Chapter 1

Hello all! This is certainly not the first WG story I've written, but it is the first one I've published. And if it feels a little specific... well, I hope the insight is interesting to some of you. ;) Hope you enjoy!

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< br>Looking in the mirror tends to be rather tricky when it comes to weight, Tina had discovered. It's an image - two-dimensional and flat, and anything that she can only see there doesn't really translate that well to the real world. On the other hand, things that she can feel - that's another matter entirely.

She had always been chubby, bordering on fat. She'd also certainly thought of herself as fat in her teen years, but looking back, she'd been a twig, obsessively counting calories for every morsel of food entering her mouth. That had then led to the other end of the spectrum - not caring one bit about the food once she'd started making her own money and managing her finances during university. That had been the moment things had started going downhill, she thinks. Being overworked and still incredibly busy with her studies, her days in the gym had been long forgotten in favour of sleepless nights and meals whenever she could get them. Years of being extremely cognisant about this sort of thing had led her to realising that such choices were one of the main components of the lifestyle that she'd been trying to avoid - sleeping less and eating quickly at hectic times tends to make one gain weight, as she well knows. But it had all happened slowly - one habit being exchanged for another, bit by bit, until nothing had remained of the day to day life she'd once had.

A quick protein bar here, a doughnut there - she's always on the go anyway, what could it hurt? She is a bit chubby, but it couldn't possibly get much worse - retail is so exhausting and so are classes. That means she deserves a second doughnut or a quick meal at Subway... it's healthy, isn't it? Another pound more or less won't make much of a difference, and she certainly wouldn't gain anything. She's so, so busy and so, so tired.

It's strange how the perception of the self changes over time - the idea that she'd always been plump had allowed for a sense of leniency; of an unchangeable nature. That had led to a rather slippery slope - the idea of helplessness tends to result in lack of action.

And so slowly, bit by bit, she had started accepting the slow changes that had started taking place - how she couldn't always suck her belly in entirely, how clothes in her usual loose, oversized style had started fitting a little too well; how some of the hikes she'd been used to had started getting a little too difficult. She had always explained it away, buying the bigger clothes, taking the easier routes without thinking too much about it. All the while she'd gradually grown slower, lazier, doing her best to avoid too much movement, spending most of her days in bed with her laptop or a good book as her stomach, once just slightly thick, had over the months swelled up within her field of vision even when lying down.

But the true cold shower had come two days ago while she'd been at work - she'd sat down during her bathroom break, cramped up in the small cubicle and for the first time had realised that her belly had started resting halfway down her thighs.

She'd been shocked, at first. Her habitual skinny jeans - tight as all hell, as she'd proudly reassured herself that she'd only moved up in size once since high school, no matter how painfully that size squeezes her now - had held all that fat back, separating it into two doughy rolls that didn't show too much under her similarly habitual baggy shirts. The years of mindless eating had suddenly presented themselves to her and it had led to a strange fixation with that same result of indulgence - she had stared down at the soft, protruding mass pooling on her thighs and had thought, "I did this." Years and years of eating anything and everything years of buying herself a treat (a chocolate bar or three, a muffin, a doughnut or two) on every trip to the grocery store, convincing herself that just once it wouldn't be so bad, especially if it's the last time. She deserves something sweet.

It had never been the last time, though. Each day, the constant snacking had stretched her stomach and her appetite more and more, her hips and thighs filling out, her chin softening until she'd started tilting her head at an angle in pictures to stop it from seeming (rightfully) double; her modest breasts growing until they'd started spilling out almost obscenely from her lacy, once demure bralettes; her waist thickening even from the sides, her love handles jiggling their way into new territories.

But, because of her skintight super skinny jeans and her lifelong habit of sucking in a once almost nonexistent tummy, she hadn't noticed at all how the easily concealable little protrusion of excess fat had slowly grown into a monument of her advancing obesity, her pitiful attempts to hide it only working with the tightest of pants and the widest of shirts - the sort of shirts that can hide the gut split into two doughy rolls underneath.

But she's out of her pants now, standing in only her underwear in front of her body-length mirror at home. Those tight pants, a habit of hers ever since high-waisted jeans had first come into fashion about ten years ago, had led her to stop subconsciously sucking in - what's the point if no one can tell anyway? And with that habit disappearing, so had any effort on her belly's part to stay firm, her abdominal muscles having lost the fight to the quickly accumulating pudge sticking out in front of them.

Her hefty paunch, Tina notices now, has taken on a teardrop shape - almost unnoticeable just under her ribcage and growing wider and farther away from her body as her gaze slides down. Its fattiest point is just under her navel; a soft, pale curve that leads to a full, deep underbelly, fascinating in its roundness. She pats the underside of it and it jiggles, if not by much; a quick wobble that she'd expect out of one of those jelly slimes that she sees on Instagram while scrolling through endless reels and absently munching on another perfectly healthy protein bar, sipping on a can of coke that should give her the energy rush needed to work out and shed that insignificant weight gain she'd thought she'd been going through.

The sort of jelly slime that's too thick to truly move much and instead it mostly just wobbles in its container.

Tina sighs and navigates her skinny jeans up her legs, seeing the pushup effect shape her ass into two large globes, her thighs into solid and luscious rather than mushy and fat, and her gut into the usual two small, reserved rolls under and over her waistband. Then she puts on her dress shirt - an XL, but it's fine, it's too big on her, she's more of an M if she wants it to be tight, really - and huffs as she bends down to put on her heels. Her belly bunches up when she bends down, compressed between her thighs and ribs, but with a sigh she rises back to her feet and smooths her loose shirt carefully back into place so it doesn't snag on her muffin top. It's not that obvious anyway - it's manageable. She pushes all her introspection to the back of her head and grabs her handbag. She likes to leave early on her way to work so that she can go to the nearby supermarket before she clocks in. She could grab a little snack, perhaps. She needs that boost of energy.