Exactly What You Asked For
By J.D Freshenmeyer
Dalton’s blonde hair flowed over his broad, muscular shoulders. His smooth chest glistened through his open white shirt. “Oh Felicity, I’d give up the high seas if it meant I could be with you forever.”
“Oh Dalton, I don’t care if you are a pirate. I’ll sail the seas by your side for all my days.”
Their confession was drowned out by the sound of open-mouthed chewing. Alissa jammed a pudgy finger on the remote and changed the channel.
Why did they get to be happy?
Wheel of Fortune came on instead. Whatever.
That meant it was somewhere around noon. But with the shades drawn and the only light coming from the TV, it was hard to keep track.
She reached around on the floor without looking, pushing through the garbage dump of empty bags and discarded wrappers, grabbing the first thing she found. A family-size bag of cheddar cheese potato chips. She tore the bag open and started mindlessly feeding them into her mouth. Lying in bed in the position she was in, she couldn’t see her feet over the mound of her belly that rose several inches into the air. She pushed down with one hand to make sure they were still there. She wiggled her toes in her pink socks, then let it go and they disappeared again.
Alissa had never been skinny. Always a chubby little kid. But in the last four months since their dad had walked out, she’d absolutely ballooned. The comfort eating had started the day he left and hadn’t stopped for even a moment since. Food was the only thing that took the edge off.
Her white pajamas with the green dinosaurs had grown almost skin-tight. No, they hadn’t grown. They’d stayed exactly the same. She’d grown. Getting the next size up would have involved an embarrassing conversation with her mother, so she just chose to live with it. There were six buttons, and currently two were undone. Pudgy, pale flesh oozed through the gaps like cookie dough.
She hadn’t looked at herself in the mirror in weeks, always keeping her eyes closed when she showered or brushed her teeth. She’d accidentally caught a glimpse of herself a while ago and it had looked like a Bigfoot sighting. Under the bathroom sink, their scale lurked like a horrible monster. She didn’t dare go near it, in case it jumped out and weighed her.
At least she wasn’t crying anymore. She’d start again later, but for now the food was doing its job. She let out a loud, disgusting belch that the neighbors down the street probably heard. The chips were kind of plain, so she fumbled around her windowsill for the Nutella. Not taking her glazed eyes off the TV, she started dipping the chips in a thick slathering of chocolate before each bite.
From somewhere in the folds of her bed sheets, her phone buzzed a notification. She lurched into a sitting position, spilling chip crumbs down her front, and frantically searched for it. She found it under the covers and tapped the pop-up to see what had been posted.
It was Emma Steinwitz. Pretty little bleach-blonde skinny enough she could hide behind a coat rack Emma Steinwitz. She’d posted a selfie in math class with one eye closed and her pierced tongue sticking out from between her glossy pink lips.
Alissa felt a pulsing hatred radiate through her entire body. With chocolate-stained fingers and eyes glaring, she left several mean comments in quick succession from her anonymous account.
“Slut”
“Nice Dye Job”
“Didn’t I see you at the STD clinic last week?”
She switched to a second fake account to thumbs-up all her own comments. A satisfied grin spread across her chubby face.
She then scrolled to her other source of comfort. The profile of Madeline Jankowski. They were in the same English lit class. Now she was fat. Good God, was she fat. She needed two chairs to sit on and had to go through doors sideways. There were posts of her at school, at home trying on dresses that used to be circus tents, with her family on vacation. She was smiling in all of them.
That just made Alissa even angrier. Madeline’s family was still together. They looked happy. She had her dad. What the hell was her excuse for being so fat?
Well at least she’d never let it get that bad, right? Even in her current state as some kind of melted gelatinous blob, she was still a twig compared to Madeline. Still... she really didn’t have any idea what she looked like anymore.
Thing is, if you’d asked people, they’d all have said that 14-year-old Alissa Baker was quite pretty. Decently tall, with pale, freckle-covered skin and light auburn hair, she honestly could have had a career as a model. But no one on Earth could have convinced Alissa herself of that.
From the living room, there was a knock at the front door that gave her a momentary jolt of panic, thinking it was her mother. Alissa was supposed to be at school. On “good” days, she would show up and just sleep through class. On bad days, and today was a bad day, she’d go around the corner to the bus stop, wait until her mother and little sister had left, then just use her spare key to let herself back in. A bonus was that she could intercept any letters sent about truancy. The neighbor’s trash can had already received several.
It probably wasn’t her mother at the door. Why would she bother knocking? Maybe it was NASA coming to investigate the 10th planet they’d detected in a suburban bedroom.
She ignored it and shoved another handful of chips in her mouth, crunching loudly.
The knocking continued.
She cranked the volume up on the TV.
“YOU COULD WIN AN ALL EXPENSES VACATION TO SCENIC OTTAWA, CANADA!”
Whoever it was didn’t give up.
She put a pillow over her head and pressed her face into it.
knock knock knock knock
“Aghh, fine!” She threw the pillow at the empty space on the wall where her poster of Ji-Hun from Boys Extra used to be. She couldn’t stand him looking at what she’d become with that perfect chiseled face. So he was currently rolled up under the bed, along with her school bag and a party dress that might have fit in a different lifetime.
With some effort, she hauled her fat, lumbering carcass out of bed and plodded across the room, empty wrappers crunching and rustling under her feet. This was the fifth time today, and hopefully would be the last. She’d gotten up twice to use the bathroom across the hall, and twice to get food deliveries. Downstairs lights off, only opening the door a crack to reach through and grasp for the bag like a witch in an old cottage.
The knocking didn’t stop the whole time it took her to get down the stairs to the front door. It occurred to her that she could actually feel her butt bouncing and wobbling with each step.
“Alright, alright,” she yelled. “I’m coming as fast as I can.”
She yanked the door open and recoiled as the sunlight stung her eyes. She put a hand up to shield her face and blinked a few times.
The man standing in her doorway looked like a secret agent out of an old movie. Crisp black suit, pressed white shirt, red tie. His slicked black hair looked like it’d been parted with a ruler and didn’t have a strand out of place. He had a briefcase in one hand.
Alissa in comparison was hunched over, wearing pajamas that didn’t fit, with her long, unbrushed hair doing God-knows-what. She was squinting, with puffy bags under her eyes from crying and lack of sleep. She hadn’t showered in several days, either, and probably smelled like a barn. It had gotten to the point where she couldn’t even bear to undress to get in the shower, and would just lock the door and leave the water running to trick her mother—while she sat on the rim of the bathtub.
She looked up at the man (he was significantly taller than her), and he smiled—showing off two rows of perfectly white teeth.
Alissa scratched her butt. Her first thought was truant officer.
“Yeah?”
“Well hello, young lady. Are you the owner of the house?”
She stared dreary-eyed at him. “What do you think?”
“No, I suppose not. That was just me being silly. Still, I—”
“Look, whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.” She tried closing the door, but he was too far in. He already had one foot on the rug.
“Oh no, I’m not selling anything. I promise you, no money will change hands today.”
He talked like one of those old-timey carnival guys. “Roll up, roll up, see the amazing wonders of the world.”
“Look, whatever it is, I don’t want it, alright?” She pushed the door more forcefully and cringed as she accidentally slammed it against his leg. “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
He hadn’t even flinched. “Oh that’s quite alright. Happens all the time. Why if I had a nickel for every time I had a door slammed in my face, got bit by the family dog or chased off with a garden hose...” He trailed off.
She was desperate to get back to the safety of her cave. “Alright, well, sorry again.” She turned to leave, content to just leave him standing at the front door by himself.
“I don’t sell things, Alissa.”
That froze her blood. Then the feeling was quickly replaced with anger. Okay, obviously this scumbag had all their personal info, probably stolen off the internet. And he thought he knew something about their lives that would give him an angle to sell crap. She decided to waste a bit of his time instead.
There was a hissing sound from the kitchen. Alissa turned around and saw their cat, Winston, in the archway. His hair was raised and he was baring his teeth. Normally he just legged it in the opposite direction whenever a stranger was at the door.
“Stupid thing,” she thought.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
She hesitated. A lifetime of warnings about stranger danger made her think ‘no’, but in her sleep-deprived, brain-fogged state, she just didn’t have the mental energy to care.
“Sure.” She motioned for him to enter. Getting hacked up with an axe would have been a blessing at this point. She just hoped they used an old photo of her on the news.
He helped himself to a seat on the couch and put his briefcase down on the glass coffee table. The shades in the living room were drawn, and the only light was filtering in from the open window in the kitchen.
She brought a chair from the dining room. The armchair in the corner was her ex-father’s and she wouldn’t touch it. Her mother hadn’t agreed to her suggestion that they burn it in the backyard.
“Nice place you’ve got here. You know, I’ve been in a lot of nice homes, and you get pretty good at feeling the energ—” He stopped when he saw she was glaring at him.
“Get to the point. What is it, time-shares or pest control?”
“Straight to it, then. Good. You know, decisiveness is a trait that’ll—”
“I said get to the point.”
“Oh for the days of an intellectual conversation. Fine. If you could have one thing in the world, anything, what would it be? Actually, let me rephrase that. What do you want more than anything in the world?”
She smirked. “You’re the salesman. Aren’t you supposed to convince me I want something I didn’t even know I wanted?”
“Like your dad back?”
She felt a lump in her throat. Oh no, oh please no. Not now. The dam was about to burst again. In her mind, there’d be absolutely no coming back from hysterically sobbing in front of this complete stranger.
She turned it into anger instead. Anger was always a safe bet. “How the hell do you know that?”
“It’s my business to know things,” he said flatly. There was no hint of the old-fashioned huckster in his voice anymore.
“Then you’d know I never want to see him again.”
“Is that what you want most? Not a rousing family reunion. For him to show up on your doorstep, cap in hand with a tearful apology?”
She could almost taste the bitterness in her throat. “No. He can rot for all I care. You know what I want? What I really want?”
He leaned forward and she noticed how perfect his skin was. Not a wrinkle or a clogged pore. “I think I can guess.”
She smiled a hateful smile. “I want to be thin. Forever. I want to be able to eat as much as I want all the time and stay 100 pounds for as long as I live. Think you’ve got that in your briefcase?” He obviously didn’t, and she was curious how he’d keep his scam going after she’d just thrown it off the rails.
To her surprise, he clicked the latches of his case open. Inside was a single square sheet of paper.
All the fun went out of it at once. Oh, she knew what this was. This nut wasn’t selling a product, he was selling Jesus. She’d done this at Sunday School when she was a kid. Everyone got a contract they’d sign promising they’d be good little girls and boys and stay away from sin. Fat lot of good that had done her, pun absolutely intended.
He put the paper on the table in front of her. There was nothing on it. It was completely blank except for a line where a signature would go. He took a pen out of his breast pocket, clicked it and handed it to her.
“Just your name on the dotted line. Or an “X” will do.”
She left him holding the pen and just sat with her arms folded. “Magic weight loss? Seriously?” Her voice got angrier, “I watch 12 hours of TV a day, you think I haven’t seen a million commercials promising the same thing?”
“What have you got to lose? Besides all the disgusting fat you’ve buried yourself in.” His blank expression never changed.
Anyone else would have been taken aback. Offended. But not Alissa Baker. She was a pro at self-loathing. Every minute of every day—she was calling herself worse things in her own head. This clown didn’t know who he was dealing with.
“And why come to me? What did I do to deserve this...generous offer?” she asked in a terrible Brando impression. She felt clever, like this whole thing was a game of wits she was outsmarting him in.
“You’ve gained 37 pounds since your dad left.”
That cut her to the absolute core. It felt like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water on her head. He was just guessing, obviously, but what an absolute piece of garbage this guy was. Did anyone take him up on whatever he was offering? He must have been the worst salesman of all time.
She just stared at him silently.
“Go upstairs and check, if you don’t believe me. I’ll wait.”
“You need to leave.” Her voice broke as she said it.
She had gotten drunk a few times in the past, when she still had friends and talked to people, and y’know, went outside. And there came a point where before you actually threw up, you could already sense that you were going to. Even a few minutes before it happened, you just knew it was inevitable, and the only question was where, not when.
She felt the same way whenever she was going to cry. And she knew that any second it would start and she wouldn’t be able to stop it.
He didn’t argue. Just closed his briefcase, stood up calmly and saw himself out. He didn’t say a word.
Alissa kept her head buried in her hands until she heard the front door close. When she was sure he was gone and out of earshot, she let it all out. Breaking down into ugly, hysterical sobbing. It went on and on until she had no tears left and it turned into dry heaving.
She was snapped out of it when she felt something brush against her leg.
Winston was sitting on his haunches, looking up at her with those big green eyes. She reached down to ruffle his fur and he rolled over onto his back, playfully nipping at her hand.
“Sorry,” she said to him.
She went into the kitchen and emptied a can of tuna into his bowl. Then she took a packet of Oreos and a jar of jam out of the fridge, shut the door with her butt, and retreated back to her fortress of solitude. On her way back, she grabbed the paper and pen off the coffee table and threw them in the trash.
It didn’t occur to her until later that she’d never even learned the guy’s name.
The rest of the day went by as usual. Alissa ate, ate more, belched, scratched herself occasionally. Left more nasty comments on the pages of Emma Steinwitz and anyone else in the 8th grade of Langford middle school she felt was prettier or more popular than her. Being that that was everyone, she had her work cut out. Her account got banned at one point, and she switched to one of her dozen or so backups to pretend to be a boy—asking Emma when she was going to tell everyone she was pregnant with their baby.
The Oreos disappeared quickly. Each one dipped in jam and delivered to her waiting mouth like an automated factory process. It wasn’t even in the top ten most disgustingly gluttonous things she’d done recently.
The anger she’d felt at that sleazebag of a salesman had faded. Lost in the dopamine haze of her endless grazing. Still, she hoped the next person he pissed off booted him in the nuts.
At some point, there was a knock on the door and her mother’s voice telling her dinner was ready, and that she’d leave it outside. It must have been around six already. Alissa mumbled a response to indicate she was still alive, and hadn’t choked on a Twinkie or gotten so fat she’d collapsed into a black hole.
That was about the extent of their conversations nowadays. When Alissa heard footsteps going down the stairs and knew it was safe, she went over to the door, quickly pulled it open and took the food before closing it again. It was a plate of meatloaf, with green beans and fries on the side.
She ate it out of a sense of obligation, not because she was hungry. Even if they weren’t on speaking terms, the idea of her mother cooking dinner and her just rejecting it was unthinkably cruel. Even if she had left comments for several girls in her class that day wishing they’d develop eating disorders.
On TV, it was a Simpsons rerun. Bart was wearing giant shoes and big, goofy glasses. She used to crack up at that show, when they’d all watch it together on the couch.
She turned it off.
Scrolling through the parade of happy, smiling people, she came to the one profile she’d never leave a mean comment under. Or any comment for that matter. In fact, she would have laid down in mud so he could walk across her back and not get his feet dirty.
Evan White.
Theater kid. Possible angel sent from Heaven. With his shoulder-length black hair, vibrant blue eyes and just a bit of muscle definition.
He had a new video up. Alissa clicked it, more excited than a kid opening presents on Christmas.
It was him performing in their school’s rendition of Camelot. He was the lead, (of course he was, he was incredible and could probably do anything). He was on one knee, belting out the last part of the song.
♪No, never could I leave you, at alllllll....♪
She made a stupid little squealing noise and fell back on the pillow, kicking her feet in the air. This happiness lasted about eight seconds, until she remembered that he wouldn’t have even touched her with a long pole. He didn’t know she existed, obviously, except in a geographical sense. Like how you can stand on the edge of Alaska and know Russia exists.
There were quite a few comments under the video, but only one caught her eye. It was from Madeline, asking him if he had a date for the school dance. He’d replied that he didn’t.
Alissa’s eyes narrowed into a hateful squint. Was this parade float trying to shoot her shot with him? Furious, she found Madeline’s latest upload, a group picture of her and her family at a seafood restaurant, and tapped out “is it true you got so fat the fire department had to cut the side of your house off to get your fat ass out?”
She hit post, then used a different account to post a laughing emoji.
As she was doing this, she caught a whiff of something. She smelled her armpit a little and could have gagged a yak. Time for a real shower. Even in the state she was in, three days without one was pushing it.
Anything for you, Evan. I’ll even shower more than once a week.
Peering out to make sure the coast was clear, she crossed the hallway to the bathroom and quickly locked the door behind her.
She’d have to do this like a blind person. The alternative was taping newspaper over the mirror like some kind of paranoid lunatic. Eyes firmly shut, she unbuttoned her cotton pyjama shirt and dropped it in a crumpled heap on the tiled floor. Then awkwardly shimmied out of her bottoms. They were practically painted on at this point. She took a few steps backwards until she felt the tub, sat down on the edge and reached out to pull her socks off. It took some effort.
The hot water felt like heaven on her skin. She had it cranked way up like she liked it, turning the room into a sauna. Ignoring the implications it had for her life that the simple act of showering now felt like a spa day, she even allowed herself the luxury of opening her eyes. She stood in the corner though, so the only thing she could see was a bit of white tiled wall. God, what a freak show.
She washed her hair before scrubbing (again, like a crazy person), coating her long, messy hair in a generous amount of lavender-scented two-in-one shampoo and conditioner.
There was no more putting it off. Closing her eyes again, she squirted a glob of liquid soap into her hand and began the task of actually cleaning herself. Rubbing it over her body, she had to feel every roll, every new curve and bump. Every disgusting jiggling bit that didn’t use to be there. Her wide load of a butt was probably a two-person job at this point. The whole process made her feel like a walrus getting hosed down at the zoo.
It did feel nice to be clean, though. If only it didn’t have to be so humiliating.
Alissa groped around until she found the towel. She wrapped it around herself and... it didn’t reach.
She tried again, tugging it even tighter. Not even close.
Of course it doesn’t fit, you disgusting slob. Towels are for people that don’t inhale a grocery store’s worth of candy bars in an afternoon.
She dropped the towel and just sat down naked on the bathroom floor. She didn’t even have the energy to cry again. She just sat there. Thinking nothing, feeling nothing. Staring at a spot on the wall. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the scale under the sink.
You’ve gained 37 pounds
Desperation makes people irrational. Those who have never been in a seemingly hopeless situation will all say “I’d never act like that,” or “I’d never fall for that.” But until you’ve been there, you can’t actually know how you would react or what you would do.
At that moment, an irrational seed of hope was sprouting in Alissa Baker’s mind.
She stood up, caught herself in the mirror for a moment, ignored it, and with a pudgy foot, pulled the scale out from its hiding place. If this didn’t work, in her mind there would be no going back. She fully expected to sink into a pit that she would never climb out of.
Standing on the scale, she realized she couldn’t even see the number or her own toes past the curve of her gut. All she could see was an ocean of pale, flabby skin and bright red stretchmarks.
She took a big breath and sucked in as far as she could, hoping and at the same time dreading being able to see the little red number.
207.3
She exhaled and let it all back out. Goodbye, toes.
That freak had been right. Down to the pound.
“Night, honey. See you in the morning,” her mother said through the door.
“Sure, mom.”
Alissa waited until she heard her mother’s door close, then gave it another five minutes to be sure.
She’d actually brushed her hair into something that didn’t resemble a bird’s nest. She smelled... at least neutral. Her skin felt nice, now that she wasn’t stewing in her own filth. It wouldn’t last, but for the moment she enjoyed it.
Wearing a bra and a pair of sweatpants, she crept downstairs into the kitchen and searched through the trash. Hopefully it hadn’t been emptied.
There it was, under a pile of coffee grounds and orange peels. She took the paper, and the pen, just assuming it needed both to work.
When she got back to her room, in the light she noticed the pen had a phone number on the side.
She dialed it and he answered immediately. As if he’d been waiting for the call the whole time.
“Alissa, good to hear from you. So you’ve decided to take me up on my offer? What changed?”
She was silent.
“Never mind. I have a bad habit of gloating. I’m sure your reason is a good one.”
She spoke quietly, worried someone in the house would hear. “So how does this work?”
“Just sign. No need for blood, ink will do.”
“And then what?”
“Then you get exactly what you asked for. Nothing more, nothing less. Sounds like a fair deal to me.”
“How fast does it work?”
“Wellll... I’m not entirely up to date on my health science, but I think they say one pound a week is a good amount.”
She almost lost it and was about to yell “The dance is in two weeks, you idiot. I don’t have time for one pound a week.” She stopped herself and took a deep breath. “That won’t work,” she said calmly. “I want one pound a day, no,” she did the math in her head, 37 pounds, two weeks, “three pounds a day.”
“That’s unhealthy. I’m not trying to kill you.”
“I don’t care. I want three pounds a day or I’m not signing.”
“And what incentive do I have to bargain with you?”
“You must be getting something out of this, or you wouldn’t be doing it. I don’t know what your angle is and I don’t care. Either you agree or I hang up.”
“You drive a hard bargain, young lady. Fine, three a day.”
“And I’ll never gain it back?”
“If that’s what you want.”
She was about to hang up, but couldn’t help herself. “Who are you?”
“If you knew, you might change your mind. Are you sure?”
She hesitated, “No, I guess not.” She hung up and just sat there for a while. Then she scribbled “A. Baker” on the line. As soon as she did, the paper and pen disappeared.
Guess that meant it was official.
She poked a finger into the spare tire of fat spilling over her waistband, reached behind and felt the curve of her back rolls, pinched at her double chin.
She ran her hands over her chest. She’d be sad to see those go, at least. But sacrifices had to be made. Two weeks, 37 pounds. Evan White wouldn’t know what hit him.
Before she went to bed that night, Alissa made a vow to herself that this would be a turning point. From here on, she would be a whole new person.
She brought up a black plastic garbage bag and filled it with all the crap on her floor, then snuck outside to dump it in the neighbor’s trash can. She returned all the uneaten snacks to the fridge and cupboard. No point being wasteful.
She put the poster of Ji-Hun back up, even though they’d be breaking up soon, once Evan got a taste of her.
She set an alarm for 10 AM tomorrow. No need to go nuts getting up too early. She wasn’t planning to go to school, absolutely not. Not until she was ready for her debut. No, she was going to spend the next two weeks working out like boot camp. If the salesman had promised her three pounds a day as a baseline, then she could probably squeeze out at least four if she really pushed herself and didn’t eat much.
Still, two weeks would be cutting it close. Even after she’d lost all the weight, what if he didn’t fall for her on sight? She might need at least a few days to let the romance blossom. Maybe she’d need to try for five pounds a day.
Wait, 207 minus 37 would put her at 170. Would that be skinny enough? Oh god, would she need to lose even more? Should she call the salesman back and ask for a different deal? AGHHHH, why hadn’t she just wished to be thin all at once? Idiot.
She felt herself getting overwhelmed again. All her thoughts were screaming at once. It was like there was a cloud around her head. The familiar urge to just eat and wallow in misery hit hard. She stuffed it down, mentally scolding herself.
“No, we’re not doing that anymore. When Evan and I are living in a rustic yet ultramodern cottage on 30 acres of land in the countryside, I can’t dirty up the floor we’ll be making love on with Twix wrappers.
That feeling always won. But not this time.
She went to bed with a smile on her face. She was so excited it was hard to fall asleep.
.♪..Reason aside. Mad about love. You and iiii...♪
Alissa hit the snooze button on her phone. She wasn’t used to being woken up before noon, and was about to fall back asleep before her brain started working and she remembered.
She had a reason to be awake today.
Jumping out of bed (to the best of her ability), she rushed to the bathroom and pulled out the scale. She didn’t feel any lighter, and looking down, her toes were still hidden under her gut.
She took an almighty breath in and held it as the number bounced around.
207, 208. A horrible thought briefly filled her mind. What if she’d gained weight? What if this whole thing was a trick? What made her think she could trust that guy?
207, 206, 204.
204.
It settled on 204.
She breathed out, and all her fat surged forward. It looked like a landslide burying houses in its path. She didn’t care though. It had worked.
Alissa clapped her hands and screamed like a lunatic. It had worked. She was too afraid to do it again, in case it had been a fluke. She noticed Winston looking at her from the doorway. She rushed over, scooped him up and rubbed her face against his. “Oh buddy, things are looking up.”
He seemed indifferent.
She rushed back to her room to grab her phone. She had a million more questions for the guy now that she knew he was a hundred percent legit. She went to recent calls and dialed the number, waiting. There was no answer. No tone, not even a robot voice saying the number was unavailable.
Well, whatever, he was probably busy helping someone else.
Time for a shower. Then she’d brush her hair and her teeth, exercise, go outside and soak up some sunlight.“Act like a normal person” boot-camp started right now.
The next few weeks passed slowly, but Alissa didn’t slip up once. No snacks, no candy. Up at a reasonable-ish time. Exercise every day. Squats, wall-sits, sit-ups.
The pain of her father leaving never fully went away, but it did sort of dull. Like when you took an aspirin. Not like when she was shoving garbage in her mouth. She didn’t feel like she was at risk of breaking down crying at any given moment, at least. And that was good enough.
She still kept out of sight. She wanted her transformation to be a complete surprise. Of course, she didn’t tell her mom about the contract or any of that. She wasn’t about to get shipped off to the nuthouse before the dance.
Everything started going right pretty quickly. Her dinosaur pajamas that had been so tight she almost needed to be cut out of them now fit comfortably. Her belly flattened, her arms toned up. Her butt shrank, and while she was happy it didn’t need its own zip code anymore, it might have been nice to keep at least some curvature. More squats would hopefully take care of that.
She used cream on the stretchmarks that covered her hips and stomach, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. Not in two weeks, at least. Oh well, Evan wouldn’t be seeing her with her shirt off anyway. Not on their first date at least, heh-heh.
She didn’t end up losing as much as she’d hoped. Barely a few pounds over the 37 promised. Still, she could hide it with clothes and makeup, and once Evan was hers, he wouldn’t care that she was still a bit fat. By then, they’d be in love and she’d have all the time in the world to keep slimming down. She’d be toned and tanned by the time they were honeymooning on a beach in Barbados.
There was no fanfare on the day she returned to school. No “oohs” and “ahhs” for her triumphant comeback. She was just another anonymous face in a crowd of thousands. That was fine, though. Only one person needed to notice her that day.
She was wearing the sleeveless green dress from under her bed, that now fit quite nicely. Her hair was up in a simple, unflashy ponytail. She’d done her best at makeup. It hadn’t turned out great, but better than nothing.
She made her move after biology. He was standing in the hall by the lockers, talking to some friends. God, he was even more perfect in real life. Two weeks of online stalking and obsessively watching his uploads hadn’t prepared her for this.
She walked up to him. “Hey, Evan.”
He didn’t hear her over the sound of the crowd. She said it again. “Hey, Evan.”
This time he looked up. “Oh, hey. You need something?”
She considered running full speed in the opposite direction and making a new life for herself as a crazy old woman in the woods. Maybe she could get a man by snatching him off a walking trail.
“Are you—” it felt like there was a golf ball in her throat, “are you going to the dance?”
He smiled at her, “sure, everyone’s going.”
“Do you, uh... you got a date?”
He laughed apologetically. “Uh, yeah, I do. Sorry if you wanted to ask me out.”
Her brain malfunctioned like a computer and shut down. She didn’t speak, she didn’t blink, she didn’t move. As she stood there on the verge of hyperventilating, one of Evan’s friends said to her “You’re not his type, if you know what I mean,” and Evan and his friends all laughed as the bell rang and they walked off to the next class. His voice sounded like it was coming from inside a fish tank. Or from the far end of a long tunnel.
“Who is it?” she shouted after them.
“Maddie Jankowski,” Evan said—turning back to face her as he walked. “We’re in the theatre club together.”
“Maddie Jankowski,” Alissa whispered under her breath. “MADDIE JANKOWSKI? That fat fucking whale?” She screamed, drawing confused looks from the people passing her in the hall.
“I could have told you,” a familiar voice said from behind her.
She turned around. The salesman was leaning against a locker, his eyes closed and a smug grin on his face.
The anger in her voice could have melted steel. She spoke slowly and deliberately. “You... could have told me what?”
“That you were barking up the wrong tree, you silly little girl.” He reached into his coat and tossed her a folded up magazine.
She looked at it. The cover showed an enormously obese woman kneeling in the sand on a sunny tropical beach. She had on a barely existent string bikini. The title in big pink bubble font said “SSBBW PARADISE”
She let it fall from her hands, unable to mentally process what was happening to her.
The salesman continued, “See, fine young Evan White, straight-A student, theater whiz, also has a preference, a rather well known one I should add, for excess. Hell, looking through some of those magazines of his, even I think the kid might be onto something.”
“You tricked me,” she finally muttered.
“I did no such thing,” he shot back indignantly. “I made myself perfectly clear and delivered what you asked for to the letter. 37 pounds lost, never to be put back on. That was our agreement. Perhaps you should have considered asking what Evan wanted.”
She fell to her knees, not even noticing how badly it hurt when they smashed into the concrete floor. “Now what?”
“Oh don’t be so dramatic. I don’t want your soul. The look on your face is more than payment enough.” He burst into hysterical laughter that echoed down the halls as he faded away.
People must have thought she was insane, as she knelt sobbing into her hands in the middle of the hallway.
Alissa sat at the kitchen table, littered with several empty tubs of ice cream and more half-finished. The shades were all drawn and the room was dark except for the little square of light coming from her phone. Tears ran slowly down her cheeks into the mango ice-cream she was eating, as she scrolled through Evan and Madeline’s now joint social media account. There were dozens of pictures of them together at the dance. They’d had a great time, it seemed. With plenty of supportive comments underneath wishing the best for the new couple.
She’d been gorging herself non-stop for a week, obsessively checking her weight on the scale at least a dozen times a day. The number hadn’t budged. And would never budge.
Under the table, Winston brushed against her leg and meowed for attention.
She was so lost in her own head that she didn’t notice as the room turned black and white and a stranger in a suit walked in from nowhere. He was holding a lit cigarette.
“Alissa Baker, aged fourteen, asked for only one thing. To be thin. Deep down though, what she really wanted was the same thing we all want, to be desired. What she didn’t stop to consider was that beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder, and that some of us have preferences outside the bounds of what society considers normal. Though she lost her excess weight, she gained something else entirely. A very important lesson. Be careful what you wish for. Especially, in the twi-”
“Oh would you shut up,” she yelled at him. “And put that disgusting thing out.”
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly, snuffing out the cigarette in a handheld ashtray.
The room returned to color as he exited.