Chapter 3: Mall of Flesh
The shopping bags bit into her palms, their thin plastic handles like wires. Betty lumbered through the mall, a continent of flesh adrift in a sea of normalcy. The new jeggings were a cruel joke, the material now screaming across her hips and thighs, emitting a faint, plasticky sigh with every step. The tunic top was a memory of fabric, stretched so thin across her bust she could see the dark shadow of her areolas through the gray cotton. Every stare from a passing man wasn’t just a look; it was a physical touch, a zap that traveled straight to her gut and lower, coalescing into that new, sharp hunger.
It was noon. The thought was a spike of panic. The second supplement was in her apartment, waiting. But a deeper, more cellular clock was ticking. The hollow ache from the morning had evolved. It was now a specific, demanding pull, a compass needle spinning wildly inside her, pointing at every bulge in every pair of jeans that passed.
She needed to get home. But her body was rebelling, becoming its own navigational system. She smelled the food court before she saw it—the conglomerate stink of frying oil, sugary syrup, and recycled air. Her stomach clenched, but not for fries. The other hunger, the wet, focused one, intensified. The crowd was thicker here. More targets.
She shuffled into the neon-lit chaos, her body moving with a slow, inexorable momentum. A group of teenagers at a pretzel kiosk fell silent as she passed, their eyes wide. One of the boys smirked, elbowing his friend. Betty looked away, her cheeks burning, but her peripheral vision remained locked on them, a traitorous part of her cataloging their forms. Her lips felt swollen, hot, damp.
Then she saw him.
A janitor, maybe in his fifties, was mopping near a spilled soda. He had his back to her, bent over the yellow caution sign. His worn uniform pants stretched across his rear, then dipped between his legs as he leaned forward.
Betty stopped walking.
The world narrowed to that single point. The noise of the food court—the clattering trays, the shrieking children, the blaring pop music—faded into a muffled roar. The gnawing emptiness in her stomach and the sharp, magnetic pull between her legs fused into one blinding, white-hot imperative. Saliva flooded her mouth, so much it dribbled from her lower lip onto her shirt, a dark blotch spreading on the stretched fabric over her sternum.
Her mind was a distant, buzzing alarm. No. Walk away. Now.
Her body took a step forward. Then another. She was a satellite pulled into orbit.
The janitor straightened up, turning to wring his mop in the bucket. He saw her. His eyes, tired and kindly, went from her face down the impossible landscape of her body and back up, confusion replacing the weariness. “Miss? You okay?”
His voice was gravelly. Ordinary. It did nothing to stop the momentum.
She was right in front of him now, looming, her new height and mass casting a shadow over him. The smell of industrial cleaner and stale sweat filled her nostrils. Her gaze was fixed, unblinking, below his waist. The craving was a shriek in her blood.
“Miss?” he said again, taking a half-step back, bumping into his cart.
Betty’s hand moved without her permission. It wasn’t her hand. It was a tool of the hunger. It floated up, thick-fingered, and brushed against the front of his pants.
The man froze, utter shock paralyzing him. “Hey—what the hell?”
Her mind was screaming, a prisoner behind glass. But her body was in charge. Her swollen lips parted. Words emerged, thick and slurred with need, a voice she didn’t recognize. “Need it.”
“Lady, back off!” he barked, trying to sidestep, but he was trapped between her and his cart. He raised the mop handle like a feeble barrier.
The movement, the fear on his face—it should have shocked her back into herself. Instead, it triggered something deeper, more primal. A low sound vibrated in her throat. She leaned in, her vast chest pressing against the raised mop handle, bending it. The stretched neckline of her tunic gaped, revealing the heavy, sweating swell of her cleavage. The janitor’s eyes darted there, a flicker of horrified fascination before returning to her face.
Her phone rang. The shrill, generic tone sliced through the fever-dream intensity.
It was like a bucket of ice water dumped directly onto her brain. She blinked. The world crashed back in—the noise, the smells, the glaring lights, the man’s terrified, angry face inches from hers. She looked at her own hand, still hovering near his groin.
A choked sob erupted from her. She stumbled backward, her hips knocking into a metal trash can with a deafening clang. The entire food court seemed to be staring. Whispers. Snickers. Phone cameras discreetly raised.
“Freak,” the janitor spat, grabbing his cart and shoving it away, mop water sloshing over the sides.
Betty turned and fled. Or tried to. It was a shamble, a graceless, heavy-legged escape, the torn seam in her jeggings splitting further with each step, a loud rip that echoed her own fracturing mind. She didn’t stop until she was in a deserted corridor near the mall’s service elevators, slumped against a cold concrete wall, gasping.
Her phone rang again. She fumbled it out of her pocket. UNKNOWN NUMBER.
She answered, the phone slick with her sweat.
“My, my,” Madame Eve’s voice purred, no hint of surprise. “The signals are quite strong, aren’t they? The second supplement will help focus that beautiful, raw energy. You’re right on schedule.”
“What did you do to me?” Betty whispered, her voice ragged. “I just… I tried to…”
“You responded to the design’s primary imperative. It’s natural. It’s correct. Now, listen closely. The supplement must be taken sublingually. Let it dissolve under your tongue. Do not swallow it whole. Your body will know what to do next.”
“I’m not taking it. I’m calling the police.”
The laugh on the other end was short, razor-sharp. “And tell them what, little bird? That you voluntarily signed a contract for body modification? That you’re experiencing unexpected side effects from an unregulated supplement you sought out online? The paper you signed includes extensive non-disclosure and liability waivers. It’s quite bulletproof. Besides,” her tone dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, “the process is irreversible past this point. Stopping now would lead to… systemic collapse. A mess, really. The supplement is your stability now. Take it. Noon is passing.”
The call ended.
Betty slid down the wall until she was sitting on the grimy floor, her body folding into itself, a mountain of shame and terrified flesh. She stared at the shopping bags beside her, filled with clothes that were already too small. She thought of the janitor’s disgusted face. The feel of the mop handle bending against her chest.
Her apartment was a sanctuary of horrors, but it was the only place she had.
The Uber ride back was a silent tomb. The driver didn’t even attempt conversation.
Inside her apartment, the neon glow felt like the lights of an operating theater. The plain white box sat on the table. It was just past twelve-thirty.
With trembling hands, she opened it. Nestled inside was not a vial, but a single, soft gel capsule, the color of a deep bruise. It pulsed faintly, or maybe that was her vision swimming.
She didn’t want to take it. Every rational cell screamed against it.
But the memory of the food court, of her body moving without her, of the animal hunger that erased her entirely… that was worse. Madame Eve’s voice hissed in her memory. Systemic collapse.
She put the capsule in her mouth. It had no taste. She slid it under her tongue as instructed.
It dissolved instantly. Not like candy, but like a drop of something alive. A cool, slippery sensation spread under her tongue, then a wave of heat followed it, rushing down her throat into her core.
For a second, nothing. Then a deep, internal click.
The chaotic, screaming hunger in her gut… focused. The wild, magnetic pull between her legs… sharpened into a single, clear understanding. It wasn’t a blur of need anymore. It was a specific instruction. A blueprint, just as Eve had said.
The gnawing emptiness was still there, but it had a purpose now. It had a shape. And her body, her traitorous, expanding body, hummed in approval, the aches in her swollen breasts and straining seams mutating into a grotesque anticipation. She looked at the Polaroids on the wall, the documentation of her loss. She wasn’t Betty the student anymore. She was a vessel, filling according to a plan she never agreed to, her humanity dissolving with every pound, every inch, every horrifying new craving. The capsule had done its job. It hadn’t saved her.
It had settled her into the nightmare, making her a willing passenger in her own ruin. The real horror wasn't the uncontrollable gain anymore.
It was the dawning, placid understanding that some part of her was starting to want it.