Campus Pigs-Chapter 10

They arrived at the hosting challenge house as one of the last sororities to make an appearance, that fashionably late entry undoubtedly by Abigail’s design. She liked the attention of a barely on-time arrival, and as they pressed into the crowded house, the throngs of students parting to make way for them, Lindsey swore she could feel every eye in the building boring into her back. 

She swore that each person in the room, male and female, was making mental calculations of her gain, was trying to assess her new size beneath her clothes and how much she’d been putting away that week by the fresh puffiness of her sodium-inflated cheeks.

She felt her face growing flush and grabbed Karina's arm for steadiness, the validity of that decision immediately brought into question by Karina’s sudden lurch to the right that almost brought them both down. 

“Sorry,” Karina apologized in a loud stage whisper, and Lindsey felt her flush deepen. 

Abigail immediately marched to the front, the admin table clearly in her line of fire, and the rest of the girls huddled in the center of the room, Karina noting with vague interest that Vicky slipped away the second Abigail's back was turned. 

Probably looking for Tyler, Lindsey thought, remembering that the compliment Abigail had given Vicky likely gave her the confidence to go after the boy she was loosely seeing despite his romantic ties to fellow Phi Lambda member MJ. 

Abigail didn't care about romantic drama and therefore let the two of them duke it out constantly, and all Lindsey could hope was that Tyler would grow serious about one of them if only to put the needless and fruitless beef to rest. Tyler, a hockey player with little attention for anything besides his NHL ambitions, didn’t even divide his attention between those two girls alone, and Lindsey was aware of at least three other campus sorority members he either had been, or still was, involved with. The whole thing was idiotic, but in the moment, it was a welcome distraction. 

Lindsey turned her attention back to the remaining 9 members, their leader and Vicky both otherwise occupied, and saw Courtney looking around the room with narrowed eyes, swiveling her head this way and that as if she’d once again misplaced something.

“What?” Lindsey whispered when she finally caught Courtney’s eye, the organized girl's apparent nerves providing fuel for her own. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing,” said Courtney with a shake of her head, coming a step closer. “I was just trying to see if I could figure out what the challenge is. I can't tell what they’re gonna do, I didn't see anything.”

She lifted her head slightly as if testing the wind. 

“Do you smell any food?”

Lindsey shook her head, suddenly too nervous to speak. 

What exactly is going on here? she fretted internally, suddenly feeling lightheaded once more.

“Don’t,” instructed Courtney as if reading her mind. “Don't. It's going to be ok. They're just trying to psych us out.”

Lindsey nodded and, to her surprise, felt Courtney grab her hand, squeezing it with more pressure than Lindsey would expect from the petite, seemingly bird-boned girl. 

“It's my job to keep you prepared and get you everything you need,” she promised more loudly, a severe look on her face. “This is my responsibility, and I will not let this go wrong, Lindsey. I won't.”

Lindsey nodded again, anxiety temporarily morphed to confusion at Courtney's sudden intensity, when Abigail came stalking back over. 

Courtney gave her a questioning look and Abigail glowered at her, the chapter president's beautiful, structured face as furious as Lindsey had ever seen it.

“We’ll talk later,” she informed Courtney, her voice low. 

Courtney nodded.

“But…?” she questioned leadingly, and Abigail cut her off with a shake of the head. 

“Nothing. They didn't tell me anything” 

Courtney nodded, took a deep inhale, and stepped back, leaving Lindsey feeling as if she were alone on a life raft in a vast and lonely ocean, her survival now entirely on her own shoulders. 

“Alright,” began the night's MC, the crowd first cheering and then quieting as feedback whined from the mic. “Let's get started, everybody! Can we get all our campus pigs to the front?”

Karina squeezed her arm, Courtney squeezed her hand, and Lindsey found herself drifting to the front as if floating, forcing herself to brave the attention with a straight face. 

Lindsey heard a quick inhale of air from the audience, a true collective gasp, and, unable to keep up the pretense, briefly pressed her eyes shut, her heart racing. They were all looking at her. They were looking at how fat she’d gotten. 

A rumble of whispering filled the room, and the MC breathed, “damn” into the mic seemingly by accident, causing more giggles and further whispers. Lindsey didn't even think she could continue forward, wasn't sure how she’d turn to face the crowd after she got to the front, when she finally refocused her vision and nearly stopped in her tracks. 

They weren’t looking at her. In fact, she was invisible compared to the true center of attention. 

The Omega Pi selection, sweet, tiny, vegetarian phoebe who’d eaten just 4 and a half pieces of specially ordered cheese pizza in order to avoid the pepperoni, looked fat. Impossibly fat, much, much bigger than she ever should've been able to become in the span of just a week. Her clothes were tighter than the other contestants and therefore showed off much more of her clearly ballooning figure, but the formerly tiny girl, barely 5'1 in sneakers, had a real belly, bulging out in the form-fitting sleeveless tops she’d clearly had to struggle into. 

Lindsey had never paid much attention to Phoebe and was only vaguely aware of who she was because they’d had rushed together, but now, the girl that most people in the room hadn't spoken more than two words to had every eye locked on her body and every single person in the room wondering exactly what had happened, how that kind of transformation was even physically possible. She couldn't be called anywhere near enormous, barely fit the designation of big, but she was solidly chubby, a marked difference from how she’d looked just one week ago. 

She wasn’t even a consideration for Phi Lambda, hadn't even been brought up in the strategy meetings. Lindsey had assumed that she was only selected by Omega Pi, a sorority that had never even come close to even placing in the campus pigs contest, because she was the only girl among them willing to do the challenges. No one expected her to put on even an ounce. 

Yet here she was, her face blank and her expression pleasantly neutral as if she didn't hear everyone in the room fervently discussing her new silhouette. 

Lindsey looked at her sisters, confusion deeply etched into her brow, and was disturbed to find both Courtney and Abigail staring at the formerly unknown girl in pure wonder. Abigail was too shocked to be angry. That was a problem. Clearly, no one had been anticipating this, no one was prepared for this. 

The MC cleared her throat and continued with her forehead wrinkled, her eyes still glued to Phoebe’s back.

“Uh, so, uh, yea,” the mic'd host went on, paying as little attention to her words as the rest of the room. “We got cakes, everybody is gonna, uh…Yea. Bring out the cakes guys?”

“Guys?” The host promoted again when nobody moved, and three boys from Mu Gamma who had been sitting near Megan and the rest of the admin team leaped into action, making several trips to the kitchen to produce enough grocery store sheets cakes for each competitor.

So it was a simple eating contest. Just like Courtney had predicted was most likely, just like Lindsey had been all but praying for, but the welcome news brought her no relief. She narrowed her eyes as she studied the admin team, feeling exactly like Abigail, but unwilling to reprimand herself for it. Something was up with Megan. She wasn't looking at Phoebe the same way everyone else was, and despite her clear attempt to quell it, a self-satisfied smirk was barely curling the corners of her overlined lips. 

Megan wasn't Phoebe's president, so how did the girl's sudden inflation benefit Abigail's less than covertly jealous enemy in any way? 

Lindsey frowned, trying to will Karina to look at her with her mind so she could gesture to Megan, could let her own team know that something was up. Instead, she watched as the girls watched Phoebe. As the entire crowd watched her. 

A white sheet cake embellished with decorative swirls of frosting Lindsey assumed to be buttercream was placed in front of her and she murmured her thanks, the boy who set it down on the table she sat perched in front of paying her little mind and nearly stumbling as he looked backwards at Phoebe. 

Lindsey felt a sinking feeling in her stomach that she knew she couldn't honestly attribute to anything except pure jealousy, the pit opening up within her only increasing in size and depth when she realized that she was actually jealous of a girl for getting fatter than her. Her victory in the contest had always been a foregone conclusion, never been something she’d questioned, but by some trickery, magic, or miracle, Lindsey was suddenly facing some strong competition. 

“So, uh,” the MC went on after each competitor had a cake either sitting in front of them on a table or perched on their lap, forks in hand. “You guys know the drill. Eating competitions are about speed and amount, whoever can put away the most the quickest wins. The exceptions to those rules are…”

The host stumbled through her prewritten but apparently poorly memorized speech, clearly still flustered, and Lindsey took the time to look around at the other members who’d be competing against her. Really, the other members who’d be competing against Phoebe, by the looks of things. 

She knew most of the girls, recognized the majority of the others, and could’ve probably listed the approximate names of at least half of the boys if under duress. There was no one she knew well, although it wasn't entirely fair to say that she knew anyone outside of her own sorority house well, and as she scanned the lineup, she made eye contact with the heavily made-up owner of the flask from the contest’s first weekend, the girl who had propelled Lindsey into a bout of gluttony that made Abigail glad Lindsey had been the one to select the short straw. 

The girl grinned, lifting one dark eyebrow, pointing to her pocket, then pantomiming a swig, and Lindsey blushed, smiling sheepishly as the girl laughed silently. 

“And obviously you’ll get the advantage for the week, which is two pounds on your next weigh-in,” the host finished, snapping Lindsey back to attention. “Is everybody ready?”

The room was uncharacteristically quiet, a low mumble of voices spreading through the packed space instead of the usual cheering and trash-talking, and the weight of the situation began to settle upon Lindsey in its entirety for the first time since seeing Phoebe. 

What had happened here was unprecedented. It wasn’t just throwing off the Phi Lambda flow, it was throwing everyone off. Phoebe had taken the competition to a new place in a single appearance, changed the game without saying a word. 

“On your marks,” the host called, and Lindsey tried to push the creeping thoughts from her mind, tried to commit herself fully to the task at hand. “Get set,” the host teased in a sing-songy voice, and Lindsey gripped her fork a bit tighter, now grateful for the fact that she was actually pretty peckish. “Go!” the MC called into the mic, and Lindsey dove upon the cake in a fury, for some reason determined to outperform Phoebe at all costs. 

She was taller than the girl by several inches and theoretically should've been able to put away more food more quickly, but the knowledge hardly served as any comfort when considering how full Phoebe had clearly been stuffing herself since her last appearance on that makeshift stage. 

Lindsey shoved an enormous forkful of the sugary confection into her mouth, covering her lips in icing on the first bite, and grimaced a bit as she chewed, the quality of the grocery store treat dismal when compared to Courtney’s homemade baked goods Lindsey had had the pleasure of enjoying as recently as that afternoon. 

Unwilling to let her taste buds impede her, she shoved in another bite as she continued to chew the first, her need to complete the challenge in first place mounting with every passing second. The crowd had shifted from a whispery quiet to a low roar in a matter of seconds, and the cheering, chanting, and trash-talking that Lindsey knew to expect from these challenges reared its head in full effect, Phoebe's silencing influence on the crowd overpowered by the excitement of watching their friends and fellow students devolve into slobbish, greedy, eating machines for their entertainment pleasure. 

Lindsey wanted nothing more than to look to her left to see how Phoebe was faring but was unwilling to lose even a second of precious time, her ferocity in attacking the oversized dessert now almost personal. She lifted another enormous forkful and then another, making her way through almost a fourth of the decently sized rectangle in just a few bites. Her cheeks were bulging with fullness as she chewed, but her stomach, while beginning to grow as bloated as she was accustomed to, felt as empty as it did when she first awoke. She knew that finishing the entire cake would be no problem, a feat she could now accomplish in her sleep, but the question hadn’t become who was actually going to finish their meal as it was in previous years. Instead, the question had become who would finish first, and the competition was stiff. 

A rousing cheer rolled through the crowd again, and Lindsey could hear the individual voices of Karina and Abigail screaming her along, hollering encouragements in matching pitch. Lindsey didn't look up, instead forcing a hard swallow and shoving another oversized bite into her mouth, breathing through her nose so she didn't waste a singular second occupying her mouth with anything else but food. 

Her jaw was beginning to ache again from the speed and amount she was attempting to tackle but she didn't stop to massage it, didn't even stop to take a sip of the water they’d provided alongside the heavy, rich baked good. She wanted to win. She needed to win, no matter what happened afterwards. 

She continued to power through, beginning to feel pangs of fullness as she reached the middle, but the knowledge that so little time had elapsed made her confident, although not cocky enough to slow down. Phoebe could clearly eat a lot, but she couldn't eat that fast. 

As she stuffed herself with abandon, Lindsey dropped one hand to her stomach and began to rub it in small oscillating circles like Courtney did, eager for relief but not desperate enough to pause her gluttonous feast for even a fleeting second. She had taken down more than half the cake, and while the effects of the three shots she’d taken with Karina before arriving had faded entirely by the time she was called up to the stage, she suddenly felt intoxicated once more, tipsy on sugar and sickly sweet frosting, drunken by way of caloric overconsumption. 

The thought, reminding her of the first night she’d let go of her facilities in front of everyone and allowed herself to live up to her newfound title of house pig, only motivated her further, and she dropped the fork and grabbed for the next bite with her bare hands, realizing that her pointless adherence to social etiquette was only holding her back. 

The crowd cheered again as she scooped the messy handful and Lindsey would’ve grinned if she weren’t so busy eating, knowing that she had this little cakewalk well in hand. The focus was back on her, back on Phi Lambda, and although it would've been her nightmare just a few weeks ago, she was nearly beaming with pride now. 

Her face and hands were coated in a thick layer of fluffy white icing, and she groaned as she went for the next bite, the pressure in her middle beginning to catch up with her but doing nothing to slow her down. She scooped another bite, a vague wave of embarrassment at how piggish she must look quickly overtaking her then passing her by, then crammed the entire handful into her mouth at once, eliciting another cheer that this time she couldn't help but smile at.

“Go Lindsey!" she heard Karina cry, and Lindsey took the instruction to heart, now using two hands to push down bite after bite of the plain vanilla cake and mountain of frosting that adorned it. 

She had just a third of the cake remaining, and a quick glance to her side revealed that the competitor next to her, a burly football player who’d ranked second in the pizza-eating contest, had barely reached the halfway mark. She was way ahead but didn’t allow even a second of rest to collect herself, to wipe away the frosting rimmed around her mouth. She sucked the buttercream off her fingers with urgency then went in for the next bite, the finish line well in sight.

“Look at her go,” the MC cried over the mic, and more cheers and hollers rose from the ever-excitable crowd, their overwhelming energy now nearly palpable in the crowded meeting space. 

Lindsey crammed in another massive bite, burped loudly, and continued to chew without so much of an acknowledgment of the disturbance, too focused to be embarrassed, too driven by victory to be polite. Her belly was beginning to grow tighter and tighter, and she felt it protruding out from her middle in a way she hadn’t experienced yet, refusing to allow herself to dwell on the fact that each pain-mitigating rub simply emphasized the newfound roundness that she was beginning to sport. 

She ignored both the sensation and the unwanted thoughts that accompanied it and continued to stuff herself, letting her mind go blank as she neared the last few bites. 

“C’mon Lindsey, eat!” she heard Abigail shriek, and she pressed down another handful of dessert, hazily calculating that she could take down the rest in just two bites. She chewed aggressively, feeling herself beginning to slow, and shook her head as if in disagreement with her own stomach, grabbing the next handful before she was ready and pressing it into her overfull mouth regardless. 

The volume of the crowd was building in anticipation of her last bite, and as she grabbed it the crowd reached a fever pitch, the walls seeming to reverberate with their gleeful, impassioned screams. She lifted it to her mouth, unwilling to let her lead convince her that slowing down was an option, when the host cried “She did it! Oh my god, and that's game, it was neck and neck!”

The crowd burst into fevered applause and Lindsey froze, the last bite still suspended halfway to her mouth. 

She realized, much more slowly than she should’ve, that Lindsey wasn't the ‘she’ in question. She dropped the handful, crumbs of cake still sticking to her messy fingers, and looked once more to her left to see the host holding up Phoebe's wrist in victory, the girl's stomach bloated into a plush-looking ball and her face and hands covered in frosting just like Lindsey’s were. 

She looked over to where her sisters stood, eyes wide. 

A dark cloud the likes of which she'd never seen was coloring Abigail's face, and every other girl's expression reflected an interpolation of shock and disappointment. 

She looked to her left and right once more, noting with displeasure that no one, male or female, had come as close as Lindsey had to finishing, but that point was entirely moot. Phoebe had won, and Phi Lamada’s streak as permanent campus pigs champion was in jeopardy for the first time in years.