chapter 3 back and forth

Maggie was sitting at her computer once again, wasting away another Friday night. She typed "weight gain problems" in to the search engine, continuing her nightly search for something that could help her get out of her funk. She grabbing another cookie from the box on her desk and washed it down with a sip from her bottled water as she skimmed the results for something helpful. She had vowed to start dieting again after that awkward evening with Luke, but that went nowhere fast as she always found some way to talk herself out of it. She hated how little willpower she had and wondered how she ever kept up with the training routines of the cheerleading squad.

As she looked over the familiar search results, her phone buzzed on the desk. She knew it was from Luke before she even read the text. "I know I keep asking but I really want to see you again," it read, though she put the phone back on the desk without reading further. It had been almost two weeks since they met at the bar, and he had texted her almost every day since even though she never responded.

She was still confused about her feelings from that night. Though she was embarrassed by the way things turned out, she had to admit his touch felt nice. It was just... she was embarrassed to have another person feel how much her body had changed. In the days since that night she was beginning to realize there was no reason to be embarrassed around someone who actually liked the way she looked, but she was also hesitant to trust that line of thought, like maybe it was just another excuse to make her extra pounds acceptable rather than put in the work to lose them. She didn't know what to think anymore.

She continued to look over the search results, which were all things she had seen and read before. She was running out of new ways to describe her plight but was happy to see a few new results come up when she searched "weight gain growing girl." Thinking it may be helpful, Maggie clicked on a link to a woman's blog about coping with her own weight gain on a site called BBWsEverywhere.com, which seemed to be a place where fat women could talk to each other about their lives. The blogger - "bigmomma7849" - spoke of how she used to be a thin girl growing up in the 1970s who grew into the fat woman she is today. The post had a lot of comments, mostly praising her for loving herself no matter her size. Looking down at her stomach, Maggie wondered if she could ever grow to love her body as it was now.

Going back to her search results, Maggie came across a link to a Youtube video titled "belly talk" with a small preview picture of a girl in her bra with a hand on her bare belly. She looked somewhat slim, save for the round belly that stuck out in front of her. Thinking that this was perhaps a girl talking about being in a similar situation as herself, Maggie clicked on the link.

The video that came up was similar to the picture, with the same girl wearing the same clothes, but her belly was nearly flat as she stood before the camera, rotating back and forth to give different angles of herself. Maggie was about to close the window when the video went black and the words "10 minutes and a gallon of water later..." came up. When the video faded back in, the girl's belly was now bulging out, apparently filled heavily with a gallon of water if she was to be believed. She rubbed her full belly gently as she once again rotated herself from side to side, showing off different angles.

Maggie stared in stunned silence at how different the girl looked. With such a bulging belly on an otherwise thin physique, she looked like she was several months pregnant. It was then that the girl started talking about how big her belly was, and asking the viewers if they liked it. She spoke in a flirty whisper, the words oozing sex as they came out of her unseen mouth somewhere above the camera's frame. This seemed to be a turn on for her and those who left comments below the video.

Maggie watched the video a few more times, mesmerized by the change this girl had gone through in such a short period of time. Afterwards, she searched for other videos of girls stretching out their stomachs, or "water bloating" as she learned it was called. She was fascinated by how big some of the girls got their belly to look just by drinking water. As someone who was constantly trying to hide her stomach, she found it bizarre that these women were doing the opposite and giving themselves a big belly where there wasn't one before.

She reached for her bottle of water, but stopped short of bringing it to her lips. She felt a kind of stirring inside her, an excitement, as she judged the bottle to be about three-quarters full. She didn't know why, but these videos were so strangely intriguing to her and she found herself wondering... what would it be like? It was only water after all; not like it was loaded with calories or anything. After some hesitation she brought the bottle to her lips, pausing for another brief moment before tilting the bottle back and gulping down the water at a measured pace until she stopped suddenly, only to quickly begin again and continue until the bottle was empty. She put it back on the desk, trying to feel a difference inside her, but there wasn't much of one that she could tell besides the tingling in her from just having done something so... weird.

She was startled when her phone buzzed on the desk, having been so wrapped up in what was happening. Another text from Luke: "I'm sorry if I've been bothering you, but I loved our time together the other night," the message read. "If you do decide to give me another chance, you know where I live. I know we only met once, but you are a beautiful girl, and fun to be around. I hope you know that."

She placed the phone back on the desk near the empty bottle and ran a hand through her hair, feeling worse about not responding to him. It wasn't his fault so much as her own hang-ups about her body. He had been very kind about the way she looked after all, and he was certainly right about her needing to get over her insecurities. Finally someone who liked her for who she was and she was ignoring him... would it really be so bad to give him a chance? She liked him and the way he made her feel, plus he was a good-looking guy who she thought was out of her league until his, uh, "preferences" were revealed. It was just this stupid other thing in the way. Still, much like her issues getting motivated to diet or workout, she didn't know if she could go through with it.

She ran through all the thoughts in her head and finally reached back to the desk, her hand passing her phone to grab the empty water bottle. She threw the bottle out in the kitchen and quietly moved to the fridge to get another one, but inside she saw a near-empty gallon of milk. She paused for a moment but ultimately dumped the rest of the milk, rinsed out the container, and let the faucet run into it. As it filled more and more she felt that strange liveliness, imagining the increasing contents of the jug inside of her. It was so contradictory to everything about her, but nothing about her felt like it made sense anymore and she couldn't deny the feeling she'd gotten watching those videos. With the jug nearly full, she quietly went back up to her room, not feeling safe until the door was closed behind her. She couldn't believe she was doing this, and that was part of the strange thrill of it. She sat on the edge of her bed, nervous and excited as she held the heavy gallon in her hands. Finally she brought the jug to her lips and took in a few small gulps. It felt so weird to be doing this. She brought the jug away from her lips, looking at it and realizing she had barely made a dent in it. She chugged some more, feeling the cool water run down into her. She kept going until she felt a bit of fullness and stopped again, noting that she was only maybe a quarter of the way through the jug.

She thought about the fullness in her belly and the weird feelings that came with it. She found herself thinking about Luke, and the way he had handled her body outside of the bar. Were his reasons so bad? The physical feelings of the water mixing with her jumbled emotions was creating a mess in her head, but she was trying to sort it all out. She landed on the first mature thought she'd had in a while, getting her phone off the desk.

"Be there soon," she typed, sending the text before she could chicken out.