It was a Wednesday morning when Aly settled into her favorite spot on the couch — an old burgundy loveseat she'd purchased off Craigslist — with an unread Cosmo in one hand and her favorite type of potato chips in the other. BBQ Lays, kettle-cooked, extra salty so she could lick off her fingertips one by one between page turnings.
"Those are gonna make you fat," Sarah said, laying out her yoga mat on the hardwood floor.
Aly frowned. Sarah's shorts sat just at just the right spot on her ass to call to question whether they should be considered shorts, or panties. She stretched her arms over her head as she spoke, and Aly couldn't help but steal a glance at Sarah's tone, taut belly. Her sports bra was the same color as her shorts — white — the color Aly generally avoided because it made the rolls of her belly look like scoops of whipped cream.
"I'm already fat," Aly said. Sarah settled into downward-facing-dog, hips to the sky and bottom cleft of her asscheeks peeking past the cotton of her shorts.
"Stop eating those chips, then," Sarah said. Aly turned her attention back to Cosmo and kettle chips. Maybe another day.
She brought both hands to the lip of the bag and pulled just as Sarah effortlessly brought herself into the splits. Like the legs on the floor before her, Aly's bag of chips spread open and scattered across the couch in what seemed like an endless flurry.
"Goddammit — " Aly gathered the chips into her hands, blocking out the thought of her belly coming to rest against her soft, heavy thighs. Some crumbs had settled onto her non-existent cleavage, a cruel trade-off in the Body Olympics; she gained weight everywhere else but her tits.
"See? The universe doesn't want you to eat junk food," Sarah said. Her voice sounded strained, and Aly glanced back to see her roommate balancing on her forearms in a full headstand.
She gripped the couch cushion in front of her and pulled it back with enough force to send some the bag fluttering to the floor — but Aly's attention was stolen by a small bottle nestled against the space under the cushions. It was a bright, lurid pink, and looked like a discarded test tube. Aly brought the tube closer to her eyes to read the cramped, flowing penmanship marking up a side of the tube:
"Feed your vices, one sip at a time."
"What the hell?" Aly said, which broke Sarah out of her mountain pose and over to Aly's side.
"It looks like a potion!" Sarah said. Aly rolled her eyes.
"It's probably from that couch's last owners. Drugs or something." Sarah shrugged. "You got it off Craigslist, right?"
Aly didn't respond; in the meat of her pale, fleshy palm, the liquid in the tube felt like it was steadily warming to match her body heat. Somewhere in the folds between her legs, something quivered. She frowned again — what the heck was that?