Campus Pig- Chapter 4

Lindsey awoke to a sensation she was certain could be nothing other than a small jackhammer pounding incessantly into her temple, both sides of her skull ringing with pain. She opened her eyes and immediately regretted the decision, the morning light streaming through the Lambda house’s large living room windows like a serrated knife driven directly into the watery flesh of her pupils. 

Lindsey had been hungover before, everyone involved in Greek life on campus had, but never like this. The pain was near combative, as if it were somehow sentient, somehow able to harbor and enact malice. 

She began a groan but ceased the action immediately, the noise reverberating loudly through her aching head. She closed her eyes and placed her hand on her forehead, desperate for some relief.

“You need Advil?” Lindsey heard Courtney ask from her left.

She opened her eyes a crack and lifted herself up on one elbow, surprised to find Courtney, Abigail, and Ellie sitting on the sofa adjacent to the one where she lay. 

“What time is it,” she breathed, even the sound of her own voice eliciting the sensation of being struck by a cascade of falling rocks. “What's going on?”

“No classes today,” said Abigail briskly, standing up. “I already emailed your professors.”

“What?” Lindsey croaked blearily, too exhausted and hungover to fully understand exactly what was going on. 

Abigail sighed loudly. 

“Ellie, go get her an Advil and some water. And bring me a la Croix. Pamplemousse,” she called at the girl's quickly retracting figure, Ellie already standing and hurrying to fulfill Abigail's request before it was fully out of her mouth.

“So,” Abigail began, turning back to Lindsey. “Your little stunt last night.”

Lindsey blinked, knowing a response or explanation was expected but finding herself physically incapable of offering one.

Abigail, not often the type to let someone off the hook, continued anyway, much to Lindsey's surprise. 

“It was unprofessional, undiscussed, and does not represent or reflect the degree of regard that Phi Lambda holds for the campus pigs contest,” she went on, her words clipped. “That being said…” 

She paused, looking to Courtney. 

“That being said, it did provide us some great insight surrounding the best way to ensure you’re putting on as much weight as possible, as quickly as possible. As we all very obviously saw last night, when your inhibitions are lowered you can eat far past your capacity, and that can serve us in multiple ways, especially before weigh-ins. Your starting weight wasn’t as low as I expected frankly, but regardless, we’re in an overall good position for what we need to achieve and accomplish here. Courtney and I spent time this morning reworking your meal plan based on your performance last night, and I think it even more solidly positions us as the most competitive organization on campus.”

“Courtney?” Abigail invited, and Courtney stood up, moving towards the center of the room and forcing Lindsey to shield her eyes from the assaultive light as she realized one of the library’s large freestanding whiteboards had been wheeled into their living room.

“Here,” came a voice from behind her, and she realized that Ellie had soundlessly snuck up on her with the water and Advil. 

She gratefully accepted both, giving the girl as much of a smile as she could muster, then downed the pill and chugged the rest of the water, a single droplet running down the side of her mouth from her eager gulping. 

She was still slightly confused, still recentering herself in the odd, unexpected moment when the doorbell rang shrilly, the noise firing through her ears like a shot ringing out. She dropped the glass and buried her face back into the fabric of the couch, this time unable to stem her groan of pain. 

“Ellie, door,” Abigail barked. “Give me my sparking water first,” she chided, and Lindsey listened miserably as Ellie scurried over to Abigail, popped the tab of her grapefruit-flavored sparkling water that Lindsey refused to refer to as ‘Pamplemousse’, and scurried for the front door. 

“Lindsey, sit up,” Abigail instructed. “Your choices last night were your own, but don’t punish your sisters for them.”

Lindsey sighed heavily into the couch's plush fabric and lifted her head with effort, pulling herself into a semi-seated position just as Ellie reentered the room with a large, unlabeled brown bag. Lindsey immediately smelled hash browns, and although she wasn't hungry, her hangover favorite still sounded like a welcome distraction from the pain. 

“Your breakfast,” Abigail said as Ellie sat the bag in Lindsey's lap. “You eat while Courtney goes over your new diet and routine.”

Lindsey pried apart the stapled delivery bag and her jaw dropped, her head snapping up to meet Abigail’s gaze despite the way the movement jolted her sensitive skull. 

“I can't eat all this,” she argued in disbelief, eyes flicking back down towards the feast and making quick mental assessments. 

“You can,” Abigail corrected. “You did last night, so you and I both know you can.”

“Abby, I was drunk,” Lindsey pleaded, beginning to pull things out of the bag and set them next to her on the couch. 

The contents of the bag, more than likely ordered from the 24-hour diner near campus that all Kingsley State University students frequented faithfully, was a breakfast spread that could’ve easily fed three. 

Two stacks of pancakes, 6 in total, an order of bacon, an order of sausage, what appeared to be a three-meat omelet, 3 biscuits, and 4 hash browns were carefully arranged within the bag, the bottom littered with forks, knives, and packets of jam, syrup, and ketchup. It smelled amazing, Lindsey could admit that, but she knew even with Abigail's new, misguided analysis of how much Lindsey could put away, there was no chance she’d be able to finish even half of that early morning feast.

She remembered the last night in bits, she hadn’t entirely blacked out, but there were two key pieces of information that she didn't have: her actual starting weight, and the number of pizza slices she’d managed to cram down. Both facts suddenly seemed pressingly important, and she turned to Courtney, entirely abandoning her initial plan to convince Abigail that the spread was too much for her to take.

“How much did I eat last night?” she asked quietly.

“13,” Country offered, looking a bit embarrassed as if she’d been the one to gorge herself in front of the entire school instead of Lindsey.

“13?” Lindsey repeated incredulously, looking at the other two women in the room for confirmation. “13 pieces of pizza?”

Ellie nodded quickly and Abigail simply observed her evenly, her tight-lipped half-smile enough of an affirmation. 

‘How?’ Lindsey thought to herself, her hand unconsciously falling to her stomach to discover with horror that she still felt the slight semblance of the previous night's bloat. She jerked her hand away from her midsection as if it were a hot stove, and felt her face grow lightly flush. 

She pressed her eyes closed again, the Advil doing little to relieve any pain.

“How much did I weigh?” she asked, almost afraid to hear the answer after Abigail's little comment about her disappointment at the number. 

“140 even,” Courtney reported. 

Lindsey bit her lip, considering. It wasn't as if she weighed herself often, but the more involved she got with the soccer team, the more muscle she’d put on, and between their weight training sessions, cross-country runs, and intense scrimmages, she must have put on more muscle than she realized, despite the fact that 140 was just 5 pounds off from her typical weight. She’d been particularly happy with her body of late, the definition in her thighs and quads, the flatness of her stomach with the slight hint of abs when she flexed her core, and the enviable, hourglass waist brought about by her low body fat percentage. Her weight may have been slightly higher than she thought, but her body looked the best it ever had. 

And now it's all going away, she thought, her misery compounding. 

Courtney cleared her throat. 

“So, just to go over some of the basics-”

Abigail cut her off with a raised hand. 

“Lindsey, eat,” she instructed with a point. 

Lindsey shook her head weakly. 

“I’m not hungry,” she warbled. 

“I didn't ask if you were hungry,” Abigail said, the thin veil of patience typically draped over her words pierced by their sharpness. “I told you to eat.”

Lindsey sighed and unwrapped a hash brown, eyeing it cautiously before taking a small nibble. To her chagrin, it was delicious and exactly the kind of fried, greasy food her hangover craved, and she took another, less trepidatious bite, not wanting to devour the thing in front of the three women but suddenly very glad she had more than one. 

“Ok,” Courtney began again as Lindsey munched. “The diet. So,” she said, pointing and drawing Lindsey’s full attention to the whiteboard for the first time since she’d noticed it. “We wrote out everything you’re gonna eat in a day, where you'll get it from, and what times you’ll eat it. We took the schedules and locations of your classes into consideration, and of course, you’ll have transportation for wherever you need to go, either Ellie or myself will be driving you.”

Lindsey nodded, sheepishly unwrapping her second hash brown. 

“Essentially, whether it's the sports or what, it seems like you can eat a lot at once without getting sick. You apparently drank like, half a bottle of Smirnoff and you still didn't puke the entire night, Karina stayed with you. We can use that to our major advantage, the vast majority of the time girls have to build up their capacity to take down the larger calorie goals, but we think you can be accomplishing those goals now. Which means we’ve put you on an accelerated plan of sorts, basically just running the old playbooks, but faster. 

Lindsey nodded again, the grease beginning to soak up her headache. 

“So, last year, there was Tammy,” Courtney informed her as if Lindsey wasn’t well aware. “And when Tammy started she was here,” she said, pulling her phone from her pocket, clicking it to life, and handing it to Lindsey. 

Lindsey stared at the pretty, brown-haired girl with a wide smile and bright eyes, her energy palpable even from the photograph. She was model thin and wore clothing reminiscent of a 1970s hippie, her long flowing skirts and cropped, copper-colored top complemented by the large flower barrette pinning back the right side of her curtain bangs. 

“She needed to start on the typical diet,” Courtney continued, looking down at the photograph as well. “She could barely finish a bowl of cereal when we started with her, but we turned her into a winner.”

“That was one of our worst-ever years at the eating contest,” Abigail chimed in. “She ate three pieces and a bite of a fourth, lowest number of the year and one of the lowest-scoring performances of all time.”

Courtney nodded her affirmation. 

“But,” she said, swiping with a single finger to the next photo as Lindsey still held the phone. “This was her 2 months in.”

Lindsey gasped, a crumb falling from her open mouth. She’d know how fat Tammy had gotten, everyone did, but the two-month difference was more than jarring. 

The once petite, retro-styled beauty had blown up like a balloon, exploded in size like she’d been pumped full of fat in some sort of sick reverse liposuction. Her once flat stomach had bulged into a hefty gut that protruded from her middle heavily and was bisected by her clearly too-small skirt, one that had to have been several sizes larger than her original in order to fit, but still too small for her now overweight frame. 

The skirt's straining waistline transformed her ball of a gut into a prominent double belly, the upper portion spilling over heavily and creating an exaggerated muffin top. The skintight skirt left nothing to the imagination and her bulging sides, love handles that had been completely absent just two months before, curbed into rounded, shapely hips that were hugged by the white fabric stressed to near translucency. 

Her breasts had grown massive and Lindsey found herself looking at them with a small sense of envy, herself being the type who’d always wished for a more ample rack and wore pushup bras daily to give off that impression. Tammy’s once unimpressive chest now looked like the results of an overly exuberant plastic surgeon, and her heavy breasts had clearly outgrown all her bras, instead left to bulge over the neckline of her undersized tank top obscenely. Their fleshy heft was still surprisingly buoyant despite their size and lack of support, a detail that was obvious as Lindsey tried to avoid staring at the former pig's nipples poking prominently through the thin fabric. 

The tank top looked like more of a crop top although it seemed to Lindsey to be full length, and its sleevelessnes showed off Tammy's newly untoned, flabby arms that were held to her side and pressed against what used to be her waist. Her face, while still recognizable, looked like a bloated caricature, and she’d developed swollen chubby cheeks and an obvious double chin that cemented her gradual descent into the category of fat. 

That was really the problem, not that Tammy had gained weight, not even that she’d won the contest, but the fact that she’d gone from thin enough to walk a runway to decidedly fat in just two months. 

“That was 63 pounds,” Abigail bragged, pride evident in her tone. “63 pounds in two months and she could barely eat a full meal at once when we started, we worked a miracle with her.” 

“Uh huh,” Courtney agreed. “Her gain slowed way down after this point, we figured that her metabolism finally figured it all out and caught up with the calories, but she still put on about another 40 in the last 4 months and went on to win.”

“The first few weigh-ins are the most important,” Abigail interjected again. “That's where the prizes and advantages really make a difference. Everyone slows down at the end because it's more work to make fat people fatter, so the better we can do in the beginning, the better our chances.”

“Right,” Courtney confirmed. 

Lindsey was still staring at the phone in her hand, aghast at the photo and unable to look away, when Courtney swiped the screen again, revealing a triangular-shaped play button.

“This is a video of the kinds of meals Tammy was able to finish at the point, she really grew to love fast food.”

Country pressed the play button and Lindsey dropped her hashbrown, unsure how she was still shocked by all this as it played out, but unable to control her emotions.

Tammy was seated at the Lambda house sorority dining table, the very same table that was just two rooms over, and she was cramming food into her mouth so quickly that she barely had time to chew before taking the next bite, almost looking like a woman possessed. The table was covered with a spread of burgers, fries, and chicken nuggets, and the tubby girl was shoving in bites by the handful, her chubby little fingers and fat swollen face shiny from grease. It was clearly the same day that the first photo had been taken, albeit later in said day, and the skirt had been stretched to its absolute limit, the waistband now pulled underneath her gut and completely obscured by the hefty blob of fat pushing into Tammy's lap.

Lindsey’s initial comparison of the women's caloric fervor to an otherworldly possession was apt and only becoming more applicable, and she watched with horror as the women began to moan and rub her exposed, globular gut, every touch making her belly and breasts jiggle wildly while her other hand still steadily fed herself thousands of calories of junk. 

Lindsey watched, her horror only mounting as the woman ate more and more, moaned louder and louder, and finally burped raucously, giving her gut a few hard smacks that produced another deep burp. The interruption barely impeded the flow of food the woman was stuffing down her throat, and she burped twice more before returning to the stuffing in earnest, this time using both hands. 

“So,” Courtney said, ripping Lindsey's attention from what may well have been her own personal horror flick based on her worst nightmares. “If we can start you on the diet that Tammy was on at that point, we think we could get you to break her record. More weight, in less time. It gives us the best chances of success while ensuring you get to mostly chill and rest on your laurels for the last four months, you’d only be looking at about 10 pounds a month from there and that should be easy.”

Lindsey shook her head listlessly, her appetite completely gone. 

“I can't do that,” she whispered. “I can't”

“Being dramatic won't change the straw you drew,” Abigail called in response, sounding bored. 

“I’m not being dramatic,” Lindsey said, turning to face her. “I just can't, I really can't.” 

“You can,” Abigail insisted. “You did last night.”

“Abby…” Lindsey pleaded again in a near whine, her exhaustion renewed. 

“Lindsey, I can't help you. The only person that can help you is yourself. Do what's right and take on this burden for your sisters. You wanted all the privileges of Phi Lambda but none of the responsibility, and that's just not how things work around here. We fight for what we have. We work hard and win, and that's why we’re on top. You’re going to do this either way, so the complaining, the bitching, it needs to stop.”

Lindsey blinked, unaccustomed to casual cursing from her buttoned-up chapter president. 

“Ok,” she finally conceded, looking down dejectedly. 

There was a beat of silence and Country cleared her throat, clearly apprehensive to break the tension. 

“Anyways,” she finally went on. “At this point, Tammy was taking down about 9,000 calories a day. It slowed down quite a bit after this like I said, but for a minute there she was basically putting on a pound and a half of fat per day, more than that really. She started off thinner than you, so 63 pounds might be an overestimate of what we can actually accomplish, but I think we can have you to her two-month mark weight within the same time frame with no problem.”

Lindsey wanted to cry but knew it would worsen her headache, and instead placed her head in her hands, no longer willing to watch the previous year's campus pigs gorge herself into the obesity Lindsey was now also destined for. 

“We’re gonna start you at 6500 calories a day for the first week, just to see how it affects you and how you handle it, then we’ll go up gradually,” Courtney said, once again referencing the whiteboard. 

“Those calories will be supplemented by a 1000-calorie weight gain shake you’ll drink every night. It's actually really good,” Courtney offered, sounding apologetic. “It's heavy cream, ice cream, bulking protein powder, and whatever candy you want mixed in, just let me know and someone will pick them up. So, really it's only 5,500 calories of food,” she reasoned, as if that made the situation any better. “We’re gonna go for a high-calorie count over volume, which is one of our little secrets that all the other houses can't seem to figure out for some reason, and of course, you have to burn as few calories as possible. 

Courtney paused, biting her lip.

“That does mean, however…,” she stopped again, looking to Abigail who responded to her nonverbal plea for assistance with a stony stare. “Um,” Courtney stuttered. “It does mean that your um, well, your relations, I mean, you know, it's not like we can tell you what to do, but-”

“Yes we can,” Abigail interrupted, annoyance coloring her tone. “God Courtney, what are you, five? Just spit it out. You can’t have sex,” she commanded authoritatively, turning to face Lindsey more squarely. “No more soccer team, we’re moving you to one of the downstairs bedrooms so you can avoid the climb and be closer to the kitchen, we’re driving you to all your classes, so obviously you can't burn any extra calories during sex, it's just temporary.”

‘Yea, temporary until Brayden sees how fat I get’, thought Lindsey bitterly. 

“Yea,” Courtney agreed in a rush, clearly eager to move on. “Uh, last things, either Ellie or I will hand deliver all your meals, and the rest of the girls will have a rotation schedule to sit with you while you eat and make sure, um… well, make sure you eat it all.”

“I’ll have guards?” Lindsey burst out.

“Not guards, no, no,” Courtney assured. “Just. Well, first, someone to eat with so you're not bored, and then you know, make sure you’re good otherwise, that you’re not still hungry after it's all gone and stuff.”

“So, guards,” Lindsey snapped, feeling anger overtake her fear. 

“You’re focusing on semantics when you should be eating,” Abigail said coldly. 

“I’m not hungry,” Lindsey repeated belligerently. 

“And I don't care,” Abigail said with more emotion than Lindsey had ever heard in her tone, her fury at the chosen pig’s refusal to cooperate clearly reaching its boiling point. “I don’t give a shit. This is my final year as president and we will win. I don't care about your childish bullshit, I care about Phi Lambda, and Phi Lambda will win,” she said suddenly on her feet and taking threatening steps towards Lindsey.

Lindsey, who’d never been in a fight in her life, suddenly felt as if she were about to be punched and shrunk back, afraid of the look on Abigail's face and the physical attack Lindsey felt would follow the overbearing president's words. Abigail reached her, grabbed a styrofoam container full of pancakes, and held out her hand to Lindsey.

“Syrup,” she demanded. 

Lindsey, frozen in fear, didn't move an inch. 

“Syrup,” Abigail all but screamed, and Lindsey floundered for the bag and shuffled through it in a panic, looking for one of the many maple leaf-adorned packets and placing it in Abigail's open palm. 

“More,” Abigail instructed more calmly, and Lindsey placed three more packets in her hands. Abigail opened each packet, squeezed it free of its contents onto the waiting stack of golden brown discs, then shocked Lindsey by grabbing one of the now sticky cakes with her bare hand and rolling it into a cylinder. 

“Open,” Abigail instructed. 

Lindsey blinked, unsure of exactly how things had developed this quickly, and suddenly her mouth was forced open by Lindsey grabbing either side of her face tightly in her free hand. 

“Open,” she repeated more firmly, overpronouncing each syllable of the word.

Lindsey let her mouth fall the rest of the way open and the taste of syrup was immediately on her tongue, Abigail wasting no time in shoving in the sugary bite. Lindsey gasped but chewed, her fear of Abigail's wild eyes at the moment more pressing than her disgust at the video of former campus pig Tammy goring herself. 

Abigail shoved in another bite, then another, and Lindsey shot a panicked glance at Courtney, who was studying her feet as intensely as she studied for her biology finals. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Lindsey finally breathed in a gasp. “Abby, I’m sorry, I-”

Abigail cut her off with a second pancake, the speed and aggression with which was feeding Lindsey enough to leave her breathless. Lindsey chewed each bite dutifully, the totality of her attention utilized in trying to take down the breakfast confections as fast as Abigail was feeding them to her. She rid the box of pancakes in just a few minutes then picked up the packet of bacon and began to force it into Lindsey's mouth in the same fashion, Lindsey's thoughts too consumed by trying to eat that quickly without choking to notice how full she was getting. 

She finished both pieces of bacon, and to her dismay, Abigail picked up a biscuit. 

“I’m sorry,” Lindsey tried again.

“Open,” was Abigail's only response, and Lindsey did what she was told, opening her mouth and allowing half of the buttery, pillowy biscuit to be forced inside.

Abigail crammed in the second half while Lindsey was still trying to chew the first and she moaned just like Tammy had, her jaw and belly aching from the impromptu force-feeding. 

“There,” said Abigail, looking down at Lindsey with her composure renewed. “That's how much I love this sorority. That's what I'm willing to do for it. And when you want to jeopardize everything that the past and present sisters of phi lambda have worked for, that's what I’m going to go to you.”

She looked backward, frowning and holding out a hand that was sticky with syrup. 

“Ellie, napkin,” she instructed, and the mousy girl rushed off to fulfill the task. 

“Courtney, you're on guard duty for today,” Abigail said, emphasizing the word that had been so initially offensive to Lindsey. “Make sure she eats every last bite.”