Lauren was on day five of her ritual. It was October and unseasonably cool as she walked back to her dorm from the library. She could feel the pressure inside her, a gentle push, a gentle reminder. This would be her first time doing the ritual since starting college that August. She was 19, slim, somewhat plain of features with the exception of incredibly beautiful white skin, the color of milk. She had kept her blond hair shoulder length and straight since high school and tended to dress rather conservatively for her generation, preferring skirts and tops that her peers may have considered a bit librarian-ish. She always wore bulky clothes during the ritual, favoring a dark sweater and sweat pants.
There were a few students sitting outside the dorm building as she approached, smoking cigarettes and talking. She avoiding making eye contact and quickly maneuvered past sitting and standing students, showed her ID to the desk as she entered, and headed toward her room.
Lauren was somewhat fortunate in that her roommate had already dropped out and moved on. Her previous roommate, Amanda, had gone a little crazy during the beginning of the semester. Amanda had thrown herself full force into partying, started missing classes, and by the end of September found herself hospitalized for alcohol poisoning after a frat party. Amanda's parents came that weekend and took her home. So Lauren had her room to herself.
She entered the hall and moved toward the end where her room was. A few girls were bullshitting in the hallway and some looked over to acknowledge Lauren as she passed. She hadn't made many friends yet. Lauren never really partied in high school, though not because of lack of desire. Her parents were fairly strict and Lauren never really knew anyone in the "party crowd" to get involved with. Everyone seemed to party at college. She'd been to a few parties with Amanda before she left school, had a few drinks, smoked a few cigarettes, but she really didn't understand the appeal of the whole thing. There was a buzz on campus that started on Thursday and culminated in Friday night take-it-to-the-next-level boozing and drugging that left the campus completely dead on Saturday mornings and early afternoons. Lauren felt apart from it all somehow. All the girls on her hall seemed to go out every night and she hadn't really had a chance to get close to anyone.
She entered her room, turned on the lights, got her iPod stereo going (a random playlist of pop stars of the last few years) and laid down. She could feel the pressure in her bowels. Sometimes she could even convince herself that she felt it getting bigger moment by moment. She gently rubbed her belly through her shirt. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. She squeezed her anus tightly.
The ritual started in high school. Lauren wouldn't shit for six days. At first, Lauren would almost be staggering in pain by the sixth day. She would be incredibly uncomfortable, dressing in bulky sweaters for those last few days, and think constantly of what was inside her. It was incredibly difficult to resist the urge to evacuate her bowels by day four. She'd feel the urge to go come on suddenly and powerfully and would have to strain with all her might to hold it in. She'd had a few accidents but had gotten much better over the years. The ritual had been modified over time as well. She now managed her diet during the six days consuming massive amounts of fiber and little to no water. On day six she would drink a bottle of Milk of Magnesia and that night would erupt.
Lauren dazed up at the ceiling while absentmindedly stroking her stomach. She could feel the shit inside her, she could feel the urge to make shit, she could feel the weight of it pushing on her colon. She could resist it. She had been worried about what might come of the ritual when she left for college but Amanda unexpected departure allowed Lauren the kind of privacy she needed.
The other problem that prevented her from performing the ritual was the set-up of the dorm - this particular building had group bathrooms for every hall. Lauren had considered either waiting until late at night or doing it in her room. She settled for doing it in her room as she was absolutely terrified of the possibility of being found out if she did it in the bathroom. She would have to push the waste down the sink afterward and make sure the odor was taken care of, but she felt pretty confident that if she waited until the early morning all the other girls would be asleep.
Lauren got up, undressed, checked her email, and went to bed.
Today was the day. She felt very uncomfortable and decided to skip her morning classes. When she showered that morning she gently and lovingly stroked her stomach, amazed as she always was with the pot belly that she had developed in six short days. She had a little difficulty walking and hoped no one would notice - the sense of discomfort was quickly escalating to pain. She sat, naked, freshly showered on her bed in her room considering whether or not she should go to her afternoon class, distractedly and gently rubbing her thighs and pussy.
She eventually decided she wouldn't go, composed an email to her professors telling them she was sick, put on her sweats, and laid down to watch TV. Despite the pain in her bowels she drifted off to sleep.
A few hours later she woke up when someone knocked on her door. There was a moment of horror and surprise, quickly followed by composure.
"Hello?" Lauren asked from her bed.
"Hey Lauren, it's Jake. You weren't in class today - thought I'd drop the notes off."
Lauren sighed softly. Jake had been trying hard since the semester had started. It wasn't that she didn't like him, but that was also just it, she didn't really find anything particularly attractive about him. She got up slowly from the bed, feeling the flares of pressure and pain deep her bowels. For a split second there was a moment of absolute terror as Lauren felt a sudden and powerful push from her insides. She could feel the shit on the other side of her anus, pushing, demanding to be let out. Normally she'd totally focus on the sensation (as it was best on day six, reaching an almost unbearable intensity) of pain and discomfort and think about the waste struggling to get out, that which was part of her but not her, and would feel pleasure on the edge of the constipation induced pain. Her eyes widened, she steadied herself, and the sensation passed.
She opened the door. Jake stood smiling and handed her a few notebook pages.
"Are you ok?" Jake asked. "Heard there's a stomach flu or something running through the dorms."
"Uh, yeah," Lauren said, looking away, "Just feeling blah today. I'm ok. Thanks for the notes, I'll bring them to class after I copy them."
Jake kinda forced himself in her room and she shut the door after him. He sat down on the mattress that used to be Amanda's and tossed his book bag in the corner.
"Dude, Patterson's class this morning was bullshit anyway, he just gets up there and babbles on and on about his stupid stories, you didn't miss anything. Are you going out tonight?" Jake asked.
At Lauren's school people were very likely to go out drinking even if they had been sick all day. Everyone else seemed to experience this excitement that pushed them, body and mind, to throw themselves in to the college experience. Lauren was somewhat mystified by it.