Campus Pigs Chapter 2

Lindsey sat criss-cross on Audrey's bed facing the window, the consistent clack of keys behind her near imperceptible background noise in the face of her wandering thoughts. She wasn't even able to enjoy the novelty of hanging out with Audrey, something almost none of them got to do recreationally, and instead of picking the breathtaking woman's mind for beauty advice like she’d always wanted she was moping, the gnawing hunger in her stomach artificially inflated by the knowledge that she wouldn't be allowed to eat until later that night. 

Lindsey sighed and the clacking instantly stopped, causing her to hold her breath in fear of the retribution she may receive for her interruption. She turned her head to the side slowly, hoping Audrey wasn't glaring at her. Instead, the girl still sat with her back to Lindsey's despondence, her rigidly straight posture emphasizing her perfect silhouette. 

“I was fat,” she casually offered into the silence, shocking Lindsey enough to cause her to turn and fully face Audrey and her unexpected confession.

There was another beat of silence, Lindsey expecting an elaboration, and Audrey began to type again rapidly as if her concentration had never been broken, as if she'd never said anything at all.

“Wait,” Lindsey all but yelped, wanting desperately to hear more. “Wait what? You were fat?”

“Yup,” said Audrey while still typing, drawing out the word and popping the p. “Super fat. Like, huge.” 

Lindsey blinked, struggling to take in the literally unbelievable information. Aundrey was lauded with praise for her body just as often as she was for her face, and nothing in her stoic, sometimes steely-eyed gaze betrayed any of the trademark lack of confidence that comes from growing up trying to hide a larger body. 

Her mind worked, frantic to come up with a question that would keep Audrey speaking.

“Why?” she finally blurted, cringing as she realized the question was nonsensical.

“Why?” Aubrey asked with a laugh. “Because I liked to eat, why else?”

“But, but, how?” Lindsey tried again, still failing to capture exactly what information she was trying to elucidate with her inquiry. 

Audrey's typing ceased again and she swiveled her chair to face Lindsey's rapt attention with a playful eyebrow raised. 

“Uh, same answer?” she retorted in a lightly playful tone, the sarcasm offset by the warm glow of her mirth. “I liked to eat.”

Lindsey just stared at her, her mind still working a mile a minute.

Audrey’s grin widened. 

“You’re funny,” she said decidedly, swiveling her chair back to her open laptop and resuming her rapid typing. 

Lindsey let her clack in silence for a while, brainstorming her next question in order to avoid the embarrassing verbal fumble that had left her no closer to the information she’d been after. 

“When were you fat?” she finally asked. 

“When I was in high school,” Audrey responded, her typing uninterrupted. “I broke my ankle the summer before 9th grade when I was staying with my grandma for the break and I couldn't go anywhere or do anything. Then I was out of sports for the next year, it was this whole deal.”

“And,” Lindsey began, unsure of how to phrase her next question. “And you were, I mean, you were actually…”

“Yea,” Audrey confirmed. “Fat. Like, super fat. I outgrew the biggest uniform my school made and my mom had to keep special ordering extra fabric to let it out more. The whole summer I was just sitting on my ass, bored out of my mind and mad that everyone else was out having fun. My grandma is a great cook, she always has been, and so she made me all my favorites so I'd feel better. Eating was the only thing there was to do, I just ate and watched old movies and ate some more. I gained like 30 pounds that summer and it just never stopped, I just kept getting bigger and bigger no matter what my parents tried. 

“Well, how did you lose it,” Lindsey breathed, fascination overtaking her clumsy lack of verbal coordination. 

“They sent me to fat camp,” Audrey reported as if she were describing a trip to the supermarket. “Right before 12th grade. I mean, they basically just starve you and make you run laps, it's just military school with lemon water, but it worked. I’ve dropped like 100 pounds.”

“100 pounds,” Lindsey repeated incredulously, confounded at the idea that the perfectly trim girl in front of her could’ve ever carried an extra hundred pounds of fat on her slender frame. 

“So that's how I know,” Audrey said, causing Lindsey to cock her head in further confusion.

“Know what?” she asked.

“Know you can lose it. If you want to, I mean.”

“If I want to?” Lindsey parroted.

“Yea, if you want to. You might realize you like it. I liked it.”

Lindsey narrowed her eyes in disbelief. 

“You liked it?”

“Yea, kinda. I don't care about shit like that, I think it's all really superficial. I think people’s focus on these inconsequential indicators of adherence to social mores and folkways is limiting to a degree that’s difficult to fully conceptualize, I think it detracts from self-actualization so significantly that the devastating impacts of late-stage capitalism can be attributed nearly entirely to our modern focus on sapien aesthetics. 

Lindsey blinked. 

“Huh?” she intoned, barely understanding the analysis and failing to see how it made Audrey like being fat. 

“The world would be a better place if your appearance didn’t determine your opportunities and treatment,” Audrey summarized with a shrug, somehow still typing at the same speed. “We’d have more people with more brainpower to focus on real issues instead of being lightheaded from undernourishment cause they wanna get a summer body. People would be nicer, they'd be less vain. Less judgemental, more empathic. 

“But, how did that make you like it?” Lindsey interjected impatiently.

“I mean, when you remove all the societal expectations around how you should look, compared to skin and bones, fat just feels better. I liked how soft my whole body was, how fun it was to play with. The tactical experience of pressing your hands into your own rolls is unmatched, it's very relaxing.”

She paused for a moment, clearly considering. 

“It's like a stress ball,” she finished, never breaking the computer screen's gaze. “But everyone in my life took issue with it, my opportunities diminished because of it, so the choice was made to reverse it. It doesn't make being fat bad, and it doesn't make being skinny good.”

They were silent for a while, Lindsey contemplating what Audrey had revealed while Audrey typed steadily. 

“It's why I'm writing this,” Audrey finally offered, breaking the silence. “I’m starting my honors senior thesis this year. My advisor thinks it's a good idea to get a headstart. I’m gonna write a psychological analysis of the campus pigs experiment with a focus on arbitrary differences in treatment and perception based on weight gain and how those differences impact the subject's academic and artistic output.”

“You're writing about me?” Lindsey blurted.

“No, not just you. The whole campus, everybody competing in the contest. I started this a few weeks ago, I didn't even know you were going to be chosen.”

“But now you're writing about me,” Lindsey clarified, a twinge of anger beginning to set in.

“I suppose I'll have more contact with you and more opportunities to observe you closely, so, sure. I'm writing about you.”

“Well, what if I don't want you to,” Lindsey shot back, forgetting that just a few moments before she’d been too nervous to invite Audrey's attention at all. 

Audrey just laughed, her energy immutable despite Lindsey's shift. 

“I guess you gotta get used to doing stuff you don't wanna do, huh?” she retorted lightly, a smile evident in her voice. 

Lindsey pouted and turned back to face the window, the drab side view of the neighboring red brick house the only thing to focus her attention on. 

Audrey continued to type as Lindsey seethed, the two of them sitting in silence for several minutes that Lindsey experienced as hours. 

“Don't use my name,” Lindsey abruptly instructed grouchily. 

“Jesus,” exclaimed Audrey, flinching. “I forgot you were here.”

“You forgot I was here while you're writing about me?”

Audrey sighed, clicked a few more keys, and shut her laptop. 

“I’m not writing about you, I'm writing about the concept of perception and its marked lack of rooted grounding in reality. I’m writing about something you’re participating in, sure, but if you think you’re even close to the biggest focus of my thesis you have to be delusional. I might make reference to you. Emphasis on might. But this is psychology, not anthropology. I can't just make assertions based on observation of modernity, I need actual evidence, I need to follow the scientific method. The individual case studies from this project are going to be old campus pigs, either ones that have graduated or dropped out. Tiffany has already agreed to come interview for me.”

“Tiffany?” Lindsey asked, momentarily forgetting her sore feelings. “You talked to Tiffany?”

“Yea, I dm'd her. She's gonna come for an alumni day in a few months and we’ve set aside some time to talk.”

Lindsey somehow felt herself getting more irritated, knowing full well that her childish, bratty behavior and jealousy were born of anxiety, but unable to meter her reactions. It wasn't as if Tiffany had rejected her while accepting Audrey, Lindsey had never even made an attempt to reach out to Tiffany beyond following her on Instagram, but she felt the spike of envy all the same, felt the desire to knock Audrey down a peg despite the fact that she knew the brainy girl wasn't bragging. 

“Well, why don't you interview yourself, you were fat,” she grumped.

Audrey laughed, standing and crossing to the bed to lean down into Lindsey’s face. Lindsey swallowed, anything but immune to the crushing weight of the beauty’s attention and barely mustering the willpower it took to maintain eye contact with a gaze that hypnotic. 

“You’re sleepy,” she assessed correctly, her nose just inches from Lindsey’s.

Lindsey felt her breath hitch. She was uncertain why she couldn't blink, couldn't move. It was like Audrey was holding her down with her eyes alone, pinning Lindsey's wrist so that she couldn't wriggle free, couldn't look away. 

“You barely slept after the party last night,” Audrey went on. “You need to drink some water, get some sleep, and you’ll feel better when you wake up.”

Linsdey continued to stare, unsure how her slightly standoffish sorority sister was able to read her so well and unable to break the gaze of the goddess whose breath was tickling her lips. 

Audrey's grin grew and she straightened up, placed a hand against Lindsey's shoulder, and pushed her, the unexpected move leaving Lindsey lying flat on her back on the bed. 

“Sleep,” Audrey instructed, turning to leave. 

“Here?” Lindsey asked, still confused about how she came to be lying down in Audrey’s bed. 

“Yup,” Audrey confirmed, popping the p as was her trademark candace. “I’ll be back.”

Audrey slipped out of the room, flicking off the light as she went and pulling the door closed behind her. Lindsey stared at the ceiling, the events of the barely-begun day more than she could take. Morning light still streamed in through the window, but Lindsey curled into a ball atop the covers and fell quickly into a deep, dreamless sleep.