Chapter 15: Infrastructure

The medicine came first. It always did now. Sugi swallowed the small white pill with a practiced tilt of her head, no water needed anymore. The chemical hunger that bloomed in her gut about twenty minutes later wasn’t a surprise either, just a familiar signal, like an alarm clock she couldn’t snooze.

Months of this routine had sanded down the rough edges. The gym wasn’t a place of shameful spectacle anymore, mainly because she didn’t care who looked. She arrived wearing clothes that actually fit, mostly. A black athletic dress with side panels that stretched, and leggings underneath that were thick enough not to show every dimple. She still sweated through them, obviously, but that was just part of the process.

She moved between machines with a methodical rhythm. Leg press, chest press, lat pulldown. The weights were heavier now, honestly. The numbers on the plates meant something beyond just being props for the camera. Her muscles knew the movements, firing in sequences that had become automatic after weeks of repetition.

The hunger would start to cut through the focus around the third set, right on schedule. She’d pause, wipe her forehead with the back of her hand, and look toward the smoothie bar. The kid who worked there knew her order by heart. He’d already have the giant blender cup ready when she waddled over, breathing steadily from exertion rather than panic.

“The usual?” he’d ask every time. “Yeah.” He’d dump in the protein powder, the peanut butter, the banana, the heavy cream they kept in the back for her specifically. The blender would roar. She’d pay with a tap of her phone—Jennie had set up a separate account for gym expenses—and take the cold, heavy cup back to her corner.

She drank while resting between sets, not frantically but deliberately, pacing herself. The thick liquid coated the raw edge of the pharmaceutical need, buying her another forty-five minutes of productive work before it would return, sharper.

Getting out of the seated chest press machine used to be an event. A whole production of grunting and shifting and using her arms to haul her own mass out of the narrow seat.

Now she just disengaged the safety locks, let the weight settle, and stood up.

Her hands gripped the metal frame on either side, more out of habit than necessity. She pushed up through her legs, which were solid beneath their layers of softness. Her body rose from the seat in one smooth motion, the spillage of her thighs and hips peeling away from the vinyl padding without a struggle. She took a step back, clearing the machine entirely, and reached for her shake on the floor nearby.

No wobble. No desperate gasp for air. Just a steady rise, followed by a long pull from the straw. She could feel the muscle in her quads holding firm, a dense cable under the fat. It was a good feeling, actually. A feeling of capacity where before there had only been helpless weight.

A week later, or maybe two—the days blended together when your life was built around pills, protein, and reps—the doorbell chimed in the middle of the afternoon.

Sugi was editing footage at her desk, which was really just the kitchen table now since her old office chair had given up months ago. The chime didn’t startle her. She saved her work, closed the laptop, and pushed back from the table.

Standing up from a regular chair was easier too. She placed her palms flat on the tabletop and pushed, letting her stronger legs take most of the load. She walked to the door.

Her stride wasn’t fast, but it was confident. Each footfall was deliberate, placing her weight squarely. She didn’t need to shuffle or swing her hips wide for balance anymore. Her breathing remained even as she crossed the living room carpet, past the couch where she used to collapse.

She opened the door to a delivery guy holding two large, grease-spotted paper bags. The smell of fried chicken and biscuits washed over her.

“Sugi?” he asked. “Yeah.” He handed over the bags, which were warm and heavy. She took them in one hand, using the other to sign his tablet screen with a quick scribble. “Have a good one,” he said, already turning to leave. “You too.”

She closed the door with her elbow and carried the food back to the kitchen island. Her heart rate was normal. She wasn’t winded at all. She set the bags down and opened one, pulling out a container of coleslaw first because she wanted something cool before diving into the hot stuff.

The hunger was there, humming in the background as it always did, but it felt manageable now. Like a tool she knew how to use, rather than a force that used her.

Jennie arrived an hour later with new gear for a stream they were planning—some kind of trough-based thing with pudding and whipped cream that had already gotten a lot of pre-orders.

“Help me with this box?” Jennie asked from the doorway, struggling with a large cardboard cube. “The light rig is heavier than I thought.”

Sugi walked over and took one end of the box. Jennie took the other, and they shuffled it inside toward the cleared space they used for filming.

“Okay, drop it on three,” Jennie said. “One, two…”

They lowered the box to the floor. As Jennie straightened up and brushed her hands off on her jeans, Sugi bent at the knees—not a full squat, but a controlled hinge—and got her hands under the box again.

“What are you doing?” Jennie asked. “I got it.” Sugi tightened her grip on the cardboard flaps and lifted. The box came off the ground, its weight substantial enough to make her arms tense. She carried it the last few feet to the filming area and set it down with a soft thud.

When she straightened up and turned around, Jennie was just staring at her.

“What?” Sugi said. “Since when can you do that?”

Sugi looked down at her own arm, still bent from carrying. She flexed it slightly. The movement shifted the fat that draped from her tricep, but underneath, she could see the clear ridge of her bicep muscle pushing against the skin. It was defined now, a hard knot wrapped in softness.

She hadn’t really noticed it before. “I guess since now,” she said.

Jennie walked over, a slow smile spreading across her face. She reached out and squeezed Sugi’s upper arm where the muscle was. Her fingers sank into the fat first, then met resistance. “Oh,” Jennie said quietly. Her smile widened into something different. It looked like pride.

Jennie’s expression shifted from pride to calculation in a blink. She let go of Sugi’s arm and walked a slow circle around her, eyes scanning.

“This changes the content calendar,” Jennie said, mostly to herself. “We can do harder challenges now. Longer ones. The donors are going to freak.”

The next donor request came in that same evening. A pooled fund, over five hundred dollars, for a classic competitive eating challenge: one hundred hot dogs in one hour. The old Sugi would have balked at the sheer volume, the mechanical monotony of it. The current Sugi read the request, felt the familiar chemical itch in her stomach, and typed a simple reply.

Accepted.

They filmed it two days later. Jennie set up three cameras—one wide, one tight on her face, one pointing down into the tub of steamed hot dogs in their buns. The rules were simple: eat as many as possible in sixty minutes. The donor who pledged the most got to choose the condiment. They’d chosen plain yellow mustard, which was honestly a relief. No sticky cheese or heavy chili to complicate the swallowing.

When Jennie said go, Sugi picked up the first hot dog.

Her jaw worked with a steady, piston-like rhythm. Bite, chew three times, swallow. She didn’t rush. Rushing led to choking or to hitting a wall too early. Her throat muscles, strengthened from months of consuming vast quantities under time pressure, moved each mouthful down with efficient ease. She reached for the next dog without looking, dipping it lightly in the mustard cup.

Ten minutes in, she’d cleared twenty dogs. Her pace was metronomic. Bite, chew, swallow, reach.

The hunger was there, but it was a distant thing, overridden by the mechanical task. The Periactin ensured her stomach would accept the onslaught without revolt, at least for a while. The muscle she’d built meant her neck and shoulders didn’t ache from the constant motion.

At the thirty-minute mark, she paused for a sip of water. Fifty-two hot dogs sat in a growing pile of empty wax paper sheets beside her. Her belly was a taut drum under her t-shirt, distended with the sheer mass of processed meat and bread. She took a deep breath that pressed against the internal pressure, then picked up dog number fifty-three.

Her jaw kept moving. No fatigue tremble in her hands. No desperate gasp for air between bites. Just a powerful, sustained consumption that looked almost peaceful under the studio lights.

When the timer beeped at sixty minutes, the final count was ninety-seven hot dogs. Not quite one hundred, but close enough to shatter any previous record she might have had. She set down the half-eaten ninety-eighth dog and leaned back carefully in the reinforced chair they’d bought for these sessions.

She was painfully full, obviously. A dense, leaden saturation that made thinking difficult. But she wasn’t exhausted. Her breathing evened out quickly. She looked at Jennie behind the main camera and gave a small, slow nod.

She could have kept going.

The requests got more thematic after that. The hot dog video brought in a wave of new donors who wanted to see her strength applied in… specific contexts.

The pig trough idea came from a user named MudLover97, who tipped two hundred dollars for the concept alone. Jennie loved it. She ordered a long, shallow plastic feed trough from a farm supply website. It arrived in a box that Sugi carried inside without help.

They set it up in the middle of the living room floor on a tarp. Jennie filled it with a sloppy mixture of baked beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, and crumbled cornbread—a kind of savory sludge that would look appropriately animalistic on camera.

“The key is the position,” Jennie explained while Sugi changed into an old tank top and shorts she didn’t mind ruining. “All fours. Head down. Really sell the… immersion.”

Sugi looked at the trough on the floor. The smell of gravy and beans was thick in the air. The chemical hunger gnawed at her, making the idea of eating from a container on the floor seem less absurd and more like a direct solution to a problem.

She got down on her hands and knees.

Months ago, this position would have been agony on her wrists and knees after thirty seconds. Now, her stronger limbs supported her weight easily. She settled into a stable stance, her vast belly hanging low between her arms, almost brushing the tarp.

Jennie started recording. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Sugi lowered her head to the rim of the trough. She didn’t use her hands. She ate directly from the slop, taking big mouthfuls of the bean and potato mixture. It was lukewarm and overly salty, but she chewed and swallowed methodically.

Her back and shoulder muscles held her steady as she ate. No quivering strain. She could maintain this position indefinitely, which was the whole point, really. She pushed her face deeper into the trough for a wide shot, coming up with gravy smeared across her cheeks and chin.

It was messy and degrading and exactly what they’d paid for. And through it all, her body felt capable. A strong animal at its feed.

The public challenge was a bigger step. A donor collective offered eight hundred dollars for a “Park Picnic Performance.” They wanted her to walk to a blanket in a public park, sit down without any assistance, and consume an entire large pizza, a family-sized bucket of fried chicken, and a two-liter bottle of soda while people potentially watched.

Jennie scouted locations and chose a park on the west side on a weekday afternoon. It was busy enough for an audience but not so packed they’d attract immediate security. Sugi wore a loose, bright sundress—easy to move in, and it would show the aftermath clearly.

They arrived separately. Jennie set up a discrete camera on a park bench some distance away, controlled remotely from her phone. Sugi walked from the parking lot toward the designated oak tree.

Her stride on the paved path was steady and confident. She passed a couple pushing a stroller and a man jogging with headphones. Her breathing was easy despite the hill. She could feel eyes on her, but it felt different now. It wasn’t just stares at her size; it was stares at her size combined with this strange, purposeful mobility.

She reached the blanket Jennie had laid out earlier. A red and white checkered thing spread over the grass. The pizza box, chicken bucket, and soda were waiting.

Sugi didn’t pause or look around for help. She bent at the knees, lowering her center of gravity with control until she was sitting on the blanket. She arranged her legs to the side, smoothed her dress over her lap, and opened the pizza box.

The first slice went down fast. She was genuinely hungry—the pill ensured that—and the public setting added a sharp edge of exhibitionism that cut through any lingering shame. She ate slice after slice, tearing into drumsticks from the bucket between pizzas, washing it all down with long gulps of soda directly from the two-liter bottle.

A small audience gathered over twenty minutes. A few teenagers snickered at first but then fell silent, just watching. An older woman shook her head and walked away quickly. A man walking his dog stopped and watched for a full five minutes, his expression unreadable.

Sugi saw them all from behind her glasses, but she kept eating. Her hands were steady. Her chewing was strong and rhythmic. When she finished the last chicken wing and drained the final ounce of flat soda, she placed the empty bottle neatly in the bucket.

Then she pushed herself up from the blanket using one hand on the ground for leverage, rising to her feet in one fluid motion. She gathered the trash into the pizza box, tucked it under her arm, and walked back toward the parking lot with the same steady pace she’d arrived with.

Her stomach was grotesquely full, straining against the sundress fabric with every step. But her legs carried her without protest.

“They want to see proof of concept,” Jennie said a few nights later, scrolling through comments on her laptop. “Of what?” “That you’re actually strong now. That it’s not just about eating.” Jennie looked up, grinning. “Someone suggested a piggyback ride.” Sugi blinked. “You’re kidding.” “I’m not.” Jennie closed the laptop. “It’s perfect visual shorthand. You carrying me shows you can carry your own weight plus extra. Literally.” “Can you even get on?” “We’ll find out.”

They filmed it in Sugi’s living room with the main camera on its tripod. Jennie stood on the sturdy coffee table they never used anymore. “Okay,” Jennie said, positioning herself behind Sugi’s broad back. “Brace yourself.” Sugi planted her feet wide on the carpet, bending her knees slightly. She felt Jennie’s hands on her shoulders, then a shifting of weight as Jennie hopped lightly. Sugi staggered half a step forward under the sudden load before her legs locked and stabilized. Jennie wasn’t heavy—maybe one-thirty—but it was an awkward weight distribution. “You good?” Jennie asked from over her shoulder. “Yeah,” Sugi grunted. She adjusted her grip under Jennie’s thighs, feeling the muscle in her arms and back engage fully now. She took a tentative step forward across the carpet. Then another. Her breathing deepened with effort but remained controlled. She could do this. She walked a slow lap around their filming area with Jennie clinging to her back like a kid. “See?” Jennie said into her ear, laughing softly for the camera’s benefit. Sugi kept walking until Jennie tapped her shoulder to be let down. When Sugi lowered her carefully back onto the coffee table and straightened up again, she wasn’t even winded. Just pleasantly aware of every working muscle beneath all that softness. Aware of what they could do now

The awareness of her own strength became a quiet obsession in the days that followed. It was a secret she carried inside her body, hidden under the obvious layers.

One afternoon, after a shower, she stood dripping before the full-length mirror they’d leaned against the bedroom wall. The glass was fogged at the edges. She wiped a clear patch with her towel and looked.

Her reflection was immense, obviously. A mountain of pale flesh marked with the vivid purple and silver roads of stretch marks. Her belly was a vast hemisphere, her breasts heavy and pendulous. That was the familiar sight.

But now she looked closer.

She raised one arm slowly, bending it at the elbow. The fat of her upper arm shifted and jiggled with the movement. But as she tightened her bicep, a distinct shape pushed up against the underside of that softness—a hard, defined ridge of muscle. She could see its outline clearly, a knot of power wrapped in a cushion of fat.

She turned slightly, flexing her leg. Her thigh was a column of softness, but when she tensed it, the quadriceps muscle beneath hardened into a palpable plate. She could trace its shape with her eyes beneath the skin.

She placed her hands on her hips and pushed her shoulders back, engaging her back muscles. The rolls of fat across her shoulders and upper back tightened, revealing the solid architecture underneath. She wasn’t just fat anymore. She was fat layered over a reinforced frame.

A strange, quiet pride warmed her chest. This was what they had built. This was the infrastructure.

That night, the awareness bled into everything else.

Jennie came over after editing some footage, bringing takeout that Sugi ate without much thought while they watched a show on Jennie’s laptop. The familiar chemical hunger had been quieted earlier with a pre-dinner shake.

Later, when Jennie kissed her, it felt different. There was a new current in it, a kind of testing curiosity. Jennie’s hands roamed over Sugi’s sides, squeezing not just the softness but probing for the firmness beneath.

Sugi responded with a confidence that wasn’t just arousal. It was physical certainty. When they moved from the couch to the bed—a reinforced platform model they’d ordered months ago—Sugi didn’t need Jennie to help her up or adjust pillows under her hips.

She could move.

She rolled onto her side, pulling Jennie against her, and the motion was smooth and controlled. She could lift her own legs, could support her weight on her arms for minutes at a time without trembling exhaustion setting in. The limitations that had dictated their intimacy for so long—the positions that were impossible, the movements that caused strain or pain—seemed to fall away.

It was vigorous and involved and deeply satisfying in a way that went beyond the usual fetishistic thrill of being touched in her fat. This was about using her body, this newly capable body, to give and receive pleasure actively. Jennie’s surprised gasps turned into low laughs of delight, her nails digging into Sugi’s shoulders where she could feel the muscle tense and release.

Afterward, they lay tangled in the sheets, breathing heavily in the dark. Jennie’s head was pillowed on Sugi’s bicep. “You’re different,” Jennie murmured into the silence. Sugi just hummed in agreement, flexing that arm slightly so Jennie could feel the muscle move beneath her cheek.

The weigh-in was scheduled like any other piece of content.

They’d outgrown the standard bathroom scale long ago. The reinforced industrial scale they used now was a heavy, low-profile platform with a large digital display. They kept it in the corner of the filming space, covered with a cloth when not in use.

Jennie set up two cameras—one on the scale’s display, one for a wide shot of Sugi approaching and stepping on. The lights were bright and clinical. “Ready?” Jennie asked from behind the main camera. Sugi nodded. She was wearing only a simple black robe, loosely tied. Her hair was pulled back.

She walked toward the scale with that same steady, confident stride she used everywhere now. No hesitation. No nervous shuffle. She stopped at the edge of the platform, untied the robe, and let it slide off her shoulders onto the floor behind her.

She stood naked for a moment in front of the lens, her body a testament to their work. Then she stepped onto the scale.

Her foot settled firmly on the cool metal. She shifted her weight fully onto it, then brought her other foot up. The platform gave a barely perceptible creak under her mass before stabilizing.

The digital display blinked once, then began its rapid climb.

Numbers flashed by: 600… 650… 700…

It didn’t slow down. It kept climbing past weights that would have been unimaginable milestones just months earlier.

750… 780… 800…

The number finally settled, flashing twice before holding steady.

824

Sugi stared down at the glowing red digits. Eight hundred and twenty-four pounds.

A staggering new record. Far beyond anything before.

She didn’t feel shocked. She felt a deep, resonant sense of completion. The plan had worked perfectly. The infrastructure maintenance had been a success beyond their wildest projections.

She lifted her head and looked directly into the wide-shot camera, her expression calm and assured. In the reflection of the lens, she could see the outline of her own body—the immense, soft curves that dominated the frame. And beneath them, if you knew where to look, the clear, hard lines of the strength that held it all up.

The chapter ended there, on that frozen image: immense strength wrapped in an even more immense body.