Chapter 1 - envy

Blaring out into the early morning like an air raid horn, the alarm goes off followed quickly by a banging from the other side of the wall. Scrambling to shut the clock up, Ashley yells, "Sorry!" back at the wall before leaning up against the headboard of her bed to compose herself. Groggy, fatigued, and far from ready for her work day, Ashley stood up and stumbled her way from her bed to the bathroom.

Brushing her teeth as she meandered back into her bedroom, she picked up her phone to see what she'd been pouring over last night. On her display was a woman with long, wavy auburn hair. Parted on the left with her bangs swept across to her right cheek, curling around her face. Ashley had seen this picture before, but she was still stunned the morning after. "Why can't I look like this?" she whined as her attention drifted to the mirror across from her bed. By contrast, Ashley was a tall and lanky 27 year old woman with long, unkempt hair of a dull brown hue. She knew she wasn't unattractive, but she wasn't about to win any awards for her looks. If asked, she'd say she was a solid six out of ten. Annoyed and a little defeated, Ashley fumbled through her clothes basket for something clean and headed out the door for work.

Fall was just beginning, but when you get up for work at five o' clock, a strong wind can make October feel like January. Bundled in her warmest jacket, she headed for the bus stop. As usual, the bus stop was completely empty. Ashley sat down at the stop and whipped out her phone again. There the auburn haired girl stared back at her with her full breasts threatening to pour out of her bra like honey from a jar. Ashley looked down at her own chest and muttered, "mine are more like honey B's." Chuckling to herself, then sighing, "wish I was as gifted..."

The bus came and in a blink Ashley was outside of a small cafe turning the handle and walking into her only passion, work. The espresso machine was old and bought used, the register was probably older than herself, and most of the furniture was found at auction houses, but it was her cozy little space and she loved the warmth she felt making people's day with the love and attention she put into every drink. Every step of the process, she had her hands in. She roasted the beans, she made the drinks, and she took the orders. From farm to mug, Ashley meticulously poured over her work. It was something she truly felt she was great at.

Today was unusually slow and she found herself with too much time on her hands. Out came the phone again, and again she was staring into this picture. "I don't know why I'm so obsessed, I could just dye my hair or something. Stuff my bra, I mean, that's what chicken cutlets are for, right?" She slammed her phone on the counter, but picked it right back up. Glaring back at Ashley, almost antagonizingly, the auburn haired woman's smirk almost seemed to taught her. It was easy enough to complain about her hair or breast, but that wasn't what Ashley was most jealous of. Following the outline of auburn-haired girl's neck down across her shoulders, down to her hands laid the source of Ash's jealousy. Overflowing through the auburn-haired girl's fingers was a massive, belly. Her hands barely covered a third of her gut as it poured over her panties and down towards her thighs. Her hips rolling out behind her forearms down to her thighs. She was huge and Ashley knew that it was her size that she envied most.

Ash had always thought chubbier girls were attractive, but it wasn't until she found her way into the wild west of the internet at the ripe old age of 15 that she started to realize that she wasn't just appreciative of bigger girls, she was obsessed with them. She just didn't know what to do with them. Did she want to know them? Did she want to be them? Did she just want to sex them up? She didn't know. All she knew was that when she saw a big girl, she couldn't look away. Over the intervening years she'd found forums, small websites, and a few other resources that helped her figure out a little more. She just wasn't happy with the result. After talking with some other members of a forum she'd frequented at the time, she eventually realized what might be holding her attention wasn't just that they were big, but rather the idea of her being big like them. Ashley had always been the thinnest in her friend group and her family. It was a point of pride and the idea of her getting fat felt like she would be disappointing all of them. They all held her on a pedestal representing how thin they wanted to be and Ash was afraid if she lost that position, she wouldn't hold any other value. So she stayed up late perusing the internet. She watched fat girls, watched girls get fat, and then woke up, skipped breakfast and left for work.

"Hello?" Ash bolted upright from her croned position over her phone, then quickly flipped her screen face-down. "I'msorrygoodmorningwhatcanigetyou??&quo t; She blurted out. "Just a tall coffee." Did he see? Does he know? Ashley poured his cup, a warm, dark roast with cocoa undertones, sweating over possibly being exposed. "Thanks," he muttered as he walked out the door. Once he was out of sight, Ash picked the phone up again, but she wasn't staring at the auburn-haired girl. She was at the girl's profile page. "Custom content available upon request. Huh..." Thoughts of living vicariously through this woman and having, if but a moment, in her most unfufilled fantasy raced through her head and down to her chest as she felt her heart begin to race.

She began writing:

"Hi, my name is Ash and I was wondering if you make some custom content for me. I was just thinking maybe a video talking about why you got fat? I don't know, I just wonderered if you ever thought it was bad or maybe if you didn't like it or if you had concerns? Were you really obsessed with bigger women or how did you decide to do this?"

"This is stupid," she fussed. She went to delete her message when an ad loaded at the top of the page and she accidentally clicked send. "What!?! What just happened?! I didn't mean to send that! Oh my god why did I do that??" It didn't matter what she did now. The message was sent and for the first time all day, Ash did not want to be anywhere near her phone.

Later that night as she walked into her tiny apartment, she felt her phone buzz. "That can't be..." Any remaining regret over sending the message suddenly turned into a feverish need to see the response. She clicked on the new message from her notifications, then unlocked her phone only to see an ad for XS (pronounced "excess"), a chain of clothing stores she frequented. "Well, that was anticlimatic..." Right as she clicked the power button to turn the screen off, her phone vibrated again.