The Thin College

[>_< 0_0]

This story is inspired by Batman76, Swahilimonkfish, and a true story ("based on a true story" -- like all those amazing movies).

Chapter One

               “… so what I need to tell you is, we’re never going to date.”

               I stared at my crush like a deer in headlights. How are you supposed to answer that? “Never?”

               “Never, never, ever,” she replied as she pushed her fork through her mashed potatoes. Never once did she look at me.

               I should’ve known better. I really should’ve. But after a couple months of asking her out and her half-shod excuses for why she couldn’t go, I should’ve taken the hint. But I was getting desperate. I had no relationships – or friends for that matter.

               She slowly carried a fork-ful of mashed potatoes to her mouth with a graceful bend of her long, slender arm. Her arm was so beautiful and captivating – then again, wasn’t her whole body just as entrancing? She was just as tall as me, long and slender, clothed modestly in a soft but form-fitting green sweater and blue jeans. Bracelets and beads adorned both her wrists, and a necklace rested on her soft bosom without looking scandalous. From beneath a full head of straight, black hair, I could see her eyelashes fluttering over green pupils. She still wouldn’t look at me.

               “So… why?” I finally asked, ignoring my own food. “I’m not a bad person; I’d take care of you.”

               “But that’s just it,” she said slowly, piecing the words carefully together into sentences she’d probably rehearsed to herself all day. “You’re not supposed to love me.”

               “What?”

               “Loving anything in the world is wrong. The only person you’re supposed to love is God.”

               I felt a cold, invisible dagger pierce my heart.

               “What are you talking about? That’s crazy! God made everything around us – that’s why I love it so much.”

               “But it’s a sin, Jason,” my crush stared down at her food. “The world is finite and impure. Only God is eternal. That’s why you’re only supposed to love Him. You want a relationship with me because you long for me, but not God. That’s why it’ll never work.”

               She was nuts. Was this really my last shot at a relationship in this damn college? “That’s – that can’t be right. There’s no way you really believe that. What about your parents? Don’t they love each other? Don’t they love you?”

               “Yes, I get that, but they don’t love each other. They love each other… through God.”

               “Okay…” I tapped the edge of the table with my palms, glancing left and right at the other people in the chow hall, hoping we didn’t stick out like a sore thumb. “You know I’m one of the most religious people here, right? So I can do that too.”

               She shook her head softly, still staring down. “You think so, but no. You’re really smart Jason. Really smart. But even though you know God, you don’t have a relationship with Him.”

               “We’ve talked about this,” I tapped my foot anxiously. “I’m terrified of Him – for a lot of reasons. I’ve read Isaiah; I’ve read what He does on a whim. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a relationship with Him.”

               “But that’s why we’ll never go out and date. That’s why. Jason… you’re really smart. You can do anything if you set your mind to it, you know that?”

               “Uh huh. Yeah,” she was feeding me the same line every damned girl did at this damn college. I was so smart. But there was always some stupid reason they never wanted to get close to me. Was it because I wasn’t strong and buff? Was it my nerdy personality? Was it my social awkwardness? Who the fuck cared? It always ended the same way.

               “I know you’re going through a lot right now, but honestly, just give it some time and someday, somewhere, I know you will find the one God sends you to be with.”

               “Oh yeah,” I could feel my voice cracking. “I’ll just be sure to never love them, pray three times a day, and God will wave His magic wand and we’ll all be happily married with nine kids, right?”

               For the first time, she shyly looked up at me with her green eyes. She hesitantly reached a hand out to hold mine, but I shook my head, pushed my plate away, and stood up.

               “I’m sorry,” I said as I dodged her look. “I’m not hungry. I have to go.”

               “Do… do you want me to walk you home?”

               Was she fucking serious? “No, no… you’re fine Brandy. You’re alright…”

               I turned away from her and walked myself home. Hopefully, not too many people noticed the tears starting to slosh against my eyes.

 

               At “home” in my barren prison-cell of a dorm room, I turned my PC on and tried to play some Call of Duty to get my latest heartbreak off my mind. With barely any social life, gaming filled the woman-shaped hole in my heart better than anything. But not this time. Everything good in the world was grey. Turning off the game, I sighed and pulled out my Economics homework and turned-on my study playlist. By some damned twist of fate, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” started playing. When a lovely flame dies, smoke gets in your eyes. Fuck. What was I studying for? Why was I here?

               What was I thinking when I enrolled here at Biltmore College? Laughing through a fit of tears, I held my head and leaned against my desk. A women’s college opened-up to men as of two years ago. I thought I was so lucky when I was the only man who happened to do so. One man, twelve-hundred women, and somehow none were remotely interested in me. Oh, sure, I got lucky every once in a while – a nice conversation, good vibes, potential for something more – and then there was always a reason why it never worked. “I like you as a friend,” “I have a boyfriend back home,” “I like girls,” or “you’ll never understand; you’re a heterosexual white male.” I’d heard it all by now – and every time they’d comfort me with “Jason, you are so smart, but…”

               So here I was, trapped on an island campus, surrounded by beautiful women – all young, fit, and absolutely gorgeous – and not a single one was interested in me. What the hell was wrong with me?

               I eyed the bottle of dry gin between my desk and my bed.

 

               A few sips turned into swigs. Before I realized it, my half-filled bottle was already empty. Music blaring from my laptop was masking my soul-wrenching cries. Jesus screamed with me to the tune of “Gethsemane” from Jesus Christ Superstar. “I want to know, I want to know my God, I want to know, I want to know my God, want to see, I want to see my Lord, want to see, I want to see my Lord, if I die what will be my reward, if I die what will be my reward…”

               Why, of all songs, was this playing? It didn’t matter. I was crying so hard at the ceiling that I was laughing. I had no one. No sex, no love, no real friends… had I been lied to my whole life? Wait for marriage and all that… no porn, no masturbating, be patient…

               Fuck it! If this was what patience gave me, what was the point? I needed to take what I could get! Now!

               Stumbling to my feet, I dropped the bottle and staggered my way to my laptop. What was a good porn site? I had no idea… could I google it? No… Youtube. I could look up some stripteases. Or something. There had to be something…

               Nothing. Just some vids with still images. “Click below to see more.” Youtube really had purged itself of anything questionable, hadn’t it? That’s what everyone was saying… but fuck it. After several dead ends, I gave in and clicked a link, willing to accept whatever malware or viruses were attached. At this point, what did it matter?

               Livestreaming? Girls were livestreaming on here? Body parts bombarded me from all corners of the screen as I nervously clicked on one of the sexier-looking icons. This was far beyond anything I had imagined growing-up.

The screen was black for a brief moment. My music stopped playing as the feed kicked-in. There she was. A real woman on the other end with a real body. She was a curly brunette, wearing laced, black lingerie, black lipstick, black eyeliner, and nothing much else. She leaned back with a sigh, reaching up to squeeze her C-cups with her hands, her black fingernails spread wide.

Drunk courage should be kicking-in right about now, right? I decided to try faking it. “Uh…” I sniffed as manly as possible. “Nice.”

“Do I have your attention?” she asked, sensually rubbing her sides as she squirmed in her seat.

“Sure do…” I pursed my lips and reached down for my belt with a shaking hand.

“Good… keep doing what you’re doing. Take hold of that cock and don’t let go. Understand? Stroke it slow… as slow as my hands. Keep watching them. Don’t look anywhere else.”

“Y-yeah,” I shook with adrenaline. What the hell was I supposed to do in a livestream? How did masturbation work?

“Keep going,” she leaned in with her smoky eyes, cleavage hanging below her as she reached behind her to undo her bra strap. “And don’t stop, no matter what. They’re watching.”

“Wait, who’s watching –”

“Don’t stop. They have eyes everywhere, but not ears…” she peeled off her bra and held it in front of the camera before chucking it. I gawked at her nipples. They practically stared back at me the way they pertly jutted forwards…

“So someone’s recording –”

“Shh. Listen carefully; I don’t have much time,” she fingered her nipples, tongue lolling as her fingers made slow, sensual circles. “Jason, none of this is real. It’s all an illusion.”

Weird flex, but okay. I guess I could roll with it. “Oh yeah, tell me about the illusion babe…”

“Think about it Jason. An all-girl college? On an island? And every single one of them is fit and thin?”

“Mm. Yeah… the matrix. I’m going to learn kung fu…”

“Pay attention to me…” she raised her arms and wiggled her body like a snake so her breasts wobbled in front of me. “You are cursed Jason. Trapped. I’m calling you from the outside. I’m going to help you escape, but you have to do everything I say.”

“Anything, babe. Anything…”

“Go to the log on the beach you like sitting on. When you reach it, you will see a striped rock. Dig under it and you will find what you need. I’ll be waiting…”

And she was gone. The screen demanded that I create a profile and set up a monthly pay plan to continue.

I stared down at myself. I never managed to fumble my fingers through my jeans. That probably wasn’t how masturbation was done. Whatever. I leaned back against my chair and stared at the ceiling, arms hanging limp towards the floor.

Wait… how did she know my name? Or the log?

[>_< 0_0]

2 hours ago, Tornasunder said:

WOW, a touch of the supernatural!  Combine that with an island full of thin women and I'm beginning to understand your previous mention of "EPIC" to describe your next project.

Well, you're certainly laying down the ground work!                                                                                              

Speaking in terms of mathematics, Fattening the Personal Trainer was set to an arithmetic rate. The Thin College is set to a geometric rate.

[>_< 0_0]

Okay. So first, a few ground rules. First rule is... never talk about the Thing. Second rule is... never talk about the Thing...

Chapter Two

               Stumbling with a water bottle in my hand, I made my way through campus shrouded in moonlight. It being a Friday night, the place was alive with drunken revelry, even if it was half-past-witching hour.

               Even this late, I could see the svelte outlines of women’s bodies silhouetted in the lit windows of the student union, where they were no doubt watching shows on the big screen, playing Smash Bros, smacking balls around the pool table, and enjoying each other’s company.

               It was more silent around the class buildings. I could hear my shoes scuffing drunkenly against the concrete of the sidewalks, and I could’ve sworn I heard a squirrel skitter for cover around one of the various trees or bushes. I stared forlornly at the mix of modern and Victorian architecture surrounding me. It was a truly beautiful campus during the day, with sidewalks twisting and turning around a well-gardened landscape that would make a nice golf course for some royal European family somewhere if it weren’t for the fact that we were on an isolated island off the coast of British Columbia. But it was night now, and the dark walls and cragged treelines in the distance reminded me more of Dark Souls than a golf course. I hugged my jacket close and hastened my pace.

               The campus’s main buildings all fit into one block, ringed by a road and some small parking lots. Beyond was the rest of the campus: the new sports facility, the adjoining football field, several dorms, and lots and lots of sorority houses. I could hear them laughing in their backyards, trying to out-do each other with barbeques and drinking. The sound of their voices echoed off the surrounding buildings like an eerie ghost of a waterfall. It was even worse that I could never truly be part of their mirth – not like the rest of my feminine classmates.

               There they were, chatting and laughing around their bonfires and swimming pools, faces glowing against the flickering light of the flames. My path took me off the sidewalk and towards a well-worn dirt trail straight through the woods. Two long shadows ran past me, stretching towards the horizon. I turned towards the source and spotted two pledges running together into the woods. One of them spotted me.

               “Oh my God,” she giggled and dodged behind a tree trunk like she was naked.

               I jogged away as fast as I could. Having an entire sorority add more gossip to the legend of “Stalker Jason” was the last thing I needed, especially now.

               Stumbling past the weathered roots of the downhill path, I took a swig from my water bottle. A branch scratched my face before I could dodge out of the way, but I tried anyway. This only made me drop the water bottle, which fell out of sight. Oh well. At least I had an Angry Orchard in my inner jacket pocket. By now the echoing laughter had faded into the distance as the sound of crashing waves grew louder. I had travelled this path at least every other day; the beach would be in sight as soon as I ducked under this bramble…

               I still nearly got stuck. I was sure there were thorns stuck in my clothes, but I was too drunk to notice; it was enough to keep from stumbling down the sand dune. The wide expanse of the ocean glittered under the moonlight, waves crashing constantly against the sand. There were no beach parties this time, but several charred, blackened campsites showed how popular a pastime it was here.

               My spot, however, was further. Slowly, with heavy, staggering steps, I pressed onwards, wind blowing from the sea. I passed the high cliffs on the edge of the island, walked through the land bridge while enviously eyeing Kappa Omega’s “castle” (a refurbished lighthouse), and followed the beach around a bend. One more bend, and the I could see the outlet to Beaver-run Creek.

               The creek wasn’t big enough to empty into the ocean directly; the force of high-tide built sandbanks around its mouth that only broke down every three days or so to empty out. Otherwise, it simply leaked seawards through the sand itself. Each time I came here, the creek was slightly different. It was a great place to study – or just take a break and ponder my life’s choices. Tonight, the tide was low and the sand bank was high. My log was right where I had placed it – atop the side of the sand bank, facing the sea.

               Half sitting, half falling, I landed atop the log and stared at the ocean. As dark as the night was, I could still see the froth of the waves doing their best to reach me, constantly crashing against the beach, reaching forward before withdrawing back into the next wave. There was something captivating about waves. There was something about being drunk that made you see the world more clearly in a single, seamless moment than you could with a full, sober mind. My brain was a computer that ran over half a dozen tabs at any given time, but when I drank, the tabs closed one by one until there was one left that ran perfectly with no lag or interruptions: perception of the now.

               I held the bottle of Angry Orchard in my hand, feeling its perspiration against my palm, observing its cap. Damn it. I’d forgotten to bring my bottle opener. I moved to slip the bottle back into my jacket pocket. It slid free of my grip and thunked against the sand. Grumbling, I bent down to retrieve it. A striped rock. My bottle was right against it. Of course! The rock…

               With the madness of a honey badger digging for yellowjackets, I scraped my fingers against the sand. Two inches in, the sand became dark and moist. I had dug here before, absentmindedly building dams and sandcastles to see how they interacted with the creek and the tide. I knew if I dug six more inches, I would hit the water-table. Anything buried underneath this rock would have to be above it. I kept digging.

My Angry Orchard fell into the hole, striking my knuckles. Damn… hold on, this wasn’t my bottle… this was a can. I must have dug past it and dislodged it. With sand-crusted fingers, I held it up to my face. Soup-can sized. Black. A seam ran around its middle. I grabbed both sides and gave it a pickle-jar twist. The thing popped open. Crumpled paper fell out… was something written on it?

Wiping sand from my fingers, I unfurled the paper and took a look. A ring had been taped to the inside of the paper, along with some handwritten note. I pulled my phone out to shine light on the message: Text me xxo. How? Where was the number? Oh. There it was… 666-666-6666.

Interesting. Wouldn’t hurt to give it a try. The number was easy enough. Nothing. Of course. Oh, wait. The number was upside down. It was nines, not sixes. Of course…

The response was almost instant.

Sup babe.

I saw the three dots play against the lower corner of my screen. My screen filled with a faceless, body-selfie. I recognized the black fingernails splayed modestly over the bare breasts.

First, some ground rules, she texted quickly. No matter what. Don’t tell a thing. Don’t show anything. Understand?

Heart pounding, I started to type that I did.

Also. Don’t text this number. Understand?

“Not really,” I muttered to myself.

Just don’t. It doesn’t have to make complete sense yet.

Chills ran down my spine. “You can hear me?”

Quiet. Not much time. Download this app: 5S2o4. Be seeing you xox

She left me another torso picture. This one was angled down her flat stomach towards her splayed legs as she crouched on her bed. I leaned back on the log and stared at the moon, wondering what I had gotten myself into. After some slow thinking, I decided that I was too drunk to figure that out.

I sighed and looked down at my phone. I had to unlock the screen again. “Five-es-two-oh-four…” I muttered as I typed into the app store. Of course, only one result showed up. Its icon was a simple grey box. Honest to God, it looked like an unfinished program. Oh well… I started the download. It was a bigger program than it looked, so it gave me plenty of time to contemplate the ring still taped onto the paper.

It was a simple gold ring, as far as I could make out from the light of my phone, but not quite plain. There were some interesting patterns etched on the inside and outside, not enough to draw comments, but still be detailed enough to admire if you looked long enough. It was a small ring too…

The app finished downloading, so I opened it from the menu screen. It was asking me to set up an account by setting a username and password. To keep things simple, I used my own name for the username and typed my laptop’s password in.

Place ring on the left little finger to complete your account.

The ring? So it was connected to this app in some strange way. I peeled it from the paper, tore off the last of the tape, and slide it onto my pinkie finger. It was a snug fit once it passed my second joint, but would probably still come off if I gave it a twist.

Calibrating…

I watched the installation icon circle itself a few times before my phone came alive with a pleasant, purple menu.

Welcome Jason! Please review the terms of use before pressing ‘accept.’

I glanced at my phone, frowning and shaking my head. What the hell was this? This was nothing like any terms of use document I had ever scrolled through! Instead of fair use, liability, or other legal jargon, this thing rambled about confidentiality and secrecy. I was to never disclose of this app to anyone, never show it in public… on and on… I pressed ‘accept’ with my thumb.

The legal jargon vanished and was replaced with a smaller series of notes. This is your menu, the first bubble explained. From here you can review your profile. Another note. This is your current level. Note that you begin at level zero. I glanced at the level-up bar and noted the empty XP bar. Looked simple enough. This is your pounds bar, it explained. This is used for both spells and levelling-up. Earn pounds by making others lose pounds. Each pound lost is added to your balance. Now another blurb. This number is your balance in pounds. It is currently 0.00 lbs.

What a cruel twist of fate. As drunk as I was, I could still remember how much I detested my economics major, and all this reeked of accounting and finance. Why did I pick this major again? It was all theory anyway…

Press ‘inventory’ to review items. I did so, but there was only a picture of a ring. The “Hex Ring,” it said. Here you can see the items you have found and earned. Okay… I pressed my thumb on the Hex Ring to read its statistics. Apparently it allowed me to hex a single person every three levels starting at level one – but the hexes were directly weighed against my account balance… okay.

Press ‘objective’ to review your goals, the text prompted. Here you can see your current objectives. Your main objective is to grow as powerful as possible so that you can BREAK FREE. To do so, make everyone as heavy as possible…

What? Why? What the hell was this? I shook my head. Nothing made sense. Hell, I wasn’t even sure if it would make sense if I was sober!

Below, you have your level objective. To reach the next level, achieve a balance of 10.00 lbs. Eventually, you will see individual goals listed as well…

This concludes your tutorial. Thank you for downloading… and good luck.

I let the screen fade to black and leaned back on my log. Was this some damned prank done by hopeful sorority pledges? How did I know this was real?

My phone vibrated and I received a text. Trust me. It will make sense. Ttyl. *999-999-9999 has sent a photo*

Oh fuck. I glanced around to catch someone – anyone – snooping on me, but saw nothing. I’d have seen someone coming anyway; the only way here was the way I’d come. So… I had a supernatural cam-girl that somehow knew what I was doing, who just so happened to be telling me I was trapped in some kind of matrix… and the only way out was to use a weird app and magic ring to fatten up my classmates?

That didn’t sound so bad, actually – the part about fattening the girls, I mean. I was a good guy. I cared about people. Why the hell was I the only one all alone? Why did all these girls look down on me? What had I ever done to them? And what the hell were the odds of an entire college of girls saying no to my advances? That part never made sense! I really was cursed, wasn’t I? Being surrounded by hot college girls and not being able to be close to a single one of them… yeah. Come to think of it, if this was legit, it was my chance to fight back! Thinking that way, it made perfect sense that I needed to fatten the entire campus.

What the hell. Tomorrow was Saturday. I could give it a shot. Nothing major. Nothing too obvious. Just a testing of the waters to see if this was really an elaborate prank or not. After all, I had to be discreet. Wasn’t that what the terms of use said?

[>_< 0_0]

7 minutes ago, Tornasunder said:

AMAZED AND CONFUSED...

Really getting into the premise.  It will be interesting to see what the spells are, and how they work.  Getting to choose how the points are used makes the experience more relatable.  That way he can customize his character and environment to his liking... maybe choosing NOT to break free.

Here is the confusion part "Earn pounds by making others lose pounds" 

Lose or gain?

Imagine how bewildered Jason is 😵

[>_< 0_0]

Chapter Three

               I woke up behind some bushes with my back resting against some wall. Groggily, I rubbed the dust out of my eyes. Where was I? What building was this? The wood panelling was a pale yellow, slightly chipped near the dirt ground. The dawn’s light was doing its best to leak through layers of fog, tree branches, and bushes.

               Time to figure out what was going on. I began to stand myself up – oh God, there it was! The hangover! Why do hangovers always strike once you start moving? And where was I? I looked back at the house as I stumbled past a bush. It looked pretty good, being two stories high complete with balconies, a large patio, and those faux turret things rich people build on the sides of their houses to make it look all classy. Hell, there was even a treehouse in an oak tree in the backyard with a slide that twisted its way towards a large pool…

               Oh my shit. The Sigma Omega house. I had to get out of here before I got caught and sent to the Dean’s office for trespassing – or worse.

               With my heart and head pounding, I ran through the back yard and made my way back home.

 

               Walking past Central Hall with heavy breaths, I regained some of my confidence. It didn’t look like anyone saw me. Also, the chow hall should be opening pretty soon, so I might as well head to the student union for breakfast…

               Then I started remembering details from the night before. It’s not like I’d forgotten anything, but alcohol has a way of scrambling your memories just enough to make you spend several minutes trying to piece each moment together. So I made contact with some woman on the internet. Could she really hear me with some supernatural ability? Or was this all a very elaborate prank?

               I entered the student union; no one was around but some girl by the large fireplace studying from a small stack of books. “Magic cam-girl,” I muttered to myself. “If you can hear me, shoot me a text.”

               Making my way to the chow hall, I pulled out my phone and looked at it. Nothing. Except… the app was right there, as obscure as ever – until I opened it. The app looked pretty well-made, but that could just be the result of someone’s school project. Anyone could make an app. So maybe this really was a prank. That would make sense. What better way to get back at “Stalker Jason” than to take advantage of my heartbreak? But then how did they get me to go to the right website to find that camgirl? What if she was actually another of the 1,200 students here? I mean, that seemed near impossible, but it made more sense than being trapped in some girl-college-matrix.

               I wanted the app to be real, though. But then again, did I really? No… I just wanted someone to love… someone that would love me back. I was feeling down because I was alone and romantically frustrated.

               “Hey Jason,” the girl by the fireplace called quietly.

               I squinted as I approached her, trying to ignore my hangover. It was Anna, a studious, slightly nerdy brunette who enjoyed sipping tea and reading books for pleasure – we had that in common, come to think of it. She smiled softly, pushing her glasses back up her slender nose. She was quite slender, with tight jeans and a wool sweater coating her frame along with an over-sized, colourful scarf wrapped around her neck.

               “Oh, hey Anna. Why are you studying so early Saturday morning?”

               “Why not?” she shrugged. “No one’s awake to distract me from reading, and I can get my reading assignments out of the way so I can enjoy the rest of the weekend.

               “Nice thinking,” I frowned, rubbing my poor head.

               “I heard what happened between you and Brandy last night.”

               Fuck. Anna took philosophy classes with Brandy. Of course. Brandy was probably the one who told her. “It really sucks,” I sighed. “I’ve tried dating her for, what, two months? She just never gave me a straight answer.

               “Don’t worry about it,” Anna’s voice became softer, more conciliatory. “You’re only twenty years old; you’ve got plenty of time. You’re really smart, you know?”

               “Yeah,” I grumbled. I doubted she knew how much that compliment stung. Was that the only thing I was to these people? The smart, nerdy one? Who dated people like that?

               “And you’re very handsome. Just be yourself and I’m sure everything will work out.”

               Rage flared within me for half a moment. I hated when someone told me to be myself. Being myself made me the “smart,” nerdy guy no one thought about dating. Being myself didn’t stop people from calling me “stalker Jason.” Being myself was the laziest, most useless advice I ever heard, and I heard it a lot.

               “I’d rather grow as a person,” I glanced into the fireplace to avoid her eyes.

               “Hey,” she closed her book. “You wanna go eat at the chow hall?”

               I blinked. The faintest glimmers of hope kindled deep within my soul. Was she into me? Surely not… she was just concerned about me. But really, could I turn a girl down for wanting to eat with me?

               “Okay,” I bit my lip. “Yeah…”

               “Great,” Anna leaned forwards as if to stand up from her seat, but then paused. “Um… could you do me a favour and get my food for me? I just wanna pack my books up real quick.”

               “Sure,” I nodded. “I’ll uh… save us a seat by the windows.

               “Perfect. See you down there.”

               So I entered the chow hall, where I slid my student ID at the cashier’s desk before making my way around the place to gather food at various counters. There was bread in one corner, along with an extra large section for fruits, vegetables, and other plant life. A bit further down was the meat and pasta sections, where I usually loaded my plate in an effort to bulk myself to something more than 135 pounds. Maybe I could hit the gym later this morning? Perhaps. In the meantime, my two plates were full, so I walked into the empty dining section, where an assortment of tables were scattered around another fireplace and ringed by large windows. True to my word, I placed the plates on one of the tables by the far window overlooking the foggy forests below and walked back to retrieve some soup.

               Anna smiled as she walked past me, a backpack full of books on her back.

               “I set us up over there,” I pointed back. “Just getting soup now.”

               “Great,” she said simply.

               The soup that day was French Onion, which was the first truly good thing to happen to me this Saturday. I hauled the bowls over and placed one in front of her.

               “Thanks,” Anna smiled, already started on her plate of food.

               “Yeah, for sure,” I said casually as I sat next to her. “So what are you studying lately?”

               “Oh, just the Book of Ecclesiastes,” she said as she stabbed at her food.

               “That’s the Old Testament, right?” I asked as I followed suit. “King Solomon wrote it, right?”

               “He did,” Anna’s eyes lit up. “Wow, I didn’t know you knew that.”

               “I mean, I’m one of the most religious people here,” I shrugged. “Not that anyone thinks so.”

               “It’s because… nevermind.”

               “What? What were you going to say?”

               “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

               “I’m curious. Why don’t people think I’m religious?”

               “Well, it’s just that there’s a difference between knowing God and having a relationship with Him.”

               “I don’t know what that means, but okay.”

               “Just because you read the Bible and know a lot about it, doesn’t mean you’re faithful.”

               “I’m faithful,” I insisted. “It’s just… well, it’s not like He’ll just talk to me, you know?”

               “God doesn’t usually work that way,” Anna said. “But you know that.”

               “Yeah,” I nodded. The only one who answered me in my time of need was some naked internet chick. Not that I’d say so. “Ecclesiastes,” I chuckled. “That’s the one where Solomon explains how pointless the material world is because everything dies eventually.”

               “Yes, exactly,” Anna agreed. “And that’s why he also concludes that the only thing worth loving is God Himself because only He is eternal.”

               “Funny logic, if you think about it,” I chuckled to myself. “The same logic a five-year-old uses when he asks why he needs to wash his clothes if they’re only going to get dirty again.”

               “Not really,” Anna frowned.

               “Why not? I think the material world still matters. Why would God put us here on Earth if it didn’t? It’s all a test, right?”

               “A test of faith,” Anna pointed out. “Anyway…”

               The conversation continued in much the same way as before. There was a slight tension between us as Anna spewed her sophomoric, philosophically-charged dogma while I would passive-aggressively counter with my own genuine concerns. College did weird things to your head. For lots of people, it was the first time they started really thinking and studying what they believed in, and they went through a weird extremist phase that looked borderline insane to all but their close-knit group of friends. All of the Bolsheviks were college kids. So were the Iranian Revolutionaries. The University of Oxford still has medieval walls built around it, leftover from the riots between the locals and the radicalized students within. Anna and Brandy were just the latest college extremists, and fuck it I was attracted to them both. Fuck me, right? Was I the only sane person here, or was I just as crazy as everyone else?

               She smirked at me happily. She’d finished her plate and bowl of food several minutes ago, but stuck around as I talked through my own meal. The glasses made her cuter, if I was going to be honest with myself, and her scarf made me wonder how much titty-flesh they were resting on. Very huggable.

               “Don’t you know you can do anything?” she asked warmly.

               “You think so?” I asked, wondering if “anything” included dating her.

               “You really don’t know how smart you are. Jason… you got pretty high grades in your economics major. You draw, you write… I know you’ll be alright. You just gotta hang on and everything will be alright.”

               “Really?”

               “Yes,” she leaned in slightly with her palm on the table, as if offering it to me to hold. But I chickened out from doing that. “Now, I hope you understand, but I gotta get back to my studies. I wish I was as smart as you… getting A’s and B’s while playing Call of Duty all the time,” she laughed as she got up and tugged up her jeans.

               “Hey,” I smiled slightly. “Are we friends on Facebook?”

               “I don’t think so,” she smiled. “Just search for my name. Alright, see you!”

               “Yeah, let’s do this again sometime,” I said hopefully, hesitantly.

               “Bye Jason!”

 

               I found her on Facebook and shot her a friend request. Her profile picture was a shot of her laughing with some of her friends at a party from last month. The background picture was a feel-good verse from the Bible. She accepted the request sometime after lunch. Nice… now what?

               I surfed through Facebook for an hour thinking about it. It would be weird to just like her old photos, right? I mean, that’s not how you confessed your interest in dating, was it? Oh well, I still looked through all her old pictures. No sign of a special someone. No official relationship listed either. Queue open season… but how?

               More Facebook surfing was followed by a quick check of my Youtube subscriptions. Nothing new to watch. What about Drudgereport? I got a kick out of reading the news to see if anything significant happening elsewhere could shake me from my monotonous existence. Would I get drafted if a third world war broke out? Would riots start if the dollar finally collapsed? Alas, nothing. A new geyser erupted in Yellowstone, and that was fun to read about. No giant volcanic eruption though…

               What else was there? Call of Duty? I wasn’t feeling it yet. So then…

               The app was right there on my phone. I was alone in my room, so there was no sign of being caught. It wouldn’t hurt to look at it now that I was bored. Not like anything would change… hold on… two notifications? I opened the notifications and took a look. “New mission: Anna Joy.”

               I felt the skin on my face freeze. “What in the fuck…” I gawked at the mission list. The main mission was still listed, along with another simply labelled Anna Joy. When I opened her mission, it merely listed a weight: 113.26lbs. “What the fuck…”

               The other notification took me to the main menu, where my pounds bar had filled slightly with a yellow loading bar along with a new value: 0.84lbs.

               My thumbs was shaking so hard that I could barely navigate through my phone anymore. This whole thing was looking less and less like a prank. Sure, Anna could be a part of the whole scheme, but how would she know I’d enter the student union and head for the chow hall? This could be real. God damn it, I could be stuck in some kind of matrix!

               Okay then. There were several ways I could confirm this, but in the meantime, how had I managed to earn 0.84lbs. just from eating breakfast with Anna Joy? It had to be Anna Joy because she was the new name listed in the mission list, and it had to have been from breakfast because that was the only time I had seen her today. But hold on… I earned pounds from people losing weight! So how had that happened?

               It hit me. Of course. She’d taken a shit. Once upon a time, when I was twelve years old, I got bored and decided to weigh myself before and after taking a shit just to see how big it was. I lost 0.9lbs. in the process, so I knew that it had been a .9lb shit (and was proud of it). So… I had gotten Anna her food while at the chow hall, she’d eaten it, and in the last few hours, had shit it out, so… technically she’d lost nearly a pound of weight.

               I frowned at my desk like the Thinking Man statue. Fascinating. If I could do this ten or eleven more times, I could manage to earn ten pounds and get to level one… whatever that meant. I would have to do some more experiments to confirm it. I guess that meant I had to ask Anna if she wanted to do breakfast again. It was time to man-up and text her…

[>_< 0_0]

1 hour ago, WaxerRed said:

Not really sure where this rabbit hole is going, but I look forward to seeing how far it goes down.!

Oh, it goes WAY down.

[>_< 0_0]

If you think about it, it's REALLY hard to feed a woman anything. If anyone has any tips, I'm all ears. Jason, of course, has to figure it out all on his own.

Chapter Three

               My time had come; my moment was now. Time to text Anna and attempt feeding her again. Yeah… right now. As soon as I figured out how to word this proposal. Proposal? I just wanted to eat with her again, not offer a ring! Damn.

               My thumb rubbed my Hex Ring as I absentmindedly stared at my messaging app. How do you text a girl and ask her out without being creepy? What if she took it the wrong way? What if I was overthinking it? Alright… my time had come; my moment was now…

               After two minutes of deliberation, I finally took a deep breath and shot her a text.

               That was a good time! Want to eat lunch together too?

               “And now we wait,” I muttered.

               I waited a long time. I watched more Youtube videos, read the news, got bored, and finally walked back to the Student Union to play Call of Duty on the TV’s over there. I could’ve played it on my laptop, but a TV was better and I didn’t own one. Plus, I could check out a copy of Black Ops, which I also didn’t own.

               Two hours later, and I had died at level nine of Nazi Zombies. I checked my phone for the seventh time. No reply yet. Shit. Should I have worded it differently? Could I salvage this situation with a double-text? Double-texts were very risky by nature; I didn’t want to look too thirsty. But I had to figure out this situation more than anything. I decided to go for it.

               Or dinner. If it’s more convenient, I mean.

               The second message was sent, and I was immediately overcome with regret. I shouldn’t have done that…

               It was now noon, and my phone hadn’t vibrated once. I unlocked it and stared at my messages. It said “seen at 11:14am.” Fuck. Now I really had screwed this up! Despair threatened to overcome me, but I shook it away with the power of positivity.

               “There’s other fish in the sea,” I nodded, turning off the TV and retrieving the Black Ops disk. “Twelve hundred of them. On an island with me… this’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel…”

               Speaking of which, there was a girl walking towards the chow hall right there! It was Natalie, a girl I met in Tae Kwon Do classes. She was wearing short-shorts and a white T-shirt, which showed-off her thin, muscled limbs. She was the kind of girl to change her hair colour every month, but for now her hair was bleached white.

               “Hey Natalie!” I said, trying to hide my desperation.

               “Oh hey Jason,” she said with a friendly smile. “What’s up? Enjoying your Saturday?”

               “Uh, yeah,” I managed not to stutter. “Um… are you heading to the chow hall? To eat?”

               She looked at me like I had cat-called her. “Yes? Why?”

               “I’m… I’m going down too. Want to eat with me?”

               She laughed. “You can come eat with me if you want. I’m sitting with my Big today.”

               Oh right. Natalie was a sorority chick. “Sure. Let me check this disc back in and I’ll head down and find you.”

               “Okay, see you Jason!”

               A few minutes later, and I was standing awkwardly in the midst of the dining hall with a plate of food in each hand. There were more people eating than before, and all were girls, of course. The jocks were eating in a far corner all to themselves, the cheerleaders had staked a claim on a couple tables by the windows, still in their uniforms (probably practicing their routines in the morning), and each sorority was seated in their own little corners, with nerds and loners filling-in all the gaps between the groups. I spotted Natalie’s white mane a few tables away, and I hurried over, thankful that she was so easy to spot.

               “Hey Natalie,” I said, seeing several girls glance up at me.

               “Jason,” she smiled. “Damn. Two plates? You working out?”

               “I, uh, got you one,” I placed one of my food-laden plates by her own.

               “Me? Thanks…” she frowned. “I got my own food, but okay.”

               I glanced around the circular table. Each chair had a sorority chick seated on it, but maybe I could pull another one over and squeeze in. I looked at Natalie and caught her Big whisper something in her ear as another girl quickly darted her eyes away from me. I could feel the awkwardness in the air as if it were made of a fine mist.

               “Alright, let’s see here,” I grabbed an empty chair and dragged it over. “I’ll just sit in this space over here…”

               There wasn’t enough room next to Natalie anymore; not with two girls whispering and laughing silently in her ear now. I knew they were laughing at my expense. I couldn’t hear any of the words, but I could easily guess. Stalker Jason’s got the hots for Natalie. Better watch out. I bet he drugged that food he got for you.

               Oh shit, that is what they were saying, wasn’t it? I silently ate my food, thinking of it. It was a mistake to try doing anything with Natalie, wasn’t it? This whole situation was just reinforcing the bad rumours spinning around me. They’d be laughing about me all day long. Had Natalie even touched the plate I gave her? Didn’t look like it. This sucked.

               I couldn’t finish my food fast enough. I managed to smile weakly and excuse myself with some lame excuse about needing to study. Oh, and Anna still hadn’t texted me yet.

 

               Frustrated and ashamed, I wandered my way through campus like a lost mountain goat. These long walks were the best way for me to think about the big picture. Nothing out here could distract my mind from attempting to solve my life’s problems. In any case, the crisp scent of fir trees and the salt of the sea was very relaxing.

               My mini-adventure took me past the football field, where the cheerleading team was stretching their legs to get ready for afternoon practice. I eyed their bare midriffs, chiselled abs, and ample breasts with no little amount of unfulfilled desire. No one seemed to train harder than the cheerleaders. Hell, no one was more stuck-up and proud than any of our cheerleaders. They strutted through campus every day like a pack of supermodels, flaunting their perfect figures and looking down upon the rest of the student body. Okay, maybe I was exaggerating; surely there must be a few nice girls on their team. Not that any of the nice ones had spoken to me.

               I found myself walking down the bottom of the football stands, eyeing their performance. I couldn’t help but stare at their supple legs as they kicked at the air. The miniskirts were a formality, really; they didn’t cover anything with them kicking so high. No one would complain, though…

               One of them was ten feet away from me, doing her best to reach her toes, ass bent in my direction. She glanced at me for half a moment before returning to her efforts.

               “Hey,” I waved, trying to be friendly and normal. “You’re training for the next game?”

               “Yeah…” she exhaled to compress her stomach and inch closer to her goal.

               “What is the next game? Football? Basketball? I lose track since I’m studying all the time…”

               “Football,” she grunted.

               “Ah, I see…” I suddenly noticed Brooke the team captain walking up with one of her cronies by her side. Her C-cup tits bulged from her top like my eyeballs did when I first saw them. Her hair was a perfectly-groomed mane of slightly-curled blonde locks cascading down her back. She stood in front of the girl I was talking to with her hands on her hips and her chin pointed at my nose.

               “Leave,” she ordered me.

               I stood there like a dumb beta male; the only thing moving was my blinking eyes. “What?”

               “Go away,” she frowned.

               I started to say something.

               “Now,” she sneered. “Creep.”

               I wasn’t a creep. I wanted to tell her something like that. I wished someone was there to vouch for me. But no one said anything. Her crony folded her arms and tapped her foot.

               “Go!”

               “I’m going!” I threw up my hands and stomped-off. “Jesus Christ!”

               I started walking down a dirt path through the woods, leaving the campus and all my problems behind. How had I gotten such a bad reputation? What did I do to become “Stalker Jason?” Better yet, how did I shake it off me? Fuck if I knew.

               There was a wide clearing just ahead. A large farm was just ahead, complete with two houses, a barn, a coral, and about a hundred acres of open fields contained within white picket fences. This was the horse pasture. Here, the Equestrian Club practiced riding and playing polo with each other. A month ago, I had toyed with the idea of joining the club just to socialize with the hot blondes squatting in their tight breeches over their saddles, but somehow never did.

               There were three horses out in the field now, all of them quarterbreds with brown coats. It looked like they’d trampled all over their enclosure, so they had no grass to snack on… oh. Hold the phone… my app told me my pound bar filled-up when others lost weight, but did it say anything about them having to be human?

               I grinned for the first time in over a day and quickened my pace towards a hay bale. There wasn’t a soul in sight! No stuck-up cheerleaders or smug sorority sisters here! Just me and some big animals with giant stomachs. My heart fluttered at the mere thought of how easy this could be. Just one of these beasts could eat ten pounds of hay in a single meal, easy. All I had to do was start hauling the hay over the fence so they could reach it.

               “Hey horsie,” I said quietly as one of the horses walked slowly up to me. Some of the girls could be in the barn and I wasn’t sure what they’d think of me feeding their prized horses. “You hungry? I got a horse-salad here just for you…”

               I shoved my arms as far into the hay bale as I could, lifted up, and tossed a thick pile of golden hay towards the horse. By now, the other two horses were also walking up. Casually, as if they hadn’t a care in the world, the horses leaned down and began chewing at the hay. I smiled triumphantly as I saw how easily they chewed through the stuff. It was time to shove them another pile of hay…

               My phone vibrated in my back pocket. My eyes lit with further excitement. Had Anna finally texted back? I took a look at the lockscreen. I had a notification from the fattening app.

               Three new mission(s) added.

               Yes! I was right! It didn’t have to be humans!

               “Yessss,” I said excitedly in a low voice as I grabbed another double-armful of horse-food. “You like that, don’t you? Excellent! I’m glad you like it. Now you go ahead and have as much as you like. All of you…”

               “What are you doing?”

               I twisted around in surprise. There was someone in the barn, and she was walking up to me wearing tight, white breeches and high riding boots. She wasn’t wearing a riding helmet, so I could see her blonde hair tied smartly in a thick braid that wrapped halfway around her neck and rested over her shoulder.

               Luckily for me, I had a good habit of daydreaming exactly what I’d say if I was ever caught doing anything suspicious. “You’re here!” I said happily. “I came over just to see if I could join the Equine Club.”

               “The Equestrian Club,” she raised her eyebrows and folded her arms. “And why are you feeding the horses?”

               “They came over while I walked past the haybale, so I figured they were hungry…”

               She rolled her eyes. “You’re so weird sometimes. Whatever… Western or English?”

               “Riding style? English all the way. It’s more fun.”

               Her demeanour lightened. “Really? So you do know something about horses.”

               “I was going to try joining at the beginning of the semester, so I was studying for it, but you know, things came up.”

               “So you’re thinking of joining?”

               “Yeah, who do I talk to?” this was all an accident, but come to think of it, being part of the club would give me an excuse to feed the giant, hungry herbivores.

               “Well, I’m the only one here today; at least one person needs to take care of the horses every day.”

               “I’m Jason, by the way,” I held my hand out.

               “Mary,” she replied, shaking my hand cordially. “Anyway, since you’re here, how about you help out with cleaning the horses?”

               “Sure,” I said as she turned and headed back towards the barn. Her ass cheeks were spectacular in the skin-tight breeches; I could tell as she walked that riding English-style had done her inner thighs some good.

               “I’m gonna have you brush my horse while I take care of some things,” she explained absentmindedly. “It’s a good way to bond with the animal before you start riding together. They get used to your presence and you get less afraid of being stepped on – but don’t walk behind the horse.”

               “Nah, I’d never do that.”

               “Good.”

               “What the name of your horse?”

               “My horse? Her name’s Hollywood; she’s a thoroughbred.”

               “Ooh, nice.”

               We walked inside and I took a look around. There were plenty of horse stalls and half of them were occupied by anything from a giant black Oldenburg horse to a small bronze pony. Hollywood was tied-up just ahead, just standing there as simple herd animals do.

               Mary bent over a bench and picked up a tin bucket full of cleaning utensils. She handed it to me and proceeded to take out two tools.

               “This is the scuzzbrush, okay? And this is the brush. You scuzz her back in little circles – see how the dust comes up? Then you brush it off her with the brush – but do it with the grain, not against it. Otherwise, her hide is all scruffed-up. You got it?”

               “Yeah, I got it,” I grabbed the tin bucket.

               “Alright then. I’m going to do some chores. I’ll be right back.”

 

               Hollywood and I got along pretty well, all things considered. I’d brush her hide clean, whisper sweet nothings into her ears, and all in all got good vibes out of it.

               “You know,” I said as I scuzzed her rump. “You’re the nicest girl I’ve met on this island, you know that?”

               Hollywood didn’t reply, but I was sure she understood.

               “It’s been awhile since Mary left,” I remarked. “Wonder what she’s up to? Ah well, it’s just the two of us, I guess.”

               My eyes drifted towards a barrel full of carrots. I’d been stealing glances back at it for the last hour, but didn’t want to be caught not doing my job. Perhaps I could give Hollywood a snack now? What were the odds Mary would walk in?

               “How’s about a snack?” I rubbed Hollywood’s back. “I bet you’d like something, wouldn’t you? Just give me a second.”

               I put my brush back in the bucket and made my way towards the barrel. The carrots looked new, as if they were fresh out of the ground (they probably were; the biology majors often grew crops out in corners of the farm). No one would notice if I fed Hollywood four… no, five giant carrots, would they? I scooped them up and walked back. Hollywood’s head nodded expectantly at the sight of the treats.

               “These carrots are pretty big,” I smiled as I cautiously stuck one into her mouth. “Must weigh, like, a pound each. Bio majors are probably learning how to do genetic modifications to food again.”

               Hollywood’s giant teeth nearly touched my fingers as they pulled the carrot into her slowly-grinding maw. I flinched away, unsure if my appendages would be safe from her casual bites. But I pressed onwards, feeding her one juicy carrot at a time, eagerly guessing how many pounds away I’d be from levelling up now.

               “Hey Jason!”

               I jumped and glanced back at Mary. She was leaning out of a door to a makeshift office with a textbook in one hand and a hi-lighter in the other. So she was studying. I guess me showing up was mighty convenient for her.

               “Mary!” I smiled. “I finished scuzzing Hollywood just now.”

               “That’s fine. Just don’t feed her those carrots. They don’t belong to us.”

               “Right,” I said as Hollywood pulled the last carrot from my grasp. “Sorry about that. You want me to put Hollywood back in her stall?”

               “No, it’s fine. I’m almost done reading – I mean almost done with chores now. I’ll do it.”

               “So… you need any other chores done?”

               “Nope, that’s it. Thanks for dropping by.”

               “Alright then… want me to come back tomorrow?”

               “We’re not riding on Sunday. Just show up on a weekday in the afternoon, got it?”

               “Yeah, sure. Bye Mary!”

               As I left, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes and scowl. Obviously, I’d been used. Oh well. I’d gotten what I wanted and then some. All I had to do was wait for the food to go through the horses’ digestive tracts.

[>_< 0_0]

3 hours ago, swahilimonkfish said:

This is brilliant! It keeps bouncing off in unexpected directions, deviating from the obvious route each time. Jason's insecurity is really endearing too and makes a pleasant change from Cody's "got it all figured out" cockiness, shows you understand how to craft character. Good work, we're all on tenterhooks.

It’s so hard! I desperately want to get to the good stuff, but if I do that all the tension and build-up will be gone 😫 But I think it’s more fun to tackle the intricate details of how to make an entire campus fat without being caught. It would make for a pretty cool computer game, but I don’t know how to program 😭

4 minutes ago, scl04 said:

Well... you've certainly made me symphatize with Jason thus far that's for sure, I really hope that things will be better for him in the future and that he will have his revenge against those stuck ups (also like the other comment said I can certainly feel the difference between Cody and him while reading and that speaks a lot of how good you're doing it :D).

Vengeance takes massive amounts of effort and planning. It’ll take awhile before Jason is “strong” enough to take on the cheerleaders.

[>_< 0_0]

And then the writer realized that he'd written two "Chapter 3's," skipped Chapter Four straight to Five."

Chapter Five

               The next morning came and I lazily rolled out of bed. It was Sunday; did I feel like going to church? Unwelcome memories of my enlightening conversation that had started this string of strange events surfaced in my consciousness. Nah… then again, had I managed to pass the ten pound mark?

               I’d done some research the night before. First, I googled the “Horse Digestive Tract,” then I clicked the most useful-looking website and began reading. Apparently, a horse has just one stomach (as opposed to four, like cows do) and it could hold three gallons. So far so good. Food usually took three to four hours to pass through the stomach, then up to eight hours in the small intestine, and then less than a day in the large intestine. However, food could sit in the first two sections for less than an hour each, so I really had no idea how long it would take to see results.

               For good measure, I’d also checked on my fattening app. I had five individual missions now, one being Anna, the other four being the horses. I noticed with some fascination that each mission showed how much the target weighed in comparison to when the mission began. At the moment, each horse weighed slightly more from grazing on grass all day. Anna, however, had lost 0.21 pounds. Did that negative balance feed into my pounds bar? A quick math calculation showed that it did. Very well. I slept on that knowledge.

               Now with the sun shining through my window, I held up my phone and noticed a few notifications: some news notifications, reactions from Facebook, and – what was this? A text from Anna sent late last night!

               Sorry, I took a nap and didn’t see this message until just now! Lol

               Ah yes. The ol’ naptime cop-out. How cowardly. Not that I needed to dwell on that at the moment. I noted that the fattening app had some notifications and proceeded to unlock my phone to see them. What I saw made me inhale sharply: my pound bar was at 10.17lbs. I’d done it!

               A text bubble popped up. Congratulations! You have earned your first level-up!

               I gripped my phone in a death-grip and reared my head towards the ceiling. “Yesss! Good job horsies! Three gallon stomachs! Hell yes! Boss!”

               You can now Hex someone with your Hex Ring, noted the second text bubble. To use your Hex Ring, think of the words of your spell in your head and point your ringed-finger at the victim of the hex.

               “Sounds pretty straightforward,” I thought as I stuck my pinkie-finger out and stared at it.

               Be sure to remember the following rules: the hex can only be cast on a single body, it has to be tied directly to that body’s weight, and that weight must not surpass the value of your pounds bar. If the hex’s effects surpass the value of your pounds bar, the hex will cease functioning until the pounds bar is refilled. Remember, you can break a hex by pressing the Hex Ring icon in your inventory and deactivating the hex manually!

               “Excellent,” I said to myself happily. “I think it’s about time I gave this here ring a test.”

 

               I wandered the campus, as usual, except now I was on the hunt for the perfect victim. I needed to prove that this whole situation was real, so I had decided to hex someone to gain ten pounds within ten seconds. When it happened – if it happened – it should be easy enough to spot. At the same time, I needed to make sure I wasn’t caught. Whoever I hexed, I needed to make sure they had no idea it was me who did it, or would even think that it was me. Therefore, it had to be someone I didn’t know. Someone who was wearing something revealing, but not tight per se. Tight clothes might pinch midriffs or bust buttons. It was possible that I could “sneak” ten pounds onto someone if their clothes were stretchy enough. Ah, decisions, decisions…

               I was so excited, I couldn’t help but skip around whispering the song Be Prepared to myself. Lord knew why it was stuck in my head, but who cared? What a song!

               “Meticulous planning, tenacity spanning, decades of denial, is simply why I’ll, be king undisputed, respected, saluted, and seen for the wonder I am!” I whispered to myself as I swung the doors to the library wide open. “Yes, my teeth and ambitions are bared…” Well… not my teeth. I wasn’t the one doing the eating here. Right. Library. Time to be extra quiet.

               The college library was a monument to human knowledge and literature. It was built into the side of a cliff on the edge of campus and spanned thousands of square feet and three floors. Bookcases towered overhead, surrounding winding passages that freshmen literally got lost in at the beginning of every school year. Study rooms hugged the edges of the cavernous expanse that was the central, three-story room. Apparently, the architects of the building had deliberately made it maze-like to cater to the personalities of those who preferred to study in libraries (that is, reclusive introverts who did not wish to be disturbed or found). It was a beautiful place.

               Right, then. I needed to find a secluded area, but one that was filled with several people. That way, I wouldn’t be the only one in the area and wouldn’t arouse suspicion. I let myself get lost in the winding passageways of books, wondering for the twentieth time why library books were always so much older and less interesting than anything you could find in a bookstore. Several nerdy girls had claimed small tables in little corners like barnacles on a rock, their study material spread wide before themselves. Of course they were in groups of ones and twos. One of them shushed me when I tripped over a short stairway. I needed to find a bigger group...

               There: half a dozen girls were seated on the third storey by one of the big windows. As opposed to glasses, sweaters, and loose-fitting jeans, these girls were dressed in small T-shirts and yoga pants. Sorority girls, of course – what was with sorority girls and yoga pants? And why did they always do everything together like the mafia?

               These trivialities were unimportant. Channelling all the innocence I could muster, I sat myself by a small desk nearby in just such a way as to be facing the girls while being half-behind a bookshelf at the same time. Being small and nerdy, I had a natural demeanour of cluelessness that had saved me from several sticky situations. I just didn’t look like a troublemaker (though I apparently looked like a stalker). Just to add to the illusion, I emptied the contents of my backpack onto the desk and opened a few of my economics textbooks. Hell, maybe I could re-read some of my homework and get some extra knowledge in the meantime.

               I leant over my books, reading a couple paragraphs before glancing up at the sorority girls. There were seven of them, four facing away from me, three facing toward me. None of them were looking in my direction. Good. I chose my target: a blonde girl in brown, athletic yoga pants facing away from me. Her tie-dye t-shirt hung loosely over her frame, but tight enough to discern any changes that may or may not happen a moment from now.

               With my little finger extended as casually as possible, I took aim at the unsuspecting girl and fired my hex.

               The woman I’m pointing at will gain ten pounds in the next ten seconds.

               I felt my heart racing as I stared at her with my head still bent over my books. If anyone looked at me, all I had to do was dart my gaze straight back down to avoid suspicion. The effects were slow yet instantaneous. As I watched, her legs ripened outwards like fruit. Her ass followed suit, pushing outwards at the steady pace of one pound per second. The outline of her panties revealed itself at the halfway point between each fattening cheek, indenting deeper and deeper, until – after about eight seconds – there was a short, loud rip.

               The sound was subtle, but in the library, it might as well have been deafening. Three sorority girls glanced towards the girl silently, unsure what the noise was. Meanwhile, the slightly-fatter blonde straightened in her seat. Someone whispered into her ear. The blonde shook her head slightly. The show was over; nothing to see. I returned to my studies, wondering if anyone could hear my heart pounding in my chest.

               It was real. All of it. I should’ve known, but I’d just made a girl gain ten pounds. Never in my wildest dreams had I even thought of such a phenomenon. It was thrilling. The secrecy, the risk of being caught, a strange sense of arousal stirring deep within my subconscious, but most of all vengeance. Take that Biltmore College!

               The girl was looking down at herself quizzically. No doubt she didn’t want anyone to catch on that something was off; no doubt she was wondering if something was off. Her hands traced the curves of her legs, trying not to be too obvious about what she was doing. A hand rested on the side of her hips and reached back to feel her butt for half a second. The crease of her panties was gone. Ah yes, that must’ve been what ripped. I should’ve been more careful… somehow.

               She suddenly glanced back in my direction before I could avert my gaze. I blinked once or twice while frowning. This was my confused face; it should work, considering the circumstances. In any case, I got back to my books. Meanwhile, I could hear her getting up and packing her study materials into her pack. Some muttering between her friends, asking where she was going, some half-baked excuses for how she needed to excuse herself.

               She walked past me soon after that. I kept my head down, resisting the urge to turn around and stare at her softened butt as she left. Now I was stuck here because I didn’t want to leave at the same time as her. Oh well, that gave me an excuse to read my assigned pages a second time…

               My phone buzzed and I pulled it out to have a look. A new individual mission had been added: Lucy Bolger, who was apparently exactly ten pounds heavier than her starting weight. So that was her name. Good to know, I guess.

               My phone buzzed again.( 999) 999-9999 has sent you a photo. I looked up and glanced behind myself. No one. She was sexting me – whoever she was.

               Nice work earning ten pounds in fifty hours, she wrote as I stared at her nude photo. You’re pretty clever. I like that. Remember, don’t text this number.

               I sighed. “When will I see you again?” I muttered so quietly that no one should be able to hear.

               Soon. Ttyl.

[>_< 0_0]

7 hours ago, swahilimonkfish said:

Amazing work once more. Insecurity, intrigue and weight gain, the real holy trifecta.

ALL of the insecurity 😓😆 Plus random singing 🦁

[>_< 0_0]

1 hour ago, xandercroft said:

Dear sir, to make this more interesting as it would be working on the side of good, perhaps your character might want to volunteer in a soup kitchen?  Or maybe even get a job at the school caff?  Thinking of ways to game this system myself.  Corporate sponsorship for the school?  hhhhmmmmm.....(Think think think)

[>_< 0_0]

3 hours ago, John Smith said:

Good.

If you’re reduced to just one word, I think that means I did phenomenal 😏 Or not. Patience is key, this thing is going to start snowballing.

[>_< 0_0]

Chapter Six

               With my brain buzzing with unbridled excitement over the very idea of fattening every girl I could see, I suddenly realized that I had no idea what to do next, so I took a nap, missed church by accident, and woke up at midnight. I tossed and twisted in my bedsheets trying to get back to sleep, but really, I had just “napped” over eight hours, so I wasn’t about to fall asleep. Oh well, time for a late-night gaming session.

               It had been awhile since I’d played Civilization VI, so I started that one up. There was a new DLC that made natural disasters a thing, which was an interesting idea. Too bad the first few turns of the game were so boring. I started pretending each city was a girl I knew, and that the population number coincided with jean sizes. Then again, if population equalled jean size, what equalled bra cups? Production value, of course. Maybe. These weren’t perfect match-ups, but it did keep my mind engaged…

               What the hell was I doing? Why was I daydreaming in a video game like this? And why did thinking about fattening girls feel slightly titillating? Did it though? Maybe I was just mixing the thrill of vengeance with my unfulfilled yearnings for love and lust. Maybe being single too long made you slowly go crazy in some strange, kinky way. That would explain my DeviantArt search history…

               As my mind wandered, I suddenly realized that I’d foolishly built a city next to a dormant volcano that had decided to explode (so that was why the soil was so fertile). Oh well, I could build a better city further out. What was the best way to maximize city growth? Better yet, what was the best way to maximize girl growth? Now that I had reached “level 1,” it was clear that even though I earned pounds from making others lose pounds, it did not mean that anyone would be getting any thinner in the long run. On the contrary, whether a girl was wearing some extra pounds or the pounds were stored in my app, the math didn’t lie: there was always a net gain of pounds. The “pounds bar” on my app was basically a bank… yes… indeed. A bank of pounds. I was “investing” in girls (and horses) and earned “dividends” as they lost the weight. Then – as any good bank is prone to do – I would give out a “loan” with my Hex Ring.

               My eyes lit up as I suddenly realized what I was daydreaming about.

               “That’s it!” I said to myself, laughing in spite of myself. “It’s a bank! This is literally what I’m studying!”

               And so it was! I was working on an economics major. I could use my studies to develop tactics for using the fattening app to maximum effect! All I had to do was pretend I was running a bank! Hell, maybe this whole thing would help me better understand what I was reading too! Was a 3.5 GPA out of the question? A 4.0? Oh my, the possibilities of this were endless!

 

               My epiphany inspired me to study my economics homework for the third time in a row... sort of. Every time I played a turn in Civilization, I owed myself to read a page of my textbook. Once that got easy… two pages. Time flew by and it was time for breakfast. I wasn’t too hungry, but I went anyway just in case I got a chance to eat with one of the girls (which I didn’t).

               Ah, Mondays. Most people lamented the beginnings of work, but after a cup of coffee and a bottle of coke, I was ecstatic. The possibilities were endless for me! I would find a way to feed someone again. Meanwhile, my pounds bar was slowly refilling as my first victim, Lucy Bolger, slowly began the process of dieting, on hundredth of a pound at a time.

               At the moment, my pounds bar was coloured in two shades, the normal yellow colour, and a new red colour. Apparently, the yellow represented the pounds in my “vault” (that’s what I called it), and the red represented the pounds I had “loaned” out (currently 9.54 pounds). What this told me was that even though I’d emptied my vault out with my first hex, those pounds still counted towards my efforts to reach level 2, and to do that, I had to earn a total of… 25 pounds. I was less than 15 pounds away from that. Okay. The levelling got harder over time, just like any respectable levelling system would. No big deal; I had the power of compound interest on my side! Soon I would be the Warren Buffet of Biltmore College!

               My first class of the day was The History of Western Business taught by the dignified, curvaceous Ms. Buxley. She was a good professor still technically working towards getting her doctorate, which meant that she taught us with all the passion of a faculty underdog trying to compensate for that fact that she wasn’t addressed as “Dr. Buxley.” The way she poured homework into our laps, I had no doubt she’d get her doctorate soon. Luckily, I had no trouble concentrating on her in class. With a killer-body in a pencil skirt like hers, my chances of dozing-off during her lectures were zero – even if I had been up since midnight.

               The classroom was small yet ornate in design, with long, mahogany desks arranged in concentric half-circles around the centre of the room, and each row slightly higher than the row in front of itself.  The walls matched the desks, being made of wood carved in sensible patterns reminiscent of Oxford or Hogwarts. As a nerd, I naturally gravitated towards the centre of the front row, and this class was no different. With the way the rows curved, I could see close to a dozen other students sitting attentively from my position. I wasn’t sure if they were all at least two seats away from me because I was Stalker Jason, or if it was because most people don’t sit in the front. This was a trivial concern while I did my best to not be caught staring at Ms. Buxley’s hips. Taking copious amounts of notes was probably enough to divert suspicion, and I had already filled half a page with notes that may or may not have been useful considering that I’d accidentally half-memorized the assigned reading material.

               “Jason,” Ms. Buxley turned around suddenly. “What do you think?”

               I blinked stupidly as the professor waited for an answer.

               “Ah…” I said nervously. “You see, the irony is that I missed what you were saying because I was writing a note down just now…”

               “Jeiny,” Buxley turned her head slightly, obviously irritated by my reply. “What about you?”

               A Hispanic girl sitting on the far left hid a smirk as she looked down at the textbook and started reading aloud. Well, shit, now I was pissed. First of all, I’d just realized what part of the reading we were covering and knew it by heart, second, the bitch was just reading the text. We’d all read the text already! What was this, high school? Why the fuck was I catching girls snickering in my direction like I was the idiot? Because I was the horny male who apparently couldn’t concentrate on the lecture because my toxic masculinity fogged my brain. Oh yes, who could possibly expect the boy to learn anything as he drooled over the hot teacher in front of him? I’d seen this before… seriously, fuck them.

               I was going to make them so fat. Somehow. Someday.

 

               My last lecture of the day was over, so I was free to head down to the ranch. As opposed to last Saturday, the field was filled with girls on horseback playing polo with each other. There were about a dozen of them, half wearing white breeches, half wearing brown. Clever, I guess. Maybe I could head into the barn and see if there was anyone I could talk to in there about joining?

               There wasn’t. But there were horses in some of the stalls. Excellent. Time to start feeding the horses! I looked around the barn for the barrel of carrots. Looked like the carrot barrel had been moved. How unfortunate. I did spot some white bags that looked promising. Untying one revealed that it was full of oats. If I could place these in the stalls… yes. This would work.

               I heaved the first bag towards the nearest stall, doing my best to keep the oats from spilling out. It had to be at least thirty pounds. Now, I didn’t expect one horse to eat it all in one go, but surely one horse could make quite a dent in it.

               “Hey horsie,” I said nervously as the large, black animal sauntered its way to the gate. “What’s your name… Princess, huh?” I noted the tag on its bridle. “Easy enough to remember. Here. Take this…” I attempted to stuff the oat bag through the gate and accidentally spilled some oats. “Oh shit… yes. That’s it. A royal feast for Princess. Alright, now for the next horsie…”

               “What are you doing?”

               Shit. I’d been spotted by a short blonde with double-braids forming a crest on her head. “Hey, how’s it going?”

               “What are you do-ing-uh?” she made the last word as whiny as possible. “You’re spilling the oats!”

               “I was feeding the horses,” I said nervously. “I mean, I was here last Saturday trying to join the Equestrian Club and –“

               “We don’t feed the horses in their stalls. Who did you talk to?”

               “Uh… I forgot. Anyway, she told me to brush and feed the horses and then come back on Monday…”

               “Oh yeah? And who was it?”

               “I forgot her name! She was blonde. I think.”

               Two more girls peered into the barn and I recognized one of them. “Her!” I pointed frantically. “I saw her on Saturday. Uh… Mary. That was her name.”

               This girl though, she was rolling her eyes and stomped off towards Mary. They whispered just loudly enough for me to hear things like “you told this schmuck he could join our club?” That was deliberate. I closed my eyes with a deep breath and pretended I couldn’t hear them. Eventually, their whispers got too quiet to make out, and I knew they were conspiring some kind of plan. Then they nodded and walked up to me.

               “Hey Jason,” Mary smiled wide. It was so fake and patronizing. Did she really think I was fooled? “Thanks for coming back.”

               “Your welcome,” I said casually.

               “We’re all playing polo right now, so unfortunately we can’t spare anyone to teach you how to ride. But could you be a real sport and brush the horses like I showed you? You can do that for me, can’t you?”

               “Hell yeah,” I smiled. She thought she’d tricked me into thinking she had the hots for me! Oh, little did she know that she was falling right into my plan.

               “And can you scoop the manure in the barn too?”

               “Yeah. I use that shovel over there, right? I’ve worked on farms before. You have a place where you’re storing the manure?”

               “Just toss it in the bin outside. It’s half-full already, so you can’t miss it. And thanks… I appreciate it,” she turned and sashayed back out the barn with an alluring smirk.

               I smirked back. If only she knew my true intentions! Time to make some “investments.”

[>_< 0_0]

On ‎2‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 1:27 PM, swahilimonkfish said:

Love the story, and the fact that you have the restraint to delay gratification. And I love how Jason is petulant as he lashes out, but it's all because he's insecure and frustrated. Like basically every young male his age in the world.

The one thing that impressed me most was the economics pay-off. As soon as you said that this was just like his economics major, I went back and checked if you'd set this up in an earlier chapter. And you had, you'd mentioned it a couple of times that this was what he was studying but you painted it as just a background detail to add depth to your story. Several chapters later and it was actually a Chekhov's gun. This is seriously good writing, being able to plot ahead for later pay-off, but without making it obvious. Well done, seriously!

*looks up Chekhov's gun* Yes! That's the idea haha. The trick is to not write what you want to write until your first story is done. That forces you to "daydream" the next story's outline in your head in the meantime. I got this plot alllll lined-up.

[>_< 0_0]

A short update on how Jason's tackling the whole feeding problem 🐎

Chapter Seven

               “Jeiny,” Ms. Buxley ambushed the class with an about-face after clicking the powerpoint ahead one slide. “Suppose you were the one starting a new bank. How would you operate it?”

               I watched Jeiny’s brow furrow as she glanced at her textbook. I couldn’t help but grin to myself and masked my mouth with my hand. This was a question that couldn’t be answered by just reciting from the textbook!

               “Operate?” she asked as she rested her hand smartly over her book. “Well, I wouldn’t loan out too much money at first. I… hm… I think I’d split it fifty-fifty with half the money loaned-out and half invested in stocks to pay back interest…”

               “Interesting,” Ms. Buxley nodded politely with a glint in her eyes. “Very cautious. But don’t forget that you need some of that money on-hand.”

               “Oh, of course!” Jeiny nodded back. “Just in case they want their money back…”

               “Anyone else have something different?” Ms. Buxley around the room and instantly saw my arm raised eagerly towards the ceiling. “Yes, Jason?”

               “So…” I leaned forward, lacing my fingers together in front of me. “Just starting a bank and all, I would concentrate on lots of very small loans because I won’t have much capital at first, and also because the more loans I have out, the more sources of interest I’ll have for myself.”

               “But if income’s what you’re looking for, the stock market is quicker,” Jeiny interjected.

               “The stock market could go up or down,” I replied, trying to keep my cool. “Anyway… uh… what I’m saying is… it’s better to have lots of little loans rather than a few big ones when you start out because if one or two loans go bad, you got all the rest of them to stay afloat. Then when you have enough pounds, you can start giving out bigger loans and risking stock investments.”

               “That’s an interesting tactic Jason,” Ms. Buxley. “We’re actually going to study a British bank from the reading next, so I appreciate you using the UK currency.”

               “Oh,” my face flushed with red heat. “That’s… yeah.”

              

               It was now Wednesday, and – true to my small-loan plan – I was in the process of branching-out my sources of “pound income.” I started by committing to feed snacks to every single horse I could find in the barn. Depending on who was riding, there could be as many as twenty horses in there. Judging from the amount of horse shit I was scooping off the ground, I was making good progress. I even managed to get permission to feed Mia the barn cat. As for human girls, I wasn’t doing so good. They would look at me funny as I brought snacks or asked to eat with them, and barely ate anything – if they ate anything.

               What was I doing to deserve this kind of reaction? Was I really that weird? The more I thought about it, the more I realized how unusual it would look if some girl just walked up to me with food for no apparent reason. I could tell everyone that I was practising how to socialize… but no. They would explain how weird it was to offer food. In any case, I had to be careful not to press too hard because if I developed a reputation of trying to give girls food, it would start a whole new round of gossip and speculation at my expense.

               “What about working at the chow hall?” I wondered aloud. “That might work.”

               Indeed! I would be able to serve food to roughly 40% of the student body! With such high hopes, I waltzed myself to the campus employment office and asked if I could sign up to work in the chow hall. The office lady inside pushed her glasses up her nose and told me the hiring process was finished before the semester started, so I should try again at the end of this semester. Curses! Foiled again!

               Sitting on my beach log watching the sunset play across the waves, I schemed over how to get girls to accept my food.

               “At least horses don’t think twice about me feeding them,” I sighed.

               Wait. I could also try giving out drinks! But that would be even weirder…

               “Stop being so pessimistic Jason!” I tapped my foot against the sand. “I got to think outside the box on this one.”

               I was currently at level 2. To make another hex, I needed to get to level 4. At the rate I was going, it would be a couple days before I made it to that level, but I was obsessed. This whole process of trying to fatten all these terrible girls who looked down on me was making me shiver with all the anticipation of a diagnosed kleptomaniac. I had to maximize my pounds income! I needed to hex someone again! It was the only thing I had going for me on this island.

               With that in mind, I leaned forward over my knees and slowly developed a plan.

 

               “Hey guys,” I grunted as I entered my first class for Thursday. Between my straining arms, I held a huge pack of Nestle Pure Life bottled water. It was the biggest pack I could find, with 24 bottles in all, and it was delightfully heavy.

               “There’s no guys in here,” scoffed a girl in the back. “Except you.”

               I did my best to ignore the slight. “So there was a mix-up,” I said happily. “And long story short, I’ve ended-up with way more water than I can drink, so I brought it up here for everyone to take some.”

               With that, I dropped the thing onto the front desk in the class with a thud, ripped the plastic covering open, and got myself a water. I made sure to twist it open and take a sip to show that it wasn’t poisoned.

               “Anyone want any?” I asked as I ripped the plastic further apart. I received a lacklustre response from the six girls in the classroom. I shrugged and walked to an open seat near the front. I had foreseen this. It was fifteen minutes before the lecture started, so there was plenty of time for something to happen. All I had to do was wait.

               Sure enough, the rest of the class trickled in. The first thing they all saw was the water bottles near the door. One by one, the bottles were plucked away. I smiled to myself, thoughtfully resting my chin on my hand. My hypothesis was confirmed. It was me that creeped them out, not the food or drink. These girls coming in didn’t know that I had brought the water, so they had no problems taking some.

               By the time the professor walked in, pumps clacking against the floor, half the water was gone. I had succeeded! Better yet, water was as cheap as it was heavy, and passed through the body more quickly than food. I could probably use this trick several more times without arousing suspicion.

               My phone buzzed nonstop with notifications. Good. The fattening app would be adding each of these girls as side missions.

               “Who’s phone is doing that?” the professor frowned before looking at me. “Jason! Is that you?”

               “I think so,” I said casually. “I think it’s almost done…”

               Some of the freshmen girls snickered. I just sat there innocently, resisting the urge to pull the phone out.

               “I hope it’s almost done,” the professor smiled. “If it doesn’t in the next ten minutes, will you put it in silent mode?”

               “Of course.”

[>_< 0_0]

4 hours ago, swahilimonkfish said:

My god this is a delight. It truly is.

It works so well, first, as a character study of a man wrought with insecurity that occasionally manifests itself in bitterness. Oh, how I cringe with vicarious shame when they snigger.

Second, as a puzzle. Since we as readers are invited to try to solve the logic puzzle. No idea what I'd do, since adding crack to food would be logistically difficult and utterly immoral.

And thirdly, as a narrative. It never stays still, never settles into a groove or rests. It always moves forwards, or backwards, to keep us engaged.

Plus, the pounds (the weight) sounds like pounds (British currency) thing is done so very smoothly

There's a way to "cheese" the puzzle that no one's mentioned yet 😏 I wonder if anyone's figured it out?

[>_< 0_0]

1: Download Fattening App.

2: Get girls to eat what you give them.

3: ????

4: Profit!

Chapter Eight

               Friday had arrived, at last. Research showed that people felt best on Friday because they had the entire weekend to look forward to. I could attest to that with the way I hoped for an excuse to ask one of my crushes out only to be denied in some way or another. This Friday, however, would be different. This time, it was not a date I sought, but poundage. Last night, I’d made it to level 3. It was possible that I’d be at level 4 with a new hex to cast by Saturday – if certain criteria were met.

               With classes out of the way, I was back in my room tying the laces on my outdoor boots as I stared longingly at the crates of bottled water I’d half-hidden in my closet. It was almost time for me to head down to the barn and take care of the horses, but first I wanted to check my new chart.

               Now that my boots were on, I turned my attention to my laptop and opened the new excel file I’d created. My fattening app only showed me the bare minimum of data, and as an aspiring economics major, I couldn’t resist creating some tables to calculate things I was curious about.

               I grinned to myself as I clicked the file named “Bank of England.” Ever since Ms. Buxley caught my Freudian Slip when I substituted Canadian Dollars for Pounds, I decided to roll with it. After all, if anyone happened to somehow see this file, it would look completely normal. Indeed, I’d used little pound symbols everywhere.

               Now then, time to look at the first spreadsheet: a table of each person I’d “loaned” pounds to and what they “owed” me. From here it was easier for me to make the calculations for my second spreadsheet: a graph of my “net profit” every day. This was my true masterpiece, for the app did not show this data. From here, I could see the results of my efforts, see what worked and what didn’t, and make better “investment strategies.” This was what showed me that the numerous small loan strategy was working. With great satisfaction, I noted how my graph wiggled its way upwards as the days passed by. Over the past week, that graph had risen rapidly when I discovered the horse-feeding trick and rose slightly more with the water-bottle trick. I earned more pounds with each passing day. Most excellent.

               Perhaps I would add another spreadsheet for calculating how much time it took to earn each level-up tonight. Alas, it was time to feed the horses… and their riders.

 

               “Hey Mary, hey girls,” I said happily as I walked into the barn with a crate of water bottles.

               “Good afternoon Jason,” Mary frowned as she eyed the water bottles. “You’re late today.”

               “I am?” I said nonchalantly as I heaved the water onto the nearest flat surface. “It’s 3pm; I came here at the same time as yesterday.”

               “We ride right after lunch on Fridays,” one of the girls said with her hands on her hips.

               “Yeah Jason,” some other girl chimed in. “We’re counting on you.”

               “Anyone want water?” I asked hopefully. “I ended up with too much of it, see, so I brought some over.”

               “I’m good Jason.”

               “No thank you.”

               I shrugged. “Okay.”

               Mary folded her arms beneath the light swell of her b-cup breasts. “How did you get all this water?”

               “It’s a… long story,” I grinned nervously. I didn’t have a good cover story for this.

               “Whatever. We’re done riding today,” Mary inhaled deeply, polo shirt straining slightly over her small chest. She was smiling, though, which meant she was about to try to take advantage of me again. “But I’m going to cheer practice right now. If you want, you can take the water over to them.”

               “Really?” I smiled. “I mean, yeah. I’ll do that for you.”

               “I appreciate it,” Mary nodded. “You don’t mind hauling all that water, right?”

               “Nah, this is a good workout.”

               “I knew you wouldn’t mind. Alright, follow me.”

 

               “You know, I had no idea you were a cheerleader too,” I said as we walked out of the woods toward the sports field.

               “I’m one of the backups,” Mary explained as I followed her slender hips clothed in skintight breeches. “If anyone gets tired or injured, I step in place.”

               “Interesting,” I hefted my crate to adjust my grip. “So which position do you train for? In the pyramid, I mean.”

               “I’m not part of the pyramid,” she huffed, exhausted with my small talk.

               “Oh… hang on. I thought you always trained on the football field? Why are we walking into the sports building?”

               “Because we’re going to the locker room. We have to change into our uniforms, after all.”

               “Oh, I get it!” I laughed. “But I don’t think I can, like, go into the girls locker room.”

               “Of course not. You can just leave the water on the nearest counter.”

               “Yeah, okay. It’s too bad there’s no men’s locker room at this girls’ college.”

               “Why would you even need one? You don’t play sports.”

               “Okay, but one: I can’t play sports because there’s no men’s teams, and two: I still go to the gym every once in a while. At this point, I have to change in my room.”

               “I don’t see any problem with that,” Mary said as she opened the door to the sports building and waltzed in. She didn’t hold the door open, so I had to catch it with my extended foot and shuffle myself in without dropping the crate.

               “There usually isn’t a problem,” I grunted as I followed her across the lobby past the rock-climbing wall and front desk. “Unless it’s raining outside.”

               “Right,” Mary stopped in front of the locker room and turned to face me. “You can leave those on that table there,” she pointed at a wooden table by the wall being used for flyers and posters for college clubs and volunteer opportunities.

               “Cool,” I placed the crate on the most open part of the table and stretched the burn out of my arms.

               “Alright then. Thank you Jason, bye!”

               And with that, Mary slid into the locker room. She didn’t open the door all the way because she didn’t want me to peek inside, but the sound of gossiping girls and steaming showers flooded my ears before they were muffled by the door shutting again.

               I smiled to myself and rubbed my hands. “They’re all in there,” I muttered quietly, so the girl at the front desk couldn’t hear. “Good… let’s arrange these for them…”

               One by one, I plucked the water bottles out of the plastic and arranged them on the table like bowling pins. Next, I took the plastic wrapping and carried it to the front desk.

               “Excuse me,” I smiled at the girl working there. “Do you have a trash can there?”

               She was a small, frail little thing with straight, brown hair and large glasses. She stared up from her study material and pushed her glasses up her thin nose with child-like hands.

               “Um… yes,” she reached for my trash. “Let me take that.”

               Now to start a conversation with her to give me an excuse to be there. “Hang on, don’t we have a class together with Ms. Buxley?”

               “Uh huh,” she smiled shyly.

               “I barely recognized you! Did you do something with your hair?”

               “Oh, nothing like that. You just sit in the front row, so you don’t see everyone.”

               “Yeah, it’s a bad habit of mine.”

               Her soft voice fluttered with light laughter. “It’s not. You can sit anywhere you want.”

               “So do you happen to be reading next week’s material right now? I see you’re studying.”

               “I haven’t gotten to it. I’m trying to figure out what to wright my research paper on…”

               And so it went. The conversation was light, but very enjoyable for me since most of the girls were crazy in some way or another. In fact, I started wondering if it wouldn’t hurt to ask her if she wanted to study together, maybe even try and date her? But then I reminded myself that I was in a matrix and there had to be something wrong with her. In any case, my real intent was to keep an eye on my water bottles.

               The cheerleading team was filtering out of the locker room now, dressed in their purple bare-midriff uniforms with black and white trim. As I stole glances in their direction, I was surprised with how many water bottles were guzzled-down as they chatted away at each other.

               The front-desk girl gave me a look. She’d caught me staring, so I had to make it less weird.

               “What do you think of the cheerleading captain?” I asked.

               “Brooke? She’s a drama queen,” she huffed.

               “You mean a queen bee?” I laughed.

               “That too. I mean, look at her! Look how she made her blonde hair all wavy and combed it so it goes over her shoulder like that. She spends an hour in front of the mirror doing makeup every day.”

               “An hour?”

               “Every day! I know because we have communal bathrooms in my dorm on every floor. We live on the same floor, right? And, like, I just needed to brush my teeth in the morning. So I turned on the sink next to her and she just glares at me. She told me to stop splashing water on her ‘foundation.’”

               “Why am I not surprised by that?”

               “Honestly, I just go up a floor and use that bathroom instead. She is just impossible…”

               A sharp whistle blew behind me and I flinched. Looking behind me, I locked eyes with Ms. Zoltan, coach of the cheer squad and one of the most intimidating women I’ve ever met. Zoltan stood with the whistle between her lips with a clipboard tucked between her arm and chest. Beneath loose, white gym clothes, muscles coiled thickly around every limb, bone, and joint. Her dark skin shone with sweat from her daily lunchtime workout. Standing somewhere over six feet, I had no doubt she played basketball in her college days; it made her muscled frame look lean and quick. Her short, curly black hair was twisted into ropes that framed a face with high cheekbones and cold, brown eyes.

               “Break time’s over girls!” she barked, letting her whistle fall from her lips and hang on a necklace just over her modest B-cup cleavage. “Today’s PE session! Let’s knock it out!”

               The cheerleaders were obviously used to their coach’s personality, for their conversations continued even as they walked towards the basketball court.

               “Goddamn,” I remarked when Zoltan was far enough away for me to be safe again.

               “Isn’t she amazing?” Desk Girl asked. “How does she coach cheerleading, basketball, and teach weightlifting class while getting so strong in the meantime?”

               “You said getting strong? Like, she was smaller?”

               “I’ve worked here every other workday since the semester started and she’s added, like, fifteen pounds of muscle. I wish I had time to do it.”

               “What’s your name, by the way?” I asked her casually.

               “Me? I’m Emily,” she held her hand out.

               “I’m uh… Jason,” I shook her hand. “But you probably knew that since –”

               “You’re the only boy on campus?”

               “—since everyone calls me Stalker… oh! Yeah, I guess.”

               “Aw, don’t stress what those sorority girls call you,” Emily smiled reassuringly. “You haven’t actually stalked anyone. Everyone who knows you knows that.”

               I cringed. “It’s a terrible reputation. I’m trying to fix it.”

               “Don’t worry about it! You’re a great person, Jason. You’re really smart, you know.”

               “Oh. Yeah…” I sighed. Yet another girl who was going to mention how smart I was and how someday I’d find someone to love, but not them. I pulled my phone out to check my progress towards level 4.

               “You probably don’t even realize it, but you have a lot of talents Jason. That’s what this whole college experience is all about! We’re finally adults and we’re here to find out what we can do with our skills. Someday you’re going to realize what your hidden talent is and you’ll accomplish big things – huge things. Jason? Jason, you listening?”

               I stared at my phone with bulging eyes. I was less than half a pound away from reaching level 4! Was all that water really that heavy? I should’ve weighed it to be sure…

               “Sorry,” I laughed. “Ms. Buxley told me to silence my phone the other day and I just realized I had all these notifications here. I wasn’t ignoring you on purpose, I promise.”

               “Oh, I see.”

               “By the way, do you want a…” I looked at the table and saw that there was no water left. “Uh… do you want a snack? I could get you something…”

               “I already got my snack,” Emily patted a sandwich wrapped in plastic. “But thank you.”

               “Alright then. Well… I think I’ll steal a glance at Zoltan and then head on my way. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow?”

               “Of course. Bye! Wait... you're going to what?”

[>_< 0_0]

11 hours ago, swahilimonkfish said:

This story just keeps evolving. Emily stressing huge things seems suspicious to me. But you're juggling such an intimidating ensemble really well, just looking forward to Jason actually getting stuck in and helping gains gain weight properly. Not just feeding girls water and creating BBHs (big beautiful horses)

There’s lots of kinds of BBH’s, but I’m a fan of “pears.” 👌🔥

[>_< 0_0]

1 hour ago, greinskyn said:

Yay!  I got my computer back!  Haven't been able to check in since February 14th!  Visited the coast completely tech free!  Fun, but couldn't shake that itch you can't scratch feeling...

I'm enjoying how the story has progressed.  Still a little unsure about the methodology, but its the results that count.

Jason is the perfect mixture of innocence and scheme-meister that you just can't help but root for.

The way you use time honored (Cliched) antagonists... and soon-to-be victims makes the idea appear fresh and keeps me on the edge of my seat.  I can just imagine the head cheerleader sitting down for her hour-long make-up session only to find fuller cheeks and a fold under her chin.  That's just my imagination talking, but your story really DOES inspire some creative speculation.

Got a good laugh from the "Pound" slip-up too!

Many thanks!

Nice insights! I'm writing another chapter as soon as I'm out of the woods (I'm literally in the woods 😫)

[>_< 0_0]

5 hours ago, xandercroft said:

The cheese hint has me pondering.  Any" lifeforms can be fed but how small can we go?  Cheese is made by a bacterial process so does a pound of cheese count as a pound of something fed?  What about plants?  Does watering the grass or a tree or bamboo (something that grows fast) count ?  And what if you feed the grass to ummm, those grasshopper farms, then chickens, then they produce eggs, which are sold to buy more farm supply....

Also what about light as feeding?  Since this is sort of a devil involvement story, perhaps the goal of the evil computer program is to subvert the light itself and therefore the life cycle of the world and food chain?  

Nah, the "feeding" effect doesn't "stack" like that. Nice ideas though. I'm going to do my best to post another chapter tomorrow 🙄

[>_< 0_0]

And now, ladies and gentlemen, we are faced with the question of whether Jason is a genius, and idiot, or both.

Chapter Nine

               True to my word, I crept into the frame of the double doors that led to the basketball court. Apparently, the cheer squad was exercising inside today. Sure enough, they were all stretched-out on the floor in a horseshoe formation facing their fearsome coach, who stood before one of the hoops with one hand on her muscled hip and another wrapped around her clipboard. Good. That meant the cheerleaders weren’t looking in my direction and standing here wasn’t as awkward as it would’ve been.

               I checked my app to see if any progress was made. Nothing. I winced and bowed my knees with anticipation. If only one of the horses did its job and pissed like a racehorse! It would be happening any second now, but it had to happen before the cheer squad spotted me peeping at them! Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to take vengeance upon these proud cheerleaders!

               Now then, who exactly should I hex? It was so tempting to hex Mary the Manipulator or Brooke the Queen Bitch, but I stopped myself. If girls I knew and hated all started gaining weight, that risked me being found out. After all, how suspicious would it be if they swelled-up suddenly and I was nearby? I already got blamed for everything, so it wouldn’t be long before I got found out. No! I had to hex strangers – and I had to hex them in such a way that their weight gain was slow and steady, not quick and shocking. That way, no one would get too suspicious. Then again, I only got so many hexes, so I needed to make sure that this next hex would be cast for maximum effect.

               “Now push your legs in and stretch forward!” Zoltan’s voice echoed off the walls. “Reach your toes – you will reach your toes, if not today than by the end of the – Lindsay, don’t just hold your knees!”

               I eyed the dark-skinned coach with piqued interest. Maybe she could be the one I hexed. For one thing, she didn’t know me. For another, she looked the perfect candidate for hex number two. After all, as the coach of the cheerleading team, she was in charge of keeping them in shape. What would happen if she herself started getting fat? Could that somehow impact the training – and waistlines – of the cheer squad? The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to find out! Yes, I was going to do this as soon as I could. How close was I to level 4 now?

               I brought my phone out and unlocked the screen. Yes! One of the horses had finally done it! I was primed and ready for another hex!

               I eyed Zoltan’s impressive physique from afar. Her white T-shirt didn’t quite cover her waist, and the outline of her rock-hard abs were clearly visible. I inhaled a ragged breath to stifle my eagerness and slow my pounding heart. I needed to cast a subtle hex this time. My mind chewed thoughtfully on the problem for one long moment. Then I had it.

               Zoltan will gain weight equal to the weight she makes the cheer squad lose.

               I pointed my ringed, little finger straight across the basketball court towards her shallow naval and grinned maniacally to myself. What a brilliant hex! So subtle yet so consequential! So ironic and symbolic even! With satisfaction, I looked at my phone and saw a new side mission added to the fattening app: Tracey Zoltan. Tracey? Huh. Awful cute for an Amazonian warrior like her…

               “Hey…”

               I twisted myself back towards the faint voice. Emily had left the front desk to see what I was up to! I hastily stowed my phone back into my pocket and did my best to play it cool.

               “Emily, check this out,” I said as I pointed eagerly in Zoltan’s direction. “They can touch their toes! How long did it take them to learn that?”

               “Only a month,” Emily stood by me to gawk at the cheer squad. I had successfully kept my intents secret! Better yet, it wasn’t as weird to stare at the cheer squad if another girl was doing it with me.

               “Are you serious?” I engaged her into the conversation, acutely aware that if the conversation stopped, she might leave. “It only took them a month to stretch that far?”

               “I know, right?” Emily folded her arms and sighed. “She’s amazing.”

               This made me frown slightly. Was she a lesbian? Was that what would keep me from properly loving her? No matter. “So, like, have you ever thought of being a cheerleader?”

               Emily rolled her eyes. “Of course… but with Brooke as team captain? Hell no. It’s bad enough living in the same dorm as her! Can you imagine what it would be like sharing a locker room?”

               “Not… I haven’t thought of that, but yeah.”

               Emily laughed. “You dork!”

               “Well I don’t know what happens in there! Not really. Men’s locker rooms are full of naked dudes towel-whipping each other, but I’m guessing the girl’s locker rooms are different.”

               “What’s towel-whipping?”

               “Oh, uh… hm… basically, it’s what happened to me in high school. It stings. A lot.”

               “Oh my god,” Emily stretched the last word to show she was interested (or something).

               But I didn’t want to remember those dark times, I wanted to speculate on Zoltan. What if she was gaining this very moment? I managed to pull my phone out and check the weight listed under her name: 165.23 pounds. Damn! What a woman! Now then, when people lose weight during a workout, where does the weight go? Do they breathe it out? Doubtful. Did some weight get converted into energy? Of course, but that wasn’t a lot. That left one more factor: sweating. That would be how the cheerleaders lost weight – and piled it onto Zoltan’s long, supple frame.

               “So you’ve been around when they do PE before, right?” I asked casually. “Are they going to do actual PE or are they just going to stretch the whole time?”

               “Why do you ask?”

               “Because I was thinking if they got to being able to stretch so far in so little time, maybe that’s what PE is for them – the stretching, that is.”

               “Oh no,” Emily shook her head with a knowing grin. “They go hard on PE. Like, every Friday is PE for them.”

               “I guess that’s why they’re inside this time?”

               “Yeah. Plus, it’s air-conditioned in here, so they won’t sweat as much.”

               “Ah,” I said. That was a pity. Then again… “I wonder how much sweat they’ll squeeze out in this session.”

               “Um, ew? Why?”

               “It’s kind of a weird question, isn’t it? I’m studying economics, see, so I’m number-crunching all the time. Now I just go around and just wonder about random math problems like this. You think I can’t solve it?”

               “I dunno. Can you?” she sounded vaguely interested.

               “Let’s figure it out then!” I flinched as Zoltan blew her whistle and had the cheer squad running laps around the court. “First we need to know how long the PE session is. Emily?”

               “Huh? Oh, it lasts about an hour.”

               “Okay, now we need to google how much someone usually sweats when they’re working-out for an hour. So I use my trusty friend Google here… and type in ‘how much sweat from an hour workout’… and it says 0.8 litres. Okay… not sure how much a litre is, but whatever. Now we multiply that by the number of cheerleaders. How many are there?”

               “Um… fifteen? I think?”

               “Alright… so 0.8 times 15 gives us uh… 12 litres. Now I google how much that is in pounds and… oh. Oh…”

               “What?”

               “Uh…” I felt the blood drain from my face. “Nothing! Nothing…”

               “How much is it?”

               “It’s uh… 26.2 pounds.”

               “Wow!” Emily’s eyes widened with appreciation. “Really? That’s so much!”

               “Yeah,” I said quietly as a chill ran down my spine.

               “That’s, like, as heavy as a two-year-old baby!”

               “Did you say that they’re doing PE in here because it’s air conditioned? That probably means they’ll sweat less than that, right?”

               “I guess?”

               “Okay then…”

               “Don’t worry about it Jason! That was very impressive math skills. I’m sure it’s pretty accurate.”

               “I hope not… I mean, I hope people don’t sweat that much. That would just be too much.”

               Emily laughed and we watched the cheerleaders go through the full spectrum of movement a human body can handle. Jumping-jacks, push-ups, burpees, and even a few cartwheels were a few examples of what we saw from the doorway. But as the cheer squad put ninjas to shame, I stared nervously towards Zoltan. Was it just me, or did her abs look a little softer? Damn it, she was too far away for me to tell! I glanced at my watch. It had been nearly half an hour since they started PE. Maybe they weren’t going to sweat so much after all…

               And then Zoltan excused herself from the cheer squad. With long, determined strides, she quickly crossed the basketball stadium as I stared at her slightly-jiggling tits with petrified horror. It’s not like I could leave at this point – not with her staring at me as she approached.

               Now she was towering over me and I felt my bravery shrivel further into the deepest crevice of my being. I stared up into her narrowed eyes and did my best not to accidently stare anywhere else.

               “How are you today, Jason?” she asked sweetly.

               “H-hi… good morning Ms. Zoltan,” I could barely blink. Oh, and it was evening now. Damn it! Idiot!

               “You two got anything planned this Friday?” she nodded at Emily with an affectionate smile.

               “Oh no… nothing like that,” I shook my head vigorously. “I mean, I just met her and we were… we were talking about homework and doing math calculations.”

               Zoltan grinned at the floor briefly, bemused by my awkwardness. “You know, you won’t be lucky if you don’t try. So you might as well try.”

               “Speaking of trying…” I stopped when she gave me her whole attention. Shit, what was I going to say? Time to wing it. “So… I was talking to Mary – she’s one of the cheerleaders…”

               “Yes.”

               “And I was telling her how I can’t play sports because there’s no men’s teams, obviously… and then Emily said you teach weightlifting and… basically, I was wondering if it was too late to… to get into that class? To lift weights?”

               Zoltan closed her eyes and nodded, smiling to herself. “Yes, it’s too late to enter that class for grade.”

               “Oh.”

               “But that doesn’t mean you can’t go to the gym on your own. How about this: I’m in the gym for a couple hours after eleven am every day. You can find me there and ask questions as you work out. Sound good?” Her eyes flared as she uttered the last sentence, indicating that she was ending the conversation.

               “Yeah. I mean yes.”

               “Good. Alright Jason – Emily. Good luck!”

               Just like that, she walked away towards the bathroom. I couldn’t help but glance at her ass for half a second. It was already big before, but was it slightly bigger? Maybe. At least she was taking a break from making the cheer squad exercise. Now then, on to other business…

               “So…” I shot a good-natured grin towards Emily. “You want to eat breakfast tomorrow?”

               To my surprise and mounting delight, she nodded. “Sure.”

               It was too good to be true! “With me, I mean.”

               “Yeah, I’ll go. I was going anyway.”

               Stifling an urge to hug my arms around her little shoulders, I managed to tone myself down enough to play it cool again. “Alright then! I’ll be heading into the chowhall around eight-ish tomorrow morning. I guess I’ll see you there? Excellent… I gotta go down to my room and study.”

               “Yeah, same,” Emily smiled.

               “Okay then. Bye Emily!”

               With that, I left the sports building feeling like I’d just won the lottery. Had a girl really told me she’d hang out with me? That was basically a date if there ever was one! Maybe there were some good girls in this matrix-island after all! After all, I’d never be lucky if I didn’t try, so what did I have to lose?

[>_< 0_0]

20 hours ago, scl04 said:

Well... that happened XD, at least it doesn't seem that she got suspicious and even offered to train Jason in her spare time so he'll be able to see her progress more closely... I would say that this was a big win for him at the end of the day :3.

Oh yes! An excellent win hehe

13 hours ago, swahilimonkfish said:

Jason's adorable and frustrating at the same time; Zoltan is going to end up an absolute unit; Emily seems suspiciously nice; and I'm relieved that Jason managed to go a whole chapter without being sniggered at. For them reasons - best chapter yet

A unit? A metric unit? What size of unit? Battalion? Regiment? Hmm

[>_< 0_0]

2 hours ago, swahilimonkfish said:

Like this, but, y'know, as a humanoid lady-woman

[>_< 0_0]

This part's rather long, but there wasn't a good way to split it into equal servings, so I just stuffed the whole thing into one chapter 😗

Chapter Ten

               I sprung out of bed Saturday morning at the early hour of six thirty. There was nothing to do today except eat breakfast with Emily, but it had me more excited than any other “date” I had ever had. Was my mind playing games, or did she seem genuinely interested in me? So what if I was trapped in some damn matrix? Maybe there were a few girls who weren’t included in the hate-Jason-club? I had to figure this out – and if she did hate me, at least I’d be able to feed her breakfast.

               So after a rare morning shower, a good shave, and a lucky dabbing of my cologne, I left my room and headed for the chow hall just in time to be ten minutes early. When I reached the stairs, I could hardly believe my eyes – she was waiting for me! She clung a good-sized book to her chest as I approached and her plain, brown eyes lit-up with polite acknowledgement of my arrival, and she waved her small fingers in my direction.

               “You show-up early too?” I asked.

               “I don’t really like crowds,” Emily replied quietly.

               “I can relate,” I replied, shoving my hands into my pockets. “Every time I’m in a crowd around here, I get these weird looks. I get the feeling people don’t like me for some reason.”

               “Who cares what they think,” she said, smiling slightly at the floor.

               We small-talked until the chow hall opened. It was slow, sporadic conversation, but I was overjoyed with the experience of being with someone who seemed to genuinely like me. As I sat at the table and handed Emily her plate of food, I caught myself thinking if she could be the one. I shook my head. Was ten minutes of gossip all it took to get me hot and flustered? It was way too soon to think about relationships – but I could still daydream about it.

               I looked up from my plate and stole a glance at Emily as she cut her food. She wasn’t ugly, but she did look rather plain wearing a loose, wool sweater. It didn’t look like she did anything special with her hair or skin either. All in all, she wasn’t someone I would crush on, but then again, did looks really matter? Of course not! What mattered is she liked me! I think she liked me…

               “What are you thinking Jason?” she asked.

               “Lots of things,” I said cautiously. “My brain’s like a computer with a bunch of tabs open.”

               “Hm,” Emily chewed thoughtfully. “That’s pretty funny.”

               “I guess. It’s true though.”

               “Interesting. So what’s that first tab thinking?”

               “About you, of course,” I replied quickly. “I mean… you have my utmost attention and all…”

               “And what’s the second tab thinking?”

               “Uh… it’s thinking about what to do once we’re done eating.”

               “Huh… what are you doing after this?”

               I stopped eating and sort-of spaced-out. Was she asking me out, or was she just conversating? I had to plan my next move carefully.

               “Why do you ask?”

               “I can’t say,” Emily shrugged. “I was just wondering.”

               What a cryptic answer. I still had no idea what she wanted. But then again, didn’t Zoltan say I might as well try? Something like that.

               “Well, I don’t hang out with that many people, so I go on long walks.”

               Emily’s eyes lit up. “Really? I like doing that too! Where are you going?”

               “I was thinking of going down the beach.”

               “How nice!”

               There was a long pregnant pause. “You can come. If you want.”

               “Sure. I’d love to.”

 

               Honestly, I was getting pretty nervous. For months – years if you counted high school – I had fantasized taking a girl out one-on-one. Just me and my girl on an intimate stroll, reminiscing about the scenery and each other. But now, with Emily walking to my left, I found myself almost speechless. I hadn’t actually planned what to do once something like this happened. This was uncharted territory.

               The sun did its best to shine through heavy, morning fog as we passed under the Kappa Omega lighthouse. The high tide lapped at the edges of the cliff’s arch, and Emily dodged a particularly large sweep of salty ocean water by running behind me until she was by my right shoulder. I eyed her nervously; she was a mere six inches from my body.

               “I’ve never been down here before,” she said happily, eyes wide with wonder.

               “I like this part of the island,” I said with my hands in my pockets. Hermit crabs did their best to sidestep our imposing shadows before shrinking into their shells. “Not many people bother to walk this far down the beach, so I can sit and study alone.”

               “It’s beautiful,” Emily beamed. “But how can you concentrate sitting down on the beach?”

               “I dragged a log out of the woods and sit on that,” I looked up and withdrew a hand from my pocket to point ahead. “You can see it from here, see? Right by the mouth of Beaverdam Creek.”

               “There? It looks so peaceful!”

               “Want to sit on it for a little while?”

               “I don’t mind. Not at all.”

               “It’s not the most exciting thing to do, but –”

               “I said I didn’t mind, didn’t I? Well? Come on!”

               Emily didn’t run, but she did quicken her pace. With a nervous breath, I followed her. By the time I had caught up, she was standing by the mouth of the creek with her phone out.

               “What are you doing?”

               “Just taking a picture.”

               “Ah. Hopefully no one else decides to come here.”

               “Don’t worry,” Emily laughed light-heartedly. “I don’t use social media; I’m just taking a picture for myself. Maybe I’ll print it out and post it in my dorm room? It really is beautiful here.”

               “Isn’t it? Ever since I came to this spot, I knew it was special. There’s something different about this place.”

               “How so?”

               “Well, it’s hard for me to describe, but when I study here, even though no one else comes here, I never feel alone. Maybe it’s all the animals running around in the woods behind me, maybe it’s because I’m talking to myself all the time, but whatever it is, I don’t mind it.”

               Emily turned from the creek to look at me over her shoulder, hair catching on the neck of her sweater. “I don’t mind it either.”

               Something in my brain finally clicked. She liked me. She enjoyed being with me – alone – and if there was any moment that I was allowed to touch her, now was my moment, and I had to do it before my brain thought of an excuse to not make a move.

               I walked to her side, eyes glued to the creek, and hesitantly touched her shoulder with three shuddering fingers.

               Emily twisted into me and grabbed my face.

               “Emily what are you –”

               Her lips closed on my mouth as her arms snaked around my back. With mounting alarm, I felt her tongue writhe against my teeth. I panicked and pushed myself away, tripping onto my back. What was going on?

               When I gazed upwards, Emily’s hand was masking her eyes as her mouth stretched into a slender grin. She grabbed her glasses and tossed them into my lap. Her brown pupils had turned a glowing, neon pink.

               “Hey babe,” her voice dragged itself through the full length of her throat. “Miss me?” her arms crossed over her torso and peeled her sweater up over her head. Thick, jiggling boobs poured out, far bigger than I’d imagined ten seconds ago.

               “What’s going on?” I asked as she tossed the sweater at my face. “What are you doing?”

               “What, you don’t recognize me? Maybe a little more skin will jog your memory…” she unzipped her jeans and pried-open the button before sliding them sensually past her smooth, gyrating hips. As an afterthought, she kicked her shoes at me.

               “You’re… you’re not really Emily are you?” I asked as she stood above me with her hands on her hips. Nothing hid her silky skin from my eyes save for modest, brown lingerie.

               “You don’t think so?” she flicked her hair behind her shoulder with a flourish of her fingers. “I suppose I’m not – but her body suits me, don’t you think? Well? Are you going to get up, or do I have to get on top of you?”

               Hastily, I scrambled to my feet. She smirked as I blushed.

               “Don’t be shy,” she grinned. “I’m certainly not.”

               “Are you… the girl texting me?”

               “Mm… you could say that –” suddenly, her tits jumped against her bra, jostling and twitching as if alive. “Get down girls!” she slapped them with one hand while holding them with the other. “Behave!”

               “What was that?” I frowned.

               “Don’t worry about it,” she slowly regained her posture, sighing deeply. “Look: I know you have a lot of questions about what’s happening… why it’s happening – and I wish I could spend an intimate night with you to whisper it all in your ear, but all in good time. Just relax, loosen-up, and listen closely…”

               She took a step closer and wrapped her arm gently around my back. I eyed her breasts nervously as they rested in their cups, inches from my chest.

               “You’ve done very well,” she whispered, tracing a slender finger over my lips. “Better than I ever imagined…” without warning, she gave my cheek a long lick with her tongue. I shuddered as she withdrew with a lustful grin. “You have a long, hard journey ahead of you, but don’t give up. Soon we can be together again, and all will be as it should be.”

               “Wait,” I frowned in her embrace. “Again?”

               “I don’t have much time,” she brushed my forehead lovingly. “Just relax, and listen…”

               I felt her thigh rub against my side and couldn’t help but glance down past her cleavage towards it. Everything in this moment was so frightening – repulsive even – and yet I couldn’t back away. The more this unfamiliar terror gripped my heart, the more enthralled I became. She had me completely in her power. Was this arousal?

               “It’s time to take things up a notch,” I could feel her hot breath in my ear as she said it. “You’ve earned it –”

               Her hips convulsed violently as if a taser had been shoved into her womb.

               “Fucking… shit! Stop! Down! Sit!” she slapped her ass furiously as it did its best to twerk free of her panties.

               “Are you alright?” I asked.

               “Yes,” she forced a smile, breasts quivering briefly before lying still. “Don’t worry about it; they’re just happy to see you. Anyway…”

               “Yes?”

               “Take this,” she grabbed a ring from her index finger and twisted it off. She kissed it with puckered lips before handing it to me with a smile.

               I held it between thumb and finger curiously. It was without a doubt a woman’s ring, being thin and lacey, but had no jewels to speak of.

               “Slip it on,” she folded her arms under her breasts and boosted them up an inch.

               I stole a glance at her boobs nervously before turning my attention back to the ring. She’d pulled it off her index finger, so I slipped it onto the inner knuckle of my own left index. Now I had two rings on one hand.

               “This is the Feasting Ring,” she said. “It will allow you to create any food item your heart desires… and it shall make whoever consumes it gain however much weight you please – but remember: for every pound is loaded into such food, a pound shall be taken from your Pounds Bar. All you have to do is this: picture the food in your mind, imagine where it shall appear, and point with your ringed-finger. It will be so. Well?” she held her hand out, palm up. “I’m hungry.”

               With a deep breath, I eyed her palm. Her neon-pink eyes watched me expectantly. Instinctually, I recalled my account balance: about 64 pounds. I supposed I could spare one… no, five pounds. The first food that came to mind was a Girl Scout’s Mint Cookie. I pointed at her palm –

               A subtle cloud of dust traced itself from my finger into her palm. The cookie formed itself in all its humble glory, and her fingers closed around it like it was a precious coin.

She smiled coyly. “Only five pounds?” she slid into my arms, eyes closed. “Hold me,” she clasped my hands closely and placed one on her slender abs and another on the slight curve of her glutes.

“Your hands are cold,” she said as she held the cookie close to her mouth.

“Sorry?”

“Don’t care. And don’t let go either.”

With a mischievous grin, she slipped the cookie into her mouth and chewed it with a faint smile. In spite of my extreme discomfort, I flattened my palms against her warm skin. It felt wrong to hold a woman like this, even if she’d put my hands on her. Wait… was I a coward?

I felt her stomach loosen slightly and my breath caught in my throat. My fingers on her ass flinched, and I felt them sink slightly into flesh that was softer than it had been.

“You feel that?” she rubbed my arm gently. “Now you can use this on everyone… I wish I could stay, but I have to leave you again.”

“Wait! Why are you doing this? What’s going on? Why is –”

“Boy, you can have one question, and then I leave again.”

“What’s your name?”

“Me? My name? Wouldn’t you rather know yours?”

I shuddered when she said that. This whole situation I’d found myself in was far greater than I thought. I felt like a swimmer suddenly realizing the lake he’s in is a mile deep. But I steadied myself with a long breath. I knew my name; I was Jason. That was good enough for me.

“What do I call you?” I repeated.

“You can call me Sucky,” Sucky tugged at her bra cups to readjust the position of her slightly larger breasts. “Now then, see you around – oh, and I’d suggest running away.”

“Why?” I asked dumbly.

Sucky’s eyes faded back to brown like coals plucked from a furnace. Her entire demeanour changed instantly. Her eyes widened and she shrivelled modestly into herself. Her arms wrapped around her body.

“What is…” her voice trembled. Then she looked at me with a panic. “What just happened!?”

“Emily?” I backed away. “Is that… are you…?”

“What did you do to me!?” she wailed.

“I didn’t do anything! Nothing!”

“Go!” she screamed. “Get away from me!”

In a full panic, I did the only thing that made sense to my addled, overloaded brain: I ran for the treeline with a mad dash. Branches slapped my face and scratched my skin, but I never stopped, and I never looked back.

[>_< 0_0]

1 hour ago, greinskyn said:

So Jason could be a being of significance?  Wow...  really makes you curious about the backstory!  Well, maybe not you... but me, us, WE, the readers.

A feasting ring? Cool!  Jason can make the most innocent-looking food into a caloric powerhouse.  So much for making the "Smart" choice. 

Do the gains have to be instantaneous from the food?  Or can the time be spread out into minutes and hours?  Seems like he would have a lot more opportunities if the eater didn't link the food to the gain.

This will require some extensive, intimate experimentation 😈

On 3/12/2019 at 1:04 PM, swahilimonkfish said:

Holy motherforking shirtballs! This a ripper of a mind-tripper! I have so many questions, but most of them can be reduced to variations of WTF? In a very good way, as you said, it's great to read a WG story where you have no idea what's gonna happen next. And I really have no idea what's going to happen next.

This is just the tip of one massive, treacherous iceberg— the kind of iceberg that flips and tosses itself without warning ⚠️