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The Thin College


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1 hour ago, xandercroft said:

Dear sir, to make this more interesting as it would be working on the side of good, perhaps your character might want to volunteer in a soup kitchen?  Or maybe even get a job at the school caff?  Thinking of ways to game this system myself.  Corporate sponsorship for the school?  hhhhmmmmm.....(Think think think)

think winnie the pooh GIF

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Chapter Six

               With my brain buzzing with unbridled excitement over the very idea of fattening every girl I could see, I suddenly realized that I had no idea what to do next, so I took a nap, missed church by accident, and woke up at midnight. I tossed and twisted in my bedsheets trying to get back to sleep, but really, I had just “napped” over eight hours, so I wasn’t about to fall asleep. Oh well, time for a late-night gaming session.

               It had been awhile since I’d played Civilization VI, so I started that one up. There was a new DLC that made natural disasters a thing, which was an interesting idea. Too bad the first few turns of the game were so boring. I started pretending each city was a girl I knew, and that the population number coincided with jean sizes. Then again, if population equalled jean size, what equalled bra cups? Production value, of course. Maybe. These weren’t perfect match-ups, but it did keep my mind engaged…

               What the hell was I doing? Why was I daydreaming in a video game like this? And why did thinking about fattening girls feel slightly titillating? Did it though? Maybe I was just mixing the thrill of vengeance with my unfulfilled yearnings for love and lust. Maybe being single too long made you slowly go crazy in some strange, kinky way. That would explain my DeviantArt search history…

               As my mind wandered, I suddenly realized that I’d foolishly built a city next to a dormant volcano that had decided to explode (so that was why the soil was so fertile). Oh well, I could build a better city further out. What was the best way to maximize city growth? Better yet, what was the best way to maximize girl growth? Now that I had reached “level 1,” it was clear that even though I earned pounds from making others lose pounds, it did not mean that anyone would be getting any thinner in the long run. On the contrary, whether a girl was wearing some extra pounds or the pounds were stored in my app, the math didn’t lie: there was always a net gain of pounds. The “pounds bar” on my app was basically a bank… yes… indeed. A bank of pounds. I was “investing” in girls (and horses) and earned “dividends” as they lost the weight. Then – as any good bank is prone to do – I would give out a “loan” with my Hex Ring.

               My eyes lit up as I suddenly realized what I was daydreaming about.

               “That’s it!” I said to myself, laughing in spite of myself. “It’s a bank! This is literally what I’m studying!”

               And so it was! I was working on an economics major. I could use my studies to develop tactics for using the fattening app to maximum effect! All I had to do was pretend I was running a bank! Hell, maybe this whole thing would help me better understand what I was reading too! Was a 3.5 GPA out of the question? A 4.0? Oh my, the possibilities of this were endless!

 

               My epiphany inspired me to study my economics homework for the third time in a row... sort of. Every time I played a turn in Civilization, I owed myself to read a page of my textbook. Once that got easy… two pages. Time flew by and it was time for breakfast. I wasn’t too hungry, but I went anyway just in case I got a chance to eat with one of the girls (which I didn’t).

               Ah, Mondays. Most people lamented the beginnings of work, but after a cup of coffee and a bottle of coke, I was ecstatic. The possibilities were endless for me! I would find a way to feed someone again. Meanwhile, my pounds bar was slowly refilling as my first victim, Lucy Bolger, slowly began the process of dieting, on hundredth of a pound at a time.

               At the moment, my pounds bar was coloured in two shades, the normal yellow colour, and a new red colour. Apparently, the yellow represented the pounds in my “vault” (that’s what I called it), and the red represented the pounds I had “loaned” out (currently 9.54 pounds). What this told me was that even though I’d emptied my vault out with my first hex, those pounds still counted towards my efforts to reach level 2, and to do that, I had to earn a total of… 25 pounds. I was less than 15 pounds away from that. Okay. The levelling got harder over time, just like any respectable levelling system would. No big deal; I had the power of compound interest on my side! Soon I would be the Warren Buffet of Biltmore College!

               My first class of the day was The History of Western Business taught by the dignified, curvaceous Ms. Buxley. She was a good professor still technically working towards getting her doctorate, which meant that she taught us with all the passion of a faculty underdog trying to compensate for that fact that she wasn’t addressed as “Dr. Buxley.” The way she poured homework into our laps, I had no doubt she’d get her doctorate soon. Luckily, I had no trouble concentrating on her in class. With a killer-body in a pencil skirt like hers, my chances of dozing-off during her lectures were zero – even if I had been up since midnight.

               The classroom was small yet ornate in design, with long, mahogany desks arranged in concentric half-circles around the centre of the room, and each row slightly higher than the row in front of itself.  The walls matched the desks, being made of wood carved in sensible patterns reminiscent of Oxford or Hogwarts. As a nerd, I naturally gravitated towards the centre of the front row, and this class was no different. With the way the rows curved, I could see close to a dozen other students sitting attentively from my position. I wasn’t sure if they were all at least two seats away from me because I was Stalker Jason, or if it was because most people don’t sit in the front. This was a trivial concern while I did my best to not be caught staring at Ms. Buxley’s hips. Taking copious amounts of notes was probably enough to divert suspicion, and I had already filled half a page with notes that may or may not have been useful considering that I’d accidentally half-memorized the assigned reading material.

               “Jason,” Ms. Buxley turned around suddenly. “What do you think?”

               I blinked stupidly as the professor waited for an answer.

               “Ah…” I said nervously. “You see, the irony is that I missed what you were saying because I was writing a note down just now…”

               “Jeiny,” Buxley turned her head slightly, obviously irritated by my reply. “What about you?”

               A Hispanic girl sitting on the far left hid a smirk as she looked down at the textbook and started reading aloud. Well, shit, now I was pissed. First of all, I’d just realized what part of the reading we were covering and knew it by heart, second, the bitch was just reading the text. We’d all read the text already! What was this, high school? Why the fuck was I catching girls snickering in my direction like I was the idiot? Because I was the horny male who apparently couldn’t concentrate on the lecture because my toxic masculinity fogged my brain. Oh yes, who could possibly expect the boy to learn anything as he drooled over the hot teacher in front of him? I’d seen this before… seriously, fuck them.

               I was going to make them so fat. Somehow. Someday.

 

               My last lecture of the day was over, so I was free to head down to the ranch. As opposed to last Saturday, the field was filled with girls on horseback playing polo with each other. There were about a dozen of them, half wearing white breeches, half wearing brown. Clever, I guess. Maybe I could head into the barn and see if there was anyone I could talk to in there about joining?

               There wasn’t. But there were horses in some of the stalls. Excellent. Time to start feeding the horses! I looked around the barn for the barrel of carrots. Looked like the carrot barrel had been moved. How unfortunate. I did spot some white bags that looked promising. Untying one revealed that it was full of oats. If I could place these in the stalls… yes. This would work.

               I heaved the first bag towards the nearest stall, doing my best to keep the oats from spilling out. It had to be at least thirty pounds. Now, I didn’t expect one horse to eat it all in one go, but surely one horse could make quite a dent in it.

               “Hey horsie,” I said nervously as the large, black animal sauntered its way to the gate. “What’s your name… Princess, huh?” I noted the tag on its bridle. “Easy enough to remember. Here. Take this…” I attempted to stuff the oat bag through the gate and accidentally spilled some oats. “Oh shit… yes. That’s it. A royal feast for Princess. Alright, now for the next horsie…”

               “What are you doing?”

               Shit. I’d been spotted by a short blonde with double-braids forming a crest on her head. “Hey, how’s it going?”

               “What are you do-ing-uh?” she made the last word as whiny as possible. “You’re spilling the oats!”

               “I was feeding the horses,” I said nervously. “I mean, I was here last Saturday trying to join the Equestrian Club and –“

               “We don’t feed the horses in their stalls. Who did you talk to?”

               “Uh… I forgot. Anyway, she told me to brush and feed the horses and then come back on Monday…”

               “Oh yeah? And who was it?”

               “I forgot her name! She was blonde. I think.”

               Two more girls peered into the barn and I recognized one of them. “Her!” I pointed frantically. “I saw her on Saturday. Uh… Mary. That was her name.”

               This girl though, she was rolling her eyes and stomped off towards Mary. They whispered just loudly enough for me to hear things like “you told this schmuck he could join our club?” That was deliberate. I closed my eyes with a deep breath and pretended I couldn’t hear them. Eventually, their whispers got too quiet to make out, and I knew they were conspiring some kind of plan. Then they nodded and walked up to me.

               “Hey Jason,” Mary smiled wide. It was so fake and patronizing. Did she really think I was fooled? “Thanks for coming back.”

               “Your welcome,” I said casually.

               “We’re all playing polo right now, so unfortunately we can’t spare anyone to teach you how to ride. But could you be a real sport and brush the horses like I showed you? You can do that for me, can’t you?”

               “Hell yeah,” I smiled. She thought she’d tricked me into thinking she had the hots for me! Oh, little did she know that she was falling right into my plan.

               “And can you scoop the manure in the barn too?”

               “Yeah. I use that shovel over there, right? I’ve worked on farms before. You have a place where you’re storing the manure?”

               “Just toss it in the bin outside. It’s half-full already, so you can’t miss it. And thanks… I appreciate it,” she turned and sashayed back out the barn with an alluring smirk.

               I smirked back. If only she knew my true intentions! Time to make some “investments.”

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Love the story, and the fact that you have the restraint to delay gratification. And I love how Jason is petulant as he lashes out, but it's all because he's insecure and frustrated. Like basically every young male his age in the world.

The one thing that impressed me most was the economics pay-off. As soon as you said that this was just like his economics major, I went back and checked if you'd set this up in an earlier chapter. And you had, you'd mentioned it a couple of times that this was what he was studying but you painted it as just a background detail to add depth to your story. Several chapters later and it was actually a Chekhov's gun. This is seriously good writing, being able to plot ahead for later pay-off, but without making it obvious. Well done, seriously!

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On ‎2‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 1:27 PM, swahilimonkfish said:

Love the story, and the fact that you have the restraint to delay gratification. And I love how Jason is petulant as he lashes out, but it's all because he's insecure and frustrated. Like basically every young male his age in the world.

The one thing that impressed me most was the economics pay-off. As soon as you said that this was just like his economics major, I went back and checked if you'd set this up in an earlier chapter. And you had, you'd mentioned it a couple of times that this was what he was studying but you painted it as just a background detail to add depth to your story. Several chapters later and it was actually a Chekhov's gun. This is seriously good writing, being able to plot ahead for later pay-off, but without making it obvious. Well done, seriously!

*looks up Chekhov's gun* Yes! That's the idea haha. The trick is to not write what you want to write until your first story is done. That forces you to "daydream" the next story's outline in your head in the meantime. I got this plot alllll lined-up.

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A short update on how Jason's tackling the whole feeding problem 🐎

Chapter Seven

               “Jeiny,” Ms. Buxley ambushed the class with an about-face after clicking the powerpoint ahead one slide. “Suppose you were the one starting a new bank. How would you operate it?”

               I watched Jeiny’s brow furrow as she glanced at her textbook. I couldn’t help but grin to myself and masked my mouth with my hand. This was a question that couldn’t be answered by just reciting from the textbook!

               “Operate?” she asked as she rested her hand smartly over her book. “Well, I wouldn’t loan out too much money at first. I… hm… I think I’d split it fifty-fifty with half the money loaned-out and half invested in stocks to pay back interest…”

               “Interesting,” Ms. Buxley nodded politely with a glint in her eyes. “Very cautious. But don’t forget that you need some of that money on-hand.”

               “Oh, of course!” Jeiny nodded back. “Just in case they want their money back…”

               “Anyone else have something different?” Ms. Buxley around the room and instantly saw my arm raised eagerly towards the ceiling. “Yes, Jason?”

               “So…” I leaned forward, lacing my fingers together in front of me. “Just starting a bank and all, I would concentrate on lots of very small loans because I won’t have much capital at first, and also because the more loans I have out, the more sources of interest I’ll have for myself.”

               “But if income’s what you’re looking for, the stock market is quicker,” Jeiny interjected.

               “The stock market could go up or down,” I replied, trying to keep my cool. “Anyway… uh… what I’m saying is… it’s better to have lots of little loans rather than a few big ones when you start out because if one or two loans go bad, you got all the rest of them to stay afloat. Then when you have enough pounds, you can start giving out bigger loans and risking stock investments.”

               “That’s an interesting tactic Jason,” Ms. Buxley. “We’re actually going to study a British bank from the reading next, so I appreciate you using the UK currency.”

               “Oh,” my face flushed with red heat. “That’s… yeah.”

              

               It was now Wednesday, and – true to my small-loan plan – I was in the process of branching-out my sources of “pound income.” I started by committing to feed snacks to every single horse I could find in the barn. Depending on who was riding, there could be as many as twenty horses in there. Judging from the amount of horse shit I was scooping off the ground, I was making good progress. I even managed to get permission to feed Mia the barn cat. As for human girls, I wasn’t doing so good. They would look at me funny as I brought snacks or asked to eat with them, and barely ate anything – if they ate anything.

               What was I doing to deserve this kind of reaction? Was I really that weird? The more I thought about it, the more I realized how unusual it would look if some girl just walked up to me with food for no apparent reason. I could tell everyone that I was practising how to socialize… but no. They would explain how weird it was to offer food. In any case, I had to be careful not to press too hard because if I developed a reputation of trying to give girls food, it would start a whole new round of gossip and speculation at my expense.

               “What about working at the chow hall?” I wondered aloud. “That might work.”

               Indeed! I would be able to serve food to roughly 40% of the student body! With such high hopes, I waltzed myself to the campus employment office and asked if I could sign up to work in the chow hall. The office lady inside pushed her glasses up her nose and told me the hiring process was finished before the semester started, so I should try again at the end of this semester. Curses! Foiled again!

               Sitting on my beach log watching the sunset play across the waves, I schemed over how to get girls to accept my food.

               “At least horses don’t think twice about me feeding them,” I sighed.

               Wait. I could also try giving out drinks! But that would be even weirder…

               “Stop being so pessimistic Jason!” I tapped my foot against the sand. “I got to think outside the box on this one.”

               I was currently at level 2. To make another hex, I needed to get to level 4. At the rate I was going, it would be a couple days before I made it to that level, but I was obsessed. This whole process of trying to fatten all these terrible girls who looked down on me was making me shiver with all the anticipation of a diagnosed kleptomaniac. I had to maximize my pounds income! I needed to hex someone again! It was the only thing I had going for me on this island.

               With that in mind, I leaned forward over my knees and slowly developed a plan.

 

               “Hey guys,” I grunted as I entered my first class for Thursday. Between my straining arms, I held a huge pack of Nestle Pure Life bottled water. It was the biggest pack I could find, with 24 bottles in all, and it was delightfully heavy.

               “There’s no guys in here,” scoffed a girl in the back. “Except you.”

               I did my best to ignore the slight. “So there was a mix-up,” I said happily. “And long story short, I’ve ended-up with way more water than I can drink, so I brought it up here for everyone to take some.”

               With that, I dropped the thing onto the front desk in the class with a thud, ripped the plastic covering open, and got myself a water. I made sure to twist it open and take a sip to show that it wasn’t poisoned.

               “Anyone want any?” I asked as I ripped the plastic further apart. I received a lacklustre response from the six girls in the classroom. I shrugged and walked to an open seat near the front. I had foreseen this. It was fifteen minutes before the lecture started, so there was plenty of time for something to happen. All I had to do was wait.

               Sure enough, the rest of the class trickled in. The first thing they all saw was the water bottles near the door. One by one, the bottles were plucked away. I smiled to myself, thoughtfully resting my chin on my hand. My hypothesis was confirmed. It was me that creeped them out, not the food or drink. These girls coming in didn’t know that I had brought the water, so they had no problems taking some.

               By the time the professor walked in, pumps clacking against the floor, half the water was gone. I had succeeded! Better yet, water was as cheap as it was heavy, and passed through the body more quickly than food. I could probably use this trick several more times without arousing suspicion.

               My phone buzzed nonstop with notifications. Good. The fattening app would be adding each of these girls as side missions.

               “Who’s phone is doing that?” the professor frowned before looking at me. “Jason! Is that you?”

               “I think so,” I said casually. “I think it’s almost done…”

               Some of the freshmen girls snickered. I just sat there innocently, resisting the urge to pull the phone out.

               “I hope it’s almost done,” the professor smiled. “If it doesn’t in the next ten minutes, will you put it in silent mode?”

               “Of course.”

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My god this is a delight. It truly is.

It works so well, first, as a character study of a man wrought with insecurity that occasionally manifests itself in bitterness. Oh, how I cringe with vicarious shame when they snigger.

Second, as a puzzle. Since we as readers are invited to try to solve the logic puzzle. No idea what I'd do, since adding crack to food would be logistically difficult and utterly immoral.

And thirdly, as a narrative. It never stays still, never settles into a groove or rests. It always moves forwards, or backwards, to keep us engaged.

Plus, the pounds (the weight) sounds like pounds (British currency) thing is done so very smoothly

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4 hours ago, swahilimonkfish said:

My god this is a delight. It truly is.

It works so well, first, as a character study of a man wrought with insecurity that occasionally manifests itself in bitterness. Oh, how I cringe with vicarious shame when they snigger.

Second, as a puzzle. Since we as readers are invited to try to solve the logic puzzle. No idea what I'd do, since adding crack to food would be logistically difficult and utterly immoral.

And thirdly, as a narrative. It never stays still, never settles into a groove or rests. It always moves forwards, or backwards, to keep us engaged.

Plus, the pounds (the weight) sounds like pounds (British currency) thing is done so very smoothly

There's a way to "cheese" the puzzle that no one's mentioned yet 😏 I wonder if anyone's figured it out?

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1: Download Fattening App.

2: Get girls to eat what you give them.

3: ????

4: Profit!

Chapter Eight

               Friday had arrived, at last. Research showed that people felt best on Friday because they had the entire weekend to look forward to. I could attest to that with the way I hoped for an excuse to ask one of my crushes out only to be denied in some way or another. This Friday, however, would be different. This time, it was not a date I sought, but poundage. Last night, I’d made it to level 3. It was possible that I’d be at level 4 with a new hex to cast by Saturday – if certain criteria were met.

               With classes out of the way, I was back in my room tying the laces on my outdoor boots as I stared longingly at the crates of bottled water I’d half-hidden in my closet. It was almost time for me to head down to the barn and take care of the horses, but first I wanted to check my new chart.

               Now that my boots were on, I turned my attention to my laptop and opened the new excel file I’d created. My fattening app only showed me the bare minimum of data, and as an aspiring economics major, I couldn’t resist creating some tables to calculate things I was curious about.

               I grinned to myself as I clicked the file named “Bank of England.” Ever since Ms. Buxley caught my Freudian Slip when I substituted Canadian Dollars for Pounds, I decided to roll with it. After all, if anyone happened to somehow see this file, it would look completely normal. Indeed, I’d used little pound symbols everywhere.

               Now then, time to look at the first spreadsheet: a table of each person I’d “loaned” pounds to and what they “owed” me. From here it was easier for me to make the calculations for my second spreadsheet: a graph of my “net profit” every day. This was my true masterpiece, for the app did not show this data. From here, I could see the results of my efforts, see what worked and what didn’t, and make better “investment strategies.” This was what showed me that the numerous small loan strategy was working. With great satisfaction, I noted how my graph wiggled its way upwards as the days passed by. Over the past week, that graph had risen rapidly when I discovered the horse-feeding trick and rose slightly more with the water-bottle trick. I earned more pounds with each passing day. Most excellent.

               Perhaps I would add another spreadsheet for calculating how much time it took to earn each level-up tonight. Alas, it was time to feed the horses… and their riders.

 

               “Hey Mary, hey girls,” I said happily as I walked into the barn with a crate of water bottles.

               “Good afternoon Jason,” Mary frowned as she eyed the water bottles. “You’re late today.”

               “I am?” I said nonchalantly as I heaved the water onto the nearest flat surface. “It’s 3pm; I came here at the same time as yesterday.”

               “We ride right after lunch on Fridays,” one of the girls said with her hands on her hips.

               Yeah Jason,” some other girl chimed in. “We’re counting on you.”

               “Anyone want water?” I asked hopefully. “I ended up with too much of it, see, so I brought some over.”

               “I’m good Jason.”

               “No thank you.”

               I shrugged. “Okay.”

               Mary folded her arms beneath the light swell of her b-cup breasts. “How did you get all this water?”

               “It’s a… long story,” I grinned nervously. I didn’t have a good cover story for this.

               “Whatever. We’re done riding today,” Mary inhaled deeply, polo shirt straining slightly over her small chest. She was smiling, though, which meant she was about to try to take advantage of me again. “But I’m going to cheer practice right now. If you want, you can take the water over to them.”

               “Really?” I smiled. “I mean, yeah. I’ll do that for you.”

               “I appreciate it,” Mary nodded. “You don’t mind hauling all that water, right?”

               “Nah, this is a good workout.”

               “I knew you wouldn’t mind. Alright, follow me.”

 

               “You know, I had no idea you were a cheerleader too,” I said as we walked out of the woods toward the sports field.

               “I’m one of the backups,” Mary explained as I followed her slender hips clothed in skintight breeches. “If anyone gets tired or injured, I step in place.”

               “Interesting,” I hefted my crate to adjust my grip. “So which position do you train for? In the pyramid, I mean.”

               “I’m not part of the pyramid,” she huffed, exhausted with my small talk.

               “Oh… hang on. I thought you always trained on the football field? Why are we walking into the sports building?”

               “Because we’re going to the locker room. We have to change into our uniforms, after all.”

               “Oh, I get it!” I laughed. “But I don’t think I can, like, go into the girls locker room.”

               “Of course not. You can just leave the water on the nearest counter.”

               “Yeah, okay. It’s too bad there’s no men’s locker room at this girls’ college.”

               “Why would you even need one? You don’t play sports.”

               “Okay, but one: I can’t play sports because there’s no men’s teams, and two: I still go to the gym every once in a while. At this point, I have to change in my room.”

               “I don’t see any problem with that,” Mary said as she opened the door to the sports building and waltzed in. She didn’t hold the door open, so I had to catch it with my extended foot and shuffle myself in without dropping the crate.

               “There usually isn’t a problem,” I grunted as I followed her across the lobby past the rock-climbing wall and front desk. “Unless it’s raining outside.”

               “Right,” Mary stopped in front of the locker room and turned to face me. “You can leave those on that table there,” she pointed at a wooden table by the wall being used for flyers and posters for college clubs and volunteer opportunities.

               “Cool,” I placed the crate on the most open part of the table and stretched the burn out of my arms.

               “Alright then. Thank you Jason, bye!”

               And with that, Mary slid into the locker room. She didn’t open the door all the way because she didn’t want me to peek inside, but the sound of gossiping girls and steaming showers flooded my ears before they were muffled by the door shutting again.

               I smiled to myself and rubbed my hands. “They’re all in there,” I muttered quietly, so the girl at the front desk couldn’t hear. “Good… let’s arrange these for them…”

               One by one, I plucked the water bottles out of the plastic and arranged them on the table like bowling pins. Next, I took the plastic wrapping and carried it to the front desk.

               “Excuse me,” I smiled at the girl working there. “Do you have a trash can there?”

               She was a small, frail little thing with straight, brown hair and large glasses. She stared up from her study material and pushed her glasses up her thin nose with child-like hands.

               “Um… yes,” she reached for my trash. “Let me take that.”

               Now to start a conversation with her to give me an excuse to be there. “Hang on, don’t we have a class together with Ms. Buxley?”

               “Uh huh,” she smiled shyly.

               “I barely recognized you! Did you do something with your hair?”

               “Oh, nothing like that. You just sit in the front row, so you don’t see everyone.”

               “Yeah, it’s a bad habit of mine.”

               Her soft voice fluttered with light laughter. “It’s not. You can sit anywhere you want.”

               “So do you happen to be reading next week’s material right now? I see you’re studying.”

               “I haven’t gotten to it. I’m trying to figure out what to wright my research paper on…”

               And so it went. The conversation was light, but very enjoyable for me since most of the girls were crazy in some way or another. In fact, I started wondering if it wouldn’t hurt to ask her if she wanted to study together, maybe even try and date her? But then I reminded myself that I was in a matrix and there had to be something wrong with her. In any case, my real intent was to keep an eye on my water bottles.

               The cheerleading team was filtering out of the locker room now, dressed in their purple bare-midriff uniforms with black and white trim. As I stole glances in their direction, I was surprised with how many water bottles were guzzled-down as they chatted away at each other.

               The front-desk girl gave me a look. She’d caught me staring, so I had to make it less weird.

               “What do you think of the cheerleading captain?” I asked.

               “Brooke? She’s a drama queen,” she huffed.

               “You mean a queen bee?” I laughed.

               “That too. I mean, look at her! Look how she made her blonde hair all wavy and combed it so it goes over her shoulder like that. She spends an hour in front of the mirror doing makeup every day.”

               “An hour?”

               “Every day! I know because we have communal bathrooms in my dorm on every floor. We live on the same floor, right? And, like, I just needed to brush my teeth in the morning. So I turned on the sink next to her and she just glares at me. She told me to stop splashing water on her ‘foundation.’”

               “Why am I not surprised by that?”

               “Honestly, I just go up a floor and use that bathroom instead. She is just impossible…”

               A sharp whistle blew behind me and I flinched. Looking behind me, I locked eyes with Ms. Zoltan, coach of the cheer squad and one of the most intimidating women I’ve ever met. Zoltan stood with the whistle between her lips with a clipboard tucked between her arm and chest. Beneath loose, white gym clothes, muscles coiled thickly around every limb, bone, and joint. Her dark skin shone with sweat from her daily lunchtime workout. Standing somewhere over six feet, I had no doubt she played basketball in her college days; it made her muscled frame look lean and quick. Her short, curly black hair was twisted into ropes that framed a face with high cheekbones and cold, brown eyes.

               “Break time’s over girls!” she barked, letting her whistle fall from her lips and hang on a necklace just over her modest B-cup cleavage. “Today’s PE session! Let’s knock it out!”

               The cheerleaders were obviously used to their coach’s personality, for their conversations continued even as they walked towards the basketball court.

               “Goddamn,” I remarked when Zoltan was far enough away for me to be safe again.

               “Isn’t she amazing?” Desk Girl asked. “How does she coach cheerleading, basketball, and teach weightlifting class while getting so strong in the meantime?”

               “You said getting strong? Like, she was smaller?”

               “I’ve worked here every other workday since the semester started and she’s added, like, fifteen pounds of muscle. I wish I had time to do it.”

               “What’s your name, by the way?” I asked her casually.

               “Me? I’m Emily,” she held her hand out.

               “I’m uh… Jason,” I shook her hand. “But you probably knew that since –”

               “You’re the only boy on campus?”

               “—since everyone calls me Stalker… oh! Yeah, I guess.”

               “Aw, don’t stress what those sorority girls call you,” Emily smiled reassuringly. “You haven’t actually stalked anyone. Everyone who knows you knows that.”

               I cringed. “It’s a terrible reputation. I’m trying to fix it.”

               “Don’t worry about it! You’re a great person, Jason. You’re really smart, you know.”

               “Oh. Yeah…” I sighed. Yet another girl who was going to mention how smart I was and how someday I’d find someone to love, but not them. I pulled my phone out to check my progress towards level 4.

               “You probably don’t even realize it, but you have a lot of talents Jason. That’s what this whole college experience is all about! We’re finally adults and we’re here to find out what we can do with our skills. Someday you’re going to realize what your hidden talent is and you’ll accomplish big things – huge things. Jason? Jason, you listening?”

               I stared at my phone with bulging eyes. I was less than half a pound away from reaching level 4! Was all that water really that heavy? I should’ve weighed it to be sure…

               “Sorry,” I laughed. “Ms. Buxley told me to silence my phone the other day and I just realized I had all these notifications here. I wasn’t ignoring you on purpose, I promise.”

               “Oh, I see.”

               “By the way, do you want a…” I looked at the table and saw that there was no water left. “Uh… do you want a snack? I could get you something…”

               “I already got my snack,” Emily patted a sandwich wrapped in plastic. “But thank you.”

               “Alright then. Well… I think I’ll steal a glance at Zoltan and then head on my way. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow?”

               “Of course. Bye! Wait... you're going to what?”

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This story just keeps evolving. Emily stressing huge things seems suspicious to me. But you're juggling such an intimidating ensemble really well, just looking forward to Jason actually getting stuck in and helping gains gain weight properly. Not just feeding girls water and creating BBHs (big beautiful horses)

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11 hours ago, swahilimonkfish said:

This story just keeps evolving. Emily stressing huge things seems suspicious to me. But you're juggling such an intimidating ensemble really well, just looking forward to Jason actually getting stuck in and helping gains gain weight properly. Not just feeding girls water and creating BBHs (big beautiful horses)

There’s lots of kinds of BBH’s, but I’m a fan of “pears.” 👌🔥

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Yay!  I got my computer back!  Haven't been able to check in since February 14th!  Visited the coast completely tech free!  Fun, but couldn't shake that itch you can't scratch feeling...

I'm enjoying how the story has progressed.  Still a little unsure about the methodology, but its the results that count.

Jason is the perfect mixture of innocence and scheme-meister that you just can't help but root for.

The way you use time honored (Cliched) antagonists... and soon-to-be victims makes the idea appear fresh and keeps me on the edge of my seat.  I can just imagine the head cheerleader sitting down for her hour-long make-up session only to find fuller cheeks and a fold under her chin.  That's just my imagination talking, but your story really DOES inspire some creative speculation.

Got a good laugh from the "Pound" slip-up too!

Many thanks!

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1 hour ago, greinskyn said:

Yay!  I got my computer back!  Haven't been able to check in since February 14th!  Visited the coast completely tech free!  Fun, but couldn't shake that itch you can't scratch feeling...

I'm enjoying how the story has progressed.  Still a little unsure about the methodology, but its the results that count.

Jason is the perfect mixture of innocence and scheme-meister that you just can't help but root for.

The way you use time honored (Cliched) antagonists... and soon-to-be victims makes the idea appear fresh and keeps me on the edge of my seat.  I can just imagine the head cheerleader sitting down for her hour-long make-up session only to find fuller cheeks and a fold under her chin.  That's just my imagination talking, but your story really DOES inspire some creative speculation.

Got a good laugh from the "Pound" slip-up too!

Many thanks!

Nice insights! I'm writing another chapter as soon as I'm out of the woods (I'm literally in the woods 😫)

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The cheese hint has me pondering.  Any" lifeforms can be fed but how small can we go?  Cheese is made by a bacterial process so does a pound of cheese count as a pound of something fed?  What about plants?  Does watering the grass or a tree or bamboo (something that grows fast) count ?  And what if you feed the grass to ummm, those grasshopper farms, then chickens, then they produce eggs, which are sold to buy more farm supply....

Also what about light as feeding?  Since this is sort of a devil involvement story, perhaps the goal of the evil computer program is to subvert the light itself and therefore the life cycle of the world and food chain?  

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5 hours ago, xandercroft said:

The cheese hint has me pondering.  Any" lifeforms can be fed but how small can we go?  Cheese is made by a bacterial process so does a pound of cheese count as a pound of something fed?  What about plants?  Does watering the grass or a tree or bamboo (something that grows fast) count ?  And what if you feed the grass to ummm, those grasshopper farms, then chickens, then they produce eggs, which are sold to buy more farm supply....

Also what about light as feeding?  Since this is sort of a devil involvement story, perhaps the goal of the evil computer program is to subvert the light itself and therefore the life cycle of the world and food chain?  

Nah, the "feeding" effect doesn't "stack" like that. Nice ideas though. I'm going to do my best to post another chapter tomorrow 🙄

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And now, ladies and gentlemen, we are faced with the question of whether Jason is a genius, and idiot, or both.

Chapter Nine

               True to my word, I crept into the frame of the double doors that led to the basketball court. Apparently, the cheer squad was exercising inside today. Sure enough, they were all stretched-out on the floor in a horseshoe formation facing their fearsome coach, who stood before one of the hoops with one hand on her muscled hip and another wrapped around her clipboard. Good. That meant the cheerleaders weren’t looking in my direction and standing here wasn’t as awkward as it would’ve been.

               I checked my app to see if any progress was made. Nothing. I winced and bowed my knees with anticipation. If only one of the horses did its job and pissed like a racehorse! It would be happening any second now, but it had to happen before the cheer squad spotted me peeping at them! Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to take vengeance upon these proud cheerleaders!

               Now then, who exactly should I hex? It was so tempting to hex Mary the Manipulator or Brooke the Queen Bitch, but I stopped myself. If girls I knew and hated all started gaining weight, that risked me being found out. After all, how suspicious would it be if they swelled-up suddenly and I was nearby? I already got blamed for everything, so it wouldn’t be long before I got found out. No! I had to hex strangers – and I had to hex them in such a way that their weight gain was slow and steady, not quick and shocking. That way, no one would get too suspicious. Then again, I only got so many hexes, so I needed to make sure that this next hex would be cast for maximum effect.

               “Now push your legs in and stretch forward!” Zoltan’s voice echoed off the walls. “Reach your toes – you will reach your toes, if not today than by the end of the – Lindsay, don’t just hold your knees!”

               I eyed the dark-skinned coach with piqued interest. Maybe she could be the one I hexed. For one thing, she didn’t know me. For another, she looked the perfect candidate for hex number two. After all, as the coach of the cheerleading team, she was in charge of keeping them in shape. What would happen if she herself started getting fat? Could that somehow impact the training – and waistlines – of the cheer squad? The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to find out! Yes, I was going to do this as soon as I could. How close was I to level 4 now?

               I brought my phone out and unlocked the screen. Yes! One of the horses had finally done it! I was primed and ready for another hex!

               I eyed Zoltan’s impressive physique from afar. Her white T-shirt didn’t quite cover her waist, and the outline of her rock-hard abs were clearly visible. I inhaled a ragged breath to stifle my eagerness and slow my pounding heart. I needed to cast a subtle hex this time. My mind chewed thoughtfully on the problem for one long moment. Then I had it.

               Zoltan will gain weight equal to the weight she makes the cheer squad lose.

               I pointed my ringed, little finger straight across the basketball court towards her shallow naval and grinned maniacally to myself. What a brilliant hex! So subtle yet so consequential! So ironic and symbolic even! With satisfaction, I looked at my phone and saw a new side mission added to the fattening app: Tracey Zoltan. Tracey? Huh. Awful cute for an Amazonian warrior like her…

               “Hey…”

               I twisted myself back towards the faint voice. Emily had left the front desk to see what I was up to! I hastily stowed my phone back into my pocket and did my best to play it cool.

               “Emily, check this out,” I said as I pointed eagerly in Zoltan’s direction. “They can touch their toes! How long did it take them to learn that?”

               “Only a month,” Emily stood by me to gawk at the cheer squad. I had successfully kept my intents secret! Better yet, it wasn’t as weird to stare at the cheer squad if another girl was doing it with me.

               “Are you serious?” I engaged her into the conversation, acutely aware that if the conversation stopped, she might leave. “It only took them a month to stretch that far?”

               “I know, right?” Emily folded her arms and sighed. “She’s amazing.”

               This made me frown slightly. Was she a lesbian? Was that what would keep me from properly loving her? No matter. “So, like, have you ever thought of being a cheerleader?”

               Emily rolled her eyes. “Of course… but with Brooke as team captain? Hell no. It’s bad enough living in the same dorm as her! Can you imagine what it would be like sharing a locker room?”

               “Not… I haven’t thought of that, but yeah.”

               Emily laughed. “You dork!”

               “Well I don’t know what happens in there! Not really. Men’s locker rooms are full of naked dudes towel-whipping each other, but I’m guessing the girl’s locker rooms are different.”

               “What’s towel-whipping?”

               “Oh, uh… hm… basically, it’s what happened to me in high school. It stings. A lot.”

               “Oh my god,” Emily stretched the last word to show she was interested (or something).

               But I didn’t want to remember those dark times, I wanted to speculate on Zoltan. What if she was gaining this very moment? I managed to pull my phone out and check the weight listed under her name: 165.23 pounds. Damn! What a woman! Now then, when people lose weight during a workout, where does the weight go? Do they breathe it out? Doubtful. Did some weight get converted into energy? Of course, but that wasn’t a lot. That left one more factor: sweating. That would be how the cheerleaders lost weight – and piled it onto Zoltan’s long, supple frame.

               “So you’ve been around when they do PE before, right?” I asked casually. “Are they going to do actual PE or are they just going to stretch the whole time?”

               “Why do you ask?”

               “Because I was thinking if they got to being able to stretch so far in so little time, maybe thats what PE is for them – the stretching, that is.”

               “Oh no,” Emily shook her head with a knowing grin. “They go hard on PE. Like, every Friday is PE for them.”

               “I guess that’s why they’re inside this time?”

               “Yeah. Plus, it’s air-conditioned in here, so they won’t sweat as much.”

               “Ah,” I said. That was a pity. Then again… “I wonder how much sweat they’ll squeeze out in this session.”

               “Um, ew? Why?”

               “It’s kind of a weird question, isn’t it? I’m studying economics, see, so I’m number-crunching all the time. Now I just go around and just wonder about random math problems like this. You think I can’t solve it?”

               “I dunno. Can you?” she sounded vaguely interested.

               “Let’s figure it out then!” I flinched as Zoltan blew her whistle and had the cheer squad running laps around the court. “First we need to know how long the PE session is. Emily?”

               “Huh? Oh, it lasts about an hour.”

               “Okay, now we need to google how much someone usually sweats when they’re working-out for an hour. So I use my trusty friend Google here… and type in ‘how much sweat from an hour workout’… and it says 0.8 litres. Okay… not sure how much a litre is, but whatever. Now we multiply that by the number of cheerleaders. How many are there?”

               “Um… fifteen? I think?”

               “Alright… so 0.8 times 15 gives us uh… 12 litres. Now I google how much that is in pounds and… oh. Oh…”

               “What?”

               “Uh…” I felt the blood drain from my face. “Nothing! Nothing…”

               “How much is it?”

               “It’s uh… 26.2 pounds.”

               “Wow!” Emily’s eyes widened with appreciation. “Really? That’s so much!”

               “Yeah,” I said quietly as a chill ran down my spine.

               “That’s, like, as heavy as a two-year-old baby!”

               “Did you say that they’re doing PE in here because it’s air conditioned? That probably means they’ll sweat less than that, right?”

               “I guess?”

               “Okay then…”

               “Don’t worry about it Jason! That was very impressive math skills. I’m sure it’s pretty accurate.”

               “I hope not… I mean, I hope people don’t sweat that much. That would just be too much.”

               Emily laughed and we watched the cheerleaders go through the full spectrum of movement a human body can handle. Jumping-jacks, push-ups, burpees, and even a few cartwheels were a few examples of what we saw from the doorway. But as the cheer squad put ninjas to shame, I stared nervously towards Zoltan. Was it just me, or did her abs look a little softer? Damn it, she was too far away for me to tell! I glanced at my watch. It had been nearly half an hour since they started PE. Maybe they weren’t going to sweat so much after all…

               And then Zoltan excused herself from the cheer squad. With long, determined strides, she quickly crossed the basketball stadium as I stared at her slightly-jiggling tits with petrified horror. It’s not like I could leave at this point – not with her staring at me as she approached.

               Now she was towering over me and I felt my bravery shrivel further into the deepest crevice of my being. I stared up into her narrowed eyes and did my best not to accidently stare anywhere else.

               “How are you today, Jason?” she asked sweetly.

               “H-hi… good morning Ms. Zoltan,” I could barely blink. Oh, and it was evening now. Damn it! Idiot!

               “You two got anything planned this Friday?” she nodded at Emily with an affectionate smile.

               “Oh no… nothing like that,” I shook my head vigorously. “I mean, I just met her and we were… we were talking about homework and doing math calculations.”

               Zoltan grinned at the floor briefly, bemused by my awkwardness. “You know, you won’t be lucky if you don’t try. So you might as well try.”

               “Speaking of trying…” I stopped when she gave me her whole attention. Shit, what was I going to say? Time to wing it. “So… I was talking to Mary – she’s one of the cheerleaders…”

               “Yes.”

               “And I was telling her how I can’t play sports because there’s no men’s teams, obviously… and then Emily said you teach weightlifting and… basically, I was wondering if it was too late to… to get into that class? To lift weights?”

               Zoltan closed her eyes and nodded, smiling to herself. “Yes, it’s too late to enter that class for grade.”

               “Oh.”

               “But that doesn’t mean you can’t go to the gym on your own. How about this: I’m in the gym for a couple hours after eleven am every day. You can find me there and ask questions as you work out. Sound good?” Her eyes flared as she uttered the last sentence, indicating that she was ending the conversation.

               “Yeah. I mean yes.”

               “Good. Alright Jason – Emily. Good luck!”

               Just like that, she walked away towards the bathroom. I couldn’t help but glance at her ass for half a second. It was already big before, but was it slightly bigger? Maybe. At least she was taking a break from making the cheer squad exercise. Now then, on to other business…

               “So…” I shot a good-natured grin towards Emily. “You want to eat breakfast tomorrow?”

               To my surprise and mounting delight, she nodded. “Sure.”

               It was too good to be true! “With me, I mean.”

               “Yeah, I’ll go. I was going anyway.”

               Stifling an urge to hug my arms around her little shoulders, I managed to tone myself down enough to play it cool again. “Alright then! I’ll be heading into the chowhall around eight-ish tomorrow morning. I guess I’ll see you there? Excellent… I gotta go down to my room and study.”

               “Yeah, same,” Emily smiled.

               “Okay then. Bye Emily!”

               With that, I left the sports building feeling like I’d just won the lottery. Had a girl really told me she’d hang out with me? That was basically a date if there ever was one! Maybe there were some good girls in this matrix-island after all! After all, I’d never be lucky if I didn’t try, so what did I have to lose?

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Well... that happened XD, at least it doesn't seem that she got suspicious and even offered to train Jason in her spare time so he'll be able to see her progress more closely... I would say that this was a big win for him at the end of the day :3.

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20 hours ago, scl04 said:

Well... that happened XD, at least it doesn't seem that she got suspicious and even offered to train Jason in her spare time so he'll be able to see her progress more closely... I would say that this was a big win for him at the end of the day :3.

Oh yes! An excellent win hehe

13 hours ago, swahilimonkfish said:

Jason's adorable and frustrating at the same time; Zoltan is going to end up an absolute unit; Emily seems suspiciously nice; and I'm relieved that Jason managed to go a whole chapter without being sniggered at. For them reasons - best chapter yet

A unit? A metric unit? What size of unit? Battalion? Regiment? Hmm

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