional satisfaction. “Let’s see the damage.”

Sugi heard the clicks. The sound of a webpage loading.

Then Jennie let out a low whistle, the kind someone makes at a car crash or a spectacular sports play.

“Holy shit,” Jennie said. She started reading numbers aloud, each one a clean fact in the messy aftermath. “Peak concurrent viewers… just over two hundred and ten thousand. That’s a new record by like, eighty thousand. Total views climbing past three million already.” Another click. “Donations.” A pause. A soft, disbelieving laugh. “Sugi. Listen to this.”

Sugi didn’t lift her head. She just listened.

“Twenty-two thousand, four hundred and eighteen dollars,” Jennie announced. The number hung in the air, crisp and monumental. “And that’s just direct tips. The ad revenue from this is going to be… insane. Probably another five grand, easy.”

Twenty-two thousand dollars. For an hour of pain. For what had just happened on the floor.

The number should have meant something. It should have sparked that old defiant heat, or at least a flicker of vindication. But it just landed in the numb hollow where her thoughts used to be. It was data, disconnected from the physical reality of her body. The money couldn’t un-pour the slurry. It couldn’t shrink the agonizing pressure in her gut.

Jennie was still talking, scrolling through the analytics dashboard with palpable excitement. “The engagement metrics are through the roof. Average watch time is almost the full stream length. They stayed for the whole thing.” She finally looked over at Sugi’s motionless form on the floor. Her expression softened, though it kept an edge of impatience. “Hey. You hear that? You’re a fucking superstar.”

Sugi managed a tiny nod. The movement sent a fresh cramp spiraling through her lower abdomen, making her gasp.

“We need to get you cleaned up,” Jennie said, closing the laptop with a decisive snap. The business part was over.

She walked over and knelt beside Sugi. Up close, Sugi could smell the pork grease and her own sweat mingling with Jennie’s perfume. Jennie placed a hand on Sugi’s back, right between her shoulder blades.

“Okay, up we go,” Jennie said, her voice shifting into a coaxing, caregiver tone.

Sugi tried to shake her head, a weak side-to-side motion. “Can’t.”

“You can. We’ll do it together.” Jennie’s hand slid under Sugi’s armpit, her grip firm. “On three. One, two…”

On three, Jennie pulled upward with all her strength.

It wasn’t graceful. Sugi’s arms trembled violently, trying to push her upper body up from the floor while her legs refused to cooperate. Her distended stomach dragged against the carpet, a huge weight anchoring her down. A pained groan tore from her throat as Jennie heaved, the muscles in her back and shoulders screaming in protest.

Somehow, after a terrible struggle that involved Jennie bracing a foot against the floor for leverage, they got Sugi up onto her knees. From there it was another battle to get one foot flat on the ground, then the other. Jennie wrapped both arms around Sugi’s torso from behind, essentially bear-hugging her to keep her upright as Sugi swayed like a tree about to fall.

“Good,” Jennie grunted, already breathing hard from the effort. “Now just shuffle. Baby steps.”

They moved as a single, clumsy organism toward the bathroom at the end of the hall. Every shuffle sent jolts through Sugi’s packed digestive system. She could feel things sloshing and settling, each movement threatening to breach some internal dam she didn’t understand. The hallway seemed to stretch on forever, each foot of progress a minor victory.

They reached the bathroom doorframe. Jennie maneuvered them through it sideways, bumping Sugi’s hip against the doorjamb with a solid thud that made Sugi cry out.

“Sorry, sorry,” Jennie murmured, not sounding particularly sorry.

The bathroom was small and humid from Sugi’s earlier shower prep. Jennie guided Sugi toward the toilet, then let go to turn on the exhaust fan with a flick of a switch.

The sudden lack of support was terrifying. Sugi wobbled, throwing out a hand to catch herself on the vanity countertop. Her legs were useless pillars of jelly. She leaned heavily against the cool laminate surface, staring at her reflection in the mirror above the sink.

The woman staring back was a ruin.

Her theatrical makeup was a disaster area. The dark foundation was streaked with sweat and tears, revealing patches of pale skin underneath. The sharp black wings of eyeliner had melted into greasy smudges that made her look bruised. The crimson lipstick was smeared across her cheek and chin like a bloody gash. Her hair hung in lank, greasy strands around a face that was swollen and blank with shock.

She looked exactly like what she was: someone who had been used up and discarded.

A new sensation cut through the numbness then—a sudden, urgent roiling deep in her gut. It wasn’t like normal nausea. It was a seismic shift, a tidal wave building from that inland sea of slurry.

Her eyes widened in the mirror.

“Jennie,” she croaked.

Jennie was wetting a washcloth at the sink. “Just a sec.”

The pressure mounted, climbing from her colon up into her stomach, merging with the solid mass of pork already there into one unbearable totality. A sharp, acidic taste flooded her mouth. Her throat constricted.

She didn’t have time to explain or ask for help.

Sugi shoved herself away from the vanity and lunged for the toilet, collapsing forward onto her knees just in time.

The vomit wasn’t food. It wasn’t recognizable chunks of meat or skin.

It was a torrent of thick, brownish-grey liquid that erupted from her with terrifying force, splashing violently into the bowl. It smelled overwhelmingly of garlic and herbs and pureed pork fat—the exact scent of the blender pitcher—but sour now, fermented by stomach acid. It came up in hot, continuous gushes that burned her throat and nose and left her gasping for air between heaves.

There was so much of it.

She braced her hands on either side of the toilet seat, her whole body convulsing with each retch. Tears streamed from her eyes from the sheer physical violence of it. The sound was horrible—wet, choking splatters followed by ragged, desperate inhalations.

Jennie took a step back, holding the damp washcloth forgotten in her hand. She watched for a moment, her face unreadable.

The vomiting seemed to go on forever, emptying her in reverse order: first the slurry, then thinner bile, until she was dry-heaving over the toilet bowl, her abdomen clenching around nothing but pain.

Finally, it stopped.

Sugi slumped sideways away from the toilet, unable to hold herself up any longer. She collapsed onto the cool tile floor, her cheek pressed against it. The taste of acid and pork fat coated her mouth and throat. A long string of saliva and vomit still connected her lips to the mess in the bowl.

She lay there, utterly spent. The unbearable pressure in her gut had lessened somewhat, replaced by a raw, scraped-clean agony that throbbed in time with her heartbeat. She was empty and full at the same time—emptied of the slurry but still packed with the solid pork she’d eaten earlier, which now felt like a lead weight sitting in a bruised cavity.

She didn’t have the energy to move or speak or even think coherently anymore.

From her spot on the floor, she saw Jennie’s feet approach cautiously. She heard the flush of the toilet, then the sound of the washcloth being rinsed again at the sink.

Then Jennie knelt beside her and began gently wiping her face clean.

Jennie’s movements were methodical now, the caregiver routine clicking into place. She wiped the smeared makeup and vomit from Sugi’s face and neck with the damp cloth, her touch impersonal but thorough. Sugi kept her eyes closed, letting it happen. When Jennie was done, she tossed the cloth into the sink.

“Okay,” Jennie said, her voice all business again. “Can’t stay on the floor.”

She hooked her hands under Sugi’s arms from behind, her own knees bending with the strain. “On three again. Help me if you can.”

There was no helping. Sugi’s limbs were dead weight. Jennie grunted, hauling upward until Sugi was more or less sitting, slumped against the bathroom cabinet. From there it was another agonizing transition to get her feet under her. They stumbled out of the bathroom and down the short hall toward the bedroom, Jennie taking most of Sugi’s weight, their progress a slow, shuffling drag.

The bedroom was a mess from the rushed preparations earlier—makeup scattered on the dresser, the tight charcoal dress’s garment bag discarded on the floor. Jennie guided Sugi to the edge of the bed, which groaned ominously as Sugi lowered herself onto it.

“Arms up,” Jennie instructed.

Sugi lifted her arms obediently, a tired child. Jennie grabbed the hem of the stained, constricting dress and began to work it up Sugi’s body. It was a struggle. The fabric, already stretched to its limit, fought against the new contours of Sugi’s swollen stomach. It rolled up slowly, revealing inch after inch of pale, bloated flesh marked with deep red lines from the seams.

When it was finally off, tossed into a corner with a wet slap, the cool air of the room hit Sugi’s skin. It was a small relief. Jennie fetched a soft, oversized nightshirt from a drawer—cotton, with a faded cartoon character on it, something from years ago that now barely reached Sugi’s thighs. Getting it on was easier. Jennie pulled it over Sugi’s head and helped her thread her arms through the sleeves.

“There,” Jennie said, giving Sugi’s shoulder a pat. “You rest. I’ll clean up out there.”

She left, closing the bedroom door behind her.

Sugi didn’t lie down so much as let herself fall back onto the mattress. The bed groaned again, a long, complaining sound. She stared at the ceiling, listening to the sounds from the living room: the clatter of the platter being taken to the kitchen, the running of water, the hum of the dishwasher starting. The cleanup of the feast.

Her own body was its own crime scene. A deep, grinding ache had settled into her entire abdominal cavity, a soreness that felt bone-deep. Sharp cramps still twisted through her periodically, making her curl slightly on her side before the pain forced her to straighten out again. She was too full to sleep, but too exhausted to stay awake. She drifted in a miserable half-conscious state for hours, aware of every gurgle and shift inside her.

Jennie checked on her once, bringing a glass of water and two antacid tablets. “Try to sip this,” she said. Sugi took a tiny sip. The water felt like a stone dropping into a saturated sponge. She didn’t take the antacids.

The next three days passed in a blur of discomfort and helplessness.

Sugi was effectively bedridden. The gastrointestinal distress was severe and constant. Her system, shocked by the sheer volume and method of intake, rebelled in waves. There were hours of painful cramping that left her sweating and clutching her stomach. Then came urgent, messy trips to the bathroom that Jennie had to help her with, each one a fresh humiliation. What came out was never normal—sometimes liquid, sometimes strange oily slicks, always smelling unnervingly of garlic and pork.

Jennie became a nurse, albeit a brisk and unsentimental one. She brought bland food on trays: plain toast, broth, applesauce. Sugi could manage only a few bites before feeling dangerously full again. Her appetite was gone, burned away. Jennie changed the sweaty sheets when Sugi’s night sweats soaked through them. She helped Sugi roll over when she needed to shift her weight to relieve an ache. She brought a plastic bucket to the bedside just in case.

Sugi existed in a state of profound dependence. She needed help to sit up, to get to the bathroom, to wash herself with the basin and cloth Jennie provided. The defiance from before the stream was gone, evaporated along with whatever energy she’d possessed. She was just a body now, a malfunctioning vessel in pain.

She slept fitfully during the days, tormented by fragmented dreams of being buried under mountains of glistening meat. She woke often to the reality of her swollen body pressing into the mattress, each position becoming painful within minutes.

Jennie spent most of her time in the living room on her laptop. Sugi could hear the steady click-clack of keys, the occasional ping of a notification. Editing footage, probably. Managing the channel. Engaging with the audience that had paid for this.

On the morning of the fourth day, Sugi woke feeling different.

The sharpest pains had subsided into a general, heavy soreness. The urgent turmoil in her gut had quieted to a dull grumble. Sunlight streamed through a crack in the curtains, painting a bright stripe across her bed.

A thought surfaced through the fog: I should get up.

It wasn’t a desire so much as a dim understanding that she couldn’t lie here forever. She needed to move. To test if her body still worked.

She pushed herself slowly up onto her elbows. The room didn’t spin. That was good.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, her feet touching the carpet. The nightshirt rode up around her hips. She took a deep breath, bracing her hands on the edge of the mattress.

Then she pushed herself up to stand.

It happened instantly.

Her legs gave out as if someone had cut the strings holding them up. There was no strength in them at all—just a sudden, shocking buckle at the knees that sent her crashing down onto the floor beside the bed with a heavy thud that shook the frame.

The impact knocked the wind out of her. She lay there on her side for a moment, stunned more by the failure than by the pain blooming in her hip where she’d landed. She tried to push herself up again, to get her hands under her, but her arms trembled violently and refused to hold her weight.

A wave of cold panic washed over her.

She couldn’t stand.

She managed to roll onto her stomach, an awkward maneuver with her stomach pressed against the floor. From there she could crawl. It was slow and pathetic, dragging her belly across the carpet like some wounded animal. She made it the three feet back to the side of the bed and used the bedsheet to haul herself up far enough to slump back onto the mattress, her legs still dangling off the side.

She sat there breathing heavily, tears of frustration pricking at her eyes. Her legs felt like they belonged to someone else—heavy, numb, useless.

The bedroom door opened.

Jennie stood there holding a fresh glass of water. She took in the scene: Sugi sitting disheveled on the edge of the bed, the rumpled sheets trailing onto the floor where she’d fallen.

“Tried to get up?” Jennie asked mildly.

Sugi just nodded, looking away in shame.

“It’s okay,” Jennie said, coming in and setting the water on the nightstand. “You’ve been flat on your back for days. Your muscles atrophy fast at this size.” She said it like stating a fact about car maintenance. “We’ll need to work on that.”

She went into the connected bathroom and came back with a fresh basin of warm water, a washcloth, and a bar of soap. “Let’s get you cleaned up properly today.”

Jennie helped Sugi out of the nightshirt again. The room was warm enough that it wasn’t cold. She had Sugi lie back against the propped-up pillows and began washing her with the cloth and soapy water. It wasn’t a bath; it was a sponge bath for an invalid. Jennie started with Sugi’s face and neck, then moved down her arms and torso with efficient strokes.

The washcloth moved over Sugi’s stomach, which was still dramatically distended though softer now than it had been right after the stream. The skin there felt tight and hot.

“Hand me that mirror,” Jennie said, nodding toward Sugi’s cluttered dresser where a small handheld mirror lay amid pots of makeup.

Sugi reached for it awkwardly and passed it over.

Jennie held it up so Sugi could see her own torso reflected in it.

“Look,” Jennie said softly.

Sugi looked.

Her stomach was a wide pale dome rising from between her hips. Across its surface ran a web of new stretch marks—angry red and purple lines that branched out like lightning strikes or river deltas on a map. They weren’t faint silvery lines like old ones; these were fresh wounds in the skin itself, evidence of how violently she had been stretched during those minutes on the floor when she was being filled from both ends.

Between those marks were other signs: faint bruises from where the table edge had dug into her during the feast; patches of skin that looked almost shiny from being stretched so thin; a deep ache seemed to emanate from everywhere beneath the surface.

She saw herself not as Chubby Cutie, not as an icon or a fantasy object, but as a patient after major trauma. A body pushed beyond its design limits.

She took the mirror from Jennie’s hand and held it closer, turning it to see her sides where dark purple stretch marks curved around her love handles like grasping fingers. She tilted it down toward her thighs, which were thick and dimpled and also marked with fine red lines.

This was what twenty-two thousand dollars looked like on skin.

This was what owning an insult felt like from the inside—not defiance anymore, just damage.

She lowered the mirror into her lap and stared at it instead of at her reflection.

Jennie took back the washcloth and continued cleaning her in silence for a while before speaking again. “The edited highlights are up,” she said conversationally as she worked on Sugi’s legs. “The views are still climbing.” “They really loved it.”

Sugi didn’t ask to see the highlights. She didn’t want to. But later that afternoon, Jennie brought the laptop into the bedroom anyway, propping it on a pillow next to her.

“You should see what they’re seeing,” Jennie said, her tone suggesting this wasn’t optional. She opened the video file and hit play.

On the screen, a much more polished version of the nightmare unfolded. Jennie had edited the three-hour ordeal down to a tight forty-five minutes. The opening was dramatic—Sugi’s made-up face, her sharp smile, the grand reveal of the whole pig. The early part where Sugi carved and ate with aggressive energy was cut with quick, flattering shots that made her look powerful, defiant. The chat comments she’d read aloud were superimposed in stylish fonts.

Then it hit the midpoint. The editing slowed. They lingered on shots of Sugi sweating, groaning, pushing her plate away. The music Jennie had added—a low, throbbing synth track—grew more tense.

The moment when Jennie muted the audio was handled with a title card that read: “Technical Difficulties – Video Only.” What followed was a surreal, silent montage: Jennie carrying the platter away, Sugi’s pained face staring blankly at the camera, Jennie returning with the blender and the tube.

The camera angle changed then. Jennie must have moved a secondary camera or her phone, because the next shot was from a lower perspective, looking up at Sugi on her hands and knees. It was framed artistically, the harsh lighting casting deep shadows. The funnel-feeding part wasn’t shown directly. Instead, the video cut between a close-up of Sugi’s glazed, tear-streaked face and a shot of the empty blender pitcher being set down. It was implication rather than documentation. The final shot was the one Jennie had turned Sugi’s face toward the camera for—her ruined makeup, her empty eyes—before Jennie’s smiling face appeared to thank the audience.

The video ended with a splash screen showing their channel name and a link to donate.

Jennie had turned raw violation into a sleek piece of fetish cinema.

Sugi watched it all with a strange detachment. The person on the screen didn’t feel like her. That was a character, “Chubby Cutie,” going through a narrative arc written by Jennie and paid for by strangers. The pain she saw on that face was just a performance element. She felt nothing about it—no pride, no shame, no arousal. Just a hollow recognition, like watching an actor play a part she’d once auditioned for.

“Good, right?” Jennie said, pausing the video on the final frame.

“It’s very edited,” Sugi said quietly.

“That’s the job,” Jennie replied, closing the laptop. “We sell the fantasy, not the mess.” She took the computer and left again.

Sugi lay back. She thought about her legs buckling. She thought about the web of stretch marks on her stomach. She thought about needing help to get to the toilet.

The fantasy was starting to feel a lot like the mess, and the mess was getting harder to clean up.

On the fifth day, Sugi managed to get out of bed without falling.

It was a process. She had to use the nightstand and then the dresser for support, inching her way upright like someone learning to walk after an accident. Her legs held, though they trembled under her weight. She stood there for a full minute, just breathing, feeling the colossal effort of keeping five hundred and fifty pounds vertical.

She wanted to get to the living room. She needed to talk to Jennie, and she needed to do it somewhere that wasn’t the sickroom.

Shuffling was all she could manage. She held onto the wall in the hallway, moving one foot a few inches forward, then dragging the other to meet it. It took her nearly ten minutes to traverse the short distance.

Jennie was on the couch with her laptop, wearing headphones. She looked up as Sugi appeared in the doorway, her eyebrows lifting in mild surprise. She pulled off the headphones.

“Look at you,” Jennie said, not getting up. “Mobile.”

Sugi didn’t answer. She focused on getting to the armchair across from the couch—the one that could support her weight. Lowering herself into it was another careful, groaning operation. When she was finally settled, she looked at Jennie.

The living room was clean. There was no sign of the pig or the stream left, except for the professional lighting stands still standing in the corners like skeletal reminders. The dining table was clear.

“We need to talk,” Sugi said. Her voice sounded rusty from disuse.

Jennie closed her laptop slowly. “Okay.”

Sugi took a moment to gather her words. She hadn’t rehearsed this. “I can’t… keep going like this.”

Jennie’s expression didn’t change. “Like what?”

“Like last time.” Sugi gestured vaguely toward where the camera had been. “I couldn’t stand up for four days, Jennie. I fell trying to get out of bed. My body… it’s not just fat anymore. It’s breaking.”

“It was one extreme challenge,” Jennie said with a dismissive shrug. “We don’t have to do another funnel feed next week. We can scale back. Do a giant sundae stream or something.”

“It’s not about scaling back,” Sugi said, frustration creeping into her voice. “It’s about what happens after any stream now.” She leaned forward as much as her stomach would allow. “I’m scared I won’t be able to walk soon if I don’t do something.”

There it was. The fear she’d been cradling since she’d crawled back into bed.

Jennie studied her face for a long moment. The easy charm was gone from her eyes, replaced by a cool assessment. “Scared of what, exactly?”

“Of being stuck,” Sugi said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “In this bed. In this apartment. Of needing you to wipe my ass forever because my legs won’t hold me up.” The words were ugly and blunt, but they were true.

Jennie didn’t flinch. “So what are you saying? You want to stop gaining?”

The question hung in the air like a threat.

Sugi shook her head quickly. “No.” That part was still true too. The thought of stopping, of shrinking back toward that old self… that was a different kind of terror. “I don’t want to stop.”

“Then what?”

Sugi took a deep breath. “I want to go to the gym.”

A beat of silence.

Then Jennie laughed—a short, sharp burst of sound with no humor in it. “The gym? Sugi, you can barely shuffle across this room.”

“I know,” Sugi said stubbornly. “That’s why I need to go. Not to lose weight. To build strength.” The idea had formed in her mind during those long hours in bed, watching her own useless legs. “If I get stronger… my muscles can support more weight. I can move better. I can keep doing this without…” She trailed off, not wanting to say without becoming a complete invalid.

Jennie stopped laughing. She leaned back on the couch, tapping a finger against her closed laptop lid thoughtfully. “You want to start working out.”

“Yes.”

“And you think that will fix your mobility problems while you continue to pack on another hundred, two hundred pounds.”

“I think it might help,” Sugi insisted.

Jennie was quiet for a long time, her gaze fixed on some point past Sugi’s shoulder as she ran calculations only she could see. The silence stretched out, becoming tense.

Finally, Jennie spoke again, her voice low and deliberate. “Okay.” Sugi blinked, surprised by the lack of further argument. “Okay?”

“You can go to the gym,” Jennie said, nodding slowly as if finalizing a deal in her head. “But there are conditions.”

Sugi felt a knot of anxiety tighten in her stomach. “What conditions?”

Jennie met her eyes directly. “You start taking medication. An appetite stimulant. Prescription grade.”

Sugi stared at her. “What?”

“You want to build muscle so you can keep gaining?” Jennie said, her tone turning clinical. “Fine. But the primary product here is fat. The fantasy is growth. If you start lifting weights and your appetite doesn’t keep pace—if you accidentally start recompositioning your body instead of just adding to it—the audience will notice. They pay for softness. For expansion. Not for some muscle-bound feedee hybrid.” She leaned forward slightly. “So you take something that ensures your hunger always outpaces your workouts. You keep getting bigger. Fatter. The gym is just… infrastructure maintenance. Understood?”

It made a horrible kind of sense. A brutal logic that protected their brand. Sugi would be allowed to try and salvage some function, but only if she guaranteed she would also continue to destroy it in the primary way that mattered to their viewers.

“What kind of medication?” Sugi asked hesitantly.

“There are options,” Jennie said with a shrug. “Periactin is common for off-label use. Mirtazapine. They make you hungry all the time. Like, can’t-think-straight hungry.” A faint smile touched her lips. “It would make content easier too. No more forcing yourself through walls. The wall wouldn’t exist anymore.”

The image was both terrifying and seductive. To never feel full again. To always be hungry enough to eat whatever was put in front of her. It would solve so many problems in their streams. It would also erase whatever last shreds of natural bodily feedback she had left.

“I don’t know,” Sugi whispered.

“It’s non-negotiable,” Jennie said flatly. Her voice left no room for debate. This wasn’t a girlfriend making a suggestion; it was a business partner laying out terms. “Gym equals medication. Otherwise, we continue as we were. And you can see how long you last before you really are bedridden.”

Sugi looked down at her own massive thighs pressed against the chair. She thought about trying to stand again tomorrow morning. She thought about crawling across the floor.

She wanted to be able to walk. She wanted to keep gaining.

Jennie was offering a way to do both by sacrificing something else entirely—her body’s last remaining whispers of enough.

“How do I even get it?” she asked finally.

Jennie’s smile returned fully now, satisfied. She picked up her phone from the coffee table and began scrolling through it with practiced ease. “I have contacts in some feeder communities online. People who know doctors who are… understanding about lifestyle choices.” She looked up from her screen. “Say yes, and I’ll make an appointment for a telehealth consultation this week. We can frame it as depression or insomnia if we need to.”

Sugi sat there in the armchair, feeling the weight of her own body pressing down into the cushion. She felt trapped between two futures: one where she slowly lost all ability to move under an ever-growing mountain of fat fueled by sheer willpower and pain; and another where she took a pill that turned hunger into a permanent chemical scream inside her head, maybe buying herself some mobility while accelerating everything else.

Neither was good. But one offered a semblance of control. Or at least an illusion of it.

She looked at Jennie waiting expectantly across from her. She thought about the twenty-two thousand dollars that were already sitting in their account from one night of work.

She nodded slowly. “Okay.”