We've known each other for a long time now. When we first started talking, you were just starting to dip your toes into the gaining water. Your leanest, fittest days were already behind you, but not too far behind. Back then, I don't think you anticipated how many sizes of pants you'd outgrow in the coming years, how round your face would become, how fat you'd look in candid photos snapped of you, or how easy it would be to just give in to your appetite.

It started out as stress eating combined with your curiosity for gaining some weight. Receiving positive attention from me and other FFAs just added fuel to the fire. You were so busy, and it was so easy to grab Burger King almost every day, and those Hershey pies? Ooh, boy, did you love those, even if they didn't always love you back. You had your Lactaid pills, but sometimes you forgot them.

Truth be told, sometimes you forgot them on purpose. There is a part of you that enjoys the bellyache from overstuffing yourself or from eating food your body doesn't like to digest. You daydream of me there with you to hold your belly for you, attempting to soothe it while you groan and try to get more comfortable.

You tend to eat in secret, getting a first fast food dinner on your way home from work and hiding the evidence before eating a second normal dinner at home. You think of me as you eat your first dinner, how I am that devilish voice on your shoulder urging you to turn into the drive-thru, my phantom hands on your fat belly as you scarf it down. You daydream of what it would be like to get fat for me how much bigger you might wind up if we were there with each other in person.

I know you struggle sometimes, going back and forth between being a feeder and a gainer, going back and forth between being turned on by health issues and being concerned by them. I've watched you come and go several times over the years, but you always find your way back to me. Gain, lose, maintain, I don't care.

Because I know you, and I feel privileged to have gone on this journey with you.

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