Chapter 2 - part two

-- 2.1 --

At 6:30 one Monday morning, Sarah awoke to the sounds of her rumbling belly. She had barely eaten for two whole days, and she was starving. After many weeks of half-hearted diet-planning and failed attempts to cut back on snacking, she finally had made up her mind to quit junk food cold turkey. And what better way to re-calibrate her eating habits and self-discipline than through a weekend of fasting. But the first thought that popped into her mind this morning was doughnuts. Her stomach groaned loudly. She could just taste those freshly baked, wonderfully warm confections from the shop down the street...jelly, chocolate, creme-filled, glazed. She chided herself aloud, "NO! No doughnuts! Only healthy food from now on!"

Sarah had resolved to make a new start. She was going to get out of the apartment more often, get back in shape, find a new job, get her life back on track. She had decided that her weight gain was just the physical manifestation of the bad luck that had plagued her for the last few months. Now she was ready to get on with her life. She figured that once she started moving forward with her plans, the extra pounds would gradually disappear, and with hard work and a strong will, she'd soon be restored to her old self.

After a few moments of lying around and formulating a mental itinerary for the day, Sarah rolled herself out of bed and headed for the shower. Ever since that humiliating moment weeks earlier when she had burst out of her shorts, Sarah felt every pound of her weight. Now, every time she showered, she felt hyper-aware of her enlargement. As the water cascaded over every inch and bulge of her body, Sarah lathered herself up and felt squishy layers of fat where there once had been toned muscle. She wasn't used to this feeling; she felt like a stranger in this overweight body of hers.

After she had stepped out of the shower and toweled herself down, she studied her figure in the mirror and clicked her tongue despairingly at the corpulent version of herself that she saw reflected back at her. She turned to the side and examined herself in profile. It struck Sarah that her ass stuck out like a giant mushroom, her tits looked as though she should be nursing quadruplets, and her stomach pooched out like a ball of dough. She grabbed her lower abdomen with both hands and squeezed a ring of blubber. "Oh god, I'm so fat," she sobbed. "Fat, fat, fat!"

She brushed her almond-blonde hair, realizing that she hadn't gotten it trimmed in a couple of months. She decided that she would let it grow until she lost some weight. Her old hairstyle, layered and medium-length, would now make her rounded face look much too wide. She could hardly believe how pudgy her cheeks were now, and when she tilted her head slightly downwards, her double chin was clearly visible in the mirror. Sarah sighed loudly. "I have to get thin again, that's all there is to it," she said to her reflection. From the looks of herself now, she could barely believe that she was once petite. It would take quite a deal of effort to undo all the extra poundage.

Sarah got dressed in the baggiest clothes she could find--in other words, the only clothes that would fit her anymore. Today, those happened to be an over-sized white t-shirt and a pair of black sweatshorts. Then she grabbed a notepad and a pen from her desk, sat on her futon, and began to jot a list of all the things that she wanted to accomplish today: take a long walk, renew her gym membership, stop by the health food store. She also reluctantly added to the list a task that she was not so eager to do, but which needed doing: buying temporary "fat clothes."

But at this particular moment, she knew that she wouldn't have the energy to do any of those things until she got some breakfast in her stomach...something to tide her over. She decided to go to the supermarket to pick up a quart of orange juice and maybe some lowfat yogurt or Nutri-Grain bars. Unfortunately for Sarah, the doughnut shop happened to be en route to the supermarket. "I'm just going to drive right past," Sarah said. "Just drive right past." Even as she said this, she found herself making a left into the doughnut shop parking lot. Sarah thought she heard giggling in the back seat, but when she turned around to look, no one was there. "There I go again...hallucinating," she said. "Lack of food, probably."

She got out of the car and hesitated, wondering why she was so weak-willed as to stop at this place. She turned to get back in the car, but felt as though she were being pushed toward the door of the doughnut shop. She couldn't resist. "I'll just get a whole-wheat bagel," she assured herself.

But inside, Sarah was overwhelmed by the warm aroma of fresh baked goods that wafted around her. Her mouth watered as she got in line. When it was her turn to order, Sarah summoned all of her willpower. "Just a whole-wheat bagel, no cream cheese," she said to the cashier. A few seconds later, she recanted. "No...wait...better make it one of those Bavarian Cremes..."

Before she knew what she had done, Sarah had also picked out eleven other doughnuts, for an even dozen. She felt self-conscious; she was sure the cashier girl was thinking she was a total glutton. In fact, Sarah was sure the girl had a self-satisfied smirk on her face as she rang Sarah up. But Sarah knew that when she was thin, she probably would have done the same thing if she had seen someone making such a hog of herself. The cashier was dark-haired, tanned, slim, and pretty...probably a high-school girl working a summer job. Sarah wondered whether constantly being surrounded by all those fattening treats would eventually take its toll on the girl's figure. She wished she could somehow warn the cashier about the dangers of munching, but she realized that any comment like that would seem entirely out of place. Sarah just stood there quietly and paid, smiling nervously.

Sarah couldn't wait to get back to her apartment. It was all she could do not to tear into the box right in the car, but she restrained herself and drove home without touching the doughnuts. She had forgotten completely about the "healthy breakfast" that she had intended to buy at the supermarket.