I'm not sure if I believe in Karma.  You see that what I called myself.  When I was younger, and I went gallivanting around the world with my young mutant peers.  My name is Xian Coy Mahn, and I can possess people.  Take over their minds, go gallivanting about in their bodies, and because I did it to evil people, I decided I was Karma, but with Karma, your supposed to get what you give, you are only supposed to have bad things happen to you if you do bad things, and I never did anything to deserve the life I've had.

It wasn't too long ago, that I was trying to live a normal life.  I was in college, real normal people, get up late and go to class in pajamas college.  It was hard.  I was paying for it myself, and taking care of my little brother and sister, but it was nice.  Their weren't any super villains, their wasn't any crime families, or slavers, or people who wanted to use me for my mutant gift.  Best of all there was Kitty.

Kitty was another one of those young mutants.  She was the special one though.  Nothing bad ever happened to her, and she was always the favorite, the golden girl, the prodigy.  While I was running around with the New Mutants, Kitty was a full fledge X-Man.  I'd say I was jealous, heck I was jealous a little, but mostly I was in love.  She needed a break too, needed to get away from the craziness of being an outlaw mutant super hero, and as the only link to that life that was close by...well, I guess we bonded.

Watching Kitty, watching that genius brain of hers work on computers, or watching those graceful legs of her dance.  Should I say I was obsessed?  Okay, I was totally infatuated at the very least.  Then the craziness tracked us down, and our lives were in danger, and things were falling apart, and I told her how I felt.  Why did I do that?  I'd only ever seen her with men.  I remember her drooling over Colossus, and I'd heard in Britain she'd hooked up with some kind of spy who was like a decade older than her.  Why in gods name did I think she'd let me take her in my arms and kiss her, but I did... and she didn't, and she was sweet about it, and I was embarrassed, but I understood.  You don't just expect a straight girl to turn around all of a sudden.  Then all the immediate craziness was over.  There weren't humans trying to kill us, or giant genocidal robots roaming around, but that sweet innocent college time was over, and we moved on.

Of course being a mutant, moving on often means going back.  Back to Xavier's.  I went as a kind of teacher/advisor to all the young mutants who were coming into being.  Mutants were exploding everywhere, and the school was filled in a way it never had been before.  Kitty came back to Xavier's too, but once again as an X-Man, saving the world from terrorists and aliens and all the other things that go with the job title, and still, it was okay.  I was dealing.  I had all these kids around me, people whose lives I could get invested in, people who became invested in me.  They even tried hooking me up with this cute barista.  

The kids needed a lot of guidance, and I was a bit out of practice with my powers.  Living in normal society didn't often require me to take control of other peoples bodies, but suddenly I was using it to teach the kids how to erect good mental barriers, or testing their reflexes in combat.  I was tired a lot, but it was good rewarding tired. Between the kids and saving the world Kitty and I were both so busy, there wasn't even really time to be awkward around each other, but then came Rachel.

Rachel Summers, perfect body, perfect complexion, amazingly red hair, and more powerful than all but a handful of people on the planet.  She was raised in the future, and there she and Kitty were best friends...or something.  When she showed up that "or something" started to bloom again.  I'd see her and Kitty in the halls, joking with each other, almost playing.  Kitty would show her some dance step she'd picked up, or Rachel would be talking about how some piece of music was amazing, and it'd be so common.  I guess that's what its like to grow up in a concentration camp, simple things seem amazing.

If I would have asked, they'd have said they were just close friends; after all they were together in Britain for several years as members of Excalibur.  I could tell though, they were closer than friends, or they would be anyway.  Just the way they touched each other, lightly, casually, but there was intimacy there, and I fool that I was just kept going, "No, Kitty's straight, they can't be together."  I was just trying to protect my heart I guess.  Maybe I should have had it out; maybe I should have said something.  Instead, what I did was go back on the biggest promise I'd ever made myself.  I grabbed a quart of ice cream, and I buried my pain in chocolate.

I guess that's a pretty natural response really.  If not dignified or wise, at least understandable, natural, and for most people no big deal.  I'm not most people though.  Once upon a time, I'd become lost, separated from my mutant team mates, I tried to do things on my own, and all I accomplished was attracting the attention of a wandering spirit.  A dead mutant name Amahl Farouk, the Shadow King.  Alive he'd been one of the world's most powerful telepaths, and even dead, his mind was still stronger than anything I'd ever encountered.  He turned my power back upon myself and possessed me absolutely and completely.  For months he used my body to commit crimes and to indulge himself in all of his lusts.  Especially his lust for food.  He ate and ate with such vigor that my body became completely encased in layers and layers of blubber.  My tiny asian frame loosing all shape underneath the tidal wave of flab.  The entire time, I lay trapped in my mind, completely unaware of the evil he was committing, completely unaware of my body, the on thing I was aware of, was I was finally free from worry and fear, and I was having all my desires completely fulfilled.

When my friends found me, when they finally freed me from his control, I was a wreck.  I couldn't stand the thing I'd become.  It was just the way I found myself hideous, or the intense feeling of suffocating within my own body, the intense effort that even walking a step took, no it was the way he'd violated me, and the way that I'd let him the way part of me wanted exactly what I'd become.  I don't think my life had ever been lower.  There have been times when I thought my siblings or friends dead, and I'm ashamed to say it, but that never felt as bad, as being trapped in that shapeless form.  I was saved by the gods.  Literally saved.

Asgardians, they had picked us all up right after they freed me.  I was in such a dark place; I was ready to just let myself die.  I was in a boundless desert, so heavy so hot, I didn't care about trying to drag my bulk to find my friends or water, I was perfectly content to let the wretched thing I'd become perish, and then the girl appeared.  I never questioned what she was doing, but suddenly I had a reason to survive, I had to protect this girl, had to get her to safety.  There was so little food or water, and each day beasts came from under the sands to feast upon us, and soon I found it easier to move, soon the pain from the sand between my folds of flesh ended as those folds receded, and when i finally got to the end of the desert, finally saved the girl and found my friends, I realized that the girl had been a kind of illusion of the gods, and the girl I'd saved was me.

So when I gave in, and started binging on ice cream... well it was a much bigger deal than your average girl giving in to temptation.  Then next day, I woke up thoroughly ashamed, and I went to see the kids.  I think I was  a tad sugar sick, I hadn't indulged like that in a long time, and so instead of getting in on the training exercise myself that day, I just decided to use my powers, made it a kind of game where the students didn't know which among them might be the aggressor.  It was I'm proud to say a very effective exercise.

If I would have stopped there, things might have been different.  Heck, if my regular outfit wasn't a baggy Xavier's School track suit things might have been a lot different, but I'd started down a dangerous road.  I'd been denying myself things like this for years, because Farouk had said that things like this were what I really wanted.  I had so wanted to be different than him, to prove him wrong, and all I did was a give him a shining example of how right he was.  The worse the day got, the kids failed some exercise, or  I saw Rachel touch Kitty's hair, the happier my night would be as I spent it with some of the best food the X-men's advanced cafeteria could produce, and believe you me, it wasn't long before the lbs started to flood on.

I'm sure the kids noticed, but they seemed to be nice enough not to mention it, at least when I was in ear shot.  Then one day I was running late, we were supposed to do a practice combat session in the danger room, and I went ahead and put on my old costume.  Our costumes are made out of something called unstable molecules, it makes them basically immune to wear and tear, but it also makes it so that no matter what, they'll always fit.  So I'm jogging through the halls, and people are giving me weird looks.  I'm getting a bit winded anyway, which I think is kind of strange, and I pass by my friend Sam.  Sam and I had been in the New Mutants together since the beginning, and he's just staring at me, at first I think he's looking at my boobs and I'm about to rib him for it, remind him I don't play for his team, a and then I realize he's looking at my stomach, at the really obvious rolls of my stomach.

That I didn't burst into tears right there shows exactly how much denial I was in.  I crossed my arms across my belly, like they could hide it, heck they were getting kind a thick themselves.  "What Sam, I...I've put on some weight...it happens.  He's got that concerned look he gets, "Xian, are you sure everything's all right, I mean, there's nothing wrong with putting on a bit of weight, we all do as we get older but..."  I think I made a bit of a scary face there.  "It's not that.  I just went off my diet; I'll have to work on it more."  I think i was started to break down a little as I said that, I ran back to my room, and peeled off my yellow and black costume.  On the way back all i could think about was how my thighs kept rubbing together.  I fingered my meaty love handles and I started to cry.  After a few minutes of just sort of holding the soft fleshy mass of my belly I started to get my shit together,  I pulled on my track suit, for the first time really noticing how tight it was over my thighs and abdomen, really feeling the elastic cutting into my soft fat.

I hustled to the danger room, more winded with each stride, and now i understood why, I was acutely aware of how my rolls jounced with my movements now, how the elastic of my pants bit into my fat abdomen.  I didn't really want to face the kids, didn't really want people looking at my body, thinking about my weakness, but at the same time, I didn't want to be seen as shirking my duties, like I'd given up on anything else.  The session was uneventful, I mean as uneventful as being attacked by holographic giant robots can be, but I felt exhausted afterward and a little big paranoid.  I saw two of the girls, Pixie and Trance, both of them rail thin, whispering to each other and giggling, and all I could think was that they were talking about me.

I went to my room early, and tried to recover from the day without resorting to another pint of chocolate, but it wasn't long before their was a knock at my door.  Sam, Cannonball, stood out in the hall along with my other old friend and team mate, Dani Moonstar.  Dani had mental powers, kind of like mine, but instead of possessing people she could show them whatever it was they most feared in life.  "Xi'an," Sam said, in that oh so serious trying to be the leader tone of his, "we need to talk."

I'd sat up, aware of my stomach bunching together, the bulge obvious even through my track suit.  "I know what your gonna say, but can we just not have this conversation, I feel shitty enough as it is."  Sam's eyes were intense, I hadn't realized I'd misread the situation.  "Come on Xian, we should get you to Emma Frost, or Rachel Grey.  We need to make sure the Shadow King can't continue to affect you!"

I had to laugh at that, but i barely stopped the laugh from turning into a sob.  "Oh god, is that what you both think." I looked at Dani and I saw pity in her eyes, and I got so mad at myself, at her too, but mostly at myself.  'Guys, I'm not possessed, I'm just in a funk and I've let myself go overboard.  We don't have to get anyone else involved in this; I don't want Frost poking around in my head."

Dani nodded.  "I can't blame you there, but are you sure that's all this is, maybe there's some mental residue, ore maybe he's just making you think that you're in control..." I snapped at her, "God is it so unbelievable that I could just put on weight.  I'm sorry Dani, I don't really want to be a fat cow either, but sometimes it's just hard to keep fighting against so many things.  Just leave me alone tonight, if we have to e can talk about it tomorrow."  I don't know if I hurt Dani, or pissed her off, or if she was just that concerned for me, but at that moment she turned her powers on me, and we both saw something we weren't ready for.

The image that appeared in both or minds was recognizably me, but it was a me that was huge, larger even than I'd been when Farouk possessed me, definitely so big that here was no way i could walk or even really sit up.  I was completely nude, and I was surrounded by beautiful women, Kitty, our friend Ilyanna, Emma Frost, girls I'd scene in clubs, or coffee shops, even some of my students, they caressed my folds, rubbed their firm breasts against me.  Kitty fed me candies as my bloated pudgy fingers rubbed her crotch.  The frightening thing though, was the utterly serene and content look upon my face.

Dani broke off contact, disgusted, embarrassed, I'm not sure.  I was blushing and crying.  I think she thought I was scared of the Shadow King and what he'd do to me; regardless she looked at me and muttered an awkward "Sorry..sorry, had to be sure it was you..." and then pulled Sam out of the room with her.  I sat their alone with that image in my head, and I knew I wasn't afraid of the Shadow King, not really, I was afraid of being happy.

After that, things we're more than a little awkward between me and my old friends.  I think Dani was ashamed, Sam embarrassed, and I was nearly mortified. I stopped over eating though.  I didn't have quite the willpower to start working off the pounds yet, and combat exercises with the students were becoming a bit of a chore, but I thought at least I wasn't gaining.  Kitty and Rachel didn't seem to be getting any farther.  I figured close as they were, maybe Kitty really was as straight as she'd told me.

Despite all that, it's not like I didn't want to eat.  The fear Dani showed me, I was terrified of it, but I was also fascinated.  It would show up in the back of my mind, and worm its way to the front of my thoughts, and when it did I didn't know if I wanted to masturbate or vomit.  I even dreamed of eating.  Vivid dreams of gorging myself for hours on end.

A few weeks later, I thought things were calming down, I thought my heart sickness was over, but then I noticed one of my students, Alani, Loa.  Her belly was bulging out of her lil uniforms mid riff.  I didn't think I should bring it up, at least not yet, I mean who was I to criticize weight, or even give advice about it.  A week passed, and I swear I could see Loa getting fatter.  She was gaining weight faster than I had.  Loa had the power to phase through solid matter, so for the most part the weight wasn't really affecting her, but i saw her struggle to hall herself up a ledge during a Danger Room simulation and I decided that hypocrite or no I should say something.

"Alani, can I talk to you?" She looked a bit sad but resigned as well.  "It's about your weight Alani.  I can't criticize or anything, but I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something wrong."  She looked at me genuinely disturbed, and I thought Karma you fat cow, now you've gone and done it, but then Alani hugged me.  "Xian I don't know what to do.  At first I thought it might be genetics, some of my family is pretty heavy, but I'm not eating any extra, I've cut back, and I'm trying to exercise more..."  I knew what she was getting at, gaining weight makes it a lot harder to get on that treadmill.  "I just don't know where the weight is coming from.  I'm worried it's a secondary mutation, maybe I'm gonna blow up like the Blob.

I tried to put on a reassuring face, but I thought that Alani might be right.  At the same time I think inside I loved the idea that someone would get fatter than me.  "Lets get you down to the medical bay, we'll get you examined, and maybe they can tell you whets going on."  We took the elevator a few flights down to the medical wing, all the while I couldn't keep my eyes off Alani's bloated form.  Her belly was a jutting out fairly solidly, like a girl early in pregnancy, her arms looked thicker, and her thighs were definitely getting chunky.  Tight spandex really didn't compliment full figures that well.

"Welp, young Loa, it's not a secondary mutation."  The blue furred Beast gave his news with a kind of reassuring cheer.  "Are you sure you haven't been eating extra?"  Alani shook her head.  "No, I hardly feel like eating at all most days."  The Beast looked at her quizzically.  "Well it could be a side effect of your initial mutant powers, perhaps running through organic matter, or it could honestly just be hormones.  Right now I'd just prescribe diet and exercise, and you might make a journal of what kinds of materials u end up phasing through.  We'll get you slimmed back down if that what you want."  Loa looked mostly relieved, she thanked Beast, and then we were on our way.

ON the way back to our rooms I talked to Alani about starting to exercise together.  "You might have noticed, but I've put on more than a little weight this semester to.  Though mine is DEFINITELY from overeating."  She smiled awkwardly, "We noticed, we didn't want to bring it up though."  I nodded a bit ruefully.  "It's gonna be okay, I used to be huge and I lost the weight," I didn't mention I'd had help from gods, "I'll help you with it to, but you know, you shouldn't be embarrassed or ashamed.  We're mutants; if we can't celebrate body diversity then we are totally failing as a people."  There was a look on Alani's face as I said that, a skeptical, "that's bull" teenager look.  "What?"  I said, I think a bit exasperatedly.  Alani replied a bit timidly.  "You say that, but we look at you and we can see your ashamed of how big you've gotten.  What kind of message is that to me, obviously you don't think its okay to be fat.  

That hit me like ton of bricks.  "Well, it's different for me, it's not about my body, it's about what fat represents.  I was possessed once, and the man who possessed ate and ate and ate, and when I was finally free, my body was huge.  Its not about how you look."  It's about...control."  "So you don't think you're in control either?"  "No."  I said it pretty meekly.  We walked in silence for a bit, finally I couldn't stand it.  "We're gonna get in control Alani, and we aren't gonna be ashamed of our bodies.  I'm gonna wear my costume tomorrow, the X-men can all laugh at my rolls of fat if they want, but I am an X-man, and I'm gonna get in control."  I think I reassured her, she looked more positive at least.

The next day I actually felt pretty good.  I felt in control, I felt accepting.  We weren't doing any fighting or anything that day, just some history, X-men foes, allies etc.  That morning i pulled on my costume.  It was a weird feeling having all that tight fabric pressing in and supporting my flabby paunch.  I looked at myself, I was still a pretty girl, fat, but pretty, was still attractive in a certain way; I didn't have to hate this body.

I arrived in class.  Alani looked at me with a smile and I smiled back at her.  We talked for a few hours about things like Magneto, the Reavers, and at the end of the session I even brought up the Shadow King.  I told the kids about what he'd done, and about how dangerous and insidious mental invasion could be.  How damaging to the self.  It was a good day.  It was an empowering day.  It was possibly the worst day ever.  After I walked out of class, I didn't but turn the corner to see them finally kissing.  Kitty and Rachel, making out in the hall.  I retreated quickly, but I think Kitty noticed me.  I backed right into Alani.  I think she was about to ask me to go work out, but I ran away without hearing her words.  I felt devastated, heart sick, and all the control over my life I thought I had, all that contentedness, went right out the window.

I ate, and I ate, and I ate, and I wanted to kill myself, but I ate some more, its all I could do to drive Kitty out of my head, stuff myself until my stomach was a rock hard ball wrapped in rolls of flab.  I ate until I passed out, and while I slept I dreamt of eating, dreamt of continually eating.  I gorged on every kind of food in the X-men's stores, ice cream, salted pork, everything under the sun, and when I awoke and realized it was a dream, I realized something else to, I still wanted more.

And that's how it was, for a while.  I'd get up, guzzle down some breakfast in my room, pull on my costume which was the only thing that still fit.  Lurch out of my room towards the cafeteria where I'd have a breakfast that seemed more reasonable.  I don't think I was really furling anybody, but nobody seemed to want to broach the subject of my expanding waist line, despite the fact that i was now REALLY becoming round.

I'd drag my fat ass into see my students, I always felt bad for poor Alani, she seemed to be gaining right along with me, thought while my body was turning into sagging collection of folds and rolls, Alani was all practically spherical, her huge bare gut protruding forward like some kind of herald of her thunderous arrival.  I think we were both trying to keep a positive face for each other, but I could tell that she felt awkward.  I just didn't care, Farouk had been right all those years ago, this was me, this was what I wanted.  When I was young I was ashamed of it all, but now, now I just wanted to make myself feel better, and if that means I turned into a huge blob I could live with that now.

Alani though... no one understood it.  Beast hadn't thought it was a secondary mutation, but he was beginning to reconsider that, or that it was some side effect from her powers we hadn't found.  Both of us had gotten pretty awkward in the combat exercises.  Alani, despite her bulk could still keep up, mostly because her powers made her immune to a lot of harm, but I'd had to count myself out, I'd taken one to many simulated Sentinel blasts in my fat ass, and I'd completely humiliated myself when I'd be totally unable to climb onto a ledge that wasn't even quite taller than me.  That little ass Hellion had taken video of it with his camera phone, and I got to see exactly how fat I'd gotten wiggling around on that ledge... not particularly dignified.  So I officially told everyone I was off of field work, I got a couple of looks, but I just didn't care.  

I was in for a shock though.  A few nights later, I was asleep having the save dream I almost always had, me gorging.  The dreams worried me a bit, they were so persistent, but I hadn't given them to much thought, I was still in that emotionally kind of dead place at the time.  That night though, while I was working through more and more food, I glanced at a counter top next to me, and I noticed that I wasn't looking at me.  I was looking at Alani.  Suddenly I was wide awake; I just wasn't IN my body.  I took stock of myself.  Alani had really gotten big, I was standing in some boxers and tiny t shirt that only really covered my, her, breasts.  I tried to clean up, and get her back to her room, but I was overstuffed, and I was awkward in her body.  Big breasts made a lot of difference when you're moving around.  I was chill too, all that bare skin was sensitive, I could feel a light draft caressing the sides of Alani's huge belly, and I shivered.

Finally I got her back to her room and in bed, and I withdrew myself from her mind.  I sat up quickly, sweat beaded on my back and ran down between the rolls on my back.  I'd done that to Alani, me.  I wasn't just turning myself into a ball of fat, I was doing it to others to.  I couldn't believe I'd let myself get to this point.  I sobbed, and sobbed, tears rolling down my double chin, and of course, I ate.  Stuffed myself until morning.  When it came time to go to class, I texted everyone and told them I wasn't feeling well.  I wasn't, but I also couldn't face Alani.

I stayed in that day, I slept on and off, and just listened to music.  I tried to get some perspective.  I looked at myself in the mirror, really looked at myself, and asked if I was really okay with this, if I was okay with being this incredibly fat woman who did nothing but consume and teach kids.  Was I even fit to teach kids like this?  I sat there for a time, and I realized that the thing that started this was the thing that could end it.  I needed love.  I needed another person to care about.  My siblings had been away for the last year, I thought it was important for them to get some normal education, so they'd arrived in a private school, the kind that doesn't get attacked every 2nd Tuesday.  Without them to think about I'd just turned completely selfish.  I'd been pleased with myself, happy in a way, to be doing things just for me, but I needed someone...I needed Kitty.

I couldn't have Kitty though.  Rachel had Kitty.  Kitty had Rachel.  I worked out nicely for them.  Rachel with her perfectly sculpted body, the cow.  I lay in bed that night, thinking about the two of them.  Wondering if they were sleeping together, wondering what it is they did together.  Finally I couldn't stand it.  I think I'd gone mad.  I reached out with my powers, and found the two of them.  They were asleep, each in their own rooms.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  Then I started to probe Rachel's mind.  I don't know why I did it.  Well I do know why.  She had what I wanted, I wanted to be her. She'd hurt me, and I used my powers on people who hurt me.  That was the rules right?  You get to fight people who try and hurt you?  So I entered her head.

Rachel was potentially an omega level telepath like her mother, but the thing is, she's also been possessed by the Phoenix Force for a lot of her life, it made things easy.  She didn't really have the discipline that someone like her should have, and you don't share a head with the Shadow King for as long as I did without learning a few tricks about getting through psychic barriers.

Soon I was all the way in.  I wanted to go into Kitty's room with this body and just embrace her, but luckily some part of my common sense was still working.  Instead, I lay their, and got my bearings inside of Rachel's mind.  I had to be careful, had to make sure I left myself a path into her mind, something I could slip in and out of, I also had to be careful to leave memories for Rachel, I couldn't do what I did with Alani, just possess her in her sleep, she'd catch on, I had to make sure that she felt as if what I was doing in her body felt natural, and so I took a long walk in her brain.  A walk through future landscapes where friends we're being killed by sentinels, a walk through galleries of precious moments with the future Kate Pryde and our current Kitty, memories of losing family members, memories of being possessed by bad people.  It was a mind that almost felt like home.

In the morning I rode along with Rachel in the back of her mind.  It was a bit distracting, trying to work my own body, while paying attention to Rachel's too, but it payed off.  At lunch she and Kitty met out on the lawn for some lunch.  When Rachel reached out and grabbed Kitty's side I brought myself forward, and I could feel her in my hands.  I reached into Rachel's mind finding the right words.  "So gal what are we having for lunch."  Kitty smiled, her pretty face framed by that lustrous chestnut hair of hers. "Oh, Remy whipped up some gumbo last night; I got a bit of the leftovers heated up.  Should be pretty good."

We both ate, taking pleasure in each others company.  Kitty gobbled down her food quite fast, while I deliberately took my time, back in the cafeteria though, my own body was eating an extra large sized meal.  I'm such a stress eater.  "Someone's enjoying her food?"  I smirked as I said it.  "Hey!"  She giggled as she replied, and I grabbed at her and we end up laying next to each other on the grass.

After we layed their for a while Kitty sighed.  "This feels so peaceful, so safe."  I looked at her.  "What does?  The school, where super villains might attack in five minutes?"  She nodded, "Yeah, kind of.  I mean we're in dangers sure, but it finally feels settled, my life has always had the bottom falling out from under it, but I think it's finally shaping up.  All the other people in my life, they always went away, or did something that left me totally broken up."  I grabbed her shoulders hugging her towards me, browsing through Rachel's mind for sentiments I could make my own, and words that I could twist to my purpose.  "You sure you want me.  Colossus is playing football over their.  All that well muscled steel bod, and he'd probably go for you in a second."  She smiled playfully and acted like she was actually considering it, then shook her head "Naaah."  Then I took a bit of a risk.  "What about Xian, I know I'm not the first girl to try and steal the lips of miss Kitty Pryde"  Her face clouded, shit here comes the anger of the pity.  "I feel bad for Xian, it actually really bothers me.  When she confessed to me I told her I was straight, and I pretty much just dismissed her, I did it in my head to.  I'm not saying I love her, or I wish things were different, but I wish I would have considered it just a little.  I think she had a hard time of it too, with... you know."  I had a wicked little smile on my face "You mean the way she's turn herself into the female Blob?"

Kitty shook her head.  "Yeah, but you know, I respect her for that too.  I felt bad at first, but she seems to wear it so proudly now, almost defiantly.  I feel kind of jealous."  Once again I cocked my head and gave her that questioning look.  "Jealous how?"  Kitty actually blushed, "I mean... don't make a big deal of this or read too much into it, but I've always kind of wanted to gain a bit of weight.  I mean not as much as she has, but I spend so much of my time insubstantial.  There's days where I just wish there was more of me.  You remember that first mission with Excalibur right, where we first got together with Bryan and Meggan?"  I had to sift through Rachel's memories.  "You mean fighting the warwolves and the Technet?"  She nodded, "Yeah, do you remember what Joyboy did to me, maybe you weren't able to see, but he took my desire to be solid, to not have to worry about phasing out of touch with the world, and he took it to a radical extreme and made me completely and totally obese, and I swear to god, I know it sounds freaky, but it was ecstasy, and I've never totally gotten it out of my head since.

I gaped, I just didn't know what to say, and Kitty started to turn away a bit upset looking.  I pulled myself out of it.  "Sorry, sorry, you just took me by surprise.  It's fine, there's nothing wrong with that, but if you feel that way why haven't you gained a bit of weight?"  "Well when I was younger I still wanted to be a dancer, and even after I'd given that up, I had to worry about being an X-Man, fighting things, running away from things, extra pounds don't help.... but mostly, I'm just to scared to think what people would say.  I can hardly look at Xian anymore Rach.  I caused her to get fat, and she can't feel good about that, but then, while she's suffering through that she manages to do something I've always wanted to do, but never have been able to.  I just feel so bad."  I took her hand and smile.  Kitty, if you feel bad about what happened with her, go talk to her.  Though given what you said I'm a bit afraid you'll leave me for her rolls of flab..." Kitty looked at me in shock, "so just remember you're my girl."

As we separated I pulled out of Rachel's mind.  I'd left her feeling like everything I'd said had been her idea.  That was...incredibly rewarding.  I mean, I never thought I'd learn anything like that, and that image, that tiny image in Rachel's mind of an obese Kitty...  I wanted to see that again.  I played with my own fat tummy, feeling its heft and weight and imagined Kitty's body buried beneath all this flab, Kitty weighted down the way i was, things deep inside me moves as I thought about it.  Then other things moved as my cell phone vibrated shaking my flab slightly.  A text from Kitty, asking if we could talk... god, my night couldn't get any better.